Indigenous Protestors Against Guatemala Energy Company Targeted
Source: Corpwatch
Six demonstrators were killed and dozens injured when the Guatemalan military fired into a group of indigenous Maya-K’iche’ gathered on the Inter-American highway to protest rising electricity charges from Energuate, a major national power company owned by a private equity firm created by the UK government.
The demonstrators, who had gathered on the highway some 170 kilometers west of Guatemala City, were from Totonicapán, one of Guatemala’s most impoverished departments (provinces). Malnutrition is widespread and the price of electricity is prohibitively expensive in the region. The World Bank estimates 75 percent of Guatemalans live in poverty with 58 percent of the population living in extreme poverty.
