Current political situation Febuary 2026

National Day of Dignification for the Victims of the Internal Armed Conflict: Plan for Reparation and Dignification

On February 25, 1999, the Commission for Historical Clarification (CEH), which was created within the framework of one of the Peace Accords, presented its report Guatemala: Memory of Silence. This day has been claimed by organizations representing victims and survivors of the Internal Armed Conflict (IAC) as a day to commemorate the memory of the more than 200,000 victims who were killed or disappeared.

On February 25, the Presidential Commission for Peace and Human Rights (COPADEH) and President Bernardo Arévalo invited members of these organizations and families searching for their loved ones to the National Palace of Culture to commemorate this day, remember the historic ruling handed down 10 years ago in the Sepur Zarco case, and present the Plan for Reparation and Dignity to the National Platform of Victims’ Organizations. This plan is the result of a dialogue process between COPADEH and the Platform that lasted two years. In her speech, Demecia Yat, representative of the Grandmothers of Sepur Zarco, called for the reparations measures included in the Sepur Zarco ruling, now a final judgment, to be implemented.

Feliciana Macario, member of the National Coordination of Widows of Guatemala (CONAVIGUA) and representative of the National Platform of Victims, reaffirmed her commitment as a survivor, saying, “We keep alive the memory of our mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, daughters and sons who were sacrificed because of contempt, hatred, and racism towards indigenous peoples. We continue to remember them and miss them.” She called on the State to renew commitments made under the Peace Accords to provide assistance to victims of serious human rights violations perpetrated during the IAC, commitments that were neglected by previous administrations. The Plan for Reparation and Dignity is an important step toward fulfilling the rights of thousands of victims. However, there is concern that this administration only has two years left to implement the plan, while the surviving victims, most of whom are very elderly, continue to pass away. What the surviving victims want is for the plan to not just remain on paper, but “to reach the victims who need it most: the grandmothers and grandfathers, and the women who suffered sexual violence.”

Another aspect that needs to be promoted is a plan to search for the disappeared and to preserve historical memory. “The search for the disappeared is still a debt owed to the public; their families deserve to know what happened to their loved ones and to find and recover their remains,” because the mourning process cannot end until they are found. As for the preservation of memory, children and young people have the right to know about the past in order to work for a democratic state and to prevent the horrors of the past from being repeated.

In his speech, President Arévalo pledged that his government would bring the plan to life, saying, “Dignifying the victims means recognizing their lives, valuing their sacrifice, acknowledging that they had names, dreams, and families. Their absence creates an irreparable void in our social fabric, and their sacrifice must not be erased by forgetting. (…) We also need social justice; we need to address the social and economic conditions in which the majority of our people live, and which gave rise to the conflict.”1

To conclude the event, the president presented a copy of the Plan to Juan Pérez, a member of the National Platform of Victims’ Organizations of the IAC. Meanwhile, outside the Palace, hundreds gathered to hold a ceremony and press conference. They reiterated their demand for the state and the nomination committees not to appoint people who have hindered victims’ access to justice to positions in the Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP) and the Constitutional Court (CC), specifically naming Roberto Molina Barreto and Consuelo Porras.2
 

Update on serious cases of criminalization

With elections underway to renew the high courts and the head of the MP, a process that is expected to curb the use of the justice system to silence political opponents, a series of judicial rulings have been handed down in criminalization cases against journalists, former justice operators, and indigenous leaders.

On February 10, the CC upheld the sentences against indigenous authorities Rigoberto Juárez Mateo and Bernardo Ermitaño López Reyes, who were sentenced to 8 and 24 years in prison, respectively. With this decision, the highest court shut down the last legal avenue for overturning these convictions, which have been denounced by civil society and human rights organizations as part of a process of criminalization against both indigenous leaders.3 These two leaders, defenders of the Maya Q’anjob’al territory of Santa Cruz Barillas in the north of the department of Huehuetenango, are known for their peaceful struggle against the construction of a hydroelectric dam, which has been under judicial review since 2015. To learn more about this case, we recommend reading the article: Criminalization of Ancestral Authorities in Guatemala: The Case of Rigoberto Juárez and Ermitaño López, part of PBI Bulletin 54.

Because of a similar issue, in Yichk’isis, a Maya Chuj, Q’anjob’al, and Akateko region in San Mateo Ixtatán, Huehuetenango, 49-year-old rights defender Francisco Mateo Mateo, a merchant from the village of Pojom, was arrested. Mateo Mateo was arrested in Guatemalan territory, near Orizaba, Chiapas, Mexico, while buying corn to resell in his community. The detainee stated that he is being charged with murder, a crime he insists he did not commit and believes to be part of a fabricated case against him. His lawyer, Juan Castro, from the Indigenous Peoples’ Law Firm, said that Francisco Mateo Mateo has spoken out about criminalization processes against himself and other territorial defenders. These processes are linked to the imposition of hydroelectric dam construction in the Yichk’isis region. The conflict intensified in 2017, as the state responded to community struggle and resistance with repression.4

On February 12, the Second Criminal Trial Court granted alternative measures to journalist José Rubén Zamora, allowing him to remain free while the legal proceedings against him continue. He had been imprisoned for 1,295 days due to two court cases against him, which analysts and international observers have described as retaliation against Zamora, founder of elPeriódico, a media outlet known for investigating acts of corruption by several previous administrations. Judge Máximo Morales ruled that the time Zamora spent in pretrial detention was longer than the sentences for the crimes of which he is accused in the second case against him, agreeing with one of the arguments put forward by the defense.5

In the criminalization case against Luis Pacheco and Héctor Chaclán, former indigenous authorities of the 48 Cantones of Totonicapán, the Third Chamber of Criminal Appeals decided to transfer the case to the Seventh Criminal Court, presided over by Judge Fredy Orellana. The Foundation Against Terrorism sought the recusal of the judge assigned to the case, a move that was strongly criticized by the defense and civil society organizations. The Third Chamber’s decision caused consternation in the international community and the Guatemalan government. The European Union stated that this is a case of the “weaponization of justice” and called for due process to be respected. The EU maintains that defending democracy through peaceful demonstrations is not grounds for criminal prosecution and calls for a fair trial for Pacheco and Chaclán.6

Finally, Stuardo Campo, a former prosecutor charged in three cases, who has been in pretrial detention for 26 months, had an intermediate phase hearing in the Zolic case. The judge decided to accept the joint plaintiff Hostin Rubí Dávila Pivaral, a former employee of the Santo Tomás de Castilla Free Trade Zone (Zolic), who was sentenced to eight years in prison after being found guilty of ongoing money and asset laundering. The judge also ruled that Campo will participate in the following hearings via videoconference from the Mariscal Zavala prison. At the next hearing, on March 5, the court will hear new motions and review coercive measures.7
 

Supreme Court reverses decision to remove mayor of Santiago Atitlán

The Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) decided to stay the removal of Francisco Coché as mayor of Santiago Atitlán, Sololá, granting him a provisional injunction. This measure stays the Supreme Electoral Tribunal’s (TSE) decision from last October, made at the request of the local ancestral authorities, who accused Coché of corruption. Coché was removed from office following this request, which was accompanied by mass demonstrations convened by the municipality’s ancestral authorities with the support of the local population.8 By staying the ruling, the court is allowing Coché to resume his duties, a move opposed by the people of Santiago Atitlán.

As a result, the Tz’utujil people gathered in front of the MP headquarters on February 11 to voice their discontent. “This is a mockery of the will of the Tz’utujil people of Santiago Atitlán by the Supreme Court of Justice,” said Diego Petzey, secretary of the Cabecera del Pueblo Tz’utujil. The ancestral authorities of Santiago Atitlán also demanded that the National Civil Police (PNC) provide them with information about any arrest warrants, given that the MP has declared cases confidential and there is concern that the indigenous leaders may be criminalized, as has happened to other leaders in the past.9

While the MP takes secretive action against the ancestral authorities who are defending their municipality, MP investigations of corruption allegations against Coché remain stalled. In the days following the CSJ’s ruling, suspicions of arrest warrants against the ancestral authorities of Santiago Atitlán were confirmed by an internal source within the MP, who claimed that arrest warrants had been issued against members of the Cabecera for various complaints against them, ranging from the takeover of the municipality to the removal of pollution-causing cages from Lake Atitlán.10