Guatemala Peasants Take Plantations

[Tony Gosling]

Guatemala Peasants Take Plantations 

The Guardian
Friday April 19, 2002 2:40 AM 


GUATEMALA CITY (AP) - Hundreds of peasants across northern Guatemala have
seized 14 coffee plantations and blocked highways to protest the country's
unfair distribution of farmland, officials said. 

Another group of protesters briefly blocked the main highway connecting the
Guatemalan capital with the country's south early Thursday, but authorities
reported that they were able to take down barricades of borders and
branches and reopen the road after several hours. 

Throughout the day Wednesday, farmers' groups in the northern provinces of
Alta Verapaz, Quiche and Huehuetenango stormed and occupied 14 private and
state-owned coffee plantations. There were no reported injures in the
uprisings. 

Despite government efforts to negotiate peaceful resolutions to the
standoffs, protesters still controlled the plantations and their more than
12,300 acres of farmland late Thursday, said Daniel Pascual, head of the
National Association of Peasant Organizations, the group which organized
the uprisings. 

The organization said it presented a series of petitions to the
Agricultural Ministry asking officials to decentralize control of large
rural plantations. It has also asked the legislature to authorize more than
dlrs 53 million in agricultural aid to 750 farmers' groups. 




--
tony at gaia.org
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