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A Guatemalan Indigenous environmental activist says there was an attempt on his life this week – as a bus ran into the car in which he was driving on a highway in northern Guatemala.
Maria Martin reports Bernardo Caal Xol (Maya Q’eqchi) has been criminalized for many years as a result of his work trying to save a Guatemalan river.
The 51-year-old teacher, union activist, and environmental leader from the Northern Guatemalan province of Alta Verapaz was released from prison last year after serving four years on charges Amnesty International says are spurious and retaliatory.
The human rights organization has declared Caal a “prisoner of conscience”, saying he’s been criminalized for his work opposing a hydroelectric project on the Cahabon River, which the Q’eqchi Maya consider sacred.
On Monday, Caal reported on a Facebook video that his car had been deliberated hit from behind after he’d left court for a mandatory appearance in the city of Coban.
He complained of back and rest pain, standing alongside his almost totally destroyed vehicle.
He says he fears for his life and is asking Guatemalan authorities to investigate the incident.
But some analysts doubt that Bernardo Caal Xol will get justice from the same system that’s worked to criminalize him and other Guatemalan Indigenous activists for years.
A bill in the Washington legislature seeks to make it easier for people who commit crimes on Native American reservations to face justice.
Steve Jackson reports.
The bill had a hearing in the Senate Law and Justice Committee this week.
Swinomish tribal prosecutor Melissa Simonson says in many cases it can be very difficult to get those charged with a crime committed on a reservation back to face trial if they flee.
“In the judicial system, if a tribal court issues a warrant, for serious crimes – assaults against children, domestic violence, sexual assaults, stalking – and that individual leaves the reservation, there is no access to justice. The warrant cannot be collected on by any Washington State officer.”
This measure would allow a tribal prosecutor to go to the state Attorney General’s office or the local prosecutor’s office to seek a warrant.
Some who testified spoke of current agreement between tribes and individual counties to bring people to justice.
Russel Brown of the Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys expressed some concerns with the way the bill is currently written.
He said there might be a better way to achieve the goal with less complexity.
“Each tribe could enter into an agreement with the governor of Washington. There wouldn’t need to be simple agreements with all the counties, you wouldn’t need 39 counties agreeing with 29 tribes, you would have one state compact that the tribes could enter in to.”
The bill passed the House March 1.
Photo: Workerbee via Wiki CC
Former president of the Navajo Nation Ben Shelly passed away from a long-term illness on Wednesday at the age of 75.
Shelly served as a member of the Navajo Nation Council for more than a decade beginning in the early 1990s before being elected as vice president in 2007.
He went on to becoming president of the tribe through 2015. He also served as a county commissioner.
Shelly is being remembered for his longtime leadership, and is credited for establishing the Navajo Transitional Energy Company, which was created to achieve greater sovereignty over the tribe’s natural resources.
A private service is being held, but the tribe is working on a public memorial.
Flags on the Navajo Nation are being flown at half-staff in Shelly’s honor.
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