Source: EntreMundos

On 23 June, 2020, Fidel López, 55 years old, originally from the San Vicente de Paul, Morales Izabal community and member of the CODECA Peasant Development Committee, was assassinated.

The murder occurred at four in the afternoon, when López was in a store in his community. A single gunman who was riding a motorcycle pulled up at the store and shot him dead.

Fidel López was an active member of CODECA, a community defender, and president of his community. He had fought for access to land, the defense of the territory, and for the welfare of the peoples through the process of the Popular and Plurinational Constituent Assembly.

This is not the first murder of members of this organisation in 2020. On 7 March, 2020, unknown individuals killed Dominga Ramos, wife of Miguel Ixcal (both members of CODECA) while she was at her home with her daughter-in-law, in the Las Delicias community, Santo Domingo Suchitepéquez.

Previously, Ángel Leonel Guzmán Matías, another member and activist of CODECA in Morales Izabal, died in November of last year when unknown individuals shot at him from a vehicle while he was traveling along a road in the municipality. Guzmán had maintained a tireless fight for access to his community’s land.

He was the tenth leader of this organisation killed in 2019.

Like CODECA, other social organisations that exert direct pressure on companies and governments have suffered serious reprisals in recent years, especially on issues such as the struggle for land, opposition to the development of hydroelectric power plants, mining, and the spread of industrial scale farming.

As a communications medium that promotes the defense of Human Rights, at Entre Mundos we stand in solidarity with these organisations and commit ourselves to continue supporting the dissemination of complaints and demands from civil society organisations and citizens in general related to the protection of their human rights.