Human rights defender Mr Leocadio Juracán has received death threats, and his fellow members of the human rights organisation Comité Campesino del Altiplano - CCDA (Peasants’ Committee of the Highlands) have recently been targeted as a result of their human rights activities.

Further Information

The CCDA is a member of the Labour, Indigenous, and Peasant Movement of Guatemala (MSICG) which has developed the “Café Justicia” fair trade coffee project.

Leocadio Juracán is the coordinator of the CCDA and member of the political council of the MSICG. CCDA and MSICG members have recently travelled to the European Union in order to denounce the current precarious situation for workers in Guatemala.

On 2 February 2010, the MSICG published its report: “Guatemala: The Cost of Labour Freedom”, in which the CCDA denounced the violence and attacks against the indigenous, peasant and labour movement.

On 15 February 2010, a MSICG delegation that visited the headquarters of the CCDA was followed by unidentified persons in what appears to have been an attempt to intimidate them.

On 14 February 2010 a threatening message was put under the door of the house of relatives of Leocadio Juracán, where he had visited early that day. The message contained death threats against Leocadio Juracán and his family. Prior to this, on 13 February 2010, unidentified persons left written messages threatening to kill Leocadio Juracán in the headquarters of the CCDA.

Furthermore, on the night of 9-10 February 2010, Café Justicia's processing centre in Cerro de Oro, Santiago Atitlán, was broken into and 182 bags of green coffee of 150 pounds each were stolen. The intruders also used cement blocks to form a circle inside the processing centre in which they left half-full beer bottles and half-smoked cigarettes. It is believed the break-in was in retaliation for the publication of the MSICG report on 2 February 2010.

These recent incidents are just a few in a series of threats and acts of intimidation against the CCDA. In November 2009, shortly after the MSICG appeared before Congress calling for follow up on the legislative process in relation to the Law on Rural Development, 27 bags of green coffee were stolen from the Café Justicia's processing centre. In February 2009, Leocadio Juracán received several death threats and, on 1 May 2008, shots were fired at Leocadio Juracán's car as he was driving home from a Labour Day demonstration in Guatemala City.

The aforementioned incidents were all reported to the relevant authorities. However, to date there have been no positive developments in these cases.

Front Line believes that the death threats against Leocadio Juracán, the acts of intimidation and threats against members of the CCDA, and the break-in at the Café Justicia's processing centre, are directly related to the human rights activities of CCDA, in particular its efforts to improve labour conditions in Guatemala. Front Line fears for the physical and psychological integrity of Leocadio Juracán and all other members of the CCDA.