Observation (CEACR) - adopted 2001, published 90th ILC session (2002)

Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989 (No. 169) - Guatemala (Ratification: 1996)

1. The Committee notes the Government’s second report following ratification, which was received too late to be examined at the previous session. This report, supplied by the Government in October 2000, provides more detailed information on a number of matters than was included in the first report. However, on many of them it indicates that the measures to be taken were covered by the referendum on constitutional reforms which was drafted in implementation of the Peace Agreement. This referendum was rejected by a popular vote on 16 May 1999, but the Government has offered little additional information on the measures which have been taken since then or are contemplated, to implement the Convention and the Peace Agreement.

2. The Committee also notes a communication from the Central Organization for Rural and Urban Workers (CTC), which was communicated to the Government on 28 September 2000, but concerning which the Government has made no comments. The CTC communication indicates that it was drawn up in consultation with the Council of Mayan Organizations of Guatemala (COMG) and the National Indigenous and Rural Coordinating Organization (CONIC). It is characterized as the Second Alternative Report on the application of the Convention, from the perspective of the Mayan people and Guatemalan workers. It also indicates that it is following up the First Alternative Report, submitted by the Federation of Rural Workers (FEDECAMPO), on whose report the Committee regrets the Government also has provided no reply.

3. The other principal source of information available to the Committee is the various reports of the United Nations Verification Mission in Guatemala (MINUGUA), established by the General Assembly in 1997 to verify compliance with the Peace Agreements. The most recent of these reports, published in September 2001, is entitled "Indigenous peoples of Guatemala: Overcoming discrimination in the context of the Peace Agreements" ("Los pueblos indigenas de Guatemala: la superación de la discriminación en el marco de los Acuerdos de paz"). MINUGUA has also published a number of other reports which give a clear picture of the situation.

4. These sources taken together indicate that major problems remain in the implementation of the Peace Agreements as concerns the indigenous peoples of the country, and in the implementation of the Convention. The CTC report details, in respect of most of the Articles of the Convention, the lack of decentralization of administration to the regional level that was contemplated in order to provide indigenous peoples with a greater voice in the administration of their own affairs. It states that "(T)he Peace Agreements have facilitated dialogue between representatives of the Mayan organizations and the Government, but they have not generated real results; for example, the Executive Body has not consulted indigenous organizations and communities on the process of decentralization".

5. The trade union organizations also comment on the lack of real consultation with the indigenous peoples of the country on the implementation of the Peace Agreements (Article 6 of the Convention). They state that although mechanisms are provided for, they are not actually functioning. The Government has indicated in its last report, on this question, that the Congressional Committee on Indigenous Communities which has a majority of indigenous members constitutes a direct channel for the indigenous peoples to make their views known. Please provide additional information allowing an assessment of the situation in practice.

6. The Committee notes also the following comment by MINUGUA in its September 2001 report, based on close observation in the country of the developing situation: "The Mission has noted on several occasions that the commitments made concerning the indigenous peoples are among those which have been least implemented. The overall balance of the application of the Agreements indicates that most of the actions which were provided for to overcome discrimination and provide to the indigenous peoples the place they should have in the Guatemalan nation, are still awaiting fulfilment. This does not correspond to the changes proposed in the Agreements, but instead favours the persistence of a monocultural and exclusive model." (Unofficial translation, paragraph 9.)

7. While recognizing the complexity of the situation, the Committee nevertheless recalls that the ratification of the Convention was one element in the settlement of the internal conflict in the country which - as indicated in the preamble of the 1996 Peace Agreement -"brought an end to more than three decades of armed confrontation in Guatemala". It therefore urges the Government to renew its efforts to overcome difficulties in the application of the Convention and the Peace Agreements, and to continue to provide information to the Committee on how it is accomplishing this. In doing so, the Committee expresses the firm hope that the Government will comment on the observations made by workers’ organizations in the country, together with the indigenous peoples, and that the Committee will be in a position to note in the near future that concrete measures have been taken to apply the Convention.

The Committee is raising a number of more detailed matters in a request addressed directly to the Government.