True Peace in Guatemala

Stakeholders meet to work out a solution to ongoing land tenure issues in Guatemala. Mercy Corps is helping various parties mediate long-standing conflicts. Photo: Mercy Corps Guatemala

Mercy Corps is working with local residents and organizations to resolve long-standing land disputes in central Guatemala.

In 2003, Mercy Corps initiated the “Promoting Peaceful Solutions to Land Conflicts” program in the country’s Alta Verapaz region. This part of Guatemala is almost 90% indigenous Q’eqchi Maya, a mostly rural population with inadequate education and employment opportunities. Alta Verapaz also has a long and rich history of commercial coffee and cardamom cultivation. With such fertile and desirable land, a complicated history of inequitable land distribution has plagued the region.

Across Guatemala, 65% of all agricultural land is owned by only 2% of the population. The statistics are even more drastic for Alta Verapaz. A 36 year long civil war left the government very poorly equipped to document land holdings, record grant titles, and settle an overwhelming number of disputes. As part of sweeping peace accords in 1996, various organizations were created to begin to address land issues. One such organization, CONTIERRA, began operating in 1997 and accepted 102 cases of land disputes in its first year. Half of them came from Alta Verapaz.

Unfortunately, a lack of government funding has prohibited organizations from addressing the backlog of conflicts and additional requests for resolution of many more disputes. Roundtable for Conflict Resolution, a civil organization formed in 1997, is striving to initiate the reconciliation and mediation of conflicts in Cobán, the capital of Alta Verapaz. Mercy Corps and JADE, a legal aid organization, have effectively joined to aid the efforts of Roundtable for Conflict Resolution in Cobán, creating a mediation center in Cobán and nine other similar centers in the rural municipalities of Alta Verapaz. JADE has been providing free legal services to rural communities since 1995. Through its partnership with Mercy Corps, JADE will be able to train more mediators and extend legal services to additional rural municipalities.

Many different kinds of land tenancy exist in Alta Verapaz. Most of these disputes are due to poor regulation and administration of titles, out-of-date maps, and labor conflicts that involve contention over property ownership. Additionally, over a million Guatemalans fled the country during the long war, and others resettled in different departments causing land occupation to change significantly. Conflicts often arise between ranch owners and the Q’eqchi communities that live in the surrounding areas, but conflicts also arise within the Q’eqchi communities themselves. Mercy Corps and JADE provide free legal services and conduct mediation discussions in Q’eqchi as well as Spanish, therefore ensuring equal access for all.

Mediation has provided faster, less costly resolutions and has allowed disputing parties to build relationships instead of furthering contentions and hostility. Because mediation fosters quicker agreements, disputing parties are able to return to working their land instead of waiting on the outcome of lengthy legal proceedings.

Mercy Corps and JADE have settled eight conflicts, negotiated 60 pending agreements and will likely surpass their goal of 30 resolved cases in the first year of their project. With the increased capacity of ten new mediation centers and staff in rural municipalities, the two organizations will be able to handle cases that Roundtable for Conflict Resolution and CONTIERRA do not have the resources to consider. This is good news, since there are currently 280 unresolved conflicts involving a total of 5,000 Q’eqchi families. Resolving these conflicts will promote peace and stability, create land records and clean titles, and provide better opportunities for the population of Alta Verapaz and those who wish to invest in its economy.

As Alta Verapaz comes closer to settling land disputes and equalizing land distribution, it reaffirms the promise of its name: “True Peace.”