International Mission: Right to Food must be declared national priority in Guatemala

Geneva/Guatemala, March 9: Several international organizations and networks¹ called attention at national and international level to the situation of hunger and malnutrition in Guatemala by presenting a report on the Right to Food in Guatemala to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter, and to the Guatemalan Presidential Human Rights Commission (COPREDEH). The authors of the report demand that the Right to Food be declared a national priority. Moreover, they urge to cease violence and threats against social, community, indigenous, peasant and trade union leaders and to effectively protect human rights defenders.

Upon the invitation of Guatemalan counterparts, the international organizations and networks formed an International Fact-Finding Mission which visited Guatemala in November 2009 in order to verify possible cases of violations of the right to food. These violations involved issues such as forced evictions, land conflicts, the impacts of the expansion of agrofuels, large-scale projects and labour conflicts.

Among the main recommendations to the State of Guatemala presented in the report are the following: to declare the promotion and protection of the right to food a national priority, ensuring its effective and coherent implementation in all State´s policies and actions which might have an impact on the right to food; to adopt a moratorium on forced evictions as long as legislation and administrative procedures are not coherent with international human rights law and to produce directives for the protection of human rights in the context of agrarian conflicts; to stop the expansion of agrofuel production, giving priority to the sustainable production of food by promoting peasant and indigenous agriculture and economy; to revise the Mining Law to guarantee the full recognition of ILO Convention 169 and the results of community consultations, also prohibiting the use of cyanide in mining; to ensure that all public policies and programs effectively incorporate the gender aspect and the equal rights of peasant and indigenous women; to guarantee the effective protection of human rights defenders, and to stop and prevent actions which might lead to their criminalization; and to effectively investigate human rights violations, with the aim of ending impunity.

¹ FIAN (FoodFirst Information and Action Network), the international peasant movement La Via Campesina, the European network Copenhagen Initiative for Central America and Mexico (CIFCA), the Coalition of Catholic Agencies for Development (CIDSE), the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organization Against Torture (OMCT), including the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (FIDHOMCT), and the Association of World Council of Churches related Development Organisations in Europe (APRODEV).

Further information: The report of the Mission was submitted to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to Food, Olivier De Schutter, on March 8 in Geneva. It will also be presented in Guatemala today in a forum jointly convened by the Guatemalan Presidential Human Rights Commission (COPREDEH).