Guatemala: Transport Fuels or Food?

original post: http://www.peoplesworld.org/world-notes-india-hungary-guatemala-and-more/

By W.T. Whitney Jr.

Some 3,000 Mayan peasants had lived and farmed in the Polochic Valley for thirty years when 1000 soldiers and police arrived on March 15 to evict them from their small land holdings. The action, backed by the current center-left government, left one farmer killed and many wounded. On March 24, a private brigade hired by a nearby sugar mill company destroyed their remaining crops. Since 2005, transnational corporations intent upon producing biofuels have amassed land in order to grow African palm and sugar cane. Presently, sugarcane is grown on 28 percent of Guatemala’s farmland, 80 percent of which is owned by five percent of the population. Evicted peasants, says Inter Press Service, are running out of land they need for survival.