FRENA

UNION FENOSA EN GUATEMALA by arenaentrelosdedos

In the smoke and mirrors of global finance, private equity firms have had a major relationship in a majority of firms that defaulted on their debt in 2009 thereby contributing on a grand scale to the recent financial crisis that has seen the burden falling disproportionately, as is the norm, on the world’s poorest, as losses have been nationalised across the world. This last week, we received news that Union Fenosa (Gas Natural) had sold its electricity distribution interests in Guatemala to a UK private equity company.

We have previously presented news of incidents of major human rights violations and deaths related to the Union Fenosa company in Guatemala. These attacks were primarily targeted at union representatives and community leaders. In 1998, then President Álvaro Arzú led the privatisation of the Guatemalan electrical distribution concern in favour of a monopolistic (and oligarchic) venture concerning the Spanish utility, Union Fenosa. As is the norm with these actions, the price of electricity rose to unpayable amounts for most Guatemalans. Over the years following privatisation, thousands of consumers filed complaints about the quality and excessive costs of the service – over 90,000 between January and May 2009 and popular discontent rose.

'This is a time of great tension because we know that at any moment, when we least expect it, our lives can be cut short at a stroke'.

So titled an article by Danilo Valladares for Inter Press Service.

As you will have read previously, two community leaders with FRENA (the Front for Resistance in Defence of Natural Resources and the Rights of the People) were murdered recently. GSN has highlighted the killings of both Evelinda Ramírez Reyes and Octavio Roblero and their assassinations were in addition to the slaying of another FRENA leader Víctor Galvez, last year.

Although these killings are of FRENA members, in dispute with the Spanish corporation, Gas Natural-Unión Fenosa, attacks are continuing to increase against human rights defenders. In 2009, 353 attacks were carried out, almost one a day, and 16 activists were killed.

The full article can be read here on the Global Issues website.

Yet another director of the organisation FRENA (the Front for Resistance in Defence of Natural Resources and the Rights of the People) was murdered in San Marcos this week.

According to a communiqué by the group URNG-MAIZ, Octavio Roblero was murdered at approximately 5.30pm on Wednesday (17th) in front of his business at the bus terminal in Malacatán, in the department of San Marcos. He was shot multiple times by an unknown individual.

Octavio was the brother-in-law of Víctor Galvez, also a FRENA leader, who was also shot dead in broad daylight in the centre of Malacatán in October last year. According to the Prensa Libre, Víctor had been attending a meeting with community leaders about the excessive charges of the electrical energy service in this region just before he was killed. Octavio had recently denounced the role of several individuals in his brother-in-law's murder (see URNG-MAIZ communiqué).

Octavio's murder also follows the murder last month of yet another FRENA leader, Evelinda Ramírez Reyes, who was returning to her home in the department of San Marcos following a series of meetings in the capital when the car in which she was travelling was ambushed and she was shot dead. She had been meeting with authorities to protest the excessive charges of DEOCSA, subsidiary of the Spanish-owned electricity provider Unión Fenosa, and to demand the nationalisation of electricity distribution.