Franja Transversal del Norte

Belgian colony In 1840, Belgium began to act as an external source of support for Rafael Carrera's conservative movement, in an effort to exert influence in Central America. The '''' (Belgian Colonization Company), commissioned by Belgian King Leopold I, became the administrator of Santo Tomas de Castilla in Izabal, replacing the failed British Eastern Coast of Central America Commercial and Agricultural Company. Even though the colony eventually crumbled due to the endemic diseases that plagued the area, Belgium continued to support Carrera in the mid-19th century, although Britain continued to be the main business and political partner of Carrera's regime. German colony in Verapaz As of 1850, Cobán, the capital of Alta Verapaz, had an estimated population of 12000. Around 1890, British archeologist Alfred Percival Maudslay and his wife came to Guatemala, and visited Cobán. Around the time the Maudslays visited Verapaz, a German colony had settled in the area thanks to generous concessions granted by liberal presidents Manuel Lisandro Barillas Bercián, José María Reyna Barrios and Manuel Estrada Cabrera. The Germans had a very united and solid community and had several activities in the German Club (Deutsche Verein), in Cobán, which they had founded in 1888. Their main commercial activity was coffee plantations. Maudslay described the Germans like this: "There is a larger proportion of foreigners in Coban than in any other towns in the Republic: they are almost exclusively Germans engaged in coffee-planting, and some few of them in cattle-ranching and other industries; although complaints of isolation and of housekeeping and labour troubles are not unheard of amongst them, they seemed to me to be fortunate from a business point of view in the high reputation that the Vera Paz coffee holds in the market, and the very considerable commercial importance which their industry and foresight has brought to the district; and, from a personal point of view, in the enjoyment of a delicious climate in which their rosy-cheeked children can be reared in health and strength, and in all the comforts which pertain to a life half European and half tropical. Hotels or fondas appear to be scarce; but the hospitality of the foreign residents is proverbial." The city was developed by German coffee growers towards the end of the 19th century and was operated as a largely independent dominion until World War II. and in 1935 a German school opened its doors in Cobán. Until 1930, about 2000 Germans populated the city. it has also been suggested that Ubico wanted to seize control of the vast amounts of land Germans owned in the area. During the Nazi era While the Nazis were in power in Germany (1933–1945), rumors circulated in Guatemala that the Germans in Verapaz wanted to establish themselves as a national socialist "new Germany". The Germans had acquired land, houses and farms through concessions from the liberal presidents who ruled from 1885 to 1920 in Guatemala and enjoyed privileges during the dictatorship of General Jorge Ubico, who admired the fascist policies of Benito Mussolini in Italy and Francisco Franco in Spain and the Nazism of Hitler in Germany. An incident involving the German community in Verapaz occurred when Nazi Germany asked its citizens to vote on the annexation of Austria to Germany: a German ship anchored in Puerto Barrios for this activity and those who attended were "counted" as Nazi supporters. The United States had a strong influence on the Guatemalan government, through concessions granted to American companies, such as the United Fruit Company who had a monopoly on the export of bananas and which practically paid no taxes to Guatemala, and that of railway transport through its subsidiary International Railroads of Central America (IRCA). The fruit company was the strongest pillar of Ubico's regime and was part of the American policy for the region since President Teddy Roosevelt started negotiations with Colombia to build the Panama Canal in 1903. After the overthrow of Jacobo Árbenz in Guatemala. Originally, was the east border of the Northern Transversal Strip. After the counterrevolution of 1954, the Guatemalan government established the Council for Economic Planning and started using free-market strategies, advised by the World Bank and the International Cooperation Administration (ICA) of United States government. CNPE and ICA created the Directorate General of Land Affairs (DGAA) which was responsible for dismantling and negating the effects of Decree 900 of Agragia Government Reform created by Jacobo Árbenz. In 1959, Decree 1286 was passed into law and created the National Development Corporation and Economic Development of Petén (FYDEP), an agency of the Presidency of the Republic, responsible for colonization in the department of Petén. In practice, however, FYDEP was directed by the military and was an agency of the Ministry of Defense, while in parallel DGAA handled the geographical strip bordering on the departmental boundary of Petén and the borders of Belize, Honduras and Mexico and which eventually became the Northern Transversal Strip. The first settler project in the FTN was in Sebol-Chinajá in Alta Verapaz. Sebol, then regarded as a strategic point and route through Cancuén River, which communicated with Petén through the Usumacinta River on the border with Mexico. The only road that existed was a dirt one built by President Lázaro Chacón in 1928. In 1958, during the government of General Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) financed infrastructure projects in Sebol. In 1960, then-Army captain Fernando Romeo Lucas García inherited Saquixquib and Punta de Boloncó farms in northeastern Sebol. In 1963 he bought the farm "San Fernando" El Palmar de Sejux and finally bought the "Sepur" farm near San Fernando. During those years, Lucas was in the Guatemalan legislature and lobbied in Congress to boost investment in that area of the country. In those years, the importance of the region was in livestock, exploitation of precious export wood and archaeological wealth. Timber contracts were granted to multinational companies such as Murphy Pacific Corporation from California, which invested US$30 million for the colonization of southern Petén and Alta Verapaz, and formed the North Impulsadora Company. Colonization of the area was made a process by which inhospitable areas of the FTN were granted to native peasants. In 1962, the DGAA became the National Institute of Agrarian Reform (INTA), by Decree 1551 which created the law of Agrarian Transformation. In 1964, INTA defined the geography of the FTN as the northern part of the departments of Huehuetenango, Quiché, Alta Verapaz and Izabal and that same year priests of the Maryknoll order and the Society of the Sacred Heart began the first process of colonization along with INTA, carrying settlers from Huehuetenango to the Ixcán sector in Quiché. The Northern Transversal Strip was officially created during the government of General Carlos Arana Osorio in 1970, by Decree 60–70 of the Congress, for agricultural development. Oil potential In 1971 indigenous Q'eqchi' people from 24 villages in the Cancuén area, in southern Petén and the north of Chisec were evicted by the Army because the region was rich in oil. Since 1974, oil had been commercially extracted in the FTN vicinity following discoveries made by Shenandoah Oil and Basic Resources, which together operated the Rubelsanto oil field in Alta Verapaz. In 1976, when then-president Kjell Laugerud Garcia came to visit the Mayalán cooperative in Ixcán, Quiché—which had been formed just 10 years before—said: "Mayalán is seated on top of the gold", hinting that the North Transversal Strip would no longer be used for agriculture and the cooperative movement, but rather for strategic exploitation of natural resources. After that visit, the two oil companies conducted explorations in Xacbal, near Mayalán in Ixcán, where they drilled the "San Lucas" well with unsuccessful results. These initial explorations, however, paved the way for future Ixcán and FTN oil experiments, and were also the main reason for building the dirt road that runs along the Strip. Shenandoah Oil, the National Institute of Agrarian Reform (INTA) and the Army Engineer Battalion coordinated the construction of that corridor between 1975 and 1979, which eventually allowed political, military and powerful businessmen of the time become owners of many lands where potential timber and oil wealth lay. High Guatemalan government officers became large landowners and investors taking advantage of peasant transfer policies, privileged insider information, expansion of public credit and major development projects; the Army entered the business world with the Bank of the Army, pension funds and others. == Participation of Fernando Romeo Lucas García in FTN ==

In 1977, when he stepped down as defense minister to pursue his presidential campaign, general Fernando Romeo Lucas García also held the position of coordinator of the megaproject of the Northern Transversal Strip, whose main objective was to facilitate oil exploitation. By managing this project, Lucas García obtained greater knowledge and interaction with the transnational companies that were in the area, and increased his own personal economic interests in the region, given that his family owned land there and he had commercial relationships with Shenandoah Oil company. Cuchumaderas case In 1977 the municipality of San Mateo Ixtatán signed a contract with the Cuchumaderas company for the "sanitation, reforestation, maintenance and exploitation of forests, based on the urgent need to build and maintain natural resources attacked by the pine beetle." Upon learning of the negotiation between the municipality and the company, town people forced the authorities to conduct an open meeting and explain the characteristics of the commitment; each of the members of the municipal corporation gave their account of the negotiation, showing contradictions that led to resignation of the mayor at the very same meeting. Despite threats received by some residents of San Mateo, they organized a local committee to defend the forest, and started a lawsuit against the company. As a result, forest extraction processes were stopped. Cuchumaderas was closely related to the interests of the military leaders who held political power in the 1970s, and spread throughout the defined territory of the FTN; the forest wealth of San Mateo Ixtatán made it the target of economic interests in the Northern Transversal Strip. Ronald Hennessey, pastor of San Mateo Ixtatán during the Guatemalan Civil War, arrived in October 1980 amid people's fight against the presence of Cuchumaderas and accused in his writings as Cuchumaderas partners the following people: Lucas Garcia, FTN director when Cuchumaderas was founded, general Otto Spiegler Noriega, who was the Chief of Staff of the Army and later became Minister of Defense under Lucas García; Jorge Spiegler Noriega, manager of the National Forestry Institute (INAFOR), and then-colonel Rodolfo Lobos Zamora, commander of Military Zone of Quiché. However, later in the Commercial Register investigations showed that the owner of the company was a different person: it was the engineer Fernando Valle Arizpe. Valle Arizpe had developed close relationships with senior officials and senior members of the government of Lucas García, especially Donaldo Alvarez Ruiz, the Minister of Interior. During the Lucas García government (1 July 1978 – 23 March 1982) the Army Engineers Battalion built the road stretching from Cadenas (Petén / Izabal) to Fray Bartolomé de las Casas. After the overthrow of Lucas Garcia on March 23, 1982, a military triumvirate headed by general Efraín Ríos Montt, along with colonels Horacio Maldonado Shaad and Francisco Gordillo rose to power. On June 2, 1982, international journalists conducted an interview with Ríos Montt, who said the following regarding Lucas García government and FTN: == Civil war in Guatemala ==

The Guerrilla Army of the Poor On January 19, 1972, members of a new Guatemalan guerrilla movement entered Ixcán from Mexico, and were accepted by many farmers; in 1973, after an explorative foray into the municipal seat of Cotzal, the insurgent group decided to set up camp underground in the mountains of Xolchiché, municipality of Chajul. In 1974 the insurgent guerrilla group held its first conference, where it defined its strategy of action for the coming months and called itself Guerrilla Army of the Poor (-Ejército Guerrillero de los Pobres -EGP-). In 1975 the organization had spread around the area of the mountains of northern municipalities of Nebaj and Chajul. As part of its strategy EGP agreed to perform acts that notoriety was obtained and through which also symbolize the establishment of a "social justice" against the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of the judicial and administrative organs of the State. They saw also that with these actions the indigenous rural population of the region is identified with the insurgency, thus motivating joining their ranks. As part of this plan was agreed to so-called "executions". To determine who would be these people subject to "execution", the EGP attended complaints received from the public. For example, they selected two victims: Guillermo Monzón, who was a military Commissioner in Ixcán and José Luis Arenas, the largest landowner in the area of Ixcán, and who had been reported to the EGP for allegedly having land conflicts with neighboring settlements and abusing their workers. On Saturday, 7 June 1975, José Luis Arenas was killed by unknowns when he was in the premises of his farm "La Perla" to pay wage workers. In front of his office there were approximately two to three hundred people to receive their payment and four members of EGP mixed among farmers. Subsequently, the guerrilla members destroyed the communication radio of the farm and executed Arenas. After having murdered José Luis Arenas, guerrilla members spoke in Ixil language to the farmers, informing them that they were members of the Guerrilla Army of the Poor and had killed the "Tiger Ixcán." They requested to prepare beasts to help the injured and were transported to Chajul to receive medical care. Then the attackers fled towards Chajul. Communal property used for subsistence farming became private property which led to the cultivation and mass marketing of agricultural products. Therefore, the fundamental characteristic of the Guatemalan production system has since that time been the accumulation of property in few hands, and a sort of "farm servitude" based on the exploitation of "farmer settlers". In 1951, an agrarian reform law that expropriated idle land from private ownership was enacted, but in 1954, with the National Liberation Movement coup supported by the United States, most of the expropriated land was awarded back to its former landowners. Flavio Monzón was appointed mayor and in the next twenty years he became one of the largest landowners in the area. In 1964, several communities settled for decades on the shore of Polochic River claimed property titles to INTA which was created in October 1962, but the land was awarded to Flavio Monzón. A Mayan peasant from Panzós later said that Flavio Monzón "got the signatures of the elders before he went before INTA to talk about the land. When he returned, gathered the people and said that, by an INTA mistake, the land had gone to his name." Throughout the 1970s, Panzós farmers continued to claim INTA regularization of land ownership, receiving legal advice from the FASGUA (Autonomous Trade Union Federation of Guatemala), an organization that supported the peasants' demands through legal procedures. However, no peasant received a property title, ever. Some obtained promises while others got provisional property titles, and also some only received permission to plant. The peasants began to suffer evictions from their land by farmers, the military and local authorities in favor of the economic interests of Izabal Mining Operations Company (EXMIBAL) and Transmetales. In 1978 a military patrol was stationed a few kilometers from the county seat of Panzós, in a place known as "Quinich". At this time organizational capacity of peasant had increased through committees who claimed titles to their land, a phenomenon that worried the landlord sector. Some of these owners -among them Flavio Monzón- stated: "Several peasants living in the villages and settlements want to burn urban populations to gain access to private property", and requested protection from Alta Verapaz governor. On 29 May 1978, peasants from Cahaboncito, Semococh, Rubetzul, Canguachá, Sepacay villages, finca Moyagua and neighborhood La Soledad, decided to hold a public demonstration in the Plaza de Panzós to insist on the claim of land and to express their discontent caused by the arbitrary actions of the landowners and the civil and military authorities. Hundreds of men, women, indigenous children went to the square of the municipal seat of Panzós, carrying their tools, machetes and sticks. One of the people who participated in the demonstration states: "The idea was not to fight with anyone, what was required was the clarification of the status of the land. People came from various places and they had guns." There are different versions on how the shooting began: some say it began when "Mama Maquín" -an important peasant leader- pushed a soldier who was in her way; others argue that it started because people kept pushing trying to get into the municipality, which was interpreted by the soldiers as an aggression. The mayor at the time, Walter Overdick, said that "people of the middle of the group pushed those who in front." Since late 1981 the Army applied a strategy of "scorched earth" in Quiché, to eliminate the guerrilla social support EGP. In some communities of the region's military forced all residents to leave their homes and concentrate in the county seat under military control. Some families obeyed; others took refuge in the mountains. K'iche's who took refuge in the mountains, were identified by the Army with the guerrillas and underwent a military siege, and continuous attacks that prevented them from getting food, shelter and medical care. La Llorona massacre, El Estor La Llorona, located about 18 kilometers from El Estor, department of Izabal (part of the Northern Transversal Strip), was a small village with no more than twenty houses. Most of the first settlers arrived from the areas of Senahú and Panzós, both in Alta Verapaz. In 1981 the total population was about 130 people, all belonging to q'eqchi' ethnic group. Few people spoke Spanish and most work in their own cornfields, sporadically working for the local landowners. In the vicinity are the villages El Bongo, Socela, Benque, Rio Pita, Santa Maria, Big Plan and New Hope. Conflicts in the area were related to land tenure, highlighting the uncertainty about the boundaries between farms and communities, and the lack of titles. As in the National Institute of Agrarian Transformation (INTA) was not registered a legitimate owner of land occupied La Llorona, the community remained in the belief that the land belonged to the state, which had taken steps to obtain title property. However, a farmer with great influence in the area occupied part of the land, generating a conflict between him and the community; men of the village, on its own initiative, devised a new boundary between community land and the farmer, but the problem remained dormant. In the second half of the seventies were the first news about the presence of guerrillas in the villages, the commander aparacimiento Ramon, talking to people and saying they were the Guerrilla Army of the Poor. They passed many villages asking what problems people had and offering to solve them. The told peasants that the land belonged to the poor and that they should trust them. In 1977, Ramon - a guerrilla commander - regularly visited the village of La Llorona and after finding that the issue of land was causing many problems in the community, taught people to practice new measurements, which spread fear among landowners. That same year, the group under Ramon arbitrarily executed the Spanish landowner José Hernández, near El Recreo, which he owner. Following this, a clandestine group of mercenaries, dubbed "fighters of the rich" was formed to protect the interests of landlords; public authority of El Estor organized the group and paid its members, stemming from the funding of major landowners. The group, irregular, was related to the military commissioners of the region and with commanders of the Army, although mutual rivalries also took place. The secret organization murdered several people, including victims who had no connection whatsoever with insurgent groups. however, it also states that they did the best they could in terms of obtaining information and therefore the list is incomplete; therefore here are the cases that have also been documented in other reports as well. List of massacres perpetrated by the EGP According to a report by the rightist magazine "Crónica", there were 1258 guerrilla actions against civilians and infrastructure in Guatemala, including more than two hundred murders, sixty eight kidnappings, eleven bombs against embassies and three hundred twenty-nine attacks against civilians. Almost all guerrilla massacres occurred in 1982 when further militarization reigned and there was widespread presence of PAC in communities; many of them were victims of non-cooperation with the guerrillas and in some cases they came after a previous attack by the PAC. In the massacres perpetrated by the guerrillas there is no use of informants, or concentration of population, or separation of groups; also, there are no recounts of rape or repetitive slaughter. There are cases of razed villages and less tendency to mass flight, even though it occurred in some cases, the use of lists was also more frequent. In a publication of the Army of Guatemala, sixty massacres perpetrated by the EGP were reported, arguing that they were mostly ignored by REHMI and the Historical Clarification Commission reports. It is also reported that in mid-1982, 32 members of "Star Guerrilla Front " were shot for not raising the EGP flag. == 21st century ==

African oil palm There is a large demand within Guatemala and some of its neighbors for edible oils and fats, which would explain how the African oil palm became so prevalent in the country to the detriment of other oils, and which has allowed new companies associated to large capitals in a new investment phase that can be found particularly in some territories that form the Northern Transversal Strip of Guatemala. == Location ==

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