On Sunday November 1st at 3:30 pm in the Back Hall, the community will welcome Leocadio Juracán from the Campesino Committee of the Highlands (CCDA) of Guatemala. Learn about the struggle for land and a dignified life for rural communities.
Leocadio is a Mayan farmer, leader and organizer, who is visiting Canada on a speaking tour to raise awareness of the criminalization of Mayan land defenders in Guatemala.
During his tour across Turtle Island, Leocadio will update audiences about the ongoing realities of campesino and Indigenous communities in Guatemala, their fight against forced and illegal land dispossession and evictions, and the criminalization of those defending their territories and rights.
In August 2025, Leocadio was arrested and charged with “aggravated usurpation” for activities related to his accompaniment of a threatened Mayan community. He was imprisoned until Canadian organizations raised $10,000 in bail money. In June 2026, a Guatemalan judge, citing a lack of evidence for the charges, removed all bail restrictions and gave the prosecution 30 days to provide new evidence. Since then, the prosecution has twice requested a delay in proceedings, such that the case is still not resolved.
The CCDA is one of Guatemala’s leading Indigenous campesino organizations defending the rights and interests of rural communities whose land rights are contested by the state, private landowners, and extractive companies. The organization was founded in 1982 at the height of Guatemala’s internal armed conflict. Today, the CCDA represents hundreds of Indigenous campesino communities across twenty departments and fourteen Indigenous peoples of Guatemala. It promotes access to land, peaceful resistance to dispossession, and the holistic human development of rural populations, with a strong emphasis on gender equality.
Denman Island Connection
- The CCDA has extensive ties to Canada through the Café Justicia (Justice Coffee) project, which exports the coffee its members produce to eight Canadian provinces, and then uses coffee sales profits to support community development and land tenure projects in Guatemala.
- Some of you met Leocadio’s daughter, Neydi Yassmine Juracán Morales, the National Coordinator of CCDA, when she visited Denman in May 2024.
- Since that event, a ‘Denman Island Café Justicia Buyers Club’ has coordinated the distribution of this delicious “fair trade-plus” coffee to purchasers on Denman.
Attend this event and then enjoy Soup Night from 5-7 pm at the Gathering Place.
