Ixcán is a
municipality
A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate.
The term ''municipality' ...
in the
Guatemala
Guatemala, officially the Republic of Guatemala, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico, to the northeast by Belize, to the east by Honduras, and to the southeast by El Salvador. It is hydrologically b ...
n
department of
El Quiché
EL, El or el may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Fictional entities
* El, a character from the manga series ''Shugo Chara!'' by Peach-Pit
* Eleven (''Stranger Things'') (El), a fictional character in the TV series ''Stranger Things''
* El, fami ...
. Its administrative centre is the town of
Playa Grande. The municipality consists of 176 communities, called ''aldeas''. It has an area of 1,693 km
2. It is the northernmost municipality of El Quiché, and borders with
Mexico
Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...
, the municipalities of
Chisec and
Cobán
Cobán (), fully Santo Domingo de Cobán, is the capital of the department of Alta Verapaz in central Guatemala. It also serves as the administrative center for the surrounding Cobán municipality. It is located 219 km from Guatemala City.
A ...
of the
Department of Alta Verapaz, the municipality of
Santa Cruz Barillas of the
Department of Huehuetenango, and the municipalities of
Chajul and
Uspantán of El Quiché.
Native
Mayan languages
The Mayan languages In linguistics, it is conventional to use ''Mayan'' when referring to the languages, or an aspect of a language. In other academic fields, ''Maya'' is the preferred usage, serving as both a singular and plural noun, and a ...
include
Qʼeqchiʼ
Qʼeqchiʼ () (Kʼekchiʼ in the former orthography, or simply Kekchi in many English-language contexts, such as in Belize) are a Maya people
Maya () are an ethnolinguistic group of Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous peoples o ...
,
Qʼanjobʼal,
Mam,
Popti and
Kʼicheʼ.
Spanish is also common.
Its annual festival is held from 15 to 17 May.
Ixcán has an airport. Its
International Air Transport Association
The International Air Transport Association (IATA ) is an airline trade association founded in 1945. IATA has been described as a cartel since, in addition to setting technical standards for airlines, IATA also organized tariff conferences tha ...
code is PKJ. The population of the municipality was 99,470 at the 2018 census.
History
Oil potential
In 1971 indigenous
Q'eqchi' people from 24 villages in the Cancuén area, in southern Petén north of
Chisec, were evicted by the Army, because it considered that 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 were operating together in the
Rubelsanto oil field in Alta Verapaz. In 1976, when ten president
Kjell Laugerud García came to visit the Mayalán cooperative in Ixcán, Quiché -which was 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 by strategic exploitation of natural resources. After that presidential visit, the two oil companies conducted exploration in Xacbal, near Mayalán in Ixcán, where they drilled the "San Lucas" well with unsuccessful results. These initial exploration, however, paved the way for future Ixcán and FTN oil experimentation, 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 the 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 happened to hold the position of coordinator of the
Northern Transversal Strip, whose main objective was to bring oil production and to facilitate oil exploitation of that vast land. 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.
During Lucas García government (1 July 1978 – 23 March 1982) the Army Engineers Battalion built the road stretch from Cadenas (Petén / Izabal) to
Fray Bartolomé de las Casas.
After the overthrow of Lucas García March 23, 1982, a military triumvirate came to power headed by General
Efraín Ríos Montt
José Efraín Ríos Montt (; 16 June 1926 – 1 April 2018) was a Guatemalan military officer, politician, and dictator who served as ''de facto'' President of Guatemala from 1982 to 1983. His brief tenure as chief executive was one of the blo ...
, along with Horacio Maldonado Shaad colonels and Francisco Gordillo. 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 exploratory foray into the municipal seat of Cotzal, the insurgent group set up camp underground in the mountains of Xolchiché, in the municipality of Chajul.
In 1974 the insurgent guerrilla group held its first conference, and named itself the 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 to seek notoriety and to symbolize the establishment of "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 identified with the insurgency, thus motivating them joining their ranks. This plan included 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, a military Commissioner in Ixcán, and José Luis Arenas, the largest landowner in the area of Ixcán, 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 at his farm, "La Perla", to pay wage workers. In front of his office approximately two to three hundred people waited for payment, and four members of the EGP mixed among farmers. The guerrillas destroyed the communication radio of the farm and executed Arenas. They spoke in Ixil language to the farmers, telling 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.
José Luis Arenas' son, who was in San Luis Ixcán at the time, sought refuge on a nearby mountain, waiting for a plane to arrive to take him to the capital, to immediately report the matter to the Minister of Defense. The defense minister replied, "You are mistaken, there are no guerrillas in the area".
The report of the Recovery of Historical Memory lists 422 massacres committed by both sides in the conflict;
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.
Ixcán was severely affected by the
Guatemalan Civil War
The Guatemalan Civil War was fought from 1960 to 1996 between the government of Guatemala and various Left-wing politics, leftist rebel groups. The Guatemalan government forces committed Guatemalan genocide, genocide against the Maya population o ...
during the 1970s and 1980s. Many inhabitants sought refuge in Mexico and the
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
.
In 1985, Ixcán was granted status as a separate municipality from
San Miguel Uspantán.
Economy
Xalalá hydroelectric dam
The
Xalalá hydroelectric dam is a proposed development project in Ixcán. It is controversial because it will flood 31.8 km
2 and displace twelve
Q'eqchi' Maya communities.
It is a project of the
Plan Puebla Panama. The dam is opposed by the Organizational Commission of the Community Consultation of Good Faith in Ixcán, which wants the (INDE) to consult with local
indigenous groups pursuant to the
International Labour Organization
The International Labour Organization (ILO) is a United Nations agency whose mandate is to advance social and economic justice by setting international labour standards. Founded in October 1919 under the League of Nations, it is one of the firs ...
Convention No. 169, Article 7. The municipal government called for such a consultation on 2007-04-20, in which 90% of voters rejected all proposed hydroelectric projects and petroleum extraction in the region.
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 in 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.
The investors are trying to turn Guatemala into one of the main palm oil exporters, in spite of the decline on its international price. The most active region is found in
Chisec and
Cobán
Cobán (), fully Santo Domingo de Cobán, is the capital of the department of Alta Verapaz in central Guatemala. It also serves as the administrative center for the surrounding Cobán municipality. It is located 219 km from Guatemala City.
A ...
, in
Alta Verapaz Department
Alta Verapaz () is a department in the north central part of Guatemala. The capital and chief city of the department is Cobán. Verapaz is bordered to the north by El Petén, to the east by Izabal, to the south by Zacapa, El Progreso, an ...
; Ixcán in
Quiché Department
Quiché () is a department of Guatemala. It is in the heartland of the Kʼicheʼ (Quiché) people, one of the Maya peoples, to the north-west of Guatemala City. The capital is Santa Cruz del Quiché. The word Kʼicheʼ comes from the languag ...
, and
Sayaxché
Sayaxché () is a municipality in the El Petén department of Guatemala, on the Río La Pasión River. It covers an area of , and had 55,578 inhabitants at the 2002 Census; the latest official estimate (as at mid-2012) was 114,781 inhabitants.
T ...
,
Petén Department
Petén (from the Itza' language, Itz'a, , 'Great Island') is a Departments of Guatemala, department of Guatemala. It is geographically the northernmost department of Guatemala, as well as the largest by area at it accounts for about one third o ...
, where Palmas del Ixcán, S.A. (PALIX) is located, both with its own plantation and those of subcontractors. Another active region is that of
Fray Bartolomé de las Casas and
Chahal in Alta Verapaz Department;
El Estor and
Livingston,
Izabal Department
Izabal () is one of the 22 departments of Guatemala. Its coastal areas form part of the homeland of the Garifuna people.
Izabal is bordered to the north by Belize, to the northeast by the Gulf of Honduras, to the east by Honduras, and by th ...
; and
San Luis,
Petén, where Naturaceites operates.
Radio Stations
Radio stations in Playa Grande, Ixcán:
Stereoixcan 90.3
Sembrador 90.7
Climate
Ixcán has a
tropical rainforest climate
A tropical rainforest climate or equatorial climate is a tropical climate sub-type usually found within 10 to 15 degrees latitude of the equator. There are some other areas at higher latitudes, such as the coast of southeast Florida, United States ...
(
Köppen Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Bernd Köppen (1951–2014), German pianist and composer
* Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan
* Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author ...
: ''Af'').
Geographic location
See also
*
List of airports in Guatemala
*
Uspantek language
Uspantek (Uspanteco, Uspanteko, Uspantec) is a Mayan language of Guatemala, closely related to Kʼicheʼ. It is spoken in the Uspantán and Playa Grande Ixcán ''municipios'', in the Department El Quiché. It is also one of only three Mayan ...
Notes
References
Bibliography
*
*
*
External links
Servicio de Información Municipal (in Spanish)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ixcan
Municipalities of the Quiché Department
Populated places established in 1985
1985 establishments in Guatemala
bg:Плая Гранде
pt:Playa Grande