UK owner of Guatemalan energy firm urged to act after protest deaths

A British financial group has been urged to take action after six indigenous protesters in Guatemala were shot dead by the military during a demonstration against an electricity rate increase by one of the group's utilities.

Nine soldiers including a colonel will go on trial over the deadly crackdown, which aimed to clear a road of demonstrators opposed to rising energy bills issued by Energuate, a company majority-owned by Actis, a private investment firm spun off from Britain's Development Finance Institution in 2004.

Community members who took part in the protest against Energuate said its UK owner and the Guatemalan government must take action to ensure similar tragedies were avoided in the future.

"Our demands need to be listened to … As indigenous people we are consuming their energy, but they are getting rich off the people," said Juana Celestina Batz Puac, who lives in TotonicapÁn and witnessed the killings. "Our actions are directly linked to electricity," she said.

Energy rates for peasant families in TotonicapÁn have more than doubled in the past year to £7.33 a month, according to Batz. "This is way too much," she said.

Representatives of the 48 communities of TotonicapÁn, a highland municipality with a majority Maya-K'iche' population, erected blockades on the Inter-American highway on 4 October to protest against the rate increase and other measures they deemed unfavourable to indigenous people, including constitutional amendments and a revision of the teacher training programme.

According to a United Nations report released on Thursday, demonstrators threw stones at troops in three army vehicles, who responded by teargassing the crowd. As people tried to flee, soldiers opened fire with live ammunition, killing six people, the report said. Thirty-three demonstrators and 13 army personnel were injured in the confrontation.

Protests against Energuate, one of Guatemala's biggest utilities, have intensified since 2009. In May, locals occupied its offices in TotonicapÁn to demand the cancellation of a contract for public lighting.

The electricity company said it was not to blame. "Fundamentally this situation produced a conflict that we didn't cause," said Maynor Amezquita, a communications and external relations officer with Energuate. "We only charge what the [National Electric Energy Commission] stipulates that we can charge."

Amezquita said municipalities set the price of electricity for streetlights and public lighting, and the company billed homeowners for the service. Members of the 48 communities of TotonicapÁn, who do not reside in the town centre, pay monthly for street lighting they say does not reach them.

Neither Energuate nor Actis have released an official statement regarding the killings in TotonicapÁn. Energuate, formerly named Deocsa and owned by Gas Natural Fenosa, was purchased by Actis in May 2011. It supplies electricity to 1.4 million people in Guatemala's rural areas, covering 94% of the country's land mass.