Global conservation efforts are celebrated for saving Guatemala’s Maya Forest. This book reveals that the process of protecting lands has been one of racialized dispossession for the Indigenous peoples who live there. Through careful ethnography and archival research, Megan Ybarra shows how conservation efforts have turned Q’eqchi’ Mayas into immigrants on their own land, and how this is part of a larger national effort to make Indigenous peoples into neoliberal citizens. Even as Q’eqchi’s participate in conservation, Green Wars amplifies their call for material decolonization by recognizing the relationship between Indigenous peoples and the land itself. “Bold, raw, and discomforting, Green Wars plainly documents contradictions, expulsions, and abject violence in the Maya Forest. Indigenous communities, for whom peace in Guatemala never came, have been rendered illegal and criminal through acts of conservation and narco-control. To make real change, we will need to pass through the truthful darkness at the heart of Megan Ybarra’s account.”—Paul Robbins, author of Political Ecology: A Critical Introduction “ Green Wars is a theoretically rich and sophisticated analysis of conservation politics in Guatemala that advances significantly our current understanding of such conflicts. Drawing on indigenous studies, feminist political ecology, and postcolonial and critical race theory, Megan Ybarra illuminates the hemispheric dynamics that created Mayan dispossession, how the Maya are typically misread, and how we might begin to forge a new future. A must-read!”—Laura Pulido, author of Black, Brown, Yellow, and Left: Radical Activism in Los Angeles  “Bold, raw, and discomforting, Green Wars plainly documents contradictions, expulsions, and abject violence in the Maya Forest. Indigenous communities, for whom peace in Guatemala never came, have been rendered illegal and criminal through acts of conservation and narco-control. To make real change, we will need to pass through the truthful darkness at the heart of Megan Ybarra’s account.”—Paul Robbins, author of Political Ecology: A Critical Introduction “ Green Wars is a theoretically rich and sophisticated analysis of conservation politics in Guatemala that advances significantly our current understanding of such conflicts. Drawing on indigenous studies, feminist political ecology, and postcolonial and critical race theory, Megan Ybarra illuminates the hemispheric dynamics that created Mayan dispossession, how the Maya are typically misread, and how we might begin to forge a new future. A must-read!”—Laura Pulido, author of Black, Brown, Yellow, and Left: Radical Activism in Los Angeles  Megan Ybarra is Assistant Professor of Geography at the University of Washington. Green Wars Conservation and Decolonization in the Maya Forest By Megan Ybarra UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Copyright © 2018 Megan Ybarra All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-520-29518-6 Contents Acknowledgments, Introduction: Conservation and Settler Logics of Elimination, 1. Making the Maya Forest, 2. We Didn't Invade the Park, the Park Invaded Us, 3. Rethinking Ladinos as Settlers, 4. Taxing the Kaxlan: Q'eqchi' Self-Determination within and beyond the Settler State, 5. Narco-Narratives and Twenty-First-Century Green Wars, Conclusion: Decolonizing the Maya Forest, and Beyond, Notes, Glossary of Terms and Acronyms, References, Index, CHAPTER 1 Making the Maya Forest "CONSERVATION, UNDER THE GUN" In 1999, the truth commission sponsored by the United Nations (UN) published its findings that the Guatemalan military perpetrated genocide against Maya peoples (CEH, 1999). Today, Guatemala has become one of few countries to put its former leaders on trial for genocide, murder, and fraud. While former military dictator Augusto Pinochet was arrested for crimes against humanity committed in Chile, his indictments, arrest, and detention occurred in Europe. When he returned to Chile, his own country made no moves to hold him accountable. In contrast, the national courts of Guatemala put their own former military dictator, Efraín Ríos Montt, on trial for multiple charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. While he spent little time in jail due to procedural issues and concerns about his ailing health, this marked an important precedent in a nation holding its own leaders accountable. As was the case with popular ideas about Pinochet after his death, the 2016 trial of former president Otto Pérez Molina seems to signal mass frustration at his participation in corruption and stealing government funds — not his leadership role in killing civilians during the civil war. Long and winding court cases reveal that many Latin Americans see state violence against a nation-state's own citizens as paradoxically justifiable for "security." Less acknowledged is how recent genocidal violence shapes contemporary conservation practices. It was not until after the p