Following the attack, military helicopters began flying over the resisting communities, “like in the old days of the armed conflict.” 
On September 17 and 18, community members from Mataquescuintla, Jalapa and San Rafael Las Flores, Santa Rosa, Guatemala protested against the ongoing development of a mining project in their communities. In response to the first of these protests, provocateurs attacked both police and community members with stones. In response to a peaceful blockade outside the mining site, protesters were “attacked without warning by members of the mine’s private security agency, the National Civil Police and the army, using tear gas cannons, firearms and rubber bullet guns. Security agents attacked from inside the mine, with trained attack dogs. The Police cornered the unarmed protestors, and the army surrounded them, crouched and at the ready. The display of repressive force had all the characteristics of military counter-insurgency tactics that we had thought belonged to the past, including the bad intentions, brutality and cowardice that so characterize the tactics of the National Army.”
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