After being found guilty of raping six Indigenous women between 1981 and 1983, one of the bloodiest times in the Central American civil war, a top Guatemalan court sentenced three former paramilitaries to 40 years each in prison.
In a time of bloodshed between the military and left-wing rebels, which left as many as 200, 000 people dead or missing, the conviction and sentencing on Friday represent yet another significant step toward bringing justice to the Maya Achi Indigenous women who were sexually abused by pro-government armed groups.
Judge Maria Eugenia Castellanos ruled that former members of the Civil Self-Defense Patrol, Pedro Sanchez, Simeon Enriquez, and Felix Tum, who had sexually assaulted six Maya Achi group members, had committed crimes against humanity.
The women recognized the perpetrators and the locations where the events occurred. They committed crimes against humanity, she claimed, applauding the women’s bravery in appearing in court on numerous occasions.
They stigmatize the woman, and they are solitude crimes. The judge remarked, “It is not simple to speak of them.”
After being found guilty and receiving a sentence on Friday, three former paramilitaries, Simeon Enriquez, Pedro Sanchez, and Felix Tum, leave the court.
The sentence, according to indigenous lawyer Haydee Valey, is “historical” because it finally acknowledges the struggle of civil war survivors, who have been demanding justice for a long time.
At the conclusion of the trial, where some dressed in traditional attire and others listened to the verdict through an interpreter, several Maya Achi women in the courtroom applauded.
A 62-year-old woman who was one of the victims described the verdict as “very happy” for her.
Before the sentencing, one of the three convicted men, Pedro Sanchez, declared to the court, “I am innocent of what they are accusing me of.”
However, another member of the all-women, three-panel court, Judge Marling Mayela Gonzalez Arrivillaga, stated that the witness testimony against the suspects was undisputed.
Second-degree murder convictions were issued in the case involving former military personnel and paramilitaries in the Maya Achi women’s trial. Five former paramilitaries were given sentences of 30 years in prison at the first trial, which took place in January 2022.
The case, according to advocacy group Impunity Watch, “demonstrates how the Guatemalan army waged war against indigenous women” during the civil war.
A Guatemalan court handed down a 2016 sentence to two former military officers for allegedly holding 15 women of Maya descent as sex slaves in 2016. A combined 360-year prison sentence was given to both officers.
Juro Coffee House in Dimapur, Mokokchung, Wokha, Chumoukedima, and Kohima, India — With its high ceilings, soft lighting, and brown and turquoise blue cushioned chairs, it appears to be a chic European cafe.
Sitting right off India’s National Highway-2, which connects the northeastern states of Assam, Nagaland and Manipur, the cafe hosts a live roastery unit that was set up in January by the Nagaland state government. Green coffee beans from 12 Nagaland districts are ground, roasted, and served from farm to table.
On a typical day, the cafe gets about a hundred customers, sipping on coffee, with smoke breaks in between.
Although those figures aren’t particularly large, they are nonetheless startling.
For decades, an armed rebellion seeking the secession of Nagaland from India dominated the state’s political and economic landscape. Since India’s independence, Naga separatists have been staging a plebiscite in which nearly all votes have been cast in favor of separating from the Indian union, killing thousands of people. India has never accepted that vote.
Agriculture has been the mainstay of the state’s economy, with paddy, bananas and oranges, and green leafy vegetables like mustard leaves being the main traditional crops grown.
Now, a growing band of cafes, roasteries and farms across the state are looking to give Nagaland a new identity by promoting locally grown Arabica and Robusta coffee. One of them is Starbucks.
While coffee was first introduced to the state in 1981 by the Coffee Board of India, a body set up by the Indian government to promote coffee production, it only began to take off after 2014.
Nagaland currently has almost 250 coffee farms spread over 10, 700 hectares (26, 400 acres) of land in 11 districts, thanks to government policy changes and the support of a group of young entrepreneurs. About 9, 500 farmers are engaged in coffee cultivation, according to the state government. In addition to homegrown cafes popping up in major cities like Dimapur and Kohima and in inner-districts like Mokokchung and Mon, the small state that borders Myanmar currently has eight roasteries.
For Searon Yanthan, the founder of Juro Coffee House, the journey began with COVID-19, when the pandemic forced Naga youth studying or working in other parts of India or abroad to return home. According to Yanthan, this turned out to be a disguised blessing because they restored the state’s value. “My father used to say, those were the days when we used to export people”, he told Al Jazeera. “No longer is it time to export our ideas and products,” he said.
Like many kids his age, Yanthan left Nagaland for higher studies in 2010, first landing up in the southern city of Chennai for high school and then the northern state of Punjab for his undergraduate studies, before dropping out to study in Bangalore. The 30-year-old founder, who donned a pair of chic formal cotton pants and a baby pink polo neck shirt, said, “I studied commerce, but the only subject I was good at was entrepreneurship.”
The pandemic hit just as he was about to graduate, and Yanthan left with no degree in hand. He hid into a government vehicle from Dimapur during the COVID-19 lockdown to return to his family’s farm estate, 112 kilometers (70 miles) from the state capital Kohima, where his father first started growing coffee in 2015.
He ended up spending seven months at the farm during lockdown and realised that coffee farmers didn’t know much about the quality of beans, which wasn’t surprising considering coffee is not a household beverage among Nagas and other ethnic communities in India’s northeast.
In 2021, Yanthan, the founder of Lithanro Coffee, the parent company of Juro, began conducting research on improving the quality of coffee and maintaining plantations. Once his own processing unit was set up, he began hosting other coffee farmers, offering them a manually brewed cup of their own produce.
Red beans from Lithanro Coffee [Photo by Lithanro Coffee]
Gradually, he built a relationship with 200 farmers from whom he sources beans today, besides the coffee grown on his farm.
In a state where private-sector employment has historically been elusive, Yanthan sees coffee as an opportunity for Naga’s youth to dream of economic prospects beyond government jobs. “Every village you go to, parents are working day and night in the farms to make his son or daughter get a government job”, Yanthan told Al Jazeera.
According to him, coffee could also be used as a means of bringing people together. “In this industry, it’s not only one person who can do this work, it has to be a community”, he said.
brewery success
So what changed in 2015? The state government’s decision to transfer responsibility for coffee development to Nagaland’s Land Resources Department (LRD) that year is widely praised by coffee buyers and roasters. The state department implements schemes sponsored by the federal government and the state government, including those promoting coffee.
Unlike in the past, when Nagaland, a region with poor physical connectivity with the rest of India, had no internet, coffee roasters, buyers, and farmers could now establish online relationships with other people. “]The] market was not like what it is today”, said Albert Ngullie, the director of the LRD.
In addition to funding farm maintenance, the LRD funds the construction of nurseries and provides free saplings to farmers. Unlike before, the government is also investing in the post-harvest process by supplying coffee pulpers to farmers, setting up washing stations and curing units in a few districts and recently, supporting entrepreneurs with roastery units.
Lichan Humtsoe is one of those who stand to gain. He set up his company Ete (which means “ours” in the Lotha Naga dialect) in 2016 after quitting his pen-pushing job in the LRD and was the first in the state to source, serve and supply Naga specialty coffee. Ete currently operates its own cafes, roasteries, and coffee lab, where it examines the chemical composition of local fruits in terms of flavor notes. Ete also has a coffee school in Nagaland (and a campus in the neighbouring state of Manipur) with a dedicated curriculum and training facilities to foster the next generation of coffee professionals.
Humtsoe claimed that Nagaland’s government and the private sector have worked together to promote coffee over the past ten years.
Nagaland’s growing coffee story also coincides with an overall increase in India’s exports of coffee beans.
India exported coffee for the first time in 2024, surpassing $1 billion in production, doubling from 2020 to 2021. While more than 70 percent of India’s coffee comes from the southern state of Karnataka, the Coffee Board has been trying to expand cultivation in the Northeast.
Given that Nagaland has relied almost entirely on federal funding for decades of unrest, creating a coffee culture there is no easy task. Growing up in the 1990s, when military operations against alleged armed groups were frequent and security forces would often barge into homes, day or night, Humtsoe wanted nothing to do with India.
He eventually stopped speaking Nagamese, a bridge dialect between the state’s 16 tribes and an Assamese creole. But he grew disillusioned with the political solution rooted in separatism that armed groups were seeking. The now 39-year-old was struck by the irony of the state’s dependence on New Delhi’s funds.
Coffee became his own path to self-determination.
“From 2016 onward, I was more of the question, “How can I inspire India?”
Ete coffee’s training school for farmers and brewers in Nagaland, India]Courtesy Ete Coffee]
The difficulty of quality
Ngullie of the LRD insists that the coffee revolution brewing in Nagaland is also helping the state preserve its forests.
He continued, “We don’t do land clearing,” implying in essence that coffee was assisting the state’s agriculture in moving away from the state’s traditional slash-and-burn practices to agroforestry.
The LRD buys seed varieties from the Coffee Board for farmers, and growers make more money than before.
A 40-year-old farmer named Limakumzak Walling recalled how his late father was one of the first to cultivate Arabica coffee on their ancestral property in Khar village in the Mokokchung district in 1981. “During my father’s time, they used to cultivate it, but people didn’t find the market”, he said. It was a “burden” rather than a “bonus”
Before the Nagaland government took charge of coffee development, the Coffee Board would buy produce from farmers and sell it to buyers or auction it in their headquarters in Bengaluru, Karnataka. However, according to Walling, the payments would be made in quarterly payments, sometimes even more. Since he took over the farm, and the state department became the nodal agency, payments are not only higher but paid upfront with buyers directly procuring from the farmers.
Profits aren’t that bad, though. Walling makes less than 200, 000 rupees per annum (roughly $2, 300) and like most farmers, is still engaged in jhum cultivation, the traditional slash-and-burn method of farming practised by Indigenous tribes in northeastern hills. In recent years, erratic weather patterns and declining soil fertility have contributed to increased land use in jhum cultivation, which has been linked to further environmental degradation and greenhouse gas emissions, which have both contributed to climate change.
“Trees are drying up and so is the mountain spring water”, Walling told Al Jazeera, pointing at the evergreen woods where spring leaves were already wilting in March, well before the formal arrival of summer. Because we fear spoiling our land, he continued, “Infestation is a major issue, and we don’t use even organic fertilisers.”
And though the state government has set up some washing stations and curing units, many more are needed for these facilities to be accessible to all farmers, said Walling, for them to sustain coffee as a viable crop and secure better prices. We are still unsure of the quality. We just harvest it”, he said.
The Coffee Board of India operations in Nagaland are led by liaison officer Dipanjali Kemprai, who told Al Jazeera that the organization encourages farmers to supplement their income by growing coffee alongside horticultural crops like black pepper. “But intercropping still hasn’t fully taken off”, said Kemprai.
Despite the state’s efforts to promote sustainable agriculture, recent satellite data suggests that shifting cultivation, or jhum, may be rising once more.
A Lithanro farmer collecting coffee beans in a plantation in Nagaland, India]Photo courtesy Lithanro Coffee]
The coffee industry’s future
Though it is the seventh-largest producer of coffee, India is far behind export-heavy countries like Brazil, Vietnam, Colombia and Italy.
Entrepreneurs tell a different story than the Nagaland government, who maintains that exports have been steadily increasing. Vivito Yeptho, who co-owns Nagaland Coffee and became the state’s first certified barista in 2018, said that their last export of 15 metric tonnes (MT) was in 2019, to South Africa.
There are still some accomplishments to be proud of.
In 2024, the state registered its highest-ever production at 48 MT, per state department officials. Of the 40 cafes in India, 12 are in the Northeast, according to Yogho, Nagaland Coffee alone provides them. And Naga coffee is already making waves internationally, winning silver at the Aurora International Taste Challenge in South Africa in 2022 and then gold in 2023.
We must produce at least 80-100 MT annually, according to Yeptho, according to Al Jazeera.
But before aiming for mass production, entrepreneurs said they still have a long way to go in improving the quality of beans and their post-harvest processing.
Yanthan’s Lithanro brand is the only state-to-cup institution with a washing machine and a curing room on his farm, where he grows both Arabica and Robusta varieties. He believes farmers need to focus on better maintenance of their plantations, to begin with.
According to Yanthan, “the attitude is that the plants don’t need to be cared for during the summers and the monsoon season (which starts in November)”. “But the trees need to be constantly pruned to keep them within a certain height, weeding has to be done and the stems need to be maintained as well”.
Their dreams are exploding despite these obstacles that have actually ground Naga farmers and business owners.
Humtsoe hopes for speciality coffee from Nagaland to soon be GI tagged, like varieties from Coorg, Chikmagalur, Araku Valley and Wayanad in southern India.
He stated that he wants Nagas to be associated with good Indian coffee, not just Nagaland.
Imane Khelif, the country’s Olympic boxing champion, must pass a genetic sex screening program in order to compete in upcoming competitions, according to the sport’s governing body, which mandated sex testing for all boxers during its competitions.
World Boxing made the new rules public on Friday, specifically mentioning Algerian Khelif, who won the women’s welterweight title at the Paris 2012 competition last year and sparked a gender-eligibility row.
According to a statement from the organization, Imane Khelif is prohibited from competing in the female category at any World Boxing event without the consent of the organization when Imane Khelif goes through a genetic sex screening in accordance with World Boxing’s rules and testing procedures.
Imane Khelif won’t be permitted to compete in the female category at the Eindhoven Box Cup or any other World Boxing competitions until she passes sex testing, according to a letter from World Boxing to the Algerian Boxing Federation.
After receiving provisional recognition from the International Olympic Committee, World Boxing is in charge of organizing fights for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
Under the new rules, all athletes who want to compete in a World Boxing-owned or sanctioned competition must pass a PCR or polymerase chain reaction genetic test to determine their sex at birth and eligibility to compete.
The Y chromosome, an indicator of biological sex, is revealed through the PCR test, a laboratory method that uses a particular genetic material, in this case the SRY gene.
A sample of saliva or blood can be taken as part of the test, as well as a nasal or mouth swab.
National federations will be responsible for testing and will be required to produce confirmation of their athletes’ chromosomal sex when submitting them to world boxing competitions, as determined by a PCR test.
Khelif and the Algerian Boxing Federation did not immediately respond to inquiries about the development, according to a Reuters news agency.
In March, Khelif said, “I see myself as a girl, just like any other girl.” I was born and raised a girl, and I have lived and lived in that way all my life.
She said at the time, “I have competed in numerous tournaments, including the Tokyo Olympics and other major competitions, as well as four World Championships.”
“All of these occurred before I began to win and win titles.” However, the attacks against me started once I started achieving success.
After winning in Paris, the 26-year-old is hoping to win a second gold medal at the Los Angeles 2028 Games.
A raging gender eligibility debate involving prominent figures like US President Donald Trump and Elon Musk erupted in Paris following her Olympic success and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting’s success.
Trump signed an executive order in February that forbids transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports.
The disaster agency in Indonesia’s West Java province claims search efforts are ongoing to find missing people buried beneath the rubble. At least 10 people have been killed since a stone quarry collapsed.
At the mining site at Cirebon, West Java, early on Friday, the collapse occurred. Excavators moving large rocks, and emergency workers transporting victims to ambulances with body bags are visible from the scene of the accident.
Rescuers reportedly struggled to remove a body from the devastated area in video that was available online. Another example showed people fleeing their homes as thick dust piled up from an overgrown rock and soil pile.
At least 10 people have been killed, according to Indonesia’s National Agency for Disaster Countermeasure (BNPB), but no number have been released as of yet. According to the statement, rescue operations would continue throughout Saturday and include the burial of three heavy machinery, including three excavators.
According to Cirebon district police chief Sumarni, who uses a single name, a dozen injured people have already been extracted from the debris during a grueling search operation.
Sumarni claimed that the owner and quarry workers have been called in for questioning, adding that authorities are looking into the cause of the collapse. He claimed that five excavators, along with police, firefighters, soldiers, and volunteers are attempting to locate any additional workers who have been trapped. He continued, “Rescue efforts are being hampered by unstable soil, which could lead to further slides.”
West Java governor Dedi Mulyadi claimed the site “very dangerous” and did not “meet safety standards for workers” on his Instagram account. The governor continued, noting that he “had no capacity to stop it,” because the mine had been opened prior to his election.
Mulyadi announced that he would close the Gunung Kuda mine and four other locations in West Java that are deemed to be hazardous to people’s health and the environment.
Illegal mining operations are prevalent throughout Indonesia, giving low-wage workers a precarious livelihood while also exposing them to serious injuries and fatalities as a result of landslides, flooding, and tunnel collapses. Employers use highly toxic materials like mercury and cyanide without much or no protection for a large portion of the processing of sand, rock, or gold ore.
At least six people were killed in a landslide and floods near a small mine run by local residents in Indonesia’s West Papua province in May when a torrential rain in the Arfak Mountains triggered a landslide and floods.
At least 15 people were killed when a torrential rain-related landslide struck an unlicensed gold mining operation on Indonesia’s Sumatra island last year, causing at least 15 casualties.
Prior to his decision to cut a deal earlier this month, US President Donald Trump claimed China was in “grave economic danger” and that it was breaking with it. He also claimed China was in “grave economic danger.”
Trump claimed in a statement on his Truth Social platform on Friday evening that he had reached a “fast deal” with China to renounce triple-digit tariffs for 90 days in order to “save” Beijing from a “very bad situation.”
The US leader claimed that the country’s closed factories and “civil unrest” were the result of his tariffs of up to 145 percent on Chinese imports, making it “virtually impossible” for China to trade with the US market.
“China has completely violated its agreement with us, which may surprise some people.” Thank you for being “Mr. NICE GUY”! Trump even flinched.
Trump did not specify in his post how China had violated the deal, which was reached following trade talks in Geneva, Switzerland, in mid-May, or what steps he would take to address their alleged failure to do so.
Trump responded to reporters’ questions about the China deal later on Friday in the Oval Office by saying, “I’m sure I’ll speak to [China’s] President Xi]Jinping], and hopefully we’ll work that out.”
Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff, stated to reporters that China’s failure to “accomplish its obligations opens up all avenues for the United States to ensure future compliance.”
Miller continued, adding that Trump hoped that China would “open up to American business” in a manner similar to how the US has done it for “a very long time now.”
Beijing and its US counterparts have communicated since the Geneva talks, according to China’s embassy in Washington, but they expressed concern about recently implemented US export controls.
According to Liu Pengyu, embassy spokesperson, “China has repeatedly expressed concerns with the US regarding its abuse of export control measures in the semiconductor sector and other related practices.”
China reiterated its support for the US to immediately correct its error, end discriminatory measures against China, and support the global consensus reached at the Geneva summit, Liu added.
broken promises
The Trump administration, according to earlier reports, had earlier ordered US companies that sell their services to Chinese companies.
The US Department of Commerce confirmed on Wednesday that it was reviewing exports of strategic significance to China and that it had “in some cases… suspended existing export licences or imposed additional licence requirements while the review is pending.”
President Trump also announced plans to raise steel import tariffs from 25% to 50% on June 4 after lamenting China’s inability to follow the Geneva agreement.
The timing of the deal, which effectively reduced US tariffs to the mid-teens from about 25% in early April, sparked a significant increase in global stocks two weeks prior.
China also agreed to end trade restrictions that prevent US semiconductor, electronics, and defense industries from producing critical metals as part of the deal.
However, Trump administration officials have publicly stated that China has yet to fulfill its obligations under the Geneva treaty.
Global auto executives are raising the alarm over a looming shortage of rare-earth magnets from China, which could cause car factories to shut down in the coming weeks, according to a report from the Reuters news agency on Friday.
The United States Mission’ head, Michael Hammer, is the subject of a statement of protest from Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Hammer, a career diplomat, was accused of “unfriendly and meddling behavior” since arriving in Cuba in late 2024 by the Foreign Ministry in a press release released on Friday.
The Foreign Ministry wrote that the diplomat is engaging in provocative and irresponsible behavior by inciting Cuban citizens to commit egregious criminal offenses, attacking the constitutional order, or encouraging them to defy the authorities or demonstrate their support for a hostile foreign power’s interests and objectives.
The immunity he enjoys as a representative of his nation cannot be used as a shield against acts that defy the country’s sovereignty and internal order, as in this case, Cuba.
Alejandro Garcia del Toro, the Foreign Ministry’s director of bilateral affairs with the US, delivered the message, according to the ministry.
The statement released on Friday is just the latest sign of Cuba’s and US relations getting more tense, especially since President Donald Trump resigned from office in January.
tensions-related history
However, diplomatic ties between the two nations have been shaky for decades, dating back to the 1960s Cold War. The US government supported efforts to overthrow the newly established Communist government following the Cuban Revolution of 1959 and imposed stringent trade restrictions on the island.
However, efforts have been made to lessen the tensions, most notably during Obama and Joe Biden’s US administrations.
For instance, Obama attempted to normalize relations with Cuba in 2016, but those efforts were resisted during the first Trump administration, which started in 2017.
In the waning months of his term in January, President Biden removed Cuba from the list of “state sponsors of terrorism.”
Trump, however, reversed course on January 20 and placed Cuba back on the list that same day when he took office for a second time on January 20.
Trump’s presidential team also included former US Secretary of State Marco Rubio among other figures who have taken a harsh stance against Cuba. Rubio, who was born in Cuba, has a strong stance in favor of the island’s continued trade embargo.
Meanwhile, the Cuban government has continued to accuse the US of trying to destabilize its leadership.
Hammer’s recent visit to Jose Marti’s tomb was accused of “public and insulting manipulation,” according to the Cuban Foreign Ministry’s statement on Friday.
In a voiceover of Marti’s words, “Respect for the freedom and thoughts of others, even of the most unhappy kind, is my passion: If I die or am killed, it will be for that. That citation, according to critics, is meant as an implied support of island dissention.
Increasing pressure
In a return to the “maximum pressure” campaigns that characterized foreign policy during his first term, there have also been indications that Trump intends to tighten the screws on the Cuban government once more in recent months.
For instance, the Trump administration announced in February that it would yank visas from anyone who works for Cuba’s medical system, which sends thousands of healthcare workers abroad annually, especially in the Caribbean.
The healthcare program has received criticism for its high salaries and stringent employee restrictions. Meanwhile, Trump and Rubio have asserted that the Cuban government is benefiting from the medical system as a form of “forced labor.” However, Havana’s leaders refute that claim.
The US government then criticized Cuba for bringing back a group of dissidents, including famous people like Felix Navarro and Jose Daniel Ferrer, in April.
In a deal brokered by the Vatican earlier this year, Cuba had initially agreed to let Ferrer and Navarro go.
Cuba was supposed to release 553 of its prisoners, many of whom had been ensnared in anti-government demonstrations, and the US was supposed to ease its sanctions against the island in exchange. However, the relief from the sanctions was never implemented.
This month only, a further measure was implemented against Cuba. Under Rubio’s direction, the US Department of State determined that “Cuba did not fully cooperate with US counterterrorism efforts in 2024.” It claimed that Cuba was home to 11 fugitives, some of whom were facing US terrorism-related charges.
In a press release, the State Department stated that “the Cuban regime made clear that it was not willing to discuss their return to face justice in our country.” The United States will continue to support international cooperation on counterterrorism issues. We also continue to advocate for international organizations that “do not stand up for terrorism.”
Under the Arms Export Control Act, which restates Cuba’s ability to purchase weapons and other defense equipment from the US, Cuba was punished by being labeled as a “not fully cooperating country.”
Additionally, Hammer had just announced that the island would face additional sanctions.
![Lithanro's red coffee beans [Photo courtesy Lithanro]](https://i0.wp.com/www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/RINYU_050-1748607538.jpg?w=696&ssl=1)
![Ete Coffee's training school for farmers and brewers in Nagaland, India [Courtesy Ete Coffee]](https://i0.wp.com/www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/WhatsApp-Image-2025-03-28-at-8.12.55-AM-1747991614.jpeg?w=696&ssl=1)
![A Lithanro farmer collecting coffee beans in a plantation in Nagaland, India]Photo courtesy Lithanro Coffee]](https://i0.wp.com/www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/RINYU_071-1748607770.jpg?w=696&ssl=1)
