Another campesino assasinated in Aguán

Miguel Alonso Oliva, MUCA member, assassinated

Women and children from the MUCA movement

Today at 6:00 am the young Miguel Alonso Oliva, 22, was killed with a firearm by a security guard of the oil palm plantations in the Aguán Valley, when a peasant group from the Unified Peasant Movement of Aguán (MUCA) was taking over land in the Boleros farm held by René Morales.

At this moment the peasant population in the Aguán Valley is living under extreme tension caused by the mobilization of military, police, and security guards hired by businessmen involved in the land dispute with the MUCA.

According to information obtained so far, farmers fear that the mobilization of military, police, and heavily armed guards plans to evict people from the land on the left bank of the Aguan River. The threatened settlements include: Suyapa del Aguán, Guanchías, Buenos Amigos, Remolino, Despertar, Trinidad, San Esteban, Quebrada Honda, Paso Aguán, El Plantel, Islas 1 and 2, Marañones, and Bolero (April 25).

We request the presence of the Human Rights Prosecutor to investigate recent events and take the appropriate legal measures to punish the guilty, while at the same time, to monitor armed movements in the region to avoid further violations.

FIAN Honduras calls on the international community and human rights organizations to denounce this criminal act and others that have come about because of the land dispute, and that president Porfirio Lobo´s regime subordinates law enforcement agencies to the law of the nation and not to the will of the businessmen in that region.

SOURCE: FIAN