February 16, 2013 - Two campesinos were murdered in the past few hours today in the Aguan Valley in Honduras. There is an action request for Spanish speakers to call the Tocoa Police Station (011-504) 2444-3105, 3106, 3107. Tell the police that you are from an international human rights group aware of the assassinations and demand a full investigation of the murders.
At 6:30 this evening Jose Trejo Cabrera, 55, was assassinated in Tocoa in the neighborhood of San Isidro which is also the name of the cooperative to which he belonged. Jose was a member of the campesino organization MARCA and the brother of Antonio Trejo Cabrera, the lawyer representing MARCA against the most powerful land owner in Honduras, Miguel Facussé. Antonio was assassinated in Tegucigalpa on September 22, 2012. Before his death he publicly stated that if anything should happen to him, Miguel Facussé should be held responsible.
Earlier in the afternoon today, Santos Jacobo Caregena, 45, from the San Esteban cooperative of the organization MUCA, was shot to death while waiting for a bus at the entrance to the cooperative La Confianza and the road to Tocoa. Numerous members of MUCA and other campesino organizations have been murdered at that location.
This violence occurs on the eve of an official visit by the United Nations' working group on the use of mercenaries and their impact on human rights and the the right of peoples to self-determination.
In the Aguan Valley since the 2009 coup at least 90 people have been murdered, nearly all of the victims have been campesinos or their supporters and in a large number of the cases, witnesses have identified private paramilitary guards in the employ of the big landowners as the perpetrators. In many other cases, "unidentified gunmen" were witnessed committing the murders.
ADDITIONAL ACTIONS FOR ENGLISH AND SPANISH SPEAKERS:
Send an email to President Porfirio Lobo Sosa at diseloalpresident@presidencia.gob.hn and to Ana Pineda, Minister of Justice and Human Rights at contact@sjdh.gob.hn in English or Spanish, mention the names of the two men murdered today and demand an end to the violence against campesinos and their supports and an investigation of the murders that includes both the gunmen and those who hire them.
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