Guadalupe Carnay Community Faces Siege by Honduran Security Forces for Participation in Protests Defending Healthcare and Educaiton against the U.S.-backed Dictatorship

Condemnation and Solidarity in the face of Human Rights Violations

 

The Municipal Committee in Defense of the Common Public Good in Tocoa, given what has happened in the community of Guadalupe Carney, declares:

That today, June 1st, the community of Guadalupe Carney has suffered the gravest of abuses and violations of the rights granted by the constitution of the republic and international law, solely due to the struggle for the human right to healthcare and public education. It is under a siege that even includes helicopters flying over the community.

As a social movement we united with the public denunciation by many solidarity organizations in holding the security forces of the police and military responsible for having entered the community launching teargas on girls, boys, youth, women and elderly people.

We demand justice for 24 year old Jairo Leonel Hernández Ramirez, 19 year old Nerlin Ignacio Hernández Hernández, 58 year old Ezequiel Urrea and minors 15 year old Jorge Soto Portillo and 8 year old William Aron Ruiz Sánchez, all of whom are victims of the regime of Juan Orlando and the police and military forces assigned to the Aguan region.

We denounce the direct persecution by these repressive bodies of the State against peasant leader Adolfo Cruz who, along with his family and neighbors was victimized by teargas launched directly into his house as a clear message of intimidation and aggression, with his family placed at risk by the Honduran state.

We also denounce the attack on human rights defender Obed Ulloa, who had all of the equipment he need to carry out his work as a human rights defender taken by the police. According to the human rights defender about 9 people have been wounded by the police during the community's protests in defense of healthcare and education.

We remind the Honduran state that the community of Guadalupe Carney has been a beneficiary of collective protective measures since the year 2003 and that the public protest it has been engaged in along with the teachers and medical associations in the area is a constitutional right that all communities and people have when fundamental rights like the right to healthcare and education are under attack.

We encourage the rural communities, the teachers unions, the doctors and nurses, the students, the mothers and fathers, the communities fighting for water and the environment and to protect their territory and all social movement organizations to stay firm in the struggle. The truth and human rights are on the side of the people.

We alert the human rights defense organizations nationally and internationally to stay tuned to what is happening in this region of the country and especially to what is happening in the community of Guadalupe Carney.

Tocoa, Colón, June 1st, 2019

Tocoa Municipal Committee in Defense of the Public Common Good

Call to Solidarity - One Year Later - Un Año Despues

Statement by the Honduras Solidarity Network November 28, 2018

Un año después - Un llamado a la  solidaridad.

El régimen hondureño usa la violencia contra su gente; Estados Unidos usa la violencia contra los refugiados que huyen de Honduras.

English follows the Spanish

El lunes 26 de noviembre de 2018, las autoridades hondureñas dispararon enormes cantidades de gases lacrimógenos y dispararon balas vivas en contra de una gran marcha de protesta en Tegucigalpa para conmemorar el primer aniversario del fraude electoral de noviembre de 2017. Al menos 3 personas resultaron heridas, una de ellas, Geovanni Sierra, trabajaba como reportero para UNE-TV cuando recibió un disparo. Esto sucedió un día después de que la Patrulla Fronteriza de los Estados Unidos disparara balas de goma y grandes cantidades de gas lacrimógeno -a través de la frontera hacia México- a la Caravana de Refugiados, la mayoría huyendo de Honduras, a quienes se les está impidiendo ingresar a los Estados Unidos. Sólo 2 días antes de este incidente, el hermano del presidente de hondureño de facto, Juan Orlando Hernández, fue arrestado en el aeropuerto de Miami por ser integrante del crimen organizado, con vínculos con el narcotráfico, en Honduras. Estos tres incidentes en 4 días son únicamente la punta del iceberg de la crisis de las políticas estadounidenses en Honduras y de un régimen dictatorial, con en su violencia y corrupción.

El 26 de noviembre de 2017, Honduras acudió a las urnas en una elección en la que se enfrentaron la derecha con el Partido Nacional y el presidente JOH a la cabeza (quien se postuló para la reelección de manera inconstitucional), y Alianza, una coalición entre el anti-golpista/resistente Partido LIBRE y miembros del Partido Anticorrupción. Estas elecciones, en vez de permitir a Honduras tomar un nuevo camino para restaurar la democracia y hacer que el país sea habitable para el pueblo, un flagrante fraude electoral, una nueva ola de represión, y la continua impunidad y corrupción sumieron al país en una crisis aún más profunda.

La crisis que comenzó con el golpe de estado de 2009 respaldado por los Estados Unidos, seguida de las elecciones de 2017 -también respaldadas por los Estados Unidos-, es más profunda y más amplia que nunca. Es esta crisis la que está expulsando a miles de hondureños de su país.

Mientras el pueblo hondureño continúa organizándose, nosotros respondemos con un llamado a la solidaridad para apoyar al pueblo que lucha por el cambio en Honduras y al pueblo que lucha por sobrevivir en el éxodo de refugiados.

Exigimos que los Estados Unidos y Canadá detengan todo apoyo al régimen hondureño. Apoyamos las demandas de libertad para todos los presos políticos y de justicia para todas las víctimas del régimen hechas por el pueblo Hondureño. Exigimos que los Estados Unidos detengan la represión contra los refugiados, que abra las fronteras a quienes están siendo expulsados de sus países, y que ponga fin a la militarización de la frontera y a la violencia contra todos los migrantes y refugiados.

28 de Noviembre 2018

Honduras Solidarity Network of North America

One year later - A Call to Solidarity 

Honduran regime uses violence against its people - US uses violence against refugees fleeing Honduras.

On Monday, November 26, 2018, Honduran authorities fired massive amounts of tear gas and opened fire with live bullets on a large protest march in Tegucigalpa to mark the one year anniversary of the November 2017 election fraud. At least 3 people were wounded, one of them, Geovanni Sierra, was working as a reporter for UNE-TV when he was shot. This happened one day after the US Border Patrol shot rubber bullets and quantities of tear gas across the border into Mexico at the refugees, most fleeing from Honduras, who are being held back from entering the US. Only 2 days before that incident the brother of the defacto president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez was arrested at the Miami Airport for being part of the narcotics trafficking organized crime in Honduras. These three incidents in 4 days, are just the tip of the iceberg of the crisis of US policy, and a dictatorial regime and its violence and corruption. 

On November 26, 2017, Honduras went to the polls in an election that was a face off between the right wing National Party sitting president JOH (who ran for reelection unconstitutionally) and the Alianza, an alliance between the anti-coup/resistance Party LIBRE and members of the Anti-Corruption Party. But, instead of the election allowing Honduras to take a new path to restore democracy and make the country livable for the people, blatant election fraud,  a new wave of repression and continuing impunity and corruption plunged the country even deeper into crisis.

That crisis began with the US backed 2009 coup, and after the 2017 election (also supported by the US), it is deeper and broader than ever before. It is this crisis that is pushing thousands of Hondurans out of their country. 

As the Honduran people continue organizing, we respond with a call for solidarity to support the people fighting for change in Honduras and to support the people fighting for survival in the refugee exodus. 

We demand that the US and Canada stop all support for the Honduran regime. We support the Honduran people’s demand for freedom for all the political prisoners and for justice for all the victims of the regime. We demand that the US stop the repression against the refugees, open the borders to those being pushed out of their countries and end the militarization of the border and violence against all migrants and refugees. 

November 28, 2018

Honduras Solidarity Network of North America

Berta Se Multiplicó - COPINH Resists:La Voz Delegation Report

ggjalliance.org

V. Cervantes July 26, 2016, Chicago
Unless otherwise credited, photos are from La Voz de los de Abajo

On July 25, some people might have been surprised outside the Democratic Party’s National Convention in Philadelphia to see protesters wearing masks made from  a photo of assassinated Honduran indigenous leader Berta Caceres and a giant puppet of Berta as well marching through the streets.   

Nas lutas@PersonalEscrito

One of Berta’s daughters, Laura Yolanda Zuniga, was there too representing  Berta’s organization COPINH and her family as part of the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance actions.  The protesters had a specific complaint related to COPINH and Honduras, denouncing the fact that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has admitted to working hard to extend and institutionalize the June 2009 coup d’etat in Honduras and the fact that the Obama administration in general continues to support and supply funds to the latest version of the coup government, President Juan Orlando Hernandez — despite a very long list of human rights violations, state violence, and corruption allegations tied to Hernandez's government and political party. At the same time, it isn’t really a surprise to find COPINH participating  in protests that include support for migrant’s rights, against police murders of black and latinos in the US, the TPP, environmental justice and more. Since its beginnings COPINH has had an international vision. 

In late June of this year La Voz de los de Abajo sent a small fact finding and accompaniment mission to Honduras. One of our priorities was to show support for and to talk to with COPINH in the aftermath of the assassination of its co-founder and long-time general coordinator, Berta Caceres.  On June 26 ^th we started out for La Esperanza, Intibuca to visit COPINH and to pay our respects to Berta Caceres’ family.  Leaving from Marcala, La Paz, where we had visited campesinos from the CNTC,  we were already in the area in which the Lenca indigenous people’s communities and descendants are a majority. The indigenous word Lenca means something like “a place of many waters” in English and it is a land of rivers flowing down from breathtaking mountains
 covered in Honduran pine mixed with flowering plants and cultivations of coffee and small land holdings of corn and beans.  At the time of the Spanish conquest the Lenca were one of the larger groups of indigenous people in the region and were  concentrated in the Southwestern region of Guaymara - eventually renamed Honduras by the Spanish. Their resistance to the conquest, led by their most important leader Lempira,  is celebrated like that of Cuahtemoc in Mexico.

hondurastierralibre.com

Lempira was killed during the final Lencan  uprising of 1537-1538. After the conquest, tens or even hundreds of thousands were eliminated by violence, slavery, and disease.  This history does not feel so distant given both the ongoing violent attacks on the communities and their tenacious resistance in the region today in defense of the waters of the rivers that are threatened by hydroelectric projects involving international and national companies, land grabbing by the regional and national oligarchy, and the murders of the defenders themselves such as the March 2, 2016 murder of Berta Caceres. Just a few days after we left Marcala itself would be the site of the murder of another environmental community activist associated with COPINH. Lesbia Yaneth Urquía was murdered and her body found in a trash dump on July 7^th. Five members or supporters of COPINH have been murdered since 2013 when the struggle against the Agua Zarca hydroelectric project intensified (Justo Soto, Nelson Garcia, Tomas Garcia, Berta Caceres, Lesbia Yaneth Urquía) 

After a few hours in a bus bumping down a dirt highway we arrived in La Esperanza where a municipal festival of “Mushrooms and Wine” was underway in the small plaza in front of the cathedral. As is usual, the Honduran local and national authorities claim as their own the legacy of Lempira. Honduran currency bears his name and there is a lot of advertising  of “eco-tourism on the Lencan Trail”, but the real spirit of rebellion is also present. In  La Esperanza there are murals and graffiti throughout the small city celebrating and mourning  Berta’s life and death and denouncing the Honduran state and police.   

Graffitti on muncipal building
"JOH Assassin"

Berta’s mother, Doña Austra Bertha Flores, lives in the family home not far from the old colonial center area of La Esperanza. There is now a National Police presence in front of the house to fulfill the obligation of the Honduran government to protect Berta Caceres and her family who are in receipt of an order for protective measures from the Inter-American Human Rights Commission. Of course everyone recognizes the irony of government protection when so many believe that the Honduran government is involved in the violence.

In Berta's case it wasn't until July 8, 2016 that the Honduran government finally conceded publicly that it had not provided the required protection to Berta prior to her assassination. At the family home, the on-duty policeman got out of his car and looked us over as Doña Austra Bertha Flores (Mama Berta) came out of the house to greet us and again when we left the house.  She is an articulate, strong woman who has her own history of activism and service to the communities, having been a midwife for many years, as well as a mayor and a governor, known for having a position in defense of the Lenca communities and the poor in Honduras. She showed us the small altar dedicated  to Berta in the house and spoke sadly, but proudly of her daughter. She spoke firmly and with determination outlined the continued demands of the Flores/Caceres family for an independent international based investigation of the assassination, and an end to the Agua Zarca hydroelectric project.

Mama Bertha with
La Voz members

Mama Bertha also strongly denounced the fact that the government and its investigators have never shared information or included the family in the investigation and strongly reiterated the family’s position that the investigation will not be complete, even if the gunmen and most proximal guilty are jailed, until all the intellectual authors of the crime are identified and brought to justice as well. 

At the time we were in Honduras the introduction of the Berta Caceres Human Rights Act in the U.S. Congress on June 14^th was reverberating in the Honduran media, augmented by a June 21^st Guardian article  exposing  the fact that Honduran military special units circulated an order to assassinate a  “kill list” of activists including Berta Caceres before her death. To date, three of the four men arrested for Berta’s murder are military - one an active duty officer in the Armed Forces, although the government has denied that there is or was a hit list. The Berta Caceres Act would cut off US security aid to the national police and military, and require a "No" vote on multilateral developmental loans until the government of Honduras meets a series of conditions for investigating and ending human rights crimes. Doña Austra Bertha expressed her strong support for this proposal and her personal thanks to the members of Congress and solidarity activists pushing the Act forward. 

COPINH was founded in 1993 and consolidated its program based on indigenous values and a radical vision of the future in 1995.  From the beginning COPINH emphasized both local community organizing and the importance of a strong, diverse mass movement to fundamentally change Honduras. It has also always been internationalist, seeking and offering solidarity with struggles around the world. In Honduras COPINH is centered in  organized community base organizations in the Lenca region (at least 200 exist now) with a program for autonomy, against racism, against patriarchy, for gender diversity including LGBTI people and for  sustainability and life opposed to the death and destruction of the present. capitalist and imperialist system. 

Mural at Utopía 

COPINH has made their ideas concrete with the construction of an organizational center and meeting space called Utopía just outside of La Esperanza; a women’s refuge, and their office and radio stations. The La Voz de los de Abajo group arrived at Utopía later in the afternoon of June 26^th.  We spoke with Tina, a COPINH member who is one of the people who keeps Utopía up and running on a daily basis and later with a leader from the Rio Blanco community along with a member of COPINH’s coordinating committee, Asunción, and COPINH’s communication coordinator Gaspar Sanchez.

La Voz members at Utopía

They had all only recently returned from  traveling outside the country to present COPINH’s case on Berta’s assassination to solidarity organizations and legal entities in Europe and Costa Rica.  Utopía  has meeting halls, dormitories, a kitchen, — decorated with beautiful murals and slogans that reflect Lencan culture and the people’s struggles. It includes land that has been planted with corn and beans and a few head of cattle graze around the building. A larger meeting shelter outside the main building is under construction because the meeting halls inside are not large enough for the people’s assemblies. COPINH uses popular assemblies as the key part of their decision making process. The next morning when the General Coordinator Tomas Gomez Membreño arrived he explained that COPINH has the vision of making Utopía a more sustainable collective agricultural project as well as a center for training and gatherings. 

Tomas also had just returned to Honduras from a speaking tour in the United States, including Chicago and Washington DC. The next day as he showed us more COPINH projects including the women’s refuge, main office and one of the radio stations. While he drove us he talked some about the history of racism in the region. La Esperanza is really a dual city which includes La Esperanza and the city of Intíbuca. According to some histories these cities originally corresponded with closely related Mayan and Lenca communities that were, along with the entire region, seized by the Spanish crown. During the 19^th Century the area slowly drew in more businesses and ranchers from outside the Lenca area and from Guatemala and El Salvador this new elite founded La Esperanza. Meanwhile, as Tomas explained, The city of Intíbuca remained more indigenous and poorer, with its residents discriminated against to the present day. These kinds of conditions greatly influenced the founding of COPINH and its principles of autonomy.

Lilian

At the women’s shelter we met with another long time leader in COPINH, Lillian, who explained the importance of COPINH’s feminism and anti-patriarchal stance not being in words only but also in action.
The women’s shelter is an impressive apartment complex with around 8 complete apartments (each with its own kitchen and bathroom) as well as a communal kitchen and meeting rooms. Women fleeing domestic violence or other difficult situations can find not only shelter but also emotional support. Lilian told us that COPINH organizes women’s encounters (in which men are asked to do all the cooking and childcare so that women can fully participate). Their plan for the center, for which they are looking for solidarity funding, include to have full-time healthcare staff for psychological and physical health, educational projects and more. 

"No Patriarchy"
"My body is my territory"

When we got to COPINH’s office and the site of one of their radios (Radio Guarajambala)  we found La Abuelita (the Grandmother) Doña Pascualita on the air, with another compañera,  talking about women’s contributions to their communities and to the organization COPINH. We were invited to say a few words about our organization, the solidarity movement and other things going on in the US.

La Abuela Pascualita on the air

 Later Gaspar interviewed La Voz member Jenine, who is active in the Palestinian community in Chicago, about the Palestinian struggle. She took the opportunity to denounce the members of the Honduran oligarchy of Palestinian descent probably 5 of the 8-10 oligarchic families, including the Atala family who are involved in the Agua Zarca project and the Faccusse family that is the largest landowning family and dominates the Aguan Valley. She called them out as not representing the Palestinian people who understand very well the role of elites who betray the people.

Gaspar Sanchez interviews Jenine
with interpreter

Since the death of Berta, COPINH leaders as well as her daughters Berta, Olivia Marcela and Laura Yolanda have been non-stop traveling across Honduras but also internationally, advocating for pressure on the Honduran government to allow an internationally based investigation of the assassination and to end the Agua Zarca project.  One of the focuses of COPINH is on how to deal with the Honduran government's refusal to allow the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to head up an independent investigation of the assassination. This has been one of the key demands of the family and of COPINH since the assassination. Berta’s death and the demands of seeking justice for her and defending COPINH from the blatant attempts to destroy it as an organization, have taken a toll on the organization and its leaders but they made it clear that they are strong and united as an organization, unblinking in the face of the attacks and dedicated to the vision of COPINH. Berta Caceres was murdered but that murder spread her spirit and as the slogan goes — “she didn’t die, she multiplied”.

Mural in Utopía

Progreso - Fighting Against Privatization and Repression

La Voz de los de Abajo has a fact finding and accompaniment commission traveling in Honduras this week.  We arrived Wednesday and driving from the San Pedro Sula Airport to Progreso we stopped to accompany the ongoing protests against the construction of a new toll road on the highway between these two important cities in the North at the invitation of some of the activists in this movement.   Recent protests on June 4, 8 and 11 have been repressed violently with tear gas, police beating participants and journalists and the detention of protesters who have set tires on fire to help block the road.  Wednesday the number of protesters was much smaller but they still blocked the highway, facing off against at least 50 armed National Police and Cobra riot police without any violence.  Organizations supporting the protests include the CNTC Progreso, ERIC-SJ, teacher activists, LIBRE, student groups and poor peoples organizations working together in the Mesas de Indignación.  The Chamber of Commerce of Progreso is joining in now;  they called for a civic strike Thursday the 23rd  of the small business owners and Progreso's population with a public assembly to discuss and debate what to do. More than 100 small and medium businesses supported the civic action.

Since taking power in January 2014 President Juan Orlando Hernandez has intensified the campaign of privatization of public goods and the cutting of services to the people. One of these campaigns is for the privatization of the major highways through the construction of toll roads. These toll road schemes bring in revenue for the private/public partnerships (Coalianza near Tegucigalpa and DASA in the North) that build and manage them through the contracts awarded to companies and the collection of the tolls themselves.  They cause immense hardship for the population and are widely hated and protested.  The cost of a toll is around $1 for a regular private car and approximately $10 for a large truck. At the same time the alternative roads are being blocked with drainage ditches and other construction. Toll roads have been completed on the highways in and out of Tegucigalpa and between San Pedro Sula and Choluma, and more are planned on the highways in and out of Progreso. There have been many protests blocking the road and refusing to pay the tolls but now people have decided to protest to prevent the construction of new tolls.

Padre Melo on the air Radio Progreso

Radio Progreso ERIC-SJ and the Teachers movement represented

LIBRE congressman Bartolo Fuentes, City council woman Araminta Pereira

One of the organizations working to build this rebellion against privatization of the roadways in Radio Progreso, and ERIC-SJ. We visited Padre Melo during his nightly show, America Libre. He was receiving calls from the public dennouncing the tolls and he called on the social movement organizations and resistance movement to make it a national movement. He believes that it is urgent for the popular movements to strengthen these broader civic protests so that they are less vulnerable to manipulation by the government.

Celebrations and Evictions: Honduran Reality

October 6, 2015

article and photos of the community,  V. Cervantes

In honor of the International Monetary Fund congratulating the Honduran government on its economic successes (La Prensa October 6) and Honduras Armed Forces Day on October 3rd, today we visited the community of Regalo de Dios (Gift from God) in Villanueva, Cortes, between Progreso and San Pedro Sula.

 The Regalo de Dios community was evicted from its land on September 23, 2015 by police and military who killed a 16 year old boy during the violent attack against the settlement.

The community had lived on the land for more than 7 years, constructing houses of cinderblock as well as wood, a church, and other buildings. 70 families live there and there were 20 houses under construction at the time of the eviction which started at 6 am on the morning of the 23rd when

police and military under the command of the Commissioner of the National Police in San Pedro Sula arrived. Members of the community told us that at least 32 troops came in and went house by house, beating and shoving around men, women and children while forcing them out of their homes. The people were yelling at the police and soldiers while moving and the police began firing tear gas. At some point many more troops arrived.  Residents from the surrounding neighborhoods began arriving to support the people in Regalo de Dios and the police fired more gas and then began firing live ammunition. 

Tear gas blanketed the area not only of Regalo de Dios but the entire area, made of numerous settlements on both sides of the highway. There was so much gas that it was heavy even at a school in session at least the distance of 3 football fields away from Regalo de Dios. One of the women told us that she and a boy ran from her home and took refuge in another building a little further away from the police but that the gas was so asphyxiating that they felt like they might die, and had to run further away. A nine month old baby was severely affected and had to be rushed to the hospital. The men we talked to told us that not only were the police and soldiers using incredible quantities of gas but they also were firing the canisters directly at the people, not up in the air, so that many people were injured by the canisters. 

The 16 year old boy, Fernando Castro was not even in Regalo de Dios but was with others who either fled or had come from other communities and were outside the land when he was fatally wounded by the gunfire from the police and army. 

The authorities finished by bringing in bulldozers and destroying the homes and community church. (Video  from Facebook via Orlin Martinez Almendares. 

The community leaders told us that this land was originally part of the Tela Company property (the US corporation that became part of Standard Fruit and owned most of the northern coast of Honduras for much of the 20th century. When the Company left it gave the land over to the Honduran government, thus making it eligible for distribution to people for agrarian reform. The landowner claiming the land is Alejandrina Elan Maldonado, the widow of Carlos Israel Martinez — the community leaders say that neither Carlos nor Alejandrina legitimately have title. One man told us that,  “it always happens that the State and all its forces just favor the rich and not poor people like us”. 

Meanwhile the IMF conducted its second review of the Honduran government’s economic program and approved the structural reforms and policies for economic development, predicting that the Honduran economy will grow 3.6% in 2016. Roberto Garcia Saltos, head of the IMF mission to Honduras this month said that, “We congratulate the Honduran government on its macroeconomic success….The mission is pleased to by the positive results achieved thanks to the appropriate political and economic decisions made in the past 22 months.”

These decisions include support for “charter or model” cities, destruction of the public health system and violent evictions and an intensification of the criminalization of the agrarian land movements. It is all too obvious that any growth occurring is not for the country’s poor. 

Photo La Prensa, Honduras

The eviction in Regalo de Dios occurred while Juan Orlando Hernandez was in the area celebrating the inauguration of various government projects and handing out baskets of food in the extremely poor agricultural communities in Yoro which have been devastated by the drought and government policies. 

On October 3rd, the military was celebrated (and by extention, the government's policy of militarization throughout the country) by the government with a massive parade and festival in the national stadium in Tegucigalpa and smaller activities in some other areas. The people of Regalo de Dios are in no mood to celebrate repression; the families there have started returning to the land and rebuilding homes, but they fear what might happen in the future. 

Official government photo

Student Protests Continue - Campesinos Planning Mobilizations

Campesino Press Conference: Protests Planned For Agrarian Reform and Decriminalization of the Campesino Movement

Conferencia de Prensa Campesina de Defensores En Linea y Honduras Tierra Libre: el original en español: 

Campesino press conference April 9th Tegucigalpa
foto: defensores en linea

The campesino movement today demands approval of the Law for Integral Agrarian reform with Gender Equity, a proposal that was introduced in the National Congress by the campesinos a year ago. 

The demand of the campesinos was made publicly at a press conference held in the offices of Vía Campesina in Tegucigalpa, where they announced that they would be holding big mobilizations nationally for the approval of the law. 

The campesinos noted that with the approval of the Law for Integral Agrarian Reform with Gender Equity the agrarian problem in Honduras would be resolved. 

On April 9, 2014 the campesino movement introduced a proposal for a law called “Agrarian Reform with Gender Equity, for Food Sovereignty and Rural Development” in the National Congress. The law had been previously circulated publicly to all the congressional political parties which promised to back it and to support the campesino movement related to this discussion and approval of the proposed law. 

The campesino movement lamented that the proposal was tabled with no measures taken for its discussion among all the political sectors represented in the National Congress. 

“It’s a disgrace that this proposed Law was tabled simply because there is no priority given to resolved the agrarian problem that the Honduran campesinos have at the national level,” stated campesino leader Agustín Ramos.

The criminalization of the campesino struggle grows greater every day. Around 5 thousand campesinos are in legal processes, of those 815 are women and 11 are in prison because of their struggle for the land. 

The problem for the campesino sector has increased so that the campesinos and campesinas announced that in upcoming days they would organize protests as a way of applying pressure so that the Law for an Integral Agrarian Reform with Gender Equity would be approved. 

“There will be mobilizations at the national level and we are conscious that we will be repressed but that won’t stop our demands that the Agrarian Reform Law be passed”, declared Magdalena Morales, representative of the National Center of Rural Workers (CNTC). 

She also called on President Juan Orlando Hernández to put his influence to work so that the Law would be approved in the National Congress in that with it the agrarian problem in Honduras would be resolved, in that the campesinos in Honduras don’t have land to work. 

Morales reminded President Hernández that in the rural areas there are more that 2 million women campesinas living in extreme poverty.

The campesino movement also denounced the fact that violent evictions continue in which their crops and homes have been destroyed with impunity causing thousands of lempira’s worth of losses for poor families of the Honduran campesino sector. 

Finally the campesinos called for the President of the Republic, Juan Orlando Hernández, the President of the National Congress, Mauricio Oliva and the President of the Supreme Court of Justice, Jorge Rivera Avilez to meet with them to open a broad and inclusive dialogue regarding the agrarian problem in the country and the crises in basic grains that will occur  this season if urgent measures are not taken to resolve it.

Student Protests: Support for the Students Grows while Violence Against Students Increases

Tegucigalpa March 26 protest
foto from desdeaquiabajo

Student protests begun by high school/middle school students and joined by university students against the budget cuts and privatization of public education have been marked by repression including the death squad style murders of student activists - one a 14 year old girl. The violence has been widely denounced including by the Honduras Solidarity Network (See statement here). The students now have been joined by broader sectors of the resistance movement and outraged Hondurans. For an update and more photos go to the Desde Aquí Abajo blog .

September 23, 2012 Answer to Dinant Press Statement

 On September 21st we received a copy of a press release by Miguel Facusse's company DINANT attacking La Voz de los de Abajo in response to our press releases and press conference in Tegucigalpa on September 18th (see our blog entry on September 13th for more background).  DINANT has also published comments on the You Tube site where a video is posted showing their armed paramilitary guards threatening and then firing a shotgun at the ground in the direction of our delegation visiting the Los Laureles plantation in Tocoa, Colon on September 13.   Since then the lawyer working with Aguan campesinos, Antonio Trejo, was gunned down in Tegucigalpa and another human rights special investigator and founder of MADJ, Eduardo Diaz was murdered in Choluteca. The communications representative for MUCA, Karla Zelaya is receiving death threats and individuals are being threatened for talking to human rights people.  We are extremely alarmed by what looks like a concentrated campaign to isolate and destroy the campesino organizations and to threaten human rights defenders.

 Below is our answer to the Dinant communique.  We believe that in the face of this situation of increasing violence against campesinos, the murders of lawyers and human rights advocates who work with the campesinos and the threats against international groups supporting campesino human rights that  solidarity and human rights activists must step up our efforts to assist in bringing the intellectual and material authors of these actions to justice in the national or international justice system for crimes against humanity. 



La Voz de los de Abajo Chicago Illinois USA
September 23, 2012 Answer to Dinant Press Statement

“All individuals have the right to life, to liberty and to the security of their person. No one will be subjected to torture, nor to cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment or treatment”. (Article 3 and 4 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
In answer to the communique of the Dinant Corporation of Mr. Miguel Facusse rregarding the incident that occurred on September 13, 2012 when our delegation was investigating human rights violations related to the eviction carried out on the Los Laureles plantation, located in the Aurora neighborhood of Tocoa, Colon.
Our delegation of human rights observers, made up of 9 people from diverse organizations in the United States (USA) visited various regions in Honduras from September 6-16th and the same as other delegations that we have organized had as its fundamental aim to document and dennounce the systematic repression from the government by the army, national police and big landowners’ “security groups”.
Our visits have the purpose of dennouncing the serious violations of human rights carried out against organized Civil Society committed to Social Justice, and in particular violations against the campesinos and campesinas who ask for a small piece of land for themselves and their families in Honduras.
In point number 1 of its communique the Dinant Corporacion states the following: “In the face of the irresponsible attitude of the “human rights group” that is distributing the video, which entered private property...”
Our organization, “La Voz de los de Abajo-Chicago” was on the public street in the moment in which we received the verbal threats made with aggresive language and the firing of a shotgun towards us occurred. Our delegation was on public property taking photos and interviewing the neighbors who told us how they were terrorized by nearly 500 police, military and the guards working for Miguel Facusse. WE REPEAT, we were on the public street as is shown by the video and photos that were taken. It would be irresponsible on our part to stop documenting everything that has to do with the grave violations of human rights that are occurring in the Aguan. For that reason: We were doing our job. We were doing what we have to do as human rights observers.
In point number 7, it says: “It is important to point out that our company contracts guards from a company that is legally constituted for that purpose and we do not contract paramilitaries nor have a relations with or knowledge of the existence of groups of that nature”.
Definition of Paramilitary or paramiliatrism: “it refers to private organizations that have a structure and discipline similar to that of the army but which are not formally a part of the armed forces of a State and generally they are outside the law. Among their members may be police, mercenaries, members of assault squads or private security groups”.
When we were threatened and fired at, we saw that nearly all the “security guards” had their faces covered, except for two who were seen well back from the others hidden by the palms. These guards had heavy caliber weapons or assault weapons such as used by the military as can be seen in the photos we took. It is due to these characteristics that we use the term “paramiliatary” in our judgement this describes very well these ‘Security Guards” and their actions and manner.
In point number 8: “ THrough this (communique) we assure public opinion that once the Fiscalia called the guards to make statements regarding the complaint presented by the “offended” the guards went and gave the real version of the facts, making it clear who really was breaking the law by entering private installations without permission from its legitimate owners who reserve the right to proceed legally against those who really were the ones acting against the law”
“giving the real version of the facts” This version which was distributed in the Honduran media as the official truth contrasts with the versions of the diverse human rights organisms and with Honduran legislation that establishes that no one can take the law into their own hands and no one on their own can decide the fate of the life and future of a person outside that established by the Constitution of the Republic and its general laws. None the less the “security guards” act as if they themselves are themselves the law - to the extent that our delegation was told by a policeman, “not even we ourselves can enter the plantation to investigate”.
During our visit from the 6 to the 16 of September we visited with 16 campesino communities located in La Paz, Puerto Cortes, El Progreso, Atlantida and Colon. Everyone told us the same thing - that there is an alarming escalation of repression against the Honduran campesinos and everyone interviewed stated their profound concern for the atmosphere of insecurity in their communities. They spoke of their anguish over their fear for their lives and the lives of their families.
It is important to point out that in the Aguan region dozens of campesinos have died and the principal suspects in the murders are the “security guards” of Miguel Facusse. Nonetheless there has not been an investigation to clarify the crimes and much less to put into place a judicial process to bring to trial and to sentence the material and intellectual authors of these crimes.
Our organization laments the death of any human being especially when we have heard so many voices desperately demanding justice. Especially when we we have seen, once again, that disrespect for life, and impunity reign in Honduras. Especially when we have confirmed through the human rights organizations, leaders of social organizations and campesino organizations that the political, social and economic life in the country is every day more critical. Especially when we have seen an evident and profound absence of a true agrarian policy in the country, which is the root of the current agrarian conflict which has all Hondurans in mourning and when we have seen that an economic and political business elite insists on turning Honduras into a common grave to bury those who affect their interests.
For all of these reasons we reiterate that we continue to have the same demands. In the first place that the government of the United States end its military aid directed to the military and National police and cancel its joint operations using military and DEA with the Honduran military and police which have caused serious violations of human rights, produced victims and violated the national soverignty of Honduras.
Secondly, we demand the immediate liberation of the political prisoners who are in prison because of the legitimate struggle for land: José Isabel Morales, prisoner in La Ceiba, José León Galeas, Cesar Bardales García, Santos Isaías Rodríguez, Selvin Noeli Rodriguez, prisoners in La Paz.
Thirdly, we demand punishment for the material and intellectual authors of the crimes against humanity in Honduras.
Fourth, we demand an authentic agrarian policy, inclusive and fair and an end to the repression, political persecution and impunity.
La Voz de los de Abajo 22 de Septiembre del 2012 Chicago Illinois EE.UU.

Public Proclamation from the Community Guadalupe Carney, Trujillo, Colon, May 4, 2011 Trujillo, Colon, May 4, 2011

The Campesino Movement of Aguan (MCA) located where the Regional Center for Military Training (CREM) once functioned, due to the slow functioning of the appeals court in acting on the legal case of the compañero Jose Isabel Morales Lopez, make the following proclamation:

1. That the compañero has been imprisoned in the penitentiary of La Ceiba, Atlantida since October 17 of 2008 due to an arrest order based on false accusation from the prosecutor for the Public Ministry of Trujillo.

2. That his rights have been violated since the first day of his detention to the present, leaving a family without the right to food, education and health.

3. As part of this campesino movement we are denouncing that in recent days the compañero Jose Isabel Morales Lopez is being permanently harassed and threatened with death by four individuals imprisoned in the same cell, we are withholding their names as a precaution for the security of the compañero. Because of this we are asking for immediate action on the legal proceeding of his case for an immediate hearing. At the same time we are demanding real security for the compañero Jose Isabel Morales Lopez.

For the points mentioned above in this proclamation, if this call is not heeded, all of the Campesino Organizations and social organizations will take strong measures, and in the case of any attempt against our compañero, we will hold responsible the Appeals Court, the Prosecutor of the Public Ministry, the Criminal Court, and the official in charge of the penitentiary of La Ceiba, Atlantida and the Commissioner of the Penal Centers.

We call on the Special Attorney for Human Rights, the lawyer Sandra Ponce and on the Minister of Human Rights, lawyer Ana Pieda, on COFADEH and on the Human Rights Platform, to demand a rapid advancement of the legal process for our compañero, as soon as possible and we demand real physical security for him, if these calls are not attended to we will go to other national and international organizations because our rights belong to us, today, tomorrow and always.

Campesino Movement of Aguan (MCA)

The organizations:

Augustin Calix, Jose Feliciano Vasquez, Carlos Cruz Urrutia

CNTC ANACH ACAN