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.

Security guards threaten, fire warning shot at human rights observers today

Updated September 16

September 13, 2012 

Masked security guards of Honduras's largest landowner verbally threatened and then fired a warning shot at nine human rights activists in Tocoa, Honduras, in the country's violence wracked Aguan valley at about 3 PM local time today.  The incident was captured on videotape and in still pictures.

The activists are on a solidarity tour organized by the Chicago-based La Voz de la Abajo organization, which is investigating human rights violations and the social and political conditions in the country, including its dubious distinction of having the world's highest murder rate.

At the time of today's incident, the La Voz delegation was investigating a combined raid by over 500 private security, national police and army last Sunday, Sept. 9 which killed Hector Navarro, aged 69.  The raid was part of the violent eviction of a campesino group from land claimed by big land owner Miguel Facusse on the Los Laureles plantation. Accompanied by the coordinator of the Permanent Human Rights Observatory in Aguan, Ediberto Aleman, the delegation interviewed residents of the neighborhood that is adjoined the plantation who were affected by the raid. The campesinos from the recuperation were dispersed and not available at the time of our visit. 

Witnesses from the surrounding neighborhood told the delegation that the armed men ordered them to go into their houses during the raid. They then fired tear gas cannisters into the homes and broke down doors looking for any campesinos who may have fled into some of the homes. The campesino camp was destroyed (see photo) and 34 people arrested, including many youth. Early the next morning, Navarro, who had been resting in a hammock in his backyard, died of apparent excessive tear gas inhalation. We were able to see  several tear gas canisters (see photo) that had been thrown into the small houses in which women, children, infants and elderly people were present. Residents also told us of being threatened and mistreated by the combined police-military - private guards force. 

During today's incident, as the La Voz delegation was standing well outside the plantation land waiting to interview more neighbors, five masked guards approached, some pointing their weapons at the La Voz delegation. They shouted threats and one guard said, "This is your last warning," and then fired a rifle.   Video and still pictures of the incident are available at http://youtu.be/AbOgsm8qQE4 and http://tinyurl.com/hondurasguns

"That we were not shot at directly is probably only because most of us appear to be North Americans," said Vicki Cervantes, co-coordinator of the La Voz delegation. "Hondurans don't have that same protection, which explains the rampant political violence in this country."

"Today we visited three campesino encampments in Aguan and people at each of them emphatically requested that we stop U.S. aid to the Honduran military and police," said Alexy Lanza, another co-coordinator of the La Voz delegation. "Yesterday at the Garifuna land encampment in Vallecito we learned of the murder the same day of Aguan campesinos Herman Alejandro Maldonado and Ivis Ortega (Ortega was gravely wounded, and lingered before dying this morning).

After the shooting incident at Los Laureles, the delegation filed a formal complaint against the security guards at the police station in Tocoa. Delegation member Sarah Sommers of the Cleveland InterReligious Task Force on Central America stated that one of the police officials who took the complaint, Wilfredo Bautista, who is in charge of investigating murders in the Aguan Valley, told the delegation, "that even we [the police] can't go into that plantation; there [sic] are very bad people. We can't investigate because we can't go there; we might get killed."

"It is disturbingly clear who is in charge in the Aguan," said Cervantes. "Police and military carry out raids on behalf of the big landowners like Miguel Facusse and essentially say that they can't control heavily armed private guards who shoot and kill at will."

Besides Cervantes, Lanza and Sommers, members of the La Voz delegation include Lois Martin, Tucson and a member of No Mas Muertes, an organization dedicated to preventing the deaths of migrants crossing the deserts in the border region; Sidney Hollander, an activist with the Chicago Religious Leadership Network on Latin America; human rights activists Mary Dean and Greg McCain, formerly of Chicago and now of Colon, Honduras; and Andy Thayer, a Chicago-based anti-war activist and co-founder of the Gay Liberation Network.

Retaliation Against the Campesino Movement!

Thirty-Six Campesinos and Campesinas Detained May 23rd in Different Parts of Honduras


     The landowning oligarchy and Honduran regime are going all out to retaliate against the campesino movement that shook the big landowners with massive land recuperations of agrarian reform land on April 17th of this year.
     Today, 17 members and leaders of the Unified Campesino Movement of Aguan (MUCA) were detained in the province of Yoro as they were returning to their settlements in the Aguan Valley of Colon. The campesinos were taken to the police station in Progreso where lawyers from the Jesuit organization ERIC were working to get them released as of this writing. In the Aguan region three farmers were arrested (in two different incidents), and in the province of La Paz another 16 campesinos, including 2 minors,  were detained as they were on their way to work their fields, three of the detainees are members of the indigenous organization COPINH and others are affiliated to the National Center of Rural Workers (CNTC). One farmer remains in custody this evening. The Permanent International Human Rights Observatory in Aguan also reports that several well known campesino leaders in Aguan, (Vitilino Alvarez, Juan Ramon Chinchilla, Adolfo Castañeda and Ramon Sanchez) have received new death threats from the private guards of oligarch Miguel Facusse claiming that they will lose their lives in the next hours. 
     In a phone interview, Jesus Ponce the General Secretary of the CNTC, strongly denounced the actions today and stated that there has been a war against campesinos for some time but now the big landowners and the government are retaliating for the campesino movement's recuperation of lands on April 17th.  (Note: see the earlier blog entry for April 17th for more details). 
     There are more than 100 arrest orders issued against campesinos across the country related to land recuperation. Ponce stated that besides the detentions today, there have been violent evictions, but the campesinos have returned to the lands again. In San Manuel, Cortes the campesinos just returned to the land this week after their second eviction. The San Manuel sugar cane fields are also claimed by oligarch Jaime Rosenthal who obtained the land even though it was agrarian reform land and should have gone to the campesinos originally. 
      Ponce explained that the government and big land owners are trying all kinds of threats and tricks. Some of Rosenthal's paid employees at the sugar processing operation at San Manuel are currently protesting in Tegucigalpa demanding that all the campesinos in the land recuperation should be arrested - trying to confuse public opinion and incite violence against the campesinos.  
     The campesino organizations at the national level are demanding that the 1993 Law of Modernization of Agriculture (a law which nearly destroyed agrarian reform in Honduras) be abrogated and they have proposed a new  agricultural reform law, but the Congress has gone on a month's recess after tabling the campesinos' proposal previously. He also condemned the blatant threats made by the most powerful agribusiness land owner in the country, Miguel Facusse who is threatening thousands of campesinos in Aguan with violent eviction if they can't immediately come up with the money to pay him for land that was to be titled to the campesinos of MUCA after they signed an agreement with the Lobo government. 
     Today's repression comes at the end of a month that has seen a further escalation of violence and murder of campesinos, journalists, resistance leaders and LGBT activists. There has also been an escalation of militarization fueled by the United States that led to the murder of at least 4 indigenous community members including two pregnant women and the wounding of numerous others when a joint operation of the United States DEA and Honduran military fired from a helicopter at a small boat coming down a river in the Miskitio. Honduran military spokesmen have said it was an error, but the U.S. State Department and DEA have not apologized nor explained what happened. 
      All of this is leading to ever more insistent calls for the United States to cut off aid, especially military and security aid to the Honduran regime. 

Resistance Leader Survives Kidnapping and Torture

Monday afternoon (January 10, 2011) Juan Chinchilla, a member of the Executive Committee of the FNRP was located having survived a kidnapping and torture for 2 days.

On Saturday, January 8, Chinchilla, a journalist and a representative of Youth In Resistance and the Unified Campesino Movement of Aguan (MUCA) was kidnapped as he rode his motorcycle to his home in the campesino settlement of La Concepcion in the municipality of Tocoa in the Aguan region in northern Honduras. Moments before being kidnapped he made a phone call to denounce the presence of motorcycle and car following him. Gunshots were heard, but when people arrived at the scene they only found his motorcycle with bullet holes.

Immediately human rights organizations, resistance organization, and solidarity groups internationally and nationally responded with urgent actions calling the local police, Honduran government, U.S. Embassy, U.S. State Department and other entities demanding that Chinchilla be “reappeared” alive and well. In Aguan the campesino organizations began a physical search of the rural area where the golpista landowners Miguel Facusse, René Morales and Reinaldo Canales are contesting campesinos’ rights to land. These landowners are responsible along with the de facto regime of Porfirio Lobo for the militarization of the region, the violent attacks on the campesinos and the disappearances and murders of numerous peasant activists.

Chinchilla reappeared and is safe in an undisclosed location. He has burns and bruises from torture.

Information from Los Necios; Red Morazanica; Resistencia, Rights Action