From the Aguan Valley: La Lucha Sigue

May 9, 2016, meeting with campesino
organizations in Tocoa, Colon

Article and photos by Vicki Cervantes
Video: Massacre en El Tumbador courtesy of Alto Al Riesgo, written and directed by Laura Bermúdez. 

On May 24, 2016 at around 6:30 in the morning, Jinson Aldin Alfaro Almendares, a young member of the campesino group Empresa Campesina Gregorio Chávez was shot in the back without warning by private paramilitary guards working for COFRUCO, a large land holder in the Aguan, as he worked in his fields. The COFRUCO plantation as well as the land Jinson was working are next to the Paso Aguan plantation controlled by the Faccusee family's corporation Dinant. The Paso Aguan plantation and the nearby community of Panama have been the scene of many attacks on local campesinos including the murder in 2012 of Gregorio Chavez, which has never been investigated and remains in impunity.   Jinson survived, but this incident is one of many, recent attacks against campesinos and their organizations. The day before the shooting, the home of the coordinator of the campesino umbrella organization the Regional Agrarian Platform for the Aguan Valley, Jaime Cabrera was surrounded for a time by armed men wearing ski masks while Jaime was inside the house. Police refused to take action against the guards who shot Jinson. (Information on the attack as reported by the Plataforma Agraria del Aguan via Karla Zelaya). 

In Guadalupe Carney on May 9, premier of documentary
of 2010 El Tumbador massacre of 5 campesinos

Just two weeks ago, I participated in an International Human Rights Observer Mission organized by COFADEH (May 6-12) that met with campesino organizations in the Aguan, including the Movimiento Revindicador Campesino Gregorio Chavez, Movimiento Unificado Campesinos del Aguan (MUCA) Movimiento Authentico Revindicador Campesino del Aguan (MARCA)  and the Permanent Human Rights Observatory of the Aguan (OPDHA).

That same day we also participated in an event to commemorate and launch a new struggle to demand justice for the November 2010 massacre of 5 campesinos from the MCA by guards working for DINANT.  COFADEH has been working with the survivors of the massacre and the families of the murdered campesinos and is getting ready to take the case to the international justice system. The event held in the community of Guadalupe Carney included a photo exhibition of the survivors and victims and the premier showing of a new documentary about the El Tumbador.

May 9, Meeting with survivors and victims
of 2010 massacre at El Tumbador 

The meeting with campesino organizations, social movement organizations such as the Coordinator of Peoples' Organizations of the Aguan (COPA), and community organizations from the towns in the region who are defending the environment from mining and mega-tourism projects took place in the town of Tocoa. Participants in the meeting gave moving testimony about the violence, including murders, against campesinos, and different trickery and pressure being used to facilitate campesino lands passing into the hands of the large landowners and agro-businesses. Testimony also denounced what is seen as a new phase in the violence in the Aguan in which large scale violent attacks have been replaced with a more selective violence, infiltration of communities, threats and intimidations to terrorize and disorganize all opposition to land grabbing, mining and dispossession of the poor residents of the Aguan.

MUCA leaders speaking

MUCA leaders talked about the establishment of outright death squads, one group calls itself "head collectors of Colon"; on September 1, 2015 after police attacked a local protest with live ammunition and tear gas, a Coronel was reported to have said that he wanted the heads of two campesino leaders which he named by their names. Around the same time a 'hit list' came to light with more names of leaders and activists. Environmentalists, members of organizations opposed to the coup and current government also spoke of threats they are receiving. Employees of the National Agrarian Institute spoke of being threatened personally and having their jobs threatened because they support campesinos or because they belong to LIBRE (the left opposition party). Another woman who works for the municipality but is opposed to mining concessions that will affect her community. She was told at work that her job was at risk and that furthermore that bad things happen to people working against mining.

Members of the human rights observatory (OPDHA) also gave testimony about recent attempts on their lives. Irma Lemus and Rigoberto Duran were run down by a car that was obviously waiting for them as they rode by on Rigoberto's motorcycle. Both suffered serious injuries. There were previous incidents in which cars with darkened windows and without license plates followed them and attempted to intimidate or run them off the road. Campesino activists and members of COPA and other social movements emphasized that Juan Orlando Hernandez's government is firming up a dictatorship that is "asphyxiating" the campesinos and that there is a strong alliance between National Party politicians, big businessmen, judges and police against the campesinos in the Aguan.

COFADEH: Aguan Accion Urgente - Urgent Action Aguan

En Español Aquí
July 3rd violent eviction of campesinos in the Aguan.

 URGENT ACTION
The Committee of the Relatives of the Detained and Disappeared in Honduras
(COFADEH) expresses its total repudiation of and concern for the violent eviction that was carried out on Thursday July 3, 2014 by members of the Joint Task Force Xatruch III of approximately 350 families of the "Gregorio Chavez" Movement from the Paso Aguán farm, located on the left bank of the Aguán River in the municipality of Trujillo, Colón, according to the following facts:
1. The action took place at about 11:00 A.M., when approximately 300 police and military members of JTF Xaltruch III violently invaded the farm, and indiscriminately fired tear gas and live bullets at those present, including children and elderly people.
2. As a result of this operation, campesinos José Sánchez Méndez and David Ponce were seriously wounded and transferred to the hospital in Tocoa, where they are receiving medical care. Mariano Baquedano and Roger Rodríguez were also injured with a blunt weapon. They were also transferred to this hospital to receive medical attention.

3. Moreover, seven people were arrested during the eviction, including among them a minor, a woman, an elderly person, and a member of the Permanent Observatory of Human Rights in the Bajo Aguán. Although they were arrested at 11:00 A.M. the army did not turn them over to police custody until 4 P.M. exceeding the time allowed by law for a report to be issued to the Fiscal.

4. Those detained are: Jorge Meléndez (46); Moisés Meléndez (56); Gloria Enamorado; Jeremías Cruz; José Chavez (60); Hernán Ricardo Omar Ocampos and Ricardo Rodas (16). According to available information, these people will be prosecuted and charged with the crime of usurpation.

BACKGROUND:
The Panamá Finca had been occupied by the "Gregorio Chavez" campesino group since July 4, 2012, after DINANT Corporation private security guards disappeared the independent campesino Gregorio Chávez Aranda, who was later found buried on the farm of industrtial farm magnate Miguel Facussé Barjum. The campesinos were evicted in May 2013, after an exhumation was conducted by forensic anthropologists on April 25, 2013, during which the body of independent campesino José Antonio López Lara was also found.

Since then the families of the town of Panamá have been repeatedly evicted. On one such occasion four soldiers and twenty security guards illegally entered the parcel of José Chávez Aranda’s , brother of Gregorio Chávez, and stole a large part of the crops he had on his land. José Chávez is one of the seven arrested on July 3.

It is also known that Deputy Comissioner Santos Núñez, member of the JTF Xatruch III, has previously intimidated the Coordinator of the Permanent Observatory of Human Rights in the  Bajo Aguán, (OPDHA), Martha Arnold, asking her who they thought they were to document facts, and that although they are supported by international and national human rights organizations, “that doesn’t mean anything.” He also required them to submit documents related to their legal status, not taking into account the International Conventions and Treaties for the Defense and Protection of Human Rights. Similarly, intimidation from members of the JTF Xatruch III, headed by Jovel Martínez, is directed at campesino leaders in the department of Colón, like the case of Agrarian Platform in the Bajo Aguán coordinator Jaime Cárcamo, who stated that soldiers have singled him out and on some occasions have pointed him out as a “land invader.”

PETITION:
We ask the national and international community to request that the State of Honduras take the necessary steps to ensure and protect the integrity and life of the campesinos in the Bajo Aguán, who are active in the defense of the struggle for land. We ask that they perform proper investigations, identifying those responsible for the events described above.

Please direct calls, emails and/or faxes to the following authorities.
OSCAR FERNANDO CHINCHILLA 
Attorney General’s Office. 
Fax (504) 2221-5667 
Tel (504) 2221-5670 2221-3099 

ARTURO CORRALES ALVAREZ 
Secretary of State in the Ministry of Security 
Tel: (504) 2229-0003 
E-mail: medidgeovanny@yahoo.com  

KARLA EUGENIA CUEVA 
Sub-Secretary Justice and Human Rights 
Tel: (504) 2231-1542; 2232-0231 
Fax: (504) 2232-0226 
E-mail: karlacueva144@gmail.com 

ROBERTO HERRERA CACERES 
National Commissioner for Human Rights 
Tel: (504) 2220-7648; 2232-0433 

JOSE ANTONIO MARADIAGA 
Public Ministry Coordinator 
Trujillo, Colon 
Fax: (504) 2434-4061