Political Prisoners and More Criminalization

A member of La Voz de los de Abajo was in Honduras in August 2019 - This article is the second report from that visit with some  more recent updates as of September 27, 2019

Political Prisoners and More Criminalization in Honduras
by V. Cervantes

On the morning of August 21, I was at a meeting of the National Committee to Free the Political Prisoners (Comite Nacional para la Libertad de los Presos Politicos) in the offices of the Honduran human rights organization COFADEH.  The members celebrated the arrival to the meeting of political prisoners Raul Alvarez and Edwin Espinal.  Edwin and Raul  had been released from pre-trial imprisonment from the notorious maximum security, military controlled prison La Tolva on August 11 and August 16 respectively. Their release came after many months of pressure both in court and in the street. The first week of August, Edwin, Raul and Rommel Herrera another political prisoner,  launched a hunger strike that was echoed by a rolling hunger strike of leaders and activists from the social movements and political opposition in Honduras; international solidarity and human rights organizations supported the strike demanding freedom for the political prisoners with a major social media campaign.

The celebration was real but dampened by news that another political prisoner being held in prison in the city of Progreso. Gustavo Caceres, had been denied release from pre-trial detention  at a hearing that morning. There had been optimism that after Edwin and Raul were released, Gustavo would also get bail. Gustavo's case is especially disturbing because he has a significant cognitive disability and cannot speak in whole sentences only words and fragments.  He supported his family selling water and was selling water near a protest  in Progreso when the police arrested him as they swept through the neighborhood. The police took him to a police station and then they pulled out police equipment and marijuana and claimed that he had "stolen" police equipment and marijuana in his possession when they arrested him.

The Committee was fired up, talking about how to step up organizing to free, once and for all, all the political prisoners being held, and to pressure for permanent freedom for the approximately 171 people still facing charges and trials from the protests after the election fraud of November 2017. They also talked about the newer arrests and ongoing criminalization of protest. The mother of a new political prisoner, Rommel Herrera, was at the  Committee meeting;  Rommel is the young (23) teacher being held pre-trial in  La Tolva related to the burning of some tires in the doorway of the U.S. Embassy during on of the massive protests in defense of public education and health in Tegucigalpa on May 31, 2019. The Committee planned a press conference, a statement and other activities; but things were about to get even more difficult.

JOH Strikes Back - More Imprisonment and Prosecutions
Only a week after the August 21st Committee meeting,  Edwin and Raul got the news that the government prosecutor was appealing their release from pre-trial detention. If the government wins the appeal, Edwin and Raul will end up back in prison awaiting their trials which are currently scheduled for late Spring 2020.

 At the same time in late August another group of people with arrest warrants related to protests against a mining project and destruction of water resources in the community of Guapinol in Colon turned themselves in to the police. An earlier group had done the same last February and finally had the charges removed after an international and national outcry over their criminalization.  This time, because of that victory for justice and the recent release of Edwin and Raul, many people thought that the 7 Guapinol  activists would spend a few days in jail  and then their hearing would result in releasing them to await a future trial date - if the charges were pursued.   It is  another sign of the increasingly vicious dictatorship that on September 2 the 7 were ordered to be held in prison until trial. Then, the ruling of the judge to hold them in a regular Honduran prison was countermanded by the government, and all 7 were transferred to La Tolva. On September 26th Rommel had his appeal denied so he continues to be held in La Tolva awaiting trial.

The first week of September protests broke out over a planned luxury housing development given permission to build in the temperate rainforest nature reserve near Tegucigalpa,  La Tigra. The development would destroy acres of the reserve, and have consequences for the water supply (already in short supply) for Tegucgialpa and nearby communities -- police responded to the protests with live ammunition.

In another case, also in September, 18 students had charges reinstated by the government for protests after the 2017 election fraud during 2018 - the charges had been inactivated earlier. The student movement continues to be the subject of an especially harsh repression, criminalization,  and a campaign of slander and derision by the dictatorship.

Meanwhile the web of corruption and narco-government crime is more tangled than ever. Tony Hernandez, the brother of Juan Orlando Hernandez, goes to court beginning October 1st in New York. He has been indicted and extradited, accused of running a drug cartel and even stamping the packages of cocaine with his initials. In the investigation so far, the prosecutors have included Juan Orlando as a co-conspirator (CC4). Nevertheless, the US government continues to praise Hernandez. High level meetings were held between US and Honduran officials in September in Washington DC and on September 21 in Tegucigalpa. The US persists in providing all types of support for the repressive apparatus of the corrupt and violent narco-dictatorship in Honduras in the face of ever growing rejection and resistance to the regime by the Honduran people.

Tegucigalpa, Honduras August 7, 2019 [Jorge Cabrera/Reuters] published in Aljazeera

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Tegucigalpa - Forum on Human Rights in Honduras

On May 12th, the International Human Rights Observation Mission organized by COFADEH held a forum in Tegucigalpa to present its key preliminary findings and recommendations. The forum was attended by a large group of social movement rank and file and leaders including campesino organizations, teachers' unions, LGBTI, LIBRE, human rights defenders, journalists, and indigenous rights defenders (see my photos here).  The family of Berta Caceres participated from the podium. Below this introduction I am posting the English translation of journalist Giorgio Trucchi's report on the forum with a link to the original Spanish.

One of the participants in the open discussion at the  forum was Sandra Zambrano of the LGBT HIV education organization, APUVIMEH, who talked about the attacks on the LGBTI community,  well known activists like Victoria Gomez Cruz who was the first transgender woman to run for office in the primary elections for LIBRE in 2013 have had to leave the country due to threats on their lives. She also talked about the constant threats and pressures against organizations and individual defenders of human rights for LGBTI community. She and her brother José have had move two members of their family out of the country. Sadly, after the forum on May 14th came the news that Allan Yoni Banega Godoy, nephew of Sandra and José was kidnapped and later found dead in Tegucigalpa. 

Also participating in the same discussion were members of a parents and family organization "Madres y Padres de Familia" that are organized to support and defend the student movement, especially around the attacks on public education and the very violent response of the JOH government to the protests of the last few weeks. The Madre y Padres reported that in the last 3 weeks alone there have been 5 students murdered after participating in protests. They are mostly high school students and the wave of protests has to do with a new "educational reform" that requires public high school students to find two illiterate adults and teach them to read, also paying the adults their transportation costs, a meal and other expenses. Most of the public high school students come from poor families and absolutely cannot afford to pay these costs. The head of the high school teachers union (COPEMH) Jaime Rodriquez was also at the Thursday forum and he added that teachers are being accused of inciting the students and being threatened also. A week ago the JOH Education Ministry suspended Jaime's teaching license because he has been supporting the students. The suspension of his license means that he will not receive any salary. Jaime also denounced strongly the terrible violence against the youth and noted that earlier deaths of student activists remain in impunity, for example Nicole Soad Bustillo, the 13 year old murdered  a year ago, shortly after she publicly insulted and denounced Juan Orlando at a student protest. On Friday, May 13th there were reports that the student organizations in San Pedro Sula had negotiated some agreements with the Ministry of Education that may end up resolving this most recent conflict, but the struggle to defend public education will continue. The Radio Globo journalist David Romero also spoke from the floor about the criminal defamation cases against him used as a method to try and silence his voice against the government and about the violence and harassment against journalists in general. The precarious position of journalists was further illustrated by the presence of Felix Molina, journalist and community radio organizer who survived two attempts on his life on May 2nd.  -V. Cervantes  

Human Rights Hit Bottom in Honduras

by Giorgio Trucchi, May 16, 2016

Managua, Nicaragua (Conexihon)

G. Trucchi

On May 12th, as part of the International Mission for Human Rights Observation, a Forum on Human Rights in the Aguán was held in Tegucigalpa. During the activities the main findings of the Mission were presented and recommendations made, and the basis was laid for the creation of an analytic space to prevent risks for human rights defenders. 

“We are living in very difficult moments and we must work to avoid a deepening of human rights violations in Honduras,” said Bertha Oliva, Coordinator of the Committee of the Families of the Disappeared Detainees in Honduras (COFADEH) during her speech at the opening of the Forum. 

“We are putting forth all of our positive energy and we are ready to gather and transform memory, not in pain, but as a collective proposal,” stated the human rights defender.

Organized by COFADEH and made up of delegates from organizations in Europe, the United States and Latin America, among them REL-UITA(1), the Mission presented its findings to the national and international community and formulated recommendations for the State of Honduras. 

The Extractive Model - Death Projects 

According to members of the Mission, in the Lower Aguán Valley, “threats, attacks and assassination attempts continue” against campesino leaders, human rights defenders, community leaders and defenders of natural resources that are threatened by the extractive projects.”

The acceleration of granting concessions of territories in the upper regions of the Aguán Valley to mining companies, on top of the uncontrollable expansion of African Palm as a mono-crop, is responsible for an interminable wave of assassinations in the framework of an agrarian conflict that originates from the lack of access to land for thousands of campesino families. The effects of mining on water sources will deepen the social conflict and violence. 

The criminalization of the struggle for the defense of the territories and human rights as well as the systematic threats, displacement and forced evictions, exile, torture and dispossession “remain in total and absolute impunity.”, states a press communique from the Mission. 

Criminalization and Repression — Crushing Human Rights

The ever more selective persecution is participated in by “private security forces and death squads protected by the State that has militarized the region with the sponsorship and to the benefit of the regional economic powers.”, states the communique. “Sadly, we note that not only have many of the recommendations made some years ago not been implemented but that the statistics on murders have risen and impunity is absolute”, said Luis Guillermo Pérez, member of the International Human Rights Federation (FIDH). 

There is a perception of a lack of will and an investigative conflagration that was corroborated in a meeting of the Mission with local and regional authorities and that continues to repeat  and deepen the criminalization of the campesino organizations. 

Esly Banegas, from the Coordination of Popular Organization of the Aguan (COPA) explained that of the campesino leaders that signed the agreements of 2010 with the government, the immense majority have been assassinated or had to flee into either internal or external exile. 

“More that 300 colleagues are in judicial processes. They are criminalizing and assassinating us. If we don’t unite they will decimate us until we disappear.”,  said Banega sounding the alarm. 

She also noted that the agreements of 2010 as well as those of 2012 (2) for the purchase of thousands of hectares of land were never fulfilled. 

“The campesino enterprises are confronting a grave economic crisis, the product of the international price for palm oil and the lack of will on the part of the current government to create a consensus for a reduction of the (campesino ) debt. If this problem is not resolved, the situation could return again to an explosive situation”, said the leader of COPA. 

Given this situation, a demand by the Mission was proposed by the Forum: the creation of a grouping to formulate analysis to prevent risk for human rights defenders. 

Justice for Berta - No More Violence Against Copinh

The International Mission for Human Rights Observation also strongly took up the theme of the assassination of the Lenca indigenous leader, Berta Cáceres, calling it a “political crime for which the State is responsible, not only because an army official has been linked to the crime but because the State” was obligated to protect her life and physical integrity. ”

The Mission stated that it joins the call of the family and of the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (Copinh) to create an international investigative commission that is autonomous from the Honduran State, “so that all the material and intellectural authors of the crime are punished”. 

The Mission also condemned the police repression unleashed against Copinh’s protests on May 9th and demanded that the government of Honduras “avoid all forms of criminalization of social protest”. 

Recommendations - The right to truth and justice is primary

Among the main recommendations formulation by the Observation Mission notable is that of the “assurance of an investigation of the crimes committed “as the premise for the guarantee of the right to truth, justice and reparation/restoration for the victims”. 

As well, that the Honduran government assures the fulfillment of the agreements signed with the campesino organizations of the Aguán, that the repression and stigmatization does not continue against those who defend their rights, as well as the guarantee of strict fulfillment of the preventative measures ordered by the Inter-American Human Rights Commission (IAHRC). 

Finally, it recommends the creation of mechanisms for a participatory consultations with the campesino organizations “related to the projects that are implemented in their territories”. 

http://conexihon.hn/site/noticia/derechos-humanos/derechos-humanos/derechos-humanos-en-honduras-est%C3%A1n-por-los-suelos--

Chicago Teachers Union members, Chicago youth meet with Honduran Teacher Union leaders and Rank and File Educators

From June 27th to July 10th a delegation of Chicago teachers and students traveled in Honduras meeting teachers, youth and many activists in the Honduran resistance (see separate blog entries for more reports). Below is a short report written by Jackson Potter from the Chicago Teachers’ Union about conversations with Honduran teachers’ unions. 

With Oscar Rescate of COPEMH and Yanina Parada a teacher and LIBRE candidate

CTU members, Chicago youth and La Voz De Los De Abajo meet with Honduran Teacher Union leaders and Rank and File Educators

At dinner in Tegucigalpa, Oscar Rescate, president of Copemh, the union of middle school educators of Honduras, described his life after the 2009 military coup where he was threatened, followed and ultimately had to take refuge under the protection of the well known human rights organization COFADEH in Tegucigalpa. Copemh is one of the strongest of the 6 teacher unions in the country. By all accounts, teachers have played a leading role in the resistance against the military controlled government over the last four years, and they have paid dearly for it. More than 25 teachers have been disappeared and assassinated for their political courage.

Rescate described the escalating repression of teachers over the last four years. Efforts that include diminishing the pensions that teachers have earned throughout their careers, elimination of legal protections such as automatic dues checkoff (so that the union is guaranteed membership dues in order to function on a monthly basis), indiscriminate firings, months and years without being paid, and burgeoning class sizes requiring students to sit on the floor.

A central source of these attacks has come from international financial institutions such as the InterAmerican Development Bank of the Organization of American States which famously called for the elimination of teachers unions presumably because they represent the biggest obstacle to removing worker protections and the privatization of public services. Teachers also have proven to be very good at mobilizing large numbers of people to support free education for all, subsidized transportation for students throughout the country and the former President Zelaya's agenda to raise living standards for the most vulnerable Hondurans.

Moving forward, Rescate is calling for an educational system modeled off the Finnish example. He points out the need to invest in school infrastructure, invest in more robust teacher led professional development opportunities and institutionalize the respect for teacher rights.

While our delegation was impressed with Recate and Copemh, not all rank and file teachers are satisfied with the work of their unions. We also met with teachers who belong to Colprosumah, the biggest of the 6 teacher unions in the country. About 10 teacher leaders explained to us that their leadership has spent too much time maintaining their power, their relationship with the government in order to preserve the perks and high salaries that they have become accustomed to. The CTU members on the delegation shared similar stories about our union under the former leadership of the corrupt UPC under Marilyn Stewart.

The Colprosumah teachers also shared their concerns about the inordinate amount of focus by the resistance upon an electoral strategy to solve the problems of the country. They wonder about the Libre party's claims that Honduras will experience a “refoundation” because that term means “something and nothing at the same time.”

Alfredo Lopez, Garifuna leader

Moving forward the rank and file teachers of Colprosumah promised to fight for their union. They are looking for the Supreme Court to monitor their internal elections because of potential fraud. Lastly they criticized their leadership for working with the Minister of Education to pass a law that allows parents the ability to become teachers without any certification.

Working on the Garifuna hospital in Ciriboya

Members of the CTU and CORE shared our approach to rejuvenate our union which served to transform the CTU into a fighting organization capable of leading a successful strike this past fall. We discussed the need to work closely with parents and community allies and demand democracy and transparency. The Honduran educators were thankful for the exchange and believe that rank and file teachers like them and us, are the ones who ultimately have the power to shape and transform their unions, the education system an the society at large.

With Rio Blanco community

With indigenous community protesting hydroelectric project at Rio Blanco