Brutal repression continues in Honduras

Bloody Sunday in Aguán

Versión original en español

José Recinos Aguilar, Joel Santamaría y Genaro Cuesta, all members of the San Esteban peasant cooperative were murdered [on Sunday, June 5th] while driving a Nissan vehicle a few meters from the settlement. There are still no details of how the attack occurred, according to a statement by FIAN-Honduras.

The report said the military, police, and security guards were guarding the place where the corpses lay preventing their fellow peasants from reaching them. The bodies will be transferred to La Ceiba for autopsies, according to reports by the district attorney’s office in Trujillo.

Almost simultaneously, peasants who had occupied San Isidro farm were evicted by Miguel Facussé’s security guards. They then entered the premises of the National Agrarian Institute (INA) in Sinaloa, in what is known as “golden house”, and opened fire on farmers who had taken refuge there since last winter. Peasant Doris Pérez Vásquez was hit in the abdomen and seriously injured, and had to be rushed to a hospital in the city of La Ceiba.

All those interviewed by FIAN Honduras about the violence in the Lower Aguán region agree that the repression has never been this bad, suffered presently by those who make up peasant organizations standing up for their rights. No one trusts the authorities and all are afraid for their lives.

Peasants are disappointed by the failure of the agreement between the Unified Peasant Movement of Aguán (MUCA) and the regime, and the oversight of promises made to the Authentic Peasant Reclamation Movement of Aguán (MARCA) and the Peasant Movement of Aguán (MCA) by the INA. The reasons for the agrarian conflict have been the same since April 13th, 2010, with the situation worsening now that there are more deaths, injuries and victims of other violations.

The feeling among peasants is that of total defenselessness. FIAN Honduras has reiterated that until the agrarian dispute is settled, violence will continue in the region and that the police, often along with the army, only serve to scare people and obtain preliminary information on the violence without making public their investigation results as required.

Hondurans mobilize in San Salvador to denounce the reincorporation of Honduras into the Organization of American States

MANIFESTO AGAINST IMPUNITY - MANIFESTO FOR THE HUMAN RIGHTS AND DIGNITY OF THE HONDURAN PEOPLE

Versión original en español

We the members of popular and indigenous organizations of Honduras, mobilizing in San Salvador, historic si

te where the remains of General Francisco Morazán rest, supported by the solidarity of the Salvadoran people and other peoples of the world, on the occasion of the meeting of the Organization of American States for its Ordinary General Assembly manifest:

1. When the OAS revoked the suspension of the Honduran state and readmitted it to the body it ended up legalizing coup d'etats and contributing to the same people remaining in impunity, not just in Honduras but in all the countries of the Americas.

2. The arbitrary decision of the Organization of American States - backed by Washington - to recognize a regime that rose from elections not recognized by the international community which were carried out under intense militarization and repression and in which the majority of the Honduran population did not participate, contradicts its own Charter. Additionally it undermines the declaration of Human Rights since they pretend not to know that the regime that continues the coup d'etat in Honduras systematically and ser

iously violates human rights and is made up of the junta of high-ranking commanders who executed the coup d'etat of June 29th, 2009, examples of which include General Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, minister of [Honduran national telecommunications company] HONDUTEL, General Venancio Cervantes Director of the Migration Department, in addition to other politicians like Vilma Morales, Arturo Corrales, Carlos López Contreras and the General Prosecutor of the Republic Luis Alberto Rubí. We could also include magistrates of the Supreme Court of Justice and congressmen amongst the oligarchy's military coup plotters, who continue enjoying impunity.

3. The OAS mocks the Honduran people and the people of the world by recognizing the regime that continues the coup d'etat, given that they aren't ignorant that Roberto Micheletti enjoys a lavish retirement, security guards paid by the Honduran state and an illegal amnesty that has prevented justice for crimes that have been committed against the Hondurans struggling for democracy's return.

4. The OAS should know that it is an accomplice to more than 200 killings, many of which were against the LGBTI community, to the kidnappings that have led to the disappearance of peasants like Olbin Gallegos and Secundino Gómez, to the tortures suffered by men and women who marched in the enormous national mobilizations of the people in Resistance, to the closing of media, ruthless violence to which the youth are subjected, to the long curfews and states of emergency that the Honduran people have suffered. The OAS makes itself an accomplice to the climate of complete impunity being lived through in Honduras which is responsible for the fact that since January of this year there have been more than 115 women killed by acts of femicide.

5. The OAS becomes responsible for the regime that continues the coup d'etat's criminalization of the social organizations that struggle in defense of the water, mining, the forest, and all of the goods of mother earth, opening them up to repression at shameful events like "Honduras is open for business" where the regime's police showed off by violently attacking activists and TV cameramen.

6. The OAS makes clear that it is a useless instrument for the interests of the people and it is useful for the empire of death and greed that imposes coup d'etats and then legalizes them afterwards. It shows us that they are two-faced and that they never intended to revert the coup d'etat and actually favored the coup-makers.

7. We hold the OAS and all the states that have supported the recognition of the coup d'etat in Honduras reponsible for the repression, the impunity, the complete defenselessness and the crimes that don't let up in our country.

8. As social movements we salute the consistent decision of the republic of Ecuador to not support the Honduran return [to the OAS] with which it shows moral force, dignity and a truly democratic orientation.

9. We thank the peoples of the world and we call

on them to deepen the solidarity with the Honduran people that today continue living under a coup d'etat with the difference that now it has been legalized.

Under no historical circumstance do the people renounce the memory of the struggles and the injustices. We reject reconciliation that is based on the practice of forgetting and only favors impunity. We reject the reconciliation that backs up the hypocritical discourse of a democracy that does not exist in Honduras. We raise our fervent condemnation against the OAS for its reincorporation of the regime and for this attempt to humiliate the dignity of the daughters and sons of Lempira and Morazán.

From San Salvador, June 4th, 2011

Civil Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras COPINH

Together We Will Win Association of Aguán

Peasant Movement of Aguán MCA

Unified Peasant Movement of Aguán MUCA

Popular Morazanist Youth JPM

Autonomous Insurrection Collective

Association of Residents of the Peninsula of Zacate Grande

*In this moment more organizations from Honduras are joining, including as of tomorrow the Departmental Resistance Fronts from Ocotopeque, Copán, Lempira and other organizations of the Resistance.

Various Commentaries on the Return of Zelaya; Continued Pressure to Address Human Rights Violation

original article from Los Necios:

JESSE FREESTON, TRNN: On Saturday, Manuel Zelaya, Honduras's last elected president, will return to his country to live for the first time since his overthrow by the military 23 months ago. His return is the result of an agreement sponsored by the presidents of Venezuela and Colombia and agreed to by Zelaya and Honduras's post-coup regime leader, Pepe Lobo. People have braved relentless rain arriving around the country to welcome back the popular president, who was overthrown on the day he was to poll the Honduran people on whether or not they wanted to rewrite the country's constitution through a participatory assembly representing all sectors of society. It would replace the current constitution, which was written under a US-backed military dictatorship in the early '80s. Saturday will be a day of celebration.

But many who opposed the coup are urging outsiders not to confuse the return of Zelaya and other political exiles with the return of democracy. Up to today, Hondurans opposed to the coup have witnessed constant oppression and violence from the regime that took power that day. As Zelaya returns to Honduras, he will find the military still mobilized throughout the country, 11 of the country's most critical journalists assassinated, hate killings against gays, lesbians, bi, and transsexual people skyrocketing, the country's Garifuna people fighting to defend their land from expanding tourism projects. He will find an almost civil war-like atmosphere in the Aguan valley, where death squads have assassinated almost 40 members of the region's organized farmers, farmers who want to plant basic grains to eat, pitted in a land conflict against a handful of wealthy plantation owners who produce palm oil for snack foods and biofuels. Junior Orlando Gomez is a member of the organization MARCA, which is currently occupying land in the area.

JUNIOR ORLANDO GOMEZ, SMALL FARMER OCCUPYING LAND (SUBTITLED TRANSL.): On Saturday, we were repressed on the land we're standing on now by members of the army, the police, and hitmen hired by the plantation owners Rene Morales Carazo, Reynaldo Canales, and Miguel Facusse. During the attack, our comrade Henry Roney Diaz was killed. He was 26. Died from a series of bullet wounds. Our need is great, and sometimes necessity can force you to risk your own life.

FREESTON: Zelaya will also return to find a teachers movement that recently suffered weeks of repression for opposing the stealing of their pensions, the suspension of 300 of their members for political activity, the proposed privatization of their education system, amongst other moves by the regime. Some of these teachers are now in front of the National Congress, and Saturday will mark their 22nd day on hunger strike. Teacher Yanina Parada helped organize the action.

YANINA PARADA, SUSPENDED TEACHER (SUBTITLED TRANSL.): The first day we set up here, at midnight, we were removed by the military and police. They dragged us out on our mattresses, other teachers carried out by two cops at a time. The women were verbally abused. We were told if we didn't leave immediately, we would be leaving pregnant.

FREESTON: Zelaya will also return to a leadership role within the National People's Resistance Front that has seen over 100 of its members assassinated since the coup, with more bodies showing up every week and little to no sign of criminal investigation. In the Cartagena Accord itself, the current Lobo regime even refuses to outright recognize the repression, pledging to cure the complaints of those who "believe" their rights have been violated following the coup. For distinguished human rights defender Bertha Oliva, cofounder of Honduras's Committee for the Families of the Disappeared, this wording should raise alarms.

BERTHA OLIVA, HONDURAN HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDER (SUBTITLED TRANSL.): As long as they don't admit that they've committed crimes and that those crimes are called human rights violations, until they admit that, we will never see progress in this area, because they always try to justify their crimes, which run from hate crimes to political persecution. And I don't think we can forget the 100-plus political assassinations that have happened.

FREESTON: She also points out that mere hours after signing the agreement, the regime attacked a group of striking high school students in the capital.

OLIVA: The high school students were demanding that their suspended teachers be allowed to return to class. The police and army use live bullets to disperse the protest, along with tear gas.

FREESTON: The Cartagena Accord will likely see Honduras reinstated in the Organization of American States and thus gain access to the last of the international aid packages that were cut off after the coup. Only one country, Ecuador, has said that it will vote against Honduras's reinstatement until such time as those responsible for the coup are punished. It's unlikely that will happen in Honduras, given that all the judges that opposed the coup were summarily fired under the Lobo regime, including Judge Guillermo Lopez.

GUILLERMO LOPEZ (SUBTITLED TRANSL.): We were fired for criticizing the coup. We condemned it both as citizens and as judges. We found the breach of the Constitution to be unacceptable, which brought us political persecution and, eventually, our firing. Ecuador's position is very coherent: to oppose Honduras's return to the OAS until such time as human rights violations are investigated, and most importantly, until those responsible for the June 2009 coup are punished. In our country, the opposite has happened: they've been rewarded with important positions in the government.

FREESTON: Nobody has been punished for carrying out the coup d'etat, and the most visible leaders have been given high positions in the current regime. Military coup leader Romeo Vasquez Velasquez is now in charge of the state phone company, and political coup leader Roberto Micheletti was named a congressman for life. Despite all this bad news for Zelaya and the Resistance Front, Saturday will be a day of celebration for a movement that is becoming more and more organized by the day and for the first time in its two-year history will have its most recognizable member, Mel Zelaya, active and in the country. With that obstacle out of the way, the resistance can focus on its other major goal, the re-founding of the country through a constitutional assembly.

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87 US Democratic Representatives in a letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton push for the US Government to end aid going to military bases and polices forces "until mechanisms are in place to ensure security forces are held accountable for abuses. See Honduras: Human Rights Blog for more on the human rights situation.

!Bienvenidos - Welcome!

Today, many hundreds of thousands of Hondurans will meet their returning exiles, including President Zelaya as they arrive at the international airport in Tegucigalpa. There will be celebrations, mobilizations and events across the country. A new phase of sturggle is opening in Honduras but the issues remain the same: the refounding of the country with a participatory Constitutional Assembly, an end to human rights violations and impunity and a resolution of the just demands of the campesinos, indigenous peoples, pobladores, trade union members and all the Honduran people on the path to a new Honduras.

For a variety of comments and viewpoints from the Honduran Resistance please go to the links provided for the FNRP, COPINH, OFRANEH, Artistas en Resistencia, and others

La Voz de los de Abajo, Chicago, May 28, 2011

Human Rights are not subject to political negotiation

The Committee of the Families of the Detained-Disappeared of Honduras (COFADEH) celebrates the signing of the Cartegena de Indias Accord which permits the return of ex Constitutional President Manuel Zelaya Rosales to our country.

At the same time, COFADEH condemns the language of the oligarchy aligned with the coup in the text of the Accord which refers to human rights as a political instrument of “reconciliation,” evidence of their old practice of negotiation.

“While admitting that during the political crisis there have been people who consider that their human rights were violated, the Government of Honduras, through the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, commits to attend these denunciations in order to contribute to the reconciliation of Honduran society within a framework of verifiable guarantees (…) and awaits support from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights” reads the official, signed text.

The terms utilized reflect doubts, ironies, intentions and evasions on the part of the same political–military elite that attempted to bury the memory of the forced disappearances during the 1980’s and sell a manipulative discourse regarding human rights violations to the international community.

At the beginning of the decade of the 90’s the same ex Presidents - Rafael Callejas, Ricardo Maduro and Carlos Flores, who audited the text of the Cartegena Accord – repeated the need to leave the past behind and to end the “dark night of disappearances”.

This was their way to escape their own responsibilities, some of them as participants in the Alliance for Progress in Honduras (APROH) that inspired and financed the repression against political and ideological dissidence at that time and which continues to hold us in grief.

We have no doubt that ex President Zelaya signed the Cartagena Accord in absolute good faith regarding the urgency of investigating human rights violations that have resulted since the coup d’état to the present, to repair damage caused to the victims and to punish those responsible.

However, we have nothing but doubts regarding those who support the coup, control the repressive forces and sustain a fragile state that fails to overthrow the enormous monster of impunity with legality and justice.

Our doubts are underscored by the fact that with this Accord, the regime imposes recognition of the “Ministry of Justice and Human Rights as the entity that will permit the national capacity to promote and protect human rights in Honduras.”

This Committee does not observe habits, practices or policies that indicate that this institution makes even the most minimal difference within the State regarding the government Human Rights Commission which is delegitimized as a result of its partiality regarding institutional violence against the population.

Nearby, five teachers sustain an indefinite hunger strike due to violations of their social and economic rights; hundreds of campesino families in the zone of Aguán are surrounded by legal and clandestine forces acting against their lives and lands; and an average of 16 violent deaths occur each day throughout the country, in total impunity.

Therefore, we exhort the population to continue to use services worthy of your trust and respect, to access justice at all levels, local and international, as the people of Honduras rebuild institutionality and the rule of law that has been lost.

For the crimes and those who commit them

Neither forgetting, nor forgiveness

Tegucigalpa, Honduras, 23 de mayo de 2011

COFADEH