Environmental Human Rights: News & Updates

Law enforcement agencies in Atlanta conducted a violent operation to clear a protest encampment in the Weelaunee Forest, resulting in the death of Indigenous Venezuelan activist Manuel Paez Terán. Terán was protesting against the construction of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, known as Cop City, on the forest land. Despite his death, the authorities continued the clearing operation, using excessive force against protesters. The incident marked the first known instance of state forces in the United States killing an environmental protester. In Central America, similar violence against land and water defenders has been alarmingly common, with governments often using terrorism charges to suppress dissent. The U.S. has historically played a role in promoting economic policies benefiting exploitative industries, while also training and supporting security forces that repress opposition. U.S.-backed police and military training programs have contributed to the rise of elite police units involved in extrajudicial killings. Despite these challenges, activists in both the United States and Central America continue to resist environmental destruction and militarization, advocating for alternatives to the existing oppressive systems.

Nicaraguan religious leaders are outraged by President Daniel Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo's self-identification as Christians while their government suppresses dissent and seizes religious properties. The crackdown, which began in 2018, has resulted in deaths, imprisonments, and loss of citizenship for critics. The Catholic Church has suffered under Ortega's regime, with surveillance, intimidation, and threats against clergy and worshippers. Religious freedom has deteriorated, leading to fear and self-censorship. The situation has caused division and suffering in Nicaraguan society, with a lack of reliable information. The sister interviewed fears for her safety but speaks out for the people of Nicaragua and calls for international attention to their plight.

On behalf of IRTF’s Rapid Response Network (RRN) members, we wrote six letters this month to heads of state and other high-level officials in Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico, urging their swift action in response to human rights abuses occurring in their countries.  We join with civil society groups in Latin America to: (1) protect people living under threat, (2) demand investigations into human rights crimes, (3) bring human rights criminals to justice.

Volunteers with the Rapid Response Network (RRN)—together with IRTF staff—write letters in response to six urgent human rights cases each month. We send copies of these letters to US ambassadors, embassy human rights officers, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, regional representatives of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and desk officers at the US State Department. To read the letters, see https://www.irtfcleveland.org/content/rrn , or ask us to mail you hard copies.

For many years, Ohioans have been supporting IRTF's work to advocate for the protection of water sources and the safety of environmental defenders in Central America.  Here in Ohio we heard first hand about the dire situation in Honduras on April 22, 2023 when we hosted Reynaldo Domínguez, an environmental defender from the community of Guapinol. His community members and family have paid a heavy price for their efforts to protect the Guapinol River from contamination caused by an iron oxide mine.  In January and June of this year, two of Reynaldo’s brothers were assassinated. 

The mine is operated inside a national protected area by a Honduran company called Los Pinares, owned by Lenir Pérez and Ana  Facussé. Now living in Miami, Lenir Pérez is under investigation by the FBI, which recently raided his home. The family of his wife, Ana Facussé,  owns the Dinant corporation, which has an ugly history of carrying out violence against campesinos (small farmers). Over the past several years, we have been following and responding to serious human rights violations committed by agents connected to the Dinant corporation:  surveillance, harassment, illegally grabbing campesino farm land, disappearances of community leaders, and even murders.

The Dear Colleague letter to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken (Aug 15, 2023) urges him to ensure that the US Embassy in Tegucigalpa supports efforts by the government of Honduras to protect environmental defenders and investigations into the violent networks associated with the Dinant corporation. Because of Dinant’s access to financing from multilateral development banks (and its involvement in corruption and human rights violations), the US government’s efforts to address root causes of emigration from Honduras are being undermined.

IRTF worked with the Honduras Solidarity Network to urge all 50+ members of the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs, as well as all US reps from Ohio, to sign this important letter to protect environmental defenders in Honduras. 

Indigenous environmental activists globally, especially in countries like Colombia, Mexico, Brazil, and the Philippines, face alarming rates of violence and assassination. A report by Global Witness revealed that 1,733 environmental and land-defense activists were killed between 2012 and 2021, with one murder occurring approximately every two days. These defenders, often from Indigenous communities, resist exploitation by industries like mining and logging. The violence, fueled by factors like corporate interests and governmental negligence, poses a severe threat to these activists. The situation underscores the urgent need to protect Indigenous communities, whose harmonious coexistence with nature is essential for the planet's future amidst the onslaught of capitalist-driven environmental destruction.

For more than 30 years, SOA Watch has united artists, musicians, and movement makers to breathe life into the international mobilizations at Fort Benning—recently renamed Fort Moore—and, as of 2016, at the U.S.-Mexico border. Artists have not only been a source of remembrance, joy and inspiration but also the resounding voices and colors of resistance in the face of adversity. As Honduran social activists and land defenders face increasing military repression and surveillance, these artists are using their craft to amplify the voices and uplift the struggles of Hondurans striving to protect and defend their ancestral lands, natural resources, and autonomy.

For the past 20 years, Red Comal has been an extraordinary hub for solidarity economies and sustainable regenerative agriculture. The SOAW Artists Collective is partnering with youth of the Red Comal to paint public murals during the fall of 2023—to send ripples of hope, resistance, and solidarity that transcend language, borders, and walls. This artwork will celebrate the communities’ histories, cultures, and unwavering struggle to safeguard their lands from aggressive and expansive agribusiness and monoculture interests, including the U.S.-based company Monsanto.

SOA Watch is accepting donations to fund the mural project. Click here to empower creative community projects in Honduras, foster exchanges between US and Honduran organizers, propel the ongoing mission of denouncing militarization and violence in the Americas.

Today, a group of 17 members of the U.S. House of Representatives sent a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressing serious concern over the prolonged detainment of five prominent anti-mining activists in El Salvador. The arrests, which occurred on January 11, 2023 targeted leaders from the rural community of Santa Marta in northern El Salvador who were instrumental in passing a 2017 ban on metallic mining; El Salvador remains the only country in the world with such a ban.