Anti-Militarism: News & Updates

A mass document leak published by 20 international news outlets including El Faro uncovered how the international owners of an open-pit nickel mine paid off Guatemalan security forces, ignored court orders, and consorted with the highest echelons of Guatemalan government to obscure pollution, crush local dissent, and continue operating with the tolerance of three administrations

Xiomara Castro’s presidency in Honduras offers the Biden administration the opportunity to work on addressing root causes of migration with a partner that now seems far more reliable than in El Salvador or Guatemala. And it offers the U.S. government a chance to begin to address the harm successive U.S. administrations did to the Honduran people by accepting the 2009 coup and embracing corrupt and abusive presidents in power for the last dozen years. Making the most of these chances means supporting those elements of Xiomara Castro’s agenda that tackle corruption, empower and protect human rights activists, and deliver inclusive economic benefits for Honduras’s most vulnerable citizens. To make sure the Biden administration is going in the right direction, it must change the way the U.S. government, certainly over the last dozen years, has systematically failed to listen to Hondurans on the frontlines of defending rights.

The refoundation of Honduras took two more important steps this month. After the successful electoral win of the opposition in November, the initially divided opposition in Congress came together this month and the US officially requested the extradition of JOH for his drug trafficking ties which led to his arrest. Of course, this does not mean that the old power structures are gone, they are still in place, especially in the Judiciary. But change seems possible. This also included the announcement to demilitarize the prisons as well as the state security forces in general. There were other things to celebrate in February, especially the liberation of the Guapinol defenders after over 900 days illegally imprisoned. But the way to a Honduras respecting human rights is still long and steep. Three members of the LGBTQ+ community were murdered in the first week of February; the Minosa mining company seems to be free to ignore court rulings and go on with the exhumation of a Maya Chortí cemetery in Azacualpa; and the indigenous Lenca Tierras del Padre community faced eviction threats. Welcome to another month in Honduras.

The cooperation between States in multiple fields, including the military, is a valid issue as long as the purpose is cooperation in legitimate defense of national sovereignty, supporting the country in emergency situations or cooperating against forms of organized crime whose combat is beyond the capacity of the armed forces of the country, and as long as it is carried out in accordance with international standards and conventions on the subject, and in full respect of the laws and legitimately elected authorities of the country. Unfortunately, this is not the type of external military presence we have seen in Honduras. Throughout the history we have seen the territorial sovereignty of Honduran people sullied continuously by foreign military forces that have penetrated in total disrespect of national regulations and with purposes contrary to the welfare of the country, and the peace of the Central American region. This is particularly true in the case of the military forces of the United States of America, which on repeated occasions during the twentieth century illegitimately and illegally penetrated Honduran territory. Since 1954 the U.S. military has been present continuously, accompanied by intelligence and logistics services, particularly the CIA, under an unconstitutional bilateral agreement, without the various Honduran governments in office have enforced our laws and our dignity as a sovereign nation.

With the inauguration of President Xiomara Castro, hopes of reducing the socio-environmental and agrarian conflict in Honduras resurfaced. In fact, at the national level, various organizations have repeatedly called for the need to intervene in historical conflicts such as the one that occurred in the Valle del Bajo Aguán, department of Colón, which has resulted in the murder of hundreds of peasants, families conflicted and impoverished communities. In this article, a series of strategic challenges for the peasant movement in the current political context are identified, in the effort to move towards a democratic solution to the conflict.

One year after President Joe Biden issued an executive order aimed at reforming U.S. policy toward Central America and establishing humane migration policy, a new report from the Root Causes Initiative examines the Biden administration’s record of following through on these commitments. Based on publicly available data and the analysis of civil society organizations, the report assesses the Administration’s efforts and issues recommendations across four areas: Rule of Law, Localizing Aid, Inclusive Economic Policy, and Humane Migration Policy. Considering the Administration’s efforts to advance the rule of law, the Initiative notes that the United States has “taken a relatively hard line” against the administration of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, criticizing and taking actions to reign in his anti-democratic actions through sanctions and other measures, while failing to apply the same pressure to the Guatemalan government.