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Anti-Militarism: News & Updates

News Article
2021 IRTF Commemoration program book, recordings, highlights
November 17, 2021
Thank you to the more than 120 people who attended the IRTF annual Commemoration of the Martyrs online on Sunday, November 7. You helped to create a beautiful and moving tribute to human rights defenders throughout southern Mexico, Central America, and Colombia. Here you will find links to (1) Commemoration program book 2021, (2) Zoom recording of the event, (3) Facebook livestream recording, (4) playlist from the social hour, (5) an additional play list, (6) how you can add your name to urgent human rights letters, (7) donations for the Honduras support fund, (8) IRTF Legacy Circle planned giving fund, and (9) highlights from the speakers' presentations. Thank you!
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Event
Colombia Today: Peacemakers Resist!
November 13, 2021
Join us to hear from Danilo Rueda, Executive Secretary of the Colombian Ecumenical organization Comisión Intereclesial de Justicia y Paz. He will talk about the roots of this year’s national strike and protests, brutally repressed by Colombian National Police and Mobile Anti-Disturbance Squadron (ESMAD), and what we can do to support the peacemakers’ vision for Colombia. Organized by Chicago Leadership Network on Latin America (CRLN).
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RRN Case Update
RRN Case Update: October 2021
October 31, 2021
October 2021 - RRN Letters Summary
Please see below a summary of the letters we sent to heads of state and other high-level officials in Colombia, Guatemala, and Honduras, urging their swift action in response to human rights abuses occurring in their countries. We join with civil society groups in Latin America to: -protect people living under threat -demand investigations into human rights crimes -bring human rights criminals to justice IRTF’s Rapid Response Network (RRN) volunteers write six letters in response to 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.
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News Article
Anti-Racism: Black America And White Supremacy - Race As A Factor In Human Rights Abuses
October 31, 2021

The United States is a contradiction. From the stirring words of the Declaration of Independence and the Preamble to the Constitution to the Statue of Liberty beckoning the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” the U.S. trumpets to the world – and does not hesitate to export at gunpoint – the ideals of democracy, freedom, and unbridled capitalism; yet, it is a nation that is also based upon the murderous oppression of Black, Indigenous and other peoples of color. The United States was born of Indigenous genocide and settler colonialism, and African slavery, which included genocide and extractive colonialism, all driven by capitalism and the desire to exploit every natural and human resource for the fulfillment of greed and hegemony. These are not historical issues which have been overcome; they exist today in other no less deadly forms than their earlier iterations.  

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News Article
Guatemala: Town of El Estor Locked in Battle with El Fénix Nickel Mine
October 28, 2021

In 2017, a red slick spread over Lake Izabal, which the community blamed on pollution from a nickel mine, owned by Switzerland-based Solway Investments. In resulting protests, Cristobal Pop, 44, a fisherman was imprisoned, and his comrade Carlos Maaz shot dead. This month, the community of El Estor in Izabal Department resumed demonstrations, accusing CGN (the domestic subsidiary of Solway) of continuing to mine at El Fénix despite a 2019 Constitutional Court order for it to suspend operations. The court ruled in favor of local communities, who said they had not been consulted about the opening of the mine or its effects on them. The government was ordered to open fresh consultations, but the people of El Estor say they are being excluded.

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RRN Letter
RRN Letter: Colombia, 10/26/2021
October 26, 2021
We wrote to officials in Colombia about threats to and attacks on indigenous Awá and Nasa community members and leaders in Nariño and Cauca Departments, including the attempted assassination of Nasa community leader Oveimar Tenorio. Nariño Department (Awá territory) : On October 2, at least three Awá women indigenous leaders in Barbacoas municipality received threatening phone calls, including Yurani López Moreano, governor of the Awá Nunalbí Alto Ulbíl Reservation. They were threatened to either leave their territory or risk becoming a military target....Cauca Department (Nasa territories): On October 1, Oveimar Tenorio, area coordinator of the Kiwe Thenas of Cxhab Wala Kiwe, was shot repeatedly at his home at the Nasa reservation of San Francisco de Toribío. Fortunatley, he survived the assassination attempt.... On October 3, four Nasa community members were kidnapped, gagged and threatened with death by armed men. Gun shots were fired against members of the Indigenous Guard as they made a successful rescue of the four people at the town hall in Caloto municipality....We demand investigations into these threats and attacks. We further demand that the State protect the right of indigenous communities to defend their communal territories and maintain them as conflict-free zones.
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News Article
El Salvador: Legislative Assembly Issues Decree Restricting The Right To Protest
October 22, 2021
On October 20, the ruling party with a majority in El Salvador’s Legislative Assembly approved an initiative entitled "Special and transitory provisions for the suspension of concentrations and public or private events,” which empowers the Attorney General and the National Civil Police (PNC) to take action against people who convene, promote, or organize rallies–under the pretext of containing the COVID-19 virus.
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News Article
Migrant Justice: Green card installation represents hundreds of thousands of TPS families in need of permanent relief
October 14, 2021
The 400 placards installed in front of the U.S. Capitol read in part “United States of America Permanent Resident,” symbolized 400,000 Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders and families who need permanent relief. Among the speakers was Sitar Llama, who said he was representing nearly 15,000 Nepali TPS holders “whose lives are on the line.” “I was not able to see my kids grow up. My wife and I have lived apart for 20 years,” he said in a press release received by Daily Kos. “I work very hard 11-hour shifts, but I cannot get a promotion without a green card. The White House and Congress make our lives hard by not giving us citizenship.” Immigrants and advocates with the Communities United for Status and Protection (CUSP) collaborative effort stressed that a united Democratic front does have the power to bring permanent relief not just to Llama and other TPS holders but to millions of immigrants.
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News Article
Honduras: There's a Plan of Genocide Against the Garífuna People
October 13, 2021
Excerpt: This is a time when the State is very clear that it is going to do everything possible to deprive the Garífuna community of its territory to hand it over to investors. That is why we reaffirm that there is a genocidal plan against the Garífuna people. And that is why we are making a call to see what is happening in Honduras. People have left the country en masse and continue to leave. The Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris, says “don't come.” However, the United States continues to support corrupt governments like this one, governments that violate human rights. We all have the right to migrate, but we also have the right to stay in the country and live well. Because this is a country where we could live in well-being, only that it is captured by a mafia that does not let us live.
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RRN Letter
RRN Letter: Honduras, 10/12/2021
October 12, 2021
We wrote to officials in Honduras to denounce the assassination of Óscar Javier Pérez, former member of a campesino organization in the Aguán Valley of northern Honduras. In October 2016, Óscar Javier Pérez was an eyewitness to the assassinations of José Ángel Flores, president of MUCA (Unified Campesino Movement of the Aguán Valley) and Silmer Dionisio George, also a leader of MUCA (cf our letter October 25, 2016). On September 20, 2020, one of the murderers of José Ángel Flores and Silmer Dionisio George was captured. On October 10, 2021, Óscar Javier Pérez was riddled with bullets at his home in the community of Quebradas de la Arena, Tocoa, Colón Department. A motivation for the killing of Óscar Javier Pérez could be to silence him from giving testimony at an upcoming court trial. For the past decade, campesino rights organizations in the Aguán Valley have denounced the assassinations of their leaders and members. They point to the presence of armed paramilitary groups created to sow terror in the area. These groups are protected by the police and the army who are aware of their existence and allow them to operate unrestricted.
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