Please join us for this 90-minute webinar about Nicaragua’s achievements in confronting the global climate crisis! The presenters are Javier Gutierrez, Secretary for Climate Change in the Office of the President of Nicaragua; Rick Kohn, University of Maryland professor; Paul Baker, musical artist and environmental activist
On April 22, join this webinar about Salvadoran communities facing the decision of migrating from their country. USESSC will be part of this event to discuss the challenges faced by members of rural communities who choose to migrate from El Salvador.
Please see a summary of the letters we sent to heads of state and other high-level officials in Colombia, El Salvador, 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 (1) protect people living under threat, (2) demand investigations into human rights crimes, and (3) 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.
Reporting on the human rights situation in Guatemala, the US State Department illustrated worsening conditions and highlighted the role that corruption and impunity have played in the last year. The 2021 Human Rights Report–released on April 12–summarizes and provides examples of what the State Department deems “significant human rights issues” in Guatemala, including the following: unlawful and arbitrary killings; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; arbitrary arrest and detention; serious problems with the independence of the judiciary; restrictions on freedom of expression, including threats and violence against journalists; interference with freedom of association and organization; and significant corruption.
On March 22, Julio Toc Mucu was apprehended by police near his home and taken to the Penitentiary Center in Puerto Barrios, where he was beaten in custody. We understand that arrest warrants have also been issued against 12 more environmental defenders and journalists who protested the mine in October 2021 when state security forces violently attacked community residents with beatings and tear gas.
We reiterate our condemnation of acts of state violence against, and criminalization of, Indigenous environmental rights defenders in El Estor. We strongly urge the government of Guatemala to: (1) drop all criminal charges against Julio Toc Mucu and the other environmental defenders, (2) suspend the company’s mining license and stop all further mining operations promptly, and (3) initiate a new, transparent and thorough and inclusive consultation process with impacted communities.
We wrote to officials in Honduras about the continued destruction of the 200-year-old Azacualpa community cemetery in La Unión, Copán Department. As we described in previous letters (cf December 2, 2021 and January 25, 2022), army and police were deployed to ensure the exhumations of graves, to facilitate expansion of the San Andrés gold mine, which is owned by US- and Canada-based Aura Minerals and operated by its Honduran subsidiary MINOSA (Minerales de Occidente SA).
On March 30, 2022, the State of Honduras ordered MINOSA to stop its operations. Given the history of this case, we are skeptical that MINOSA will abide. We are deeply troubled by the indifference with which the mining company reacts to the issued court orders. It shows clear disrespect for the Indigenous Maya-Chortí community whose loved ones have been exhumed and whose territorial rights have been violated.
On April 1, PBI-Honduras tweeted: “PBI accompanies ASODEBICOQ [the Association for the Defense of Common Goods of Quimistan] during the official presentation of declarations of Forest Protection Zone over 4 micro-watersheds in Quimistán. We celebrate these declarations and highlight the protection work of the communities as well as the defense work of ASODEBICOQ.”
On March 31, PBI-Colombia tweeted: “@Ccajar, on behalf of Afrowilches, and other human rights organizations file tutelage against #fracking pilots in #PuertoWilches for lack of prior consultation with Afro-Colombian communities who, in the midst of threats, protect their #ancestral territory, water and ecosystem.” Their tweet helped to amplify this statement from the PBI-Colombia accompanied José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers’ Collective (CCAJAR) that notes: “Human rights organizations together with the Colombia Free of Fracking Alliance, filed before a Circuit Court a charge against the Ministry of the Interior, the ANLA [National Environmental Licensing Authority] and Ecopetrol, for the violation of the right to prior, free and informed consultation of the Afro-Colombian Corporation of Puerto Wilches – Afrowilches.”
The Observatory for Justice for the Guapinol River Defenders urged the State of Honduras to compensate the damages caused, investigate and punish those responsible for the events and offer immediate physical and psychological protection measures to the defenders and their environment. In February 2021, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention made public its resolution that the "preventive" detention of the eight defenders was illegal and called for their immediate release; as well as an exhaustive and independent investigation of the judges and prosecutors who promoted the trial. However, the State of Honduras did not take any measures to put an end to and redress their unjust deprivation of liberty. It was not until February 24 2022 that all eight environmental defenders had been released.
The mining conflict in Azacualpa has shown the implications of mining activity in the territories of Honduras, under a state policy that promotes extractivism in an excessive manner and that, apart from environmental damage, has resulted in the exile of entire communities. This mining company generated the displacement of three villages in the municipality: San Andrés Minas, San Miguel and Azacualpa. In the case of San Andres, the mining company negotiated with the municipal and central government the total relocation of the community. While, in the case of San Miguel and Azacualpa, the displacement was partial. The current conflict in Azacualpa is a socio-political and environmental conflict motivated by the actions of the MINOSA mining company that, in its eagerness to extract and exploit the commons, has destroyed the biodiversity and ecosystems of the area and (if that were not enough) has dispossessed families of the cemeteries where their relatives have been buried for more than two hundred years.
