Afro-Descendant & Indigenous: News & Updates

Pablo Ramos, age 66, president of the Community Directive of CODECA (Committee for Campesino Development) in the rural community of Navajoa, Morales Municipality, Izabal Department, was assassinated on June 7. The previous day he had gone to a hearing at the Public Ministry in Morales to register his community’s opposition to the illegal commercialization of their properties (dividing and re-selling of campesino plots). Pablo Ramos had been summoned to the hearing by the Manchame family, which is involved in land disputes with several community residents. There have been reports of threats to Pablo Ramos by members of the Manchame family.

We are deeply concerned about the targeted killings of leaders of CODECA, which has 90,000 members across Guatemala. Shot dead while working in the general store he ran from his home, Pablo Ramos became the 24th member of CODECA killed in Guatemala since 2018.

We wrote to officials in Colombia to demand accountability for the assassination of Jesusita Moreno, an Afro-descendant community leader of the San Juan River basin in Chocó Department. Affectionately known as Doña Tuta, the 60-year-old was killed on June 7 when several armed men entered her house in the La Floresta neighborhood of Cali and shot her repeatedly. 

Afro-descendant and Indigenous communities in the middle and lower San Juan River basin have been overwhelmed by the intensity and degradation of the armed conflict. Jesusita Moreno worked tirelessly to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in the community of Noanamá in Istmina municipality. She helped to broker agreements with armed groups to respect civilian populations. One of Doña Tuta's dreams was creating a shelter-refuge in Noanamá for displaced persons so they could remain close to home and not have to flee to the cities.

Colombia is experiencing an alarming rate of assassinations of social leaders; at least 76 have been killed so far this year. Over the weekend of May 14-15, three social leaders were killed in the departments of Cauca and Valle del Cauca.

May 14: Didimo Hernán Rodas, member of the association of ecological plantain producers (Asoproamed) was killed in the village of Los Medios, municipality of Buga, Valle del Cauca Department.

May 15: José Alexander Espinoza Valencia, president of the Community Action Board of the village of El Retiro, municipality of Tuluá, was shot and killed while driving from the village of La Moralia to the village of Naranjal.

May 15: revered Afro-descendant community leader Edgar Quintero, ex-president of his local Community Action Board in the village of Lomitas (Cauca Department), was shot to death when he left his house in the wee hours of the morning to attend to the cattle on his farm.

The staggering number of deaths and lack of safety in Colombia are stripping local communities of peace and security. We are urging authorities to consult with local leadership in Cauca and Valle del Cauca to provide security for rural communities, in strict accordance with their wishes.

The government of Honduras is a signatory to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Who Work and Live in Rural Areas, Agricultural Workers and Indigenous Peoples, approved by the United Nations General Assembly on December 17, 2018. The document calls for protection of several basic rights, including food, land and water, and respect for the cultural identity and traditional knowledge of Indigenous populations.

Clearly, the government is not upholding its obligations to Indigenous and other campesino communities. Here is a recent example. The Lenca Council of Palestine in Marcala, La Paz Department, is embattled in an ongoing land dispute with a private landowner. The Indigenous families of the campesino cooperative have 229 hectares of ancestral lands that were titled to them by the Honduran government in 1999. Nevertheless, the private landowner succeeded in getting a judge to issue an eviction order to force some families from some of the land. On May 18, about 200 employees of the private landowner arrived with 40-50 state security personnel (police and military) to carry out the eviction.  When Ramon Domínguez and Juan García, two members of the Lenca campesino cooperative, showed resistance, they were arbitrarily detained for seven hours even though they were not charged with any crime.

For many years, Garífuna communities along the Atlantic coast have suffered violence, killings, disappearances, and forced displacement due to powerful economic interests. This includes Honduran elites, international tourism, charter cities (aka ZEDEs), drug traffickers, industrial scale agriculture (e.g., African palm oil plantations), and more. The government of Honduras has enabled the stealing of Garifuna land because of its failure to ensure Garifuna communities the right to their ancestral territories, even when ordered to do so by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

On May 1, unknown persons shot community leader Alonso Salgado Caballero to death while he was sitting in a hammock outside the home of his cousin in Río Tinto, a Garífuna community in Tela municipality, Atlántida Department. The assailants then entered the home and attacked two of his relatives.   They seriously injured the wife of his cousin, Zury Quintanilla, a  school teacher and the current secretary of the board of trustees of the community. His sister-in-law, Sury Mariela Quintana, was also hospitalized with two gunshots to the head. Alonso Salgado Caballero, age 51, was the former treasurer of the board of trustees.

We are urging that the government of Honduras create and implement legal instruments to eradicate all types of violence against those who lawfully work to protect the land, natural resources and territorial rights of Garífuna communities.

Violence continues in El Estor, Izabal Department, where Maya Indigenous residents have been organizing resistance to the El Fénix nickel mine for the past decade. On May 16, pro-mining residents inflicted serious harm on Adela Choc Cuz, a 68-year-old member of the Ancestral Council of Maya Q’eqchi’ and well-respected spiritual guide in El Estor. Assailants waged an attack on her after accusing her of witchcraft. They burned down her home, held her and her daughter Sandra Tec Choc captive, threatened to burn her alive, and threatened to decapitate her. When police arrived on the scene, the assailants threw rocks at them and attempted to burn their patrol car, thwarting the rescue attempt.

While this might appear to be an interpersonal dispute, investigators must note the political context. Adela Choc Cuz and her family are vocal and active members of the organized resistance to the El Fénix nickel mine.  The assailants are associated with a pro-mining evangelical church and radio station and the pro-mining community development council COCODE. Fifteen members of COCODE were at the house when the women were finally released after 18 hours. 

Honduras is one of the most dangerous places on Earth for environmental defenders. We wrote to officials in Honduras demanding justice for the assassinations of three environmental defenders in recent weeks. (1) Justo Benítez (April 30): defender natural resources of the municipality of San Francisco de Ojuera, Santa Bárbara Department; (2) Wilmer Domíngez Madrid (May 10): defender of  natural resources in the Lenca peoples’ movement against the Agua Zacra dam in Río Blanco, Intibucá Department; and (3) Donaldo Rosales (May 15): active member of the Environmental Committee of the Municipalities of the Northeast of Comayagua (Camneco), Comayagua Department. In addition to demanding thorough investigations, we are also urging the state to create and implement legal instruments to eradicate all types of violence against those who lawfully work to protect the land, natural resources and territorial rights, especially those of Indigenous communities.