Rapid Response Network

The communal land rights of Afro-descendant and Indigenous peoples are often disputed by private landowners, leading to violent conflicts and illegal evictions. The Lenca Indigenous Council of Nueva Palestina in Marcala, San José municipality, La Paz Department, knows this story all too well. Beginning on June 2, private landowner Juan Gabriel Argueta Montoya and his workers have been coming to the community with insults and threats to harm the families. At particular risk is Benjamín Cruz Bonilla, president of the Indigenous Council.

In 1999 the National Agrarian Institute (INA) gave property title to 229 hectares of ancestral land to the Lenca Council of Nueva Palestina.  However, a private landowner, Juan Gabriel Argueta, has an ongoing land dispute with the Lenca campesino cooperative. The community received a favorable ruling from on June 8 when the Court of Appeals of Comayagua ruled in favor of several members of the Indigenous Council who had been subjected to an illegal judicial process, accused of aggravated usurpation and alteration of terms or boundaries. Now, both the court and the Public Ministry agree with the Indigenous Council of Nueva Palestina that there is no aggravated usurpation or alteration of terms or boundaries.

We are urging that authorities (1) instruct the private landowner to abide by the June 8 court ruling in favor of the communal land title and (2) clarify any other land titles in dispute.

Another environmental defender was assassinated in the Aguán Valley on June 15. At 10:30am Oquelí Domínguez was shot by two men on a motorcycle at his family’s home in the community of Guapinol (Tocoa municipality, Colón Department, Aguán Valley). His mother, Catalina Ramos, was shot in the leg.

The Municipal Committee in Defense of the Common and Public Goods of Tocoa has denounced since August 2022 a hate and smear campaign that has escalated to surveillance, harassment, and threats against the lives of community leaders who oppose a concession given to Inversiones Los Pinares to mine iron oxide inside the Carlos Escaleras National Park.  Oquelí is the second member of the Domínguez family assassinated in recent months. His brother Aly Domínguez, a co-founder of Guapinol’s grassroots resistance against the mine, was killed along with Jairo Bonilla on January 7 (cf our letter 24 JAN 2023). Both Aly and Oquelí are brothers of internationally recognized environmental defender Reynaldo Domínguez, who has been systematically persecuted by the Honduran State through criminalization and the victim of smear and defamation campaigns for his work defending and protecting the national park and the Guapinol and San Pedro Rivers.

The 26 tribes of the native Tolupán peoples who live on ancestral lands throughout Yoro Department are organized in the Federation of Xicaques of Yoro Tribes (FETRIXY). The Tolupán communities are constantly organizing to defend their ancestral lands from the economic interests of outsiders: large private landholders, hydroelectric dam companies, mining companies, and the timber industry. After the election of new tribal leaders on March 26, there has been increased pressure from logging companies to threaten and discredit the Tolupán tribes. The newly leadership has asked the National Institute for Conservation and Forest Development (ICF) to not receive or process any requests for forest management plans in the territory that corresponds to the tribe of San Francisco de Locomapa. This has angered logging industry executives.

At particular risk is Tolupán tribal leader José María Pineda and his family in San Francisco de Locomapa, Yoro. Criminal groups at the service of the timber industry have publicly stated that they would look for José María Pineda and his daughters to attack them and burn down their house.

As part of the 2016 Peace Accords, many FARC combatants who agreed to put down their weapons enrolled in the formal reincorporation process, to re-enter society as ex-combatants. Some organized themselves into the National Living Memory Union of People's Security and Protection Workers. As experts in security detail, Living Memory (Memoria Viva) members often contract as security personnel (bodyguards) with government agencies, such as the UNP (National Protection Unit). Recently they have been the subject of stigmatization resulting from false allegations made by UNP during labor contract negotiations.

Diego Mauricio Mejía Rojas, a member of the National Council of the Memoria Viva Union, became the eighth member of Memoria Viva killed since the union was established five years ago when he was shot by two persons riding on a motorcycle in Puerto Asis, Putumayo Department, on April 9. Four days later, there was an attack against another Memoria Viva member, Jhon Jader Ferreyra, in Ibague, Tolima Department.

We are urging that authorities in Colombia: (1) investigate the attacks on these two union members, (2) instruct the UNP to negotiate in good faith and stop making false statements against the union, and (3) fulfill the government’s commitments made in the Peace Accords and work to end violence against Memoria Viva union members and against all signatories of the Peace Accords

We wrote to officials in Colombia expressing deep distress over recent attacks on the staff of CREDHOS (Regional Corporation for the Defense of Human Rights), an organization committed to the defense, promotion, and protection of human rights in the Magdalena Medio region of Colombia since 1987. In recent months there has been an increase in threats and harassment to social organizations and human rights defenders in the Magdalena Medio region and in Barrancabermeja, Santander Department, where CREDHOS is based.  

On April 10, a bomb was placed outside the CREDHOS office in Barrancabermeja. One day later, armed civilians shot at CREDHOS staff while they were accompanying an administrative police procedure. Providing international accompaniment to the CREDHOS staff were two members of International Action for Peace (IAP) from Spain, clearly identified with vests as international peace accompaniers. It is our understanding that the National Police captured two of the assailants, charged them, and released them on April 13.

In addition to requesting that the government provide protection measures for CREDHOS staff, we are urging that authorities in Colombia investigate any patterns of victimization towards human rights defenders committed by irregularly armed civilians ostensibly organized in “citizen security fronts.”

On June 2, 2017, the families of Laguna Larga, El Petén Department, were forced to abandon their land when more than 1,000 Guatemalan security forces carried out a massive eviction, following a court order from a judge in San Andrés, El Petén. They soon arrived on the Mexican side of the border with Guatemala, near La Candelaria, Campeche State, and established an improvised camp after travelling by foot for at least a day across remote jungles. Although they were granted protective measures by the IACHR three months later, they have been living a precarious existence on the border ever since.

On April 21, 2023, Guatemalan security forces from the national pólice, the army and two other divisions forcefully aprehended three of the community members while they were tending to their crops:  Melvyn Geovanni Peréz Muralles (age 26), René Gutiérrez González (age 31), and one unnamed boy with the initials LRGB (age 11). Witnesses reported that a PNC agent held the eleven-year-old upside down and shook him violently. The agents transported the three to San Andrés, El Petén Department, to be seen before a judge, but we have not heard any news about the hearing or whether the three remain in detention.

Since January of this year, we have written letters to authorities in Honduras in response to eight assassinations of land and water defenders in the Aguán Valley. José Gilberto Martínez Cardona became the first defender killed in the Aguán Valley this year outside the departments of Colón or Atlántida.  He was murdered on Tuesday, April 18, after participating in a commemoration of the International Day of Peasant Struggle. The 64-year-old community leader had been active in his community’s fight for their land and water for more than 30 years in Olanchito, Yoro Department. José Gilberto Martínez Cardona was a member of the National Association of Honduran Peasant Farmers (ANACH), as well as the secretary of the campesino cooperative “Blessing of God #2.”

IRTF has great respect for Father Ismael Moreno Coto, the director of the independent media outlet Radio Progreso in San Pedro Sula. The Jesuit priest—known affectionately throughout Honduras as Padre Melo—was the keynote speaker at IRTF’s annual Commemoration of the Martyrs event in Cleveland in 2010, and our staff and IRTF friends have visited him and his staff at Radio Progreso multiple times over the past 14 years.

In a television broadcast on May 5, a TV anchor made a serious false accusation about Father Moreno.  It appears this was an attempt to shape public opinion against Padre Melo, to place doubt in the viewing public as to whether he is someone who can be trusted.  This broadcast comes at a time when Radio Progreso is experiencing a series of threats, extortions, computer hacks, and social media attacks. In a previous smear campaign a few years ago, Padre Melo was falsely accused of receiving "dirty money from drug-related activity and of using Radio Progreso to discredit Honduras."

We are urging that authorities in Honduras conduct a transparent investigation to learn who is behind the defamation campaign against Padre Melo and Radio Progreso.

The consolidation of power by the executive branch of Guatemala is threatening democracy and putting the country on a path toward authoritarianism. This month we wrote to the attorney general to express our disillusionment about politically motivated attacks on prosecutors and judges working to end impunity for serious human rights violations, especially those committed by former military personnel during the years of the internal armed conflict (1960-86), as well as attacks on journalists who report on these cases.

On 6:00am on March 16, police and Public Ministry officials arrived at the home of former prosecutor Orlando Salvador López, raided his residence, and arrested him. Orlando López formerly served as head of the Human Rights Prosecutor’s Office, where he helped build the prosecution for critical transitional justice cases like the case of the Ixil Genocide, for which former president Ríos Montt was found guilty in May 2013.  He has been made a target of pro-military factions within Guatemala, most notably the Foundation Against Terrorism (FCT), which currently is a plaintiff in a questionable legal case against Orlando López. FCT, working hand in hand with the Public Ministry’s Office, has led the charge to punish honest judges and prosecutors, nearly 30 of whom have been forced into exile. 

In a related case, the Special Prosecutor’s Office Against Impunity (FECI) announced that it is taking legal action against Francisco Dall’Anese, the former head of CICIG (Commissioner of the International Commission Against Impunity, 2010-13), who oversaw investigations into high-level corruption.

We are urging that authorities (1) end the use of criminal proceedings as reprisal against those involved in investigating and prosecuting cases of corruption or serious human rights violations, (2) ensure that judges and prosecutors are able to work freely without fear of reprisal, and (3) ensure free and fair elections during the election of Guatemala’s next president on June 25.

Energy generation is highly controversial in Colombia, whether it be from coal, gas, or hydroelectric. The controversy stems from the environmental, economic, and social impacts on local communities surrounding the energy plants. On the Magdalena River in Huila Department (southwest Colombia), artisanal fishers (i.e., small-scale) have been organizing against the El Quimbo hydroelectric project for the past 15 years. In 2008, the government have the energy company the green light to flood over 8,500 acres of land for the construction of the dam and power plant. The flooding displaced farming communities and harmed the local fishing industry.

ASOQUIMBO is the Association of People Affected by the El Quimbo Hydroelectric. Its spokesperson, Alirio Perdomo, is also president of the Association of Calandrero Fishermen of the Magdalena River.  Because of their efforts to have the government recognize the environmental and social impacts of the hydroelectric project, many ASOQUIMBO members have endured serious death threats and harassment, as well as the destruction of small crops on which the communities heavily depend. On March 28 at 5pm, Alirio Perdomo published a video publicly denouncing the levels of fish mortality in the Betania dam and the negative impacts on artisanal fishers due to "controlled discharges" from El Quimbo. Two hours later, while on his way into the city of Hobo, two men on a motorcycle shot at him, hitting his ear in an attempt to murder him.