Rapid Response Network

The Afro-Indigenous Garífuna community of Triunfo de la Cruz in the municipality of Tela, Atlántida Department, suffered an incursion by an armed group in search of Garífuna leaders. One hour after denouncing the incursion and intimidation on social media, Miriam Miranda, coordinator of the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH), received threats to her life and her family’s life via text to her personal phone from an unknown number. For several years, Miriam Miranda has been threatened, harassed, and illegally jailed for her human rights defense work on behalf of Garífuna communities, whose members and leaders have been persecuted even more with criminalization and assassinations. In repeated rulings, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has criticized the government of Honduras for not adhering to its mandates to protect Garífuna ancestral lands from outside land invaders and adequately investigate the murders of Garífuna community leaders.

Catholic priest José Enrique Vásquez left his mother’s house after a visit at 10am on March 2, returning to his parish in San Pedro Sula, Cortés Department, for Ash Wednesday religious services. He never showed up. At 10pm that night, his lifeless body was entered at the morgue as an unknown person. There were six bullet wounds in his body, including two in the head and two in the chest.

Álvaro Marcos Román was riding home from Guatemala City on his motorcycle overnight to arrive on time the next morning to meet with the City Council in Santa María Xalapán, Jalapa Department. He never made it. The 34-year-old was shot and killed on the highway at 2:00 in the morning. Álvaro Marcos Román served as president of the Community Directive of CODECA (Committee for Campesino Development) in Santa María Xalapán. Through his leadership with CODECA, he fought for land rights, defended labor rights in the agricultural sector, and pushed for the nationalization of privatized goods and services. He became the 23rd member of CODECA killed in Guatemala since 2018.

We expressed our deep concern to officials in Honduras about the assassinations of three persons of the LGBTI community early this month. On February 2, men dressed as police entered a shop owned by Jonathan Martínez, shooting and killing him and his partner César Zúñiga. The following day while 18-year-old Maria Fernanda Martínez was standing in the doorway of her home, someone threw a stone at her head and then shot her 210 times. Because of our concern of the odious assassinations of these LGBTI Hondurans on property that was their own to inhabit, and because of the wave of violence against this community and ongoing national impunity for these hate crimes, we called upon authorities to (1)  thoroughly investigate these killings, implementing the use of forensics compliance of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights’ ruling on the state’s culpability and failure to investigate crimes against members of the trans community and (2)  publicly condemn the killings of LGBTI Hondurans and show a commitment to a more inclusive Honduras by taking advantage of the offer of technical assistance made by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR/OACNUDH)

Indigenous Tolupán community leader Melvin Geovany Mejía Rodríguez was gunned down and killed by two unknown people on the highway to Morazón, Yoro. He was traveling with a friend who also died in the attack. Melvin Geovany Mejía Rodríguez was a recognized leader of the Candelaria tribe. Through his activities with Movimiento Amplio por la Dignidad y la Justicia (MADJ), Melvin Geovany Mejía Rodríguez worked to protect the ancestral lands of the Tolupán people from domestic and international mining operations. He had been the victim of harassment, intimidation and death threats over the past few years, which led to him having to relocate his family to reside in a different town.

We wrote to officials in Colombia about the ongoing dangers facing Nasa Indigenous peoples in Cauca Department who are under pressure from illegal armed groups with an agenda of expanding illicit crops, illegal mining, and drug trafficking. In two separate attacks on one Nasa Indigenous Reserve last month, three members of their nonviolent peacekeeping force (Indigenous Guard) were killed: on January 14, Breiner David Cucuñame López, member of the Student Indigenous Guard of Cauca; Indigenous Guard member Guillermo Chicame Ipia was killed during the same attack; and ten days days later, José Albeiro Camayo Güetio, a former coordinator of the Guardia Indígena del Cauca, was killed.  Fourteen-year-old Breiner David Cucuñame López was known as a committed environmental and indigenous rights activist. The Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca (CRIC) described Breiner as “a carer for Mother Earth, a child protector of life and a Nasa of collective actions and grand dreams.” ... Recent figures released in January 2022 showed that last year, a social leader—whether a human rights defender, community activist or environmentalist—was killed every 60 hours in Colombia.