Rapid Response Network

During the final weeks of President Hernández’s term, Miami-based Aura Minerals seemed eager to move full steam ahead with its desecration of a 200-year-old Maya Chortí cemetery in Azacualpa. The military and National Police were deployed to facilitate Aura’s exhumation of graves so that they can get their hands on gold reserves underneath. Community residents trying to protect their deceased relatives’ final resting place are threatened, detained, and beaten. We echo the demands of the residents of Azacualpa to (1) order a suspension of the exhumations of graves in the cemetery, (2) order a retreat of the military and police from the cemetery hill, and (3) reassure the community’s access to the cemetery.

We wrote to officials in Honduras to express our outrage at the constant persecution of Garífuna defenders of their ancestral territories along the northern coast of Honduras. On January 13, police arrested Leonard Brown and Luis Alberto Gutierrez, two Garífuna territorial defenders from the Waba To community in Colón Department. The following day, OFRANEH (Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras) denounced that both men had been "savagely beaten inside the cell" of the local police center. The state has been pressuring Garífuna residents to abandon Waba To at the behest of foreign investors. We demand that authorities: (1) drop criminal charges against Leonard Brown and Luis Alberto Gutierrez; (2) investigate any physical harm inflicted on the men during their arrest and make accountable police agents who are responsible for those injuries; (3) comply with judgments of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to protect Garífuna communities against hostility and pressure from intruders and criminal groups; and (4) work with Garífuna leaders to demarcate and register land titles.

We expressed deep concern to officials in Colombia about the lack of government response to the paramilitary invasion of campesino townships and villages in the South of Bolívar which began during the last week of December, despite a large presence of the Colombian Armed Forces. The Armed Forces are allowing paramilitaries to take control. We are worried that massive displacement of villagers might result. We are urging authorities in Colombia to (1) consult with local leadership in the Montecristo region to devise a plan to project the local population from further violence and displacement by paramilitary forces, (2) reevaluate the mission the Colombian Armed Forces in the region, and (3) take decisive actions to dismantle paramilitary groups that are operating in the South of Bolívar.

Pablo Isabel Hernández, a 34-year-old father of four and community leader, was assassinated with seven gunshots just outside his home in Lempira Department on January 9. As a respected Indigenous Lenca leader, he was a constant target of persecution. As an environmental defender, Pablo Isabel Hernández served as president of La Red de Agroecologists of La Biosfera Cacique Lempira Señor de Las Montañas. As a person of faith, he organized local Christian base communities. As a journalist, he directed a community radio station and denounced human rights violations on his program. As a person committed to democratic process, he served as a human rights observer for the national and local elections on November 28.

The National Police and its Anti-Riot Mobile Squad (ESMAD) carried out brutal repression against residents who are protesting against fare increases in Bogota’s TransMilenio transportation system. On January 5, ESMAD agents arrived with two military tanks at the Molinos neighbhorhood of Bogotá. They threw stun grenades at demonstrators and fired tear gas indiscriminately. ESMAD detained a young journalist and kicked him. As many as 2,500 National Police and ESMAD officers were deployed around the city on January 11, when the fare increase went into effect. Many demonstrators have been arrested.

We wrote to officials in Honduras expressing our dismay about a court-ordered eviction of the San Isidro Campesino Cooperative which commenced today when 150 policemen arrived and forcibly evicted 80 families from the cooperative farm. This is an illegal eviction that benefits wealthy private landowners and extractive companies in Honduras. In 2012, the San Isidro Cooperative recovered their lands after an arduous legal process. In 2019, a first eviction was carried out in a context of extreme violence. Yesterday, the San Isidro Cooperative tried to stop this eviction by presenting an appeal in the national jurisdiction court of Francisco Morazán. Although the appeal was accepted, two hours later the judge ordered the eviction of the community. We are urging that authorities in Honduras order an investigation of the judges who are issuing these eviction orders as to whether there has been collusion between the court and private economic interests. Land rights groups are suspecting corruption, influence peddling, and bribery.

We wrote to officials in Honduras to protest the illegal eviction orders against several campesino cooperatives issued by three judges in three departments. Several private interests, among them the Honduran Council of Private Enterprise (COHEP), the Dinant Corporation, and the Agropalma company, have persuaded judges to issue the orders, which, we anticipate, will be backed up by military and police. The families of the campesino cooperatives San Isidro, Trinidad, Despertar, Remolino, Camarones, Laureles, Tranvio, Paso Aguán and Plantel are facing imminent threat of eviction, even though the cooperatives are in possession of definitive titles that the National Agrarian Institute (INA) maintains in its archives. Although these cooperatives have filed numerous complaints with the government for the crime of usurpation against Dinant, Agropalma and Ceibeña investments for many years, the investigations have never advanced. We strongly urge that government authorities take swift action to prevent any acts of violence against the campesino families who are making use of their legitimate right to access these lands.

We wrote to officials in the Ministry of Energy and Mines (MEM) of Guatemala to express our disappointment that it has not resolved the 15-year controversy surrounding the El Fénix nickel mine in El Estor, Izabal Department. On December 10, the Ministry of Energy and Mines (MEM) announced that the community consultation process on the mine was officially completed and that mining operations could resume in January 2022. This is preposterous. The consultation—a process which normally takes at least a year to complete—was conducted in just over three months, during the majority of which the community of El Estor was under a state of siege (cf our letter of November 21, 2021). The Xinka Parliament, the Q’eqchi’ Ancestral Council, the Defensoría Q’eqchi’, and the El Estor Fisherman’s Guild have all refused to recognize the rushed and inadequate consultation process. We urging that MEM suspend the mining license until there is a new consultation process that includes the legitimate ancestral authorities who have been elected by their communities and representatives of the Fishermen’s Guild.

We wrote to officials in Honduras with our concerns about acts of intimidation against Nidia Castillo, staff attorney with the National Network of Women Human Rights Lawyers in Choluteca. Unknown actors damaged her car, and a man on a motorcycle followed her when she left home to run errands on December 2. This was the same day she had attended a press conference to oppose the ZEDE Orquídea (Employment and Economic Development Zone); construction commenced in the village of Las Tapias in January. Due to the vast biological diversity of flora and fauna of this area situated near the border of Nicaragua, UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) declared it a biosphere reserve in 2017. Opponents have concerns that the ZEDE’s industrial agriculture projects, designed to produce exports to the U.S., will create severe negative environmental destruction, disrupting communities and threatening the biosphere of the region.

The Armed Forces and National Police have militarized the 200-year-old Azacualpa community cemetery in La Unión, Copán Department, at the behest of a US/Canadian gold mining company. Exhumations of the mostly indigenous Maya-Chortí graves have occurred off and on for several years. Despite a Supreme Court order one year ago to stop the exhumations, in October of this year another judge issued an “urgent order” to exhume, transfer and rebury the skeletal remains. The removal of the cemetery (which is why the army and police have been deployed) is to make way for 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). Those who oppose mining operations are spied on and threatened. Many opponents (at least 35) have been criminalized.