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TAKE ACTION: Tell your Representative to Stop U.S. Security Aid to Honduras

HR 1574: The Bertha Cáceres Human Rights in Honduras Act. Today Hondurans need your advocacy, as they fill the streets to fight the theft of public resources by a corrupt regime -- and continue 10 years of nonviolent resistance amidst lethal repression by the state.

Thank you Witness for Peace for the image and Urgent Action.

Dozens of US representatives are answering the call for justice by co-sponsoring HR 1574 The Berta Cáceres Human Rights in Honduras Act, demanding the suspension of U.S. military and police aid to Honduras until human rights violations committed by Honduran security forces cease, and their perpetrators are brought to justice. (Ohioans are grateful to Rep. Marcy Kaptur [D-OH-09], who is among the intial sponsors of this legislation in the current Congress.)

As Hondurans mark 10 years of brutal repression, stand with them by contacting your Representative- ask them to cosponsor the Berta Cáceres Human Rights in Honduras Act TODAY!  

Click here and follow the TAKE ACTION steps at SOAW.org . 

The bill states that "The Honduran police are widely established to be deeply corrupt and to commit human rights abuses, including torture, rape, illegal detention, and murder, with impunity” and that the military has committed violations of human rights.

 

As our colleagues at the Honduras Solidarity Network (HSN) explain, “Right now, Hondurans in the cities and countryside are still in nonviolent resistance to the continuation of the June 28, 2009 coup. Under the regime of Juan Orlando Hernández, the economic and political crisis has deepened. Since the coup poverty has increased by at least 10%, schools have been closed and the health care system nearly destroyed by outright theft of public funds and privatization. Violence by government security forces and death squad-type groups have killed hundreds since 2009 and that political violence has increased again since the 2017 election fraud, when the current president Hernández was re-elected against the constitution and Honduran democracy. Criminal violence has also increased with the destruction of the rule of law and the growth of a narco-state.” (Read more from the HSN here).

Thank you for your advocacy in demanding justice for Berta and so many other Hondurans affected by U.S. police and military aid to Honduras.

In solidarity,

WFP Solidarity Collective

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The bill features the following demands:

•   All U.S. aid to Honduran security forces must cease, and the U.S. must vote no on all loans from multinational development banks to Honduras until the following conditions are met:
 
- Pursued all legal avenues to bring to trial and obtain a verdict of all those who ordered and carried out the murders of Berta Cáceres, the killings of over 100 small-farmer activists in the Aguán Valley, the killings of 22 people and forced disappearance of 1 person by state security forces in the context of the 2017 postelectoral,  the May 3, 2016, armed attack on Félix Molina, and the November 26, 2018 shooting of Geovany Sierra.
 
-Investigated and successfully prosecuted members of military and police forces who are credibly found to have violated human rights, and ensured that the military and police cooperated in such cases, and that such violations have ceased;
 
-Withdrawn the military from domestic policing, in accordance with the Honduran Constitution, and ensured that all domestic police functions are separated from the command and control of the Armed Forces of Honduras and are instead directly responsible to civilian authority;
 
-Established effective protections of the rights of trade unionists, journalists, human rights defenders, the Indigenous, the Afro-Indigenous, small-farmers, and LGBTI activists, critics of the government, and other civil society activists to operate without interference; and
 
-Taken effective steps to fully establish the rule of law and to guarantee a judicial system that is capable of investigating, prosecuting, and bringing to justice members of the police and military who have committed human rights abuses.