Honduras: News & Updates

Please see a summary of the letters we sent to heads of state and other high-level officials in Colombia, Guatemala, and Honduras, urging their swift action in response to human rights abuses occurring in their countries.  We join with civil society groups in Latin America to: (1) protect people living under threat, (2) demand investigations into human rights crimes, (3) bring human rights criminals to justice. IRTF’s Rapid Response Network (RRN) volunteers write six letters in response to urgent human rights cases each month. We send copies of these letters to US ambassadors, embassy human rights officers, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, regional representatives of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and desk officers at the US State Department. To read the letters, see https://www.irtfcleveland.org/content/rrn , or ask us to mail you hard copies.

The criminalization of human rights defenders, the destruction of water sources, contamination of their environment and the destruction of the community cemetery, is the terrible scenario experienced by the Maya-Chortí community of Azacualpa, La Unión, Copán and that was verified by the Minister of Human Rights, Natalie Roque Sandoval, after making an On-Site visit in the sector where the inhabitants live the constant violations of their fundamental freedoms by the mining company Aura Minerals-MINOSA.

Honduras has seen the increased presence of U.S. military assets over the decades following the Cold War, and it currently hosts the U.S. military due to the country’s geo-strategic position. The illicit actions of U.S. allies is not something that is unknown within intelligence circles. One problem that contributes to these issues being lost is that there is a breakdown between analysts and the leadership. U.S. support for these administrations and the militarization of the region corrupts the United States’ promotion of democracy in the region, as it justifies the human rights violations in the region while criticizing U.S. rivals for similar actions. The result of this failure is that millions face deteriorating situations due to the rise in influence of drug traffickers and gangs in the governments at every level.

For our last installation of this year’s Black History Month series, we at the Quixote Center are highlighting the life and work of Honduran Garifuna activist Miriam Miranda. Miriam Miranda is a Honduran Garifuna human rights activist and land defender. As the head of the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH)—which defends the rights of Garifuna communities—Miranda has worked to stop land theft by the tourism industry, to reclaim ancestral Garifuna land, promote sustainability, and support community leadership development for youth and women. In 2015, Miriam received the Óscar Romero Human Rights Award, alongside fellow Honduran activist Berta Cáceres, who was assassinated less than a year later. In 2016, Miriam received the Carlos Escaleras environmental prize for her 30 years of activism defending Garifuna communities.

The Six Guapinol water defenders have finally been freed!! 

 

A few hours ago, they walked out of the Olanchito prison where they have been held for over 900 days. Outside the prison, their families and community members gathered to greet them. Several Honduran media were there covering their release and all travelled in a large caravan to Guapinol where the six defenders were greeted by the community. 

The Supreme Court of Justice of Honduras declared the Law for the Protection of Plant Varieties, also known as the Monsanto Law and approved by the Congress of the Central American country in 2012, for unconstitutional. As of this legislation, it was prohibited to save seeds, give them away and exchange them. This initiative took place within the framework of the advance of the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV), an organization that works exclusively and explicitly for the privatization of seeds throughout the world, through the imposition of intellectual property rights on plant varieties. The Honduran State is one of those that signed the UPOV Convention. The National Association for the Promotion of Ecological Agriculture (ANAFAE), a group that has defended organic agriculture and food sovereignty in Honduras for more than 25 years, has been denouncing this law since it was approved and in 2016 had filed a legal appeal to declare it unconstitutional, which was rejected. Two years later, groups of peasants and independent producers presented a new appeal, which led to the declaration of unconstitutionality of the law last November and publicly communicated at the end of January of this year. 

COFADEH documented the case of José Antonio Torres Meza, 40 years old, originally from Catacamas, Olancho. He lived 11 years in exile, until last February 11, when he entered through the customs of El Amatillo to attend his mother's funeral, but was captured. He was being prosecuted since August 2009, for the alleged crimes of terrorism and aggravated arson to the detriment of the State of Honduras, the group Industrias Turísticas (INTUR) and Ladislao Augusto Servellón Aguilar. The Public Prosecutor's Office, who accused Torres 12 years ago, had no choice but to follow COFADEH's demand for release and Judge 2 of the Criminal Court of Tegucigalpa ruled the immediate release of the victim, which will be effective tomorrow.

The January inauguration of Xiomara Castro Sarmiento Zelaya from the Liberty and Refoundation Party was a political landmark in Honduras. Castro became the Central American country’s first female president, winning 51.12 percent of the vote. She has promised to convene a National Constituent Assembly to rewrite the constitution. “For us to have the first female president in Honduras means 67 years of struggle (since it was in 1952) that us women fought for the right to be citizens — for the right to vote and the right to be voted for,” Wendy Cruz, member of the international peasant movement La Vía Campesina, told Truthout. Castro campaigned on an agenda that will strongly empower lower-income Honduran women, who have been one of the hardest-hit sectors in a country ruled through aggressive neoliberal policies for the last 12 years. Castro’s task of governing will be particularly hard given the high levels of corruption and ties to the drug trade that have been linked to Honduras’s former president, Juan Orlando Hernández.