IRTF News

On October 20, the ruling party with a majority in El Salvador’s Legislative Assembly approved an initiative entitled "Special and transitory provisions for the suspension of concentrations and public or private events,” which empowers the Attorney General and the National Civil Police (PNC) to take action against people who convene, promote, or organize rallies–under the pretext of containing the COVID-19 virus.

Jineth Bedoya had planned to spend the morning of May 25, 2000, interviewing a paramilitary leader outside a prison in Bogotá. Instead, the Colombian journalist was kidnapped at gunpoint and taken to a nearby warehouse, where she was beaten by a group of men who said they had been sent to “clean up the media.” As night fell, the men drove her hours outside of town, gang-raped her and abandoned her on the side of the road.

Data from the Victims Unit show that 192,638 Indigenous People and 794,703 Afro-Colombians were affected by the war experienced in recent years. The guerrilla made life impossible for several indigenous peoples and Afro-Colombians, and massacres such as that of the Awá in Nariño and Afro-Colombians in Bojayá, mined collective territories, communities stripped of their territories and young people and children recruited are some examples of the FARC's violent acts carried out against ethnic peoples. Almost a third of the national territory is categorised as indigenous reserves, and most of them have to face serious environmental conflicts and land grabbing due to extractive activities in the zone.

After four days of oral and public trial, today the indigenous Lenca campesinos, José Santos Vijil and Víctor Vásquez, were finally released, having been criminalized for their struggle in defense of the land and territory in the department of La Paz. Vijil and Vásquez had been in prison for nine months for false criminal charges of forced displacement. They were being charge under a law that was designed to prosecute the displacement caused by criminal gangs against communities and neighborhoods affected by their illegal activities. But the Public Ministry has illegally used this law to harass and prosecute defenders of human rights that defend their territory. They are now free to organize their defense from outside of prison. Their lawyer is Edy Tabora. The trial is to take place in Comayagua where both the Sentencing Court and the Court of Appeals are located.

The 400 placards installed in front of the U.S. Capitol read in part “United States of America Permanent Resident,” symbolized 400,000 Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders and families who need permanent relief. Among the speakers was Sitar Llama, who said he was representing nearly 15,000 Nepali TPS holders “whose lives are on the line.” “I was not able to see my kids grow up. My wife and I have lived apart for 20 years,” he said in a press release received by Daily Kos. “I work very hard 11-hour shifts, but I cannot get a promotion without a green card. The White House and Congress make our lives hard by not giving us citizenship.” Immigrants and advocates with the Communities United for Status and Protection (CUSP) collaborative effort stressed that a united Democratic front does have the power to bring permanent relief not just to Llama and other TPS holders but to millions of immigrants.

The thirteen Catholic bishops pointed out that the rule of law is essential for the rehabilitation of democracy, which is why the "good work" of three elements must be guaranteed: the participation of the people through the vote, the actions of the political parties and their leaders; and finally the actions of the electoral authorities. They asked citizens to overcome "feelings of indifference, apathy and skepticism," go to the polls urgently and elect "honest, responsible and sensitive candidates to the needs of the people." They outlined the vote as a sacred action "that you cannot give to those who do not deserve it."

Since December 2020, Víctor Vásquez, a member of the General Coordination of the Independent Lenca Indigenous Movement of La Paz Honduras (MILPAH), and Santos Vigil, member of the Nueva Esperanza Peasant Base, have been imprisoned in the Penal Center of La Paz, accused of the crime of forced displacement. Víctor accompanied the peasants of the Nueva Esperanza Base, but they were unjustly accused by the alleged owners of three crimes, of which the judge rejected two, but they remain deprived of liberty for the crime of forced displacement. The legislature created the crime of forced displacement to prosecute the displacement caused by criminal gangs against communities and neighborhoods affected by their illegal activities. But now the Public Ministry is using it to illegally harass and prosecute human rights defenders who defend their territory, who fight for protection the environment and access to land. The Coalition Against Impunity has denounced the criminalization of these Lenca environmental defenders.

Excerpt: This is a time when the State is very clear that it is going to do everything possible to deprive the Garífuna community of its territory to hand it over to investors. That is why we reaffirm that there is a genocidal plan against the Garífuna people. And that is why we are making a call to see what is happening in Honduras. People have left the country en masse and continue to leave. The Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris, says “don't come.” However, the United States continues to support corrupt governments like this one, governments that violate human rights. We all have the right to migrate, but we also have the right to stay in the country and live well. Because this is a country where we could live in well-being, only that it is captured by a mafia that does not let us live.

The Honduras Solidarity Network celebrates this award for OFRANEH, which has worked for more than 40 years to defend the human, civil, social and cultural rights of the Garifuna people in Honduras. The Garífuna are an Afro-Indigenous group whose rights as such are recognized in international and Honduran law, yet they face threats and violence aimed at displacing them from their territories in Northern Honduras and destroying their existence as a people. Since the 2009 coup d’etat, with the consolidation of dictatorship in Honduras, OFRANEH has confronted an escalation of the attempt to eliminate the Garifuna people, and ever more aggressive challenges from government militarization and government backed land-grabbing by agribusiness, tourist mega-projects, and neoliberal schemes like the Charter City/ Special Employment and Development Zones (ZEDES). In recent years OFRANEH has reported dozens of violent attacks and more than 20 suspicious deaths or assassinations. The Letelier-Moffitt Prize is especially significant for Hondurans, which suffered a coup in 2009, given its founding in commemoration of Orlando Letelier and Ronnie Moffitt who fought to defend human rights against the violent US supported coup in Chile 1973.