IRTF News

In the last two weeks of April, more than two dozen people have been killed, many more injured, and many more detained; there are also reports of disappearances. Repression against students and journalists has been particularly strong. Ángel Eduardo Gahona, the director of the local, independent television program El Meridiano in Bluefields, was fatally shot in the head on April 21.

Assassanation of human rights lawyer Carlos Hernández by unidentified assailants on April 10 at his office in Tela municipality. Carlos Hernández had been legally defending Arnaldo Chacónis, the mayor of Arizona municipality, who is supporting the organized resistance against the Río Jimalito hydroelectric project, being constructed by Generación Eléctrica (INGELSA)

Two social leaders, Maria Magdalena Cruz Rojas and Belisario Benavidez Ordoñez, were murdered in two separate attacks on March 30. In a report at the end of March, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights stated that “…since the implementation of the peace agreements, the murders of human rights defenders have increased persistently. According to an Ombudsperson’s report, between January 2017 and February 2018, there have been 121 murders of human rights defenders.”

A group of hitmen killed Crisanto Garcia Ohajaca at a Catholic worship service on March 29. He was likely targeted for his family links to COMUNDICH, an indigenous rights organization that currently supports 48 Mayan Ch’orti’ communities who live along the border with Honduras, and his knowledge surrounding the killing of another member of the Ch’orti’ de Morola community.

assassination of Héctor Manuel Choc Cuz in El Estor, Izabal Department. For many years, his local Mayan Q’eqchi’ community has been protesting displacement from their ancestral land and environmental degradation caused by the Fenix nickel mining, which was owned by Hudbay Minerals of Canada

Assassination of Silvio Duban Ortiz Ortiz, age 27, and his brother Javier Bernardo Cuero Ortiz, age 32, sons of Bernardo Cuero Bravo, the leader of the National Association of Displaced Afro-Colombians (AFRODES), who was assassinated in front of his wife on June 7, 2017. The brothers were gunned down and killed instantly just 13 days after attending a judicial hearing on their father's murder case and a public demonstration demanding justice.

Urgent call to authorities to search for campesino leader José Herrera, who was disappeared March 20 in the north of Antioquia Department, in hopes that he be found alive. (It was mistakenly reported March 22 that his body had been found. But that misinformation was corrected a couple days ago. He is reportedly still missing. ) The well-known and respected community leader is president of the Community Action Board of the Vereda Mesetas of Puerto Valdivia. He is also president of the Association of Peasants of Toledo (ASCAT-NA) and a founding member of the Patriotic March Movement-Antioquia Movement and of ASOCBAC (Rural Association of Bajo Cauca). José Herrera is one of the municipal spokespersons for the Comprehensive National Crop Substitution Program. Farmers involved in that program have been under attack by armed groups.

During a student-led human rights march in Guatemala City on March 23, a group of persons wearing hoods and gowns, and armed with bats and machetes, attacked Jorge Santos, the General Coordinator of UDEFEGUA (Protection Unit for Human Rights Defenders in Guatemala), causing wounds that required stitches.

Forced eviction of the historically binational Yukpa indigenous people from Cúcuta, Colombia, into Venezuela. They are currently living in highly precarious conditions, lacking basic services such as drinking water, food and access to health and education. They keep returning to Colombia because there are no guarantees of food or health care if they stay in Venezuela.