IRTF News

Conflict-related violence has since taken new forms, and abuses by armed groups, including killings, massacres, and massive forced displacement increased in many remote areas of Colombia in 2021. Human rights defenders, journalists, Indigenous and Afro-Colombian leaders, and other community activists face pervasive death threats and violence. The government has taken insufficient and inadequate steps to protect them. Police officers repeatedly and arbitrarily dispersed peaceful demonstrations. The Covid-19 pandemic and measures in place to control it had a devastating impact on poverty and inequality in Colombia. Impunity for past abuses, barriers to land restitution for displaced people, limits on reproductive rights, and the extreme poverty and isolation of Indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities remain important human rights concerns. This is the Human Rights Watch 2022 World Report on Colombia

In 2021, President Nayib Bukele and his allies in the legislature undermined basic democratic checks and balances. President Bukele’s government has indicated he plans to introduce a proposal to reform the constitution. Gangs continue to exercise territorial control over some neighborhoods and extort residents throughout the country. They forcibly recruit children and sexually abuse women, girls, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. Historically, security forces have committed extrajudicial executions, sexual assaults, enforced disappearances, and torture. Girls and women accused of having abortions have been imprisoned for homicide and aggravated homicide. LGBT individuals face discrimination and police violence. This is the Human Rights Watch 2022 World Report on El Salvador

Judicial independence has been threatened by corruption and spurious complaints against judges and prosecutors investigating high profile cases. Harassment and violence against human rights defenders and journalists remain major concerns. Authorities have restricted access to information, including about vaccine purchases and other measures to address the Covid-19 pandemic. Guatemala faces challenges in protecting the rights of migrants; human rights defenders; women and girls; and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. This is the Human Rights Watch 2022 World Report on Guatemala

President Ortega was elected to a fourth consecutive term in November amid government repression of critics and the political opposition. To pave the way for his re-election, authorities arbitrarily arrested and prosecuted government critics and political opponents. Police abuses committed during a brutal crackdown by the National Police and armed pro-government groups in 2018 have gone unpunished. Persistent problems include severe restrictions on freedom of expression and association, political discrimination, and stringent restrictions on abortion. This is the Human Rights Watch 2022 World Report on Nicaragua.

Violent organized crime continues to disrupt Honduran society and push many people to leave the country. Journalists; environmental activists; human rights defenders; lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals; and people with disabilities are among the groups targeted for violence. Impunity remains the norm. Efforts to reform public security institutions have stalled. Marred by corruption and abuse, the judiciary and police remain largely ineffective. This is the Human Rights Watch 2022 World Report for Honduras.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas, who dared to overthrow a US-backed dictatorship and choose their own allies to defend their revolution, represent a direct threat to the Monroe Doctrine. And now Ortega, who has been in office since 2007 and was re-elected again as president in a landslide victory in November, has thrown down another gauntlet to challenge American domination. One of the biggest fears of the US, and one of the greatest threats to the viability of the antiquated Monroe Doctrine, is that Ortega will partner with China to build a major shipping canal which would link Nicaragua’s Pacific and Atlantic coasts.

On September 16, 2021, a military helicopter appeared and began firing—seemingly indiscriminately—from above. The unsuspecting residents of Ibans, a small Afro-Indigenous community on the northeastern coast of Honduras, ran for cover from the stream of bullets raining down. The authorities, including DEA, initially tried to cover up the Ahuas incident and subsequently to justify it as a matter of security: they alleged that the commercial passenger boat was involved in trafficking drugs and that it opened fire on the military helicopter. Illicit drugs do transit parts of this region in Honduras, and much of the rest of it. In fact, since the Ahuas massacre, cocaine transit through the region has remained, on average, unchanged despite ongoing U.S.-funded enforcement. In this context, these extrajudicial killings have come to represent an ongoing counter-narcotics operation that serves not to stop illegal drug trafficking, but rather to perpetuate violence and impunity through the militarization of Indigenous territories in Honduras. The cost of this overzealous response and intentional neglect can be seen in the lives of Miskitu, Tawhaka, Garifuna, and other Indigenous Peoples.

Voces Unidas is one of many organizations working with residents of border towns to dismantle the physical and electronic walls that upend their lives. Local and national migrants’ rights groups are determined to weaken the government’s access to databases and other technologies used to surveil migrants and undocumented immigrants, and they are pressuring elected officials to stop funding such efforts. As extreme weather, droughts, and other effects of a warming world become the norm, the number of climate refugees is expected to skyrocket. And though droughts, floods, and other climate disasters lead farmers in places like Guatemala to move, their migration occurs within a larger context in which U.S. foreign policy plays a key role.