IRTF News

For two decades, award-winning, anti-corruption journalist José Rubén Zamora has been subjected to threats, physical violence, and now false criminalization.

In June 2003, Zamora and his family were held hostage in their home in Guatemala City for hours by a group of assailants who beat Zamora's children and forced him to strip and kneel at gunpoint.  In August 2008, Zamora was kidnapped and beaten after a dinner with friends and was left unconscious and nearly naked in Chimaltenango, about 16 miles away. Due to the threats he faced as a journalist, the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights (IACHR) ordered precautionary (protective) measures for him twenty years ago. 

In July 2022—five days after local media outlets published strong criticism of various officials of President Giammattei’s administration involved in corruption—Zamora was arrested on questionable charges of money laundering, blackmail, and influence peddling. The judge who ordered the imprisonment of Zamora two years ago said it was because of his work at the newspaper El Periódico, which specialized in anti-corruption reporting.

Finally, after nearly two years of detention (with reports of torture and solitary confinement), a judge ordered him to house arrest in May 2024. But prosecutors persisted, and on June 25 an appeals court granted their request to overturn the order. So Zamora remains in pretrial detention.

In May, the Gabo Foundation—whose governing council consists of respected journalists from Spain, the US, the Caribbean and Latin America—announced that Zamora would be presented the 2024 Recognition of Excellence for his tireless fight to “reveal corruption and human rights abuses” at their awards ceremony in Bogotá on July 5.

The people of Honduras are experiencing a nationwide pattern of increased violence towards campesino communities.

In June, 300 campesino families in the community of La Guacamaya, located south of El Progreso in Yoro Department, suffered physical violence and forced eviction at the hands of the Honduran National Police and the Commission of Agrarian Security and Access to Land (CSA). Ostensibly created to review the legal status of properties and to guarantee the security and food sovereignty of rural Hondurans, the CSA has instead violated the human rights of the very people it is supposed to protect. The eviction of La Guacamaya is one of at least 24 forced evictions carried out by the CSA since its creation in June 2023, according to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OACNUDH). 

Over a two-day period, the National Police, the Police Investigation Directorate (DPI) and the militarized “Cobras” Special Forces used heavy machinery owned by the sugar company AZUNOSA (Azucarera del Norte) to destroy the  campesinos’ modest houses (built with wood, sheets of zinc, and pieces of plastic), their few possessions, and food crops—ruining their livelihoods and forcing them to live without shelter and means of subsistence. During the violent eviction, the security forces assaulted some of the residents, including women, children and the elderly.  Police also used physical violence against journalists to prevent them from covering this incident.

We are deeply saddened to learn of the assassination Yoli María Toloza Cardoza, who served on the coordinating team of the Popular Women's Organization (OFP) in Puerto Wilches, Santander Department.  On June 27 at 11:00 a.m., two armed men traveling on a motorcycle entered her home in Puerto Wilches.  Without saying a word they shot her in the forehead.

The 52-year-old grew up there and became well-known and respected throughout Puerto Wilches and the Magdalena Medio region because of her ccommitment to advancing women's rights. Her home is located directly in front of the headquarters of the regional OFP chapter, where she also maintained a clothing workshop. The fact that Yoli María Toloza Cardoza was murdered in her own home so close to the OFP office underscores the danger faced by those advocating for justice and equality in the Magdalena Medio region.

OFP is a close partner of CPT(Community Peacemaker Teams) in Colombia’s Magdalena Medio region; CPT is a close partner of IRTF Cleveland. We extend our profound condolences to the members of OFP and CPT-Colombia.

We are deeply concerned for the safety of Indigenous elders who steward ancestral, regional, and social wisdom. On the morning of June 25, Nasa Indigenous ancestral scholar Luis Eduardo Vivas was shot five times at the Mosoco reservation (Resguardo Indígena Mosoco), north of the municipality of Páez, Cauca Department.  A note was found with his body that read "every witch is cleansed."

The assassination of Luis Eduardo Vivas puts the wisdom, worldview, spirituality and territoriality of Indigenous peoples at risk. Ancestral knowers (sabedores ancestrales) are the guardians of this ancestral knowledge; their persecution threatens the disappearance of practices and knowledge that have been transmitted from generation to generation. The targeting of violence against ancestral knowers generates a crisis in the knowledge of biodiversity and medicinal plants. There is a great need for cooperation among the State, Indigenous organizations, and civil society groups to ensure that the rights, customs, and critical knowledge of Indigenous peoples are protected and respected.

In December 2023, the Committee for the Defense of Common and Public Goods of Tocoa (CMDBCPT) called a popular assembly at which more than 2,000 local residents flatly rejected projects that are threatening the environment by three companies that have interlocking ownership: Emco Holdings (thermal electric generation), Inversiones Los Pinares (iron oxide mine), and Ecotek (pelletizing plant).  Six months later, the mayor of Tocoa in Colón Department collaborated with Ecotek to hold their own “cabildo abierto” (town hall meeting). The result? At a meeting without quorum or proper discussion—underming the democratic process and the will of local communities who have already demonstrated strong opposition to the project—the controversial energy plant was approved. 

The CMDBCPT contends that Mayor Adán Fúnez’s “open” meeting on June 13 was nothing more than a display of abuse of power and intimidation, reinforced by the presence of police and military forces in the community the night before.

We are deeply concerned about the continued persecution by the State of residents and leaders of Garífuna communities in northern Honduras. Police forces threatened and attacked Garífuna community members in Trujillo, Colón Department, on June 24, June 26 and again on June 30. Police officers surrounded and tried to intimidate Garífuna residents who are trying to recupérate their ancestral lands that were illegally taken by Randy Jorgensen, a Canadian investor in international toursism who has been accused of money laundering and fraud related to the sales of 140 tracts of land in Colón.

It is deeply troubling that political forces in Honduras are placing the private interests of criminals (narco-traffickers and money launderers) who want to construct tourist and residential developments on ancestral Garífuna territories above the needs of the Garífuna people.  We call on the government of Honduras to develop mechanisms to comply with the international rulings in favor of wrongfully displaced Garífuna communities, namely those made by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.