IRTF News

In January, Thalía Rodríguez, a renowned human rights defender for trans people, was murdered in Tegucigalpa. Her crime highlighted the challenges faced by the government of President Xiomara Castro in protecting the sexual diversity community in Honduras. The country is considered one of the most hostile places in Latin America to be a member of the LGTBIQ+ community. In her Government Plan, Xiomara Castro proposed to promote the Law of Protection for LGTBIQ+ persons and establish a variety of care programs. The inclusion of some of the demands of the LGTBIQ+ community in President Castro's Government Plan has raised expectations in this sector.

Social activists and former combatants in the peace process are still being widely targeted in many parts of Colombia. The first four months of 2022 saw the murders of more than 60 social activists and 18 former FARC combatants, while armed groups continued to impact heavily on communities in various parts of the country. Here is JFC’s monthly human rights update for May 2022.

Human rights groups on Monday criticized the massive arrests of suspected gang members in El Salvador. The roundups, begun in late March after a spike in homicides, have resulted in the arrest of over 22,000 presumed gang members. “A growing amount of evidence indicate that Salvadoran authorities have committed serious human rights violations since the emergency decree was approved" on March 27, according to a report by Human Rights Watch and the Cristosal Foundation.

Step by step, the nefarious legacy of the 12 years of the JOH regime are being dismantled in Honduras. Two key steps took place this month, the first being the extradition of JOH himself to the US. What seems unthinkable after his illegal reelection backed by the US in 2017 and still very unlikely just some months ago, has now passed in record speed. A second cornerstone of JOH’s reign were the ZEDEs, the private cities. Their legal basis were outright repealed, unanimously, by Congress this month. A huge victory for Honduras’ social movements, while still leaving many questions unresolved regarding the existing ZEDEs in Honduras. The Xiomara administration and its allies in Congress further reformulated the 2022 budget which includes more spending on education and public health, but also rose some questions. Welcome to another month in Honduras.

I grew up in a family very involved in politics. But never in my experience with political work have I witnessed such animmense feeling of solidarity and been able to realize what solidarity andtogetherness can do in social movements than when I started at theInterReligious Task Force here in Cleveland.
The way IRTF organizes its social and political activism is not solelybased on finding solutions for social issues and seeking justice forthe many violations of human, environmental, Indigenous, and many other rights that we have seen in Central America over so many years. 

A plan to create special self-governing zones for foreign investors in Honduras has been thrown into limbo with the new government’s repeal of a law many criticized as surrendering sovereignty. The zones were inspired by libertarian and free-market thinkers as a way to draw foreign investment to the impoverished country. Critics were worried that the zones could become nearly independent statelets and President Xiomara Castro, who took office in January, campaigned against the law. On Monday, she signed a measure passed by Honduras’ Congress to repeal it — though the permission for the zones still remains in the constitution. Castro called the repeal “historic” and said Honduras was “recovering its sovereignty.” Her administration said it did not want to destroy what had already been built, but that changes were coming.

A group of prosecutors and judges who investigated the country’s most powerful officials in Guatemala has been forced to flee to Washington, D.C.

Gustavo Petro, a former left-wing guerrilla and the front-runner in Colombia's presidential election next month, is promising to shake up Colombian society. Disillusioned with the war, Petro took part in peace talks that paved the way for the M-19 to disarm and form a left-wing political party in 1990. Petro talks of raising taxes on the rich — and printing money — to pay for anti-poverty programs. To move toward a greener economy, he promises to stop all new oil exploration and to cut back on coal production, even though these are Colombia's two top exports. Petro has outlined a 12-year transition period and says the country could replace the lost income from fossil fuels with a major boost to tourism, and improvements in agriculture and industry. "I am proposing a path that is much better for Colombia," Petro told NPR.