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Guatemala: IACHR Holds Hearing on Threats to Judicial Independence
October 28, 2021

In July 2021, the head of the Prosecutor’s Office against Impunity in Guatemala was removed from his position. Subsequently, after fleeing the country for fear of further reprisals, Juan Francisco Sandoval stated that he had gathered evidence showing that President Alejandro Giammattei had received bribes in January from one of the companies involved in the controversial Fénix nickel mining project in El Estor (a mining project ruled illegal by a Guatemalan court in 2019 , but nevertheless continues to operate) and that for this reason he was being persecuted by the State. On October 28, Juan Francisco Sandoval was among the current and former judicial employees of Guatemala who offered testimony to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). The Washington-based Guatemala Human Rights Commission-USA (GHRC) provided logistical support for the hearing, which focused on judicial independence in Guatemala. Various human rights organizations, including GHRC, had requested the hearing. Conclusion: citing 189 attacks and 51 legal proceedings against judicial officials, IACHR warned that complaints against judges, prosecutors, and human rights defenders reveal a context of weakening judicial independence in Guatemala. Commissioner Esmeralda Arosemena de Troitiño explained the importance of an independent justice system, stating, “There is no rule of law if there is no judicial independence.”

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News Article
Guatemala: Town of El Estor Locked in Battle with El Fénix Nickel Mine
October 28, 2021

In 2017, a red slick spread over Lake Izabal, which the community blamed on pollution from a nickel mine, owned by Switzerland-based Solway Investments. In resulting protests, Cristobal Pop, 44, a fisherman was imprisoned, and his comrade Carlos Maaz shot dead. This month, the community of El Estor in Izabal Department resumed demonstrations, accusing CGN (the domestic subsidiary of Solway) of continuing to mine at El Fénix despite a 2019 Constitutional Court order for it to suspend operations. The court ruled in favor of local communities, who said they had not been consulted about the opening of the mine or its effects on them. The government was ordered to open fresh consultations, but the people of El Estor say they are being excluded.

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RRN Letter
Colombia, 10/26/2021
October 26, 2021
We wrote to officials in Colombia about threats to and attacks on indigenous Awá and Nasa community members and leaders in Nariño and Cauca Departments, including the attempted assassination of Nasa community leader Oveimar Tenorio. Nariño Department (Awá territory) : On October 2, at least three Awá women indigenous leaders in Barbacoas municipality received threatening phone calls, including Yurani López Moreano, governor of the Awá Nunalbí Alto Ulbíl Reservation. They were threatened to either leave their territory or risk becoming a military target....Cauca Department (Nasa territories): On October 1, Oveimar Tenorio, area coordinator of the Kiwe Thenas of Cxhab Wala Kiwe, was shot repeatedly at his home at the Nasa reservation of San Francisco de Toribío. Fortunatley, he survived the assassination attempt.... On October 3, four Nasa community members were kidnapped, gagged and threatened with death by armed men. Gun shots were fired against members of the Indigenous Guard as they made a successful rescue of the four people at the town hall in Caloto municipality....We demand investigations into these threats and attacks. We further demand that the State protect the right of indigenous communities to defend their communal territories and maintain them as conflict-free zones.
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RRN Letter
Colombia, 10/25/2021
October 25, 2021
María Steffania Muñoz Villa became the 10th female ex-combatant and signer of the Peace Accords killed when she was attacked in the village of Mazamorrero, outside of Buenos Aires municipality, in Cauca Department. María Steffania Muñoz Villa was a member of the Territorial Space for Reincorporation [of ex-combatants] (ETCR) in Buenos Aires. Her partner (also an ex-combatant) Yorbis Valencia Carabali was also killed on the outskirts of Buenos Aires on July 25. INDEPAZ reports that several armed groups operate in the region, including AGC (Gaitanista Self-Defense Forces), ELN (National Liberation Army), and a residual faction of the FARC-EP (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People’s Army). At least 289 ex-combatants have been assassinated since the signing of the Peace Accords in November 2016. In this letter, we also ask for investigations into the killings of four other social leaders across the country: Marco Tulio Gutiérrez Mendoza, Dilio Bailarín, Efren Bailarín Carupia, and Erley Osorio Arias. We urge that the state take action to dismantle paramilitary structures that operate in several regions of the country, threatening and controlling local communities.
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RRN Letter
Honduras, 10/24/2021
October 24, 2021
We wrote to officials in Honduras expressing our outrage about violence waged against three LGBTI leaders in three areas of the country: Erika Tatiana Martínez García, who was murdered in her home on September 26 (Copán Department), Fausto Vásquez, whose bed was set on fire on September 30 (La Paz Department), and Victoria Rodríguez, who was beaten in her home on October 7 (Comayagua Department). LGBTI rights groups report that 390 LGBTI people have been murdered in Honduras in the past 12 years, including 17 this year. In only nine percent of the cases has there been a murder conviction; more than 90 percent of the cases remain in impunity. Tatiana's murder, Fausto’s harassment, and Vicky’s attack must all be seen as transgressions against protections that human rights defenders should receive. The government of Honduras should adhere to the ruling handed down by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (June 28, 2021) when it found the State responsible for the murder of transwoman Vicky Hernández on June 28, 2009. There must be accountability and an end to the impunity provided to the perpetrators of these crimes.
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News Article
El Salvador, Honduras: Mothers of Disappeared Migrants Travel to D.C. for Justice
October 23, 2021
The caravan had two specific requests for Congress: to enact both the Honduras Human Rights and Anti-Corruption Act (HR 2716) and the Berta Cáceres Act (HR 1574), which both call for the suspension of U.S. assistance to Honduran security forces.
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RRN Letter
Honduras, 10/23/2021
October 23, 2021
We wrote to officials in Honduras about a pattern of violence being inflicted on elected officials and candidates of the opposition LIBRE party (Freedom and Refoundation Party). A mayoral candidate for the municipality of Santa Ana de Yusguare in Choluteca, Nery Fernando Reyes, was shot to death on October 8. The following day, there was an attempted killing of Olivia Marcela Zúniga Cáceres, a LIBRE party congresswoman, at her home in La Esperanza, Intibucá. The legislator is the daughter of Berta Cáceres, the indigenous environmental defender who was assassinated in March 2016. According to the National Observatory on Violence at the National Autonomous University of Honduras (ONV-UNAH), 15 people linked to politics have been murdered from December 2020 to September 15, 2021. The assassination of Nery Fernando Reyes Pineda and the attempted assassination of Olivia Marcela Zúniga Cáceres are recent examples of an ongoing climate of anti-LIBRE hate crimes leading up to the presidential elections, which are scheduled for November 28.
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News Article
El Salvador: Legislative Assembly Issues Decree Restricting The Right To Protest
October 22, 2021
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.
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News Article
Colombia is responsible in kidnapping and rape of female journalist, rights court says
October 18, 2021
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.
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News Article
Colombia: Main Challenges for Colombia's Indigenous Peoples
October 17, 2021
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.
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