IRTF News

After four days of oral and public trial, today the indigenous Lenca campesinos, José Santos Vijil and Víctor Vásquez, were finally released, having been criminalized for their struggle in defense of the land and territory in the department of La Paz. Vijil and Vásquez had been in prison for nine months for false criminal charges of forced displacement. They were being charge under a law that was designed to prosecute the displacement caused by criminal gangs against communities and neighborhoods affected by their illegal activities. But the Public Ministry has illegally used this law to harass and prosecute defenders of human rights that defend their territory. They are now free to organize their defense from outside of prison. Their lawyer is Edy Tabora. The trial is to take place in Comayagua where both the Sentencing Court and the Court of Appeals are located.

The 400 placards installed in front of the U.S. Capitol read in part “United States of America Permanent Resident,” symbolized 400,000 Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders and families who need permanent relief. Among the speakers was Sitar Llama, who said he was representing nearly 15,000 Nepali TPS holders “whose lives are on the line.” “I was not able to see my kids grow up. My wife and I have lived apart for 20 years,” he said in a press release received by Daily Kos. “I work very hard 11-hour shifts, but I cannot get a promotion without a green card. The White House and Congress make our lives hard by not giving us citizenship.” Immigrants and advocates with the Communities United for Status and Protection (CUSP) collaborative effort stressed that a united Democratic front does have the power to bring permanent relief not just to Llama and other TPS holders but to millions of immigrants.

The thirteen Catholic bishops pointed out that the rule of law is essential for the rehabilitation of democracy, which is why the "good work" of three elements must be guaranteed: the participation of the people through the vote, the actions of the political parties and their leaders; and finally the actions of the electoral authorities. They asked citizens to overcome "feelings of indifference, apathy and skepticism," go to the polls urgently and elect "honest, responsible and sensitive candidates to the needs of the people." They outlined the vote as a sacred action "that you cannot give to those who do not deserve it."

Since December 2020, Víctor Vásquez, a member of the General Coordination of the Independent Lenca Indigenous Movement of La Paz Honduras (MILPAH), and Santos Vigil, member of the Nueva Esperanza Peasant Base, have been imprisoned in the Penal Center of La Paz, accused of the crime of forced displacement. Víctor accompanied the peasants of the Nueva Esperanza Base, but they were unjustly accused by the alleged owners of three crimes, of which the judge rejected two, but they remain deprived of liberty for the crime of forced displacement. The legislature created the crime of forced displacement to prosecute the displacement caused by criminal gangs against communities and neighborhoods affected by their illegal activities. But now the Public Ministry is using it to illegally harass and prosecute human rights defenders who defend their territory, who fight for protection the environment and access to land. The Coalition Against Impunity has denounced the criminalization of these Lenca environmental defenders.

Excerpt: This is a time when the State is very clear that it is going to do everything possible to deprive the Garífuna community of its territory to hand it over to investors. That is why we reaffirm that there is a genocidal plan against the Garífuna people. And that is why we are making a call to see what is happening in Honduras. People have left the country en masse and continue to leave. The Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris, says “don't come.” However, the United States continues to support corrupt governments like this one, governments that violate human rights. We all have the right to migrate, but we also have the right to stay in the country and live well. Because this is a country where we could live in well-being, only that it is captured by a mafia that does not let us live.

The Honduras Solidarity Network celebrates this award for OFRANEH, which has worked for more than 40 years to defend the human, civil, social and cultural rights of the Garifuna people in Honduras. The Garífuna are an Afro-Indigenous group whose rights as such are recognized in international and Honduran law, yet they face threats and violence aimed at displacing them from their territories in Northern Honduras and destroying their existence as a people. Since the 2009 coup d’etat, with the consolidation of dictatorship in Honduras, OFRANEH has confronted an escalation of the attempt to eliminate the Garifuna people, and ever more aggressive challenges from government militarization and government backed land-grabbing by agribusiness, tourist mega-projects, and neoliberal schemes like the Charter City/ Special Employment and Development Zones (ZEDES). In recent years OFRANEH has reported dozens of violent attacks and more than 20 suspicious deaths or assassinations. The Letelier-Moffitt Prize is especially significant for Hondurans, which suffered a coup in 2009, given its founding in commemoration of Orlando Letelier and Ronnie Moffitt who fought to defend human rights against the violent US supported coup in Chile 1973.

The Forever Foundation led an "Inverse Caravan" to ratify the willingness of its participants to stay in this Central American nation. It moved from the country's western border to downtown San Salvador. The Inverse Caravan organizers highlighted that migration flows would decrease if there were greater educational opportunities for young people. More specifically, they asked the Bukele administration, corporations, and social organizations to work together to increase the levels of employment and education in El Salvador. "If we want young people to stay in the country, then let's join forces to support development projects and making young people become replicators of their experience in their communities," the Forever Foundation Chairman Alejandro Gutman said.

In summer 2021, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris came to Central America and told would-be migrants: ​“Do not come.” More recently, photos of U.S. Border Patrol agents whipping Haitian refugees in the Texas desert brutally drove that message home. This anti-migrant message is dehumanizing and wrong. But the truth is, many of us would love nothing more than to stay in our homes. It’s Washington that’s making it difficult. The Garifuna are being forcibly displaced from our beautiful traditional lands along the Caribbean coast of Honduras. Our livelihoods are threatened by the expansion of the global tourist industry, African palm plantations, so-called ​“Special Economic Development and Employment Zones” (also called Model Cities), and drug cartels that run cocaine through our territories, destined for U.S. markets.