In his meeting with the United Nations Secretary Antonio Guterres, Colombia's president Gustavo Petro stated his goal to achieve total peace in his country, by restructuring the crime fighting strategy within Latin America.
Following his visit to the United Nations, Petro held a speech in Queens, stressing the difficulties Columbian emigrants are facing in the United States.
David Morales, lawyer, former prosecutor and one of the most outspoken critics of El Salvador's Bukele government.
The lawyer who will receive this year's Human Rights Award from WOLA (Washington Office on Latin America) has worked as a human rights activist for years, criticizing El Salvador's judicial system.
His career started in 1990 as an investigator at the Legal Protection Office of the Archbishop of San Salvador where he focused on the massacres of Rio Sumpul and El Mozote which occurred during the 1980's Salvadoran civil war.
In 1995 Morales left the Legal Protection Office and transferred to the PDDH (Procurador para la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos), a 1992 created institution that exercised the most supervision over the first complaints of abuses that arose against the new National Civil Police (PNC) and the Attorneys General's Office.
From 2013 on, he worked as an Ombudsman, taking lead in the investigation of extermination groups in the PNC.
The following article summerizes Morales' work and analyzes the human rights violations in El Salvador.
Even though the LGBITQ+ community of Honduras is seen as equal on paper, the reality is often a different one.
Radical conservatives and many religious leaders are trying to stigmatize the LGBTIQ+ community, which makes up for roughly 7-10% of the population. Misinformation and hate speech is used to keep LGBTIQ+ interests out of everyday lives of the Honduran population.
This article summarizes the struggles LGBTIQ+ citizens and organizations are confronted with, trying to claim their rights.
In the struggle for environmental human rights, Honduran activists demand their government to sign and adhere to the Escazú Agreement. The Escazú Agreement, the first environmental treaty of Latin America and the Caribbean, was passed by a resolution of the UN General Assembly on July 28, 2022. For the first time ever, the United Nations recognized that the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment requires the full implementation of the multilateral environmental agreements under the principles of international environmental law. It also recognized that the exercise of human rights, including the rights to seek, receive and impart information, to participate effectively in the conduct of government and public affairs and to an effective remedy, is vital to the protection of a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.
Even though Honduras took part in the negotiations for the long overdue agreement, which represents a legal instrument that provides States with sufficient tools to defend human rights in the face of the great challenges of the extractive model and climate change, it never signed it.
With the new government in office activists now hope that the agreement will be implemented, but still face massive backlash.
Colombia's president Gustavo Petro announced the possibility of an "economic emergency" in Colombia due to the upcoming winter season, which could trigger a climate crisis due to the possible increase in rainy activity.
Previous to his statement, the Colombian Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies (IDEAM) declared that the rainy season may extend until December, causing floods and landslides.
Due to the pandemic, the heavy rains are even more likely to cause an economic emergency.
To prevent a disaster, the president has mentioned the possibility of updating the risk maps and enable voluntary relocations.
On behalf of IRTF’s Rapid Response Network (RRN) members, we wrote six letters this month to heads of state and other high-level officials in Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Mexico, urging their swift action in response to human rights abuses occurring in their countries. We join with civil society groups in Latin America to: (1) protect people living under threat, (2) demand investigations into human rights crimes, (3) bring human rights criminals to justice.
IRTF’s Rapid Response Network (RRN) volunteers write six letters in response to urgent human rights cases each month. We send copies of these letters to US ambassadors, embassy human rights officers, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, regional representatives of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and desk officers at the US State Department. To read the letters, see https://www.irtfcleveland.org/content/rrn , or ask us to mail you hard copies.
We wrote to officials in Colombia about the continued violence targeting Afro-descendant and Indigenous community leaders in Nariño Department. We demand investigations into the assassinations of María Piedad Aguirre and María Verónica Pai Cabeza who became the 104th and 109th social leaders assassinated in Colombia this year. Both were killed in Tumaco municipality, Nariño Department.
July 19: María Piedad Aguirre was a local leader of Caminos de Mujer (CCM) and Proceso de Comunidades Negras (PCN). She was assassinated in her home in the neighborhood of Los Angeles California, Tumaco.
August 1: María Verónica Pai Cabeza of the Piguambi Palangala Indigenous Awá reservation was killed with five shots in the village of Llorenete, Tumaco. She was six months pregnant, leaving two children orphaned.
In a statement rejecting the killing of María Verónica Pai Cabeza, traditional Awá authorities denounced the physical and cultural extermination to which they are subjected by illegal armed groups disputing the territory. On several occasions they have requested governmental support to contain the murders, massacres, forced disappearances, displacements, confinement, and mobility restrictions.
In addition to investigating the assassinations and prosecuting the responsible parties, we are urging that authorities in Colombia: (1) protect Afro-descendant and Indigenous communities from outside armed groups through state presence, abiding by parameters set by the communities, and (2) construct comprehensive and inclusive measures to implement the Peace Agreement, with approaches that focus on gender, territorial, and ethnic groups.
Did you know there are more than 2,000 fair trade producer organizations in more than 70 countries ? Tens of thousands of fair trade products are on the market, including coffee, tea, chocolate, flowers, fruit, vegetables, grains, apparel, artisan handcrafts, and more. Fair trade began with the sale of handcrafts and other artisan goods in the 1940s. The first fair trade coffee company in the US, Equal Exchange (a worker-owned cooperative) was launched in Boston in 1986. IRTF brought their coffee to Cleveland, made it available to faith congregations and grocers. Quickly, NE Ohio became one of the top markets for fair trade coffee in the country. Learn more about fair trade and see the schedule of upcoming fair trade sales, including the annual Ohio Fair Trade Teach-In & Expo, at www.OhioFairTrade.com.
The PNC (national police) and military have a long history of violating the rights of Indigenous communities with extreme violence. There have been several violent incidents reported around the Petén region and the Sierra del Lacandón National Park. Security forces are known to enforce the initiatives of private companies to install hydroelectric dams that pollute the local rivers and drinking water sources. They also enable the deforestation of biodiverse regions for industrial-scale agricultural plantations for the production of palm oil.
At around 2:00 am on August 17, 150 National Civil Police vehicles and 12 army trucks entered the communities of Nueva Jerusalem II and La Revancha, detonating explosives that left 12 large holes along the road, claiming to comply with a judicial order to destroy two alleged clandestine highways inside the Sierra del Lacandón National Park. It is curious that the roadways are described by authorities as “clandestine” since personnel of CONAP (National Council of Protected Areas) have themselves traveled by those roadways many times.
The roads were built by the local communities themselves—and maintained without government support—along paths that have existed for decades and used initially for transportation of agricultural products. These transportation routes are vital to ensure mobility during health emergencies.
The Ohio Fair Trade Network seeks co-sponsors for the annual Ohio Fair Trade Teach-In & Expo 2022. This in-person event at John Carroll University (with COVID safety protocols) is expected to bring together hundreds of fair trade supporters, advocates, retailers, and vendors from across the state. The Expo will be an opportunity to continue building energy around the already vibrant Ohio fair trade movement and previous Expos. In addition to the Global Marketplace of fair trade vendors, we’ll host educational presentations and panels, including a special track for high school students and a passport program for kids. See www.OhioFairTrade.com
