Honduras: attacks on human rights activists increase

[Judi Lynn]

Honduras: attacks on human rights activists increase
Submitted by Weekly News Update... on Tue, 08/06/2013 - 11:38 Central America Theater

Some 10 armed men identified as security guards from a mining project threatened and detained two foreign volunteers for the Honduras Accompaniment Project (PROAH) for more than two hours on July 25 in the Nueva Esperanza community in the northern Honduran department of Atlántida. Area communities have faced threats and harassment for at least a year while organizing in opposition to open-pit mining by Minerales Victoria, part of the Alutech metal company owned by Lenir Pérez. The two international volunteers, one French and one Swiss, went to Nueva Esperanza hoping that their presence would deter further aggression by the mining company. Less than 24 hours later security guards and a group of mineworkers threatened them and forced them to leave the community.

The Costa Rica-based Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR, or CIDH in Spanish) has issued precautionary measures for two community leaders in the area, César Alvarenga and Roberto García, members of the Broad Movement for Dignity and Justice (MADJ), because of death threats texted by Lenir Pérez in August 2012. Catholic priest César Espinoza and a group of nuns received threats in January, and armed men assaulted and threatened community residents in June. "The terror we lived for two hours is the tragic everyday life in this town," Orlane Vidal, one of the detained volunteers, told the Lista Informativa Nicaragua y Más (LINyM) blog in an interview. On July 26 some 250 people marched to Nueva Esperanza in support of the community's peaceful opposition to the mine and of the work of international human rights observers. (LINyM, July 27, English translation at Upside Down World, July 31; Friendship Office of the Americas urgent action, July 29)

On July 29 the London-based rights organization Amnesty International (AI) issued a statement "condemning the recent killings of people defending justice, equality and human rights" in Honduras. The organization noted that at least three were killed in less than two weeks in July.

The first was Tomás García Domínguez, a leader of the indigenous Lenca who was killed by the military on July 15 in Intibucá department in western Honduras during a demonstration at the headquarters for the Agua Zarca hydroelectric project. On July 21 Herwin Alexis Ramírez Chamorro, an Afro-Honduran transsexual also known as "Africa Noxema Howell," was found dead in La Ceiba, Atlántida department; he was active in the Ceiba Pro-Union Organization (OPROUCE), which works for HIV prevention and LGBT rights, and the Ethnic Community Development Organization (ODECO), which works for the development of Afro-Honduran communities. On July 24 armed men on a motorbike shot and killed Judge Mireya Efigenía Mendoza Peña in El Progreso, in the northern department of Yoro. Mendoza was a judge in the El Progreso Trial Court and also a member of the Association of Judges for Democracy (AJD), a nongovernmental organization working to strengthen the Honduran justice system. AI said it "called on the Honduran authorities to conduct a prompt, impartial and effective investigation" into each of the killings. (AI, July 29; Adital, Brazil, July 30)

More:
http://ww4report.com/node/12507

[Peace Patriot]

1. AI doesn't seem to understand that these killings are PART OF THE U.S. 'FREE TRADE' PROGRAM!...

...as we've seen in Colombia. There will NOT be any "prompt, impartial and effective investigation."

"AI said it 'called on the Honduran authorities to conduct a prompt, impartial and effective investigation' into each of the killings. (AI, July 29; Adital, Brazil, July 30)"

Well, maybe AI does understand this but they can't (or feel they can't) say it.

The regime that the U.S. INSTALLED in Honduras is NOT going to investigate itself for doing exactly what the U.S. expects it to do, as a U.S. (corporate/war profiteer) CLIENT: kill labor leaders, peasant farmer activists and other advocates of the poor, as well as any journalists who get in their way. This is what U.S. aid is FOR--to terrorize the country and SUBDUE it, so that everything in it may be "privatized" and its resources and its workers looted without restraint. These assassinations not only decapitate the leadership of the poor majority, they are also a "lesson" to all, to prevent new leaders from arising--and they are PART OF THE U.S. 'FREE TRADE FOR THE RICH" PACKAGE.

Horrible, but true. So lectures from AI and others on justice system accountability for these many, many political murders fall on deaf ears. The perpetrators know they have immunity and know that they are doing the will of the "ten families" who rule Honduras for the benefit of U.S. multinationals and the Pentagon (busy building more "forward operating locations" in Honduras!)

Xiomara Zelaya was way ahead in the polls, last I saw. These murders are a way of weakening her candidacy--literally depriving her of organizers--and of suppressing the vote with fear and intimidation. AI's report might help in this respect--that is, it may give people courage to know that international groups are paying attention. i'm certainly not saying that AI should be silent and that its efforts are useless--not at all. But until the REAL PROBLEM in Honduras is addressed--the problem of U.S. interference--there will be no remedy for these murders and there will be no help for Honduras' poor majority.