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Judi Lynn

(160,542 posts)
Fri Dec 8, 2017, 05:50 PM Dec 2017

Why Canadians should care about whats happening in Honduras Canadas ongoing support to Canadian mi


Canada’s ongoing support to Canadian mining companies in the Northern Triangle region of Central America needs to be held up to scrutiny.
By PATRICIA ALDANAOpinion
Fri., Dec. 8, 2017

People in Honduras are taking to the streets to demand a recount in their recent election. One young woman has been killed by the Military Police. Even elite police units are withdrawing to their barracks in protest over being asked to shoot at their fellow citizens.

Why should Canadians care?

Though most Canadians don’t know it, Canada has played a major role in what’s called the Northern Triangle of Central America. Its three countries – Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras – are three of the highest per capita homicide countries in the world.

Since the early 1960s proxy wars—first against Communism, then against the drug trade, have played out across these countries. Over 300,000 people died in the first war from 1960 to 1996, of whom 200,000-plus were Guatemalans (mostly Maya), with 85 per cent killed by government forces trained and abetted by the United States, South Africa, Israel, Taiwan and others. This figure comes from the Commission for Historical Clarification of the United Nations.

What most Canadian don’t know is that one of the roots of this war was an agreement between the then Guatemalan government and the Canadian company INCO to strip-mine large regions of the country’s northeast.

More:
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2017/12/08/why-canadians-should-care-about-whats-happening-in-honduras.html
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