Honduras

The Dinant Corporation and subsidiaries of the Jaremar Corporation, both Honduran African palm oil corporations blamed by campesino movements for the murder of approximately 80 campesinos in the Aguan river valley region since the June 2009 military coup, have received millions of dollars from the World Bank since the coup. Since January 2010, Dinant security forces have been accused of participation in death squad activities and are likely responsible for the murder of approximately 80 campesino land rights activists and bystanders.

[…]

The Commission of Truth’s report identifies three patterns of human rights violations in the framework of the coup d’état: “1) repression of public protests, excessive use of force during repression by state security agents, and criminalization of public protest; 2) selective or directed repression to the detriment of persons considered by the de facto government to be destabilizing to the regime; and 3) institutional dysfunction according to the needs of the regime imposed by the coup d’état and to the detriment of the population.”

[…]

Judging by the relative disinterest – in both the mainstream and left media in North America – towards the situation in Honduras, you would think that the crisis in this country was over.  Yet, almost everyone I have talked to in my most recent stay here has told me that the situation is grave; twice in one week alone, I was sitting with an activist in the movement when they received news of the assassination of one of their compañeros.

[…]

“Paul Romer’s propaganda talks about building Charter Cities in uninhabited places. Unfortunately, in Honduras they are trying to dispossess the Garífuna people of half of our territory in order to create the RED (Special Development Region). The level of disinformation and violence that exists in this country reveals that multiple human rights violations will be caused by the establishment of a neocolonial project in the 21st century.”

[…]

Gunfire erupted from helicopters provided by the US State Department and carrying Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) trainers and Honduran police on May 11. The shots killed four Hondurans described by locals as fisherpeople. The killings have sparked outrage in the isolated coastal region. Government offices were burned, and residents have demanded the agency’s expulsion. The conflicting reports have prompted demands for a thorough investigation. “To keep an act of terror covered up in the midst of media confusion was always a strategy of psychological warfare, a special chapter of state terrorism,” wrote Honduran human rights group COFADEH.

[…]

Few people would likely draw connections between a Canadian diplomat, Honduran public security reform, a retired Chilean General, and an extractive industry law proposal in Honduras. But Canada and Chile are jointly involved in both public security reform and proposed mining, oil and gas legislation in Honduras.

[…]

There is no end in sight to violence and repression in Honduras. There is also no end in sight to American and Canadian governments and business maintaining political, economic and military relations with the country’s military-backed regime. Since the June 2009 military coup, that ousted the country’s democratically-elected government, Honduras has been referred to as the ‘murder capital’ of the world, a ‘journalist killing’ capital of the Americas, an ‘LGBT killing capital’, a ‘prisoner killing capital’, and a ‘lawyer killing capital.’

[…]

The objective of the recent International Human Rights Gathering in Solidarity with Honduras in the Bajo Aguán region was to give voice to the victims of the violence of the government, raise awareness of the political situation in the country, and share experiences, searching for common strategies at the national and international levels to check the repression. […]

The Aguán River Valley in the department of Colón, Honduras, is a site of both an ongoing conflict and a powerful social movement. In a struggle for land that greatly predates, but was also further exacerbated by, the 2009 military coup in Honduras, campesinos in the Aguán are constantly subject to human rights abuses, repression and injustice. Still, these communities are also unfailingly resilient. Poor, vulnerable, and landless, the Aguán campesinos truly represent and embody the Resistance movement in Honduras.

[…]