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Campesinos claim soldiers and police favor the landowners

[Translation of an Agence France Presse article as published in Diario Tiempo of San Pedro Sula for May 13, 2013. See original here an related articles here, here and here.]

A campesino leader was assassinated by armed men in the troubled valley of Aguán, 600 kilometers northeast of the Honduran capital, bringing to 99 the number killed in the region, the scene of a conflict between farmers and landowners, a leader of the agrarian movement reported on Sunday.

“Three heavily armed men assassinated José Omar Pérez, 37, president of the Los Laureles operation, in the La Concepción settlement, which belongs to the Movimiento Unificado Campesino del Aguán (MUCA), around 9:30pm Saturday night,” the spokesman for the organization, Vitalino Álvarez, told AFP.

The attack occurred 100 meters from Pérez’s home as he and his wife were returning from his mother-in-law’s house in the city of Tocoa.

“The assassination of comrade Pérez makes 99 campesinos killed by the deadly bullets of the landowners’ security guards and the paramilitary groups who operate in the region,” stated a MUCA communiqué.

The conflict began in the Aguán in January, 2010, a month after more than 5,000 campesinos occupied 7,000 hectares of land claimed by the landowners.

The campesinos hold that these lands have belonged to them since they were granted to them as part of an agrarian reform in the 1980s.

In 1992, a law allowed the parcels of land to be sold and some leaders of the farmers, behind the backs of their base, sold them to the landowners at low cost.

In August, the government ordered a military deployment, reinforced by the police, to carry out a “general disarmament” but deaths continue and the campesinos hold that the soldiers and the police are backing the landowners.

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((Fernando Lugo))

[Translation of an article from the Brazilian website Carta Maior for June 20. See original here and related article here.]

by Dario Pignotti

“This killing of campesinos occurred as a result of a process of police violence instigated by landowners who are unhappy with President Lugo; he is not wanted by the Right or by the Brazilian farmers. Brazilian landowners like Tranquilo Favero, the richest soy producer in Paraguay, are interested in destabilizing the government, they want Lugo to fall,” declared Martín Almada, the most important representative of the Paraguayan human rights movement.

Eleven landless campesinos were killed last Friday on a farm near the border with Brazil, where tension is mounting along with demands and direct actions for agrarian reform. The confrontation between the police and the workers left seven officers dead, among them the chiefs of the Special Operations Group, a kind of Paraguayan BOPE [Batalhão de Operações Policiais Especiais], except that its job is not to repress favela dwellers, as in Rio de Janeiro, but the rural peasants who, since Lugo came to office in 2008, have increased their level of organization and determination to struggle, after decades of submission to the yoke of the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner. (more…)

[Translations of two articles from the Venezuelan website TeleSur for June 15 and 18. See originals here and here.]

At least 17 killed during eviction of campesinos

At least 17 dead, ten of them campesinos and seven police agents, was the result of a confrontation between police and campesinos during a violent eviction from rural land [in Curuguaty, in the southeastern department of Canindeyú] belonging to a Paraguayan businessman.

According to local authorities, the confrontations between the police and the campesinos also resulted in at least 80 people with injuries, some minor and others serious. Among those injured is a two-year-old girl, the TeleSur correspondent reports… (more…)

((Revistazo photo))

[Translation of an article from Revistazo of Tegucigalpa for April 20. See original here  and related articles here, here and here.]

Tegucigalpa – The Ministry of the Interior has announced the issuing of warrants for police, military and civilians involved in human rights violations and the assassinations of more than 50 people in the Bajo Aguán region. The campesino leadership considers it necessary to punish those responsible but has no confidence in any actions the prosecutor may take.

Although he did not disclose the names of those involved, Special Prosecutor for Human Rights Germán Enamorado told the press that the prosecutor’s office has succeeded in gathering the evidence needed to initiate prosecutions, which in the case of public employees will involve charges for abuse of authority, dereliction of duty, personal injury and attempted homicide. (more…)

[Translation of an article from La Jornada of Mexico City for August 21. See original here and related article here.]

Tegucigalpa – The Comité Hondureño de los Derechos Humanos (CODEH – Honduran Human Rights Committee) today denounced the presence of a death squad in the Bajo Aguán region, where thousands of campesinos are in conflict with landowners over land ownership.

Secundino Ruiz Vallecillos, a member of the Movimiento Auténtico de Campesinos del Aguán (MARCA), was killed yesterday by two assassins riding a motorcycle while he was on his way to the San Isidro cooperative, in the department of Colón on the country’s Atlantic coast.

Eliseo Pavón, another campesino leader who was with him, was also injured.

“CODEH believes that a death squad has been established in Aguán, financed by the landowners of the area and led by former military who were linked in the ‘80s with the repression that was seen in the country,” according to a communiqué distributed by the humanitarian organization.

The 3-16 was a death squad that operated in Honduras during the ‘80s and, together with the armed forces, kidnapped and disappeared around 184 popular leaders, according to charges made by CODEH.

As a result, Honduras was ordered by the International Human Rights Court, with headquarters in Costa Rica, to compensate the families of several of the disappeared of the time, among them that of Ángel Manfredo Velásquez.

CODEH reports that the death squad’s method is to disguise their crimes by making them appear to be common delinquency, taking any money the victims were carrying.

Aguán is a valley that has been militarized since last October, a situation that is dangerous for the population, especially for the campesinos, who have lost the freedom of movement because of the siege to which they are subjected.

[Translation of an article from Revistazo of Tegucigalpa for August 16. See original here and related articles here, here and here.]

By Germán Reyes

Honduras is experiencing its worst crime wave in history and although crime is spread through every region of the country, Security Minister Óscar Álvarez has announced the launch of a new joint operation by the military and the police in the Aguán region, an area characterized by struggle between campesinos and landowners.

More than 150 campesinos and security guards have died in armed confrontations in the Aguán area. The government, incapable of complying with signed commitments, has announced a militarization through Operation Xatruch II.

The security minister reports the deployment of 600 additional men, to be added to the contingent that has been stationed in the region for several months. (more…)

Thirty-six killed so far during Lobo administration

[Translation of an article from Revistazo.com of Tegucigalpa for May 26. See original here and related articles here, here and here.]

By Germán Reyes

In a press conference held in Tegucigalpa, leaders of campesino organizations of the Aguán Valley charge that as a result of systematic violence and the repression of human rights, 36 campesinos have been assassinated in the area so far during the present administration.

They declare that despite the fact that the administration of Porfirio Lobo Sosa has spent almost two years seeking reintegration into the Organization of American States, in the past two months alone six more campesinos have lost their lives through violence and they expressed fear of a resurgence of repression once international organizations cease observing the country. (more…)

[Translation of an article from La Jornada of Mexico City for February 8. See original here.]

By Irene Sánchez

Mazatlán, Sinaloa – Six farm laborers escaped from an encampment in the agricultural fields in Cruz de Elota, where they had been harvesting tomatoes, after being exploited and mistreated, receiving no food or pay. They fled on foot and were rescued by the municipal police, who transported them to a civil protection shelter. The human rights commissioner for the southern region announced they will investigate the case.

The campesinos, natives of San Luis Potosí, were assisted by members of the municipal police on Monday afternoon when they arrived at the toll booth in Mármol, after walking along the Maxipista highway. (more…)

[Tanslation of an article from Revistazo.com for December 30. See original article here and related article here.]

The latest massacre of five campesinos in the north of the country has once again attracted national and international attention. The bodies of campesinos scattered about and the rifles they embraced awkwardly traveled around the world, revealing the lie and the barbarity in which Honduras survives.

The most grotesque part was that Miguel Faccusé, the landowner implicated in the murders, came out declaring, “Why did they approach my properties knowing that my men were armed?” The central government, in an irresponsible way, immediately alerted the population to the presence of campesino guerrillas trained outside the country. At almost the same time, the National Congress approved the Anti-Terrorist Law to criminalize social movements. In this way, the country’s core problem, which is the immoral monopoly of land by the landowners, is moved to second place. (more…)

[Translation of an article from Diario Tiempo of San Pedro Sula for December 2.  See original article here and related article here.]

San Pedro Sula – Campesino leaders in Bajo Aguán charged yesterday that an army of Colombian mercenaries has been organized to assassinate citizens who defend the lands granted to them by the Instituto Nacional Agragio (INA – National Agrarian Institute).

Vitalino Álvarez, Yoselyn Avilez and Adolfo Cruz, members of the Movimiento Unificado Campesino de Aguán (MUCA – United Campesino Movement of Aguán), and José Mario López, general secretary of the Sindicato de Trabajadores del INA del Bajo Aguán (Union of INA Workers of Bajo Aguán), traveled to San Pedro Sula to hold a press conference on Tercera Avenida in the Guamiliti neighborhood, to “denounce the repression and to refute the media campaign” being waged by some newspapers. (more…)

[Translations of articles from Revistazo.com of Tegucigalpa for November 23 and Diario Tiempo of San Pedro Sula for November 24. See original articles here and here and related article here.]

Military and police raid National Agrarian Institute in Aguán

by Germán Reyes

The facilities of the Instituto Nacional Agrario (INA – National Agrarian Institute) in the community of Sinaloa, in the Tocoa jurisdiction of Colón, were the scene in the early morning of a raid by a contingent of more than a hundred members of the police and national army. The military raid resulted from a claim that firearms intended for the destabilization of the government were being stored in the offices. (more…)

[Translations of two articles, the first from Revistazo.com of Tegucigalpa for November 15, the second from Diario Tiempo of San Pedro Sula for November 16. See original articles here and here. Businessman and landowner Miguel Facussé Barjum, one of the wealthiest men in Honduras, is owner of Grupo Dinant, which produces biodiesel fuel from palm and jatropha oils, among other enterprises. He and other members of his family are widely thought to have been instrumental in the coup d’état that ousted Manuel Zelaya from the presidency on June 28, 2009. César Ham of the leftist Unidad Democrática party is currently director of the Instituto Nacional Agrario, the National Agrarian Institute, in the administration of de facto president Porfirio Lobo Sosa. A supporter of Zelaya and of the drive for a Constituent Assembly, Ham was widely criticized by other leftists for accepting a position in the Lobo administration, which apparently offered it to him in an attempt to co-opt the resistance.]

Four campesinos killed in confrontation with Facussé security guards

by Germán Reyes

The deaths of four campesinos and the injuries and disappearances of several others have been reported as the result of a confrontation between security guards working for landowner Miguel Facussé and members of the Movimiento Campesino de Aguán (MCA – Aguán Campesino Movement). The event took place in the community of El Tumbador, in the jurisdiction of Trujillo, Colón. (more…)