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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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With no evidence, Capriles claims Caracas contributed millions of dollars to the Zelaya administration

[Translation of an article from La Jornada of Mexico City for October 13.  See original here.]

by Arturo Cano

Caracas, October 12 – “And when was the 100-million dollar contribution?”  Henrique Capriles Radonski shuffled his papers.  “In 2010,” he said.  “What?  He gave the money to (Roberto) Micheletti?” was heard in the auditorium.  “Well, I’ll clear it up later and let you know.”

One of the lines of attack by the opposition candidate when he took part in public events during the recent campaign was to repeat a list of “contributions” that the Hugo Chávez government had made all over the world.

The initial exchange took place on October 1 in a press conference presented by  Capriles, who only four days after his defeat in the presidential race registered again as a candidate, this time for re-election as governor of the state of Miranda, to say to  foreign correspondents that he would not give away Venezuelan money and to accuse Chávez of being a mono-exporter:  “The only thing he exports is his political agenda.” (more…)

Thousands are being detained and many are buried along the way

[Translation of an article from Tiempo of San Pedro Sula, Honduras, for July 19. See original here.]

Mexico City – In contrast with tendencies seen in the past few years, Central American migration through Mexico, principally from Honduras, is increasing.

Data from the Instituto Nacional de Migración (INM) and from migrant shelters operated by the Catholic church show that an ever increasing number of undocumented migrants from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala are crossing Mexican territory on their way to the United States. From January to May of this year, 37,582 migrants from these three countries, who make up most of the traffic, were housed in INM migrant stations, according to statistics from the organization. That number is greater by 34 percent than was registered during the same period last year. (more…)

[Translation of an article from El Clarín of Santiago, Chile, for June 25. See original here and related articles here and here.]

by Guillermo Almeyra

The conspiracy against the Paraguayan president, former bishop Fernando Lugo, began the day he won the presidential election, since he could only assume office thanks to a popular mobilization. Without a party of his own, without a parliamentary caucus of any importance to back him, with a vast but dispersed and disorganized supportive base in the peasantry, forced to face opposition in the hierarchy of his own church, he has always depended on a fragile alliance with the party of Vice President Federico Franco, the Liberal Radical party, which is extremely conservative and represents a sector of the landowners.

Partisans of the Stroessner dictatorship, meanwhile, were and still are embedded in the public administration, the police forces, the so-called justice system and the Supreme Court. Lugo tried too late to form a party/front, the Frente Guasú (“broad” in Guaraní), which is just now taking its first steps and is far from being homogeneous. But all the Paraguayan Rights, backed in the shadows by the United States, wanted to leave no room for the center-left to organize and to try to hold on to power, even though there is more than a year to go before the end of Lugo’s term and ten months before the elections, in which in any case the president cannot be re-elected. (more…)

((FNRP photo))

[Translation of an article by Agence France Presse as published in Diario Tiempo of San Pedro Sula on May 8. See original here.]

Tegucigalpa – The assassination in Honduras of journalist Erick Martínez, who was a spokesman for homosexual groups and a congressional candidate for the Left, has reawakened anger in the most violent country in the world, where 18 other murders of journalists remain unpunished.

The body of the 32-year-old journalist, an activist with the Libertad y Refundación party (Libre, the leftist party of former President Manual Zelaya [and the electoral arm of the Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular]), was found on a highway outside the capital on Monday night with indications he had been strangled.

“The results of the criminal investigations are blank pages; there is no interest in investigating, there is an institutional weakness and a lack of responsibility in the exercise of public duty,” government Human Rights Commissioner Ramón Custodio told AFP. (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…)

((Gilda Silvestruchi - Revistazo photo))

[Translation of an article from Revistazo.com of Tegucigalpa for January 31. See original here and related articles here and here. The El Patriota web site, mentioned below, is here.]

A week after filing a complaint of death threats with the Interior Ministry and several days after seeking injunctive relief from the Public Attorney for Human Rights and the Ministry of Public Safety, journalist Gilda Silvestruchi declares that she is still being harassed.

“I filed the complaint last week and on Friday I went to the public attorney for human rights to seek injunctive relief. They just started the investigation and so far there is nothing. The last call was at 5:30 this morning but I didn’t answer it,” the journalist said when asked about progress of the investigation of the case. (more…)

((ContraPunto photo by Luis Velásquez))

“The president of Honduras is Micheletti”

[Translation of an article from ContraPunto of San Salvador for December 14. See original here and related articles here.]

by Fernando de Dios

San Salvador – Being a defender of human rights in Honduras these days is a job that carries with it the risk of imminent death.

As a member of the Comité de Defensa de los Derechos Humanos de Honduras (CODEH – Committee in Defense of Human Rights in Honduras) who has been denouncing abuses by state security forces in the Bajo Aguán area, where 47 campesinos have been assassinated in the past two years, Alexander Salgado knows this first hand.

Salgado tells how he and others were attacked by soldiers who lay in ambush for them and fired at them with combat rifles in that rural area of the department of Colón, in northern Honduras. (more…)

Repressive strategies led by former soldiers are the new norm in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador

[Translation of an article from ContraPunto of San Salvador for December 14. See original here and related articles here, here and here.]

By Gerardo Arbaiza

The Central American Northern Triangle, consisting of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, has been found in several studies to be the most violent region of the world not involved in an armed conflict.

According to a report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Honduras is in first place in the world in homicides, with a rate of 78 for every 100,000 inhabitants, followed by El Salvador with 66 and, three levels below, Guatemala, with a total of 41 murders per 100,000 inhabitants.

The World Health Organization considers a country to be in an epidemic when the rate of deaths from any cause reaches ten for every 100,000 inhabitants.

The strategy these countries have adopted recently to reduce these figures is directed at taking members of the armed forces and using them together with police forces for tasks of citizen security. (more…)

((Guardian photo))

[Translation of an article from El Faro of San Salvador, El Salvador, for December 1. See original here.]

By José Luis Sanz

To be a police officer in Honduras these days is to be looked at with fear and, above all, and this is new, with scorn. Last October 22 police agents killed two university students. Two more bodies in a country whose murder rate is the highest on the continent – 88 for every 100,000 inhabitants – and in which for years civil society organizations like the Centro de Prevención, Tratamiento y Rehabilitación de las Víctimas de la Tortura (CPTRT – Center for Prevention, Treatment and Rehabilitation of Victims of Torture) denounce systematic abuse of authority committed by the National Police, the influence of drug trafficking in its ranks and the operations of uniformed extermination groups. (more…)

((José - Diario Tiempo photo))

[Translation of an Agence France Presse article as published in Diario Tiempo of San Pedro Sula, Honduras, for November 25. See original here and related article here.]

Tapachula, Mexico – Lying on a bed in a shelter for the undocumented, Honduran José Paz is recuperating from the amputation of his right foot, which occurred when he was pushed by a policeman and fell under the wheels of the “Train of Death,” which at the same time cut off his American dream.

“It is very painful when you remember how things happened. That federal policeman pushed me and I fell under the train, the wheel cut off my foot. This happened and now, today, I don’t want to go to the United States for that damned American dream. That is what fucked me up,” he told AFP in an angry tone.

José is one of the tens of thousands who every year board, on the run, the so-called “Train of Death” or “La Bestia,” a long, slow freight train on an uncertain schedule which, starting in Arriaga, Chiapas, in southern Mexico, takes a northern route toward Oaxaca and Veracruz with its load of corn, cement and undocumented migrants. (more…)

Those responsible for coup against Zelaya could be indicted in Rome for crimes against humanity

[Translation of an article from ContraPunto of San Salvador for October 7. See original here.]

Tegucigalpa – The International Criminal Court (ICC) is investigating those who led the coup d’état in Honduras on June 28, 2009, which overthrew the constitutional president, Manuel Zelaya.

This according to former Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón, who heads a delegation of jurists visiting Honduras.

Among those who could be judged internationally are de facto President Roberto Micheletti and General Romeo Vásquez.

Both could be charged with more than 200 human rights violations, including assassinations, torture, forced disappearances and arbitrary arrests, as well as repression of defenseless civilians.

Garzón is also participating in a workshop called “Impunity, freedom of expression and justice” being held in Tegucigalpa.

In the framework of this international event, Garzón declared that several political and military figures could be indicted by the international organization, an unprecedented event in Latin America.

The announcement was made during the closing ceremony of the workshop, in which close to 100 representatives of human rights organizations in Honduras, as well as other Central American countries, took part.

The Spanish jurist pointed out that “once we have the evidence in hand, we can give a response on whether there is in effect responsibility” in the deaths of eight people during the political crisis, documented by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which released its report in July.

The famous lawyer stated that preparations for the cases is very important, since if “there is the appearance of crimes against humanity” during and after the overthrow of Zelaya, “the preparation of the cases is fundamental” so that they will have “greater possibility of being successful.”

The event was also attended by Eugenia Valenzuela, a member of the delegation who represents prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo of the ICC.

During the opening of the meeting, the United Nations rapporteur for the Freedom of Expression, Frank de la Rue, announced that he will submit a request to the government of Honduras to conduct an official visit to investigate the deaths of 16 journalists between 2010 and the present.