Exploited Labor: News & Updates

There has been a blood bath of assassinations in the Aguán Valley this year. Among the land defenders assassinated so far: Alí Dominguez and Jairo Bonilla (cf our letter 24 JAN 2023), Omar Cruz Tomé and his father-in-law Andy Martínez Murillo (cf our letter 22 FEB 2023), Santos Hipólito Rivas and his son Javier Rivas (cf our letter 24 MAR 2023), Emerson Martínez (cf letter 24 APR 2023), José Gilberto Martínez Cardona (cf letter 12 MAY 2023), and Oscar Oquelí Domínguez Ramos (cf our letter 21 JUN 2023).

In this letter we express our outrage to learn of yet another land defender brutally killed—in his home on a Sunday afternoon! José David Fortín, general secretary of the Cooperativa Agropecuaria Campesina Tarros Limitada, was murdered on September 24 in his home in the village of Los Tarros in Trujillo, Colón Department. Two hitmen arrived on a motorcycle at 2:00pm, entered his home, and shot him. With serious wounds he was transferred to a hospital in Tocoa, where he died.

According to the peasant rights organization Plataforma Agraria, there are strong rumors in the community that third parties who claim ownership of the disputed land hired hitmen.

The government of Honduras made a commitment in February 2022 to install a Tripartite Commission with the mandate to investigate violence and human rights violations against the peasant movement. We join our voices with those of campesino cooperatives in demanding that the comission be implemented. We also echo the call to dismantle the criminal structures that operate alongside organized crime in the Bajo Aguán, many in conjunction with corrupt officials.

Land disputes are at the root of much of the state-sponsored violence in Honduras. There are many tracts of land that campesino families were given under previous programs of agrarian reform, but private landholders and companies still challenge the land titles.

In Yoro, 700 campesino families recently experienced firsthand the crushing violence of the state in its support of private companies.  Azucarera del Norte SA (Azunosa) filed a civil lawsuit against the peasant organizations in the Guanchías sector, but no legal resolution has been determined. Instead, more than 100 police officers arrived on August 9 with tanks and other armored vehicles to force the campesino families to leave within two hours. They evicted about 3,000 people, united in at least 30 cooperatives. Crops and homes were burned in this egregious act of illegal state violence. Just the day before, the campesino organizations had signed an agreement with the Honduran Institute of Agricultural Marketing (IHMA) to sell their corn. But on August 9, police burned about 865 acres of corn, which would have yielded approximately 626,000 pounds of the essential grain in a nation the United Nations declared has 4.9 million suffering from moderate to mild food insecurity.

Recently, the government of President Xiomara Castro installed the Commission for Agrarian Security and Access to Land (Comisión de Seguridad Agraria y Acceso a la Tierra). Although the Commission has the objective of settling disputes over land titles, violent evictions have increased since its inception.

The government of Colombia needs the full participation of members of REDSIPAZ (Red de Organizaciones Sindicales para la Defensa de lo Público y la Paz, or Trade Union Network for the Defense of Peace) to implement the Total Peace Plan that was announced by President Petro in August 2022. The Total Peace Plan is a multifaceted effort that seeks to minimize violence, protect civilians, and dismantle the many armed groups operating in Colombia.  But members of REDSIPAZ have been facing attacks and difficult working conditions that are impeding their work to implement Colombia’s peace process.

One member of RESDIPAZ, the SINDHEP unión (Sindicato de Defensoras y Defensores de Derechos Humanos de la Defensoría del Pueblo) has been excluded from union contract negotiations by Carlos Ernesto Camargo Assis, the Defensor del Pueblo (Ombudsman for Human Rights).

The Memoria Viva union (Sindicato Nacional Memoria Viva de los Trabajadores de la Seguridad y Protección del Pueblo) has been at odds with its employer, the National Protection Unit (UNP, Unidad Nacional de Protección). Its members have repeatedly reported that many of the vehicles and means to protect them are not adequate, and when they malfunction, they are not replaced, which puts the lives of the protected persons and their escorts at risk.  

We are urging that authorities in Colombia: (1) allow the participation of representatives of the Memoria Viva Union and other unions of REDSIPAZ  as part of the teams developing public policies related to Total Peace, (2) ensure that all employees of UNP, including members of the Memoria Viva Union, are given the necessary resources, such as vehicles in good condition, to adequately ensure the safety of those who are in their care, and (3) instruct Ombudsman Carlos Camargo Assis to reinstate SINDHEP to the negotiation table.

In a nightclub in Cauca Department, on June 6, gunmen shot and killed Memoria Viva union member Alexander Garcés Biscunda and injured his brother Bleider Andrés Garcés Biscunda, also a member of the same union of security guards. This occurred just weeks after another Memoria Viva union member, Diego Mauricio Mejía Rojas, was killed in Putumayo Department, and Memoria Viva union member Jhon Jader Ferreyra was wounded in a separate attack in Tolima Department. These attacks against members of Memoria Viva come at a time when the union is negotiating contracts with government agencies, such as the National Protection Unit (UNP).

SINDHEP union members have long been at odds with their boss, Defensor del Pueblo Carlos Camargo. His office recently expelled SINDHEP (Sindicato de Defensoras y Defensores de Derechos Humanos de la Defensoría del Pueblo) from the negotiation table. This dismissal came just days after SINDHEP publicly denounced Camargo, warning about the risks of corruption, clientelism (patronage), and wiretapping of workers taking place under his administration. In March, 2021, SINDHEP accused Carlos Camargo of being complicit in state terrorism during the National Strike, criticizing him for undercounting assaults and killings by Colombian security forces and failing to protect the rights of protesters and social leaders. They called for his resignation.

We are urging that authorities in Colombia: (1) investigate the attack on Memoria Viva union members in Cauca on June 6, publish the results, and bring those responsible to justice, (2) instruct the UNP to negotiate in good faith with Memoria Viva, and (3) instruct the office of the Defensor del Pueblo to re-open negotiations with SINDHEP and stop intercepting private communications of its members

Since January of this year, we have written letters to authorities in Honduras in response to eight assassinations of land and water defenders in the Aguán Valley. José Gilberto Martínez Cardona became the first defender killed in the Aguán Valley this year outside the departments of Colón or Atlántida.  He was murdered on Tuesday, April 18, after participating in a commemoration of the International Day of Peasant Struggle. The 64-year-old community leader had been active in his community’s fight for their land and water for more than 30 years in Olanchito, Yoro Department. José Gilberto Martínez Cardona was a member of the National Association of Honduran Peasant Farmers (ANACH), as well as the secretary of the campesino cooperative “Blessing of God #2.”