Join us for IRTF's annual human rights banquet with our special guest from CRIPDES in El Salvador.
Commemoration24.eventbrite.com
IRTF Commemoration 2024 form: ad sponsors, group dinner tables, individual tickets here
Raffle/Auction Donation Form is here https://bit.ly/3U14Sql
Have you ever wondered what makes Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey ice cream taste so good? It’s Fairtrade banana puree, sourced from farmers in Ecuador by Equal Exchange. Join Equal Exchange for an informative webinar.
Register to join them for a discussion of ethical ice cream sourcing and its impact on farmers (including a farmer participant)!
Register at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScnHgdIDaJHxzYLPSnTJAkzQ6m-p-dmC-yrNd1k2r_Zs8ugtg/viewform
Honduras is facing at least $14 billion in claims from foreign and domestic corporations. Why? Because of its membership in CAFTA (Central America Free Trade Agreement) and bilateral trade deals.
ISDS (Inter-State Dispute Settlement) is a provision in these trade deals that allows foreign investors to sue governments of poor countries when things don’t go their way. In a recent report, Honduras Solidarity Network takes an in-depth look at how multinational and domestic companies have exploited investment agreements to make “mafia-style” demands on the Honduran state and people.
Example: A private toll booth operator — backed by big U.S. banks, including JP Morgan Chase Bank and two Goldman Sachs funds — is using ISDS to sue Honduras through a process called “international arbitration.” Their toll road was shut down in 2018 after massive protests and accusations of corruption.
This needs to end. Fortunately, some legislators are listening to the voices of impacted communities in Honduras. More than two dozen US representatives and senators signed a letter to push the US Trade Representative to scrap ISDS once and for all.
Learn more. Click here to participate in this webinar, featuring people in Honduras negatively impacted by ISDS. Learn how we can take action to promote trade agreements and investments that are more fair for the people of Honduras.
register here: https://bit.ly/isdsreport
Since early 2023, IRTF has been involved in an international solidarity campaign to drop bogus criminal charges against five environmentalists in El Salvador. After 20 months of petition gathering, calls to the US State Departement and US Embassy, a sign-on letter from the US Congress and other advocacy efforts, we are happy to report that the Santa Marta 5 have been freed!
The five prominent community leaders (Miguel Ángel Gámez, Alejandro Laínez García, Pedro Antonio Rivas Laínez, Antonio Pacheco, and Saúl Agustín Rivas Ortega) were all instrumental in the successful campaign to save El Salvador’s rivers from the threat of gold mining. With a unanimous vote in El Salvador’s National Assembly in March 2017, El Salvador became the first nation on earth to ban all metallic mining.
Since they were arrested in January 2023 on politically-motivated charges, IRTF has participated in an international campaign spanning 31 countries demanding that the bogus charges be dropped and denouncing the political motivations behind their detention given the lack of evidence presented by the Salvadoran Attorney General’s office.
John Carroll alum and Honduran activist Dany Díaz (2011 graduate) will be receiving the Young Alumni Award from the JCU Alumni Association. As part of his visit, Dany will be doing a reading from his recent book of personal essays Chronicles of What We Leave on the Shore about his life in Honduras and elsewhere and answering audience questions, details below. You can attend in person or on Zoom (to get the Zoom link, please click on the Register link below). The event will be at 7 pm in Donahue Auditorium, Dolan Science Center, John Carroll University, University Heights, OH.
https://advancement.jcu.edu/register/author-series-mejia
In a letter to the government in March 2023, a group of UN special rapporteurs and the vice-president of the UN working group on arbitrary detention, said: “We fear that the case is an attempt to intimidate those who seek to defend the environment in the country, and especially those who defend human rights from the negative impacts of mining.”
Honduras is currently facing at least USD 14 billion in claims from foreign and domestic companies. This is equivalent to roughly 40 percent of the country's GDP in 2023 and almost four times its public investment budget in 2024. A new study on this avalanche of claims found that most investors are revolting against Honduran efforts to reverse or renegotiate corrupt deals made under Hernández, which were often damaging to the public interest and local communities.
Juan Orlando Hernández is the Honduras former drug trafficking and corrupt president who was illegally reelected through fraud and with the help of the US.
Now a private toll booth operator - backed by major US banks, including JP Morgan Chase Bank and two Goldman Sachs funds - is suing Honduras in international arbitration. They are demanding 180 million dollars, more than four times what the company has reportedly invested. If these investors are successful, the economic burden on the country will only deepen the displacement crisis that is driving Hondurans north.
Carlos Andrés Ascué Tumbo, a 30-year-old university student and father of a young daughter, had been receiving threats from illegal armed groups. Deeply committed to his community at the Pueblo Nuevo Indigenous Reservation in the Indigenous territory of Sa’th Tama Kiwe, “Lobo,” as he was affectionately known by friends and family, was serving as coordinator of the Indigenous guard in the Indigenous territory of Sa’th Tama Kiwe in northern Cauca Department.
The national office of the Human Rights Ombudsman was aware of the particular dangers faced by Indigenous and other human rights defenders in northern Cauca. The office had already issued early warnings because of several illegal armed groups operating in the area and threatening community leaders. Carlos Andrés Ascué Tumbo had filed a complaint with the Attorney General's Office, made a statement to the Public Prosecutor's Office, and requested individual protection measures from the National Protection Unit (UNP). The UNP, however, did not assess the seriousness of his situation and did not grant him protective measures.
On his way to pick up his wife and daughter from a swimming class on August 29, he pulled into a gasoline service station at about 4:30pm. In broad daylight in the El Pescador district of Caldono municipality, assailants gunned him down, and then sped away on their motorcycles.
The University of Cauca issued this statement: “The death of this renowned anthropology student from our alma mater comes at a time when the consequences of this absurd war continue to cause great grief. Therefore, reiterating our commitment to life and peace, we demand real guarantees for the protection of life, not only of our university community, but of every inhabitant of Cauca. We cannot allow the dreams and lives of those who fight for a more just and humane country to continue to be cut short. Men and women, young people, adolescents and children of this land need and deserve to live in a place where hope is not just another victim of the conflict, but a force capable of transforming the future.”
Carlos Andrés Ascué Tumbo, ¡presente!
