IRTF News

Day One actions by the Biden Administration open the door for migrant justice advocates to push for more inclusive policies over the next four years. Included in Biden’s Executive Actions: DACA (plans to introduce legislation to allow DACA recipients to immediately apply for lawful permanent residence); rescinding the Muslim and African bans (calling them “a stain on our national conscience”); set priorities for immigration enforcement ( focus on those with criminal records) ; reinstating “Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) for Liberians” (extending legal permission to stay in the US and work authorization through June 30, 2022); halt to some border wall construction (terminates national emergency declarations that were invoked to justify this diversion of federal funds for a border wall); stop to “remain in Mexico” for asylum-seekers (but asks current enrollees –tens of thousands of migrants--to remain where they are on the Mexico side of the border, pending further information from the U.S. ); introduced US Citizen Act of 2021 (new pathways to U.S. citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants). Of concern to IRTF and other human rights organizations: a $4 billion four-year interagency plan that would provide assistance to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras to address the underlying causes of migration. Previous administrations (including the Obama-Biden Administration) have “addressed underlying causes of migration” with increases in economic exploitation and military repression. Addressing the causes of emigration has meant more money for US corporations to set up sweatshops in “free trade zones” and more money, training, and equipment for police, military , and special joint forces that squash democratic expression on the streets and environmental defense of land and waterways.

In Nicaragua, the US-backed opposition has repeatedly run to the U.S. State Department and Congress to ask for their interference and to advocate for sanctions against their own country so as to accomplish their only objective: to seize power. Their intention and that of the US is to create a situation of chaos and dislocation such that it brings about a violent “regime change.” After two years of US sanctions (Nicaraguan Investment Conditionality Act, or Nica Act), Trump stated in November 2020 that Nicaragua poses “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.” This technically gives the US the green light to take military action against Nicaragua if and when it deems necessary. Equally disturbing was a leaked document from the US State Department (Responsive Assistance in Nicaragua , or RAIN) that lays out how, if President Daniel Ortega does win the presidential election in November 2021, there are plans to overthrow him and his administration through mob violence assisted by US-financed NGOs and any other means possible. In the face of continued US aggression, the Nicaraguan government has asserted its determination not to be a US client state in the region, but to be its own sovereign nation and not dance to the tune of the US. This is a reality which the US refuses to accept. Will things change under President Biden?

As Joe Biden begins his presidency, a majority of Honduran people continue to suffer the violence and oppression of the military-backed, drug-trafficking, ‘open-for-global-business’ Honduran regime brought to power in the US and Cdn-backed military coup of June 28, 2009 - during Biden’s first term as Vice-President during the Obama presidency. A courageous, community-led human rights and environmental defense struggle continues in Guapinol, where local people resist he illegal imposition of an iron oxide mine, suffering violence and criminalization by company-linked operators and the US and Cdn-backed Honduran regime.

On January 21, a coalition of Afro-Colombian, Indigenous, and Campesino communities represented by the Inter-Ecclesial Commission for Justice and Peace (Comisión Intereclesial de Justicia y Paz, CIJP) published a statement addressed to the Biden-Harris administration outlining recommendations for peacebuilding priorities in Colombia. The recommendations include: a full commitment to the agreed terms of the 2016 peace accord with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), resume peace dialogues with the National Liberation Army (ELN) and advance humanitarian minimums, dismantle illegal armed groups following community input, enforce agrarian reform, implement illicit crop substitution programs, and strengthen rural judicial institutions.

Four-year-old María Ángel Molina was recently found dead in rural Colombia, making her one of 18 confirmed cases of femicide this year- with 13 more cases pending verification. Rights groups are concerned about the safety of women and girls, particularly during lockdowns due to coronavirus which forces them indoors with abusive men. Femicide Foundation Colombia, an NGO that provides support for women and tracks gender-based violence, in 2020 confirmed 229 femicides, of which 35 were girls, and is trying to verify a further 260 cases. Horrifying murders of women and girls are not uncommon in Colombia, and are sometimes committed by authority figures. In June 2020, scandal engulfed the military after seven soldiers gang-raped a 13-year-old indigenous girl. “We know that this is not an isolated issue, it is structural,” said Aida Quilcue, at the time a human rights adviser at the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC).

From No More Deaths: Part 2 of the Disappeared series concluded that the culture and policies of the US Border Patrol as a law-enforcement agency both authorize and normalize acts of cruelty against border crossers. On February 3 we will be releasing Part 3 of Disappeared, called Left to Die: Border Patrol, Search & Rescue, and the Crisis of Disappearance. The report explores the discriminatory and inadequate search and rescue practices for those presumed to be undocumented in the borderlands, and the systemic interference by Border Patrol of family and community search efforts.

By the 1980s, the FARC had territorial control of the town of Palestina, Huila Department. Enrique Chimonja says: “what happened was repression and in some way the assassination and extermination of campesino leaders, [putting] a permanent fear in the population.” His own father (Tuliio Enrique Chimonja, age 33) was forcibly disappeared in 1983. “ Tulio Enrique Chimonja is one of many campesinos who lost his life — or in his case, enforced disappearance — for having found himself in the middle of an armed conflict,” Enrique says. Now, Enrique, his family, and other victims are occupying the mechanisms of transitional justice set up after the 2016 Peace Accord between the Colombian Government and the FARC-EP to expand their search for truth and justice, and finally find Enrique’s father. Using these institutions, they hope to empower themselves and find closure for the tragedy that has marked their lives for over 30 years. It is not a perfect process, but Chimonja pushes forward anyway in a search for truth and to honor the memory of his father.

On January 20, 2021, President Biden signed an Executive Order revoking the Keystone XL (KXL) pipeline permit issued by the Trump administration. The Rosebud Sioux Tribe (Sicangu Lakota Oyate) and the Fort Belknap Indian Community (Assiniboine (Nakoda) and Gros Ventre (Aaniiih) Tribes) along with their counsel, the Native American Rights Fund, applaud the Biden administration’s action to revoke the illegally issued KXL permit.

CONTENT WARNING- violent language quoted in tweet. An anonymous aggressor threatened 11 year old environmental activist Francisco Vera via a (now suspended) Twitter account. The individual tweeted a desire to "skin him" and "cut his fingers off". "These threats should help put a spotlight into the serious risks faced by environmental leaders, particularly in remote regions of Colombia,” Juan Pappier, Senior Americas Researcher for Human Rights Watch, said.