Anti-Militarism: News & Updates

The Associated Press reports: “A plan to create special self-governing zones for foreign investors in Honduras has been thrown into limbo with the new government’s repeal of a law many criticized as surrendering sovereignty. [The zones for employment and economic development known as ZEDEs are] free from import and export taxes, but could set up their own internal forms of government, as well as courts, security forces, schools and even social security systems." The article refers to the zones already being developed, including Prospera (a 58-acre development on the island of Roatan) and Orquidea (an agro-industrial park near the city of Choluteca that produces peppers and tomatoes for export).

The Biden Administration expelled 450 people to Haiti, including 44 children, 20 of whom were infants, on three flights this week. These flights bring the total to 235 expulsion flights to Haiti since Biden took office, more than 23,000 people in total, and 21,000 in the eight months since the debacle in Del Rio last September. Another 8,000 people were summarily expelled into Mexico during the Del Rio crisis. Over the last few months, the number of people attempting to flee Haiti by boat has also increased dramatically, as measured by those captured and returned to Haiti by the Coast Guard. Within Haiti there is political stagnation and spiraling violence. At last 39 people have been killed in gang violence in the Port au Prince metro area since the end of April, and 10,000 people have been forced from their homes. This humanitarian disaster is what Biden is expelling people into; hundreds of people every week are caught in a relentless campaign of mass expulsions. 

A Guatemala judge who last week ordered nine former police and military officers to stand trial for alleged crimes during that country’s civil war, said Wednesday that death threats against him had increased since announcing his decision. “They send me messages, they call me on the phone, there’s vehicles following; all of that is happening,” Magistrate Miguel Ángel Gálvez said. Gálvez is no stranger to high-profile cases. He once ordered former dictator Efraín Ríos Montt to be tried. “Before they had threatened me, but now they even come to hearings to photograph me,” he said. Meanwhile, Gálvez fears the government is trying to build a case against him, as has been the case with other judges and prosecutors who have worked on sensitive corruption cases, which are also sometimes part of his docket.

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) will begin a two-day hearing Thursday on a lawsuit against Colombia for alleged persecution, harassment and espionage against the José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers' Collective, a human rights organization. This will be the first time that a human rights organization will come to this instance as a victim, informed the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL), which is representing the victims in this case. CEJIL and CAJAR expressed in a statement that this litigation "represents an opportunity to help transform the current scenario of serious violations against human rights defenders throughout the continent, a situation that reduces the capacity to defend rights and limits justice and democracy".