Environmental Human Rights: News & Updates

October 26, Indigenous Tolupán tribal leader Reinaldo Baharona Reyes he was given a national award for his environmental defense, named the Carlos Escaleras National Prize.  Despite the national honor, Reinaldo Baharona Reyes still faces threats of criminalization and imprisonment. 

Reinaldo Baharona Reyes is president of the Las Vegas tribe of Tepemechín in Victoria, Yoro Department. The tribe’s territory has been threatened by landowners linked to cattle ranching, loggers, and miners, who have decades-long legacy of controlling mayors' offices and using them as organized crime structures to dispossess the Tolupán. When bribes and tribal division do not work, tribal council leaders have been assassinated. Indigenous people have been dehumanized as just another species by those who covet land.

Reinaldo Baharona Reyes went to court in Victoria on November 4 to address the criminal complaints against him. His attorney says that he is at risk and needs the special attention of the authorities to guarantee his safety to do his human rights work.

Members of the Coordinator of Popular Organizations (COPA) and the Broad Movement for Dignity and Justice (MADJ) announced in a press conference that agribusiness corporations like Dinant have a plan to assassinate the peasant leadership in El Aguán who are fighting to secure access to their ancestral lands. Sources say the agribusiness companies have carried out surveillance to monitor the movements of the leadership and have devised a plot to murder the leadership of the Agrarian Platform—and then blame it on common street-crime violence. The names of the threatened leaders are: Jaime Cabrera, Jony Rivas, Héctor Murillo, José Cruz, Santos Pérez, Alexander Garcia, José Garcia, William Sorto and Esly Banegas.

We are urging that authorities in Honduras: (1) safeguard the life and personal integrity of the campesino leadership in El Aguán Valley, in strict accordance with their wishes, (2) initiate an investigation against businessman Miguel Mauricio de la Soledad Facussé Saenz, leader of Corporación Dinant, who has been accused of implementing the plan to assassinate the peasant leadership.

Despite a court order to stop expansion of its open-pit gold mining operations in La Unión, Miami-based Aura Minerals continues the destruction of an Indigenous Maya Chortí community in Copán Department in western Honduras. At the heart of the matter for local residents is the contamination of vital water sources and the destruction of their 200-year-old Azacualpa community cemetery. As we described in previous letters (cf December 2, 2021; January 25, April 11, July 21, 2022) army and police were deployed to ensure the exhumations of graves, to facilitate expansion of the San Andrés gold mine, which is owned by US- and Canada-based Aura Minerals and operated by its Honduran subsidiary MINOSA (Minerales de Occidente SA). On March 30, 2022, the government of Honduras ordered MINOSA to stop its operations, but the destruction has continued. In early November, the Supreme Court of Justice in Tegucigalpa admitted a writ of habeas corpus filed by lawyers on behalf of community residents, demanding from the Ministry of Health and the mining company to disclose the location of the illegally exhumed bodies.

We wrote to authorities in Honduras, urging them to: (1) guarantee that the appointed executing judges effectively locate the exhumed corpses of the Azacualpa cemetery, (2) support and adopt all decisions necessary to return those corpses to the cemetery in La Unión, Copán, and (3) order an immediate retreat of the mining company MINOSA and all its affiliates, including armed forces, from the cemetery hill and the local community and revoke any outstanding mining approvals for the company

Environmentalist Christopher Castillo has, since January 2020, been a beneficiary of Security Measures from the Protection Mechanism for Human Rights Defenders in Honduras, due to previous attempts on his life and repeated death threats he has received. Christopher is the general coordinator of ARCAH (Alternative for Community and Environmental Vindication of Honduras).

ARCAH has been a thorn in the side of private development investors whose money is pouring into the controversial ZEDEs (Zones of Employment and Economic Development, also known as “Model Cities,” or “Charter Cities”). Recently, ARCAH has been denouncing that the Bay Islands forest is being destroyed by construction of a luxury hotel in Roatán by the ZEDE Próspera, just a few meters from the coral reef. ZEDE board members and executives are harassing and threatening Christopher Castillo.

The tribes of the Indigenous Tolupán people in Honduras face structural challenges that include: illegal cutting of their forests, lack of recognition of ancestral titles, and lack of access to basic rights such as health, food and education. Their tribal leaders face intimidation, harassment, and threats to themselves and their families. Benedicto Hernández, coordinator of the Tolupán de Luquigüe tribe in Yoro Department, is a recent victim. Two weeks ago, the Broad Movement for Dignity and Justice (MADJ) issued an alert:  “recently, two men with high-caliber weapons set up surveillance around his house with the intention of harming him. They also make calls to his cell phone warning him that they are outside his house and that he should come out.” The threats against Benedicto Hernández have led to acts of intimidation against members of his family and other members of the (MADJ) who reside in the area. We call on authorities to investigate these threats and hold accountable those responsible.