We are deeply concerned about recent attacks against the Civic Council of Popular Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH). COPINH has a community center (called Utopia Center) in La Esperanza, Intibucá Department, which serves as a meeting place for sharing information, developing strategies, and conducting human rights trainings. COPINH recently offered the Utopia Center to be used as an isolation center for people in prison infected with COVID-19. They have been receiving threats as a result.
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Afro-Descendant & Indigenous: News & Updates
RRN Letter
July 1, 2020
Event
June 20, 2020
There are 140 million poor and low-wealth people in the richest country in the world. We're bringing together thousands from across the US to challenge the interlocking injustices of systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation, the war economy and the distorted moral narrative of religious nationalism!
The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival
bus from Cleveland: bmallory@organizeohio.org
https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/june2020/
RRN Letter
May 23, 2020
The body of Edwin Noel Flores Sacaza, a young Garífuna man, was discovered on the afternoon of May 1 inside a container on the property of the Ensenada thermoelectric plant, where he worked as a security guard. Residents of Sambo Creek are awaiting autopsy reports that might reveal the cause of death and clarify how Edwin ended up inside the container, where he may have suffocated to death. There are many doubts among the members of the community about what happened, how the investigations will be carried out, and how justice will be administered. Concerns are intensified because of the increase of killings of Garífuna people over the past year, especially of women Garífuna leaders of territorial defense. The thermoelectric plant itself is also cause for concern. Garífuna communities in the region face health risks from being exposed to plant emissions from Bunker C (Fuel #6), banned in several countries because it is considered highly toxic.
RRN Letter
May 1, 2020
We are deeply concerned about attacks on rural community leaders in Cauca Department. This is part of a wave of violence that continues to impact many regions of Colombia. Since January 1 more than 60 social leaders have been assassinated across the country. In a period of just one week, these four social leaders were assassinated in Cauca: Teodomiro Sotelo Anacona, Andrés Andrelio Cacimanca Burbano, Mario Chilhueso, and Hugo de Jesús Giraldo López. We urge the president and attorney general of Colombia to: 1- carry out transparent and thorough investigations into the assassinations listed above, publish the results, and bring the perpetrators to justice; 2- provide protection measures to members of the organizations listed above, in strict accordance with the wishes of their local leaders; 3- demilitarize the rural areas of Cauca because of the military’s complicity in the armed violence, forced displacement, and targeting of rural social leaders.
Event
April 16, 2020
While state forces threaten their safety and dignity, Indigenous peoples and migrants resist with courage and resilience. Join CRLN for this webinar to learn about resource extraction, migration, and the work of Indigenous people in Guatemala to build a world beyond colonial borders.
Event
April 15, 2020
Equal Exchange has continued to create spaces for us to connect as a community and to take action as an alternative network. We will continue to provide spaces for connection and brainstorm ways to build an independent food system. One meaningful way that we want to engage with you is to continue to invite you into our world by sharing the stories of our producer partners as much as we can.
RRN Letter
April 2, 2020
#PorelDerechoaDefenderDerechos - As an active member of the Committee for Campesino Development (CODECA), Dominga Ramos Saljoj was a leader in the organized resistance against the privatization of electricity. The British-owned ENERGUATE, which has been waging a defamation campaign against CODECA leaders over the past several years, operates a monopoly in 80% of Guatemala. An assassin knocked on the door of the home of Dominga Ramos, said “This one is for you,” shot her 8 times, and took off on a motorcycle. Her daughter-in-law and grandchildren witnessed the gruesome murder. We must not allow impunity to continue for these assassinations. Dominga Ramos Saljoj - ¡presente!
RRN Case Update
April 1, 2020
January, February, and March RRN case summaries at a glance
On behalf of our 190 Rapid Response Network members, IRTF volunteers write and send six letters each month to government officials in southern Mexico, Colombia, and Central America (with copies to officials in the US).
Who is being targeted? indigenous and Afro-descendant leaders, labor organizers, LGBTI rights defenders, women’s rights defenders, journalists, environmental defenders, and others.
By signing our names to these crucial letters, human rights crimes are brought to light, perpetrators are brought to justice and lives are spared. Our solidarity is more important than ever. Together, our voices do make a difference.
RRN Letter
March 24, 2020
We are gravely concerned about the continued trend of assassinations against social leaders and human rights defenders. Four more assassinated in five days: Ivo Humberto Bracamonte Quiroz, Marco Rivadeneira, Angel Ovidio Quintero Gonzalez, Omar Guasiruma and Ernesto Guasiruma. In the context of COVID-19, they now face even greater risks: 1- attackers know that public security forces are focusing on issues related to the pandemic, 2-social leaders cannot flee danger because they are subject to restrictions imposed to contain the pandemic, and 3- state protection measures have been weakened.
News Article
March 13, 2020
The Chixoy dam was a very profitable investment project of the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in partnership with the U.S.-backed genocidal regimes of Generals Lucas García and Ríos Montt. To clear the way, over 30 Mayan communities were forcibly evicted up and down the river. The village of Río Negro was hit the hardest. The Guatemalan government killed more than 444 villagers over the course of five large-scale massacres in 1981 and 1982. (March 13 is the 20th anniversary of the massacre of 177 Maya Achi children and women.) Since 1994, the Rio Negro survivors have courageously pressured Guatemala’s corrupted legal system to put on trial, find guilty, and send to jail nine former Civil Defense Patrollers (PAC) and military commissioners, mainly from the neighboring village of Xococ. But these were merely the “material authors.” The “intellectual authors” have never been investigated or charged. Not one single military officer in the chain of command, who ordered and carried out the Chixoy dam massacres, was captured, tried and sentenced. Not one official or program officer from the World Bank and IDB was subjected to any investigation into the role of these “development” banks in partnering with the U.S.-backed genocidal regimes of Guatemala (1975-83) in planning and carrying out all aspects of the project. On October 20, 2012, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights did find the Guatemalan government responsible for the Rio Negro/ Chixoy dam massacres and ordered the government to legally investigate the massacres and compensate surviving families. On November 8, 2014, then president and former army general Otto Perez Molina (now in jail on corruption charges) formally apologized on behalf of the government for the human rights violations and sufferings caused by the Chixoy dam project, and signed into law Decree #378-2014, “the Public Policy of Reparations for Communities Affected by the Construction of the Chixoy hydro-electric dam project.” Thirty-eight years later, a measure of reparations has been paid to some of the Chixoy dam victims. But no justice has been done for the roles and responsibilities of the “intellectual authors” in the Guatemalan government, World Bank and IDB that promoted, designed, implemented and profited financially from the project. Pointing out the impunity and corruption of the authors and profiteers of the Chixoy dam crimes highlights the enormity of this global human problem. Across the planet today, governments, “development” banks, corporations and investors push ahead with “resource development projects,” violently displacing populations and destroying habitats, violating a wide range of individual and collective rights, and ravaging Mother Earth.
