Blanca Saraí Izaguirre Lozano
National Commissioner for Human Rights (CONADEH)
Tegucigalpa, Honduras
August 28, 2025
Dear Commissioner Izaguirre Lozano:
We continue to be deeply disturbed by the violence being waged against land defenders in the Bajo Aguán Valley. Many campesinos affiliated with the Plataforma Agraria (Agrarian Platform) and COPA (Coordinated Body of Popular Organizations of the Bajo Aguán) have been assassinated this year, including:
JAN 2: Arnulfo Díaz (member of Cooperativa Brisas del Aguán), forced off the road and shot by armed actors at the San Pedro River
FEB 2: José Luis Hernández Lobo and Suyapa Guillén (active members of the Empresa Campesina Gregorio Chávez), shot when their vehicle was intercepted by armed actors in Rigores
MAY 31: Josué Esaú Aguilar Cárcamo, 22-year-old son of Guadalupe Cárcamo (active member of Empresa Campesina Gregorio Chávez), shot in Rigores while riding his motorcycle home from school
JUL 17: Carlos Antonio Rivas Canales (member of Empresa Campesina Gregorio Chávez) and his father Ramón Rivas Baquedano (member of Empresa Asociativa Campesina de Producción La Aurora), ambushed by heavily armed men while on their way to work
JUL 26: Héctor Otoniel Hernández Castro (member of Empresa Campesina Gregorio Chávez and brother of Wendy Castro, the sub-coordinator of Plataforma Agraria), shot by armed men while working in the fields in Cuyamel
AUG 1: Abel Monroy (father-in-law of an active member of Cooperativa El Chile who had previously been threatened), shot while driving to work in Bonito Oriental
Campesino cooperatives benefited from the government’s agrarian reform in the 1970s. But after a 1992 agrarian law that allowed for the privatization and sale of formerly collective farmlands, the agro-industrial giant Corporación Dinant began seizing campesino lands to expand its monoculture plantations for palm oil production. Some acreage was purchased under a blanket of intimidation; more has been illegally seized by employing violence, often with the complicity of state actors. Organized criminal groups active in the region today are responsible for much of the violence as they do the bidding of the private companies. For example, the leader of the armed group Los Cachos, Juan Carlos Lizama, has close links with Dinant, according to legal complaints filed by the Agrarian Platform and COPA.
We urge that authorities in Honduras:
(1) publish the results of the investigations into the assassinations of the aforementioned persons and bring those responsible to justice
(2) fully implement the agreement signed on February 22, 2022 by President Castro to establish a tripartite commission to investigate and resolve land conflicts in the Aguán
(3) denounce, capture, and dismantle the armed control of peasant territories by criminal groups, whose operations are known to the authorities
(4) consult with Agrarian Platform and COPA to implement safety mechanisms to protect the lives of members of campesino cooperative enterprises in the Bajo Aguán
(5) end the unjust criminalization of campesino land defenders
(6) denounce disinformation campaigns on social media seeking to discredit and criminalize the leaders of the Agrarian Platform and COPA, and affirm their commitment to the peaceful and legal struggle for land
Sincerely,
Brian J. Stefan Szittai and Christine Stonebraker Martínez
Co-coordinators
copies:
Javier Efraín Bú Soto, Ambassador of Honduras in Washington, DC ~ via email and US mail
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR): Andrea Pochak (Rapporteur for Honduras)
Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OACNUDH): Isabel Albaladejo Escribano (Representative to Honduras), Alice Shackelford (UN Resident Coordinator in Honduras) ~ via email
US State Department: Honduras Desk Officer (Washington, DC) ~ via email
US Embassy in Tegucigalpa: Roy Perrin (Chargé d’Affaires ad interim) and Human Rights Officer ~ via email
US Congress: Senators from Ohio (Husted and Moreno) ~ via email
and US Representatives from Ohio (Beatty, Brown, Jordan, Joyce, Kaptur, Latta, Miller, Rulli, Sykes) ~ via email
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