Rapid Response Network

Since January of this year, we have written letters to authorities in Honduras in response to eight assassinations of land and water defenders in the Aguán Valley. José Gilberto Martínez Cardona became the first defender killed in the Aguán Valley this year outside the departments of Colón or Atlántida.  He was murdered on Tuesday, April 18, after participating in a commemoration of the International Day of Peasant Struggle. The 64-year-old community leader had been active in his community’s fight for their land and water for more than 30 years in Olanchito, Yoro Department. José Gilberto Martínez Cardona was a member of the National Association of Honduran Peasant Farmers (ANACH), as well as the secretary of the campesino cooperative “Blessing of God #2.”

IRTF has great respect for Father Ismael Moreno Coto, the director of the independent media outlet Radio Progreso in San Pedro Sula. The Jesuit priest—known affectionately throughout Honduras as Padre Melo—was the keynote speaker at IRTF’s annual Commemoration of the Martyrs event in Cleveland in 2010, and our staff and IRTF friends have visited him and his staff at Radio Progreso multiple times over the past 14 years.

In a television broadcast on May 5, a TV anchor made a serious false accusation about Father Moreno.  It appears this was an attempt to shape public opinion against Padre Melo, to place doubt in the viewing public as to whether he is someone who can be trusted.  This broadcast comes at a time when Radio Progreso is experiencing a series of threats, extortions, computer hacks, and social media attacks. In a previous smear campaign a few years ago, Padre Melo was falsely accused of receiving "dirty money from drug-related activity and of using Radio Progreso to discredit Honduras."

We are urging that authorities in Honduras conduct a transparent investigation to learn who is behind the defamation campaign against Padre Melo and Radio Progreso.

The consolidation of power by the executive branch of Guatemala is threatening democracy and putting the country on a path toward authoritarianism. This month we wrote to the attorney general to express our disillusionment about politically motivated attacks on prosecutors and judges working to end impunity for serious human rights violations, especially those committed by former military personnel during the years of the internal armed conflict (1960-86), as well as attacks on journalists who report on these cases.

On 6:00am on March 16, police and Public Ministry officials arrived at the home of former prosecutor Orlando Salvador López, raided his residence, and arrested him. Orlando López formerly served as head of the Human Rights Prosecutor’s Office, where he helped build the prosecution for critical transitional justice cases like the case of the Ixil Genocide, for which former president Ríos Montt was found guilty in May 2013.  He has been made a target of pro-military factions within Guatemala, most notably the Foundation Against Terrorism (FCT), which currently is a plaintiff in a questionable legal case against Orlando López. FCT, working hand in hand with the Public Ministry’s Office, has led the charge to punish honest judges and prosecutors, nearly 30 of whom have been forced into exile. 

In a related case, the Special Prosecutor’s Office Against Impunity (FECI) announced that it is taking legal action against Francisco Dall’Anese, the former head of CICIG (Commissioner of the International Commission Against Impunity, 2010-13), who oversaw investigations into high-level corruption.

We are urging that authorities (1) end the use of criminal proceedings as reprisal against those involved in investigating and prosecuting cases of corruption or serious human rights violations, (2) ensure that judges and prosecutors are able to work freely without fear of reprisal, and (3) ensure free and fair elections during the election of Guatemala’s next president on June 25.

Energy generation is highly controversial in Colombia, whether it be from coal, gas, or hydroelectric. The controversy stems from the environmental, economic, and social impacts on local communities surrounding the energy plants. On the Magdalena River in Huila Department (southwest Colombia), artisanal fishers (i.e., small-scale) have been organizing against the El Quimbo hydroelectric project for the past 15 years. In 2008, the government have the energy company the green light to flood over 8,500 acres of land for the construction of the dam and power plant. The flooding displaced farming communities and harmed the local fishing industry.

ASOQUIMBO is the Association of People Affected by the El Quimbo Hydroelectric. Its spokesperson, Alirio Perdomo, is also president of the Association of Calandrero Fishermen of the Magdalena River.  Because of their efforts to have the government recognize the environmental and social impacts of the hydroelectric project, many ASOQUIMBO members have endured serious death threats and harassment, as well as the destruction of small crops on which the communities heavily depend. On March 28 at 5pm, Alirio Perdomo published a video publicly denouncing the levels of fish mortality in the Betania dam and the negative impacts on artisanal fishers due to "controlled discharges" from El Quimbo. Two hours later, while on his way into the city of Hobo, two men on a motorcycle shot at him, hitting his ear in an attempt to murder him.

The campesino families of Cooperativa Agropecuaria Los Laureles in the Bajo Aguá Valley (Tocoa Department) have been fighting for their land stolen by the agro-industrial company Dinant Corporation, owned by the family of the late land baron Miguel Facussé. They have been victims of forced evictions and their leaders have been falsely criminalied.  Good news was delivered to them on March 15: 16 members of the cooperative received a court-ordered dismissal of criminal charges of land usurpation that had been filed by Dinant and the Public Ministry. One of the 16 was posthumously acquitted; José Omar Cruz Tomé, former president of the Los Laureles cooperative, was assassinated on January 18 (cf our letter 22 FEB 2023).

Then just ten days later, they suffered a tragic loss when one of their family members was brutally killed. Armed men shot 22-year-old Emerson Martínez 14 times in broad daylight, just one-half block from his home on March 25. The killing of Emerson Martínez could be a warning sign directed at his step-father Abraham León, who is the spokesperson and legal representative of the Los Laureles cooperative. The family of Emerson Martínez has reported in the last few months of being monitored by unknown men, as well as surveillance by mechanical drones.

María Concepción Hernández and her husband Santos Ortiz, members of the Association for the Development of the Peninsula of Zacate Grande (ADEPZA), have been criminalized on multiple occasions for protecting their land and the privatization of public beaches on the peninsula of Zacate Grande in the community of Playa Blanca. On March 27, Santos H. Ortiz was arrested by Honduran police for unknown reasons. When María Concepción Hernández went to visit him in jail on April 1, she was arrested allegedly because of a pending arrest warrant dating back to August 29, 2019. The police refused to provide any information about their detention to their lawyers and colleagues from ADEPZA, only telling them that she had been transferred to Amapala on El Tigre Island, Valle Department.

Defenders of the ADEPZA organized communities, such as Santos Ortiz and María Concepción Hernández,  have been a benchmark of resistance against the territorial dispossession by large landowners who seek to monopolize all the lands at their disposal using violence, criminalization and corruption. We denounce the systematic judicial persecution against the defenders of the Zacate Grande peninsula, who also in recent weeks have faced a number of incidents in their communities.

The Office of the Attorney General of Colombia reported 614 cases of femicide in 2022. In April 2023, social leader Lilia Patricia Cardozo Cipamocha almost became another victim. She was walking through Santander Park in Tunja, Boyacá Department, on April 10 when at attacker threw acid on her, causing injuries to her face and chest. This attack occurred just five days after a man approached her while she was walking home, tried to attack her with a knife, and threatened to kill her.

Patricia Cardozo is the director of the Boyacense Feminist Platform (Plataforma Feminista Boyacense), an organization working to end domestic abuse, gender violence, and discrimination, including rescuing victims from the hands of abusers.  She has been under threat since 2022. 

In addition to urging that authorities investigate the threat (April 5) and attack (April 10), we are calling for ordination between the National Protection Unit (UNP) and the municipal government of Tujna to implement a protection scheme for Lilia Patricia Cardozo Cipamocha, in strict accordance with her wishes.

Since March 1 in Oaxaca, Indigenous campesinos with UCIZONI (Union of Indigenous Communities of the Northern Zone of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec), havw been peacefully blocking a section of the Mogoñe Viejo-Vixidu railroad, which is being constructed in Indigenous territories without their free, prior and informed consent, as required by international law (International Labor Convention 169). The railroad, which will be protected with a militarized border, is intended to serve a commercial-industrial corridor through the Isthmus of Tehuantepec: commercial ports, highways, digital connectivity networks, a gas pipeline, and ten industrial parks. This mega-project poses risks to the livelihoods, preservation of territory, and the environment of the twelve Indigenous communities living in the area.

Construction of the commercial-industrial corridor is highly unpopular among Indigenous communities in Oaxaca. Their resistance has been met with attacks by civilians and state security forces, as well as stigmatization from high profile authorities from the Mexican government.

In the early hours of March 24, state police, along with a group of civilians, attacked the UCIZONI protest camp, leaving two people injured. This attack is one of 26 acts of aggressions levied against Indigenous rights defenders between October 2021 and March 2023, all related to the construction of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec railroad. Despite the attack by state police, the community has been able to keep its blockade of the railroad intact. 

Valle del Cauca, on the Pacific coast, is a high-conflict zone. Among those most at risk are Indigenous communities, such as the Nasa people who live on reservations around Florida Valle municipality. Communities are subject to repeated attacks, threats, persecution, violation of rights, and the presence of armed actors. All of these circumstances threaten their livelihoods and their very lives.

María Raquel Trujillo Mestizo, the former Nasa Indigenous governor and former sub-secretary for ethnic affairs, was traveling with a protection team of the UNP (National Protection Unit) on March 17, when they were intercepted on the road. A police officer appeared with a group of people who wore camouflage, threatening her team with weapons. The UNP security team surrendered its weapons and exited the UNP vehicle before the aggressors set it on fire. Fortunately, María Raquel Trujillo Mestizo and her team were rescued by the Indigenous guard.

We are urging that authorities in Colombia

-conduct an investigation into the attack on María Raquel Trujillo Mestizo, publish the results, and bring those responsible to justice

- implement urgent measures within the framework of the Constitution and guarantee human rights

- ensure that the right to social protest, as articulated in Article 37 of the national Constitution, be upheld during any public mobilizations by the Nasa people to protest the ongoing challenges to their community

Water defenders in the community of Guapinol in Tocoa, Colón Department, have been surveilled, harassed, threatened, and criminalized for the past five years. Some have even been killed. Eight were held in pre-trial detention for more than two years until the Supreme Court dismissed the case and ordered their release in February 2022. Two were assassinated in January of this year (cf our letter 24 JAN 2023).

Now the Public Ministry in Tocoa is trying to re-criminalize five of the water defenders.  Five members of the Municipal Committee in Defense of the Common and Public Goods of Tocoa (Comité Municipal en Defensa de los Bienes Comunes y Públicos, or CMDBCP) are being prosecuted again, even though the criminal proceedings against them were annulled by a court in June 2022. Defenders Juan López, Leonel George, Reynaldo Domínguez, Marco Tulio Ramos, and Adaly Cedillo are once again facing criminal charges.

Leonel George, one of the water defenders, called this criminalization “[evidence that the Tocoa Public Ministry] is protecting itself and that they are doing the job for the interests of the mining company Inversiones Los Pinares/Ecotek.” The government (during the years of the coup dictatorship) carved out a piece of the Carlos Escaleras National Park to allow Los Pinares to construct an iron oxide mine to supply US steelmakers. Contamination from the mine threatens the drinking water, fishing, and agricultural crops of 90,000 residents of the Bajo Aguán Valley.