Rapid Response Network

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.

The violent repression against water defenders in Honduras continues. On February 18, Benigno Maldonado, a member of the Broad Movement for Dignity and Justice (MADJ), became the 8th water defender killed during the first six weeks of this year.

Benigno Maldonado was a known leader in the resistance movement in Pajuiles opposing the construction of the HIDROCEP hydroelectric dam on the Río Mezapa, near Tela municipality in Atlántida Department. Over the last six years, we have observed, with concern, the violent repression against the Pajuiles community by Military Police, special command squads, and the hydroelectric company itself. Dozens of peaceful land and water defenders have been criminalized, and some killed.

Since 2017, IRTF’s Rapid Response Network has been writing to officials in Honduras in support of the Dignified Camp for the Defense of Water and Life, of which Benigno Maldonado was a key organizer. Our condolences go out to his family and community members over this great loss of a local leader and friend to many in Pajuiles.  

The environmental defense organization ARCAH (Alternative for Community and Environmental Vindication of Honduras) has helped to shine the international spotlight on abuses occurring with the ZEDEs, or charter cities. In August, ARCAH filed a complaint with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, claiming that the ZEDEs are responsible for threatening the environmental, territorial, and human rights of ancestral peoples in Honduras. ARCAH is a vocal opponent of the ZEDE Próspera, where construction of a luxury hotel is destroying the Bay Islands forest and coral reef. In Tegucigalpa, ARCAH has been fighting against the company El Cortijo because its poultry production is contaminating the Choluteca River.

We wrote to officials in Honduras on March 23 to express our concern for the safety of ARCAH member Misael Martínez, who, since 2020, has been enrolled in the National Protection Mechanism due to previous threats and harassment. Last month he was the victim of an attempted kidnapping. As he was walking through a neighborhood in Tegucigalpa to catch a bus, a man in an unknown car started following him, yelling at him and threatened to use force to make him get into his car.  Misael Martínez tried to evade the man by going into several shops and exiting onto different streets, but the stranger was waiting for him and continued yelling angrily at him to get into the car. Fortunately, Misael Martínez was able to escape harm.

The violent repression against water defenders in Honduras continues. On February 18, Benigno Maldonado, a member of the Broad Movement for Dignity and Justice (MADJ), became the 8th water defender killed during the first six weeks of this year.

Benigno Maldonado was a known leader in the resistance movement in Pajuiles opposing the construction of the HIDROCEP hydroelectric dam on the Río Mezapa, near Tela municipality in Atlántida Department. Over the last six years, we have observed, with concern, the violent repression against the Pajuiles community by Military Police, special command squads, and the hydroelectric company itself. Dozens of peaceful land and water defenders have been criminalized, and some killed.

Since 2017, IRTF’s Rapid Response Network has been writing to officials in Honduras in support of the Dignified Camp for the Defense of Water and Life, of which Benigno Maldonado was a key organizer. Our condolences go out to his family and community members over this great loss of a local leader and friend to many in Pajuiles.  

The Salvadoran judicial system has become a weapon of persecution against President Bukele’s political opponents. In the latest of a long line of defamatory attacks by the Salvadoran right-wing, feminist activist and politician Lorena Peña is facing unjust criminal charges. Last year, legislators from President Bukele’s New Ideas party subjected her to a “misogynistic, violent and abusive” interrogation over public finances during her previous tenure, which she endured with her characteristic sharp wit and courage. This year, the Supreme Court paved the way for the Attorney General to file a civil lawsuit accusing the opposition political leader of embezzlement of public funds. Lorena Peña has already presented all the required evidence to absolve her of the baseless accusations. She is being threatened with arrest for non-criminal charges of an administrative nature. Furthermore, the government might bring criminal charges against her. 

Now that President Bukele has near total control over the judicial system, it is little surprise that he is using the courts to carry out his political crusade against this outspoken woman leader of the opposition. 

We wrote  to officials in Honduras about the killing of young Garífuna leader Ricardo Arnaúl Montero, an active member of the Land Defense Committee of Triunfo de la Cruz (CODETT), Tela municipality, Atlántida Department.  He was found dead on the beach on January 29. His body was quickly buried after police preliminarily considered it a drowning.  But then on January 31 authorities ordered an exhumation of the body to perform an autopsy. We have not yet read any results of the autopsy.

In December 2022, he requested protective measures from the Human Rights Secretariat because he had been receiving death threats.  Ricardo Arnaúl Montero and other Garífuna leaders are persecuted because of their opposition to private development projects in Triunfo de la Cruz.

We are urging that authorities in Honduras respect the mandates of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which has ruled on more than one occasion in favor of the Garífuna people. We join with them in calling for a process of returning their illegally-seized Atlantic coastal lands to them and immediately put an end to the threats against them

We wrote to officials in Colombia about the assassination of José Antonio Santiago Pérez, president of the Community Action Board of Socuavo Norte in the municipality of Tibú, Norte de Santander Department.  On February 4, José Antonio Santiago Pérez had just left a meeting with his community when he was intercepted by armed individuals who killed him in the village of La Serena, five minutes from Tibú.

His life had been threatened on previous occasions. In an assassination attempt on June 11, 2019, he received three bullet wounds, including one in the head. A series of direct threats continued. On December 25, 2021, he and his security team were attacked while traveling on a main road in Socuavó North. He fled to seek refuge in Cúcuta but eventually returned to his homeland of Socuavo Norte.

In addition to conducting an investigation into the assassination of José Antonio Santiago Pérez,  we are urging that authorities in Colombia implement protection measures for social leaders in Norte de Santander Department and investigate any assassination plots against other social leaders in Norte de Santander.

We wrote to officials in Honduras about the forced displacement of at least 13 families of the Indigenous Lenca community of Nueva Esperanza, located in El Edén, Comayagua Department. On February 2, the Police Investigation Administration (DPI) used heavy machinery to destroy the houses, crops, and few assets that these families possessed, ruining their livelihoods and forcing them to live out on the streets.

The community of Nueva Esperanza had been occupying (“recuperar,” or recovering) this land for over 18 months, after the National Institute of Agriculture (INA), with promises of relocation, forced them to leave their previous peaceful settlement. The community has repeatedly stated that in order to feed their families, they have no choice but to recover land through occupation until they are granted land titles by INA.

We are urging that authorities in Honduras end the legal uncertainties that Indigenous communities have been experiencing around their ability to live on and work their land by issuing property titles and halting all evictions in the meantime.

We wrote to officials in Honduras about the assassination attempt on Abelino Sánchez, regional secretary of the National Union of Rural Workers (CNTC), and president of the Aguacatal Peasant Cooperative in Villanueva, Cortés Department. On January 25 at 7pm, two unknown men entered his home in the community of El Aguacate. After saying “we want land,” the two men shot him twice, once in the chest and once in the arm. He was hospitalized for his injuries.

Abelino Sánchez is a member of the National Network of Defenders of Land and Territory (RENADETT). He has accompanied many peasant groups and is a tireless defender of land, territory, and human rights. In particular, the CNTC, which includes five peasant organizations, has been frequently involved in land occupations with large landholders, during which many campesinos have been subjected to violence and intimidation by members of private security forces and police. After the attack, his family commented that as a result of his work to defend the land and environment, Abelino Sánchez had been receiving death threats for approximately two months prior.