Rapid Response Network

We wrote to officials in the state government of Chiapas and the federal government of Mexico about the state-sponsored repression against indigenous Maya Tseltal campesinos who were beaten (some arrested) when they peacefully demonstrated against the construction of a National Guard station on their ejido (communal land) last month. Our letter focuses on two of the men who were beaten and unjustly detained on fabricated charges of inciting a riot. After 17 days in preventive detention, José Luis Gutiérrez and César Hernández are now released from jail but have strict conditions placed on them by the court system. We are urging authorities to immediately absolve José Luis Gutiérrez and César Hernández of the fabricated charge of rioting.

We wrote to officials in Guatemala regarding the criminalization of indigenous journalist Anastasia Mejía Tiriquiz in Quiché Department. (This is a follow-up to a letter we sent September 26, 2020). On September 22, agents from the Specialized Criminal Investigation Division (DEIC) of the National Civil Police (PNC) raided her home, from which she operates the radio station Xol Abaj. They arrested her on charges of “sedition,” “attack with specific aggravations,” “aggravated arson,” and “aggravated robbery.” Although Guatemalan law establishes that an initial hearing must take place within 24 hours after an individual is arrested, that did not happen. Anastasia Mejía Tiriquiz waited in arbitrary detention for 36 days at the Quetzaltenango Preventive Center for Women. On October 28, she was formally charged by the judge of the Criminal Court of First Instance of Santa Cruz del Quiché. A cash bail was set, and she was permitted to leave imprisonment and stay in her home “under house arrest .” We are urging that authorities in Guatemala drop all charges against Anastasia Mejía Tiriquiz.

President Alejandro Giamettei closed three government offices that were created to comply with the Peace Accords of 1996 and Guatemala’s international obligations to seek justice for all human rights violations committed during the armed conflict. On July 30, the president signed Government Agreement 100-2020, creating the COPADEH (Commission for Peace and Human Rights ) but not specifically assuming the functions of the three shuttered institutions: Secretary of Peace (SEPAZ), the Secretary of Agrarian Affairs (SAA), and the Presidential Commission for the Coordination of Executive Policy on Human Rights (COPREDEH). This is evidence of abandonment of the Peace Accords, the negating of State responsibility for grave violations of human rights in the past, and the ignoring of the rights to reparations for victims of state violence. We are requesting that: 1) the Constitutional Court suspend the closure of the SEPAZ, the SAA and the COPREDEH; 2) the Central Government respect the commitments of the State of Guatemala to peace and human rights; 3) the Guatemalan Congress fulfill their oversight function and not remain passive in the face of arbitrary decisions.

Within 24 hours, four indigenous community leaders were assassinated in two departments. In Cauca: Avelino Ipia, Héctor David Marín, and Gustavo Herrera (a regional coordinator for Colombia Humana). In Huila: Eduardo Alarcón (in Huila). Two other leaders survived assassination attempts in two other departments. In Córdoba: Aurelio Jumí Domicó (vice-president of the indigenous reservation Quebrada Cañaveral Embera Katio del San Jorge). In Sucre: Hernando Benítez (a regional representative for the Movement for Victims of State Crimes, MOVICE). We are urging that authorities in Colombia conduct an immediate and thorough investigation into the assassinations and attempted assassinations of the victims named above, publish the results and bring those responsible to justice

Two agricultural union members were assassinated within ten days of each other in Cauca Department. FENSUAGRO (Federación Nacional Sindical Unitaria Agropecuaria) members: 18-year-old Jayder Quintana (October 3) and Nelson Ramos Barrera (October 13). In addition to his membership in the agricultural union federation FENSUAGRO, Jayder Quintana also belonged to the peasant farmers association ANZORC (Asociación Nacional de Zonas de Reserva Campesina). Nelson Ramos Barrera, who was killed in front of his family, belonged to the Municipal Peasant Workers Association of Piamonte (ASIMTRACAMPIC), an affiliate of FENSUAGRO. Because of its work coordinating crop substitution programs and defending protected biodiversity zones, ASIMTRACAMPIC members have been deemed military targets by armed groups operating in the area. We are urging that authorities in Colombia: 1) carry out transparent and thorough investigations into the assassinations of Jayder Quintana and Nelson Ramos Barrera, publish the results, and bring the perpetrators to justice; 2) provide protection measures to members of ASIMTRACAMPIC and FENSUAGRO in Cauca, 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

Environmental defender Arnold Joaquin Morazán Erazo of the Guapinol community in the municipality of Tocoa, Colón Department, was assassinated on October 13. Arnold Morazán was one of 32 environmental defenders in Tocoa who have been criminalized for their involvement in a community encampment set up to defend the Guapinol River from the iron ore mining industry. The murder of Arnold Joaquín Morazán occurred at a decisive moment in the ongoing trial of eight Guapinol environmental defenders and reveals the systematic threats faced by the Guapinol community, where violence is employed to punish their work in defense of water and the environment. We are urging that officials in Honduras: 1) carry out an exhaustive and impartial investigation into the murder of Arnold Joaquín Morazán, publish the results and bring those responsible to justice; 2) cancel the concession to the iron ore mining company Los Inversiones Los Pinares

A group of armed men arrived at the Garífuna community of Vallecito, whose residents have been victim to harassment, intimidation and threats over their land for many years. Attempts at forcible seizure of their territory (sometimes successful) has come from drug traffickers and African palm growers. In recent years, private investors (including many from the US and Europe) have been looking at Vallecito and other Garífuna communities on the Atlantic Coast to build their Model Cities, which was authorized under the ZEDE (Economic Development Zone) legislation passed in 2013. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has criticized the government of Honduras for not adhering to its mandates to protect Garífuna ancestral lands and adequately investigate the murders of Garífuna community leaders. As recently as May 2019, the Court acknowledged that Garífuna community members are still experiencing "direct death threats," "blackmail, increased robbery," and "profiling of leaders."

On September 27 in Comayagua, as journalist Luis Almendrares, age 35, was getting out of his car to go into a store for groceries, two men wearing hoods drove up on a motorcycle, shot him repeatedly, and fled. Luis Almendares began taping the scene of his own attack with his cellphone. He died the next day at a hospital in Tegucigalpa. The Honduran Press Association (APH, Asociación de Prensa Hondureña) has affirmed that "the problems of the press in Honduras begin with reports of journalistic investigations into corruption of officials or the political class.” On his Facebook page, Periodista504, the journalist had published information about corruption by local elected officials in Comayagua and violence committed by the police. Luis Almendares is at least the third journalist to be assassinated in Honduras in 2020, and at least the 85th since 2001. The National Human Rights Commission of Honduras (CONADEH) reports an impunity rate of 91% for the murders of journalists.

To bring attention to several identified environmental, social, human, and economic impacts of large scale mining projects in the Atlantic zone, residents of El Guapinol (Colón Department) and surrounding communities organized the Encampment on the Defense of Water and Life in August 2018. They pointed to contamination of the Guapinol and San Pedro Rivers, which supply drinking water to fourteen surrounding communities, caused by an iron ore mine operated since 2014 by Los Inversiones Los Pinares (owners: Lenir Pérez and Ana Facussé). Of particular concern are impacts on the Montaña de Botaderos National Park, which supplies several rivers flowing to Olancho, Atlántida, and Colón Departments. Area residents have documented how the mine is destroying animal life and contaminating smaller waterways. Tens of thousands of inhabitants are at risk of losing their agricultural crops and homes. Because of their actions in defense of the environment, these men have been imprisoned in “preventive detention” awaiting formal charges since September 2019: Porfirio Sorto Cedillo, José Abelino Cedillo, Kelvin Alejandro Romero, Arnold Javier Alemán, Ever Alexander Cedillo, Orbin Nahúm Hernández, Daniel Márquez, and Jeremías Martínez. We demand their release!

Several armed groups are competing in Nariño for control of land to grow illicit crops, illegal mining, and routes for drug trafficking. In the last four months, at least seven community members and members of the Awá Indigenous Guard have been murdered. On July 28, Fabio Alfonso Guanga García, the second Indigenous governor of the Ñambí Piedra Verde Reservation (in Barbacoas municipality), and his partner Sonia Lorena Bisbicus Ortiz were assassinated. At noon on August 11, six men shot at the truck in which Francisco Cortés Guanga and his two security bodyguards from the National Protection Unit (UNP) were riding. Francisco Cortés Guanga serves the Piguambí Palangala Reservation as human rights spokesperson with UNIPA (Unidad de Pueblos Awá). His father, Segundo Jaime Cortés Pai, governor of the same reservation, had received death threats two weeks prior. Then on August 19, three Awa Indigenous youths were killed in the remote Aguacuate community of Pialapi Pueblo Viejo Reservation (Ricaurte municipality); others are rumored to have been forcibly disappeared.