Rapid Response Network

criminalized: Maya Poqomchi' leader Sofía Tot Ac

Sofía Tot Ac, age 53, is a representative of the Maya Poqomchi' people before the Departmental Development Council of Alta Verapaz and Baja Verapaz. She is a coordinator with the Mayan Peoples’ Council of the Achi’, Q’eqchi’, Poqomchi, and Kaqchikel communities. She is the founder of the Motherhood Home in Salama, Baja Verapaz. She is also the coordinator of social outreach for the Catholic church in Purulhá.

She is falsely charged with ursurpation for aiding the campesino families of San Juan de las Tres Cascadas, a communal farm located on a larger tract of land that is claimed by private owners. A warrant for her arrest was issued in 2021. She was arrested in 2022. Released on bond, she is scheduled to appear before a judge to face the charge of usurpation later this month.

We are urging that authorities 1) initiate a registry investigation of the Finca Chiquiwital to determine whether the farm has historically belonged to local campesino families as communal land, 2) create a Special Prosecutor's Office against Usurpation, and 3) drop the false charge of usurpation against Sofía Tot Ac and terminate all criminal proceedings.

assassinated: social leaders Temístocles Beltrán and Pablo Enrique Rodríguez ¡presente!

Since the November 2016 signing of the Peace Agreement, 1,500 social leaders have been assassinated and many more endure severe safety threats against them and their families. Documented in this letter are the murders of two social leaders killed in the second half of June 2023, bringing the total to more than 80 this year.

June 19: farmer, human rights defender, and community leader Temístocles Beltrán, age 56, was murdered when an armed assailant dressed in military clothing entered his home in the village of Caracolicito, El Copey municpality, and shot him with a firearm.

June 30: Pablo Enrique Rodríguez, president of the Community Action Board of the Anacleto García corregimiento in Tello municipality, Huila Department, was shot to death while traveling with campesino farmer Cielo Ramírez Tovar, who was also killed in the attack.

We are urging that authorities in Colombia enforce demilitarization zones and hold criminal groups accountable for the violence inflicted on non-combatants.

threatened: CAHUCOPANA rural association

In northeastern Antioquia Department, amidst massacres, bombings, and economic blockades by illegally armed actors that caused a food and medicine crisis, campesinos organized CAHUCOPANA (Humanitarian Action Corporation for Coexistence and Peace in Northeast Antioquia) in 2004. In the context of systemic violence and a constant humanitarian crisis, its 150 members organize to benefit around 3,000 people in rural areas. Conflicts over land and waterways have been volatile because of the government’s support of large-scale extraction companies. Armed actors (both the government’s military and illegal armed groups) try to seize control. Starting in 2019, the National Victims Unit granted CAHUCOPANA with Comprehensive Collective Reparation Plan (PIRC) because of the many years its members have endured threats, assassinations, sexual violence, forced displacement, torture and more.

The leadership of CAHUCOPANA is suffering particular persecution at this time. The office in Barrancabermeja was broken into and materials stolen. Then its legal representative, Carlos Morales, was detained without warrant by police.

assassinated: social leaders César Tapias and Ludis Ester Jaramillo  ¡presente!

Of the recorded 86 killings of social leaders this year, twelve have occurred in Antioquia Department. Residents suffer constant threats due to the confrontations between armed groups vying for control of the area, such as the Román Ruiz Front and the Clan del Golfo. Many social leaders are declared military targets by the armed groups.

In the span of two days, two social leaders were assassinated in Ituango, Antioquia.

July 4: César Tapias, the former president of the Junta de Acción Comunal (JAC, or Community Action Board) in the village of Quebrada del Medio village. He was shot and killed.

July 5: Ludis Ester Jaramillo, a member of the JAC in the village of El Capote in the corregimiento of La Granja. She died by hanging from a tree.

We are urging the government to fulfill the commitment it made when signing the 2016 Peace Accords to end violence against social leaders.

Tolupán Indigenous communities (whose 26 tribes are organized in the Federation of Xicaques of Yoro Tribes, or FETRIXY), have been defending their ancestral lands from the economic interests of outsiders for decades. In recent months, three tribes elected new boards of directors with clear leadership that seek the liberation of Tolupán territories, the defense of the common goods, and the vindication of their rights. However, these transitions have angered the logging and mining companies and landowners, accustomed for years to dispossession and imposing their will with impunity. Threats, persecution, and violence have increased. 

On May 9 in San Francisco de Locomapa, Indigenous defender Amilcar Vieda was viciously murdered, alongside community member Naún Ismael Chacón; they were shot to death, and then their bodies were burned. In the same Tolupán community, Ramon Santiago Matute the new president of the board of directors, and José María Pineda, coordinator of the Tolupán Tribal Preventive Council of San Francisco de Locomapa (and his daughters) received death threats (cf our letter 26 May 2023). In Las Vegas de Tepemechín, some of the Indigenous leaders have been forced to flee from their homes because of threats, and the previous president of the board of directors, Reynaldo Barahona, suffered several physical attacks. And in Mina Honda a similar situation is playing out involving the newly elected president of the board of directors, Santos Lucas, due to the fact that he opposes the extraction of minerals, felling of trees and contamination of water sources in the area. 

We are urging that the government of Honduras: (1) comply with the United Nations recommendation to take necessary measures so that Tolupán leaders and tribal members can carry out their work in defense of their territories and cultural heritage in a propitious and safe environment, and (2) investigate ALL reports of threats and violence against Toulpán leaders—including the assassinations of Amilcar Vieda and Naún Ismael Chacón—and hold accountable those responsible.

We have written at least five letters over the past two years in support of the Azacualpa Environmental Committee, which has been organizing to shut down the San Andrés gold mine in La Unión, Copán Department. The Indigenous Maya Chortí residents of the community have suffered many negative effects of the mining operations: destruction of hills and forests, contamination of waterways, exhumation of graves from their ancestral cemetery, destruction of housing and illnesses (skin rashes, hair loss, cancers).

Miami-based Aura Minerals operates the mine through its subsidiary MINOSA. Aura Minerals has routinely mischaracterized its operations in reports to shareholders and other business partners. The company is subject to numerous criminal, civil, and administrative complaints, and adopts business practices that violate human rights standards. It uses coercive tactics (harassment, threatens, and criminalization) against community leaders. Even after such flagrant violations of corporate responsibility, Asahi Refining USA (a subsidiary of Japanese conglomerate Asahi Group Holdings) and Auramet International LLC continue to conduct business with Aura.

We are urging that (1) Asahi and Auramet immediately suspend their ties with Aura Minerals, (2) MINOSA terminate its mining operations at the Azacualpa cemetery, and (3) the government of Honduras conduct a public consultation process with local communities about the future of mining projects in the area

A recent shooting that left two Q’anjob’al Mayan farmers dead is only one spike in the ongoing conflict taking place in the community of Kumatz (Barillas municipality, Huehuetenango Department) between land occupiers and the Indigenous families trying to reclaim their ancestral lands. More than 130 of the families who had been displaced to Mexico during the armed conflict returned last year to Barillas to reclaim their ancestral lands. They have since been met with harassment, surveillance, and armed violence by private landowners (occupiers) who now claim the lands as their own. A legal dispute is pending.

In the early morning hours of June 13,  while on their way to tend to their crops, several Indigenous campesinos from Kumatz were ambushed by private security forces who arrived in multiple pick-up trucks, armed with various caliber rifles and guns. The attackers fired guns into the community.  A farmer managed to disarm one of the attackers but was shot in the back. The shooting lasted for a few hours, killing community members Carlos Fernando Calderón Herrera and Juan Francisco Artola Chub. Others were injured and taken to a hospital in Ixcán, Quiché Department. Hours later the National Civil Police (PNC) mobilized to regain control over the territory, with additional backup from army helicopters.

We are urging that authorities in Guatemala disarm the private security forces who are inflicting harm on the Q’anjob’al Mayan families and that they legally settle the land dispute. We are also calling for justice for the two farmers who were killed in the attack.

In a nightclub in Cauca Department, on June 6, gunmen shot and killed Memoria Viva union member Alexander Garcés Biscunda and injured his brother Bleider Andrés Garcés Biscunda, also a member of the same union of security guards. This occurred just weeks after another Memoria Viva union member, Diego Mauricio Mejía Rojas, was killed in Putumayo Department, and Memoria Viva union member Jhon Jader Ferreyra was wounded in a separate attack in Tolima Department. These attacks against members of Memoria Viva come at a time when the union is negotiating contracts with government agencies, such as the National Protection Unit (UNP).

SINDHEP union members have long been at odds with their boss, Defensor del Pueblo Carlos Camargo. His office recently expelled SINDHEP (Sindicato de Defensoras y Defensores de Derechos Humanos de la Defensoría del Pueblo) from the negotiation table. This dismissal came just days after SINDHEP publicly denounced Camargo, warning about the risks of corruption, clientelism (patronage), and wiretapping of workers taking place under his administration. In March, 2021, SINDHEP accused Carlos Camargo of being complicit in state terrorism during the National Strike, criticizing him for undercounting assaults and killings by Colombian security forces and failing to protect the rights of protesters and social leaders. They called for his resignation.

We are urging that authorities in Colombia: (1) investigate the attack on Memoria Viva union members in Cauca on June 6, publish the results, and bring those responsible to justice, (2) instruct the UNP to negotiate in good faith with Memoria Viva, and (3) instruct the office of the Defensor del Pueblo to re-open negotiations with SINDHEP and stop intercepting private communications of its members

The communal land rights of Afro-descendant and Indigenous peoples are often disputed by private landowners, leading to violent conflicts and illegal evictions. The Lenca Indigenous Council of Nueva Palestina in Marcala, San José municipality, La Paz Department, knows this story all too well. Beginning on June 2, private landowner Juan Gabriel Argueta Montoya and his workers have been coming to the community with insults and threats to harm the families. At particular risk is Benjamín Cruz Bonilla, president of the Indigenous Council.

In 1999 the National Agrarian Institute (INA) gave property title to 229 hectares of ancestral land to the Lenca Council of Nueva Palestina.  However, a private landowner, Juan Gabriel Argueta, has an ongoing land dispute with the Lenca campesino cooperative. The community received a favorable ruling from on June 8 when the Court of Appeals of Comayagua ruled in favor of several members of the Indigenous Council who had been subjected to an illegal judicial process, accused of aggravated usurpation and alteration of terms or boundaries. Now, both the court and the Public Ministry agree with the Indigenous Council of Nueva Palestina that there is no aggravated usurpation or alteration of terms or boundaries.

We are urging that authorities (1) instruct the private landowner to abide by the June 8 court ruling in favor of the communal land title and (2) clarify any other land titles in dispute.

Another environmental defender was assassinated in the Aguán Valley on June 15. At 10:30am Oquelí Domínguez was shot by two men on a motorcycle at his family’s home in the community of Guapinol (Tocoa municipality, Colón Department, Aguán Valley). His mother, Catalina Ramos, was shot in the leg.

The Municipal Committee in Defense of the Common and Public Goods of Tocoa has denounced since August 2022 a hate and smear campaign that has escalated to surveillance, harassment, and threats against the lives of community leaders who oppose a concession given to Inversiones Los Pinares to mine iron oxide inside the Carlos Escaleras National Park.  Oquelí is the second member of the Domínguez family assassinated in recent months. His brother Aly Domínguez, a co-founder of Guapinol’s grassroots resistance against the mine, was killed along with Jairo Bonilla on January 7 (cf our letter 24 JAN 2023). Both Aly and Oquelí are brothers of internationally recognized environmental defender Reynaldo Domínguez, who has been systematically persecuted by the Honduran State through criminalization and the victim of smear and defamation campaigns for his work defending and protecting the national park and the Guapinol and San Pedro Rivers.