IRTF News

Please see a summary of the letters we sent to heads of state and other high-level officials in Colombia  and Honduras, urging their swift action in response to human rights abuses occurring in their countries.  We join with civil society groups in Latin America to (1) protect people living under threat, (2) demand investigations into human rights crimes, and (3) bring human rights criminals to justice…..IRTF’s Rapid Response Network (RRN) volunteers write six letters in response to urgent human rights cases each month. We send copies of these letters to US ambassadors, embassy human rights officers, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, regional representatives of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and desk officers at the US State Department. To read the letters, see https://www.irtfcleveland.org/content/rrn , or ask us to mail you hard copies.

This past weekend was one of the most violent in El Salvador. At least 80 people were killed in different parts of the country, allegedly by gang members. We at WOLA condemn this situation, and stand in solidarity with the families of victims, local communities, and with the entire population that suffers because of these crimes. We reaffirm their right to live in peace and without violence.

While many of the Biden Administration’s policies in Latin America – particularly toward Cuba, Venezuela, and China’s activities – remain largely the same as during the Trump era, some of its actions and statements suggest more nuanced approaches on other regional issues. Read about the US Policies and their impact on Latin America here.

The Salvadoran congress approved legal reforms of immediate application that increase prison sentences against those who participate or lead gangs. As a result of these changes, belonging to a gang will be judged as a crime of illicit association and will carry prison sentences that may range from 20 to 30 years. The legislators established sentences of between 40 and 45 years in prison for those who create, organize, lead or finance gangs.

91 year-old Dorothy Granada became involved in the peace movement in the U.S. with her husband, carpenter Charles Gray; including starting the Nuremburg actions with S. Brian Willson and others to block trains transporting weapons to supply the U.S.-funded Nicaraguan Contras. In 1985, Dorothy and Charles had gone to Nicaragua as long term volunteers with Witness for Peace. “Our job was to document the war and prove that it wasn’t a war between two belligerent forces, but that it was a war to destroy the infrastructure of the Sandinista Revolution. So we lived in the war zones”. When public health care was effectively privatized in the neoliberal era, Dorothy’s clinic picked up the slack for the poor majority who couldn’t afford to pay. With another nurse and six lay workers, Dorothy provided care for 25,000 people in and around Mulukukú, always prioritizing women’s health, which included attending births and treating cancer.

In 2019, Francia Marquez survived an assassination attempt by men wielding firearms and grenades – an attack that came on the heels of a string of death threats against the award-winning Colombian environmentalist. Now, three years later, she could become the first Afro-Colombian vice president – a historic development in a country where politics has traditionally been the domain of wealthy white men. She was tapped for the position by leftist presidential candidate Gustavo Petro, widely viewed as the frontrunner in the upcoming May election. Marquez has focused her campaign on the need for economic investment in conflict zones, environmentalism, and ensuring implementation of Colombia’s 2016 peace accord. She has vocally opposed the drug wars in Colombia, known as the world’s most dangerous country for environmental defenders.

Central America’s Forgotten History explores how “struggles over historical memory” “can be very political” in the countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Chomsky begins with dispelling “the Black Legend” “that serves to cover up some more inconvenient similarities, contrasts, and connections between British and Spanish colonialism.” The author seeks “to find clues as to what some of the invisible, unheard voices hidden within them might have to say.” Central America’s Forgotten History is a thesis on what today’s America forgot or never knew about the history that drives emigration from Central America. As such, Chomsky omits some history in this concise book while more recent relevant events receive more attention.

Haitian Bridge Alliance v. Biden, a pending federal class action lawsuit, asserts that the U.S. government’s actions at Del Rio were part of a larger strategy that was intentionally designed to send a message of deterrence to other Black immigrants: the United States will not protect you and will deport you back to danger. To perpetrate these human rights abuses, the U.S. used the COVID-19 pandemic as a pretext. Invoking an obscure public health statute called Title 42, the Biden Administration fully embraced a Trump-era policy that claimed the unprecedented authority to prevent the entry into the country of people seeking humanitarian protection. Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights and the Haitian Bridge Alliance have released a new report unveiling the full scope of the abuses that occurred in Del Rio, Texas, and in some cases are ongoing.

In a historic advance, the Inter-American Development Bank has designed a responsible exit plan to accompany their divestment from two controversial large dams in the Yichk'isis micro-region of Guatemala. The Bank’s decision stems from a complaint affected Mayan communities filed in 2018 before the IDB Group's Independent Consultation and Investigation Mechanism. In resolving the complaint, the accountability office concluded that IDB Invest failed to comply with the bank’s operational policies and safeguards in the framework of project financing, and opened the possibility of a withdrawal of investment. Affected Mayan communities celebrate the decision, while acknowledging that the Bank has several challenges left to confront.

The LGTBIQ community in Honduras demanded Monday the approval of a gender identity law and compliance with a ruling issued in 2021 by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (CorteIDH), which condemns the State for the death of a transgender woman and activist. On the occasion of the International Day of Trans Visibility, which is celebrated every March 31, the lesbian, gay, trans, bisexual, intersex and queer (LGTBIQ) collective in Honduras requested in a statement to the Government of Honduras to address the needs of transgender people. Trans people face daily "situations of violation of rights, stigmatization, discrimination, violence and hate crimes because of their gender identity and expression", according to LGTBIQ organizations.