IRTF News

Since December 2020, Víctor Vásquez, a member of the General Coordination of the Independent Lenca Indigenous Movement of La Paz Honduras (MILPAH), and Santos Vigil, member of the Nueva Esperanza Peasant Base, have been imprisoned in the Penal Center of La Paz, accused of the crime of forced displacement. Víctor accompanied the peasants of the Nueva Esperanza Base, but they were unjustly accused by the alleged owners of three crimes, of which the judge rejected two, but they remain deprived of liberty for the crime of forced displacement. The legislature created the crime of forced displacement to prosecute the displacement caused by criminal gangs against communities and neighborhoods affected by their illegal activities. But now the Public Ministry is using it to illegally harass and prosecute human rights defenders who defend their territory, who fight for protection the environment and access to land. The Coalition Against Impunity has denounced the criminalization of these Lenca environmental defenders.

Excerpt: This is a time when the State is very clear that it is going to do everything possible to deprive the Garífuna community of its territory to hand it over to investors. That is why we reaffirm that there is a genocidal plan against the Garífuna people. And that is why we are making a call to see what is happening in Honduras. People have left the country en masse and continue to leave. The Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris, says “don't come.” However, the United States continues to support corrupt governments like this one, governments that violate human rights. We all have the right to migrate, but we also have the right to stay in the country and live well. Because this is a country where we could live in well-being, only that it is captured by a mafia that does not let us live.

The Honduras Solidarity Network celebrates this award for OFRANEH, which has worked for more than 40 years to defend the human, civil, social and cultural rights of the Garifuna people in Honduras. The Garífuna are an Afro-Indigenous group whose rights as such are recognized in international and Honduran law, yet they face threats and violence aimed at displacing them from their territories in Northern Honduras and destroying their existence as a people. Since the 2009 coup d’etat, with the consolidation of dictatorship in Honduras, OFRANEH has confronted an escalation of the attempt to eliminate the Garifuna people, and ever more aggressive challenges from government militarization and government backed land-grabbing by agribusiness, tourist mega-projects, and neoliberal schemes like the Charter City/ Special Employment and Development Zones (ZEDES). In recent years OFRANEH has reported dozens of violent attacks and more than 20 suspicious deaths or assassinations. The Letelier-Moffitt Prize is especially significant for Hondurans, which suffered a coup in 2009, given its founding in commemoration of Orlando Letelier and Ronnie Moffitt who fought to defend human rights against the violent US supported coup in Chile 1973.

The Forever Foundation led an "Inverse Caravan" to ratify the willingness of its participants to stay in this Central American nation. It moved from the country's western border to downtown San Salvador. The Inverse Caravan organizers highlighted that migration flows would decrease if there were greater educational opportunities for young people. More specifically, they asked the Bukele administration, corporations, and social organizations to work together to increase the levels of employment and education in El Salvador. "If we want young people to stay in the country, then let's join forces to support development projects and making young people become replicators of their experience in their communities," the Forever Foundation Chairman Alejandro Gutman said.

In summer 2021, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris came to Central America and told would-be migrants: ​“Do not come.” More recently, photos of U.S. Border Patrol agents whipping Haitian refugees in the Texas desert brutally drove that message home. This anti-migrant message is dehumanizing and wrong. But the truth is, many of us would love nothing more than to stay in our homes. It’s Washington that’s making it difficult. The Garifuna are being forcibly displaced from our beautiful traditional lands along the Caribbean coast of Honduras. Our livelihoods are threatened by the expansion of the global tourist industry, African palm plantations, so-called ​“Special Economic Development and Employment Zones” (also called Model Cities), and drug cartels that run cocaine through our territories, destined for U.S. markets.

The National Assembly voted (63 out of 84) to approve reforms to the Judicial Careers Law to forcibly retire judicial employees who are older than 60 years of age or who have more than 30 years of service. This decision is also having negative repercussions on cases of major national and international interest like the case of the El Mozote Massacre, whose judge is among those unconstitutionally ousted by changes to the law. In response to the decision by the legislative body, the Judge of San Francisco Gotera, Jorge Guzmán, has announced his resignation as the judge overseeing the case of the El Mozote Massacre, indicating that he will not return to office unless the reforms to the Judicial Careers Law are repealed. The Association in Defense of Human Rights of El Mozote also lamented the recent reforms given that Judge Guzmán “is the only person who has accumulated enough evidence to move forward the case of the El Mozote Massacre."

The United States seeks to push an Anti-Corruption Task Force in Central America, without Central American support, indicates Eric Olson, director of Policies and Strategic Initiatives of the Seattle International Foundation, quoted by El Periódico de Guatemala. This was echoed by National Security Officer for the Western Hemisphere, Juan González, and the special envoy for the Northern Triangle, Ricardo Zúñiga. The officials spoke of working in the region with actors from civil society, private companies and key representatives, to combat corruption as a central part of what Washington wants to do to move towards a Central America that protects human dignity in each country. The US proposes to investigate cases against politicians, officials and members of organized crime who have collaborated or committed crimes in the United States. The news article also quotes the Guatemalan ambassador in Washington, DC, Alfonso Quiñónez, and indicates that he is aware of this situation.