IRTF News

The Attorney General's Office of the Republic of Honduras (PGR), announced its victory in the lawsuit filed by at least 100 investors who sustained an allegation for alleged expropriations in which they claim to have lost millions of dollars, which was dismissed by the U.S. Court of Appeals of the 11th Circuit of Florida. This U.S. Court issued a judgment in favor of the State of Honduras that includes the Instituto de la Propiedad (IP) and the Empresa Nacional de Energía Eléctrica (ENEE), in the case Agurcia v. Republic of Honduras, filed in the Middle Federal District of Florida, according to the PGR in a written statement.  

We are OUTRAGED at the way police continue to treat the lives of Black people as expendable. Our tax dollars allow them to actively harm our communities, unless and until we make them stop. We are also MOTIVATED to make change. 

This past weekend, neighbours and family members gathered in Tzucubal to remember two of the Guatemalan victims who were found dead late last month in an abandoned trailer in Texas: cousins Pascual Melvin Guachiac, 13, and Juan Wilmer Tulul, 14. Pascual’s childhood home buzzed with activity as his grandmother, Manuela Coj, worked alongside other family and friends to prepare food for people visiting to express their condolences. The continuing flow of migration has highlighted a growing desperation in Guatemala, driving children to set off for the US in search of opportunities. 

This past weekend, neighbours and family members gathered in Tzucubal to remember two of the Guatemalan victims who were found dead late last month in an abandoned trailer in Texas: cousins Pascual Melvin Guachiac, 13, and Juan Wilmer Tulul, 14. Pascual’s childhood home buzzed with activity as his grandmother, Manuela Coj, worked alongside other family and friends to prepare food for people visiting to express their condolences. The continuing flow of migration has highlighted a growing desperation in Guatemala, driving children to set off for the US in search of opportunities. 

This past weekend, neighbours and family members gathered in Tzucubal to remember two of the Guatemalan victims who were found dead late last month in an abandoned trailer in Texas: cousins Pascual Melvin Guachiac, 13, and Juan Wilmer Tulul, 14. Pascual’s childhood home buzzed with activity as his grandmother, Manuela Coj, worked alongside other family and friends to prepare food for people visiting to express their condolences. The continuing flow of migration has highlighted a growing desperation in Guatemala, driving children to set off for the US in search of opportunities. 

On June 19, Gustavo Petro defeated far-right demagogue Rodolfo Hernández to become Colombia’s first left-of-center president. Francia Márquez Mina, Petro’s running mate, will serve as the country’s first Black vice president; the pair earned more votes than any ticket in the nation’s history. As the Colombian people celebrated in the streets of Bogotá, the former guerrilla fighter vowed to represent “that silent majority of peasants, Indigenous people, women [and] youth”. Petro’s triumph, which follows similar left-wing victories in Chile, Honduras, and, to a lesser extent, Peru, signals a broader pendulum swing within Latin America reminiscent of the “pink tide” during the early aughts. For a Biden administration that often frames its foreign policy around the dangers of autocracy, this political shift would seem like a positive development. But given that the interests of these countries are frequently at odds with those of Washington in an increasingly multipolar world, the administration’s support for this democratic wave remains hazy, even as Biden himself asserts the importance of fortifying the rule of law at home and abroad. Biden must decide whether he’s committed to proving that democracies can provide for their citizens, as he asserted at the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles earlier this month, or whether he sees the term “democracy” as little more than a slogan, fundamentally devoid of meaning.

Despite the recent sentencing of a company executive for his responsibility in the murder of Lenca defender, Berta Cáceres, documents show alleged omissions and involvement of financial and corporate entities in her murder. Indigenous Peoples Rights International (IPRI) urges the Honduran and Dutch States to ensure justice in the murder of Berta Cáceres. No one should remain in impunity.

Perched on an incline where the road splits the countryside as much as the community, Webster’s home on the island of Roatán is at the center of a battle over land rights and sovereignty that has galvanized Honduras. It’s also symptomatic of a broader phenomenon throughout the region, where foreigners – often cryptocurrency enthusiasts, libertarians or both – have flocked in recent years, supporting controversial projects – such as the proposed “Bitcoin City” in El Salvador – threatening to displace local residents and drawing comparisons to colonialists. When the new Honduran government repealed a pair of laws in late April that had allowed for the creation of semi-autonomous zones called a Zede, it sent a similar message. But investors in the Zede on Roatán, known as Honduras Próspera, have challenged the move.

An international coalition of activists delivered a petition to Pan American Silver leadership at the company’s annual meeting yesterday calling on the company to respect communities’ self-determination in Guatemala and Argentina. The petition, organized by corporate watchdog SumOfUs, garnered more than 85,000 signatures in just two weeks. But Pan American Silver took advantage of the lack of transparency afforded by the virtual platform at this year's Annual General Meeting in Vancouver, Canada to silence community voices and dodge questions about opposition to its projects. "Why is Pan American Silver refusing to engage with shareholders who are concerned about Indigenous rights?” asked Ellen Moore, International Mining Campaign Manager with Earthworks. “It is not clear if the company will respect Indigenous people’s right to say no to mining in their territory. That makes it a dangerous investment and shareholders should know that.”

Bukele’s “state of exception” – declared at the end of March and recently extended until late July – has outraged human rights activists who say massive human rights violations are being committed. “They have detained tens of thousands of people, many of them because of their physical appearance or because they have tattoos … We have found case after case in which the people [being arrested] have no links to gangs,” said Tamara Taraciuk, Human Rights Watch’s acting director in the Americas. “The reality is, this could happen to [anyone].” Exhausted with years of rampant gang violence, however, many Salvadorans see little extreme about Bukele’s crusade, which the president compares to chemotherapy and insists will continue until “the metastatic cancer” of crime is eradicated.