Honduras: The War on Peasants

Two more peasants were assassinated by paramilitary units last week in Honduras. This brings the murder of subsistence farmers and indigenous leaders to over 60 since the Honduran coup d’etat in 2009.

In December in 2012, we teamed with the Sister of Mercy to take a delegation of U.S.

 

Triunfo de la Cruz, on the Caribbean coast of Honduras, seems idyllic – a white sand, palm-lined beach, and children playing in the surf. However, it is one of many sites in a long-running battle for the land and culture of the Garífuna people, descendants of Afro-indigenous people from St Vincent who were exiled to the Honduran coast by the British in the 18th century. 

 

 

U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) has extended the deadline for signatures to the Congressional “Dear Colleague” addressing ongoing human rights violations against Afro-indigenous communities in Honduras until Wednesday, January 23 at 5 pm.

Relatives of people who have died at the hands of military personnel, as well as surviving victims, demanded justice at a press conference held today at the headquarters of COFADEH (Committee of the Relatives of the Detained and Disappeared in Honduras). Decree 223-2011, using the second and last paragraphs of Article 274 of the Constitution as its basis, allowed the Armed Forces to perform police functions when there is a ‘state of emergency in public security’ and has been renewed 4 times through executive decrees. It has resulted in the involvement of military personnel in the violent deaths of civilians, including children.