January 13, 2010 – At 1:30pm, a military and police patrol captured three members of the Unified Peasant Movement of Aguan along the Aguan river. The men are members of the Buenos Amigos Cooperative in the municipality of Trujillo. According to farmers in the zone, there are approximately 1000 armed men, military and paramilitary, under the command of Coronel Dagoberto Melgar occupying the area. He is suspected of selling protection services to large African palm plantation owners in the region.
Movimiento Unificado Campesino del Aguan
January 13, 2010 – At 1:30pm, a military and police patrol captured three members of the Unified Peasant Movement of Aguan along the Aguan river. The men are members of the Buenos Amigos Cooperative in the municipality of Trujillo. According to farmers in the zone, there are approximately 1000 armed men, military and paramilitary, under the command of Coronel Dagoberto Melgar occupying the area. He is suspected of selling protection services to large African palm plantation owners in the region.
According to preliminary reports from Honduras, the violent removal of 600 families organized in two farming cooperatives in the Aguan Valle has resulted in 40 people detained including children, 15 wounded and three deaths. There are unconfirmed reports of the rape of three women. Many have gone into hiding.
Jan 8, 2010 – A heavy contingent of military and police began to violently remove peasant families occupying land in Trujillo and Tocoa in the department of Colón. This marks an avalanche against this social movement on the part of a justice system that colludes with elite power groups and underscores the need to re-found the country according to Bertha Oliva, Coordinator of the Committee of Families of Detained and Disappeared in Honduras, COFADEH.
Today, early this morning, the Faluma Bimetu community radio was the victim of an attack carried out by unknown authors who set fire to the room where the community radio was installed.
Since the disputed election at the end of November, repression of the resistance in Honduras has continued. A number of activists have been killed and others detained and beaten badly. Because of the role the teachers were playing in the resistance, the government shut the schools for holidays a month early, at the end of October instead of November. The government has tried to make up the month of missed classes by starting school a month early—as of today, January 4.
Over the last five months, as we and other solidarity and indepedent media organizations have reported on the egregious human rights violations and other anti-democratic measures committed by the illegal coup regime, that regime has sought to legitimize itself through the execution of the national electoral process originally scheduled for November 29th. The 8th Quixote Center delegation was in Honduras for that event.
