Deadly Conflict Over Honduran Palm Oil Plantations Puts CEO in the Spotlight
Deadly Conflict Over Honduran Palm Oil Plantations Puts CEO in the Spotlight
Written by Jennifer Kennedy, CorpWatch Blog
Thursday, 10 January 2013 16:19
Miguel Facussé, the owner of Dinant CorporationSource: Corpwatch
Months before he was killed this past September, Antonio Trejo-Cabrera reportedly sought protection from Miguel Facussé, the owner of Dinant Corporation, a major Honduran snack food and agricultural company. Trejo had good reason to be afraid – he was a lawyer who represented peasant movements fighting palm oil plantations in the Honduras in the last three years – many of whom were subjected to violence and other human rights abuses.
~snip~
In 1992 the Law for Land Modernization was passed, undermining farmers’ rights. In the two years following passage of the 1992 law, three large landowners “used a combination of fraud, coercion and violence to consolidate ownership of 73.4 percent of the land transferred under the prior agrarian reform,” says Lauren Carasik, a human rights expert writing for Al Jazeera.
Deeming the land sales illegal, the farmers organized into groups - Unified Aguán Peasant Movement (MUCA), Aguán Peasant Movement (MCA) and Authentic Peasant Protest Movement of Aguán (MARCA) - which are demanding that the government nullify the 90’s land sales.
Progress was made - although short lived - in 2009 when President Manuel Zelya agreed to grant some farmers land titles. But in November 2009 the Honduran military removed the democratically elected president in a coup d’etat. (Facussé admits that his plane was used to deport the foreign minister against her will, but says the pilot was acting under military orders) The next two presidents - Roberto Micheletti and Porfirio Lobo - refused to honor Zelaya’s agreement, sparking peaceful occupations of 12,000 acres of disputed land. Aguán farmers continue to demand justice just as violence has intensified.
Post coup Honduras has seen violence and impunity increase across the country. According to the United Nations, Honduras now has the highest homicide rate in the world, with 96.1 murders per 100,000 people. Whilst many of the murders are attributed to gang and drug violence, attacks against civil rights campaigners have also risen. The Honduran Bar Association state that there have been 74 lawyers murdered since 2009 and according to Reporters Without Borders 30 journalists have been killed in Honduras in the past decade, 25 of them since the coup.
Alarmed by ongoing human rights abuses, Rights Action, a U.S. based human rights group, wrote to the World Bank in November 2010. “The World Bank decision to release funds to Dinant sent a clear message to Dinant: that the company and its owners enjoy impunity for their actions, and the World Bank will tolerate violence, illegal land grabbing, and even participation in military coups by corporations and their owners..."
More:
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/honduras-archives-46/4071-deadly-conflict-over-honduran-palm-oil-plantations-puts-ceo-in-the-spotlight
If you're interested in scanning the google images page on Facussé, you will be able to view the impact this man has had on US-supported Honduras:
https://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4TSND_enUS411US412&q=Miguel+Facuss%C3%A9&tbm=isch
Will this man ever be held responsible for what he has done?
= new reply since forum marked as read
States and/or nation states -- along with the civil and human rights conveyed by
such entities -- are fast becoming a quaint relic, soon to be abolished; to make way
for ever more "privatized" violence, corruption & exploitation, more run-away global
warming, etc.
