Honduras: Indigenous Tolupanes Return to Their Territory With IACHR Orders of Protection
Honduras: Indigenous Tolupanes Return to Their Territory With IACHR Orders of Protection
Wednesday, 12 March 2014 11:35
By Greg McCain, Upside Down World | News
A caravan makes it's way up the dusty winding road into the mountains of the department of Yoro. It is heading toward San Francisco de Locomapa, one of the territories of the Tolupane people, an indigenous tribe that has been in existence for over 5,000 years. San Francisco is also the site of a massacre that occurred on August 25, 2013. Armando Fúnez Medina (46), Ricardo Soto Fúnez (40), and Maria Enriqueta Matute (71) were murdered by Selvin Matute and Carlos Matute (no relation to Enriqueta). The latter two are hired guns for the Bella Vista Mining Company, which has been extracting antimony from the surrounding mountains without the consent of the community and with a mining concession that is in dispute. The two men also hire themselves out to illegal loggers that deforest the mountainsides. The three victims were members of the Broad Movement for Dignity and Justice (MADJ, in its Spanish acronym), which has been protesting the mining and illegal logging and the installation of a hydroelectric dam on Tolupane territory. The community had begun a roadblock on August 12, 2013 stopping trucks that were loaded with illegal timber and antimony and then reporting it to the local police who essentially let the illegal trucks and their cargo go.
The caravan carries members of MADJ, as well as representatives of: the Women's Forum of Life of San Pedro Sula; ERIC-SJ/Radio Progreso from El Progreso; Counsel of Grassroots Organizations of the Aguán (COPA); the Permanent Observatory of Human Rights of the Aguán; members of the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH); the Women's rights group Academic Feminists; the Coalition Against Impunity, and International Human Rights Observers from PROAH; and the Honduran Solidarity Network. They are all there to accompany six returning MADJ members of the San Francisco community who, along with twelve others, fled the territory six months ago after the massacre.
It is a bittersweet reunion. The tears of the joyous reunion are mixed with those of grief for the three that were gunned down. MADJ has convened this convocation to both honor the martyrs and to formally have official representatives of the Republic of Honduras sign the Act of Implementation of Protective Measures that were ordered on December 19, 2013 by the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (IACHR). The District Attorney from the Public Ministry of Yoro is present as is a representative of the National Commission of Human Rights, the Sub-Commander of the National Police of Yoro and The Department of Human Rights of the Inspector General. Indeed, after decades of indifference to the plight of the Tolupanes it was not until the IACHR intervened that anyone from the Honduran government paid any attention. This new attention is a testament to the dedication of MADJ and the members of the community that have maintained the struggle to defend their natural resources. Some 38 members of the community are protected by this act, but it is a hollow gesture if the representatives of the government don't abide by it, which has historically been the case in Honduras.
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Numerous indigenous activists have been killed with impunity by gunmen evidently in the pay of large landowners—at least 43 in the last five years alone, according to indigenous and Honduran rights organizations—and in a number of cases there has been evidence of involvement of military and police personnel. Murdered activists have come from a number of different indigenous groups, including the Lenca, Maya-Chortí, Tolupán, Xicaque, and Garífuna.
More:
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/22424-honduras-indigenous-tolupanes-return-to-their-territory-with-iachr-orders-of-protection