On International Human Rights Day, the Fight for Indigenous Land and Autonomy in Honduras

[Judi Lynn]

Last edited Sat Dec 13, 2014, 08:16 PM - Edit history (1)

On International Human Rights Day, the Fight for Indigenous Land and Autonomy in Honduras
Wednesday, 10 December 2014 09:09
By Stephen Bartlett and Beverly Bell, Other Worlds | Report

Honduras is the country with the highest level of homicide of any nation not at war, where government violence and human rights abuses have almost total impunity. It is also the country contributing most of the flood of children who have been recently forced to migrate to the US, because of that violence and by poverty – both, in part, a legacy of US policy in the region.

Yet something else is afoot. A fierce social movement, composed of many sectors, is pushing back to protect democracy, lives, and political rights. Indigenous peoples, including Garifuna, Lenca, Pech, Miskito, Maya Chortí, and Tolupan, are asserting their human right to autonomy, territory, and cultural survival.

~snip~
Like other indigenous and non-indigenous Hondurans standing up for their rights, the Garifunas suffer continual violence, threats, and human rights abuses. Both the land grabs and the violence surrounding them are part of a political climate resulting from a coup d’état against President Manuel Zelaya on June 28, 2009. Then, with the help of the US government, a clique of the top oligarchs of the nation swept to power. The US government has played an enabling role with a series of post-coup regimes, providing political cover and military and police aid, and looking the other way as human rights violations and impunity mount. Hundreds of assassinations of opposition organizers and their family members have marked Honduras in recent years, bringing to mind the death squads of the 1980s.

In addition to the government’s impunity and corruption, the illegally imposed congress has conceded land and minerals to foreign investors. Beyond what is happening in indigenous communities, campesino land across the country is being grabbed by agribusiness – often owned by Honduras’ richest man, Miguel Facussé - particularly for African palm plantations planted to feed the craze for biofuel in the North.

More:
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/27917-on-international-human-rights-day-the-fight-for-indigenous-land-and-autonomy-in-honduras

[Judi Lynn]

1. Why Repression Continues in Honduras (Linked in the first article.)

Why Repression Continues in Honduras

Military repression in Honduras is a direct legacy of U.S. meddling in the country.

By Lynn Holland, June 24, 2014.

A few weeks ago in Honduras, six Americans were arrested and thrown in jail while salvaging from the ocean floor off the northern coast. Their charge: possession of illegal weapons while on board the ship. A spokesman for the salvage company the men work for said that port officials had approved the guns in advance for purposes of protection. Since their arrest, there have been reports that the men are poorly fed, the jail is foul and mosquito-infested, and vicious fights have broken out among the other inmates.

Publicity over the case has pried the lid off the longstanding human rights crisis in Honduras. Harassment, arbitrary arrest, crowded prisons, and a host of other human rights abuses are a way of life for many Hondurans, and especially the poor. Unionists, peasant activists, environmentalists, indigenous people, and the journalists, lawyers, and others who support them are particularly vulnerable to threats, disappearance, and murder. Over the years, politically motivated killings, along with other factors, have given Honduras the highest murder rate in the world.

The highly charged nature of politics in this country was on display last month when military police violently expelled members of former President Manuel Zelaya’s center-left party from the building for supporting a demonstration against military repression. Zelaya himself had been ousted from office in a 2009 coup, and his followers have suffered a wave of persecution since then. These events prompted a letter to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry from 108 members of the House of Representatives asking him to review the human rights situation in Honduras and cut off aid to those responsible for abuses.

These and other dynamics have made Honduras one of the most dangerous places in the western hemisphere. It is curious that such conditions persist when armed forces in other parts of Latin America have long since come to terms with the principles of democracy. To understand the persistence of authoritarianism in Honduras, a comparison to neighboring Nicaragua reveals differences in the way that militaries in the region are trained and politicized.

Nicaragua: Dynastic Rule

For most of the 20th century, the United States maintained a strong influence in both Nicaragua and Honduras. The United States built the military forces there by establishing schools for military training, providing weapons and aircraft, and supplying funds. In both cases, the armed forces assisted with the U.S. Cold War objective of containing and suppressing the left in the region. The Nicaraguan military provided support for the U.S. invasion of Guatemala in 1954 as well as the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961. The Honduran armed forces also provided assistance in the invasion of Guatemala and in the “Contra” war against the Sandinista government in the 1980s.

More:
http://fpif.org/repression-continues-honduras/