Honduras is world’s number one for killing environmental activists

[Judi Lynn]

Honduras is world’s number one for killing environmental activists

Report by NGO Global Witness finds that globally people are being killed “in record numbers” defending land and the environment


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Honduran activist Berta Cáceres, one of this year’s winners of the Goldman Environmental Prize. Photograph:
Goldman Prize
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More people were killed in Honduras per capita than any other country for each of the last five years as a result of their efforts to defend land and the environment, according to a report by UK-based NGO Global Witness.

The report, How many more?, alleges that people are being “killed in record numbers” and that this is happening in response to “increased competition over natural resources” - particularly from hydropower projects, agribusiness, logging and mining and other extractive industries. It states:

These deaths occur because ordinary citizens and local communities are increasingly finding themselves at the forefront of the battle over the planet’s natural resources. . . At the same time, national governments are failing to protect their rights from rising threats from agribusiness, mining, logging and hydropower projects.

How many more? finds that 116 “land and environmental defenders”, or “Dead Friends of the Earth”, a term Global Witness used in a previous publication, were killed last year. Three quarters were in Central and South America: 29 people were killed in Brazil, 25 in Colombia, 15 in the Philippines, 12 in Honduras, 9 in Peru and 5 in Guatemala, with other killings recorded in another 11 countries.

More:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/andes-to-the-amazon/2015/apr/22/honduras-worlds-number-one-killing-environmental-activists

Environment & Energy:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/112784445

[Mika]

1. Thanks to HRC

Hillary Clinton admits role in Honduran coup aftermath

First, the confession: Clinton admits that she used the power of her office to make sure that Zelaya would not return to office. “In the subsequent days [after the coup] I spoke with my counterparts around the hemisphere, including Secretary [Patricia] Espinosa in Mexico,” Clinton writes. “We strategized on a plan to restore order in Honduras and ensure that free and fair elections could be held quickly and legitimately, which would render the question of Zelaya moot.”

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“We strategized on a plan to restore order" - SOS Hillary Clinton

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[Judi Lynn]

3. ".... the far right exerts disproportionate influence on U.S. foreign policy in the hemisphere."

Clinton will never depart from the aggressive right-wing position, either.

Sickening reading the opening which said Clinton refers to Kissinger's crappy book, World Order to define her own world view. Hideous to hear, coming from a "Democrat," isn't it?

Also, from this artlce:

The question of Zelaya was anything but moot. Latin American leaders, the United Nations General Assembly and other international bodies vehemently demanded his immediate return to office. Clinton’s defiant and anti-democratic stance spurred a downward slide in U.S. relations with several Latin American countries, which has continued. It eroded the warm welcome and benefit of the doubt that even the leftist governments in region offered to the newly installed Obama administration a few months earlier.

Clinton’s false testimony is even more revealing. She reports that Zelaya was arrested amid “fears that he was preparing to circumvent the constitution and extend his term in office.” This is simply not true. As Clinton must know, when Zelaya was kidnapped by the military and flown out of the country in his pajamas on June 28, 2009, he was trying to put a consultative, nonbinding poll on the ballot to ask voters whether they wanted to have a real referendum on reforming the constitution during the scheduled election in November. It is important to note that Zelaya was not eligible to run in that election. Even if he had gotten everything he wanted, it was impossible for Zelaya to extend his term in office. But this did not stop the extreme right in Honduras and the United States from using false charges of tampering with the constitution to justify the coup.

In addition to her bold confession and Clinton’s embrace of the far-right narrative in the Honduran episode, the Latin America chapter is considerably to the right of even her own record on the region as secretary of state. This appears to be a political calculation. There is little risk of losing votes for admitting her role in making most of the hemisphere’s governments disgusted with the United States. On the other side of the equation, there are influential interest groups and significant campaign money to be raised from the right-wing Latin American lobby, including Floridian Cuban-Americans and their political fundraisers.

Like the 54-year-old failed embargo against Cuba, Clinton’s position on Latin America in her bid for the presidency is another example of how the far right exerts disproportionate influence on U.S. foreign policy in the hemisphere.

[hack89]

2. The entire region is so incredibly violent

the carnage is never ending.