Indigenous leader killed by gunmen in Honduras

[Judi Lynn]

 
February 19, 2017

 



TEGUCIGALPA: An indigenous leader in Honduras was killed on Friday by five armed men who burst into his home, fellow activists and officials said.
 
The murder of Jose Santos Sevilla, a professor and one of the heads of Honduras’ native Tolupan people, recalled the slaying last year of Berta Caceres, an indigenous activist.
 
Her death in her home in March 2016 by armed assailants brought international scrutiny to the threats made to indigenous, environmental and human rights activists in Honduras.
 
The coordinator of one rights group, Bertha Oliva of the Committee of Families of People Detained and Disappeared in Honduras, told reporters that Santos Sevilla was killed in his home Friday in Montana de La Flor, a village 100 kilometres north of the capital.


More:
http://gulftoday.ae/portal/23f07b2f-0e27-409d-9192-a7c3720cc4ea.aspx

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Jose Santos Sevilla

[Judi Lynn]

1. Truthdigger of the Week: Jos Santos Sevilla, Slain Champion of Indigenous Hondurans

Posted on Feb 25, 2017
By Alexander Reed Kelly


When a U.S.-abetted junta seized control of Honduras in 2009, foreign mining and logging corporations gained an upper hand, and in the years that followed, more than 120 advocates of the country’s unyielding indigenous communities were murdered. Among them was Bertá Caceres, whose slaying by gunmen in her family’s home was widely reported in 2016. On Feb. 17, professor José Santos Sevilla was murdered under similar circumstances.

One of nine major indigenous groups living in Honduras and composing almost 10 percent of the population, indigenous Tolupans are struggling to protect their ancestral lands from miners and loggers.

In response to Sevilla’s assassination, the National Commission on Human Rights in Honduras advised “immediate precautionary” measures for indigenous leaders in the area of Ceiba, where he lived. Many children stopped attending school and families are reported to be considering leaving.

A recent study by the group Global Witness found that Honduras is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for human rights and environmental activists. In 2015, the United Nations special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples warned of unrestrained violence—including assassinations—against Tolupan organizers. Attackers were described as enjoying impunity from the state.

More:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/truthdigger_of_the_week_josee_santos_sevilla_slain_champion_of_indigenous_h

Great quote from this article:

The indigenous people of Honduras and their allies must despair that the most powerful nation on earth backs their antagonists and murderers. Yet many, like Sevilla, persevere. American writer James Baldwin wrote that the users of force misunderstand it; they believe it impresses their targets to the point of giving way, when in fact it only convinces them of their attackers’ weakness.