Gunmen ambush and kill Honduran union leader

[Judi Lynn]

Gunmen ambush and kill Honduran union leader
Posted on Fri, Apr. 25, 2008
The Associated Press

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras -- Gunmen ambushed and killed the leader of Honduras' largest workers federation and two traveling companions on Thursday, the government said.

At least six assailants opened fire on a vehicle carrying Altagracia Fuentes and her companions as they traveled along the country's northern Caribbean coast, chief prosecutor Leonidas Rosa said.

Fuentes, 60, was the secretary of Honduras' Workers Federation, which has some 300,000 members. She had traveled to the region for an International Workers Day celebration on May 1.
(snip)

"The criminals shot their victims ... at a dark and deserted place, and they used flares to illuminate the scene and finish them off," Mejia said.

http://www.miamiherald.com/915/story/509102.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. Article on the victim, in Spanish, after translation by google translation tool,

which is clumsy, but still probably allows some of the information to get through. The last line is something you'd expect, unfortunately:

But the president Zelaya Rosales, says that "Zip Choluteca is taking off from the development of the south". "To fight poverty must be given opportunities to the poor, but we have to bring capital investment, employment and development for our country, this is the example that today gives the south the rest of honduras," argued the president at the time placing the foundation stone of the industrial park.

That's so transparent.

~~~~~~~~~~

Friday April 25, 2008

Working Life> Content

Salary differential violent principle: equal pay for equal work

Altagracia Sources of the CTH, conspire with businessmen to approve the wage differential, dealt a severe blow to five departments

The adoption of the minimum wage differential for five departments in the country, represents only a clear violation of the Constitution of the Republic, the Labour Code and international conventions.

Representatives from government and private enterprise conspire with the president of the Confederation of Workers of Honduras (CTH), Altagracia Fuentes, to approve a wage differential in the departments of Choluteca, El Paraiso, Olancho, Santa Barbara and Valle.

The agreement was made on January 18 as part of negotiations on the minimum wage and under the pretext of bringing investment to five departments considered poor. It provides that for ten years workers in those departments will win 20 lempiras less than the minimum wage in the country.

The document will run until the year 2017 and will apply to all businesses that locate in the five departments, except those on agriculture, hunting, fishing and transportation, among other items.

Although representatives of the Unitary Confederation of Workers of Honduras (CUTH) and the General Workers (CGT), opposed to profit off for 10 years and accepted 5, with a vote of the CTH gave a endorsed by workers the agreement. Pressures were imposed on employers who do not blackmail to build an industrial park in the south.

The action by the Liberal government as a step towards the development of Honduras, puts at a disadvantage to workers in the maquilas installed on the regions and the condemnation of workers earn less than the rest of the country. In other words, is the principle of violent Labour Law which stipulates that for equal work, equal pay.

"The wage differentiation constitutes discrimination of workers in these regions," says the Center for Women's Rights (CDM), and condemned the action by the government to benefit the maquiladoras.

Yadira Miner, Coordinator of the CDM in San Pedro Sula, called for the State of Honduras publish the minutes which defined the wages that violate workers' rights in the maquila. "The right to decent work is an issue that can not be imposed even reverse the interests of national or transnational entrepreneurs," he said.

Threat
For many people who work the theme labor minimum wage differential represents a serious threat to the interests of workers, especially for those who work in factories located in the department of Cortes, Santa Barbara since Naco less than 30 kilometres San Pedro Sula is the industrial park built Green Valley, considered by the association of Honduran maquila as the largest in Central America.

Many companies maquiladora operations could move to Green Valley and save 20 lempiras day for each worker. According to the CDM Coordinator in San Pedro Sula in Honduras lovable announced the opening of factories in Green Valley.

Another factory is Bay Island, a company that changed its name to destroy a union in San Pedro Sula, reopened operations and now announces its relocation to Choluteca.

Zip Choluteca
ZIP Choluteca is considered to be a pilot industrial park, which will have premises for the operation of the maquiladora factories, shops and housing projects.

Initially the project will maquilador with an investment of four billion dollars with a capacity to house 500 workers, but it is estimated that by completing the work will cost $ 100 million and provide 10 thousand jobs.

With the differentiation of wages each of the workers will lose to win 20 lempiras daily, for 30 days are 600 lempiras a month, multiplied by 14 months' wages are 8 thousand 400 lempiras per person per year. If the industrial park to reach the goal of employing ten thousand workers who are proposing, then employers would be saving (8400 by 10000 = 84000000) 84 million lempiras in the year only in ZIP Choluteca.

But the president Zelaya Rosales, says that "Zip Choluteca is taking off from the development of the south". "To fight poverty must be given opportunities to the poor, but we have to bring capital investment, employment and development for our country, this is the example that today gives the south the rest of honduras," argued the president at the time placing the foundation stone of the industrial park.

Source: Working Life Edic. # 30, April 2007

http://www.honduraslaboral.org/leer.php/764.



The clown Zelaya and his American friend.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Top union leader shot dead in Honduras

Top union leader shot dead in Honduras
Thu Apr 24, 2008 6:13pm EDT

TEGUCIGALPA, April 24 (Reuters) - Masked gunmen killed the leader of Honduras' largest union group in an attack authorities said was a robbery attempt, but fellow unionists said she was targeted because of her job.

Rosa Fuentes, the head of the country's largest labor federation, was shot late on Wednesday after a carful of six armed men wearing ski-masks smashed into the back of her car, police spokesman Hector Mejia told Reuters.

Fuentes and the driver of the car died at the scene and another union leader died en route to the hospital.

Police said the attack was an attempted robbery by gang members. The attackers fled when another car pulled up, leaving without some $4,000 Fuentes had with her.

But fellow union members said Fuentes, whose CTH federation groups manufacturing unions with banana workers and civil servants, was killed because of her work.

"This was done by enemies of the labor movement, by hired killers," said Rigoberto Duron, No. 2 at the CTH.

Honduras is part of a regional free trade deal with the United States that has been criticized for its lax labor controls in Central American countries.

More:
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN24347935

[Judi Lynn]

3. Recent history, Honduras,US: In Human Rights Court, Honduras Is First to Face Death Squad Trial

In Human Rights Court, Honduras Is First to Face Death Squad Trial

By JAMES LEMOYNE, SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: January 19, 1988

LEAD: In the first case ever tried by the Inter-American Court on Human Rights in which a Government has been put on trial, Honduras is being accused here of maintaining army death squads that caused the ''disappearance'' of civilians suspected of being leftists.

In the first case ever tried by the Inter-American Court on Human Rights in which a Government has been put on trial, Honduras is being accused here of maintaining army death squads that caused the ''disappearance'' of civilians suspected of being leftists.

Honduras denies the charge, but two witnesses involved in the case have been shot to death in Honduras in the last two weeks in what human rights advocates assert is an effort by Honduran Army death squads to silence their critics.

Killings by Government death squads in Honduras since 1980 are well known to the Reagan Administration and to the Central Intelligence Agency, which trained Honduran soldiers who then worked in the death squads, according to several American officials and a former member of a Honduran death squad who said he was trained by the C.I.A.

Despite that knowledge, the Reagan Administration continues to contend that Honduras has an acceptable human rights record, continues to aid the Honduran police and army and appears to have done nothing to assist the trial under way here nor denounce the killings of witnesses in Honduras.

''I have never seen a case in which the United States Government is so deeply linked to the human rights abuses of a Government as in Honduras,'' Aryeh Neier, vice chairman of a New York-based human rights group, Americas Watch, said in an interview.

''The killings of witnesses in this trial is a direct threat to the integrity of the Inter-American system, which the United States has not in any way defended.''

More:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE5D61331F93AA25752C0A96E948260

[Judi Lynn]

4. Alcoa Sweatshops in Honduras

Alcoa Sweatshops in Honduras
Message from USW International President Leo W. Gerard

To: All USW Members and Interested Parties

Did you think that union busting and the worst sweatshop abuses in the global economy are always in textile factories where clothes are made for the American marketplace? If so, think again.

Though Alcoa has long been a driving force in the global “race to the bottom”, they have reached a new low – even for them – in Honduras. Their workplaces there are now disgusting sweatshops with rampant worker exploitation and abuse. Workers being fired for organizing a union, sweatshops wages, sexual harassment, mental abuse, workers cheated of their wages, filthy inoperable bathrooms, forced overtime are the daily realities for Alcoa workers in Honduras.

After National Labor Committee Director Charles Kernaghan brought this situation to my attention, I asked District 7 Director and Alcoa bargaining Chair Jim Robinson, International Affairs Director Jerry Fernandez and Rapid Response Director Tim Waters to work with Kernaghan to investigate the situation and report to me on the accuracy of the initial reports I had heard. As it turns out, the Honduran workers’ situation was even worse than we first expected.

Not only are there exploitation and sweatshop abuses, but the entire leadership of the newly formed union has been illegally fired. This is a clear violation of Honduran labor law and the Labor Ministry of Honduras is actually fighting to get the union leadership reinstated and to bring justice to the situation. Alcoa claims that the fact that the entire union leadership was fired was just a coincidence and that it is really just part of a company-wide layoff. Of course, they have failed to address why brand new “temporary workers” were kept working while the more senior union leaders were forced to leave the plant surrounded by security guards.

According to Waters, who went to Honduras to personally interview the workers for me and to strategize with the leadership of the new union: “These are the type of sweatshop situations we usually expect to find only in the worst apparel factories in China and Bangladesh, not in so-called high tech workplaces operated by Alcoa in Central America. I can tell you I have stood in sweatshops in the south of China that were more humane workplaces than this. Workers forced to defecate in their pants because Aloca supervisors won’t let them go to the bathroom, continuous verbal assault, sexual harassment, women forced to disrobe to prove to supervisors they are truly having their period (and thus really need to use the bathroom), disgustingly low wages and union busting are all Alcoa trademarks in Honduras.”

More:
http://www.usw.org/usw/program/content/4182.php

(It's hard to believe pro-exploitation cheerleading wingers infest progressive message boards and try to fight with the human beings there trying to get a deeper understanding of the real situation, isn't it? People can smell them a mile away.)

[Judi Lynn]

5. BBC's Honduras timeline

Page last updated at 15:54 GMT, Saturday, 1 March 2008

Timeline: Honduras
A chronology of key events:

~snip~
1963 - Colonel Osvaldo Lopez Arellano takes power after leading a coup.

1969 - Brief but costly war with El Salvador over heavy immigration and disputed border.
Honduras hosted US bases in 1980s war on Nicaragua

1974 - Lopez resigns after allegedly accepting a bribe from a US company.

1975 - Colonel Juan Alberto Melgar Castro take power.

1978 - Melgar ousted in coup led by General Policarpo Paz Garcia.

1980 - General Paz signs peace treaty with El Salvador.

Civilian rule, war with Nicaragua

1981 - Roberto Suazo Cordova of the centrist Liberal Party of Honduras (PLH) is elected president, leading the first civilian government in more than a century.

But armed forces chief General Gustavo Alvarez retains considerable power and Honduras becomes embroiled in various regional conflicts. US-run camps for training Salvadorans in counterinsurgency are set up on Honduran territory.

1982 - US-backed Nicaraguan counter-revolutionaries, or Contras, launch operations to bring down Nicaragua's Sandinista government from Honduran territory.

1982-83 - General Alvarez responds to increasing political unrest by ordering the detention of trade union activists and left-wing sympathisers. Death squads are allegedly used to eliminate subversive elements.

1984 - General Alvarez is deposed amid anti-American demonstrations in Tegucigalpa. US-run training camps for Salvadoran counter-revolutionaries are shut down, but the government continues to cooperate with the US administration's anti-Sandinista activities in return for substantial economic aid.

1986 - Another Liberal Party man, Jose Azcona del Hoyo, elected president after the law was changed to stipulate a maximum one-term presidency.

Human rights abuses

1987 - Amnesty granted both to military and left-wing guerrillas for abuses committed during early 1980s.

1988 February - An Amnesty International report alleges an increase in human rights violations by armed forces and right-wing death squads.
UN has claimed security forces are behind many child killings


2002: Honduras's child killings
2003: Honduras acts over child killings

1988 August - Inter-American Court of Human Rights finds Honduran government guilty of "disappearances" of Honduran citizens between 1981 and 1984.

1989 January - General Alvarez is assassinated by left-wing guerrillas in Tegucigalpa.

1989 February - Summit of Central American presidents in El Salvador reaches agreement on demobilisation of Nicaraguan Contras based in Honduras.

1990 January - Rafael Callejas sworn in as president; proceeds to introduce neo-liberal economic reforms and austerity measures.

1990 June - Last Nicaraguan Contras leave Honduras.

1992 - International Court of Justice gives ruling establishing new boundaries between Honduras and El Salvador.

Demilitarising society

1993 March - Government sets up commission to investigate alleged human rights violations by military.

1993 November - Liberal Party candidate and veteran rights activist Carlos Reina elected president. Reina pledges to reform judicial system and limit power of armed forces.

1995 April - Compulsory military service abolished.

1995 July - First military officers charged with human rights abuses.

1997 - Carlos Flores of the Liberal Party elected president; pledges to restructure armed forces.

1998 May - Control of police transferred from military to civilian authorities, but reports of rights abuses continue.

1998 October - Hurricane Mitch devastates Honduras.

1999 - Armed forces placed under civilian control.

1999 November - Congress ratifies 1986 maritime agreement with Colombia settling claims over the Caribbean Sea. This upsets Nicaragua, which claims some of the area as its own.

1999 December - Honduras and Nicaragua agree to halt ground troop deployments and pull out naval forces from the Caribbean sea pending resolution of a border dispute.

2000 June - Supreme Court rules that atrocities committed during 1980s are not covered by amnesty of 1987.

Death squads

2001 January - Honduran Committee for the Defence of Human Rights says more than 1,000 street children were murdered in 2000 by death squads backed by the police.

2001 August - UN calls on government to prevent extrajudicial killings of hundreds of children and teenagers, some at the hands of police officers.

2002 January - Ricardo Maduro inaugurated as president. He says armed forces will play greater role in fighting crime. Declaration is greeted with dismay at home and abroad.
Hundreds of juvenile gangs - or maras - operate in Honduras

2002 January - Honduras re-establishes diplomatic ties with Cuba which it severed in 1961 when Cuba was expelled from Organisation of American States.

2003 May - Congress votes to send troops to Iraq, making Honduras the first Central American country to authorise a deployment.

2003 December - Honduras - along with Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua - agrees on a free trade agreement with the US.

2004 May - Prison fire at San Pedro Sula kills more than 100 inmates, many of them gang members.

Honduran troops withdraw from Iraq.

2004 December - Suspected gang members massacre 28 bus passengers in the northern city of Chamalecon.

2005 November - Tropical Storm Gamma kills more than 30 people and forces tens of thousands from their homes.

2005 December - Liberal Party's Manuel Zelaya is declared the winner of presidential elections after his ruling party rival concedes defeat.

2006 April - Free trade deal with the US comes into effect. The Honduran Congress approved the Central American Free Trade Agreement (Cafta) in March 2005.

Honduras and neighbouring El Salvador inaugurate their newly-defined border. The countries fought over the disputed frontier in 1969.

2007 May - President Zelaya orders all the country's radio and TV stations to carry government propaganda for two hours a day for 10 days to counteract what he says is a campaign of misinformation.

2007 October - The International Court of Justice in the Hague settles a long-running territorial dispute between Honduras and Nicaragua.

President Manuel Zelaya visits Cuba, the first official trip by a Honduran president to the island in 46 years. The two countries recently agreed their maritime boundaries after a long-running dispute.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/country_profiles/1225471.stm