Berta Caceres’ Case
COPINH denounces the continous will of the Honduran State to keep in impunity the case of Berta Cáceres Flores. Read their statement here: (Spanish only)
http://copinhonduras.blogspot.it/2017/04/el-copinh-denuncia-la-reiterada.html
On April 7th,
Two letters by US Senators and Representatives were sent to the US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson expressing their concern about the situation of human right defenders in Honduras.
78 US politicians demand that military and police aid to Honduras be withheld until the situation for human rights defenders improves drastically in the country.
CRLN staff and board members participated, in a Voz de los de Abajo delegation in March, as human rights observers in a march by COPINH and its allies to the Supreme Court. They delivered a letter containing a constitutional challenge to the legality of the Legislative Decrees authorizing the Agua Zarca Hydroelectric Project on the Gualcarque River, something Berta had wanted to do before she was killed. That was March 1, and the Constitutional Chamber has not yet admitted it for consideration by the Supreme Court.
*Karla Lara and Melissa Cardoza, feminists, social justice organizers in Honduras and close friends of Berta Caceres, are doing a US tour April 20th to May 23rd.
Melissa Cardoza’s book,
13 Colors of the Honduran Resistance,tells thirteen stories of women who joined the resistance to the U.S.-backed 2009 coup d’etat. She will be touring along with her fellow member of the Honduran “Red de Defensoras,” or network of women rights defenders, beloved Honduran jazz/folk protest singer
Karla Lara,
who appears in one of the book’s stories and has been an icon and sharp voice in the resistance.
They will be in Chicago with CRLN on April 30th, Join Us.
Read more about Karla and Melissa and their work here.
2017 National Elections
The Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) is an ally of the Juan Orlando government, by letting him run for the 2017 elections, despite that re-election is prohibited by the Honduran constitution. Now, the TSE wants to forbid the Party Against Corruption (PAC), a major opposition party, from the national elections on November. The TSE wants PAC to hold an internal leadership election on May 21ST. However, this date will give the political opposition just four days to decide on a political alliance- making it extremely hard to form such alliance. By May 25, all alliances must be officially listed.
Garifuna and Indigenous Communities
The UN Special Rapporteur on Indigenous Peoples,
Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, visited Honduras from April 16-21st.
She met with the highest national governmental authorities, representatives of indigenous peoples, civil society organizations and the private sector.
Her first visit to the country was in November 2015
. This second visit was a follow up on observations and recommendations regarding the process to regulate the free, prior and informed consent of indigenous and Afro-Honduran peoples. She presented recommendations to the Honduran government, and many fear that these
recommendations will be ignored once again.
The Honduran government is currently drafting a free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) law. However indigenous organizations, such as OFRANEH (Garifuna) and COPINH (Lenca) , denounce that the government is
marginalizing indigenous communities from the process and instead the Juan Orlando’s administration is taking over.
There has been a
recent violent attack against labor leaders at the international company Fyffes.
Solidarity Center reports that “Moisés Sánchez, secretary general of the melon export branch of the Honduran agricultural workers’ union, Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Agroindustria y Similares (STAS), and his brother, union member Misael Sánchez
, say they were attacked late last week by six men wielding machetes as they left the union office in the southern town of Choluteca
, an area where agricultural workers harvest melons and other export produce”.