In less than a week I'll be in Honduras. My plan is to spend two months there as a human rights observer and freelance web journalist. I hope to post photos and audio files here on this blog, so please visit often to look and listen.In the first week of my trip I will be accompanying a delegation of artists from the States who are participating in the concert organized by Artistas en Resistencia (Artists in Resistance). For more information about the concert, check out this video by documentarian Beth Geglia.
After the concert I will be traveling with a group of international human rights activists to the Lower Aguan, a part of the country that has been hit hard by the ongoing human rights crisis set off by the June 2009 coup against President Manuel Zelaya. The Lower Aguan is an agricultural region where campesino groups fighting for land rights have clashed with state forces as well as private security employed by wealthy landowner and African palm oil magnate Miguel Facusse. The situation in the region is tense, with more than 8 residents killed in the last two months.
As I was writing this I received an action alert from Rights Action about the most recent human rights violation in the Aguan.
Please read and take action:
15 Women hiding in palm trees from Miguel Facusse security guards, who opened fire against them at 8am today (October 11, 2011), and also killed campesino Santos Seferino Zelaya
Local Aguan based human rights activists denounce that at 8am Honduras time [10 am EST] campesinos were conducting agricultural activities on the La Aurora cooperative lands, in dispute with Dinant palm oil company, owned by Miguel Facusse, when security forces opened fire on them, instantly killing Santos Serfino Zelaya, the other campesinos escaped.
A group of 15 women were in another area of the farm spreading salt when they were confronted by security guards and Xatruch [police and military] forces. When the women tried to speak to them the armed men opened fire, the women have been hiding three hours in the palm trees.
In recent weeks, a new wave of violence has been directed against the MUCA (United Movement of Aguan Campesinos) campesino communities on the right bank of the Aguan river, since Miguel Facusse declared he would not honor an agreement to sell lands back to the campesinos he had illegally acquired in the 1990s.
PLEASE CALL
the "Xatruch" security forces in Tocoa immediately to demand that the security forces leave the Aurora Farm to allow the women to find safety.
[011 504] 2444-3101 / 2444-3102 / 2444-3103 / 2444-3104 / 2444-3105
PLEASE CALL
the US Embassy Human Rights Official, in the US Embassy in Honduras, and demand that he speak with Xatruch forces and ask if the US military currently is training or equipping Xatruch or 15th Battalion forces or has troops in the region.
Nathan Anderson - [011-504] 2236-9320, 2238-5114, AndersonTN2@state.gov
