Honduras: Authorities must deploy all necessary measures to locate five victims of apparent enforced

[Judi Lynn]

Honduras: Authorities must deploy all necessary measures to locate five victims of apparent enforced disappearance
31 July 2020, 14:19 UTC

Almost two weeks on from the illegal abduction of five men in an apparent case of enforced disappearance in the coastal town of Triunfo de la Cruz, Amnesty International is calling on the Honduran authorities to take urgent steps to locate them alive as soon as possible.

“Testimonies suggest that the five young men were victims of enforced disappearance, allegedly at the hands of agents of the Honduran state security forces. If confirmed, this crime under international law would mark another atrocious chapter in the country's recent history,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International.

“We demand that the Juan Orlando Hernández administration take urgent measures to find the five missing people, including four Garifuna activists from the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras, alive. The authorities must also carry out a swift, exhaustive, independent and impartial investigation to identify and punish all those responsible for planning and carrying out this crime. We cannot allow impunity to encourage endless cycles of violence and grave human rights violations.”

. . .

On 8 October 2015, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled in favor of the Garifuna community in Triunfo de la Cruz and found the Honduran state guilty of violating this community's right to collective property. Previously, on 28 April 2006, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights had issued protective measures to the Triunfo de la Cruz community and requested that the government adopt the necessary measures to protect the community’s right to ownership of its ancestral lands.

In a report published on 29 July, the international organization Global Witness named Honduras the country the fifth most lethal country in the world for people defending the rights to land and the environment, and the first per capita.

More:
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/07/honduras-autoridades-deben-localizar-victimas-desaparicion-forzada/

[Judi Lynn]

1. Honduras' Garifuna Experience History Of Pillage And Dispossession - OpEd

July 30, 2020
By Yanis Iqbal


Amid the current Covid-19 pandemic, the Garifuna community of Honduras is experiencing state-sponsored violence and regulated repression.

On July 18, 2020, heavily armed personnel of the Police Investigation Department (DPI) barged into the house of Alberth Sneider Centeno, Garifuna president of the land community of El Triunfo de la Cruz, and abducted him. Later, the same armed group kidnapped Suami Aparicio Mejía García, Gerardo Mizael Rochez Cálix and Milton Joel Martínez Álvarez, members of the OFRANEH (Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras), and a fifth person, Junior Rafael Juárez Mejía. The General Confederation of Labor (CGT) has issued a statement saying “that the kidnapping of these people is motivated by the activity of the Garifuna people in defense of their ancestral lands and the rights of Afro-indigenous and indigenous people in these territories.”

The Honduran Solidarity Network (HSN) has similarly stated that “There are powerful people and businesses that have every interest in terrorizing the Garifuna communities in Tela Bay including Triunfo de la Cruz. Snider Centeno was an outspoken leader fighting against the global tourist industry allied with powerful and wealthy families in Honduras. Centeno was defending his community’s collective and ancestral land rights. An investigation into the Honduran government’s role in not only the kidnapping but also the context in which the kidnappings occurred, is absolutely necessary and important. The Honduran government has violated the Garifuna’s land rights for decades.”

From the statements issued by CGT and HSN, it is clear that the kidnapping is not a regionally restricted event. Rather, it is an act involving myriad actors, both national and international. For example, DPI, the armed group responsible for the kidnapping, is a police force which is economically supported by the US State Department’s Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. With American assistance, the DPI has enormously expanded and by 2022, it is expected to have 3,000 personnel or 12% of the entire Honduran force.

Furthermore, the authoritarian alacrity with which the state has suppressed protests against the kidnappings betokens that there is something deeper of which the government is afraid. These peaceful protests were carried out by the residents of El Triunfo de la Cruz, Sambo Creek, Nueva Armenia and Corozal on Highway CA-13 and demanded that the 5 Garifuna activists be returned alive. In order to understand the underlying factors which are shaping the dynamics of violence and intimidation against the Garifuna community, we need to take a look at the historical backdrop against which it is occurring and understand the path-dependent nature of present-day happenings.

The Garifuna people are a community who find their existential roots in the soil of anti-colonialism and anti-imperialism. In 1675, a ship carrying Mokko people, slated to be enslaved, was wrecked near Saint Vincent, an island in the Caribbean. These people settled in the Caribbean island and resolutely resisted colonialist attempts by the French and British. Inspired by the heroic courage of the indigenous people in Saint Vincent, enslaved Africans escaped from the clutches of colonialism and arrived at the Saint Vincent Island. Through the intermixing of enslaved Africans and Caribs-Arawaks, the Garifuna subjectivity was produced which moored its identity in a revolutionary fight against the savagery of slavery and cruelty of colonialism.

More:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/30072020-honduras-garifuna-experience-history-of-pillage-and-dispossession-oped/