How Honduras became one of the most dangerous countries to defend natural resources

[Judi Lynn]

The Guapinol community, on the country’s north coast, has become militarized in an effort to defend the river that supplies it

Nina Lakhani
Tue 6 Oct 2020 05.30 EDT

Gabriela Sorto has not seen or spoken to her father in six months, since the Honduran government’s draconian Covid-19 measures banned most travel and prison visits.

Porfirio Sorto Cedillo, a 48-year-old builder and farm worker, is one of eight protesters held in pre-trial detention since 2019 for alleged crimes linked to their opposition to an iron oxide mine which threatens to contaminate their water supply. Five more water defenders from Guapinol, a small low-income community on the country’s north coast, could also soon be sent to jail.

The massive open pit mine, owned by one of the country’s most powerful couples, was sanctioned without community consultation inside a protected national park in a process mired by irregularities, according to international experts.

In response to criminal complaints filed by the company Inversiones Los Pinares, 31 people, including one man who died three years before the alleged incidents, have been charged with multiple offences and the community’s grassroots group falsely accused of ties to organized crime.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/06/how-honduras-became-one-of-the-most-dangerous-countries-to-defend-natural-resources