Aguán News Alert | August 2024

Image Description: U.S.-based activists, academics and students visit the Aguan and stand in solidarity with organized popular movements in the region. | Photo Credits: CATRA Team.

In Defense of Land and Life

Tocoa, Colón, Honduras. –  During the month of August, violent incidents against campesinx families and land defenders in the Bajo Aguán and other areas of the country began to increase again. In the Aguán, criminal groups shot members of the cooperativa “Remolino”, while in El Progreso, Yoro, campesinx families from the Landless Campesino Movement suffered various attacks from the sugar company, AZUNOSA. On August 4th, hitmen shot multiple times at Olman García Ortiz, the coordinador of the Campesino Movement of Ceibita Wa affiliated with the National Union of Rural Workers (CNTC in Spanish), resulting in his death. The criminalization of campesinxs and land defenders continued throughout both months as well.

We stand in solidarity with the organized campesino movements across Honduras.

Latest News

• Victory for the defenders of Sabá: After 11 years of struggle against the Las Golondrinas mining project belonging to company Canteras y Más, the organized communities of Sabá won an important legal battle for the protection of the land and rivers of Carlos Escaleras National Park. 

  On May 6th, 2024, the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice ordered INHGEOMIN and SERNA to cancel the mining exploitation and registration permits and the environmental licensing of Canteras y Más for the Las Golondrinas mining project. According to the lawyers of the Sabá defenders, the Studies fo Dignity Law Firm (BED in Spanish), the sentence also recognizes “the violation of the rights to due process, political participation, a healthy environment, clean water, and health.” On August 6th, the communities of Sabá mobilized in front of the offices of INHGEOMIN and SERNA to demand their compliance with the ruling.

Image Description: Community members of Saba organize a demonstration in front of INHGEOMIN. | Photo Credits: Bufete Estudios para la Dignidad.

• Assassination of Olman García: In the afternoon of August 4th, hitmen fired multiple shots at Olman García Ortiz, the coordinador  the Campesino Movement of Ceibita Way, affiliated with the National Union of Rural Workers (CNTC in Spanish), resulting in his death. For years, Olman Garcíaí suffered various threats and forms of persecution from Corporación Dinant because of his organizing work. On September 14th, 2022, Olman was detained and brutally tortured by the police and the private security guards of Dinant. Despite denouncing the torture before the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Tela, the Human Rights Prosecutor's Office in La Ceiba, and the Protection Mechanism of the Secretary of Human Rights, the threats against the leader continued, leading to his assassination. The Agrarian Platform and COPA condemned the assassination of Olman García, held Dinant and the Facussé family responsible for the murder, denounced the officials of the Protection Mechanism for failing to protect Olman's life, and demanded an immediate and exhaustive investigation from the Public Prosecutor’s Office. We send our deepest condolences and solidarity to the family and compañerxs of Olman García.

• Visit from International Observers: During the first week of August, a delegation of professors, students, and activists from the United States visited Tocoa. They met with the Agrarian Platform and COPA to learn about the historical and current context of the Bajo Aguán. After, they visited some of the campesino cooperatives in order to directly get to know the campesino struggle for land and life in the Aguán.

•  Intimidation against campesinx families in El Progreso: On August 6th, security guards from the sugar company AZUNOSA destroyed the corn crops of the campesinx families of the Campesino Movement of Landless Men and Women that occupy lands from the Agrarian Reform in El Progreso, Yoro. Employees of AZUNOSA also blocked the road to the community, stopping a team from Radio Progreso from reporting on the destruction. This violence is part of a strategy of confrontation by AZUNOSA that is being used to generate the perception of a conflict between campesinxs and residents in the public imagination. On August 20th, AZUNOSA’s violence against the movement worsened. AZUNOSA security guards assaulted and attacked the campesinx families. With machinery, machetes, and guns, the armed groups of AZUNOSA threatened the community while they destroyed their crops. They threw a rock at one campesina, leaving her unconscious. The compañera was on the ground unconscious for more than two hours without medical attention because the security guards and masked employees of AZUNOSA did not let in an ambulance called by Radio Progreso, continuing to block one of the public roads of the sector.

• Criminal Group attacks Cooperative “Remolino”: Also on August 20th, a criminal group threatened and intimidated members of the agricultural campesinx cooperative “Remolino”, signatory of the February 22 Agreements of 2022. The armed group shot at the people of “Remolino”, temporarily displacing them from an area of their lands and injuring one person’s foot.

• Criminalization of Rafael Alvarado: In the afternoon of August 28th, the National Police arbitrarily detained Rafael Alvarado, an active member of Nueva Esperanza (one of the campesinx associative companies of the Unified Campesino Movement of the Aguán (MUCA in Spanish)) and founder of the campesinx cooperative “Remolino”. When Rafael Alvarado was on his way back from “Remolino”, they arrested him under a supposed warrant from 2010 for the crime of land usurpation. He was released on August 29th, but after being detained for more than 24 hours his knee had become inflamed and his blood pressure had risen because the authorities violated his right to health.

Member of Remolino Cooperative Still Missing

Abel López Perdomo is still missing, after being kidnapped on January 30, 2024. Popular and social organizations in the Aguán region continue to ask the government to execute a Search Plan and denounce the lack of response on the part of authorities to implement an effective search.

Historical Context

In the 1990’s, World Bank-led structural adjustment measures transformed the Bajo Aguán region of north-east Honduras from one of the nation’s primary sources of fruits, vegetables and basic grains into an African palm oil monoculture destined for export to insatiable Global North markets. Over the course of this process, thousands of campesinos were dispossessed of their farms to make way for massive palm plantations, owned by a handful of Honduran elite. 

Since then, campesino cooperatives have engaged in a multi-decade struggle to recover their land, suffering violent repression by corporate and state entities as a result. The immediate post-coup period was especially brutal, taking the lives of approximately 150 small farmers by 2014. In recent years, many more have been murdered, disappeared, and criminalized. The vast majority of these crimes remain in impunity.