Aguán News Alert | March 2024
Image Description: Poster demanding justice for Berta Cáceres. | Photo Credits: CATRA Team.
8th Anniversary of the Murder of the Indigenous Leader Berta Cáceres
Tocoa, Colón. – During the month of March, representatives of the Agrarian Platform and the Coordinator of Popular Organizations of Aguan (COPA) participated in the 8th anniversary of the murder of Berta Cáceres. Organizations gathered to pay tribute to the brave and extraordinary Berta, whom we remember as a tireless leader and a passionate defender of human and environmental rights in the country. Berta not only represented the tireless fight for justice and equality, but she embodied resistance against injustice and oppression. Today, we remember her bravery in confronting powerful interests that threatened the land and natural resources of Honduras, and who continue to threaten the lives of land defenders today.
We join the demand that the Supreme Court of Justice must confirm the sentences of David Castillo and the other seven men convicted of killing her.
Image Description: Representatives from the Agrarian Platform at the 8th Anniversary of the Siembra of Berta Cáceres | Photo Credits: Plataforma Agraria.
Latest News
Murder of Cooperative Member: On March 18th, the 23-year old Marvin Dubon, member of the Tranvio Cooperative, was murdered by hired hitmen while he was driving on motorcycle with his partner from the community of La Confianza to the Tranvio Cooperative.
Press Conference: On March 5, the Agrarian Platform and COPA participated in a press conference outside of the Public Ministry in Tegucigalpa to denounce the violent and arbitrary evictions against the families belonging to the Campesino Movement of Men and Women Without Land in Progreso, Yoro.
Protection Mechanism for Defenders: On March 5, members of the Tierra y Territorio Roundtable met with the director of the Honduran Protection Mechanism, Rodolfo Zamora, in order to report on the constant violations of human rights committed by the State Security Force against campesino families in different regions of the country. The Tierra y Territorio Roundtable raised the urgent need to implement a true and effective Protection Plan to protect the lives of defenders who fight to vindicate their right to access to land.
Tripartite Commission: On March 7, the Agrarian Platform and COPA held a meeting with representatives of the United Nations and Lawyers Without Borders at the offices of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), in the city of Tegucigalpa. The OHCHR socialized a project with its budget allocations for the Tripartite Commission in the areas of legal defense and protection of defenders.
Right to Education: On March 7, representatives of the Agrarian Platform held a meeting with professors from the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH), in the city of Tegucigalpa in order to discuss and analyze how to strengthen the Platform for the Defense of Public Education.
Struggle for Access to Land: On March 10, the Assembly of the Empresa Asociativa Campesina de Isleta was held at the facilities of the Occidental Cooperative. The main objective was to analyze the next legal actions within the framework of the vindication of the right to access to land of the families of the Empresa Asociativa Campesina de Isleta (EACI).
Advocacy Actions: On March 11, the international delegation of Commissioners representing the Agrarian Platform and COPA, who will make up the Tripartite Commission, arrived in Honduras. The representatives of the commission held a meeting with the director of the Property Institute (IP), to discuss strategies prior to the installation of the Tripartite Commission whose mandate is to review the land titles of the agricultural cooperatives and associative companies of the agrarian reform, so that the Supreme Court of Justice can determine the legality of the titles.
Campesino cooperative member from Remolino is still missing
Abel Lopéz is still missing, after he was kidnapped on January 30, 2024. Popular organizations in the Aguan ask the government to execute a Search Plan to find him alive.
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.