Honduras

International mission will assess the state of human rights in Bajo Aguán

Rel-UITA will participate in and cover this important initiative

 

From February 25 to March 4 a large group of representatives from national and international organizations and networks will be in Valle del Aguán, northeastern Honduras, to conduct a careful assessment of the state of human rights and raise international awareness on the appalling living conditions of the area’s peasant families. Rel-UITA will be one of the organizations participating in the mission and will provide ongoing coverage of this important initiative

 

The process of land dispossession and concentration and the spread of African palm plantations and other single crop plantations has been undermining the right to food security of thousands of peasant families in Bajo Aguán, generating an alarming situation of violence and repression.

 

Rel-UITA (IUF Latin America) and FIAN International (Foodfirst Information & Action Network) report that 18 activists from peasant communities were murdered in 2010.

 

This is a highly critical situation that is framed in a context of widespread and systematic harassment, repression and violent expulsion of peasant organizations demanding access to land and an full agrarian reform.

 

“In view of this situation, several organizations1 decided that it was necessary to conduct a mission to monitor the situation in Bajo Aguán,” Claudia Pineda, a member of FIAN International in Honduras, said.

 

According to Pineda, the mission’s objectives include assessing the state of human rights in the area, expressing the support and concern of the international community to peasant and social organizations in the region, and raising global awareness of the human rights situation in Bajo Aguán.

 

“We also want to contribute with our own specific analysis of the conflict to the preparation of the preliminary study that will be presented to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights (IACHR),” the FIAN International activist said.

 

The organizations that participate in the mission will make field visits to the peasant settlements targeted by repression and will interview members of social, popular, and labor organizations, and meet with legal experts to determine the extent of impunity in the region.

 

Meetings with officers of the National Agricultural Institute (INA), the Human Rights Prosecutor’s Office, and representatives of the diplomatic community and international organizations are also planned.

 

The final report will be submitted to the IACHR and its results will be discussed at the next session of the UN Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review of Honduras.

 

“It will also be conveyed to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), to the different competent bodies of the Organization of American States (OAS) and the European Union, to EU member States, and to the International Criminal Court,” Pineda concluded.

   

 

From Managua, Giorgio Trucchi

Rel-UITA

February 23, 2011

 

 

 

 

1-  International Federation for Human Rights (IFHR), Swiss Interchurch Aid (HEKS), Rel-UITA, Copenhagen Initiative for Central America and Mexico (CIFCA), FIAN International, Via Campesina International, MS Denmark, and Honduran human rights organizations.

 

Mas Información

 

Volver a Portada

  

  UITA - Secretaría Regional Latinoamericana - Montevideo - Uruguay

Wilson Ferreira Aldunate 1229 / 201 - Tel. (598 2) 900 7473 -  902 1048 -  Fax 903 0905