|
DEG
(Deutsche Entwicklungsgesellschaft), the German government’s development bank
based in Cologne, Germany, announced Tuesday, April 12th, in a
letter addressed to FIAN
international secretariat that after closely analyzing the land conflict in
Bajo Aguán it
had decided to terminate its agreement with the company
Corporación Dinant in Honduras.
DEG
declared that
it will not go ahead with the loan it had previously agreed to grant this
company.
Miguel Facussé,
owner of Corporación
Dinant,
had said in a
2010 interview with a national press media that the financing granted by
DEG amounted to 20 million US
dollars.
Before the
German Bank adopted this decision,
FIAN International
had presented it with the Preliminary Report of the International Mission
conducted from February 25 through March 3, 2011 to investigate the human rights
violations committed in the Bajo Aguán region, located on the Atlantic coast of
Honduras.
This mission
was the result of a joint effort by the international networks
APRODEV (Association of
Development Organizations connected with the World Council of Churches), CIFCA
(Copenhagen Initiative for Central America and Mexico), FIAN International,
Rel-UITA (IUF Latin America), FIDH (International Federation for Human Rights),
and Vía Campesina,
with the support of the national human rights organizations
COFADEH (Commission of Relatives
of the Detained-Disappeared in Honduras), CDM (Center for Women’s Rights),
CIPRODEH (Human Rights Research and Promotion Center of Honduras), Truth
Commission, and FIAN Honduras.
The mission’s
preliminary report had also been delivered on
March 25 to the Rapporteur for
Honduras of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington, D.C.
In view of the
serious human rights abuses documented by this report, in addition to the
evidence gathered by the mission on the involvement in such violations of
private security guards hired by
Miguel Facussé’s
company, and in particular their responsibility in several murders of Bajo Aguán
peasants, FIAN had requested that
DEG
reconsider its
agreements with the area’s companies, in particular
Corporación Dinant,
and that it withdraw any financing granted to these companies.
FIAN
welcomes this important decision by
DEG,
in response to the recommendations of the International Mission.
“We
ask that, in the specific case of Bajo Aguán, bilateral cooperation agencies and
multilateral banks review all financial cooperation agreements entered into with
any police forces and private companies that may be implicated in acts of
violence, harassment, and human rights violations in the region,”
the organizations that participated in the International Mission had stated in a
March 4 press release upon completing the mission.
Martin Wolpold Bosien,
FIAN International coordinator for Central America, sees DEG’s
decision as a major step forward: “FIAN
welcomes this decision because it can have a positive effect in preventing
further human rights violations against the peasant communities of Bajo Aguán,
by making those responsible for the repression aware that such conduct has
financial consequences.”
“It also strengthens similar
requests presented to other cooperation agencies that are still financing
companies implicated in the abuses, as is the case of the World Bank’s
International Financial Corporation, the Inter-American Development Bank, and
the British government under the Clean Development Mechanism,”
the FIAN coordinator said.
 |
