Delegation to Honduras in January 2016: Photographs and Stories from Duck Head Photography

In January 2016, I led and coordinated an educational delegation to Honduras organized by the Marin County Task Force on the America (MITF) and Cross Border Network for Justice and Solidarity. We focused on three important topics (that are linked): the drug war, land grabs, and the neoliberal global tourist industry.

One delegate, Rodney Mahaffey of Duck Head Photography is an amazing photographer. With his own photos, Rod has been putting together some amazing photo essays and short descriptions of various encounters during the delegation. Below are some of my favorite. More to come later.

THE AGUAN
“In the Aguán region, a fertile alluvial valley just south of the northern coast, large landowners have taken advantage of the current political climate to intensify attacks on peasant movements and expand plantations of African oil palm, a high value export crop with a growing global market for edible oil, processed foods, chemical and biodiesel fuels. Between September 2009 and August 2012, 53 recorded murders of Aguán peasants are attributed to guards and mercenaries hired by large oil palm growers, often acting in concert with state and military forces…In addition, the US military presence and military aid—heightened in recent years in the name of combating drug trafficking—have bolstered the Honduran security forces’ capacity for repression. The revival of 1980s-style counter-insurgency tactics against a non-violent resistance movement has led to mounting human rights atrocities felt most acutely in the countryside. This push also comes up against a movement of increasingly organized peasant communities who, after more than a century of displacement by capitalist agriculture, have nowhere left to go.
-Tanya M. Kerssen, “Grabbing Power: the New Struggles for Land, Food and Democracy in Northern Honduras”

In the campesino community of La Lempira, our delegation met with representatives from the United Campesino Movement of the Aguán (MUCA), the Authentic Peasant Revindicative Movement of Aguán (MARCA), the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP) and the Agrarian Platform of the Aguán.

Although the emphasis changed from speaker to speaker, the story was always the same:
• We are now living under a new form of dictatorship. The president is selling Honduras, creating a new form of slavery. We are worried we will be left without a country. Militarization is a threat to all Hondurans.
• We are living in crisis.
• The 2010 agreement promised us 11,000 hectares of land. Now there are 3000 families living on 4000 hectares.
• We are suffocating.
• To receive support we had to agree to plant African palm. The price of palm has fallen 54.3% since 2014. Families and members are living on less than $1 a day.
• Since the business plan there have been over 120 murders. That illegal process sold our own land back to us from people who aren’t even Honduran. Now the government wants to remove us from our land.
• We have demanded a revision of the 2010 agreement that promised education and health and housing…none of that has happened. A commission was formed, led by the vice-president of Congress. Every meeting has been cancelled and re-scheduled.
• We realized that they are bullshitting us (as we say in Honduras). We need help to apply pressure to negotiate a new plan.
• The is a long history of campesino struggle. So many comrades have been killed in this process. All we are asking as MARCA and MCA is to fulfill the promises of the agreement.
• They take advantage of hunger and poverty to overprice the land.
• North America…the Pentagon...Intelligence…the World Bank have reduced budgets and economic support to create a crisis. Honduras, after the conflicts in Central America, became a permanent military base. Now the whole country is militarized.
• They assassinate leaders and infiltrate the movements. Only 18 cooperatives have survived. (Note: there were 40 campesino cooperatives at the time of the coup in 2009.)

The meeting had to end because several of the people were going to the courthouse in Trujillo where a hearing was being held regarding the case of four campesinos who have been in jail for two years on bogus land, ammunition and gun charges. This would be their first hearing. (Someone seems to have a ready supply of guns and ammunition to plant as evidence. Ammunition and gun charges are common.) We were asked to “accompany” them to the hearing.

Accompaniment is widely practiced in Honduras. Local community members or organizations utilize individuals or groups (like us) partially as a shield against violence and also to demonstrate that there is international interest and support for issues and problems inside Honduras. The world is watching. Our presence for the hearing also potentially help protect the lawyer as well. More lawyers are murdered in Honduras than in any other country in the world. 22 legal professionals were victims of targeted killings in 2015. (Source: Peace Brigades International).

The hearing wasn’t heard while we waited. (The clock in the office at the courthouse had stopped at 10:05 and there was a 2014 calendar hanging on the wall. Justice grinds exceedingly slow down here.)

Later we learned that after listening to the defense arguments, the court decided that here were insufficient grounds for a hearing and the four campesinos remain in jail.

Campesinos, La Lempira.

CAYOS COCHINOS

Chachahuate is the largest Garifuna community within Cayos Cochinos. The island…shrank considerably as a result of hurricane Mitch in 1998 to around 150m by 50m depending on the tide. The sporadic layout of huts remarkably manages to fit forty houses into the crescent shaped island…during the time of the research (July 7th-August 20th, 2004(, the average sample population fluctuated around ninety-three people. The village seems overcrowded yet cozy with the vast expanse of water all around. The beach is covered with Cayucos (small boats), signifying fishing as the primary livelihood of the Garifuna of Cayos Cochinos. Chachahuate is far from sustainable. Their water supply is from a well, which is limited, and all the food and merchandise is brought in from the mainland. The island of Chachahuate is in every sense of the word, a desert island.”
-Alistair Russell, “Examining the Impact of Changing livelihood Strategies upon Garifuna Cultural Identity: a Case Study of Cayos Cochinos” (2005)

In the first photograph you have a boat’s-eye-view of almost the entire length of the island. There is another house and a Cayucos or two on the right.

Approaching Chachahuate.

BIRDS IN TRUJILLO

There are 914 species of birds found in North America (north of the Mexican border). Honduras (about the size and shape of Kentucky) has 722 bird species. Three species of vultures can be seen: Black Vultures, Turkey Vultures and Lesser Yellow-headed Vultures. The population of Honduras (2012) is 7,621, 000. 90% of that number is identified as Mestizo. There are six Amerindian groups (Lenca, Miskito, Ch’orti’, Toulpan, Pech or Paya and Sumo or Tawahka); two Afro-Honduran groups (Garifuna and Creaoles) and a smaller population of Palestinians (sometimes called “Turcos") and Chinese.

I thought of this first photograph (of Black Vultures with some Willets wading in the background) as an allegory of Honduras: the shorebirds would stand for the peoples of Honduras; the vultures would betoken the various entities scavenging and gorging themselves. (Fun vulture facts: a group of feeding vultures is called a wake; vultures vomit to lighten their stomach load to escape from predators; New World vultures urinate straight down their legs…the uric acid kills bacteria accumulated from walking through carcasses. Vultures are the perfect proxy for the Honduran bad guys.) But a strict allegory would also require 10 or so more species of shorebirds to represent the diverse ethnic peoples of Honduras. Plenty of shorebird species can be found in Honduras. No problema. However, there also would need to be many, many more species of vultures to align one-to-one with their human/corporate/government/military counterparts. Counting both Old World Vultures (16 species) and New World Vultures (7 species) there are only 23 species; not nearly enough.

Bummer. That would have been a tight little allegory. And an awesome bird photo.

Black Vultures and Willets, Trujillo Bay.

A Reminder of the Importance of U.S. Approval On "Sovereign" Honduran Issues

This was the front page of El Heraldo, one of Honduras' largest, nationally-distributed newspapers on Wednesday, January 27, 2016. It is headlines like this that bring the issue of U.S. imperialism to the front and center of my thoughts. Often, I have debates with solidarity activists about how active the role of the U.S. (and Canada) government is in determining how processes like the election of the Supreme Court magistrates, military coups, and promotions within the Honduran military and police, really is. I continue to believe quite strongly what many Honduran activists and human rights defenders say, "The embassy is in charge here" [La embajada gringa manda aqui].

View fullsize

Front page reads "the nominated 45 get green light from Embassy" and the text, "Jorge Machado, ex-member of the Nomination Board, says that they received a congratulatory letter for the work conducted in the selection of the 45 candidates for the Supreme Court. [The Embassy] clarified that that none of the people on the list of 45 candidates are identified [as being involved in illicit activities or not accepted] by the U.S. The justification for PAC [anti-corruption party] to vote against [the process] was that people that had been veto-ed appeared [on the list]"

Note that the headline isn't about the Japanese, German, or Canadian embassy? And notice that all they have to write is the "Embassy" in the headline and everyone assumes which country they are referring to? Now think about a similar headline appearing in a U.S. newspaper? Imagine "The nominated U.S. Supreme Court magistrates get green light from Honduran embassy".

Four Months of Manipulation: Electing the Honduran Supreme Court Magistrates

Last night, the Honduran National Congress was unable to secure the 86 votes necessary to approve the final 15 proposed Supreme Court magistrate candidates for the 2016-2023 period. Congress will try again this evening by secret vote, a strategy that the opposition claims will hide the identities of congressional representatives that have sold their vote to the National Party. The political opposition and Honduran social movement have been critical of the election processes that narrowed the candidate pool in approximately four months, as stated by law, from 200 to 97 to 45 to 15 final contestants.

In the center of the militarized perimeter surrounding the National Congress, the opposition voted against the 15 proposed magistrates - 13 from the Anti-Corruption party (PAC), 31 reps from LIBRE party (two abstained due to their position in the Multi-partisan Commission), 1 from the Innovation and Unity Party (PINU), and surprisingly 1 congressional representative from the traditional Liberal party. In total, 82 voted in favor, 44 against, falling 4 votes short of the 86-vote majority that is needed.

Source: Pasos de Animal Grande

In the midst of corruption and irregularities, its difficult to pay attention to a process that is indeed very important on an institutional level, but that is so unsurprisingly flawed and representative of the decades-old status quo in Honduras: the exclusion of the political opposition and social movement and their lack of real institutional power; corruption at every level of the process; the manipulation of the Judiciary by the Executive and Legislative branches of government; and the on-going bipartisan power and domination of the National and Liberal party that represent the ten to twelve families of the Honduran political and economic elite (the oligarquía).

Throughout the four-month process, frequent acts of manipulation and corruption were reported by the independent media, the political opposition, and the diverse Honduran social movement. Below is a list of some of the reported irregularities. A full description of the nomination process in Spanish can be found here.

The election process and role of the Nominating Board (Junta Nominadora):

The Board is responsible for narrowing the list of 200 candidates to 45 and presenting their nominations to the National Congress. By law, the Junta consists of seven individuals that are nominated by each of the seven organizations/groups including the Supreme Court; Assembly of the National Bar Association; National Human Rights Commissioner; The National Council for Private Enterprise (COHEP); Assembly of Legal Scholars from Law Faculties or Schools; Civil Society Organizations; and Assembly of the Labor Federations.

Irregularities:

** The Coalition Against Impunity that is formed by more than 20 organizations of civil society raised concerns about the manipulation by the Evangelical Brotherhood to impose a candidate on behalf of Civil Society Organization, that defends and represent the interests of the government.

** According to the Coalition Against Impunity, the selection of 45 candidates were made based on individual and political preferences of the seven representatives of the Nomination Board instead of on merit, ability, and professional preparation.

** The Board requested information from the U.S. Embassy regarding the candidates. The U.S. Embassy responded with names of 27 candidates that the U.S. believes have been involved in “professional and personal activities that have been on the fringes of the law.”


Transparency and disclosure of information about Supreme Court magistrate candidates:

Irregularities:

** The Institute for Access to Public Information (IAIP) sanctioned the Nomination Board for not disclosing the results of poly-graph tests, investigations of economic status of candidates (used to detect financial irregularities, drug trafficking, corruption, etc), and psychological analysis of each of the 200 nominees.

** Of the 15 final candidates, 8 are affiliated with the National Party and 7 with the Liberal Party. There are no candidates belonging or affiliated with any of the opposition parties.

** Some of the candidates, including those that made it to the final 15 have questionable backgrounds linked to human rights abuses and/or strong political/economic interests:

• Three candidates accepted by the Nomination Board were involved in the arbitrary firing of four judges following the June 2009 coup. The judges’ behaviours were scrutinized by the InterAmerican Court of Human Rights in the Case López Lone y otros Vs. Honduras
• Miriam Suyapa Barahona Rodriguez (Liberal party candidate): One of four magistrates involved in banning Julio Ernesto Alvarado from working as a journalist in Honduras, as a result of a charge against him for criminal defamation. Ernesto Alvardo worked for the opposition TV channel, TV Globo.
• Karla Patricia Garcia Arita (National party candidate): Involved in opening charges against overthrown President Manuel Zelaya, and declared a constitutional challenge to tax increases approved in 2013 on the tail of the IMF agreement, inadmissible.

Canada’s Aura Minerals Terrorizing Honduran Communities For Protecting Their Cemetery

Photo caption: Standing at the edge of the sharp cut in the mountain, less than 100 meters from the edge of the community cemetery

In the evening on Monday, November 23, ten leaders from the mining-affected communities of Azacualpa and San Andres Minas were stopped at a police checkpoint as they left Santa Rosa de Copan in western Honduras. Three of the leaders – Miguel Lopez, Genaro Rodriguez and Orlando Rodriguez – all part of the Azacualpa Environmental Committee were held overnight at the police station on charges of usurpation. Lopez, Rodriguez, and Rodriguez are expected to appear before a judge for a hearing scheduled for December 17th.

Upon returning to Azacualpa after their release, dozens of residents from the community greeted the three leaders at the entrance with a caravan and setting off firecrackers in celebration. The community also reaffirmed its support to maintain a blockade that they started on November 9th, located at the base of a steep cut in the side of Cemetery Mountain (Cerro Cementerio). Without access to the mountainside, Aura cannot continue to encroach on the perimeters of the community cemetery, now located less than 100 meters from the steep slice in the side of the mountain. The recent detentions and provocation are part of a criminalization and repression campaign against the communities and the Azacualpa Environmental Committee. Tired of Aura’s broken promises and failure to fulfill a 2012 agreement with mining-affected communities in the municipality of La Unión, residents of Azacualpa and San Andres Minas have decided to protect what is left of the two mountain tops – Cerro Cementerio and Cerro Los Hornillos – closest to their communities, both of which are in Aura Mineral’s expansion plans.

Using Corruption and Impunity To Force The Closure of Community Cemetery

At the service of the Canadian mining company, Honduran institutions including the Permanent Contingency Commission (COPECO) and the Ministry of Public Health have recently attempted to declare the cemetery unfit citing that it is dangerous, susceptible to land slides, unsanitary, and fails to meet public health standards. Their sudden interests in the conditions of the cemetery coincide with Aura Minerals’ interests in expansion.

Community members argue that the mining operations in close proximity to the cemetery, against the wishes of the local residents, have created some of the conditions being used to justify its destruction. Other justifications are just flat-out inventions. They argue that the corrupt Honduran state – security forces, public prosecutors’ offices, and other state institutions – are simply protecting and acting on the interests of the mining monster in their backyard. In an effort to stop the expansion of the mine, in April 2014 local residents blocked a public road outside one of the entrances of the San Andres mine. It was violently evicted by military and police and charges were pressed against nineteen community members, who are still required to appear before a judge every month. In January 2015, residents of Azacualpa held a community consultation (cabildo abierto) in coordination with the mayor’s office. Azacualpa declared that they were against the closure and relocation of their cemetery and demand that Aura Minerals respect their wishes. The consultation is another effort by the community to demand respect for their gravesites where local communities bury their loved ones.

Photo caption: Standing at the base of the mountainside at the location of the community-led blockade to prevent expansion of mining operation

Photo caption: Community cemetery

Drones, Military Intelligence and Shady Business Contacts: Aura Mineral’s Tactics in Honduras

Immediately following the release of the three leaders of the Azacualpa Environmental Committee early this week, affected communities denounced the presence of a drone hovering over the location of the blockade. They believe that the drone is being utilized by Aura Minerals and its’ private security company, Servicios Especiales de Seguridad (SESER) to provoke the community and to take pictures of and identify individuals participating in the blockade.

Contributing to the fear and tension, the local communities are aware of Aura Mineral’s business relationships in the region. Its private security company, SESER is owned by Angel Rene Romero, a former military commander and congressional candidate for the National Party in the Department of Copan. Rene Romero was part of the infamous military Battalion 3-16 in the 1980s, an intelligence unit inside the Honduran military responsible for political assassinations and torture of state opponents.

Another contract that Aura Minerals holds at its’ San Andres gold mine, is with a Honduran transportation company called INCOBE. The contract involves various machinery and dump trucks that move crushed rock to the location of the mine’s leaching pads. Owned and operated by the Benitez family based in Santa Rosa de Copan, INCOBE holds the concession for the iron ore mine in El Nispero, Santa Barbara, Honduras, where anti-mining and community leader Rigoberto Lopez Hernandez was brutally murdered in May 2014. Lopez Hernandez’s throat had been slit, his tongue cut out, and his murdered body publicly displayed as a clear message to environmentalists around the country in resistance to mining operations.

Canada’s Complicity in Aura Minerals’ Tactics and Operations in Honduras

Aura Minerals was one of few mining companies that operated through the violent and repressive aftermath of the June 28, 2009 military coup in Honduras. Eight months after the coup in February 2010, and in clear support of the post-coup Honduran regime and its economic interests, then President of Aura Minerals, Patrick Downey visited Honduras accompanied by mining and corporate investors and the Canadian Ambassador Neil Reeder. The visit was centered on encouraging the Honduran government to approve a new mining law that would lift the 2006 moratorium that prevented new concessions from being granted.

Years later on January 23, 2013, the Honduran Congress passed and ratified a new mining law without any consultation with mining-affected communities, environmental and human rights groups. Mining Watch Canada publicly denounced that the development of the new Honduran mining law received assistance from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), thus reaffirming the strong support that the Canadian mining industry receives from the Canadian government.

With no respect for community consultations, local discontent, and the protection of a community cemetery, Aura Minerals, supported by the Canadian government is generating more violence in Honduras – one of the most violent countries in the world. As drones snap pictures of the faces of local residents protecting their community cemetery, and former military intelligence commanders protect the interests of foreign investment, Honduran communities are placed in increasingly vulnerable circumstances to the benefit and profit of the Canadian mining industry.

Photo caption: Approximately 120 houses built by Aura Minerals as part of an agreement with the community of Azacualpa. Aura agreed to build three different housing styles and 396 houses in total. Both the number, the styles, and additional community projects as part of the relocation process were violated by the mining company.

Photo caption: Climbing up to the community blockade, La Unión, Copan.

Two Educational Videos: ZEDEs & Tourism Projects on Garifuna Land

ZEDES: NEOCOLONIALISM AND LAND GRABBING IN HONDURAS

A new film about ZEDEs has been released on YouTube titled, “ZEDEs: neocolonialism and land grabbing in Honduras.” The 20-minute film was produced by members of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) with filmmaker Lazar Konforti and HSN Honduras Coordinator Karen Spring. The film highlights the personal struggles and the legal battles that are beginning to materialize now that ZEDE projects are being planned and developed in Honduras. Please disseminate this film to your contacts, social media, and add it to your organization's website or newsletter. There is no need to obtain permission for screenings. The Spanish version is available here. For further information, see the NLG International Committee website at nlginternational.org.

A National Lawyers Guild (NLG) delegation traveled to Honduras in August 2015 to produce this film documenting the looming threat of the first semi-autonomous zones, known as Zones for Economic Development and Employment (ZEDEs). For further information, access the NLG ZEDE report on the NLG International Committee website at nlginternational.org.

CANADIAN PORN KING ON TRIAL FOR TOURISM PROJECTS IN HONDURAS

On November 13th, 2015, Canadian tourism developer Randy Jorgensen, aka “The Porn King”, appeared in court on charges of illegally appropriating ancestral Garifuna lands. The court ruled partially in Jorgensen’s favour, choosing not to go to a full trial for the time being, but local communities smell corruption and vow to appeal this ruling in Honduran courts and keep on fighting all the way to international tribunals, meaning that Jorgensen’s and others’ investments remain in legal limbo and could still be in jeopardy.

On November 13th, 2015, Canadian tourism developer Randy Jorgensen, aka "The Porn King", appeared in court on charges of illegally appropriating ancestral Garifuna lands.

Check out the website Los Despojados for more great work by filmmaker Lazar Konforti