In Memory of Adolfo Castañeda, Campesino Leader in the Aguan Valley, Honduras

Adolfo Castañeda, May 2012.


I have an unforgettable moment of Adolfo Castañeda, an amazing campesino leader from the Bajo Aguan region of Honduras that died recently of natural causes (based on what is reported at the moment). Adolfo was a founding leader of the campesino movement in the 70s, a major opponent of the illegal land transfers under the Modernization Law in the 1990s, and lost his son who was murdered in Colon in 2014. He was a founding member of the United Campesino Movement of the Aguan (MUCA).

One day, I took a group to talk to him roughly an hour before dusk in northern Honduras. He stood under the African palm trees in La Aurora finca that he and the United Campesino Movement of Aguan (MUCA) were farming, occupying, and recuperating from large land owners in the Aguan Valley. He spoke with passion about his years of being part of a campesino movement fighting for land rights and a better life for his children, something that he insisted, he would never stop doing until the day he died.

Adolfo told us the way in which the US continued to support the Honduran government and military. He described all the repression he had faced over the years as a campesino leader fighting for land in Honduras including how he learned how to stand against the trunks of the African palm trees and slowly circulating under them to avoid the bright light that helicopters would shine into the fincas in search of campesinos occupying the land.

He told us that he wasn't angry at us (American and Canadian citizens) for what our governments do on their imperialist missions to promote their economic interests but insisted that we go home and tell everyone what was happening in Honduras and how land was being stolen from poor campesinos for agrobusiness. He was so articulate and so proud to share his analysis - understanding what was happening inside his finca against his compañer@s and land while connecting it with US foreign policy in Honduras.

After hearing such powerful words, myself and other members of the group, got back into the car. It was almost dark but we could still make out the African palm trees inside the finca. As we started the vehicle and drove away, Adolfo walked back into the palm trees. He didn't look back at us, just simply walked into the haunting shadows of the large trees planted on the land that he had spent his life fighting for and defending.

RIP Adolfo Castañeda. Memories of you will live on in the struggles of the campesinos in the Aguan Valley.

Canada-based Aura Minerals Ready to Dig up the Dead in Honduras

In April 2014, the community of Azacualpa blocked the entrance of the San Andres mine in La Unión, Copan, in western Honduras. The open-pit gold mine is owned by Minerales de Occidente, a subsidiary of Toronto-based mining company, Aura Minerals who acquired the mine in August 2009.

A few weeks after initiating the blockade, the community was violently evicted by Honduran military and police who beat protesters including minors, shot tear gas, and arrested those that stuck around to fight the evict or that lived close to where it took place. Radio Progreso reports that various people were arrested and 21 community members face charges requiring them to sign before a Honduran judge every month.

According to a community member that asked that her name not be revealed because of the delicate security situation in the area: "A large group from the community and former employees of the mine blocked the entrance of the mine for .. some days, 15 days. The company refused to negotiate, they told us that they had nothing to say to us. The military arrived, beat, and captured some people .. I think 15 people, but I'm not sure, many were injured"

A 20-minute video shot on a community member's cell phone (that is shaky and needs some editing) caught and recorded the eviction:




Upon initiating the blockade, the residents of Azacualpa were protesting the expansion of the mining operation, including a potential threat that operations would expand into the community's cemetery. According to Radio Progreso's report, the Azacualpa residents agreed to be relocated to a new area before the operations expanded, but since the agreement was reached the company's commitment failed to materialized. However, despite the relocation agreement, the community leadership says that they did not want the company to operate in the cemetery, where approximately 400 families lay their loved ones to rest.

As Orlando Rodriguez, the Vice President of the patronato (the community leadership) told Radio Progreso:

"They [the mining company] want to exploit the land of the cemetery but the community is not in agreement, we have our public deed that gives us the power to prevent it. They claim that they have permission to exploit 50 metres from the cemetery, we as the elected community leadership decided to consult the people house-by-house and the majority do not agree that the remains in the cemetery are removed, but they have used force because they have militarized the area and continue to exploit."

Following the eviction, Honduran military remained in the community for approximately three weeks and Aura Minerals continues its operations that a community member described as "very close to the boundaries of the cemetery."

"They put military soldiers in the cemetery, there are only guards now but yes, after that, a lot of time passed, I think three weeks, that the military was patrolling. There were a lot of military cars patrolling the area. They were going to put up a big gate so that people could not enter [the cemetery]."

Ending a seven-year mining moratorium, the law was approved in January 2013. Mining operations - many of which are owned by transnational corporations - are expanding and/or beginning in various parts of Honduras. Canadian companies like Aura Minerals have directly benefited from the new legal framework that was written with support and assistance from the Canadian government and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). Since its approval last year, two legal challenges have been presented against the law and various communities and organizations argue that the process in which the law was written and the law itself, completely ignore the demands of communities that have and will be affected by mining operations in their territory.

Boats Seized in 'Drug War,' Unusable for Local Fishermen

Without getting too much into property and asset seizures of drug traffickers in Honduras, I found it interesting when I saw a handful of large, abandoned, high-speed boats (without motors) abandoned on the shore of an island in the Gulf of Fonseca, Honduras last week.

Seized from drug traffickers, the Honduran Administrating Office of Seized Good (Oficina Administradora de Bienes Incautados or OABI by its Spanish acronym) donated the boats to "three fishing organizations" in the Gulf of Fonseca for fishing or ecotourism. Along the shore where we visited, there were approximately 10 of these abandoned boats with Gobierno de la Republica: Working for a better life signs and a painted OABI with a number on them.

The local fisherman I was with told me about how they had been abandoned at the shore of the Gulf because no local fisherman would ever be able to afford to buy the size of motor that the boat requires. We were traveling in a small boat with a 40 horsepower motor which, based on the conversations between the friends I was with before departing, is somewhat large in comparison with the rest of the boat owners where we departed in Marcovia, Choluteca. The fisherman I was with joked that the boats were donated to fisherman but that they were totally unusable and thus abandoned.

Small boats used by local fishermen (on the left) versus big boats used by narcos to transport drugs (on the right)

Plans to Develop the Gulf of Fonseca Move Forward While Communities Say No to ZEDEs and "That Kind" of Development

By: Karen Spring

On August 14, 2014, the Presidents of Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador participated in the "Second Technical Preparatory Meeting - Gulf of Fonseca" in Managua, Nicaragua.

The Presidents were discussing the elaboration, implementation, and follow-up of "a master investment plan that assures the economic development of the Golf of Fonseca," a plan that would contain "proposals from each country in order to convert the Gulf of Fonseca into a site of sustainable economic development."

In the meeting, Juan Orlando Hernández (President of Honduras), Daniel Ortega (President of Nicaragua), and Salvador Sánchez Cerén (President of El Salvador) defined their nations' interests in projects that would develop the Gulf and came to an agreement on investments in the following sectors: Infrastructure, tourism, agroindustry, and renewable energy.

The meeting declaration outlines 12 agreements that were reached and mentions interest in the development of various projects that would facilitate transportation between the three nations and development in the Gulf. These projects include: a ferry from the La Union Port in El Salvador to Port Corinto in Nicaragua, and a ferry or shuttle from La Union, El Salvador to Potosi, Nicaragua expanding to Amapala and San Lorenzo.

Locals transporting people from Coyolito to Amapala, Oct. 23, 2014

The report also mentions the "implementation of a Employment and Economic Development Zone (ZEDE) [known as a Model City] that includes a logistics park." The idea is to convert the Gulf into a "Free Trade and Sustainable Development Zone."

The Amapala dock on the Isla del Tigre, Honduras, October 23, 2014

The declaration itself as well as articles in Honduran national newspapers report that President Juan Orlando Hernandez will request financial assistance for this infrastructure - including a large dock between Coyolito and Amapala - from South Korea, the Central American Bank of Economic Integration (BCIE), and the InterAmerican Development Bank (BID). Shortly after these announcements, on September 5, 2014, La Prensa wrote that the BID would finance $7.9 million for projects in the Gulf - $6.6 million for the "Regional Economic Development of the Gulf of Fonseca" and $1.3 million for "Value Chain and Rural Business" program(s). This specific contribution is not the only international loans contributing to 'development' in the Gulf of Fonseca.

Approximately one month later, President Hernandez along with other Central American Presidents, presented the "Prosperity Partnership Plan for the Development of the Gulf of Fonseca" to the United States government and the United Nations during a trip to Washington. This Plan is being proposed as one solution to the "constant and growing migration" to the United States, a topic that has picked up pace since the child migration issue became a hot topic in mainstream North American media.

RESISTANCE IN SOUTHERN HONDURAS: COMMUNITIES CONVERGE IN AMAPALA

The march against the ZEDEs in Amapala, October 23, 2014

Last week on October 23, communities and individuals from all over Southern Honduras (El Transito, Nacaome, Amapala, Zacate Grande, Tegucigalpa, etc) crossed the beautiful Gulf of Fonseca - from Coyolito to Amapala - to participate in a march against the ZEDE project proposed for the area. While some participants handed out copies of the ZEDE law, over 500 people marched from the Amapala dock to the municipality office.

Over 500 people waiting for the boats to cross the Golf of Fonseca to participate in the march. Oct. 23, 2014.

One participate from Amapala told me (as was reported in the Honduran press) that three mayors from southern Honduras, including the mayor of Amapala had recently (in July or August 2014) traveled to South Korean to learn about a potential Korean investment in a megaport in Amapala. Since his return, mayor Santos Cruz Guevara, has organized three cabildo abiertos or information sessions in Amapala to inform the population of his trip including that the South Koreans would be conducting a feasibility study in the region in the coming months.

Shortly afterword, one woman in Amapala reports seeing foreigners - thought to be from Korea - measuring land on her property. When asked what they were doing, the group responded that they were measuring land for a project they wanted to build on the island.

Although there are proposals to construct ZEDEs in other parts of Honduras (like in Trujillo for example), the communities participating in the march last week worry that the project has advanced rapidly without informing or consulting the local population as to its specifics or impacts. Many complain of the lack of transparency in which the Honduran government has promoted the project and ZEDEs in general, as well as the potential exacerbation of existing land conflicts if the Honduran government decides to move forward.

The individuals, organizations, and communities in attendance at the march reaffirmed their desire for community development in southern Honduras but emphasized that they were against "that kind" of development or large-scale, top-down, non-participatory, neoliberal development like the ZEDEs/Model Cities.

Sign reads: "Model Cities = surrendering sovereignty, looting, and militarization", Oct. 23, 2014

Karen has lived and worked in Honduras and Central America since 2008 and currently is the Honduras Coordinator for the Honduras Solidarity Network (HSN).

Transportation Strike in Tegucigalpa: Another Sign of Failure of the Honduras-US-SICA Security Strategy

Today, the Urban Transportation Union and the Taxi Driver Association of Honduras called a general transportation strike in Tegucigalpa. The transportistas are protesting the high levels of violence and insecurity, and are demanding justice for assassinations of transportation operators that have occurred in the last few weeks.

Oscar Castillo, the President of the Taxi Driver Association of Honduras told El Heraldo, a national Honduran newspaper that taxi drivers had the moral obligation to support the bus drivers, who first initiated the strike, because violence affects the entire transportation sector. Speaking about recent deaths of transportistas, Castillo told El Heraldo, “Only us taxi drivers, they have killed 44 comrades throughout 2014, the situation that the sector is living through is unsustainable and now no one wants to work with us out of fear.”

The final straw that initiating the strike was the murder of 28-year old Javier Antonio Ortega, a driver of a small bus or rapidito as they are called in Honduras. Ortega worked on the route between the National Autonomous University (UNAH) and the neighbourhood El Carrizal and was killed on the Boulevard Fuerzas Armadas, known as the “corridor of death” because of the number of individuals working in the public transportation sector that have been killed on the road.

Traveling in public buses and collective taxis (known as colectivos) is like entering a life-death lottery. One never really knows if they will reach their final destination without being robbed, killed, deeply traumatized from seeing something horrendous or all of the above. Heck, no one is safe from potential attacks of the Military Police themselves, who shot at a passenger bus in Tegucigalpa a few weeks ago, injuring four people.

Sign reads: "Mr. President and the results of the Security Tax ... when?"

Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez created the Military Police and the TIGRES, yet - as the transportation sector is stating - have not improved the security situation in the country. Under the ex-President, Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo, the Honduran military were sent to the streets, and 3 years later, the homicide rate still remains one of the highest in the world.

Since the Merida Initiative was launched in 2008, and later the United States’ Central American Regional Security Strategy (CARSI) was folded into the Central American Integration System (SICA)- Central American Security Strategy (CASS), the homicide rate has skyrocketed. One of the intentions of SICA-CASS is to create safer streets and citizen security in Honduras - a goal that has not been achieved through militarizing the Honduran police, creating elite hybrid police-military units, and 'cleaning-up' the Honduran police.

Today’s strike of the transportation sector is another reminder of the failure of the Honduran security strategy that receives millions of dollars of support and training from the US and Canada governments.