Honduras: Anti-Mining Activists Report Death Threats

5 July 2013 Mem­bers of com­mu­ni­ties oppos­ing open-pit min­ing in the north­ern Hon­duran depart­ment of Atlán­ti­da have received death threats because of their activitism, accord­ing to a June 7 com­mu­niqué issued by the Broad Move­ment for Dig­ni­ty and Jus­tice (MADJ) and the Atlán­ti­da Envi­ron­men­tal­ist Move­ment (MAA). The groups said police agents in the ser­vice of Lenir Pérez, own­er of the Alutech met­al com­pa­ny, assault­ed mem­bers of the Nue­va Esper­an­za com­mu­ni­ty on June 3, intim­i­dat­ing them and mak­ing death threats. On June 6 the res­i­dents received addi­tion­al death threats from a group of “heav­i­ly armed men” oper­at­ing in the area with the sup­port of the nation­al police, the com­mu­niqué charged. The groups blamed Tela munic­i­pal­i­ty may­or David Zac­caro, who “instead of sup­port­ing the com­mu­ni­ties has made com­mon cause with the mine own­ers, espe­cial­ly Lenir Pérez…who is car­ry­ing out vio­lence and pro­vok­ing the com­mu­ni­ties.”

In a sep­a­rate state­ment, a Catholic group, the Caret­ian Mis­sion­ar­ies, charged on June 10 that “alleged minework­ers” had made threats by text mes­sage on Jan. 28 to Father César Espinoza, a priest who oppos­es the min­ing, and to nuns in the group. The MADJ and the MAA asked for nation­al and inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions to write to Human Rights Min­is­ter Ana Pine­da (apineda@sjdh.gob.hn), Direc­tor of Pro­tec­tion for Human Rights Defend­ers Rodil Vazquez (rvasquez@sjdh.gob.hn), May­or Zac­caro (alcaldiadetela@yahoo.com) and oth­er offi­cials to ask the gov­ern­ment to end the repres­sion and the threats. (Religión Dig­i­tal (Madrid) 6/15/13; Adi­tal (Brazil) 6/25/13)

Mean­while, vio­lence con­tin­ues against campesinos demand­ing land in north­ern Hon­duras’ Low­er Aguán Val­ley. On the morn­ing of May 30 gun­men on a motor­cy­cle shot campesino leader Mar­vin Arturo Trochez Zúñi­ga and his son Dar­win Alexan­der Trochez dead while they were drink­ing cof­fee in their res­i­dence in La Cei­ba, Atlántida’s depart­men­tal cap­i­tal. Mar­vin Trochez’s wife was seri­ous­ly injured. The dou­ble mur­der brings the num­ber of campesinos killed in the dis­pute since Jan­u­ary 2010 to 104, accord­ing to the North Amer­i­can group Rights Watch.

Mar­vin Trochez was active in the Campesino Move­ment of Nation­al Recla­ma­tion (MCRN). He was a lead­ing fig­ure in the June 2011 occu­pa­tion of the Paso Aguán estate, which is man­aged by cook­ing oil mag­nate Miguel Facussé Barjum’s Grupo Dinant com­pa­ny; at least five peo­ple, includ­ing four secu­ri­ty guards, were killed in a vio­lent con­fronta­tion there on Aug. 14, 2011 [see Update #1093]. A year lat­er, on Aug. 9, 2012, Mar­vin Trochez’s old­est son, also named Mar­vin, was killed on the estate along with anoth­er campesino iden­ti­fied only as “Car­los.” Three more MCRN mem­bers, Orlan­do Cam­pos, Rey­nal­do Rivera Paz and José Omar Rivera Paz, were shot dead on Nov. 3 [see Update #1151]. Fear­ing for his own life, Mar­vin Trochez began car­ry­ing a hand­gun, but this led to his arrest for ille­gal weapons pos­ses­sion. He even­tu­al­ly went into hid­ing with his fam­i­ly in La Cei­ba, where he had rel­a­tives. (La Haine (Spain) 6/5/13 from Movimien­to Unifi­ca­do Campesino del Aguán (MUCA); Rights Action press release 6/6/13 via Scoop (New Zealand))