HONDURAS Documentary Film: "LOWER AGUAN RIVER VALLEY: The Clamor for Land"
2013 is a crucial year in Honduras' future as a society and State. There will be elections in November 2013. Will the elections be in any way free and fair? With little doubt, the new LIBRE Party (Freedom and Refoundation Party) -- that has grown out of the people's pro-democracy movement in opposition to the post-June 2009 military coup, and to the military-backed regime that has rule Honduras since then -- would win elections that are actually free and fair.
However, since the June 28, 2009, military coup, Honduras has become the most violent and arguably the most repressive country in the Americas. The levels of State repression today are similar to the years of U.S.-backed military repression in the 1980s. Being targeted for repression, now, are people associated with the pro-democracy "National Resistance Front" and, more recently, with the newly formed LIBRE party.
"LOWER AGUAN RIVER VALLEY: The Clamor for Land"
One of the most repressive and violent regions of Honduras, since the 2009 coup, is the Lower Aguan river region of northern Honduras, where the country's largest and wealthiest land-owner, Miguel Facusse (also a direct supporter of the 2009 military coup), is using extreme levels of repression - often supported by the military and police - to forcibly and illegally evict campesino communities from their lands, so as to increase his cultivation of African Palm trees and sugar-cane for the production and sale of "green energy" (bio-diesel and ethanol fuels) to global energy markets. Over 80 campesinos have been assassinated in this region alone.
TO VIEW: http://blip.tv/play/AYOMvEsA.html?p=1
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BACKGROUND:
HONDURAS TURNS DEADLY
(25 minutes, December 15, 2011, by Al Jazeera's Inside Story)
The Inside Story tries to contextualize the violence in Honduras, featuring Annie Bird and Rodolfo Pastor, as well as VisionAmericas lobbyist Jose Cardenas. Honduras has the highest per capita murder rate in the world and is one of the deadliest countries for journalists following the 2009 military coup d'etat.
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestory/2011/12/20111216125529588221.html
REPORT FROM LAND OCCUPATIONS IN POST-COUP HONDURAS
(9:45 minutes, March 31, 2011, by The Real News)
Poor farmers are taking land from agribusiness that supported the 2009 military coup - and paying with their lives
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=6513
HONDURAN POLICE BURN COMMUNITY TO THE GROUND
(8:40 minute, July 31, 2011, by The Real News)
Homes, churches, schools, and crops all destroyed as the post-coup government continues to side with wealthy plantation owners over the country's organized farmers
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=272
Rights Action (info@rightsaction.org)
Please send copies of this information, and your own letters, to your Canadian and American politicians (MPs, Congress members and Senators) and to your own media. Since the June 2009 military coup, that ousted the democratically elected government of President Zelaya, Honduras has become the 'Murder Capital of the world'. State repression has again reached the levels of the worst years of the 1980s.
Since the coup, the U.S. and Canadian governments have 'legitimized the illegitimate' post-coup regime. North American companies and investors have increased their business activities in Honduras since the coup. In no small part, this regime remains in power due to its political, economic and military relations with the U.S. and Canada.
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THE “GIFT” OF THE HONDURAN MILITARY COUP THAT KEEPS ON GIVING: Honduras’ exceedingly high levels of violence and State repression, corruption and impunity are rooted in the June 2009 military coup that has been legitimized and supported by the U.S. and Canada. There are no signs that this repression, violence, corruption and impunity will decrease, even as a majority of Hondurans courageously support the LIBRE political party that will participate in the September 2013 presidential elections … in a hope of putting an end to their nightmare.
On Al Jazeera, "Inside Story America" talks with Annie Bird (Rights Action) and Alberto Arce about whether the US state department is misleading Congress about possible US funding for Honduran death squads?
At 4am on December 12, 2012, the Honduran congress removed four out of the five judges that comprise the Constitutional Court of the Honduran Supreme Court. Honduran legal experts call this a technical coup, a violation by the National Congress of the constitutional order, explaining that the Congress has no legal capacity to summarily dismiss judges.
Art icle “Inside the world's deadliest country: Honduras ” – provides little context as to why Honduras is now the “world’s deadliest country”, it provides a somewhat stark description of what it is like to live there, from one foreign journalist’s perspective.
As predicted after the June 28, 2009 coup in Honduras, the military-backed regime now in power is passing a new, corporate-friendly mining law that will usher in a new wave of mining exploration and extraction in what has become the 'murder capital of the world' and is the most repressive country in the Americas.
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