Congress
Article "HONDURAN POLICE ACCUSED AS DEATH SQUADS" by Alberto Arce, Associated Press, May 13, 2013
At 9:30pm, Saturday May 11, three heavily armed men assassinated Jose Omar Perez Menjivar, the 37 year-old president of the Los Laureles community business, in the Concepcion settlement, that belongs to the Unified Campesino Movement of Aguan (MUCA), as he was returning from his mother-in-law's house, in the company of his wife, in the Laureles neighborhood of Tocoa, Colon .
Closing arguments were made today (May 9, 2013) in the genocide trial against retired Generals Rios Montt and Rodriguez Sanchez in Guatemala City. The prosecution has asked for a 75 year prison sentence for the two generals. A decision is pending.
1. HONDURAN DEATH SQUAD MURDERS IN AGUAN VALLEY : Reflections On Rights Action Report
2. SIGN-ON LETTER TO WORLD BANK: World Bank Loans Linked To Murders In Aguan Valley
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?
Mining exploration and exploitation in the Siria Valley (municipalities of San Ignacio, Cedros and El Porvenir), began in 1995 and intensified after Hurricane Mitch (1998). The General Mining Law was approved on November 30, 1998, one month after Hurricane Mitch. It was published in the official “la Gaceta” on February 6, 1999 and came into force in 2000.
No sooner was the blatantly colonial charter city project in Honduras declared unconstitutional by the Honduran Supreme Court last year than it found itself back on the agenda. The gist of the project is the creation of free-market enclaves on Honduran territory that are unaccountable to national laws and are instead governed by foreign corporate interests.
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.
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Rep. Hank Johnson (GA-04) and 57 colleagues sent a letter today to Secretary of State John Kerry and Attorney General Eric Holder calling for the investigation of alleged abuses by Honduran security forces and the possible role DEA agents played in a shooting incident that led to the tragic death of four indigenous villagers on the Patuca River in northeastern Honduras.
