October 17, 2006

HONDURAS UPDATE: 514 YEARS OF INDIGENOUS, BLACK AND POPULAR RESISTANCE,
by sandra cuffe [caminando27@yahoo.es], October 13, 2006.

On (the infamous) October 12th, thousands of people and organizations
participated in mobilizations and marches in different parts of Honduras to
commemorate 514 years of indigenous, black and popular resistance. Far from
limiting themselves to the continental day of action of the Cry of the
Excluded, communities and organizations continue their ongoing work at the
local and national level.

Below is an update on some of the issues and organizations supported by
Rights Action:

* Unconstitutional Mining Law & Ongoing Enviro-Health Crisis (Urgent need
for funds to support comprehensive study into the contamination of water and
people);
* Garifuna Communities Continue to Struggle for Territorial Rights;
* COPINH Speaks Out Against the Dam Tiger(s);
* ADP Women’s Shelter & Artisan Workshop Burned Down … Again … Three women
and six children died in the fire! (Urgent need for funds to support the
Women’s shelter and the families of the victims)

EMERGENCY FUNDS are needed for:

- ADP, re-building the shelter and supporting the surviving families;
- the comprehensive study into the contamination of water and people;

TAX-DEDUCTIBLE DONATIONS:
Make check payable to "Rights Action" and mail to: United States: Box
50887, Washington DC, 20091-0887. Canada: 509 St. Clair Ave W, box73527,
Toronto ON, M6C-1C0. Credit-card donations: www.rightsaction.org.

For more information, see WHAT TO DO section, at bottom.

To get on-off this elist: info@rightsaction.org. Please re-distribute far
‘n’ wide.

***

THE UNCONSTITUTIONAL MINING LAW & ONGOING ENVIRO-HEALTH CRISIS

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court declared that 13 articles of Honduras’
General Mining Law are, in fact, UNCONSTITUTIONAL. Designed in the interests
of Canadian and U.S. mining companies, and approved in the wake of Hurricane
Mitch in 1998, the law has been the subject of multiple denouncements,
protests and reform attempts over the past few years.

The Supreme Court decision orders the National Congress to amend the
corresponding articles, which relate to crucial aspects of the Law,
including the nature of mining concessions (currently transferable,
divisible and transmittable), the legal nature of subsoil rights, forced
expropriation, workers’ rights, the environmental impact assessment process
(that currently does not take into account social impacts and are not
required before the granting of concession), environmental norms and
regulations, and the various (minimal and in some cases subject to
exemption) taxes.

However, the Supreme Court decision comes during a time of intense advocacy
and activism for the derogation and reform of the mining law both by
directly affected communities and local organizations such as the Siria
Valley Environmental Committee and by national movements such as the Civic
Alliance for Democracy (formed earlier this year in western Honduras and led
by Santa Rosa de Copan-based bishop Luis Santos), the National Coordination
of Popular Resistance and the Civic Alliance to Reform the General Mining
Law.

Thus, the struggle to pressure the Congress to ban open pit metallic mining,
to prohibit the use of harmful chemicals such as cyanide and to include
fundamental guarantees for environmental protection and the respect of
communities’ rights continues. Further challenges will concern the slew of
mining concessions granted under the unconstitutional law, as well as over a
hundred pending concession applications on hold due to successive
moratoriums dating back to August 2004, when the government announced that
no further licenses would be granted until the reform of the mining
legislation.

The communities directly affected by mining exploitation have been actively
participating in the movement for national policies reflecting their demands
for environmental, health and other community rights, despite the fact that
their own local reality does not stand to be affected by the reforms.

While the Siria Valley Environmental Committee continues to play an
important role on the issue, the organization also continues to struggle for
justice for the local communities affected by Glamis Gold’s San Martin gold
mine, including mine closure, comprehensive environmental mitigation and
indemnification for the serious health impacts in local communities.

Over the past few months, Glamis Gold subsidiary Entre Mares has
relentlessly paid for company messages to be published in key newspapers,
television channels and radio stations, lauding the benefits of the
company’s operations to local communities. The company continues to deny the
existence of contamination, despite evidence to the contrary presented both
by government institutions (revealing cyanide and heavy metal contamination
in several water sources) and by an independent report revealing alarmingly
high levels of contamination of cyanide and heavy metals in water sources,
as well as arsenic and lead concentrations in local community members’ blood
of up to triple the levels considered high and dangerous by the World Health
Organization.

The Siria Valley Environmental Committee is in urgent need of funds
[proposal available from Rights Action] to support a more comprehensive
study into the contamination of water and people in their communities and
the serious health crisis affecting the local population. This study will
serve to support and substantiate community and national advocacy for
radical mining legislation and policy reforms, as well as for future legal
actions. For more information or to support the Committee, contact:
caminando27@yahoo.es.

GARIFUNA COMMUNITIES CONTINUE TO STRUGGLE FOR TERRITORY

From September 24-29, hundreds of Garifuna community members affiliated with
the Honduran Fraternal Black Organization (OFRANEH) descended on
Tegucigalpa, with drums, high spirits, and a broad spectrum of demands
regarding the rights of the afro-indigenous Garifuna people. Sleeping and
dancing in the plaza underneath the Congress building and demonstrating
outside the Presidential Palace and various governmental institutions, the
group met with the National Congress president and later with Honduran
President Manuel Zelaya, who agreed to convoke officials from the key
ministries and institutions addressed in the communities’ demands.

The marathon negotiations resulted in important victories for a few of the
communities’ priorities, such as a detailed short-term agreement and funding
for the respect of the land rights of Punta Piedra. The community’s case was
brought before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and resulted in
an agreement between the community and government; however, the government
has yet to compensate and relocate the outsiders who have violently settled
within Garifuna communal lands.

Another major victory was the immediate dissolution of the ‘Wadabula’
Regional Garifuna Commission, a non-representative body created under the
previous government administration to carry out the World Bank-financed
Honduran Lands Administration Program (PATH, for its Spanish acronym) in the
Garifuna communities along the Caribbean coast. PATH and Wadabula have both
been denounced for the lack of community consultations and their promotion
of the individualization of communal land titles, using the highly contested
2004 Property Law as their legal basis.

Ofraneh also reiterated the demand to reform the Property Law, presenting a
proposal to replace the harmful Chapter III of Title V with a new chapter
based on the demarcation, recognition and respect of ancestral indigenous
and Garifuna communal territory.

The organization continues to work hard to move forward with the remaining
demands, many of which were left for future meetings.

Threats and hostility have continued against San Juan community leaders,
demonstrating the Honduran government’s failure to carry out the protective
measures ordered by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights for the
security of the lands and leaders of both San Juan and Triunfo de la Cruz.

While the municipal government of Tela has finally cancelled the contract
signed with real estate companies Idetrisa and Maserica concerning Triunfo
de la Cruz communal lands, tourism development and real estate speculation
continue to threaten the Garifuna communities of the Tela Bay.

Recently, a representative of the private investors in the Los Micos Beach &
Golf Resort announced that president Zelaya has offered an additional 500
hectares for the environmentally destructive mega-project, which includes a
golf course, villas, luxury hotels (to be operated by Hyatt and Hilton) and
more. The planned resort – financed in part by both the Inter-American
Development Bank (IADB) and the Central American Bank of Economic
Integration (CABEI) – sits along the coast between the Garifuna communities
of Tornabé and Miami and is located entirely within the buffer zone of the
Jeanette Kawas National Park, an important and fragile wetlands system
threatened by the golf course and constructions.

The creation in the 1990s of protected areas covering and controlling
ancestral Garifuna lands and resources has violated Garifuna territorial
rights in several cases. In the Cayos Cochinos (Hog Keys) just off the
coast, the basic rights to subsistence of the Garifuna people in the region
have been violated since the archipelago’s designation as a national park in
1993 by a series of actors: the Smithsonian Institute, the World Wildlife
Fund (WWF) and the AVINA Foundation (controlled by multi-millionaire Swiss
businessman Stephan Schmidheiny).

While no serious action has been taken to halt the illegal activities of
commercial fishing boats in the area, restrictions on the subsistance
fishing practices of the local Garifuna are rigorously enforced by the
private foundation in charge of the park’s management, along with the help
of the naval base in one of the larger keys. Over the last two months, the
community of Chachauate has actively denounced the militarization of their
small key, demanding the immediate withdrawal of the soldiers stationed on
Chachauate during the day, as well as a thorough revision of the
archipelago’s management plan in consultation with the local Garifuna
communities in order to guarantee the respect of their ancestral territorial
rights.

COPINH COMMUNITIES SPEAK OUT AGAINST THE TIGER(S)

Hundreds of people affiliated with the Civic Council of Grassroots and
Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) from communities in the
southwestern departments of La Paz, Intibucá and Lempira participated in
three days of activities in Tegucigalpa leading up to and including October
12.

A large and outspoken contingent from the communities threatened by the
bi-national El Tigre hydroelectric dam were present, denouncing the
Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) and Central American Bank for
Economic Integration (CABEI) for the frequent loans these international
financial institutions make to finance destructive mega-projects.

The communities also protested the Salvadoran government for its forceful
promotion of the El Tigre dam, despite the lack of consultations with the
estimated 20,000 people of indigenous and campesino communities in southern
Honduras who will be displaced and otherwise affected by the 70 square
kilometer reservoir. Communities on both sides of the border have made their
complete opposition to the dam clear on frequent occasions over the last few
years.

Only a week earlier, another demonstration organized by COPINH denounced a
Central American Presidential Summit taking place outside of Tegucigalpa to
discuss several ‘regional integration’ initiatives, i.e. Plan Puebla Panama.
A strong focus was placed on the euphemistic term ‘public security’, which
in effect refers to the regional militarization accompanying Plan Puebla
Panama to protect economic interests and the privatization of policing in
the name of the war on gangs and crime.

In Honduras, the decade-old divisions between the roles of the civilian
police force and the army are rapidly disappearing, with soldiers patrolling
the streets alongside the police. An added threat is the increasing
activities of private security companies operating with complete impunity
and their incursion into the realm of public security and policing.
Journalists and activists from the Association for a more Just Society (ASJ)
were recently threatened in the context of their investigations into the
activities of a local subsidiary of the Israeli company Delta Security.
These threats come on the heels of a visit to Honduras of a U.N. Commission
investigating mercenary activities in several Latin American countries,
including the para-military training on government property of Hondurans and
Chileans contracted by private security company Your Solution to work as
security guards in Iraq.

WOMEN’S SHELTER & ARTISAN WORKSHOP BURNED DOWN … AGAIN … THREE WOMEN AND SIX
CHILDREN DEAD

On October 5th, a fire consumed the women’s shelter run by the Association
for the Development of the Population (ADP), along with Luciérnaga, the
decorative candle-making workshop run collectively by the safe-house
beneficiaries. Three women and six children died in the fire. They had come
to the safehouse to break free of the cycle of gender violence and start new
lives.

Luciernaga was only beginning to recover its capacity in the shelter’s
temporary location being used since a fire also consumed the previous
building in 2004.

Despite high levels of violence against women, the shelter was one of very
few in the country. Attention, services and support for domestic violence
victims are especially rare outside of the main cities. Women who do make
formal denouncements and accusations are all too often confronted with more
abuse and lack of action by police and judicial authorities.

The relatives of those who did not make it out of the fire were accompanied
by friends, representatives of several women’s and human rights
organizations and the general public on October 6th beneath the National
Congress building, where they demanded that the government take serious
action to investigate the incident and bring those responsible to justice.
The same demands were reiterated concerning the murder of and violence
against women in general, despite Security Minister Alvaro Romero’s repeated
refusal of the Center for Women’s Rights’ petition to create special units
to investigate the murders of women.

While various organizations continue to advocate for priority government
action for women’s rights and services, ADP is in urgent need of emergency
support to re-establish the safehouse and workshop.

===

WHAT TO DO:

* The #1 line of work in favour of global justice and equality is to fund
and support local organizations so that they can lead their own struggles in
defense and promotion of development, the environment and human rights.
Rights Action channels your donations to dozens of community-based
organizations in Guatemala, Honduras, Haiti, Chiapas, El Salvador;
* Get involved in education and activism work in your home community
concerning the negative impacts of North American economic and military
policies on community-controlled development, the environment and the human
rights of local populations in Guatemala, Honduras, Haiti, Chiapas, El
Salvador;
* Consider coming to these counties on an educational-activist delegation;
* Invite us to give educational presentations in your home community;
* Get on our e-mail and snail-mail lists.

TAX-DEDUCTIBLE DONATIONS:
Make check payable to "Rights Action" and mail to: United States: Box
50887, Washington DC, 20091-0887. Canada: 509 St. Clair Ave W, box73527,
Toronto ON, M6C-1C0. Credit-card donations: www.rightsaction.org.

QUESTIONS, SUGGESTIONS:
info@rightsaction.org; 860-352-2152, www.rightsaction.org.