On June 5, paramilitaries stabbed and wounded Feliciano Pineda, a leader of the Montaña Verde community in Gracias municipality, Lempira department in western Honduras. Pineda was left in critical condition with stab wounds to his face, neck, back, sides and hands, and a blow to his spine. Community members took Pineda to a hospital in Tegucigalpa, but despite his precarious state of health, agents from the General Department of Criminal Investigation (DGIC) transferred him in chains to the regional jail in Gracias, where he remains. (Rights Action 6/10/05; Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Populares e Indígenas de Honduras (COPINH) Urgent Alert 6/10/05) The Civic Council of Grassroots and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) points out that the DGIC is run by Napoleón Nazar, who in the 1980s belonged to an army death squad linked to the disappearance of more than 150 activists. (Prensa Latina 6/10/05)
The paramilitaries who shot Pineda have been identified by eyewitnesses as Delfino Reyes, Santos Reyes, Pablo Reyes and Cecilio Reyes, some of whom were involved in the January 8, 2003, violent arrest and subsequent torture of Montaña Verde Lenca indigenous council members Leonardo and Marcelino Miranda, as well as in legal proceedings as false witnesses against Montaña Verde community leaders. The Miranda brothers remain jailed in Gracias since their arrest. (RA 6/10/05; COPINH Urgent Alert 6/10/05)
The four paramilitaries were briefly detained but were then granted conditional freedom by Gracias judge Atiliano Vásquez. Vásquez previously served as the private accusing lawyer in two politically motivated cases against Montaña Verde community leaders; after becoming a judge, he was put in charge of all the Montaña Verde cases and has consistently issued flawed rulings against community members. (RA 6/10/05)
COPINH is calling for messages of protest to President Ricardo Maduro (fax #504-221-4552, 221-4545, 221-4647); Supreme Court president Vilma Morales (504-233-8089, 234-2367); and Congress president Porfirio Lobo Sosa (504-238-6048, 222-3471, 237-0663). Rights Action also suggests contacting U.S. ambassador to Honduras Larry Palmer (fax #504-236-9037); Honduran ambassador to the U.S. Mario Miguel Canahuati (fax #202-966-9751, embassy@hondurasemb.org); and Human Rights Commissioner Ramón Custodio López (fax #504-232-6894, custodiolopez@conadeh.hn); with copies to COPINH at fax 504-783-0817, copinhonduras@yahoo.es. (COPINH Urgent Alert 6/10/05; RA 6/10/05)
On June 8, police and local judicial authorities carried out a violent eviction of the Lenca indigenous community of Golondrinas, in Marcala municipality, La Paz department. Police beat up and arrested dozens of community members, stole work tools and other property and bulldozed the entire community's homes and property to the ground. The land had been abandoned for 25 years when the community began squatting it in May 2004, and although the National Agrarian Institute (INA) ruled that the lands belonged to the municipality of Marcala, they have now been transferred to a private construction company, ASOTRAMM. (RA 6/10/05; PL 6/10/05; Community Member's Eyewitness Report posted on indigena.nodo50.org 6/15/05)
In other news, some 500 members of the gay and lesbian community of San Pedro Sula marched on June 4, demanding respect for their rights. (La Prensa (Honduras) 6/5/05).
