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