Bajo Aguán in Honduras: Serious human rights violations
In the province of Bajo Aguán in Honduras a serious conflict about land rights between farmers' organisations and two palm oil producers are resulting in assassinations and disappearances. In a new video victims and eye witnesses give us their terrible stories about the ongoing abuses of human rights. The video has subtitles in English:
Video about the serious human rights violations in Bajo Aguán, Honduras
50 persons assassinated
Between September 2009 and June 2012, 48 individuals and a journalist and his partner have been assassinated in the province of Bajo Aguán in Honduras. A peasant remains disappeared since June 2011. Se also update below about the murder of one human rights lawyer and one prosecutor.
Very few investigations have been performed by Honduran authorities and none has concluded in a concrete result or judicial process.
Farmers rights to their land in conflict with palm oil producers
The background is a serious conflict on land, where the peasant organisations claim their rights, opposed by two palm oil producers.
In this 18 minutes long video, the victims, or their relatives, tell their terrible story about human rights abuses in Bajo Aguán. The video has subtitles in English.
Update: Human rights lawyer and prosecutor murderded
The serious human rights situation in Honduras now also includes the murder of the human rights lawyer Antonio Trejo on September 22, and the human rights prosecutor Eduardo Díaz on September 24. The international networks that Diakonia is a member of have issued a pronouncement reiterating the recommendations contained in the Declaration of the International Public Hearing on the situation of human rights in peasant communities in Bajo Aguán, adepted on May 28 2012.
Antonio Trejo represented peasant cooperatives of the Bajo Aguán region. After 18 years of litigation he achieved that a Civil Trial Court ruled that the acquisition of 1,776 hectares by two businessmen was illegal and restitute the right to land to the peasants. Trejo had already reported threats to him and his family to state authorities and to the UN Special Rapporteur Margaret Sekaggya.
Diakonia and the Baju Aguán conflict
Since the Coup d'Etat in Honduras in June 2009 Honduran civil society organisations, among them Diakonia’s partners, alongside with civil society networks in Latin America, the US and Europe have highlighted the serious human rights situation in the country, where Bajo Aguán has been among the worst examples of the lack of rule of law.
Public hearing in May 2012
In order to pay international attention to Bajo Aguán, civil society organisations and networks organized a public hearing in Bajo Aguán in May 2012. Diakonia attended the meeting together with many other international organisations. The Inter American Human Rights Commission, the EU Delegation and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights assisted as observers.
Diakonia is an international development organization with Christian values that works together with local partner organizations for sustainable change for the most vulnerable people in the world.
Revised
Read more about Diakonia's and our partner organizations' work in Honduras