Rights Action
July 16, 2021
*******
July 18 - 1st anniversary of forced kidnapping & disappearance of four Garifuna Indigenous land & rights defenders in Honduras
https://mailchi.mp/rightsaction/1st-anniversary-of-disappearance-of-garifuna-four
The four men – Garifuna land defenders - were forcibly disappeared from their families and community by agents of the military-backed, drug-trafficking Honduran government that (ever since the 2009 coup ousted Honduras’ last democratically elected government) maintains full economic and military relations with the US, Canada and European Union, World Bank, IDB and IMF, and many global companies and investors.
Global call for solidarity. Show your solidarity for the victims of forced disappearances,
for their families, for OFRANEH
On July 18, 2020, around 5:00am, approximately 30 heavily armed men wearing Police Investigation Directorate (DPI) uniforms and vests, identifying themselves as such, entered the Garífuna community of Triunfo de la Cruz, department of Atlántida, Honduras. They violently detained the president of Triunfo de la Cruz, Alberth Sneider Centeno, along with Milton Joel Martínez Álvarez, Suami Aparicio Mejía García and Gerardo Misael Trochez Calix.
Since then, their whereabouts are unknown.
It is hard to overstate the complicity and responsibility of the US, Canadian and European community governments, and other “international actors”, that empower and enable the drug-trafficking, repressive government of President Juan Orlando Hernandez to remain in power.
As we have done since 1998, Rights Action will continue to fund and support OFRANEH (Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras) that spear-heads visionary work and struggle along Honduras north shore in defense of Garifuna lands and territories, human rights and the environment.
Via OFRANEH, we support SUNLA, the Committee for the Search and Investigation of the Disappeared of Triunfo de la Cruz. (https://mailchi.mp/rightsaction/sunla-investigation-into-disappearance-of-garifuna-land-defenders)
Rights Action will also continue to chip away at the complicity and impunity of the US, Canada and European Union, World Bank, IDB and IMF, and global companies and investors in the sectors of tourism and African palm production that employ systemic violence and corruption to steal Garifuna lands, evict families and communities, so as to invest in tourism operations and African palm production.
“In the last two years alone, more than forty Garifuna have been murdered and a large number of others have fled their communities due to threats, criminalization and persecution.”
Miriam Miranda, General Coordinator of OFRANEH
*******
Tax-Deductible Donations (Canada & U.S.)
To support land, human rights and environmental defender groups in Honduras and Guatemala, like OFRANEH & the SUNLA justice struggle, and COVID and hurricane relief work, make check to "Rights Action" and mail to:
- U.S.: Box 50887, Washington DC, 20091-0887
- Canada: (Box 552) 351 Queen St. E, Toronto ON, M5A-1T8
|
|
