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September 2022 Newsletter
Honduras painstakingly rebuilding democracy & rule of law
Guatemala further gutting democracy & rule of law
https://mailchi.mp/rightsaction/september-newsletter
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~ Honduras ~
After President Xiomara Castro won the November 27, 2021 elections, putting end to 12 years and 7 months of the corrupt, repressive, U.S. and Canadian-backed Honduran narco-regime, Grahame Russell wrote:
“It is hard to overstate the amount of death, destruction and suffering caused by this regime, from the day of the military coup (June 28, 2009) through to the January 27, 2022 inauguration of President Xiomara Castro of the LIBRE party.
It is impossible to know exactly how many 100s of 1000s of Hondurans were forced to flee into exile, trying to find safe haven in Mexico or the U.S. from the ravages of this government, since the 2009 coup.
The incoming government inherits a treasury, a government, State and judiciary hollowed out and/or corrupted by the regime headed by narco-trafficking President Juan Orlando Hernandez and the National Party. Organized crime infiltrated most branches of the government and State, including the military and police.”
Nothing easy
We invite you to read these articles/reports assessing some of the challenges the new government is facing, providing updates on community defense struggles Rights Action supports.
Socialist President Xiomara Castro Is Trying to Revive Democracy in Honduras
By Hilary Goodfriend, July 22, 2022
https://jacobin.com/2022/07/honduras-socialist-president-xiomara-castro-democracy-libre-party
With a mandate for transformation and high popular expectations, Castro faces significant challenges in a context of profound systemic crisis. The 2009 military coup that ousted Castro’s husband, democratically elected president Manuel Zelaya of the Liberal Party, plunged Honduras into chaos. The ensuing far-right regime was sustained by military force and brazen electoral fraud.
The Survivors of Cayos Cochinos
By Carlos Martinez, El Faro news, July 31, 2022
https://elfaro.net/en/202207/centroamerica/26304/The-Survivors-of-Cayos-Cochinos.htm
A moving report about historic and on-going racism, repression and land-theft against the indigenous Garifuna people of Honduras, about tourism imperialism, with a particular focus on the spectacle of the filming of the Supervivientes (Survivors Spain) reality TV show.
“We Don’t Even Know Where the Remains of our Loved Ones Are”
By Allison Lira, August 3, 2022
https://nacla.org/honduras-mining-azacualpa
The embattled Azacualpa community continues to resist the ever-expanding, illegal mine of U.S. company Aura Minerals, desecrating a 200-year-old cemetery, destroying communities and mountains.
U.S. Trained Special Forces Involved in Drug Trafficking and Gangs in Honduras
By Karen Spring, June 10, 2022
https://www.hondurasnow.org/new-documents-highlight-u-s-trained-special-forces-involved-in-drug-trafficking-and-gangs/
A sobering reminder how the narco-dictatorship was empowered and enabled by the “international community”, led by the U.S. government.
BERTA SOY YO
Who killed Berta Caceres, and for what reasons?
https://mailchi.mp/rightsaction/berta-soy-yoreleased-today
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With great emotion, Rights Action shares information about this moving film directed and filmed over 9 years by Katia Lara and her team.
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BERTA SOY YO (Spanish with English subtitles) provides deeper insight into the life, vision and struggles of Berta Cáceres, assassinated late on the night of March 2, 2016, in La Esperanza, Intibuca, Honduras.
Multiplying Berta's vision, dignity and leadership
Rights Action encourages everyone to follow Berta Soy Yo's social media feeds, and share their information widely. Rights Action encourages you to promote the screening of the film in your communities and theaters.
More information, COPINH
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~ Guatemala ~
The articles above (and others found at www.rightsaction.org) highlight the challenges Honduras’ new government is confronting one by one, pushing hard in a positive direction for the first time in 13 years.
The same cannot be said about Guatemala, whose repressive, ‘open-for-global-business’ regime is enabled and empowered by governments of the U.S., Canada and Europe, the World Bank and IMF, and countless global companies and banks.
Weaponizing the legal system
Since 2016, this “international community” has watched in silence as the regime carries out a systemic campaign of weaponizing the legal system to persecute and criminalize mainly indigenous land, environment and rights defenders across the country, together with a campaign to criminalize or force into exile dozens of judges, lawyers and prosecutors working on crimes against humanity, war crimes and organized crimes trials, including drug traffickers who have infiltrated all branches of the government and institutions of the state.
"We are spectators of how a country is going down the drain"
Prensa Comunitaria, June 20, 2022
https://mailchi.mp/rightsaction/guatemalan-regime-using-criminal-law-to-persecute-judges-prosecutors
Persecuted Judge Miguel Angel Galvez explains:
"We return to the issue of instrumentalizing criminal law, making the law a monopoly of a group of people. In this context, justice is a matter of power and not control of power. This is worrying, because it means that we are spectators of how a country is going down the drain.”
Stop the criminalisation of indigenous human rights defender María Choc, one of hundreds of cases of ‘criminalization’ of land, environment and indigenous rights defenders
By Lazar Konforti, June 1, 2022
https://mailchi.mp/rightsaction/stop-criminalisation-of-guatemalan-indigenous-defender-mara-choc
Focusing on one case Rights Action supports, this article explains why the elites are weaponizing the legal system to try and jail and silence Maria Choc.
Maya Q’eqchi’ land & environment defenders vs Mining: A 60-year human rights & justice struggle. Action & funds needed
https://mailchi.mp/rightsaction/qeqchi-land-environment-defenders-vs-mining
A special funding appeal for the land and environment defense, justice and human rights struggles – including the defense of Maria Choc – that Rights Action supports, since 2004, in the Maya Q’eqchi’ territories of eastern Guatemala.
The Exile of Guatemala’s Anti-Corruption Efforts
By Jonathan Blitzer, The New Yorker, April 29, 2022
https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/the-exile-of-guatemalas-anti-corruption-efforts
Funding appeal from FAMDEGUA
Despite the persecution and weaponization of the legal system, the Family Members of the Disappeared in Guatemala continue to support crimes against humanity and war crimes trials – including the Military Diary.
https://mailchi.mp/rightsaction/raising-funds-for-military-diary-crimes-against-humanity-trial
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~ Forced migrancy & refugee flight continue ~
With no hope, in the foreseeable future, of addressing let alone transforming the underlying causes, forced migrants and refugees continue to flee Central America, and are again in the news.
53 forced migrants and refugees die gruesome death in Texas
By Grahame Russell, Rights Action, July 1, 2022
https://mailchi.mp/rightsaction/53-forced-migrants-refugees-die-gruesome-death-in-texas
The White House's Plan to Stem Migration Protects Corporate Profits, Not People
By Brigitte Gynther & Azadeh Shahshahani, August 2, 2022
https://inthesetimes.com/article/kamala-harris-joe-biden-migration-root-causes-central-america-corporate-profit
In response to the on-going forced flight of so many, the U.S. government put forth President Biden’s plan “to address the root causes”. The writers explain how this latest economic/ political plan – endorsed by the “international community” - will further entrench the reasons people are forced to leave home and country.
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“Jim Deva Prize for Writing That Provokes”
Rights Action is pleased that TESTIMONIO: Canadian Mining in the Aftermath of Genocides in Guatemala is a finalist for the Jim Deva Prize (part of the annual BC & Yukon Book Prizes, https://bcyukonbookprizes.com/) awarded annually for “writing that challenges or provokes the ideas and forces that shape what society can become.”
Just what is it that TESTIMONIO might provoke?
By Grahame Russell, July 19, 2022
https://mailchi.mp/rightsaction/finalist-for-jim-deva-prize
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Rights Action is also pleased that Border and Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism, by Harsha Walia (https://mailchi.mp/rightsaction/border-and-rule-by-harsha-walia), is also a finalist for the Jim Deva Prize, and recommends her book.
“Colonial coups, capitalist trade agreements, climate change and oppression
[are] the primary drivers of displacement from Mexico and Central America.”
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November 5-13, 2022
Educational Fact-Finding Delegation To Guatemala
If you are an educator / writer / journalist, and interested in learning more about and writing about the range of issues addressed in TESTIMONIO: Canadian Mining in the Aftermath of Genocides in Guatemala, please consider joining this trip led by Grahame Russell (Rights Action) and Professor Catherine Nolin (UNBC), co-editors and writers of the book.
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Your funds at work
Most every land and environment defense struggle, and human rights and justice struggle that Rights Action supports in Guatemala and Honduras plays itself in these inter-generational conditions of government and economic elites corruption and repression … all enabled by and beneficial to the so-called “international community”.
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Tax deductible donations (Canada / U.S.)
To support the work and struggles of the communities we support in Guatemala and Honduas:
Checks should be payable to 'Rights Action' and mailed to:
- U.S.: Box 50887, Washington DC, 20091-0887
- Canada: (Box 552) 351 Queen St. E, Toronto ON, M5A-1T8
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