INDIGENOUS TOLUPANES JOIN THE INDIGNADOS HUNGER STRIKE IN TEGUCIGALPA

PUBLIC COMMUNIQUE

Original Spanish version on: http://redefensorashn.blogspot.com/2015/07/indigenas-tolupanes-se-unen-la-huelga.html

Tegucigalpa, June 29, 2015

We members of the Tribe of San Francisco de Locomapa, declare that we are on HUNGER STRIKE INDEFINITELY, assuming the struggle of the indignados who are fed up with so much corruption, made all the more evident and offensive with the sacking of the Social Security system. We are also highly distressed by extreme levels of corruption in the department of Yoro. This will only stop with the removal and prosecution of functionaries involved in the biggest and and most shameful criminal action against the public welfare and the collective property of the Tolupan people in the department of Yoro.

Corruption on the part of the current government and of those preceding it, has dispossessed and sunken the poorest of Honduras into misery. The impact on the Tolupan people has resulted, more than in any other sector of the population, in total abandonment in terms of healthcare, education, access to communication and justice, culminating in the death of our local leaders who dared to defend their natural resources.

National corruption has converted the Tolupan community into a zone of usurpation, dispossession, theft and sacking of our natural resources. It has condemned to death more than 100 indigenous whose cases have never appeared in court. We have identified our murders but the authorities are accomplices, refusing to act on arrest warrants and to capture them.

With this hunger strike, we ask the national and international community to demand the end of the killing to which the state has condemned us. The hit men are hired by businessmen but they are protected by national and department level authorities who do not uphold the law, but rather use it to terrorize, threaten and murder those who defend the common good and the right to life.

In light of this, we define our struggle in the following terms;

1. We stand in solidarity with the indignados in favor of the installation of a CICIH and we reject the proposal for a false dialogue on the part of Juan Hernández, who is a principal actor in the grand larceny committed against state institutions.

2. We condemn the efforts of Prosecutors Oscar Chinchilla and Rigoberto Cuellar as well as Eli Mauricio Murillo, Environmental Prosecutor for Yoro, to leave in full impunity, the murder of 5 compañeros, defenders of human and environmental rights and the right to life.

3. We demand the capture of Selin Eliazar Fúnez Bonilla and Carlos Roberto Varela Laques, material actors responsible for the murders of María Enriqueta Matute, Ricardo Soto Fúnez and Armando Fúnez Medina as well as the murders of Luis Reyes de Masías and Eracimo Vieda. We will not abandon the hunger strike until these murderers are captured.

4. We demand compliance with ILO Convention 169 requiring prior, informed consent regarding any extractive activity carried out in the Tolupan community.

 

COMMUNIQUE: Hunger Strike, indignados respond to corruption

Public communique by CIPRODEH, COFADEH, ACI-PARTICIPA, EIDH, CDM, CPTRT, C-LIBRE.

As Human Rights organizations we have accompanied a permanent process of observation and vigilance of the universal right to protest and respect for the human dignity of the young people engaging in a hunger strike since June 22, 2015 in the zone of the Casa Presidencial; we have been with them for five days.

See the communique HERE

URGENT ALERT: The Broad Movement for Dignity and Justice (MADJ) informs:

URGENT ALERT: The Broad Movement for Dignity and Justice (MADJ) informs:

Today, June 19, 2015 at 5 am indigenous Tolupan, Erasio Vieda Ponce was murdered in Las Brisas of Locomapa in the mountains of Yoro. Vieda Ponce strongly opposed the use of forests by local business and political figures who for years have exploited natural resources, using all manner of criminal methods against the Tolupan people, in particular the indigenous leaders of this sector. There is clear evidence that the assassins are closely linked to the large land holders and business elites and were contracted to kill Ponce. The same assassins are also responsible for the murders of María Enriqueta Matute, Ricardo Soto and Armando Fúnez in 2013 for defending the forest.

We want to denounce that since 2013, we identified Selvin Matute and Carlos Matute as directly responsible for those murders and warrants have been issued for their arrest. However, the national police have not arrested them despite testimonies from members of the indigenous community assuring that they are also responsible for the murder of Erasio Vieda. The alleged suspects enter and leave the area, carrying out these crimes, threatening and terrorizing the community. They remain in strategic hiding places, with the knowledge and tolerance of members of the police of Yoro who have been assigned in an irregular manner, to provide security and to capture the suspects.

Today, with greater imperative, we hold the State of Honduras and its representatives in the office of the Attorney General of Human Rights, Yoro, Secretary of Justicia, Attorney General for Ethnic Groups, National Police.

and the other institutions responsible for the investigation and prosecution of crime, access to justice and citizen security. We have presented all of the evidence merited in these cases and taken action in international human rights platforms (IACHR) resulting in the issuance of protective measures for the indigenous leaders under threat. State functionaries have not implemented protective measures in a responsible manner, elevating the vulnerability of the indigenous to such a degree that in the month of May,

Luis de Reyes Marcía, husband of Consuelo Soto, was murdered and two weeks after burying her husband, she was the target of an attack on her home by the same assassins forcing her and her entire family to flee the zone.

While the level of conflict intensifies in the zone, evidenced by the number crimes in the last three months, there is neither response nor direct intervention on the part of the Secretary of Justice whose staff has demonstrated complete negligence in response to the requests for security and justice that the Tolupan people demand.

Once again we demand that the State of Honduras fulfill its functions and capture those responsible for these deaths.

¡¡WE ARE FED UP WITH LIES AND THE DEATHS OF OUR INDIGENOUS COMPAÑER@S!!