[HNA] COFADEH Alert - Police and Military repress peasants in Trujillo and Tocoa

[Tom Loudon]

Radio Globo is reporting now that there are at least 10 detained, shots have been fired, there are wounded and likely some deaths. 
There are over 500 families in these two settlements.



*COFADEH Urgent Alert:  Police and military repress peasants in Trujillo 
and Tocoa*

Dec. 8, 2009 - A heavy contingent of military and police began to 
violently remove peasant families occupying land in Trujillo and Tocoa 
in the department of Colón. This marks an avalanche against this social 
movement on the part of a justice system that colludes with elite power 
groups and underscores the need to re-found the country according to 
Bertha Oliva, Coordinator of the Committee of Families of Detained and 
Disappeared in Honduras, COFADEH.

Since December, the peasant families have occupied over 600 thousand 
hectares of state land claimed by large landowners Miguel Facussé, René 
Morales and Reynaldo although they do not possess title to the property. 
 As of last, the communities were informed that military and police were 
preparing to launch a surprise operation.

Oliva added that what is happening to the peasants in Colón is another 
example of how the elite power groups are utilizing the judicial system 
which they themselves have rigged, with devastating impacts on the human 
rights of the population.

The removal began this morning at 7am.  Seven buses full of military and 
police forcibly removed families without presenting a legal order 
against the peasants who are occupying the lands of the large landowner 
René Morales, also where three peasant cooperatives including San 
Esteban and Guanchías are located.

Since last night peasant families were on red alert and held vigil 
through the night according to Adelina Castro, coordinator of the Frente 
Nacional de Resistencia in Tocoa, Colón.

Acts of repression against peasant leaders includes criminal changes for 
usurpation of lands to actions that threaten their lives.  Men in 
civilian clothing took photographs of the leaders with the intention of 
creating profiles that can later be used to kill them as has happened to 
others who participate in the resistance movement, according to Castro.

On December 16th, four hooded men kidnapped Osman Alexis Ulloa 
Flores and Mario René Ayala Hernández of the Unifed Peasant Movement of 
Aguán, MUCA.  Members of the peasant associations live in a constant 
state of anxiety due to the high level of risk involved in working the 
land that they depend on to confront the poverty in which they are 
submerged.

The pressure on these communities is directly related to the power of 
large landowners in the zone such as Miguel Facussé, a powerful 
businessman with landholdings throughout Honduras but is unsatiated in 
his desire to accumulate more territory.


The coordinador del Frente Nacional de Resistencia in Colón reports that 
shots have been heard in the area and the military has entered lands 
along the Río Aguán where the cooperatives are located.  A potential 
massacre is feared.

COFADEH makes an urgent call to international human rights organizations 
to take actions of solidarity with those affected by this action which 
occurs in the context of the cout de tat and a justice system which is 
compromised by powerufl elite groups that sponsor and participate in the 
violation of institutional order in the country.

*Committee of Detained and Disappeared of Honduras, COFADEH *

Translated by the Quixote Center

 

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