From vinniechops at hotmail.com Tue Nov 2 11:07:54 2010 From: vinniechops at hotmail.com (Brian O'Connell) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2010 14:07:54 -0400 Subject: [HNA] U.S. Embassies Deny Visas to SOA Watch Vigil Speakers In-Reply-To: <1595077348.1860520737@org.orgDB.mail.democracyinaction.org> References: <1595077348.1860520737@org.orgDB.mail.democracyinaction.org> Message-ID: Act Now to bring our Latin American partners to the vigil Featured Vigil Speakers from Honduras and Costa Rica Denied Visas to the U.S. The two speakers named by the SOA Watch's Latin American partners to represent them at the SOA Watch vigil (Nov. 19-21, 2010) have been denied entrance to the United States. Both Gerardo Brenes - a Costa Rican graduate of the SOA and activist with the Quaker Peace Center in San Jose, and Alejandro Ramirez - a university student and activist with the Youth Resistance movement in Honduras, had their visa applications rejected by the U.S. embassies in their countries last week. Take Action Now! Gerardo and Alejandro were among participants from 17 Latin American countries at the recent SOAW South-North Encuentro. They were tapped to bring the Encuentro?s major concerns about the SOA and U.S. militarization in Latin America to the gates of Ft. Benning. Gerardo is a former Costa Rica police officer and would have been the first graduate of the SOA to speak out against the school in front of his Alma Mater. His experience of the absolute disregard for human rights in his SOA training led him to become a leading activist in pressuring his government to withdraw from the school (Click here to watch a video interview with Gerardo). Gerardo has also been a public voice in speaking out against 46 U.S. warships and thousands of marines that are scheduled to be sent to this Central American ?country of peace?. Alejandro became an active member of the Honduran Youth Resistance Movement after his country suffered a coup at the hands of two SOA graduates last year. Over 50 people ? journalists, teachers, students and union leaders, have lost their lives for opposing the coup regime and its illegal successor . Alejandro is a history student at the National Autonomous University of Honduras and works with COFADEH (Committee of Family Members of Detained and Disappeared in Honduras) in their violence prevention program. Generate Grassroots Pressure to Overturn the Visa Denial! Take Action Now: Send a message to the U.S. State Department in Washington, San Jose and Tegucigalpa urging them to grant visitor visas to Gerardo Brenes and Alejandro Ramirez so that they can speak at the November Vigil (19-21, 2010) at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia: 1. Call State Department a. re Gerardo Brenes of Costa Rica: Call Jennifer Bantrump of the Costa Rica Desk of the State Department at (202) 647-3519. Sample script below. b. re Alejandro Ramirez of Honduras Call Gabriela Zambrano of the Honduras Desk of the State Department at 202-647-3482. Sample script below. 2. Send an email to Consul General a. re Gerardo Brenes of Costa Rica: Write Consul General Paul Birdsall at the U.S. Embassy in San Jose, at consultarsanjose at state.gov and copy Jennifer Bantrump of the Costa Rica Desk of the State Department at bantrumpjr at state.gov Sample script below. b. re Alejandro Ramirez of Honduras Write Consul General William Douglas of the U.S. embassy in Tegucigalpa, Honduras at usahonduras at state.gov and copy Gabriela Zambrano of the Honduras Desk of the State Department at zambranomg at state.gov Sample script below. (Sample email below) SAMPLE PHONE CALL regarding Gerardo Brenes: Hello, my name is ______________. I am very troubled to learn that the U.S. Consulate in San Jose, Costa Rica denied a travel visa to Mr. Gerardo Brenes who was invited by the School of the Americas Watch to speak about human rights issues in Costa Rica at the annual vigil in Columbus Georgia from November 19-21, 2010. Will you call Consul General Paul Birdsall in San Jose today and ask him to immediately authorize a travel visa to Mr. Brenes so he can travel to the U.S. on to participate in this event? Thank you. SAMPLE PHONE CALL regarding Alejandro Ramirez: Hello, my name is ______________. I am very troubled to learn that the U.S. Consulate in Tegucigalpa, Honduras denied a travel visa to Mr. Alejandro Ramirez who was invited by the School of the Americas Watch to speak about human rights issues in Honduras at the annual vigil in Columbus Georgia from November 19-21, 2010. Will you call Consul General William Douglas in Tegucigalpa today and ask him to immediately authorize a travel visa to Mr. Ramirez so he can travel to the U.S. on to participate in this event? Thank you. SAMPLE EMAIL regarding Gerardo Brenes Dear Mr. Birdsall, Last week the U.S. Consulate in San Jose denied a travel visa to Mr. Gerardo Brenes. Mr. Brenes was invited by School of the Americas Watch to speak about human rights in Costa Rica at the annual vigil in Columbus, Georgia, from November 19-21, 2010. I understand that Mr. Brenes presented an invitation from the School of the Americas during his interview, as well as sufficient evidence that he had strong ties that would bring him back to his country. I am deeply concerned about this visa denial, and I ask you to immediately authorize a travel visa to Mr. Brenes so that he can travel to the United States to participate in the SOAW vigil from November 19-21, 2010. Sincerely, [Your name and address] SAMPLE EMAIL regarding Alejandro Ramirez Dear Mr. Douglas, Last week the U.S. Consulate in Tegucigalpa denied a travel visa to Mr. Alejandro Ramirez. Mr. Ramirez was invited by School of the Americas Watch to speak about human rights in Honduras at the annual vigil in Columbus, Georgia, from November 19-21, 2010. I understand that Mr. Ramirez presented an invitation from the School of the Americas during his interview, as well as sufficient evidence that he had strong ties that would bring him back to his country. I am deeply concerned about this visa denial, and I ask you to immediately authorize a travel visa to Mr. Ramirez so that he can travel to the United States to participate in the SOA Watch vigil from November 19-21, 2010. Sincerely, [Your name and address] Stand up for justice: SOAW.org/take-action/november-vigil Something to consider while voting: www.SOAW.org/docs/FameShameChart.pdf SOA Watch Field Organizer Testifies to Colombian Attorney General?s Office in ?False Positive? Case SOA Watch Field Organizer, Nico Udu-gama traveled to Colombia to present his eye witness testimony against two soldiers investigated in the ongoing ?false positive? scandal. In October of 2005, Nico, then a member of the International Peace Observatory -IPO, which he helped found to accompany farming communities in the Magdalena Medio and Arauca regions (among others), arrived at a campesino?s home in the remote village of Dos Quebradas (Antioquia) after frightened neighbors alerted members of IPO in the region of the presence of the Colombian National Army. Nico, along with two members of IPO and several campesinos, confronted the two officers in charge and demanded to speak with the owner of the home. After some time, the soldiers ? from the 14th Brigade, Calibio Batallion, Demoledores platoon ? produced the 60-year-old farmer, whom they had retained in a forested area near to his home. The farmer later told neighbors that the army had tried to dress him in military fatigues, put a bag over his head and were about to kill him when the members of IPO arrived. Of the two commanding officers, one has since been detained pending investigation and another is being sought with an arrest warrant. Campesinos in the region had received a deadly threat earlier that year in August, when the Colombian Army, along with paid informants, murdered the farmer Lu?s Sigifredo Casta?o, and presented him as a guerrilla killed in combat, provoking the displacement of hundreds of families in the region. The practice of killing civilians and presenting them as guerrilla fighters long pre-dated the famous ?false positive scandal? that made international news at the end of 2008, when members of the Colombian Army were implicated in the killing of eleven young men from Soach? and dressing them in fatigues. Under ex-president ?lvaro Uribe V?lez?s ?Democratic Security? policy, these murders increased as troops were given vacations and bonuses for high kill rates of supposed guerrilla fighters. SOA Watch stands in solidarity with all the victims of Colombia?s civil war and demands an end to US-taxpayer funding of the Colombian Armed Forces continued atrocities. We will continue to fight US militarization in the Americas and for a culture of peace. We appreciate your interest! You are subscribed to the SOA Watch list as vinniechops at hotmail.com. Click here to unsubscribe. Contact us. Our mailing address is: SOA Watch, PO Box 4566, Washington, D.C. 20017, USA Our telephone: (202) 234 3440 Click here to fund the campaign to close the SOA. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From vinniechops at hotmail.com Tue Nov 2 11:09:08 2010 From: vinniechops at hotmail.com (Brian O'Connell) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2010 14:09:08 -0400 Subject: [HNA] Hondurans Denounce Return of Death Squads In-Reply-To: <8E761D0C40934B21829ACF90DD445B49@DOWNSTAIRS> References: <8E761D0C40934B21829ACF90DD445B49@DOWNSTAIRS> Message-ID: Hondurans Denounce Return of Death Squads San Salvador, Oct 28 (Prensa Latina) Death squads have reappeared in Honduras since the June 28, 2009 military coup, and they are targeting teachers, human rights activist Berta Oliva charged in El Salvador. Paramilitary groups like CAM (Comando ?lvarez Mart?nez) are behind the selective murders of Honduran opposition activists, and teachers are their main victims, Oliva said, quoted by Co Latino newspaper. Human rights violations, persecution and selective assassinations are everyday occurrences, showing that the military coup "continues," she said. Ten teachers have been murdered this year for their clear opposition to the current government, a continuation of the coup regime, said Oliva, general coordinator of the Committee of Relatives of Missing Detainees in Honduras. Oliva made her comments at the 7th Herbert Anaya Sanabria International Human Rights Congress in the Salvadoran capital. Fifty-six human rights activisits have been threatened by different armed groups, she said, urging the Organization of American States to urge the United States not to support the Honduran military while human rights violations continue. Honduran rural leaders who attended the human rights congress, said a campaign of persecution was being carried out against them to deprive them of their rights to the land. Mat?as Valle C?rdenas, vice presidnet of the United Campesino Movement of Agu?n, in the department of Colon, said 16 of his comrades had been murdered in the last 6 months. _______________________________________________ Lasolidarity mailing list Post: Lasolidarity at lists.mayfirst.org List info: https://lists.mayfirst.org/mailman/listinfo/lasolidarity To Unsubscribe Send email to: Lasolidarity-unsubscribe at lists.mayfirst.org Or visit: https://lists.mayfirst.org/mailman/options/lasolidarity/vinniechops%40hotmail.com You are subscribed as: vinniechops at hotmail.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: ATT00001 URL: From vinniechops at hotmail.com Tue Nov 2 11:09:39 2010 From: vinniechops at hotmail.com (Brian O'Connell) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2010 14:09:39 -0400 Subject: [HNA] Honduras Accompaniment Training Opportunity In-Reply-To: References: <1103836186477.1101206719435.11177.5.22140567@scheduler>, Message-ID: Accompaniment Training Opportunity www.afgj.org Accompaniment Needed in Honduras This alert was originally distributed by the Friendship Office of the Americas. The first training for people qualified and interested in doing accompaniment with the Honduras Accompaniment Project (HAP)/Proyecto de Acompanamiento en Honduras will be led by the Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (NISGUA) in January 2011 in the Bay Area, California. HAP/PROAH accompaniers are required to have fluency in Spanish, significant prior experience in Latin America and receive training before leaving for Honduras. If you or your organization is interested in participating in this training as preparation for accompaniment work with HAP/PROAH, or sponsoring a long-term volunteer accompanier, please contact us for an application and more information. Space is limited so please let us know if you are interested as soon as possible. The Honduras Accompaniment Project (HAP)/Proyecto de Acompanamiento en Honduras (PROAH) was established to accompany the Honduran people in their historic, non-violent, struggle to transform their society by providing international accompaniment for human rights defenders, communities and social movement leaders working for systemic change in an environment of repression, political persecution and personal risk in the interest of dissuading violence to bear witness to and support the documentation of events and human rights abuses to provide consistent and accurate information to the international community communicate with international partners regarding emergency response needs on the ground in Honduras. The Project sponsors an accompaniment team in Honduras as well as US/Canadian Human Rights Accompaniment Delegations to increase the international presence and help to get information out. We also place short term accompaniers to accompany specific individuals/organizations who request and require it. Training: Prospective HAP accompaniers are currently required to receive training before leaving for Honduras which is carried out in coordination with US and Canadian partner organizations with extensive experience in accompaniment work in Guatemala. The next training will be in January 2011 in the Bay Area, California. The one week training program costs US$400, and there will be a travel pool to offset travel costs. We encourage people to seek support from a Honduras/Latin America solidarity committee, church, union, community group, student association, etc. in their area to cover training as well as accompaniment costs. What support will you receive in Honduras? An in-country orientation is carried out by the Honduras Accompaniment Project coordination in Tegucigalpa once you arrive in Honduras. The in-country project coordinators make the final decision about candidates. Following the orientation and an invitation to accompany with the project, you will be assigned to the accompaniment team based in Tegucigalpa, and most accompaniment assignments will be done in pairs. Other team members will not necessarily be from your country of origin or speak English, and Spanish is the common language of the project. While you are volunteering with the project, shared lodging will be provided in the same house where the accompaniment offices are located, though you will need to provide your own food and there is a kitchen available for your use. You will be in regular contact with the HAP coordinators in Tegucigalpa. Should there be a crisis international Urgent Action Networks will be alerted immediately. How much will this cost? The cost while accompanying will depend somewhat on your individual situation. It is recommended that you budget $300 US/month to cover transportation and food costs while accompanying as well as unexpected expenses you could incur. Where will you get this money? Accompaniers are asked to raise their own support. You can ask a solidarity committee, peace, student, church, or community group to sponsor you or help you with fundraising. If you do not have such a committee in your vicinity, you can organize your own support group to help with fundraising. We're happy to help make connections and suggest fundraising ideas. How can you participate? Request an application from Jenny Atlee at jennya at friendshipamericas.org. Once we have received your application, an interview will be scheduled the a Friendship Office representative in order to be accepted for the accompaniment training (by phone or in person if possible). We will then notify you of the interview committee's recommendation. AFGJ on Twitter AFGJ on MySpace AFGJ on Digg AFGJ on Facebook Forward email Email Marketing by Alliance for Global Justice | 1247 E St. SE | Washington | DC | 20003 _______________________________________________ Lasolidarity mailing list Post: Lasolidarity at lists.mayfirst.org List info: https://lists.mayfirst.org/mailman/listinfo/lasolidarity To Unsubscribe Send email to: Lasolidarity-unsubscribe at lists.mayfirst.org Or visit: https://lists.mayfirst.org/mailman/options/lasolidarity/vinniechops%40hotmail.com You are subscribed as: vinniechops at hotmail.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: ATT00001 URL: From vinniechops at hotmail.com Fri Nov 5 10:52:44 2010 From: vinniechops at hotmail.com (Brian O'Connell) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2010 13:52:44 -0400 Subject: [HNA] FW: NORTH AMERICAN TOURISM INDUSTRY IN HONDURAS, & CONFLICTS WITH GARIFUNA & CAMPESINO COMMUNITIES In-Reply-To: <1103877210320.1103480765269.947.1.99131001@scheduler> References: <1103877210320.1103480765269.947.1.99131001@scheduler> Message-ID: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Rights ActionNorth American Tourism Industry & Conflicts With Garifuna Communities in Honduras November 5, 2010 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Rights Action Honduras Coup Regime Watch November 5, 2010 NORTH AMERICAN TOURISM INDUSTRY IN HONDURAS & CONFLICTS WITH GARIFUNA & CAMPESINO COMMUNITIES "Canada's "Porn King" has found an unlikely second career building retirement homes in Honduras. While Canadian snowbirds snap up paradise at $85 per square foot, the locals say the developments are illegal-and they intend to get their land back." BELOW: * Article by Dawn Paley: "Snowbirds gone wild! Canadian retirees and locals clash in Honduras" * Re-sending Honduras Coup Alert#89 (November 10, 2009): "Pro-coup regime Northamericans in Honduras" * How to support pro-democracy movement Please re-distribute and re-post this information, properly citing sourcesTo get on/ off Rights Action's listserv: http://visitor.constantcontact.com/d.jsp?m=1103480765269 MORE INFORMATION: Annie Bird (annie at rightsaction.org) & Grahame Russell (info at rightsaction.org, Rights Action co-directors = = = = = = = SNOWBIRDS GONE WILD! CANADIAN RETIREES AND LOCALS CLASH IN HONDURAS November 4, 2010, By Dawn Paley, dawnpaley at gmail.com http://2th.is/RetireWild Canada's "Porn King" has found an unlikely second career building retirement homes in Honduras. While Canadian snowbirds snap up paradise at $85 per square foot, the locals say the developments are illegal-and they intend to get their land back. I'm sitting with the cab driver who has brought me to the end of a long gravel road, near the edge of Trujillo, a small town on the north coast of Honduras. He's flipping through a newspaper, telling me in halting English that he's saving up to buy an excavator. Anyone with an excavator has work, he says. I hear the sound of four-wheeled all-terrain-vehicles in the distance, humming as they near. In a cloud of dust, Cathy Bernier appears at the top of the hill, followed on another ATV by her two daughters. All of them are here for a vacation from a freezing Alberta December. Bernier, who works as a client-relations manager with the development, has agreed to take me on a tour of Campa Vista, a housing project for retired Canadians perched above the Caribbean Sea. With a wave from a security guard tuning his radio in a tiny booth, we pass under the front gate, a cement arch built over a dusty gravel road. From the back of Bernier's speeding ATV, her blonde hair blowing in my face, I can see that the route we're on is cut through what was quite recently a thick jungle. Along one side, a high wall of earth shades the road, and on the other, a steep ditch drops away toward the ocean. Peeling around a corner, the road forks. We hang right, and Bernier slows to a stop in front of an imposing house with a pool set in the front patio. Within a few months, this house will be occupied by a 70-year-old rugby player from Edmonton - one of this gated village's first residents. Below us, dense jungle sprawls down the mountain toward the water, interrupted only by the newly built roads, faint outlines of staked-out lots, and high power lines. Once completed, as promised in the promotional materials, Campa Vista ("Country View" in English) will afford a sunny, secure perch for Canadian snowbirds. The development's website boasts of a "Euro-Mediterranean-style private gated community, with each property possessing its own unique and outstanding view." North American baby boomers have proven to have a boundless appetite for vacation or retirement homes in sunny, cheap places that aren't too racked by crime or war. It's been a global windfall for many other countries, and now the people who run Honduras want a cut. Canadian entrepreneur Randy Jorgensen, developer of the Campa Vista complex, is happy to oblige. Jorgensen sells this tropical dream over the internet and in hotel conference-room seminars held in grey-skied Canadian locales: Regina; Etobicoke, Ontario; Duncan, B.C. His basic pitch: Honduras is the latest, best bargain available to Canadians wanting to own their own piece of a developing country. But-as you might have guessed-this sunny picture doesn't tell the whole story. Just off the beach in Trujillo, six men sit around a peeling wooden picnic table. They've agreed to meet me here to discuss their concerns about the Canadians they say are squatting on their ancestral lands. "Canadians have a strong sense of private property," said Evaristo Perez Ambular, a native of Trujillo and member of Honduras's major organization representing the Gar?funa indigenous population. "We don't have any access to that land anymore, including to some of our traditional pathways." Ambular speaks fluent Spanish, but switches back to the Gar?funa language at times to discuss with the other men. The Gar?funa language and its people are unique in a way that is recognized worldwide: the language, dance, and music of the Gar?funa peoples were added to the United Nations' list of rare cultural traditions in need of safeguarding. Popular lore has it that Gar?funa peoples descend from a slave ship that washed up on St. Vincent Island, whose passengers escaped slavery and instead intermarried with local indigenous people. The Gar?funa were once called "Black Caribs" by the British, who forced them off St. Vincent and onto Roat?n Island and the Central American mainland in 1797. A fishing people, the Gar?funa developed a rich collective lifestyle dependent on the ocean, the forests and the beaches. Expert seafarers, many Gar?funa became deckhands for cargo ships travelling up and down the coast of Latin America. Today, there is a significant Gar?funa diaspora in the United States. The latest threat to Gar?funa people, says Ambular, is the wave of Canadian settlers who are cutting them off from their land base. In the first decade of the 20th century, the Gar?funa who live in Trujillo were given collective titles for a fraction of their territories. But community members allege that in 2007 a former leader misrepresented himself as the owner of the land and wrongfully sold off parcels of real estate-land that eventually ended up in Randy Jorgensen's hands. "There are many Canadians in our communities on the coast, and we haven't seen a positive presence from them," says Ambular. "They use our bridges and our roads, and they don't leave us a thing." Jos? Velasquez, the current president of the two Gar?funa communities in Trujillo, hands me a photocopy titled "Pronunciamiento No. 3." It outlines the Gar?funa peoples' desire to reclaim their ancestral territories, and demands that the Honduran government nullify all land sales to Jorgensen. Randy Jorgensen has lived in Honduras for 20 years, on and off. It's been a getaway of sorts from his bustling life in Canada, where he conceived and oversaw the creation of Adults Only Video, the country's first national chain of pornography stores. Originally a muffler salesman in small-town Saskatchewan, Jorgensen was nicknamed Canada's "porn king" in a 1993 Maclean's profile. His specialty, as the article put it, was to "bring dirty movies into the clean streets of middle-class Canada," and by the early '90s, Adults Only Video was bringing in $25 million a year. Faced with lawsuits and police raids because of the content of his videos, Jorgensen maintained that everything he did was within the boundaries of the law. Later, when I called Jorgensen to get his response to the claims of the Gar?funa on the land where he's building Campa Vista, he laughed, chalking the claims up to a form of "extortion." "For Canadians, the easiest way to compare it is to compare it to our own native Indians in Canada," he says. "Depending on what's going on, they may or may not decide that they have a land claim going on." He says all of the paperwork for the land that he's purchased is legitimate, and there's no conflict. "As soon as there is any development going on generally, the Gar?funa start checking around and seeing if there isn't some way that they can extort some funds or something out of whoever is doing that development," said Jorgensen. Today, Jorgensen lives full-time in his home near the Campa Vista development in Honduras. He runs AOV Online, the internet broadcasting version of what his porno chain once was. But his first career is downplayed in his most recent venture into real estate, where he instead positions himself as a lifestyle expert. However, it's clear that he's learned something from his years in the porn business: sex sells. The marketing videos for a partner project sold in Costa Rica include close-ups of various young, attractive women in tight, white T-shirts. After I watched these videos with a crowd of prospective buyers, the first comment from a man sitting nearby was "I wonder if she's single." Should he choose to move down to Honduras, he wouldn't be the first to discover that sex tourism abounds. In the tropical coastal town of La Ceiba, a few hundred kilometres from Trujillo, I meet Rick Mowers. I find him, a retired Ontario Provincial Police officer from Hamilton, sitting at the computer beside the bar at Expatriates, a restaurant that he now co-owns. "I just quit, moved here, went to instant retirement, did nothing for one year," he says. The boredom eventually got to him, though. "It costs money to do nothing all day long. We find that too many of us drink too much alcohol or beer if you have nothing to do all day long." Buying the restaurant has given the young-looking 53-year-old something to do with his time. He tells me he moved to Honduras with his wife, but they split after he had an affair. A warm breeze moved through the restaurant, stirring up the air under the high, thatched roof. "It's too cold, it's too expensive, and I'm not going to live there for the free health care," says Mowers of Canada. He rattles off how much cheaper things are in Honduras, from rent and food to crack cocaine and sex. "Here sex is, in the whole country, sex is $10. So if you go downtown, and you stop and the girl gets in your car, it's $10, 200 lempiras, for you to go have intercourse," he says. Mowers didn't mention the AIDS epidemic in the north-coast region, where over 60,000 people have HIV/AIDS, the highest infection rate in Central America. Later, I Google Mowers. It turns out he was a bad cop. He had at least six disciplinary sanctions on his record when he left the Ontario Provincial Police, including neglect of duty when responding to a domestic violence complaint. On his partial police pension, he now lives like minor royalty in Honduras, a country where more than half the population lives below the official poverty line, and at least two million people live on less than $2 a day. Sitting in the central park of San Pedro Sula one hot afternoon, I get a text message from a friend who says that the Honduras National Tourism Federation is having its annual meeting in the city tonight. After stopping at my hotel to change from shorts and a T-shirt into my most stiflingly hot, but fanciest, dress, I catch a cab over to the Crowne Plaza Hotel. The downstairs lobby, in from the heat, noise, and chaos of the outside, might as well be in Winnipeg, Los Angeles, or Shanghai. Air conditioning blasts the air, and well-dressed Hondurans sip fancy drinks and drag on cigarettes. San Pedro Sula has long been home to the country's richest families, and today is the hub of Honduras's sweatshop industry. I finagle my way into the upstairs ballroom and mingle with the upper crust of the tourism business in Honduras. They're happy to talk about Canadian tourists. "Canadians are super-important to us," says John Dupuis, the top representative for tourism in La Ceiba. In some hotels in the region, 70 to 80 percent of the guests are Canadian. "Tourism from Canada, especially in winter, represents the largest source of income in the tourism sector in the Bay Islands and the north coast of the country," said Piero Dibattista, who owns and manages several hotels in Roat?n. Canada has always been an excellent ally of the tourism industry, says Juan Antonio Bendeck, the chair of the Honduran Chamber of Tourism. Honduras' tourism industry is small by comparison with its neighbours: the country welcomed 247,082 visitors in 2001, compared to nearby Costa Rica's 823,575. But following the June 2009 coup d'?tat in Honduras, the already struggling tourism sector took a substantial hit. "I'd like to tell everyone to come to Honduras and that it's a tranquil place and everything is beautiful, but you think I'd be successful with that message?" asked deposed tourism minister Ricardo Mart?nez, after showing footage of riots and repression in Tegucigalpa during a presentation to the Central American Travel Market. "Well, Central America is Central America," says Jorgensen, when asked about the safety of travelling and living in Honduras. He says Trujillo is a small town, and the "really bad guys" tend to stay away from the area. Jorgensen's Campa Vista development in Trujillo is being marketed by Tropical Freedom Properties Ltd., who promise just that for only $85 per square foot. Tropical Freedom is a subsidiary of Fast Track to Cash Flow, a St. Albert, Alberta-based company. The local Better Business Bureau gives the company a D on a scale of A+ to F, expressing "concerns with the industry in which this business operates." On this sunny morning in June, I'm attending a meet-up hosted by Tropical Freedom Ltd. in the basement of a Travelodge hotel on the freeway beside the sleepy retirement town of Duncan, B.C. Cindy Storme, a petite blond woman in a gold-accented brown pantsuit, wowed the three dozen or so mostly retirement-age people attending the event with stories about waking up to the sound of howler monkeys, banana boating, barbecues, and life beside the water. As her audience chewed on white-bread sandwiches cut into little triangles, Storme talked about Costa Rica, a much more stable country, which she says is "exactly like the movie Avatar." At the tail end of Storme's talk, she spends about 10 minutes talking about Honduras, a country that she says "every Canadian" can afford to buy property in. Not only will investing in Honduras give Canadians a place to get away, says Storme, but there's no credit check involved. Jorgensen is even offering a travel allowance for anyone to go visit the properties, and there are income-tax breaks to boot. At least a few people in the room signed up for a $500 gold membership with Tropical Freedom, which gives them the right to buy property with Jorgensen's Honduran project. Jorgensen is making sales. But the global market in pleasant tropical experiences is a highly competitive business, and members of the North American middle class have certain expectations when they purchase their own little slice of a Third World paradise. My mind went to a conversation I'd had with two tourists from Gatineau, Quebec on a beach near La Ceiba. They told me that they found their hotel boring. They were too scared to go into town. The two of them were the closest thing I can imagine to professional beach-goers: deeply tanned, lathered up in oil, laid out on folding lounge chairs with most of their middle-aged skin exposed to the scorching sun. For the money, they said, Cuba is a better deal. Honduras isn't for the faint of heart, or stomach, as anyone who strays from their supervised beach resort or walled-in retirement complex to a larger city will soon learn. There were 4,473 murders in Honduras in 2008, giving the country the chilling designation of having one of the highest murder rates per capita in the world. Canadians who ignore the country's security situation do so at their peril. But Canadians who choose to ignore the long-standing conflicts over rural land do so at the expense of all who have lived there before, and put themselves at risk as well. Consider the advice of the U.S. State Department: "U.S. citizens should exercise extreme caution before entering into any form of commitment to invest in real estate, particularly in coastal areas and the Bay Islands." Instead of buying into a smooth sales pitch, Canadians would do well to ask themselves why they expect to land in one of the hemisphere's poorest countries, which is also one of the most dangerous countries in the world, and be treated like gods. - By Dawn Paley [dawnpaley at gmail.com] = = = = = = = (Re-sending, from 2009) Day 136 of HONDURAS COUP RESISTANCE PRO-COUP REGIME NORTHAMERICANS IN HONDURAS (November 10, 2009, Honduras Coup Alert#89) "Please help us on Roatan ... We have all cut back our help and tightened our belts, which further hurts the islanders." (This plea is not from Hondurans, but from pro-military coup North Americans living on Roatan, an island in the Caribbean, just off the north coast of Honduras) Since June 28th, Rights Action has been involved in a range of work (direct funding, human rights accompaniment, reporting) in response to the oligarchic-military regime in Honduras, and the repression it is using against the people's pro-democracy, anti-coup movement, headed by the National Front Against the Coup. In over eighty-five Honduras Coup Alerts published since June 28th (www.rightsaction.org), as well as in information from other human rights and solidarity organizations (Quixote Center, School of the Americas Watch, Narco News, Chiapas Indymedia Center, etc), we have reported on repression and human rights violations, including killings, illegal detentions and torture and rape, military curfews, crack-down on freedom of expression, etc. We have focused most of our efforts on supporting the pro-democracy, anti-coup movement (providing funding, human rights accompaniment and reporting) and on educating North Americans about the coup, so that we may pressure our governments to do everything possible to help return the government of President Zelaya to power. We continue with this work. During these months, Rights Action has learned that some Canadians and Americans living in Honduras are actively writing letters and pressuring the Canadian and US governments, in support of the military coup and the illegal regime of Roberto Micheletti & General Romeo Vasquez. Some of these North Americans operate 'property development' projects and businesses in the tourist industry along the northern coast, on the Bay Islands and Roatan island. BELOW - are various letters written by North Americans. Their words speak for themselves. Variously, they are denouncing the "inaccurate media accounts," and "all the untruths re: a military coup, riots & unrest" being reported on by various organizations and news sources, including Rights Action. Their letters and emails to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the U.S. State Department and tourist websites and forums, are followed by pleas for stronger action in support of the Micheletti-General Vasquez regime, in order to prevent the continued decline of tourists and investors in their businesses and property projects that have lead to decreases in their incomes. GARIFUNA-INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES UNDER SIEGE FROM GLOBAL TOURISM Since Hurricane Mitch in 1998, Rights Action has supported the Garifuna-indigenous organization OFRANEH (Fraternal Organization of Black and Garifuna People of Honduras), helping them denounce the often times illegal and forced purchasing of land along the northern coast of Honduras, for large tourist resorts, hotels, and 'property development' projects. When tourist projects are initiated, local communities are often forcibly and illegally driven from their lands, never receiving the so-called benefits that foreign owned tourism is supposed to bring to the local communities. WHAT TO DO: see at bottom. * * * LETTER TO RIGHTS ACTION (FROM ANGRY CANADIAN ON ROATAN ISLAND) "The fact that a military coup, in fact, does not exist here in Honduras is what any responsible person knowledgeable of the long term history, short term events leading up to June 28th and what has transpired since, should be reporting." [Dave Barons, a Canadian business owner in the tourist industry on Roatan Island sent this email to Rights Action after listening to Grahame Russell (Rights Action) on the CBC's "The Current" radio program. Listen to interview: http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2009/200907/20090729.html.] "After hearing Grahame Russell's ridiculous interview on CBC, I have to question the mandate of this organization (Rights Action). You were either telling a lie that you participated with "hundreds of thousands" of supporters of returning Zelaya to power or you simply weren't here in Honduras as you stated on CBC radio. "Either way, I am disgraced as a Canadian that CBC chose to air your crap. The fact that a military coup, in fact, does not exist here in Honduras is what any responsible person knowledgeable of the long term history, short term events leading up to June 28th and what has transpired since, should be reporting. "Further, the fact that Zelaya was illegally pulling a short run on the country exposing it to a future that would mirror that of Venezuela is what you should have been reporting. The fact that your organization obviously has motives that promote the transition from democracy to dictatorship in Honduras categorizes it as a Leftist Propaganda vehicle. "I challenge you to retract your statements and provide a follow up interview that clarifies the reality of the Honduran situation; one that indicates that the legal and constitutional removal of Zelaya by his own government was necessary for the good of Honduras and its people. "I plan to live here for awhile yet and wish all the best to the Honduran people. To wish Honduras to become a communist regime, like you imply, is not in the best interest of the Honduran people and their future. The reporting of inaccuracies of our situation to the media like you have done is embarrassing, frustrating and counter-productive to the cause of maintaining democracy in Honduras. "Please read the accurate items that I have included below and get a grip on reality. Then, I urge you to use your site to promote democracy and not fascism. Dave Barons, davebarons at hotmail.com" http://mack.house.gov/index.cfm?p=PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=5473bba0-37fe-4033-8979-57ab98441fa8&ContentType_id=8c55a72b-64f8-4cba-990c-ec1ed2a9de24&Group_id=b3c463ca-96b6-41ff-94e5-a945437bc123 http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=334537207260360 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052970204251404574340570960456550.html http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-5325-Orlando-Republican- * * * LETTER TO CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER STEPHEN HARPER [A letter to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, written by investors and property owners of Villas Paraiso Escondido, a forty acre Canadian resort community on the Caribbean Coast of Honduras (www.go2-paradise.com). Project contact: Tom Stollery (tomstollery at hotmail.com). >From www.go2-paradise.com: "What we especially like about this enterprise is that we can live in a secure community, can live in our own home in a tropical climate, can get a bigger bang for our buck (check out the inexpensive year round bounty of fresh fruit and vegetables), can socialize with fellow Canadians, can become involved in local community works and can extend ourselves as much or as little as we want."] July 28, 2009 Prime Minister Stephen Harper Office of the Prime Minister 80 Wellington Street Ottawa, K1A 0A2 pm at pm.gc.ca Dear Mr. Harper: Re: Canadian Policy in Honduras, Central America We are a group of investors who have bought property and have built houses in Honduras, CA. We are writing to you to express our concern in regards to Canadian Government support of ex-president Zelaya being returned to a position of power in Honduras. There appears to be widespread false information in the media that Zelaya was removed from office illegally, by a military coup d'?tat that was not supported by rule of law or the Honduran people. Our understanding is Zelaya has been legally charged for criminal activity and for attempting to change the Honduran constitution for his own purpose, by the Honduran congress and judiciary, and was legally impeached. Information available from international news services, as well as local contacts, indicate Zelaya was supporting drug trafficking from Venezuela to America and involved in various forms of corruption internally. If Zelaya is allowed to return to power in Honduras and with outside influence from the ALBA group of countries it will result in the loss of democracy, freedom of speech and human rights for all Hondurans. The removal of democracy in Honduras will stop foreign investment and will result in financial losses to foreign and Canadian investments in that country. This loss of investment will ultimately cause economic hardship for Honduras and its people which is already one of the poorest countries in the western hemisphere. We believe the legally empowered interim government of Roberto Micheletti is working in the best interest of Honduras and the Honduran people in support of democracy and human rights, including a free election as called for in the Honduran constitution. We also believe the Honduran military is acting under the rule of law, in support of this interim government and with the greater support of the Honduran people. For this reason we request the Canadian Government provide full public support of the legal interim government of Roberto Micheletti and acknowledge this support to the international bodies of the OAS and the United Nations. We also request that Canada provide support to the continuation of foreign aid to Honduras to allow the interim government the means to continue their struggle for democracy and to provide for the basic needs of the Honduran people. We suggest that Canada provide monitoring and assistance to ensure openness and fairness in the upcoming Honduras elections. The Canadian Government must acknowledge that the rule of law exists in Honduras and support the position that Zelaya should stand trial for the corruption and criminal activity he has been legally charged with. To prevent chaos and bloodshed Canada needs to immediately and publicly recognize that the vast majority of Honduran people support the impeachment action of their government and support peace and democracy in their country. We believe violence and demonstrations against the interim government are being promoted and supported by ALBA countries to further their own interests and also by illegal organizations such as FARC. We are extremely proud of Hondurans and the interim government to take impeachment action to preserve their democracy and we implore Canada to support their action in every means possible to assure their democratic freedom. Thank-you for your assistance and attention, if required we can be contacted by return email. Project contact: Tom Stollery, tomstollery at hotmail.com, www.go2-paradise.com * * * [Another business owner, Penelope Leigh, writes to her friends and family and to the U.S. State Department "clarifying" what is happening in Honduras, asking the U.S. government to lift the travel advisory to prevent a further decline in tourism.] "We have all cut back our help and tightened our belts, which further hurts the islanders. I have to be very careful about what I buy for food and am rationing gasoline. It is quite grim and all because of the horrible lies in the media." Dear Family & Friends, We are having a terrible time here on Roatan (Ghost Island). Please consider helping us by writing to Trip Advisor. The postings on this site have a huge impact on our tourism business. Visitors are wary now due to the Travel Advisary not to visit Honduras. We have had no problems here on Roatan at all....nothing. Due to all the untruths re: a military coup, riots & unrest, businesses here are failing. We have all cut back our help and tightened our belts, which further hurts the islanders. I have to be very careful about what I buy for food and am rationing gasoline. It is quite grim and all because of the horrible lies in the media. Please help us. It won't take more than a few minutes. I have written my letter below as an example. If you could write of your positive "visit," etc., it could very well save a business from closing its doors. We have so many islanders on half pay or deferred pay, that can not feed their families, it is truly getting scary. You can write it in your own words, just asking them to PLEASE exclude Roatan from the Travel Advisory posting on their site. Just double click on: http://www.tripadvisor.com/ContactUs?topic=tell_us_what_you_think And fill in your comments. Thanx so much for your most needed help!! Dear Sir; We have read the warning from the U.S. State Department posted on the Trip Advisor "Roatan Tourism" page with great concern. While this is the formal U.S. stance on the current situation, it must be noted that Roatan is an island over 30 miles from the mainland of Honduras. Roatan is technically a part of Honduras, but they are worlds apart in culture and geograpical location. The political unrest occurred only on mainland Honduras. On the island of Roatan, we have had no incidents of any kind. It remains peaceful, tranquil and beautiful. Since the removal of president Mel Zelaya on June 28th, Roatan has remained a safe, quiet haven for its residents and visitors. We've had many customers come in our store who feel the stance the US has taken is terrible and that it hurts the innocent people of the Bay Islands for no reason whatsoever. Direct flights to Roatan from Houston, Atlanta and Miami have continued as scheduled and cruise ship port calls have not changed. In the Trip Advisor forums, there are multiple postings from travelers relating their positive vacation experiences in Roatan. If you feel it is your responsibility to post any travel advisories in effect, we believe there is a responsibility to present the complete picture so that travelers can make there own informed decision. There are over 1000 US citizens residing in Roatan, many of whom have contacted the Ambassador of the United States in Honduras to request that the advisory be amended to exclude the Bay Islands. This change has not yet been made, so we sincerely request Trip Advisor add a sentence to the posting of the State Department warning as follows: "Roatan is a safe island 30 miles from mainland Honduras and has not experienced any disruption. To see postings with information from travelers that have recently vacationed in Roatan, please visit the 'Roatan forums' section of Trip Advisor" We business owners are watching our employees suffer from the lack of tourism dollars to support their families, while we struggle to keep our doors open. Please help us get the true facts out there. Thank You, Sincerely, Penelope Leigh, www.penelopesislandemporium.com * * * Message sent to Rights Action by a Honduran lawyer who handles real estate deals for foreigners interested in buying property on the Roatan Island, Honduras To: info at rightsaction.org Sender: Cesar "Taliban and Zelaya supporters call for boycoting elections" * * * Another message sent to Rights Action To: info at rightsaction.org Sender: Giagnocavo Email address: "Don't know where you get your info, but we live in Central America. The President who was deposed should not be allowed back in the country. The USA should support Micheletti. Your emails are rabble-rousing." = = = = = = = HOW TO SUPPORT HONDURAS' PRO-DEMOCRACY, ANTI-MILITARY COUP REGIME MOVEMENT TO MAKE TAX-DEDUCTIBLE DONATIONS for community based groups in the pro-democracy movement, make check payable to "Rights Action" and mail to: UNITED STATES: Box 50887, Washington DC, 20091-0887 CANADA: 552 - 351 Queen St. E, Toronto ON, M5A-1T8 CREDIT-CARD DONATIONS: http://rightsaction.org/contributions.htm STOCK DONATIONS, contact: info at rightsaction.org SPEAKERS: Contact Rights Action to plan educational presentations in your community, school, place of worship, home, about the tireless and courageous Honduras pro-democracy movement. EDUCATIONAL DELEGATIONS TO CENTRAL AMERICA: Form your own group and/ or join one of our educational delegation-seminars to learn firsthand about community development, human rights and environmental struggles. MORE INFORMATION: Annie Bird (annie at rightsaction.org) & Grahame Russell (info at rightsaction.org, Rights Action co-directors Forward email This email was sent to vinniechops at hotmail.com by info at rightsaction.org. Update Profile/Email Address | Instant removal with SafeUnsubscribe? | Privacy Policy. Email Marketing by Rights ACtion | Box 50887 | Washington | DC | 20091 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From proyectohondureno at gmail.com Sat Nov 13 06:36:04 2010 From: proyectohondureno at gmail.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Proyecto_Hondure=F1o?=) Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2010 09:36:04 -0500 Subject: [HNA] Saturday.Nov. 20, 2010 Quien Dijo Miedo/Who Said We are Afraid Honduras under Coup d' Etat Documentary In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: *"QUIEN DIJO MIEDO"* *WHO SAID WE ARE AFRAID* HONDURAS UNDER COUP D? ETAT * * *SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2010* *A DOCUMENTARY FILM* [image: 1-marcha-popular.JPG] *6:00 P.M* *Centro Latino-267 Broadway - Chelsea, MA* On June 28, 2009, the Honduran military carried out a coup against President Manuel Zelaya that continues to this day. President Zelaya had undertaken measures for the Honduran people, such as increasing the minimum wage by 60%, opposing the privatization of water and electricity, making it easier for farmers to obtain land titles, and supporting the writing of a new constitution by a constituent assembly. The coup was condemned by almost all the nations of the world. *Sponsored by:* *[image: proyecto_logo2010.jpg]* ** *For more information, please contact: Tel. **(617) 401-5208 **or** (617) 610-3784 * *Email: proyectohondureno at gmail.com* ** ** * **Endorsed** **by**: Centro Presente- Chelsea **United** **Against** **The ** **War**-CORES- FMLN MA-SEDUC- * * Mass Global Action- May 1st Committee*** Michelle Fuentes "Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children." Kahlil Gibran -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: proyecto_logo2010.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 18563 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 1-marcha-popular.JPG Type: image/jpeg Size: 39734 bytes Desc: not available URL: From michelle.fuentes at gmail.com Wed Nov 17 20:04:06 2010 From: michelle.fuentes at gmail.com (Michelle Fuentes) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2010 23:04:06 -0500 Subject: [HNA] Saturday.Nov. 20, 2010 Quien Dijo Miedo/Who Said We are Afraid Honduras under Coup d' Etat Documentary In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: *"QUIEN DIJO MIEDO"* *WHO SAID WE ARE AFRAID* HONDURAS UNDER COUP D? ETAT * * *SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2010* *A DOCUMENTARY FILM* ** *[image: 1-marcha-popular.JPG]* *6:00 P.M* *Centro Latino-267 Broadway - Chelsea, MA* On June 28, 2009, the Honduran military carried out a coup against President Manuel Zelaya that continues to this day. President Zelaya had undertaken measures for the Honduran people, such as increasing the minimum wage by 60%, opposing the privatization of water and electricity, making it easier for farmers to obtain land titles, and supporting the writing of a new constitution by a constituent assembly. The coup was condemned by almost all the nations of the world. *Sponsored by Proyecto Hondure?o* ** ** *For more information, please contact: Tel. **(617) 401-5208 **or** (617) 610-3784 * *Email: proyectohondureno at gmail.com* ** ** * **Endorsed** **by**: Centro Presente- Chelsea **United** **Against** **The ** **War**-CORES- FMLN MA-SEDUC- * * Mass Global Action- May 1st Committee*** Michelle Fuentes "Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children." Kahlil Gibran -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 1-marcha-popular.JPG Type: image/jpeg Size: 39734 bytes Desc: not available URL: From michelle.fuentes at gmail.com Sat Nov 20 07:51:06 2010 From: michelle.fuentes at gmail.com (Michelle Fuentes) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2010 10:51:06 -0500 Subject: [HNA] Today- Saturday.Nov. 20, 2010 Quien Dijo Miedo/Who Said We are Afraid Honduras under Coup d' Etat Documentary Message-ID: *PLEASE JOIN US FOR A FREE SCREENING OF... ** "QUIEN DIJO MIEDO" WHO SAID WE ARE AFRAID HONDURAS UNDER COUP D? ETAT **SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2010 *A DOCUMENTARY FILM *6:00 P.M Centro Latino-267 Broadway - Chelsea, MA *On June 28, 2009, the Honduran military carried out a coup against President Manuel Zelaya that continues to this day. President Zelaya had undertaken measures for the Honduran people, such as increasing the minimum wage by 60%, opposing the privatization of water and electricity, making it easier for farmers to obtain land titles, and supporting the writing of a new constitution by a constituent assembly. The coup was condemned by almost all the nations of the world. Sponsored by: Proyecto Hondureno For more information, please contact: Tel. (617) 401-5208 or (617) 610-3784 Email: proyectohondureno at gmail.com Endorsed by: Centro Presente- Chelsea United Against The War-CORES- FMLN MA-SEDUC- Mass Global Action- May 1st Committee -Michelle Fuentes "Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children." Kahlil Gibran -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From proyectohondureno at gmail.com Sat Nov 20 09:12:13 2010 From: proyectohondureno at gmail.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Proyecto_Hondure=F1o?=) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2010 12:12:13 -0500 Subject: [HNA] Today Saturday Nov. 20 at 6pm-Quien Dijo Miedo Message-ID: PLEASE JOIN US FOR A SCREENING OF... "QUIEN DIJO MIEDO" WHO SAID WE ARE AFRAID HONDURAS UNDER COUP D? ETAT SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2010 6:00 P.M Centro Latino-267 Broadway - Chelsea, MA A DOCUMENTARY FILM On June 28, 2009, the Honduran military carried out a coup against President Manuel Zelaya that continues to this day. President Zelaya had undertaken measures for the Honduran people, such as increasing the minimum wage by 60%, opposing the privatization of water and electricity, making it easier for farmers to obtain land titles, and supporting the writing of a new constitution by a constituent assembly. The coup was condemned by almost all the nations of the world. Sponsored by: Proyecto Hondureno For more information, please contact: Tel. (617) 401-5208 or (617) 610-3784 Email: proyectohondureno at gmail.com Endorsed by: Centro Presente- Chelsea United Against The War-CORES- FMLN MA-SEDUC- Mass Global Action May 1st Committee -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From vinniechops at hotmail.com Mon Nov 29 06:55:55 2010 From: vinniechops at hotmail.com (Brian O'Connell) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2010 09:55:55 -0500 Subject: [HNA] Honduras: 5 dead & Julian In-Reply-To: <1103994962195.1103480765269.947.1.55084501@scheduler> References: <1103994962195.1103480765269.947.1.55084501@scheduler> Message-ID: The US sponsored military repression continues in Honduras...... Having trouble viewing this email? Click here ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Rights Action HONDURAS: Conflict and Militarization Continue in Colon, After Massacre of CampesinosNovember 29, 2010 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Rights Action HONDURAS: Conflict and Militarization Continue in Colon, After Massacre of Campesinos November 29, 2010 BELOW: * Article, by Karen Spring, discussing recent developments since massacre of campesinos on November 15 in northern Honduras, including military occupation of National Agrarian Institute, & Karen's visit to the hospital to see one of the campesinos injured during the massacre. * Funding Appeal for medical costs for the Campesino Movement of Aguan and the families of the injured and dead. * Resending article, by Annie Bird, explaining connection between the military coup in Honduras, climate change reduction mechanisms and the November 15 massacre of campesinos. Please re-publish distribute this article and letter, citing authors and source To get on/ off RA's listserv: http://visitor.constantcontact.com/d.jsp?m=1103480765269What to do: see below = = = CONFLICT AND MILITARIZATION CONTINUES IN COLON AFTER MASSACRE OF CAMPESINOS By Karen Spring, spring.kj at gmail.com On Tuesday, November 23 at 7:00 am, between 300-400 military officers and a reported seven military commanders occupied the offices of the National Agrarian Institute (INA) in the department of Colon. The occupation of the INA office occurs just eight days after the murder of five campesinos and the severe injury of four members of the Campesino Movement of Aguan (MCA) by private security guards of large African palm producer, Miguel Facusse in Bajo Aguan, Colon. Facusse's African palm company, Dinant Corporation is the recipient of a $30 million dollar loan from the World Bank's International Finance Corporation. (For more information, see Annie Bird's article below). Since the massacre a week ago, the region has been heavily militarized by state forces and various check points have been set up along the major roads to 'guarantee the security of the region.' The military and police forces are accused by various campesinos organizations in the region of acting in favour of the large land owners, arriving hours after the conflicts and deaths occur and not carrying out the proper investigations often solely accusing the campesinos as being at fault. INA, the state office responsible for titling land and working to resolve land disputes, and its director Caesar Ham have been publicly accused by large land owner Miguel Facusse to be assisting the campesinos in the region in the efforts to recuperate land illegally taken from them. It is speculated that today's occupation of the INA office is an attempt to frame the state institute for providing arms and supporting the campesino struggles in the region. In an outcry against the killings and in an act of solidarity, campesinos from six departments of Honduras (Atlantida, Colon, Olancho, Santa Barbara, Cortez and Choluteca) began land occupations shortly after the November 15th murders. To pressure the government and demonstrate their force, campesinos will be arriving in Tegucigalpa on Thursday for a gathering outside of the National Congress. "WE ARE JUST POOR CAMPESINOS FIGHTING FOR OUR CHILDREN": IN THE HOSPITAL AWAITING AN OPERATION Julian from the community of Guadalupe Carney and one of the four MCA campesinos injured was shot in the head during the confrontation with Facusse's security guards. He remains in the hospital where he is awaiting an operation to reconstruct parts of his face. A bullet entered in the right side of his face just below his cheek bone, passed through his upper lip area and exited on the left side of his face, fracturing his cheek bone. "The upper part of my mouth is destroyed. I can't eat, just liquids but not other types of good." Almost all of Julian's upper teeth and gums have been destroyed. FUNDS ARE NEEDED: The Campesino Movement of Aguan (MCA) and the families of the nine affected campesinos have many medical expenses and funeral costs. TO MAKE TAX-DEDUCTIBLE DONATIONS Make check payable to "Rights Action" and mail to: UNITED STATES: Box 50887, Washington DC, 20091-0887 CANADA: 552 - 351 Queen St. E, Toronto ON, M5A-1T8 CREDIT-CARD DONATIONS: http://rightsaction.org/contributions.htm DONATIONS OF STOCK: info at rightsaction.org * * * WORLD BANK-FUNDED BIOFUEL CORPORATION MASSACRES SIX HONDURAN CAMPESINOS By Annie Bird, annie at rightsaction.org MASSACRED WHILE WORKING THEIR FIELDS Approximately six months ago, campesino farmers in Trujillo, Colon organized in the Campesino Movement of the Aguan, the MCA, were awarded provisional title to a farm which neighbors their community, as part of a long standing negotiation with Dinant Corporation, a biofuel company, whose land claims are illegitimate. Since that time, the small farmers worked the land. In recent weeks they had noticed incursions into their land by armed security forces employed by the biofuel company, Dinant. On Monday, November 15, the farmers went to their fields but were then attacked by Dinant security. Six were killed in the massacre and two more are in critical condition. The massacre occurred the same day that the de facto Honduran president Pepe Lobo had planned to meet with the director of the US government development fund, the Millennium Challenge, in Denver to ask for funding for so called "renewable energy" - in Honduras, principally biofuels and dams. WORLD BANK AND OTHER "DEVELOPMENT" GROUPS SHARE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE MASSACRE The "renewable energy" plan Lobo is shopping around may be the result of an Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) funded technical support grant (T-1101) to the de facto government ushered in after the June 28 military coup. In November 2009, under a coup government and amidst grave human rights violations, the World Bank's (WB) International Finance Corporation gave Dinant Corporation a $30 million loan for biofuel production, and now shares responsibility in the massacre. Policies supposedly intended to stop climate change are in reality fueling climate change. The world must invest in a renewable way of life, not destructive "renewable energy". Scientists have analyzed that biofuel industry together with the climate change prevention mechanisms currently promoted could actually result in the destruction of half of the planets forests. In the same way that massacres cannot be stopped when justice systems are destroyed by military coups, the destruction of our planet cannot be stopped when the systems of governance have been hijacked by corporations who can buy off, or that failing, militarily intervene in nations attempting to build just forms of governance. Human rights and the environment cannot be separated. US MILITARY BASE BOUGHT FOR AGRARIAN REFORM AND STOLEN FOR AGRIBUSINESS During the past decade, campesinos in Honduras have challenged a series of illegitimate land titles obtained by agro-businessmen in a massive former US military training center known as the CREM. On this land, over 5,000 hectares, the US military trained military forces from across Central America, particularly the Contra paramilitary forces attacking the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. Once the CREM center's operations ended, the Honduran government bought the land from a US citizen through the Honduran land reform program. However, instead of being sold to small farmers, as the government was obligated by law to do, the land was illegally divided up between several large landholders as a result of corruption and fraudulent titling processes. A coalition of land rights organizations in Honduras organized in the Campesino Movement of the Aguan, the MCA, to challenge the illegal titles. Little by little the land titles were awarded to groups of campesinos organized in the MCA. The titling process has been slow and marked by violent attacks by the large landholders who have influence in the government, police and military forces. Among the last of the CREM lands to remain in the hands of agribusiness interests is the farm called El Tumbador, approximately 700 hectares controlled by the Dinant Corporation, property of Honduras' most powerful agro-businessman, Miguel Facusse. A biofuel businessman with interests in several corporations, Miguel Facusse is infamous for the use of fraudulent methods, including intimidation and violence, to obtain lands throughout the country. THE WORLD BANK BACKS THE CORRUPT AND VIOLENT DINANT CORPORATION Since the military coup in June 2009, Honduras has been ruled by illegitimate, repressive regimes. In November 2009, the WB extended a loan of $30 million to Dinant for its biofuel production in that region, despite a widely documented history of violence and corruption by the biofuel company. The WB failed in its human rights obligations in this case and shares responsibility for this massacre. Given the conditions in Honduras, the WB must suspend both private and public sector funding to Honduras, and freeze funding of biofuels in the region. The biofuel industry in Central and South America violently displaces small farmers and contributes to global warming. Another multinational public fund that finances international private investment, the Interamerican Investment Corporation, has also recently funded Dinant. "GREENWASHING" AND CORPORATE WELFARE - THE HIJACKING OF CLIMATE CHANGE FUNDS Biofuels are one of the fastest growing industries, a sector that sees high levels of investment from venture capitalists. This massive growth has been stimulated by taxpayer dollars pouring into renewable energy through many funding agencies, but particularly the IADB, the WB, and carbon emissions trading markets. The trade in carbon credits was created as an element of the Kyoto Protocol, signed in 1997. It attempts to implement a market based system to curb global warming by levying penalties against heavy polluting industries that produce high levels of greenhouse gas emissions, such as carbon burning energy generation plants. But those penalties can be paid off, or offset, by the purchase of carbon credits. Carbon credits are given to industries that undertake activities that reduce emission of gases that generate climate change, and those can then be sold on the market to companies that generate global warming. The system is riddled with problems, beginning with the fact that the big money to be made in "green" industry creates a big incentive to greenwash, to disguise polluting activities as activities that do not pollute in order to cash in on climate change funds. This is the case with biofuels. BIOFUELS COULD DESTROY HALF THE WORLD'S FORESTS Even as governments pour taxpayer money into biofuels, it is being demonstrated that biofuel production contributes significantly to global warming, through the destruction of wetlands, displacement of small farmers and food production, often to cut forests, direct clear cutting of forests for biofuel production, and even cutting forests to generate wood pellets that make ethanol. One study published in Science magazine in October 2009 analyzed regulation set up in the Kyoto Accords which promotes the use of biofuels, but finds that these measures could result in the loss of up to half of the world's forests. As the negative impacts were beginning to be felt, though the extent is only beginning to be understood, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), and others committed to market incentives for polluters, set up the Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil. This body certifies palm oil as having been 'sustainably' produced. In May 2010, WWF signed an agreement with Miguel Facusse's Dinant Corporation to begin the process of certifying Dinant palm oil. The WB, in November 2009, shortly after disbursing Dinant's loan, froze palm oil funding while it created its palm oil strategy, expected to be completed in March 2011. US CORPORATIONS COULD MAKE $27 TRILLION OFF "LESSER DEVELOPED COUNTRIES" CONVERSION TO BIOFUELS By the time these impacts were being seen, big corporations, with their lobbies, were drooling over the potential profits. The WWF is strongly committed to paying off big business to reduce emissions. A recent WWF study urges taxpayer money be poured into renewable energy in "lesser developed countries" (LDCs) in order to stimulate job growth in the United States. Governments are committing to insuring that a certain percentage of fuel consumption be converted to biofuel consumption around the world but especially in "LDCs." This will generate a huge market for technology to convert engines and other existing infrastructure, which according to WWF could represent a $27 trillion dollar market for US corporations. Faced with the powerful corporate lobby corrupting and pressuring governments around the globe, and sometimes promoting military interventions to back their interests, changing policies to really fight climate change as opposed to subsidizing corporations seems a quixotic dream, as was seen in the failed summit on climate change in Copenhagen last year. At the 16th international summit on climate change in Copenhagan, nations agreed to set up an, as yet, unclear mechanism called the REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation), which would focus on curbing deforestation. Paradoxically, incentives for forest preservation are still banned, and the potential for biofuel stimulated deforestation of half of the world's forests is still not addressed. It is important to remember that the WWF and others who believe in and promote environmental market economics have promoted a system of biosphere privatization which allows degrading activities to be carried out by private companies that subsidize non-governmental organizations that manage the biospheres, while ignoring the rights of campesino communities and indigenous peoples. GOVERNMENTS SHOULD INVEST IN THE POOR, NOT IN THE SUPER RICH The international community's failure to substantively address climate change is a result the unwillingness to acknowledge and name the economic and political policies and actors that are responsible for climate harm. The "free" market cannot correct the damage it has done, further investing in the same actors and under the same policy framework that generated climate change cannot reverse it. To reverse climate change, the wealthiest nations and people of the world must change how they live. Indigenous and campesino communities have more sustainable ways of life, have learned to live in a sustainable way with the resources they produce. But they are being displaced and massacred to usher in the concentration of land and wealth, the genocide of a sustainable way of life. Rather than subsidizing corporate mass destruction, the nations of the world must invest in a different way of life, and hold accountable those that destroy human life and destroy our only and irreplaceable, planet. (Annie Bird is co-director of Rights Action, annie at rightsaction.org, www.rightsaction.org. Feel free to re-publish this article, citing author & source) * * * WHAT TO DO Even as Honduras has been suspended from the Organization of American States, even as most Latin American governments refuse to recognize the legitimacy of the illegitimate and repressive regime in place in Honduras, the governments of the US and Canada are working the hardest to support and legitimize this very regime. Rights Action asks that Americans and Canadians continue to send this, and other information, to your own senators, congress members and parliamentarians, insisting that they do every thing they can to ensure that the US and Canada suspend military and economic relations with the Honduran regime and demand full legal accountability for the massacre of these 6 campesinos in Aguan and all cases of State sponsored or tolerated repression. * * * SPEAKERS: Contact us to plan educational presentations in your community, school, place of worship, home (info at rightsaction.org) EDUCATIONAL DELEGATIONS TO CENTRAL AMERICA: Form your own group and/ or join one of our educational delegation-seminars to learn first hand about community development, human rights and environmental struggles (info at rightsaction.org) * CREATE YOUR OWN email and mail lists and re-distribute our information * RECOMMENDED DAILY NEWS: www.democracynow.org / www.upsidedownworld.org / www.dominionpaper.ca * RECOMMENDED BOOKS: Eduardo Galeano's "Open Veins of Latin America"; Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States"; James Loewen's "Lies My Teacher Told Me"; Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine"; Paolo Freire's "Pedagogy of the Oppressed"; Dr Seuss's "Horton Hears A Who" FOR MORE INFORMATION: Grahame Russell, info at rightsaction.org, Annie Bird, annie at rightsaction.org, Karen Spring (in Honduras), spring.kj at gmail.com = = = Forward email This email was sent to vinniechops at hotmail.com by info at rightsaction.org. Update Profile/Email Address | Instant removal with SafeUnsubscribe? | Privacy Policy. Email Marketing by Rights ACtion | Box 50887 | Washington | DC | 20091 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From vinniechops at hotmail.com Mon Nov 29 21:06:31 2010 From: vinniechops at hotmail.com (Brian O'Connell) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2010 00:06:31 -0500 Subject: [HNA] WikiLeaks Honduras: State Dept. Busted on Support of Coup Message-ID: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/wikileaks-honduras-state_b_789282.html WikiLeaks Honduras: State Dept. Busted on Support of Coup By July 24, 2009, the U.S. government was totally clear about the basic facts of what took place in Honduras on June 28, 2009. The U.S. embassy in Tegucigalpa sent a cable to Washington with subject: "Open and Shut: The Case of the Honduran Coup," asserting that "there is no doubt" that the events of June 28 "constituted an illegal and unconstitutional coup." The Embassy listed arguments being made by supporters of the coup to claim its legality, and dismissed them thus: "none... has any substantive validity under the Honduran constitution." The Honduran military clearly had no legal authority to remove President Zelaya from office or from Honduras, the Embassy said, and their action -- the Embassy described it as an "abduction" and "kidnapping" -- was clearly unconstitutional. It is inconceivable that any top U.S. official responsible for U.S. policy in Honduras was not familiar with the contents of the July 24 cable, which summarized the assessment of the U.S. Embassy in Honduras on key facts that were politically disputed by supporters of the coup regime. The cable was addressed to Tom Shannon, then Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs; Harold Koh, the State Department's Legal Adviser; and Dan Restrepo, Senior Director for Western Hemisphere Affairs at the National Security Council. The cable was sent to the White House and to Secretary of State Clinton. But despite the fact that the U.S. government was crystal clear on what had transpired, the U.S. did not immediately cut off all aid to Honduras except "democracy assistance," as required by U.S. law. Instead, a month after this cable was sent, the State Department, in its public pronouncements, pretended that the events of June 28 -- in particular, "who did what to whom" and the constitutionality of these actions -- were murky and needed further study by State Department lawyers, despite the fact that the State Department's top lawyer, Harold Koh, knew exactly "who did what to whom" and that these actions were unconstitutional at least one month earlier. The State Department, to justify its delay in carrying out U.S. law, invented a legal distinction between a "coup" and a "military coup," claiming that the State Department's lawyers had to determine whether a "military coup" took place, because only that determination would meet the legal threshold for the aid cutoff. QUESTION: And so - sorry, just a follow-up. If this is a coup - the State Department considers this a coup, what's the next step? And I mean, there is a legal framework on the U.S. laws dealing with countries that are under coup d'?tat? I mean, what's holding you guys [back from taking] other measures according [to] the law? SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE: I think what you're referring to, Mr. Davila, is whether or not this is - has been determined to be a military coup. And you're correct that there are provisions in our law that have to be applied if it is determined that this is a military coup. And frankly, our lawyers are looking at that exact question. And when we get the answer to that, you are right, there will be things that - if it is determined that this was a military coup, there will be things that will kick in. As you know, on the ground, there's a lot of discussion about who did what to whom and what things were constitutional or not, which is why our lawyers are really looking at the event as we understand them in order to come out with the accurate determination. But the July 24 cable shows that this was nonsense. The phrase "military coup" occurs nowhere in the document, a remarkable omission in a cable from the Embassy presenting the Embassy's analysis of the June 28 events, their constitutionality and legality one month after the fact, if that were a crucial distinction in assessing U.S. policy. And indeed, initial press reports on the statements of top U.S. officials in response to the coup made no such distinction, using the descriptions "coup" and "military coup" interchangeably. Why did the State Department drag its feet, pretending that facts which it knew to be clear-cut were murky? Why didn't the State Department speak publicly after July 24 with the same moral clarity as the July 24 cable from the Embassy in Honduras? Had the State Department shared publicly the Embassy's clear assessment of the June 28 events after July 24, history might have turned out differently, because supporters of the coup in the United States -- including Republican Members of Congress and media talking heads -- continued to dispute basic facts about the coup which the US Embassy in Honduras had reported were not subject to reasonable dispute, and U.S. media reporting on the coup continued to describe these facts as subject to reasonable dispute, long after the Embassy had firmly declared that they were not. As the Center for Economic and Policy Research noted in an August 2009 report, in the previous 12 months the U.S. had responded to other coups by cutting U.S. aid within days. In these cases -- in Africa -- there was no lengthy deliberation on whether a "coup" was a "military coup." What was the difference? A key difference was that Honduras is in Central America, "our backyard," so different rules applied. Top officials in Washington supported the political aims of the coup. They did not nominally support the means of the coup, as far as we know, but they supported its political end: the removal of the ability of President Zelaya and his supporters to pursue a meaningful reform project in Honduras. On the other hand, they were politically constrained not to support the coup openly, since they knew it to be illegal and unconstitutional. Thus, they pursued a "diplomatic compromise," which would "restore constitutional order" while achieving the coup's central political aim: removal of the ability of President Zelaya and his supporters to pursue a meaningful reform project in Honduras. The effect of their efforts at "diplomatic compromise" was to allow the coup to stand, a result that these supporters of the coup's political aims were evidently content with. Why does this matter now? First, the constitutional and political crisis in Honduras is ongoing, and the failure of the U.S. to take immediate, decisive action in response to the coup was a significant cause of the ongoing crisis. After nominally opposing the coup, and slowly and fitfully implementing partial sanctions against the coup regime in a way that did not convince the coup regime that the U.S. was serious, the U.S. moved to support elections under the coup regime which were not recognized by the rest of the hemisphere, and today the U.S. is lobbying for the government created by that disputed election to be readmitted to the Organization of American States, in opposition to most of the rest of the hemisphere, despite ongoing, major violations of human rights in Honduras, about which the U.S. is doing essentially nothing. Second, the relationship of actual U.S. policy -- as opposed to rhetorical pronouncements -- to democracy in the region is very much a live issue from Haiti to Bolivia. Yesterday there was an election in Haiti. This election was funded by the U.S., despite the fact that major parties were excluded from participation by the government's electoral council, a fact that Republican and Democratic Members of Congress, in addition to NGOs, complained about without result. The Washington Post reports that the election ended with "nearly all the major candidates calling for the results to be tossed out amid 'massive fraud.'": "12 of the 19 candidates on Sunday's ballot appeared together at a raucous afternoon news conference to accuse the government of President Rene Preval of trying to steal the election and install his chosen candidate, Jude Celestin." Yesterday's election in Haiti had the fingerprints of the U.S. government all over it. It was funded by the U.S. "Security" for the election was purportedly provided by UN troops, paid for by the U.S. And the crucial historical context of the election was the 2004 coup that deposed democratically-elected President Jean Bertrand Aristide, a coup engineered by the U.S. with years of economic destruction clearly intended to topple the elected government. Last week, Bolivian President Evo Morales called out the U.S. for its recent history of supporting coups in the region. AP's treatment of President Morales' remarks was instructive: Morales also alleged U.S. involvement in coup attempts or political upheaval in Venezuela in 2002, Honduras in 2009 and Ecuador in 2010. "The empire of the United States won," in Honduras, Morales said, a reference to the allegations of former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya that the U.S. was behind his ouster. "The people of the Americas in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, we won," Morales continued. "We are three to one with the United States. Let's see what the future brings." U.S. officials have repeatedly denied involvement in all of those cases and critics of the United States have produced no clear evidence. [my emphasis] It's certainly true that critics have produced "no clear evidence" of U.S. "involvement" in any of these cases -- if your standard for "clear evidence" of U.S. "involvement" is a US government document that dictated in advance everything that subsequently happened. But this would be like saying that critics have produced "no clear evidence" for the Armenian Genocide because researchers haven't yet found a Turkish Mein Kampf. [Some who dispute that there was an "Armenian Genocide" do actually claim something like this -- "there is no proof of a plan" -- but claims like this are generally not taken seriously by U.S. media -- except when the U.S. government is an author of the crime, and the crime is recent.] In the case of the coup in Venezuela in 2002, we know the following: - Groups in Venezuela that participated in the coup had been supported financially and politically by the U.S. - The CIA had advance knowledge of the plans for a coup, and did nothing to warn the Venezuelan government; nor did the US do anything meaningful to try to stop the coup. - Although the US knew in advance about the plans for a coup, when these events played out, the US tried to claim that there was no coup. - The US pushed for international recognition of the coup government. - The International Monetary Fund, which would not take such action without advance approval from the United States, announced its willingness to support the coup government a few hours after the coup took place. These facts about U.S. government "involvement" in the coup in Venezuela are documented in Oliver Stone's recent movie, South of the Border. This is why it's so important for as many Americans as possible to see this movie: because there are basic facts about the relationship of actual U.S. government policies -- as opposed to rhetoric -- to democracy in Latin America that major U.S. media simply cannot be counted upon to report straight. In order to successfully agitate for meaningful reform of U.S. government policy in Latin America, Americans have to know what the actual policy of the U.S. government has been, something they are unlikely to learn from major U.S. media. And this is why Just Foreign Policy is urging Americans to organize house parties on December 10 -- Human Rights Day -- to watch South of the Border. You can sign up to host a screening here. Here is a clip from South of the Border, in which Scott Wilson, formerly foreign editor of the Washington Post, describes the "involvement" of the U.S. in the coup in Venezuela: And here is a clip from South of the Border in which President Morales talks with Oliver Stone about the role of the media: Oliver Stone: "Now [Morales] is joining the Hugo ranks, becoming more the 'bad left' in the American media." President Morales: "The media will always try to criminalize the fight against neoliberalism, colonialism, and imperialism. It's almost normal. The worst enemy I have is the media." South of the Border Clip #2 from Cinema Libre Studio on Vimeo. Follow Robert Naiman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/naiman -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: