By Brooke Denmark, Christine Goffredo and Riahl O'Malley
International Team - Nicaragua
Witness for Peace
In Tegucigalpa teachers, students, parents and concerned citizens are protesting a proposed law that would pave the way for the privatization of education. Honduran military and police have 
On Sunday two teachers, María Auxiliadora Espinoza and Wendy Méndez, were detained at a gas station after the protest had concluded. And yesterday authorities arrested Miriam Miranda, the Garifuna leader of the Fraternal Black Organization of Honduras. Miranda was subsequently released, but in the meantime President Porfirio Lobo has threatened to suspend teachers continuing to protest for up to a year.
As concerns mount, Witness for Peace and other advocacy organizations have declared today an International Day of Action in Solidarity with Honduras. You can take action by writing to your congressional representatives to demand the U.S. stop funding the military and police violence against peaceful protesters.
Currently, the Honduras military receives funding from the United States through the Central American Regional Security Initiative (CARSI), which has a budget of more than $200 million. In February, the United States government granted $1.75 million to Honduras. Tell your congressional representatives that U.S. taxpayer money must not go to a military violently repressing its citizens and abusing human rights!
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Today: International Day of Action in Solidarity with Honduras
Thursday, March 24, 2011
The Inter-American Development Bank Meets in Canada: Development-Induced Displacement not on the Agenda
By Riahl O'Malley
International Team - Nicaragua
Witness for Peace
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) is the largest source of development financing for Latin America and the Caribbean. Today bank ministers, bureaucrats, corporate executives and (some) civil society representatives are meeting in Calgary, Alberta for its annual meeting.
The Program of Activities displays a variety of development buzzwords such as investment, infrastructure, even climate change, but "development-induced displacement" didn’t make the itinerary. Following a free market development model, IDB policies encourage foreign corporations to pursue infrastructure projects in Latin America and the Caribbean under the pretext of increasing economic growth and reducing poverty. However, these projects often do more harm than good, creating or exacerbating problems in nearby communities. All too often, IDB projects displace massive amounts of people from their homes. For years, affected communities have mobilized to protect their rights. Their voices deserve a spot on the meeting agenda.
In the early 2000s, Plan Puebla Panama, a string of megaprojects partly funded by the IDB, faced mass opposition. Corporations were accused of violating people’s human rights, limiting access to natural resources through privatization and exploitation, breaking promises made to affected communities, and even of sending police and armed forces to remove people from their homes in the interest of foreign investors. (Witness for Peace's Mexico-based International Team recently reported on one such project - an IDB-funded hydroelectric dam proposed in coastal Oaxaca.) The effects have been felt most prominently by indigenous and Afro-descendant communities.
Grassroots opposition pressured the IDB to make “deep revisions” to the program, re-launching and eventually re-naming it the “Mesoamerican Integration and Development Project”. In addition, the IDB underwent an extensive reform agenda to make their projects “more accountable and transparent.” In February of 2010 they approved a new policy to “give better access to communities to express their concerns…” and initiated a policy designed to help minimize involuntary re-settlement.
These reforms, however, have not been effective. The open-ness of public consultations has been highly contested, challenged for having selective participation, distributing inadequate information to participants and for conducting insincere dialogue. And in spite of policy designed to prevent displacement, a report put out last year by the CIP Americas Policy Program found that IDB development projects in Mexico, Colombia, Brazil and Honduras are causing widespread forced migration.
Communities continue to voice their concern. On March 10 of this year an open letter to IDB president Luis Alberto Moreno was signed by presidents of the Tawahka Indigenous Federation of Honduras, Mosquitia Asla Takanka, and the Black-Honduran Fraternal Organization. The letter criticizes the IDB for funding a series of hydro-electric dams built on indigenous Tawahka land, cutting off methods of communication to the rest of the country and affecting their “physical security, nourishment, traditional economy, way of life and cultural integrity.”
In Honduras, this issue is part-in-parcel of a larger human rights crisis. While the post-coup administration remains contested by many Hondurans and unrecognized by a variety of Latin American leaders, the IDB seeks to legitimate President Lobo’s stance in global politics. Next May, IDB President Dr. Moreno will speak at an event called “Honduras is Open for Business,” a forum marketing Honduras as the “most attractive investment destination in Latin America.”
The IDB just announced that it will lend $171 million to Nicaragua over the course of 2011 for electricity, housing and transportation projects. Time will tell the consequences this loan carries.
The United States is the largest shareholder in the IDB and commands 30% of the vote, the largest of any member-nation. Considering widespread concerns over immigration in the U.S., it’s important to note the factors that set migration in motion, including foreign aid and development policy coming from our own government.
Adding consultation to the current free market model is not enough. To remedy problems of development-induced displacement and migration, current development strategies must be fundamentally re-examined to allow deeper revisions to take place.
International Team - Nicaragua
Witness for Peace
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) is the largest source of development financing for Latin America and the Caribbean. Today bank ministers, bureaucrats, corporate executives and (some) civil society representatives are meeting in Calgary, Alberta for its annual meeting.
The Program of Activities displays a variety of development buzzwords such as investment, infrastructure, even climate change, but "development-induced displacement" didn’t make the itinerary. Following a free market development model, IDB policies encourage foreign corporations to pursue infrastructure projects in Latin America and the Caribbean under the pretext of increasing economic growth and reducing poverty. However, these projects often do more harm than good, creating or exacerbating problems in nearby communities. All too often, IDB projects displace massive amounts of people from their homes. For years, affected communities have mobilized to protect their rights. Their voices deserve a spot on the meeting agenda.In the early 2000s, Plan Puebla Panama, a string of megaprojects partly funded by the IDB, faced mass opposition. Corporations were accused of violating people’s human rights, limiting access to natural resources through privatization and exploitation, breaking promises made to affected communities, and even of sending police and armed forces to remove people from their homes in the interest of foreign investors. (Witness for Peace's Mexico-based International Team recently reported on one such project - an IDB-funded hydroelectric dam proposed in coastal Oaxaca.) The effects have been felt most prominently by indigenous and Afro-descendant communities.
Grassroots opposition pressured the IDB to make “deep revisions” to the program, re-launching and eventually re-naming it the “Mesoamerican Integration and Development Project”. In addition, the IDB underwent an extensive reform agenda to make their projects “more accountable and transparent.” In February of 2010 they approved a new policy to “give better access to communities to express their concerns…” and initiated a policy designed to help minimize involuntary re-settlement.
These reforms, however, have not been effective. The open-ness of public consultations has been highly contested, challenged for having selective participation, distributing inadequate information to participants and for conducting insincere dialogue. And in spite of policy designed to prevent displacement, a report put out last year by the CIP Americas Policy Program found that IDB development projects in Mexico, Colombia, Brazil and Honduras are causing widespread forced migration.
Communities continue to voice their concern. On March 10 of this year an open letter to IDB president Luis Alberto Moreno was signed by presidents of the Tawahka Indigenous Federation of Honduras, Mosquitia Asla Takanka, and the Black-Honduran Fraternal Organization. The letter criticizes the IDB for funding a series of hydro-electric dams built on indigenous Tawahka land, cutting off methods of communication to the rest of the country and affecting their “physical security, nourishment, traditional economy, way of life and cultural integrity.”
In Honduras, this issue is part-in-parcel of a larger human rights crisis. While the post-coup administration remains contested by many Hondurans and unrecognized by a variety of Latin American leaders, the IDB seeks to legitimate President Lobo’s stance in global politics. Next May, IDB President Dr. Moreno will speak at an event called “Honduras is Open for Business,” a forum marketing Honduras as the “most attractive investment destination in Latin America.”
The IDB just announced that it will lend $171 million to Nicaragua over the course of 2011 for electricity, housing and transportation projects. Time will tell the consequences this loan carries.
The United States is the largest shareholder in the IDB and commands 30% of the vote, the largest of any member-nation. Considering widespread concerns over immigration in the U.S., it’s important to note the factors that set migration in motion, including foreign aid and development policy coming from our own government.
Adding consultation to the current free market model is not enough. To remedy problems of development-induced displacement and migration, current development strategies must be fundamentally re-examined to allow deeper revisions to take place.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
The Truth Commission vs. the True Commission: a report from Witness for Peace in Honduras
By Brooke Denmark
International Team - Nicaragua
Witness for Peace
The official Honduran Truth Commission has finished its investigations into the events leading up to and surrounding the coup on June 28, 2009. The Commission is set to release its report shortly before the next meeting of the Organization of the American States (OAS) in June. The U.S. State Department has been pushing for the reintegration of Honduras into the OAS since last year, and the Truth Commission’s report will likely be used to support the reintegration- giving a final stamp of approval on the coup and its aftermath.
However, many Honduran human rights organizations claim little faith in the official Commission. Chief among the complaints is the fact that the Truth Commission was unilaterally imposed by a government widely considered to be illegitimate.
“Usually when you have a reconciliation, you wait until both sides are ready to sit down,” says Bertha Oliva, head of the Committee of Relatives of Detained and Disappeared (COFADEH, Honduras’ largest human rights organization). “But the Truth Commission was imposed and came pre-designed.”
To find justice, Honduran human rights organizations like COFADEH and international supporters formed the True Commission. The True Commission is in the midst of collecting testimony regarding human rights violations around the country. Throughout this period I am providing protective accompaniment to one of the mobile investigative teams.
Almost two years after the coup, the human rights situation remains grave. Just this past week
various sectors took to the street in protest, including the teachers’ movement. The repression of protesters was both public and violent. Cameras caught people running from tear gas, police making arbitrary detentions, and even the death of a demonstrating teacher. But the cameras have not been able to capture all the repression – which makes the True Commission all the more important.
“This is the precise moment to remind the authorities and the international community that for a very long time the Honduran people have been marginalized,” says Honduran lawyer David Shaw, a member of the True Commission’s investigative team.
The True Commission accepts testimonies related to all types of human rights violations. For example, in rural areas the team has spoken with communities being denied water rights. Following the coup, a government decree allowing the river privatization paved the way for the construction of massive hydroelectric dams. Nearby towns now struggle for access to a natural resource essential to life. Furthermore, the True Commission has found that people organizing to defend water rights face grave persecution.
The team recently visited an indigenous community center where murals of Honduran artist Javier Espinal cover the walls. In Espinal’s words, “impunity ends when there are more eyes watching.”
The True Commission aims to do just that - uncover the depth of this human rights crisis to lay the foundations for justice and peace. Day by day more stories come to the surface – and soon more and more eyes will be watching.
International Team - Nicaragua
Witness for Peace
The official Honduran Truth Commission has finished its investigations into the events leading up to and surrounding the coup on June 28, 2009. The Commission is set to release its report shortly before the next meeting of the Organization of the American States (OAS) in June. The U.S. State Department has been pushing for the reintegration of Honduras into the OAS since last year, and the Truth Commission’s report will likely be used to support the reintegration- giving a final stamp of approval on the coup and its aftermath.
However, many Honduran human rights organizations claim little faith in the official Commission. Chief among the complaints is the fact that the Truth Commission was unilaterally imposed by a government widely considered to be illegitimate.
“Usually when you have a reconciliation, you wait until both sides are ready to sit down,” says Bertha Oliva, head of the Committee of Relatives of Detained and Disappeared (COFADEH, Honduras’ largest human rights organization). “But the Truth Commission was imposed and came pre-designed.”
To find justice, Honduran human rights organizations like COFADEH and international supporters formed the True Commission. The True Commission is in the midst of collecting testimony regarding human rights violations around the country. Throughout this period I am providing protective accompaniment to one of the mobile investigative teams.
Almost two years after the coup, the human rights situation remains grave. Just this past week
various sectors took to the street in protest, including the teachers’ movement. The repression of protesters was both public and violent. Cameras caught people running from tear gas, police making arbitrary detentions, and even the death of a demonstrating teacher. But the cameras have not been able to capture all the repression – which makes the True Commission all the more important.“This is the precise moment to remind the authorities and the international community that for a very long time the Honduran people have been marginalized,” says Honduran lawyer David Shaw, a member of the True Commission’s investigative team.
The True Commission accepts testimonies related to all types of human rights violations. For example, in rural areas the team has spoken with communities being denied water rights. Following the coup, a government decree allowing the river privatization paved the way for the construction of massive hydroelectric dams. Nearby towns now struggle for access to a natural resource essential to life. Furthermore, the True Commission has found that people organizing to defend water rights face grave persecution.
The team recently visited an indigenous community center where murals of Honduran artist Javier Espinal cover the walls. In Espinal’s words, “impunity ends when there are more eyes watching.”
The True Commission aims to do just that - uncover the depth of this human rights crisis to lay the foundations for justice and peace. Day by day more stories come to the surface – and soon more and more eyes will be watching.
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