94 U.S. House Members Express Concern about Human Rights Situation in Bajo Aguán, Honduras
FIAN welcomes the letter of House members sent to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on March 9, in which they express concern about the grave violations human rights in the case of the agrarian conflict in the Bajo Aguan valley in Honduras, where countless violations of the human right to food, as well as murders and persecutions, against members of peasant organizations have been committed.
On invitation of the Latin America Working Group and Rights Action, human rights defenders from Honduras and FIAN called the attention of U.S. Congress members to the case in October 2011.
Ninety-four members of the U.S. House of Representatives, one of the two bodies of the Congress, sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to raise concern over human rights violations in Honduras where human rights defenders, journalists, community leaders and opposition activists are subject to death threats, attacks and extrajudicial executions. According to the letter, “In the Bajo Aguán region, forty-five people associated with peasant organizations working to resolve ongoing land disputes have been killed since September 2009, as well as seven security guards, a policeman, a journalist and his partner, and three other persons. Underlying the violence are long-standing land conflicts, and witnesses have reported that private security guards on disputed farmlands are the perpetrators of many of these crimes.”
The letter asks the State Department “to suspend U.S. assistance to the Honduran military and police given the credible allegations of widespread, serious violations of human rights attributed to the security forces.” The letter also asks the State Department to continue efforts to pressure the Honduran government to protect the fundamental human rights of its citizens, investigate and prosecute abuses in the Bajo Aguán region and throughout the country, give an accounting of the specific status of cases, and hold accountable private security companies that have acted with impunity. In addition, the Honduran government should comply with the agreements already signed with peasant associations to address the land conflicts in Bajo Aguán and seek comprehensive solutions to lack of access to land and livelihoods that underlie this conflict.
FIAN has worked on the Bajo Aguan case for 10 years, with the peasant organizations in Honduras and other supporting organizations and individuals. This work has involved joint fact finding missions with other international networks, capacity building workshops, urgent action campaigns and reports on the situation to the EU, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and UN Human Rights bodies, among others. On several occasions, FIAN has urged the government of Honduras, as a Party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to investigate the abuses of peasants and to provide for their loss of livelihood, thereby fulfilling their obligation to respect, promote and guarantee human rights, in particular the right to life, the right to food, to housing, to health and education, and the right to personal integrity.
Download the letter (pdf) below