Mientras mueren lxs defensorxs de los bosques hondureños, en Nueva York se abre el juicio de narcotráfico para el hermano del presidente del país, Juan Antonio Hernández.

Por: Meghan Krausch

“Nos están matando uno a uno nuestros líderes” dijo el mensaje de texto reenviado. El mensaje venía de alguien de la comunidad indígena Tolupán de El Portillo, en la zona rural de Honduras.

La semana anterior, yo había propuesto un artículo sobre nueve personas indígenas en Honduras—Alisson Pineda, Wendy Pineda, José María Pineda, Ángela Murillo, Celso Cabrera, Óscar Cabrera, Óscar Vieda, Sergio Ávila, and Ramón Matute, quienes se enfrentan cargos penales por defender su territorio ancestral.

Antes de que pudiera terminar de escribir el ensayo, otro miembro de la familia había sido asesinado.

El 27 de septiembre de 2019, Milgen Idán Soto Ávila fue encontrado asesinado en el mismo lugar donde INMARE, una empresa maderera privada que actualmente está procesando a sus familiares por protestar contra la tala, trabajaba.

Milgen era un joven platicador e inquisitivo de veintinueve años, tenía una presencia constante en el Campamento Digno en Defensa del Territorio Ancestral, establecido por miembrxs de la comunidad que trabajan con el Movimiento Amplio por la Dignidad y Justicia (o MADJ). El objetivo del campamento es parar la tala de la empresa en el bosque de pinos que ha pertenecido a la tribu Tolupán desde que fueron reasentados en esta área, San Francisco de Locomapa, en el departamento de Yoro, en 1864.

Recuerdo bien a Milgen Soto, no solo porque tuvimos una larga conversación, sino también porque cada vez que estoy en Honduras miro con atención a todxs y me preocupo por quién podría estar ausente la próxima vez que regrese. Milgen era un compañero comprometido con grandes ideas sobre cómo crear una sociedad mejor, y compartimos una animada conversación sobre la política global y las contradicciones de sus experiencias en la pobreza extrema a pesar de su derecho histórico a la tierra.

En mayo, escribí sobre Ramón Matute y la ceremonia de levantamiento de los espíritus de su hermano y su padre, asesinados a principios de este año. Poco después de la publicación de este artículo, Ramón y otros ocho miembrxs de la comunidad fueron arrestados y ahora enfrentan cargos penales. ¿Su crimen? “Obstaculazición del plan de manejo forestal.”

A nivel internacional, más de 100 organizaciones firmaron una carta de solidaridad con los defensores de la tierra “condenando la criminalización de las acciones legítimas de protesta”. Aunque Milgen no fue arrestado, fue denunciado formalmente por la empresa maderera.

El 29 de septiembre, antes de haber asimilado completamente la realidad de la muerte de Milgen, recibí noticias del asesinato de otro líder Tolupán. Según los informes, individuos desconocidos le dispararon a Adolfo Redondo. Al principio, esta información fue difícil de confirmar porque, como lo expresó el mensaje de texto de El Portillo, “estamos incomunicados. No hay energía en la zona, no hay Internet”.

Milgen fue la tercera persona asesinada en la misma pequeña comunidad contando sólo este año, y la novena asesinada en el conflicto por la tala desde 2013. Sin embargo, el estado hondureño no ha ofrecido las protecciones requeridas por el derecho internacional, ni tampoco ha seguido procedimientos judiciales penales básicos.

Salomón y Samael Matute fueron asesinados en febrero, pero “no hay ningún avance sustancial en la investigación”, dice Mario Iraheta, representante de las y los Tolupánes en el proceso de medidas cautelares y miembro del equipo legal de MADJ. “Los autores materiales [del crimen] siguen libres en la zona, sin una orden de aprehensión”.

En cambio, los recursos del gobierno se están utilizando para criminalizar a los propios defensores de la tierra, que son todos beneficiarios de medidas cautelares de la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos.

Si bien es un tema muy mediático, Brasil no es el único país donde los bosques están en llamas. En una visita a San Francisco de Locomapa en abril, el humo de los incendios forestales fue tan grave, que todo un grupo de observadores internacionales del Colectivo de Solidaridad de Acción Permanente por la Paz, incluyéndome, se sintieron enfermos después de una sola tarde allí.

No está claro exactamente quién está prendiendo los incendios, que siempre parecen estar furiosos, pero la salud del bosque y de las y los Tolupánes está sufriendo. Los miembros de la comunidad dicen que sufren de una variedad de enfermedades respiratorias.

Una comunicación de 30 de septiembre lanzado por MADJ preguntaba: “¿Quiénes son los asesinos del pueblo Tolupán?”

“Invitamos a la población hondureña organizada y no organizada a identificar los actores intelectuales de la dictadura, de la violencia, de la desigualdad, del empobrecimiento, de quienes despojan y asesinan,” dice la comunicación. “Y a superar la clásica pregunta que busca ubicar a los autores materiales y a transformarla en ¿quién o quiénes ordenaron y consintieron sus asesinatos?”

Los cargos contra los miembros del Movimiento no son un caso aislado. Los defensores del medio ambiente de Guapinol han estado detenidos en prisión preventiva durante un mes debido a su oposición a un proyecto minero.

“Los procesos judiciales, junto con la represión activa por parte de las fuerzas de seguridad del gobierno revelan el compromiso de proteger los intereses corporativos en vez de los derechos humanos en Honduras”, dicen en una entrevista por correo electrónico Corie Welch y Alejandra Rincón, las coordinadoras del Programa de Honduras del Colectivo de Solidaridad de Acción Permanente por la Paz. “Bajo el régimen que llegó al poder en 2009, hemos visto una colaboración entre las élites poderosas y el gobierno de Honduras, ampliando las concesiones para la extracción y utilizando la policía y el ejército para hacer cumplir la construcción de estos proyectos”.

La ironía es indiscutible. Antonio “Tony” Hernández, hermano del presidente Juan Orlando Hernández, se enfrenta a un juicio en el Tribunal de Distrito Federal de Manhattan, acusado por el Departamento de Justicia de los Estados Unidos de narcotráfico, lavado de dinero y la coordinación de asesinato. El juicio comienza el 2 de octubre y el presidente Hernández es identificado como “co conspirador 4” junto con el ex presidente hondureño Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo.

Ambos, los dos únicos presidentes que han realizado campañas desde el golpe de estado de 2009 en Honduras, se ha alegado en documentos judiciales haber utilizado fondos de narcotráfico para sus campañas, aunque ninguno de los dos ha sido acusado en Estados Unidos.

Honduras no es simplemente un “estado fallido“; está activamente deformado por intereses empresariales e internacionales. El propio gobierno, enjuiciado por corrupción y narcotráfico, está lanzando cargos criminales contra algunos de sus más precarios ciudadanos por protestar en defensa de su propio bosque. Mientras tanto, los Estados Unidos mantiene una relación fuerte con la administración hondureña.

Los hondureños se movilizan dentro de Honduras. Pero la realidad del imperialismo en Centroamérica significa que el problema de los hondureños sea global. Cambiar la realidad política en su país requerirá un fuerte movimiento de solidaridad en los Estados Unidos. Mientras el gobierno de los Estados Unidos y otros regímenes internacionales otorguen legitimidad a Juan Orlando Hernández, puede permanecer en el poder. El caso criminal actual de su hermano es una prueba de esa legitimidad.

José María, un compañero mayor de la comunidad de San Francisco de Locomapa, tiene un dicho favorito: “La sangre de los mártires es la semilla de la libertad”.

story from the protest

August 27, 2019Leave a comment

The cop came over to express concern.

About me getting run over by a car

While handing out flyers to stop the concentration camps

From the sidewalk.

Then he walked me through moving traffic back to safety.

Two people standing together in front of the sun. Poster says "Communities not Cages" — Art by: Rommy Sobrado-Torrico

What Terror Looks Like

April 7, 2019July 10, 20191 Comment

More than one year after the post electoral crisis, the terror created by the murders of protestors is still palpable here. Many readers of this blog will be familiar with these killings because you participated last year in an open letter to the families of the victims.

A few days ago Karen Spring wrote this excellent essay on the continued impunity for the killings.

As I mentioned in a previous post, the events of December 2017 & January 2018 are hardly in the past for many Hondurans. These killings were mentioned to me without prompting at some of our site visits, and my general impression both from these weeks on the ground and following social media is of a people where terror has genuinely taken root. I keep thinking of the many histories I’ve read or watched about societies existing under terroristic regimes, and realizing that in this moment I’m visiting one of those societies. And knowing that my friends and others live in it every day.

Nor are these impressions and facts far removed from the United States. Impunity for murdering protestors and the terror it spreads is creating an exodus of people arriving everyday at our border. To say nothing of the direct and indirect support for this terror provided by the US government itself. One example: the US provides funding, training, and “vetting” for various police and military forces implicated in human rights abuses including murder. We are funding terror.

The Songs of the Grandmothers

April 1, 2019July 10, 2019Leave a comment

On Saturday I had the honor of hearing the songs of the grandmothers of COFAMIPRO, the Committee of Families of Disappeared Migrants of El Progreso. These women told us the stories of looking for their lost daughters and sons, who have been lost along the dangerous migrant trail between the US and Honduras or who lost contact with their families once arriving in the US. Rosa Nelly Santos told us about the heartbreaking work of repatriating remains, and how since 2000 she has walked with other mothers along the path wearing pictures of their children and asking around, hoping to find clues of where they were last seen. About the caravans, Rosa Nelly told us that they do not celebrate or agree with the migrant exodus because they would prefer to have people be able to stay in Honduras, but the most important thing is that no one disappears on an exodus. They may still die; but they will not disappear .

The women sang two songs they have written themselves: one for standing outside public offices demanding rights and recognition, and the second for when a person is found. It said “we don’t get tired of waiting.”

Together in a small circle, our Witness for Peace Solidarity Collective delegation cried with these women. We saw their pain, and held it with them for a few moments . We left them reluctantly in a flurry of hugs and smiles, always promising to share their stories.

Regular People Are Deporting Each Other – Or Not

February 5, 2019Leave a comment

Last weekend I read about immigration lawyers and journalists with US and EU citizenships being denied entry to Mexico. Interpol alerts were placed on their passports because they were involved in assisting the masses of asylum seekers on the US-Mexico border.

We live in times of terror.

There are a lot of people who have to be involved to make a system of terror like this run and keep running. According to the LA Times, it’s highly likely that judges needed to approve the “alerts” be placed on these peoples’ passports. Judges who needed to somehow find it OK to refuse people the right to move across borders because they were assisting others with their human rights; judges who swore to uphold the first amendment and then flagged the passports of journalists. They did not need to participate in this. But that means there were also attorneys who presented the government’s case to the judge. There were people in the courtrooms at the time who have said nothing about this happening, regular people like perhaps a stenographer who have participated in keeping their mouths shut rather than whistle blowing. Even when something happens in judges’ chambers, documents go through a lot of hands.

There are the immigration officers who carried out the orders.

I haven’t even started on the folks carrying out all of this when it comes to the actual asylees, the adults and children who we know have been suffering on our border. I’m talking about the ones participating in the asylum interview bottleneck. The ones turning the locks on the cages. The ones building the cages. The ones actually making money on the cages. There are actually hundreds of thousands of participants in this. It isn’t just Jeff Sessions and Donald Trump, who I think readers of this blog will probably find to be beyond any sense of shame.

I keep thinking of Eichmann organizing those train schedules to make sure all the trains could move everyone around Nazi Germany, and of everyone else involved in running the train system. Bureaucracies are made up in part by individual people and their individual actions, and they are a necessary part of these systems. And while it’s easy to forget, bureaucracies are not faceless.

But I try—I try, because it’s hard–to also think about the forgotten and even intentionally concealed history of everyday resistance that so many people have taken part in throughout history too. I try to hold out hope that we can again find and cultivate those memories, at least among some of ourselves.

“Slow It All Down” Shaun Slifer – Text and Image from Justseeds: “As an icon of working class history, the story goes that sabots were thrown into early industrial machinery when workers’ demands weren’t met. The term saboter, however, originally referred to the noisy footsteps of clog-clad rural workers, and thus their low-rung, unskilled labor within newly mechanized industrial factories. The word evolved from there to mean the slowing or bungling of a job on purpose: work stoppage.”

What You Need to Know about the Coup in Venezuela

January 30, 2019Leave a comment

The U.S. is again attempting a foreign coup in Venezuela. This is not the first time, and if it doesn’t succeed, it will not be the last time. For those of us who are United States citizens, we have a tremendous responsibility to inform ourselves about what our government is doing and to not perpetuate the real and devastating harm that is being caused.

Imagine for a moment that another country declared our elections fraudulent because so many of us are unhappy with Trump, or because the person who wins the popular vote does not become the president. Imagine that country has several nearby military bases. In fact, can you imagine another country having a military base in or near the US?

For example, did you know about the role the United States has played in making sure that “socialism isn’t working” in Venezuela and causing a devastating economic crisis? From this interview with two scholars who have both written multiple books on Venezuela (some of which I’ve read and used in my classes):

Juan Gonzalez: “Citgo, the huge American-based subsidiary of the Venezuelan oil industry, which has not been allowed to remit back any of the money that it’s making here in the United States back to Venezuela.”

Steve Ellner: “The sanction that prohibits Citgo from remitting profits to Venezuela is a very important measure. It means that the Venezuelan government is being deprived of approximately $1 billion a year.”

“But, Juan, in addition to that, there is a major impact in terms of discouraging commercial and financial interests throughout the world from any kind of transaction with Venezuela. There is a list of 70—approximately 70 Venezuelan officials who are being sanctioned. And that translates into a situation in which the U.S. government, and specifically Steven Mnuchin, the secretary of the treasury, has undertaken different investigations, workshops with representatives of Japan, Europe, Latin America, in order to find out where the shell companies are. In other words, he has created a situation in which commercial interests throughout the world are afraid to have anything to do with Venezuela. That amounts to virtually a block—an economic blockade.”

Did you know Mike Pence made an announcement to the Venezuelan people declaring someone else the president before Juan Guaidó even declared himself the president? Did you know our ambassadors and VPs made videos to people in other countries for social media? Can you imagine getting a message on FB from Angela Merkel telling us who our president “really” was?

Original image source: School of the Americas Watch

The coup attempt in Venezuela takes place within a history of constant violent military intervention throughout Latin America. These interventions happen regardless of Democratic or Republican administration; the most recent and obvious example is the coup in Honduras which was supported and ratified by Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and President Obama in 2009. There seems to be no sense of irony to the calls of “lack of democracy” in Venezuela while an explicitly, clearly illegitimate and fraudulent president sits in office in Honduras with the full support of Washington.

Furthermore, in the US we are basically never exposed to how or why anyone would support Chavismo at the grassroots. What do you know, for example about the deeply democratic comunas? Now this environment has changed, but it is still essential to consider, and to wonder critically what accounts are being left out now?

Democracy Now! and NACLA are good places to get reliable coverage of what’s happening in Venezuela.

When we are ill-informed or when we turn away, or worse, when we perpetuate the idea that Maduro is a dictator, that there is another legitimate president, that a coup is legitimate, or any of the other lies our government is peddling to us, we put real people’s lives in danger.

military interventions map

The Refusal to Die Quietly

November 28, 2018Leave a comment

Many of us in the US may have seen and been shocked by images or stories of the migrant caravan’s march to the border on Sunday and the repression they faced. It can be hard to understand what’s going on, particularly because historically we haven’t received good information here in the US about Latin America. For example, although the United States has a military base in Honduras, none of the major news outlets has a reporter based there. If we are very honest though, it is also true that part of not knowing what is going on with other people in places “like Honduras” is part of not wanting to know what is going on. Sometimes as human beings we don’t know the details about the rest of the world because we don’t connect the dots that we can see.

I want to share in full the quickly and powerfully written testimony of my friend Amelia Frank-Vitale who witnessed Sunday’s experience on the border between Mexico and the US. Amelia lives in San Pedro Sula, studying the effects of deportation there, and has accompanied the caravan on part of its journey. Amelia witnessed Sunday’s teargassing:

“today was heartbreaking. my country, the one with the most powerful military in the world, used that power to overwhelm a group of people in search of safety and a better future for themselves and their children. I know, I know. the US is in no way the promised land. But, people deeply believe that their lives would be a touch easier, they could breathe a bit calmer, if they could just make it to the other side of that damn ‘fence.’

there was no getting there today. first, mexican police blocked off street after street, dividing the group and confusing what had been planned as a straightforward, peaceful protest near the pedestrian crossing point. instead, after trying to dialogue with the police, people split off, using side streets, no one totally sure where they were headed, but all hoping to be able to get near (or through) the check point.

when one group neared the ‘fence,’ the US border patrol and armed police fired tear gas and rubber bullets. that group dispersed. on the other side of the canal, well into Mexican territory, the US once again fired tear gas and rubber bullets into the crowd. this time, they hit people. there are at least five people wounded from impacts from rubber bullets and spray-paint can-sized gas canisters. this includes a foreign journalist and [my friend].

when I saw my friend bleeding profusely from the back of his head, all I could think was – fuck. my country did this. i took him to the hospital, he got some stitches, and he will be fine. thankfully. but seriously, this is the response to a few thousand people in flip-flops, many of them pushing baby carriages, trying to get in to the US?

my eyes still burn and I have that rough cough that comes from inhaling tear gas. but mostly, i feel heart broken and angry. at one point we traipsed across the canal that is (was?) the Tijuana river. There’s a small stream of waste water and a good part of the canal bed is kind of sticky muddy with sewage sludge. after walking across Mexico, people literally walked through shit today for a peek into the United States. That they were met force and cruelty by my country makes me so very ashamed.

I’ve heard reports that the march, and the actions of the caravaneros, wasn’t peaceful. that’s bullshit. peaceful is not a synonym for submissive. peaceful doesn’t mean you have to put your head down, accept shit, and thank the people stepping on your neck. people changed routes, jumped over fences, climbed up hills, and scrambled onto a parked freight train. a few people threw a few stones. some of them tried, desperately, to climb the wall. the only group of people using real force today, the only people really threatening violence, were the border patrol and police.”

Throughout the months the caravan has been traveling, I have found myself increasingly anxious about what will happen to these refugees/caraveneros once they arrive here in the US and the potentially deadly violence they will face on the border. I suspect it’s easy for a lot of us, from our variously privileged vantage points within the US, to worry about the possibility that people will be killed in a large standoff like this one. We know that permission to shoot has been granted. Although we might admire their bravery, we might then be tempted to take our worry and to be concerned at the risks the folks in the caravan are taking by approaching the border en masse like they did on Sunday. It’s certainly true that there are people who are blaming the migrants for the use of force, although none of them might be reading this blog. But would we feel better if these folks died en masse quietly in a shelter in Tijuana? What about if they died back in San Pedro Sula, as Amelia has also written about? What about if they died silently, individually on the migrant trail?

As they have been asserting all along, the migrant caravan/exodus is once again banding together for safety and visibility. Hondurans, Guatemalans, and Salvadorans are dying regularly as a result of US policies whether we see them being attacked on the news over Thanksgiving weekend or not. What is powerful about the migrant caravan is that we are being forced to see it.

When They Come For You (Guest Post)

November 6, 20181 Comment

The Rebel Prof is honored to present a guest post written by anthropologist and professor Jelena Radović Fanta.

The words that were made by this country’s president on birthright citizenship was a punch in the gut. When I first heard it, it didn’t feel that way. I rolled my eyes, thought “here we go again,” took it with some humor, and then thought, well, many groups of people have been targeted by this government and his rhetoric and his executive orders over the last two years. Surely, I can’t compare this with what my fellow compañerxs have been going through. Because I have privilege and I’ve benefited from it. I’ve flown in and out of this country with my U.S. passport, I don’t need to worry about having a visa, or having a school pick-up or speeding ticket turn into a deportation. Who am I to complain.

But as I went through the day earlier this week, I had a pit feeling in my stomach. I brushed it off thinking is was due to little sleep, the list of things I need to tackle, the shorter days and darker mornings. Until a student asked me “and how are you doing?” And I realize that I had been punched in the stomach. I had a chill on my skin, my walk was slower, and my heart was heavy.

I know the (im)possibilities of this happening. And under the very improbably circumstances that this happens, I have other options. I am married to a U.S. citizen (you know, the more legit kind of citizen) and I am a citizen of another country I can go back to (a country also with birthright citizenship, DJT do your f*** research). If anything, there’s always the employment sponsored visa which I can hope to attain.

But the weeding out of everyone who does not look like or think like Trump continues. We were talking in my classes about the irreversible damage that is being done, where now 45-supporters will turn to people who seem gringo but might have that slight accent, look a little different, speak more than one language, travel back and forth, or simply have a different political viewpoint and say “You! Where are your parents from? Go back to where your parents came from!”

Art by Nicholas Lampert

I owe this country nothing. I am not going to list what I consider “accomplishments” that I’ve had in my life. I should not have to. But if we are going to talk about it, well than yes, I have given a lot to this country. And this country has given me a lot. There are many reasons why I am here. And if we are going to talk about immigration, let’s talk about it. If we’re going to talk about crime, let’s talk about crime and how immigrant crime rates are not higher than US born people. If we’re going to talk about social welfare, let’s do so and talk about how undocumented people are not eligible for federal public aid programs. You do not get to throw out half-ass “arguments” and logic that all they do is draw on emotion, on white fragility, on anxiety about the “browning” of this country, and other baseless bullshit “arguments.” All it does is reveal your xenophobia and fear of “other,” who, by the way has never, ever really been an other, but a “right here.” Right here next door neighbor, right here at the food truck, right here landscaping your yards, cleaning your bathrooms. Right here opening doors, driving taxis, caring for your children, educating students, doing your nails, creating art, and start up shops. There has never been an “over there.” The “over there” has only been there because you placed it there. And don’t get me started with the legality of how your grandparents came here. There was no “legal way” back then. People arrived on ships and if they were healthy and part of a support system, in they came.

I had always heard that things don’t really hit you until they become personal. Attacks on Muslims, Undocumented Immigrants, African Americans, the Queer community, and Women are for me offensive, unacceptable, and must be fought. Always. Yet there’s this extra blow when I realized “Hey, he’s talking about me. And my family.” The sting is extra sharp. And it hurts a little more. And I hope that the bitterness and anger I feel will never stop pushing me to do something about it.

Saturday Rec: Jane the Virgin

June 9, 2018June 11, 2018Leave a comment

Jane the Virgin

Pairs well with: summer, popcorn, resting up before and after organizing around migration issues

Photo with four characters from show walking in Target store: Xo looks determined, Jane is smiling, Rafael seems unhappy and has baby Mateo strapped to him, and Alba is smiling and playing with the baby.

This is a light-hearted show with shockingly good feminist and racial politics. I never feel guilty after watching it (although one downside is that there is a cop who is a “good guy” character). The show actually has amazing immigration politics, including a plotline that basically showcased Lisa Sun-Hee Park’s research. Some of the other things I appreciate about it are that one character never speaks English; Jane’s mom is unapologetically sex positive although Jane has a more conservative (titular) approach; the family and show is based in Miami but they are Venezuelan, not Cuban; feminism is sometimes an explicit topic of the show; and it is simply very nice to watch a show that is led by a POC cast and not full of white people. Plus, it’s a very funny show with some smart jokes.

Dr. Meg Krausch

public sociologist

Tag: immigration

“Nos Están Matando Uno a Uno Nuestro Líderes”