U.S. Human Rights Observer Team Returns from Honduras with Troubling Report

by pault on October 3, 2011

U.S Human Rights Observer Team Returns from Honduras with Troubling Report

Tegucigalpa, Honduras- Nine U.S human rights observers returned to the United States this week after an intensive twelve-day investigation of the country’s worsening human rights crisis. Team members had been closely following events in Honduras since the June 28, 2009 coup d’etat that ousted democratically elected President Mel Zelaya at gunpoint. “In the last two years since the coup, despite the supposed election of current President Pepe Lobo, there has been as many as 200 political assassinations of members and leaders of the growing popular resistance front known as the FNRP- Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular,” says Tanya Cole-director of the human rights group Witness for Peace Southwest. Several human rights organizations that are part of the U.S Honduras Solidarity Network assembled this emergency observation team to travel directly to the Aguan basin of Honduras where recent killings of campesino leaders and police/military raids of campesino communities have left dozens dead and hundreds as internal refugees. “While we were in the Aguan Region, there were two police/military raids on the same community (Los Rigores- September 16, 19) in which 22 people were temporarily detained, tortured and threatened with death. A 16 yr old was drenched in gasoline by the police and threatened with being burned. All the detainees were released with no charges filed,” reports Vicki Cervantes of Chicago’s human rights group La Voz de los de Abajo.

The US State Department recently lobbied for the re-entry of Honduras into the Organization of American States as part of an agreement facilitated by Colombia President Santos and Venezuela President Hugo Chavez in May of this year known as the Cartagena Accord. The US State Department was quick to recognize the 2009 election of Pepe Lobo while most nations in South America and Europe still do not recognize the current government of Honduras because of the political climate during the 2009 elections and the continued concerns about human rights violations in Honduras. “I am particularly concerned that the US government is perpetuating gross human rights abuses by providing military funds and training to the Honduras security forces. An example of this is the $40 million recently given by the State Department,” responds Dale Sorensen of the California based human rights group Task Force on the Americas. In May of this year 87 US congress members signed a scathing letter addressed to US Secretary Hillary Clinton regarding the continued human rights violations in Honduras asking the state department and US Embassy in Honduras to speak out against violence targeted towards human rights defenders and journalists.” When we asked the new US Ambassador Lisa Kubiske if the embassy had complied with any of the asks of congress, she replied the letter pre-dates her and “there is a time to speak out and a time not to,” quotes Brian Stefan Szittai of the Cleveland based organization Inter-Religious Task Force on Central America.

The Observer Team’s preliminary findings show that the Honduras government is not completing its part of the Cartagena Accord, which includes: 1. Free return of all exiles to Honduras with out fear of prosecution. Four are already exiled again and one is under house arrest. 2. Investigations and prosecutions for political assassinations. There continues to be a 90% impunity rate and increase in politically motivated killings. 3. The allowance for the registration of the FNRP has a political force including the creation of a new political party. In the weeks leading up to the ratification of the FNRP’s new party, the FARP, there were 3 political assassinations of leaders of the FNPR leaving an unsafe environment for the political process to freely move forward. 4. Beginning the process for a new constituent assembly to re-write the constitution. This process has not been able to proceed and many claim was the trigger for the military coup that took place June 28, 2009. “It is clear the current Honduran government has not complied to the Cartagena Accord nor made a concerted effort to complete its commitment. Even more concerning is that there are reports of threats recently made by Honduran police against international human rights groups working in the Aguan Valley,” reports observer team member Corinthian Davis of the Chicago Religious Leadership Network.

Preliminary recommendations from the September Observer Team’s findings are 1. International Human Rights Organizations increase their attention on Honduras as the electoral process is pursued by the FARP and the land struggle continues in the Aguan Basin of Honduras. 2. That US congress and State Department take concrete and public action to condemn human right violations in Honduras and withhold military/police aid from Honduras while Honduran military and police agents continue to be complicit in forced disappearances, illegal raids, illegal detentions and human rights violations across the country.

CONTACTS:

Vicki Cervantes- Chicago
Phone: 312-259-5042 (english/spanish)
Email: vickicervantes@yahoo.com

Tanya Cole- Los Angeles
Phone: 805-421-9708 (english/spanish)
Email: wfpsw@witnessforpeace.org

Dale Sorensen- San Francisco
Phone: 415-669-7828 (English only)
Email: geodale1@earthlink.net

We will never forget October 2!

by pault on September 29, 2011

On the 43^rd anniversary of the Tlatelolco massacre in Mexico, join Mexican, immigrant rights and progressive activists in demanding:

NO TO STATE SPONSORED VIOLENCE IN MEXICO!

SOLIDARITY WITH THE PEOPLE OF MEXICO!

JUSTICE FOR THE SME UNION & ALL ACTIVISTS

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 2 12:00 NOON

IN FRONT OF THE MEXICAN CONSULATE

27 East. 39th St. – Between Park & Madison, Manhattan
Train F or M to 42nd St.

On October 2, 1968 hundreds of students, workers, campesinos and others were massacred in Mexico City. The innocent people who died at the hands of the Mexican military never received justice.

Today the violence continues as state sponsored violence fueled by the lucrative drug industry continues with impunity. Over 50,000 people have been killed in Mexico over the last few years. Progressive activists are targeted, arrested, beaten and killed. Fair elections are a dream. Union activists and leaders are targeted and repressed for defending workers rights. Despite having stolen the election and doing nothing to stop the violence, current Mexican President, Felipe Calderon receives the complete backing of the Obama administration, including millions of dollars used to repress the Mexican people.

Every year tens of thousands of Mexicans are forced to leave Mexico and travel to the U.S. to look for work. The U.S. government, despite passing laws like NAFTA which force migration, is carrying out a vicious racist anti-immigrant campaign.

Join us on Sunday, October 2 to say no to state sponsored violence in Mexico

DEMAND JUSTICE FOR ALL THE VICTIMS IN MEXICO

STOP THE DEPORTATIONS OF IMMIGRANT WORKERS

WE WILL NEVER FORGET OCTOBER 2!

Celebracion Del 24 Aniversio De La Pena Del Bronx

by pault on September 9, 2011

Sabado 17 de Septiembre

KEEP VICTOR TORO IN THE U.S.

by pault on August 22, 2011

Download and send these postcards to Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano.

Justice for the DSK Rape Victim!

by pault on

JUSTICE FOR THE STRAUSS-KAHN RAPE VICTIM

PUT MISOGYNY ON TRIAL, NOT THE HOTEL WORKER

Women, Immigrant Rights, & Labor Groups urge everyone to attend next DSK hearing
Tuesday, August 23, 2011 9:00a.m.
100 Centre St. Downtown Manhattan by City Hall

Demand justice for hotel worker & IMF reparations for Guinea and everywhere!

The whole world now knows how incredibly sexist and woman-hating the former head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn (DSK), is. After charges of raping and attacking a hotel worker, law enforcement agents yanked him off a plane on his way back home to France. The vicious incident took place on May 14 at the Sofitel Hotel in New York.

Since his arrest, woman after woman has come out in France to reveal DSK’s appallingly chauvinist attitude. He clearly views women as objects and commodities. His hubris and sense of entitlement to do or say anything he wants to women is evident.

Obviously there must have been overwhelming evidence of guilt for law enforcement agents to have taken the head of the IMF — a powerful capitalist institution — off the plane. There is now an outlandish attempt in the media, in cahoots with legal officials, to defame the woman who was attacked. It’s the classic tactic of putting the rape victim on trial instead of the rapist. It’s reminiscent of the media vilification of Tawana Brawley, who was raped by a white cop, more than 20 years ago in upstate New York.

The hotel worker, just like Brawley, is fighting back against this attempt to defame her and undermine her credibility. She has heroically filed a libel suit against the New York Post for slanderous and demeaning articles. The New York Times had earlier opened this offensive against the hotel worker. A judge granted DSK bail and he has been released.

Even if any of the claims used to attack the woman are true, many of them could be said of any immigrant or worker in an unstable economic situation. It is called survival. Most important, it has absolutely nothing to do with the case.

This incident is a horrible case of sexism and violence. It has everything to do with class privilege and the imperialist domination of Third World nations. It has to do with international political relations between two imperialist countries — France & the U.S. with the IMF, an instrument of plunder and robbery.

It is not surprising that the head of the IMF thinks he can do whatever he wants. The IMF itself gets away with murder. It sets up economic programs known as Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) that require oppressed countries to privatize public property and reduce spending on health, education and development to pay their debt service. These SAPs harshly lower the standard of living.

In Guinea, the African country from which the hotel worker emigrated, life expectancy is 45 years. SAPs forced Guinea to privatize its government-owned enterprises, remove price controls, raise the price of food and lay off public workers. Guinea is a resource-rich country with almost half of the world’s bauxite reserves, but only 24 percent of the population is literate and there is one doctor per 46,000 people.

During Strauss-Kahn’s tenure another big loan was set up, so that Guinea is now more than $3 billion in debt. (CIA World Factbook)

The IMF is responsible for the migration of hundreds of millions of African, Latin American and Asian people, just like the hotel worker, who have been forced to leave their home countries. The Asia Pacific Mission for Migrants states that “migration of peoples from these poor countries became a forced one as people were left with no option but to find work overseas.” The IMF has actually encouraged the Philippine government to export its own people.(apmigrants.org, July 2009).

The gap between rich and poor is widening, due directly to the IMF’s programs. Half of the world’s population — more than 3 billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day, and at least 80 percent lives on less than $10 a day. Around the world 22,000 children die every day, mostly in the poorest countries indebted to the IMF. This has been going on before, during and since Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s term in charge.

When DSK took over in 2007, the countries of the world owed the IMF more than $4 trillion — a 70 percent increase since 2000. This debt increased even more during his tenure.

The case of this heroic worker who dared to challenge DSK is about violence against women. It is also about the horrible war against immigrant and all workers who are being told to accept attacks such as cutbacks, lay-offs, deportations and so on. Millions of people are being forced to migrate because of IMF and US foreign policies. Once here, we must demand and end to the abuse.

We urge women, progressives, immigrants, labor and everyone to demand justice for this woman hotel worker. Come to the hearing July 18.

Statement issued by the May 1st Coalition for Workers & Immigrant Rights
& the Women’s Fight-back Network.

www.may1.info 212.633.6646

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U.S. Human Rights Observer Team Returns from Honduras with Troubling Report