by the National Front of Popular Resistance (FNRP), Colon, 16 May 2011.
Source: ResistenciaHonduras.net, Translated by La Voz de Abajo.
From the National Front of Popular Resistance in the Province of Colon to the national and international public and to the national and international human rights organizations, we declare the following:
1. On May 9 at 7:30 am, the campesino Pablo Lemus, member of the Campesino Movement of Aguan (MCA) in the settlement of Guadalupe Karney, in the municipality of Trujillo, was assassinated as he left the community of Los Leones. He was fired on from a moving vehicle and died instantly from 6 shots to his body from heavy caliber arms.2. On May 10th of this year at 10 a.m. the campesino Alejandro Gomez, member of the campesino cooperative of La Trinidad, a base of the campesino movement, MARCA was kidnapped as he was moving down a dirt road close to the lands that are being recuperated. He was about 100 meters ahead of two companions where there is a turn in the road and there the agribusiness owners’ guards were waiting for them. They put him in their vehicle and transported him to another palm plantation distant from the community of Los Leones in the municipality of Trujillo in Colon. Alejandro was savagely tortured. The guards asked him for information about the campesino leaders, asked who are the guerrerillas accompanying the campesinos, where are their weapons and where do they hide them when they are evicted from the lands. He saved his life by telling them that he is not a campesino but an employee of a nearby plantation. After three days they dumped him to die of his beatings but he was able to communicate with his family.
3. Authorities from the Fifth Battalion of the infantry located about 15 minutes away from the land recuperation at La Trinidad and guards working for the big land-owning businessmen, together with the National Preventative Police prepare for a nocturnal attack against the campesinos, and are also calling on people who are not afraind TO KILL to contract them, offering salaries above 15 thousand lempiras, with medical insurance and life insurance if they fall during combat against the campesinos.
4. The campesino settlement, La Lempira, part of the Unified Campesinos Movement of Aguan (MUCA) was the object of an attack today, May 13th at 2 pm and again at 9:30pm from two vehicles identified as belonging to Miguel Facusse’s security force. They fired an enormous number of shots for five minutes at the temporary huts that the campesinos have installed; there were no wounded.
5. On May 10th, North American military deployed towards the left bank of the Aguan River, an area of agrarian conflict, were united with a military unit from the naval base at Puerto Castillo and military from the battalion at the Claro River. Later they left the zone, but according to the campesinos, a displacement of the campesinos is being prepared, regardless of the cost.
6. Suspended teachers from the Province of Colon, on May 12th took over the facilities of the provincial education department. When the municipal police from Trujillo arrived and saw professor Wilfredo Paz they said that they would “take him down” taking advantage of the opportunity since he is responsible for all the problems in Aguan, “there is the number one agitator” they said, and disgracefully insulted the educator
7. On May 12 of this year, two Patrol cars from the National Preventative Police pursued and stopped a vehicle marked with the national flag of Honduras belonging to the regional office of the National Agrarian Institute (INA) and in which employees of this agency, affiliated to the union, SITRAINA, were traveling to the community of Ocotes, on the left bank of the Aguan River. The police then said it was a false alarm but none the less they were on the brink of firing against the people in the car, reported a union leader, Mario Lopez. He states that the responsibility for anything happening to the trade union members to be the current minister of the INA, Mr. Cesar Ham, for obliging them to use this vehicle; he knows that there is a problem around the use of this car and he took the other regional vehicle to Tegucigalpa and he has kept it there with members of his Democratic Unification Party who are holding posts in the regional office as “employees of confidence” whom he has kept in the capital for more than two weeks.
8. We call for maintaining a high alert situation given what can happen due to the permanent violation of human rights that prevails in this region and we ask that you declare solidarity with those who suffer for the struggle for their rights.
Blood of Martyrs, Seeds of Liberation!
We demand the return of our exiles!
In Aguan, We Resist and We Will Win!
We demand the safe return of our National Coordinator, Jose Manuel Zelaya Rosales!
From the Popular Network of Aguan, the Network that Informs the World.
