Bloody Sunday in Bajo Aguán, Honduras (espanol)
Source: Honduras Human Rights blog, 06 June 2011.
José Recinos Aguilar, Joel Santamaría y Genaro Cuesta, all members of the San Esteban peasant cooperative were murdered [on Sunday, June 5 ] while driving a Nissan vehicle a few meters from the settlement. There are yet no details of how the attack occurred, read a statement by FIAN-Honduras.
The report said the military, police, and security guards were guarding the place where the corpses lay preventing their fellow farmers to reach them. The bodies will be transferred to La Ceiba for autopsies, as reported by the district attorney’s office in Trujillo.
Almost simultaneously, farmers who had occupied San Isidro farm were evicted by Miguel Facussé’s security guards. They then entered the premises of the National Agrarian Institute (INA) in Sinaloa, in what is known as “golden house”, and opened fire on farmers who had taken refuge there since last winter. Peasant Doris Pérez Vásquez was hit in the abdomen and seriously injured, and had to be rushed to a hospital in the city of La Ceiba.
All those interviewed by FIAN Honduras about the violence in the Lower Aguán region agree that the repression has never been this bad, suffered presently by those who make up farmer organizations claiming for their rights. No one trusts the authorities and everyone is afraid for his/her life.
Farmers are disappointed by the failure of the agreement between the Unified Peasant Movement of Aguán (MUCA) and the regime, and the oversight of promises made to the Movimiento Autentico Reivindicador de Campesinos Del Aguán (MARCA) and Movimiento Campesino del Aguán (MCA) by the INA. The reasons for the agrarian conflict remain unchanged since April 13, 2010, with the aggravating circumstance that now there are more deaths, injuries and victims of other violations.
The feeling among farmers is that of total defenseless. FIAN Honduras has reiterated that while the agrarian dispute is not settled, violence will continue in the region and that the police, often along with the army, only serve to scare people and raise preliminary information on the violence without making public their investigation results as it’s required.
