There is a political crisis happening in Nicaragua. Its spark was a set of reforms to social security that President Daniel Ortega’s government put in place to address the budget shortfall facing the country’s social security system, though, at this point, there is a broader set of concerns and threats.
On September 20, Hurricane Maria made a direct hit on Puerto Rico. The initial reports and photos only tell a portion of the story of destruction. These impacts come on top of the impacts of a man-made disaster — one with its roots in the US colonial relationship with Puerto Rico. This moment requires a proactive vision that will uphold the rights and leadership of the people of Puerto Rico. Please join us in demanding a Just Recovery and Relief Aid Package that exposes the root causes of inequality and climate change and, instead, calls for economic transformation, ecological justice, and social change.
On November 10, 2016 six Garífuna youth were violently arrested in the Garífuna community Guadalupe, Colón.
Descendents of escapees from African slave ships and indigenous communities, the Garifuna people live on the Atlantic coast of Honduras. Their beautiful seascape and ecologically rich lands have attracted aggressive interest from foreign investors for plans ranging from tourist resorts to mining to industrial agriculture.
Honduran people are filling the streets in massive demonstrations, outraged over a purported multimillion-dollar theft of social security funds. The scandal involves significant amounts of that money allegedly going to finance the governing political party. The social moments as well as other sectors of civil society have been publically demanding the resignation of the President Juan Orlando Hernandez, and calling for the creation of an international commission to investigate corruption and impunity.
The US Treasury Department will now be responsible for restructuring Guatemala’s tax collection agency (the Superintendency of Tax Administration, or SAT). That announcment came last week from the US Ambassador and Guatemala’s President and follows weeks of public outrage and political fallout after a customs bribery ring was exposed in a UN-backed investigation.
Grassroots International celebrates the courageous work of frontline women defending the human rights of peasant and indigenous women around the world. One of these women is Yasm Lez, a national coordinator for the Council for the Integral Development of the Peasant Woman (CODIMCA). A partner of Grassroots International, CODIMCA is the lead organization for the Womens Regional Commission of La V CampesinaCentral America, and one of the first peasant women-led organizations formed in Honduras with the explicit objective of reclaiming womens land rights. Below is an excerpt of my interview with Yasm.
What inspires you to work for womens rights in Honduras?
Geraldo de Matos Barbosa and Maria Elena each had a dream when they joined the Landless Workers Movement (MST) 13 years ago. The couple has been part of the movement in Maranhão, Brazil including six years living in a dusty encampment, enduing six violent evictions before finally securing title to the land.
The process of shifting from an encampment (without buildings, electricity and sometimes even water) to a settlement helped make both their dreams come true. Grasssroots International's support for land rights in Brazil, including with the MST, provides much-needed solidarity and funding for the movement, and for the apsirations of the courageous individuals putting themselves on the front lines of the struggle.
In the morning of September 30, 2014, members of the National Police and military conducted an eviction in the Afro-descendant and indigenous (Garifuna) community of Barra Vieja, Tela, in northern Honduras. Members of the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras, or OFRANEH, are demanding respect for their right to their ancestral home and an immediate return of the usurped lands.
Berta Caceres, a Lenca indigenous woman who has been on the front lines defending the territory and the rights of the indigenous people for the last 20 years, is one of six finalists for the Front Line Defenders Award. Nominated for the award by Grassroots International, Berta is one of the founding directors of the National Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), a Grassroots grantee and ally.
Human rights activists enjoyed a victory this week when charges against an indigenous community leader were permanently dismissed.
On New Year’s Day, 20 years ago, a group of indigenous peoples, known as the Zapatistas, occupied several municipalities of the state of Chiapas, Mexico. Not coincidentally, that same day the North American Free Trade Agreement went into effect. The Zapatistas considered the free trade agreement and the neoliberal political system that spawned it to be a death sentence for indigenous peoples in Mexico. The magnitude of the Zapatista uprising was due to the participation of different indigenous groups which joined forces to change a system that was marginalizing and exploiting them.
This is a preliminary summary from the US-based Honduras Solidarity Network / Alliance for Global Justice election observation delegation. The summary casts doubt the credibility of Honduran Supreme Electoral Council, which claims that the elections were free and fair, siting the US Ambassador and mainstream corporate media in the USA. Others on the ground, however, disagree.
The Peasant Unity Committee (CUC) announced the redistribution of land last month to 140 indigenous and peasant families. The families were part of the largest violent eviction in the recent history of Guatemala in March 2011 when non-state actors, police, military forces and the government forced nearly 800 indigenous Q’eqchí families of their land without notice, destroyed their crops and burned their homes.