[Educationforall] spam con huevos labor news, views and concerns, 2.19.12-II

Mon Feb 20 08:40:08 UTC 2012

Honduras: Standard Fruit Uses the Army & Police to Attack Campesinos‏ 4 Signs the American Spring May Be Coming to Chicago   @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
http://quotha.net/node/2132 Friday, February 17, 2012Delegation Report: Standard Fruit Uses the Army & Police to Attack Campesinos
A La Voz de los de Abajo delegation of 8 people is in Honduras(February 14-22) to accompany the campesino movement and to supportthe Internacional Encuentro por los Derecho Humanos en Aguan February17-19. We are traveling with compañeros and compañeras from theNational Center for Rural Workers (CNTC) and will be sharing ourexperiences and the stories of the campesinos.Location: Salado Lislis community, Atlantida provinceDate: February 16Standard Fruit Uses the Army and Police to Attack Campesino FamiliesIt is beautiful; green fields of beans, peas, tomatoes, corn, papayatrees, coconut palms and African palm with wooden and palm housesscattered throughout the scene it could be an advertisement for themodel small farming community in Central America –but bulldozer tracksrun across many of the fields of vegetable and almost all the housesare smashed flat, or reduced to piles of sticks with household items,shoes, even toys scattered in the debris. We walk with the campesinosand campesinas around the settlement, stopping at the piles of rubblethat were their houses and they tell us what happened.On February 8th at 6 am more than 200 armed troops (in National Policeand the Army's 15th Battalion uniforms, with bulldozers from aprivate company arrived at the community. Many of the troops werewearing shirts that said “DOLE” under bullet proof vests with markingsof the National Police or military. The judge who accompanied thesecurity forces (juez ejecutor) to execute the eviction order waswearing a Standard Fruit (more well known as Dole ) vest. It is notunusual for a big land owner to pay for an eviction but thecampesinos told us it is unusual and probably illegal for judges and“official troops” to wear uniforms of the big agribusiness landowners.The community also was sure that the “Dole” shirted troops were reallyprivate security from Standard Fruit Honduras who had been givengovernment security uniforms for the eviction, something which thecampesinos and their representative from the CNTC say is illegal.The entire community was given only 30 minutes to gather their familymembers and belongings and leave their land and homes. The men, womenand children had to run and evacuate their lands finally headingtowards the border with the adjacent department of Colon where theeviction order would not have power. It began to pour rain and thecommunity was gathered on the Colon side of the border with no water,food, or shelter until they were able to move again to safer places.
Meanwhile the armed troops used bulldozers to destroy more than 80 ofthe homes and to destroy fields, cut down plants and trees, and pulledup yucca. But the campesinos are determined to continue on the land
and to win title to it. On February 13 a group of the families fromthe campesino movement moved back onto their land, knowing that theirclaim to the land should be recognized under the agrarian laws. Theirsituation is precarious. They are living in makeshift shelters andsome abandoned buildings. Their school for more than 60 children fromthe community is closed. Their teachers were from an NGO project andthe community doesn't know if they will come back. Yet the situationis even more precarious because they know that there is a high risk ofanother eviction at any time.The campesinos asked us to let the world know about their struggle and look for ways to help them pressure for a peaceful resolution of the land ownership forthem. They also have emergent need for food, water and for accompaniment.
One way we can help in the U.S. is to pressure Standard Fruit (Dole) Corporation to give up their illegal claim to the land and to immediately stop all threats ofviolence and violent actions against the community. The Honduran government and security forces also need to be held accountable for their collaboration with the agri-corporation and for the ongoing threats and violence in the countryside.Background and History- Standard Fruit and Salado LislisIn June 2010, 100 families recuperated land in Salado Lislis that iseligible for agrarian reform expropriation. The land was claimed byStandard Fruit Honduras (part of the Dole brand in the US). StandardFruit Company is a U.S. Corporation, which along with United FruitCompany, notoriously dominated the Honduran economy and politics foryears. Standard Fruit (Dole) had a 100 year concession for land alongthe coast in this area of Atlantida. When the concession expired, theland was returned to the Honduran government which then immediatelysold the land to a questionable, newly-formed company called StandardFruit Honduras. The new “Honduran-owned” company was formed to sidestep a Honduran law which prohibits foreigners from owning land withina certain distance from the coast line. The Honduran name used toregister Standard Fruit Honduras is actually that of the Chief ofSecurity for Standard Fruit (Dole) operations in Honduras, thus being,what Hondurans call a “presta-nombre”, someone who sells the use oftheir name for property transaction that require a Honduran citizen.Despite two years of legal processing and negotiations with theNational Agrarian Institute (INA), the obvious irregularities withStandard Fruit's claim, and the eligibility of the land forexpropriation, the land title has not been resolved. Decree 18-2008issued by former President Zelaya, ousted by the coup d'e'tat of 2009,would have resolved the conflict in favor of the campesinos. Thedecree was yet to be enforced when the coup d'e'tat took place andthen never enforced prior to being annulled in early 2011 by the coupgovernment of Pepe Lobo. Adding to the insecure situation for thecampesino families in Salado Lislis is the fact that their land alsoborders palm plantations owned by the infamous large land owner ReneMorales, a major palm grower and processor, who is involved in much ofthe extreme violence against campesinos in the nearby Aguan Valley,where more 46 campesinos have been assasinated in the last year and ahalf."Alone we feel alot of fear, but together we are brave"Sun, 02/19/2012 - 11:52 — APClick title for original with photos:
"Alone we feel alot of fear, but together we are brave": Women’s workshop in La Confianza of Aguan, Honduras
February 17, 2012
By Margie Thompson of ESCRIBANAThe connection to land is a critical link to life for women and their families in the Aguan region of northern Honduras, but this right and many others are under violent siege by wealthy landowners, supported by heavily armed soldiers, police, and private security forces who are determined to confiscate the land. Women, who bear the brunt of caring for families under constant threats and attacks, are also active participants in the popular land movement by campesinos (small farmers) determined to resist and defend their rights.About 50 women met on February 16, 2012 in the community of La Confianza to share testimonies of being robbed of their land, robbed of their husbands and children who were kidnapped, tortured, and killed, or their own experiences of the same. But the women also shared strategies of resistance to these assaults and their dreams of a better future, free of violence and with the return of their lands. The workshop entitled, “Women’s bodies, struggles and hopes” was organized by the Women’s Forum for Life, a Honduran women’s activist group formed in 2009 which since uses creative expression to explore the politics of women’s bodies in the repressive aftermath of the military coup d’état, explained Melissa Condesa.Women and their families “have been robbed of their resources, their water, their land, their forest, and their sources of work,” Gilda Rivera of the Center for Women’s Rights (CDM) of Honduras told ESCRIBANA in an interview.At the workshop, one woman announced suddenly that she needed to leave because she had just learned that her husband had been shot. Another woman named Flora showed ESCRIBANA the scars on her arms and body from being kidnapped and tortured by police who demanded information about the organizing efforts by her agricultural cooperative to recuperate their lands. They forced their way into her car, drove her around while beating her, and kept pointing to a large package they had saying “this is your son.”After her husband was assassinated, a woman named Gladis lost her house and land when she was forced to flee with her five children with nowhere to go. She has since joined the land movement to work toward recuperation of lands including her own.“We are resisting…struggling for a better life. Alone each woman has a lot of fear, but together we are brave, we struggle together,” said Flora. She told ESCRIBANA that the women are working hard and have hopes for change, but “we are suffering and life is not easy.”WOMEN CONFRONT CHALLENGES OF DAILY LIFEFor many women, traveling to a women’s workshop or even meeting together as women was a new experience, said Carmen (who gave only her first name), one of the organizers who spoke to ESCRIBANA. Some women “couldn’t come because they couldn’t get the money to travel or the men wouldn’t give them money, because to participate was like a threat to the men because the women would be talking about things in their communities,” explained Carmen. “It’s a machista society” and “many women were afraid to confront this type of aggression.”Carmen explained that these limitations reflect challenges for many women in communities where although they are working extremely hard and for long hours in their homes caring for several children and also elderly relatives, the men refuse to allow them the same rights to participate in organizing activities of the communities. They contend that because women are not doing the “heavy work” of cutting African palms in the plantations or cultivating the land, they do not deserve the same rights. Women also tend to have large numbers of children because they “don’t have control of their own bodies” so can’t practice family planning, noted Carmen.At the workshop, women worked in small groups to share stories and dreams through drawings which they later presented to the larger group. One group had a drawing that showed a woman reading under the trees, because some “women can’t read, but want to learn to read…we dream of a life of dignity, with water, electricity, food and resources….we also dream of being happy and joyful…of [being empowered] through connection with the Mother Earth.” The group also described their dreams as women to have autonomy and the right to bodily integrity, to live free of violence and the right to decide how many children they want to have.HISTORY OF STRUGGLEConflict over land has plagued the area for decades, but the conflict has escalated since the coup in 2009 which ousted the democratically elected President Mel Zelaya. He had negotiated and signed an agreement with wealthy landowners in the area including Miguel Facussé and René Morales, to return the land to the campesino (peasant) cooperatives of the MUCA (Unified Peasant Movement of Aguan) movement, but which fell apart following the military coup. When the campesinos went ahead to recuperate their land, they were met with violent persecution and evictions by thousands of heavily armed military, police and private security forces on behalf of wealth landowners. The entire Aguan Valley region has been heavily militarized with a brutal campaign to confiscate the land of families in the area.Another workshop participant, Consuela, talked to ESCRIBANA about the constant abuse by soldiers and police who confront people as they walk in the streets or stop their cars and demand their identification papers, accuse them of carrying guns, and charge that the campesino organizations are the ones who causing all the conflict. Consuela described how women are reluctant to even walk to the markets to buy food for their families because of the “sexual harassment and threats of violence and death…it is very intimidating and there is a lot of fear.”But through solidarity with each other and national and international allies the women at the workshop gain strength and hope to confront the realities of their struggles for the land and lives.An International Human Rights Conference of Aguan is being held February 17-20, 2012 with an expected 400 national and international solidarity activists to collaborate with the women and men in the campesino land movement in constructing solutions to create change.ENDTo follow the coverage of these events and join in the discussion go to the ESCRIBANA blog at:http://escribanas.wordpress.com and http://escribanas.facebook.com. For more information write to Margie Thompson at: mthompso at du.edu or María Suárez Toro at maria.escribana at gmail.com.For more information about the Women’s Forum for Life go to: http://www.mioaguan.blogspot.com/
Honduras: Our Continuing CatastropheSun, 02/19/2012 - 00:46 — APClick title for original with photo in TruthOut:Honduras: Our Continuing Catastrophe
Saturday 18 February 2012
by: Mark Engler, Dissent Magazine | News AnalysisHonduras has become a human rights disaster. The country now has the world’s highest murder rate. And impunity for political violence is the norm.For all this, the United States deserves a good deal of the blame.AP's blogRead moreAnother shotSat, 02/18/2012 - 14:43 — APAP's blogMajor fires set in San Isidro y Colón markets in ComayagüelaSat, 02/18/2012 - 14:38 — APPhotograph from minutes ago:
AP's blogPrison fire puts spotlight on Honduras meltdownSat, 02/18/2012 - 13:16 — APClick title for original in Reuters. Overall, again, a good piece, but lacking a few important details. Like the fact that gang members were killed off en masse in the 2000's as part of a Pepe Lobo-orchestrated State policy (some in the other two prison massacres) and that is why they no longer sport tattoos and instead blend in; it's not as simple asMaras used to adorn their faces with tattoos, but the new generation abandoned the practice, focusing on making money.The same policy, of course, is responsible for the overcrowding of prisons with unconvicted inmates, as yesterday's Bloomberg article pointed out, and thus responsible in part for the slaughter.Prison fire puts spotlight on Honduras meltdown
By Ioan Grillo
TEGUCIGALPA | Fri Feb 17, 2012 2:21pm EST(Reuters) - It took just seconds to ignite the fire that killed more than 350 inmates in a Honduran prison on Valentine's Day, but the country's messy spiral into lawlessness has been years in the making.AP's blogRead moreAnnie Bird: The U.S.'s Drug War Should Not Hit Central AmericaSat, 02/18/2012 - 12:38 — APTHE US'S DRUG WAR SHOULD NOT HIT CENTRAL AMERICA
By Annie Bird, February 18, 2012 (annie at rightsaction.org)AP's blogRead moreThe many faces of human rights terrorism, by Belén FernándezSat, 02/18/2012 - 11:24 — API don't have time to reformat the links and embeds needed to do this brilliant article justice (I hand code- html hasn't changed for me since I learned it in 1994), so do yourself a big favor and click here to read Belén Fernández's piece on Al Jazeera English: The many faces of human rights terrorism. Available also in Spanish at Rebelión: Las muchas caras del terrorismo de los derechos humanosAP's blog 
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-4 Signs the American Spring May Be Coming to ChicagoCould the Nato and G8 summits scheduled for May put Chicago at the crossroads of the next global uprising of the 99 percent? READ MORE@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ 
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