Al
meer dan een jaar verzetten bewoners van Pajuiles in Noord-Honduras
zich tegen een elektriciteits-dam in de Mezapa rivier en al net zo lang is de
uiterst agressieve houding van de overheid tegen de mensen van
Pajuiles......
Het
is duidelijk dat door de VS getrainde speciale eenheden TIGRES en COBRAS verantwoordelijk zijn voor talloze moorden in Honduras. De VS ontkent
e.e.a., maar ja, tegen feiten in liegen is uitermate moeilijk....
Hillary
Clinton kan overigens worden aangewezen als hoofdverantwoordelijke
voor de bloedige staatsgreep die in 2009 in Honduras plaatsvond,
alleen al daarmee is de VS hoofdverantwoordelijk voor het grote
aantal doden die sindsdien zijn gevallen in Honduras, waaronder
milieuactivisten en activisten die zich inzetten voor de arme
oorspronkelijke bevolking van Honduras........
Rusland
wordt door het westen beschuldigd van bemoeienis met interne
aangelegenheden van andere landen, dit zonder enig bewijs, echter de
VS die dit daadwerkelijk wel doet en dat al meer dan 100 jaar wordt niet aangesproken op bijvoorbeeld het enorme aantal oorlogsmisdaden, of misdaden tegen de menselijkheid, misdaden waarvoor niet één enkel bewijs beschikbaar is, maar een enorme berg aan
bewijzen, neem bijvoorbeeld de misdaden die vermeld zijn in de Wikileaks documenten, documenten van
de VS overheid.........
Lees
het volgende artikel van Sandra Cuffe, gepubliceerd op Truthout:
US-Trained Special Forces Joined Police Crackdown on Dam Protesters in Honduras
Thursday,
May 17, 2018
It
started at dawn. A vehicle full of Honduran police officers showed up
at around 5 am on May 3 in front of the community protest camp in
Pajuiles, where residents have been present day and night for more
than a year to prevent the passage of hydroelectric dam construction
machinery. Less than two hours later, the whole area was crawling
with hundreds of members of various police units, including regular
national police, the Police Investigations Directorate, the elite
COBRAS unit and the TIGRES special forces, which are heavily
supported by the US and trained by Green Berets from the 7th Special
Forces Group (Airborne).
"It
was like a war zone," Pajuiles community leader Albertina López
told Truthout.
Police
forces lined the immediate area along the nearby highway that runs
from El Progreso up to Tela, along the Caribbean coast in the
Atlántida Department. Soon they were also lining the road past the
camp and up to the contested construction site of the Mezapa River
dam. They showed up in convoys, escorting machinery, construction
materials and company personnel up to the site, where the Honduran
company HIDROCEP has been trying to build a 1.3 megawatt dam.
"People
were scared," said López. Nevertheless, she and a few other
women made an attempt to stop the machinery, lying down in the road
in front of the protest camp to try to stop the machinery's passage.
"That's when they started firing tear gas at us," she said.
People scattered, ushering a 75-year-old protester and children to
safety, but López and others maintained their permanent presence at
the roadside resistance camp throughout the police operations that
lasted two full days.
State
violence against community resistance to natural resource
exploitation projects continues unabated in Honduras. The recent
crackdown in Pajuiles to impose a fiercely contested hydroelectric
dam project is just one of the latest incidents, but it provides a
clear example of the involvement of US-trained and -supported special
forces in repression against community activists.
Honduran Security Forces Trained by Green Berets
The
Pajuiles community protest camp in northern Honduras celebrates its
one year anniversary on March 22, 2018. (Photo: Movimiento Amplio por
la Dignidad y Justicia)
"Honduran
security forces, including those receiving funding and training from
the United States, have been implicated in human rights violations in
recent years," Christine Wade, a Washington College professor of
political science and international studies, told Truthout. "The
targeting of environmental and land rights activists is just one
facet of this."
"Despite
these abuses, funding continues to flow from the US, our military
installations remain open to train Honduran security forces and
impunity reigns. Unless the US acts decisively to suspend aid to
security forces, these abuses will continue," said Wade.
The
Intelligence and Special Security Response Group Units (TIGRES, an
acronym that spells "tigers" in Spanish) were created back
in 2013, when current Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández
proposed a bill as president of Congress. The initial proposal was
for more of an explicitly military-police hybrid force that would
have been transferred from civilian oversight to the Secretariat of
Defense in times of war, but those elements were removed from the
bill before its passage. The TIGRES now fall under the police
Directorate of Special Forces.
Training
of the first TIGRES recruits, drawn from military and police forces,
began in 2014, the year Hernández took office as president of
Honduras. They were trained by Green Berets from the 7th Special
Forces Group (Airborne) and Colombian members of the Comandos Jungla
special police force. The same US and Colombian forces trained the
following year's recruits in a 12-week Comando basic course. Some
TIGRES agents also received advanced training from Green Berets at
the Eglin Air Force Base in Florida in 2015.
In
their first year in action, the TIGRES were implicated in a massive
theft and corruption scandal. More than 20 TIGRES agents were
suspended following
the theft of more than $1 million during operations against a drug
trafficker in western Honduras. Late last year, as reported
by The Intercept,
TIGRES were involved in raids and arrests targeting people who had
been protesting the contested outcome of the November 2017 elections
that officially resulted in Hernández's re-election amid widespread
reports of vote-rigging and fraud.
A
Green Beret from the 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne) and TIGRES
forces engage in advanced marksmanship training during a 2014 tour by
Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández of TIGRES training
facilities. (Photo: Spc. Steven Young / DVIDS. The appearance of US
Department of Defense visual information does not imply or constitute
DoD endorsement.)
On
April 10 of this year, a new TIGRES base, completed with US
financing, was inaugurated in El Progreso. It is the second TIGRES
base, joining the installations 25 miles west of Tegucigalpa, the
Honduran capital. High-ranking Honduran and US government officials
attended the inauguration in El Progreso, including Honduran
President Hernández; Richard Glenn, acting deputy assistant
secretary of state in the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law
Enforcement Affairs; and Heide Fulton, the chargé d'affaires at the
US Embassy in Honduras, and currently the highest-ranking embassy
official.
Less
than one month later, TIGRES were involved in the crackdown in
Pajuiles, only 23 miles north of the new installations. Media reports
and Honduran and US officials highlight the TIGRES' focus on
combatting drug trafficking and organized crime, but on May 3, they
were escorting dam company personnel and construction machinery along
with other police forces that cracked down on community protest.
The
Honduran Secretariat of Security did not provide a response to
Truthout's requests for comment or even confirm basic details, such
as a ballpark figure of how many total police participated in the
operations in Pajuiles. López, other local residents, and human
rights observers estimated that approximately 250 to 300 members of
the various police forces and units were present.
The
US government did respond and is aware of the deployment of TIGRES to
Pajuiles. "There was no U.S. involvement in this operation,"
a Department of State spokesperson wrote in a response to Truthout's
request for comment.
"While
we support the TIGRES professional development and specific missions
related to key U.S. interests in Honduras, particularly combating
drug trafficking and organized crime, we do not dictate their
deployment or other operations they conduct. We aggressively review
any allegation of wrong doing by the TIGRES or any other units of the
security forces we support, irrespective of whether it is a mission
we actively supported," the Department of State spokesperson
wrote.
Ryan
Morgan, a member of the in-country human rights accompaniment team of
Witness for Peace, a US nongovernmental organization, witnessed the
presence and participation of TIGRES agents in operations in Pajuiles
on May 3, following his arrival at the community a couple of hours
after the police convoys began escorting the dam machinery.
"There
were a lot of US taxpayer dollars in Pajuiles that day," Morgan
told Truthout. With regard to the TIGRES, Morgan believes their
presence there should be considered problematic even by US lawmakers
and embassy officials who believe their mandate is important for US
national security in terms of fighting drug trafficking and organized
crime.
"It
would be very hard to explain or justify the involvement of the
TIGRES in Pajuiles," said Morgan. "This use of the TIGRES
should outrage even people who on paper support their existence and
US support for them," he said.
TIGRES
agents were the first police forces Morgan and his colleague saw when
they were arriving at Pajuiles. They were stationed along the highway
approximately a quarter of a mile south of the road leading to the
protest camp, where a police roadblock was set up nearby. Morgan and
his colleague stayed at the camp all day, until 5 pm or so. Convoys
and machinery came and went up to the construction site, but by the
camp itself it was mostly COBRAS who were guarding the area, armed
with riot gear, tear gas and maybe only a pistol or two among the
dozen or so agents who swapped out every two hours. Escorts for dam
machinery were also largely provided by COBRAS, said Morgan, but that
changed later in the afternoon.
At
approximately 3 pm, a convoy came down from the dam construction
site, reportedly escorting HIDROCEP executive Jason Hawit. Morgan
didn't see whether Hawit was in fact there or not, but he did note
the difference in police forces accompanying the vehicles.
Pajuiles
residents and the Broad Movement for Dignity and Justice celebrate
the December 2017 acquittal of Albertina López (in the blue dress)
and three other protest camp participants. Other Pajuiles residents
still face trial. (Photo: Movimiento Amplio por la Dignidad y
Justicia)
"I
was really surprised to see two or three trucks full of TIGRES, all
with automatic weapons, obviously, that had apparently been up at the
construction site, providing security there all day," Morgan
told Truthout. Shortly thereafter, TIGRES also showed up in the area
of the protest camp. "At 3:30 or so, rather than a new unit of
COBRAS coming to relieve the one that was there, it was a mixed unit
of COBRAS and TIGRES," he said. As with those providing escort,
the TIGRES carried automatic weapons, not riot gear. The TIGRES
presence continued until the following night, on May 4.
Earlier
in the morning of May 3, before Morgan arrived, police arrested a
local Pajuiles resident while he was filming the security forces'
operations. Albertina López's brother Nolberto López was taken into
custody, accused by police of causing a public scandal. According to
locals, however, he was arrested simply for recording police. He was
released without charges later that afternoon. He is far from the
first to suffer criminalization related to the protest camp, however.
His sister was acquitted, but 11 Pajuiles residents are still facing
trial.
Organized
in local community groups by sector, Pajuiles residents are members
of the Broad Movement for Dignity and Justice (MADJ), which grew out
of a prosecutor's hunger strike against corruption and now also
focuses on natural resources and human rights issues. MADJ leaders
and community members alike have been subject to a barrage of
threats, intimidation and attacks, particularly in connection with
the dam protest camps in Pajuiles and in Arizona, also located in the
Atlántida Department.
"Pajuiles
has been subject to intense repression," MADJ coordinator of
organization Saúl Ávila told Truthout. Many residents still face
trial for criminal charges linked to the camp, and there have been
past instances of police repression and militarization in Pajuiles.
One
local resident, Geovanny Díaz, who had participated in the dam
resistance camp was among the more than 35 people killed during the
nationwide violent crackdown on protests against election fraud. Díaz
was dragged
out of his home in
Pajuiles by men dressed in police uniforms, shot and killed
shortly after a protest ended in
the wee hours of January 23.
"There's
collusion between the dam company and state forces, but local
divisions also aggravate the situation," said Ávila. "The
[company] completely divided the upper communities and turned them
against the lower communities, which are the communities that will
suffer from water shortages if the hydroelectric dam is built,"
he said.
The Uphill Battle Up North to Cut Deadly Security Aid
TIGRES
and other police unit members maintain a presence May 3 near the
Pajuiles protest camp along the road leading to a contested dam
construction site. (Photo: Witness for Peace)
Alex
Main visited Pajuiles this past March for the one-year anniversary of
the protest camp. A senior associate at the Center for Economic and
Policy Research (CEPR) based in Washington, DC, Main has reported on
Honduran movements and US aid to security forces for years.
US
congressional efforts to cut or condition security assistance to
Honduras began in earnest back in 2010, according to Main. At the
time, there was increased attention to the country in the wake of the
June 2009 coup d'état that removed the elected president from office
and led to a marked spike in homicides, state violence and murders of
activists. Community-based land, environmental and Indigenous
activists have been particularly targeted.
"Given
that the situation has only grown worse since then, and that
horrifyingly frequent reports of police and military involvement in
activist killings have been met with near impunity, members of
Congress have continued to demand full suspension of security
assistance to Honduras in increasing numbers," Main wrote in an
email to Truthout.
One
initiative to that effect is the Berta Cáceres Human Rights Act, a
bill named in honor of the well-known Honduran Indigenous rights and
social movement activist murdered in 2016. "[It] would instruct
the US administration to suspend all security assistance to Honduras
and to veto any loans from multilateral development banks to Honduran
police and military forces. It has so far garnered 70 House
co-sponsors," Main noted.
Green
Berets from the 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne) assist TIGRES
forces during a 2015 shooting drill at the Eglin Air Force Base in
Florida. (Photo: Capt. Thomas Cieslak / DVIDS. The appearance of U.S.
Department of Defense visual information does not imply or constitute
DoD endorsement.)
At
the moment, legislative action with regard to aid to Honduran
security forces is limited to elements incorporated into
appropriations legislation that condition half of US aid to Honduras
on Department of State certification of compliance with a series of
loosely worded human rights measures.
"These
or similar requirements have been incorporated into appropriations
legislation for a number of years now, and have had no observable
positive effect to date," wrote Main. "The last time they
certified the government's compliance was actually just two days
after last year's incredibly problematic elections, providing the
government with a needed boost just as they began deploying security
agents, including TIGRES, military police and conventional military
troops, to violently repress protests."
Back
in Pajuiles, many residents are still shaken from the recent massive
deployment of security forces there. Police took photographs of
protest camp participants and community leaders during the
operations, and they have been informed by other residents that death
threats against them continue to circulate, said Albertina López.
They're planning to formally report the latest threats to Honduran
authorities, but don't have much faith it will result in any action.
"State
institutions don't function. They don't function at all -- not for
us," said López. However, López and other activists at the
protest camp are not giving up and have vowed to resist the dam. "We
continue the struggle," she said.
SANDRA CUFFE
Sandra
Cuffe is a freelance journalist reporting on Indigenous land and
resource struggles, militarization and human rights issues in Canada
and Central America. Follow her on Twitter: @Sandra_Cuffe.
RELATED STORIES
==========================================
Zie ook:
'Amazonegebied in brand, Black Rock verdient daar vele miljoenen mee'
'Braziliaanse natuurbeschermer vermoord door illegale houthakkers'
'Ecuadoraanse oorspronkelijke bevolking behaalt grote overwinning op de 'Dag van de Oorspronkelijke Bevolking', voorheen Columbusdag' (en zie de links in dat bericht, links anders dan de hier getoonde)
'Berta Cáceres voorvechter gelijke rechten en milieuactivist vermoord in Honduras'
'Hondurese activiste ontvoerd en vermoord (alweer...), met instemming van de VS.........'
'Hillary Clinton mede verantwoordelijk voor moord op Berta Cáceres...........'
'Door VS gesteunde bewind in Honduras heeft de staat van beleg afgekondigd........'
gerelateerd:
'VS vermoordde meer dan 20 miljoen mensen sinds het einde van WOII........'
'Obama biedt excuses aan voor staatsgreep in Argentinië en stelt dat het VS beleid drastisch is veranderd........ ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!'
'Argentinië: protesten bij politiek proces tegen welzijnsactivist......'
'Mexico: mensenrechten- en milieuactivist Isidro Baldenegro vermoord........'
PS: hoewel het mensenrechtenschendende bewind van Honduras vaak het nieuws haalt (veelal op de sociale media) met moorden en andere ellende, hoor je amper of geen commentaar van de politieke bestuurders in de EU, de afzonderlijke EU landen of Canada......... Waar Assad maar een scheet hoeft te laten (beter gezegd: als het gerucht rondgaat dat hij een scheet heeft gelaten) of de hypocrieten verdringen zich voor de microfoons van de pers om hun verontwaardiging uit te spreken en militaire actie te eisen.......)
