[Peace] Ellison/Johnson letter to Kerry/Lew on human rights in Honduras

[Robert Naiman]

http://ellison.house.gov/sites/ellison.house.gov/files/
2016.12.06%20Letter%20to%20Kerry%20and%20Lew%20on%20Honduras.pdf

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 7, 2016
Press Contact
Isaiah Kirshner-Breen

Reps. Ellison and Johnson Call for Accountability for Human Rights Abuses
in Honduras

WASHINGTON– Reps. Keith Ellison (D-MN) and Hank Johnson (D-GA), along with
27 Members of the House, sent a letter today to Secretary of State John
Kerry and Secretary of Treasury Jacob Lew expressing growing concern about
human rights violations in Honduras. This letter coincides with the
nine-month anniversary of Berta Cáceres’s tragic murder.

The full text of the letter appears below, and the signed letter can be
viewed here.

Dear Secretary Kerry and Secretary Lew:

We write to follow up on our letter of March 17, 2016, signed by 62 Members
of Congress, in which we expressed our concerns regarding the murder of
Berta Cáceres -- the internationally-renowned Honduran Indigenous rights
advocate-- and regarding human rights and U.S. policy in Honduras more
generally. Since that time, our fears have only increased.

​We are concerned that the Government of Honduras continues to unduly limit
access to the investigation into the murder of Ms. Cáceras and Gustavo
Castro, a key witness who was shot along with Ms. Cáceres. Under Honduran
law, victims and their families have the right to actively participate in
the prosecution of the case; however, Ms. Cáceres’s investigative file
remains secret seven months later. This significantly constrains the
family’s legally guaranteed involvement in the case and limits its ability
to advocate for a speedy prosecution of those implicated.

We are also alarmed that Honduran authorities were careless in handling the
case file, as the file was allowed off government property and subsequently
stolen. This raises further questions about the ability of Honduran
authorities to manage Ms. Cáceres’s case and impartially prosecute the case.

​We were pleased to learn that five suspects were arrested in connection
with Ms. Cáceres’s murder in May 2016 and a sixth suspect was arrested in
September. Those arrested include: a current employee of the hydroelectric
dam development company DESA, the builder of the dam that Ms. Cáceres and
the Lenca Indigenous communities in Rio Blanco actively opposed; an active
duty major in the Honduran military; and two former members of the Honduran
military, one of whom was also a former employee of DESA.

Concerns remain that authorities have not brought into custody those that
allegedly masterminded Ms. Cáceres’s murder, and authorities also did not
seize relevant evidence during searches of DESA headquarters. On June 21st,
the Guardian reported that a former soldier in a U.S.-funded Special Forces
unit recounted he had seen Ms. Cáceres’s name on a death list allegedly
belonging to the Honduran military. This, along with the identities of
those previously arrested, suggests the involvement of high-ranking
Honduran military figures in Ms. Cáceres’s assassination.

We welcome the November 14, 2016, announcement of the creation of the
International Expert Advisory Panel (GAIPE), which was formed at the
request of the Cáceres family with the support of COPINH and multiple civil
society organizations. We hope that GAIPE can contribute to an impartial
and independent examination of the pending criminal investigation. However,
the GAIPE does not have access to information beyond that available to the
family. In our March 2016 letter, we requested your assistance in
pressuring the Honduran government to support an Inter-American Commission
on Human Rights (IACHR) -led independent international investigation of Ms.
Cáceres’s case. Despite offers of assistance from the IACHR, the Government
of Honduras has not allowed such an investigation to proceed nor has the
State Department taken a clear and public position in support of an
independent IACHR investigation. We ask that you do so immediately.

Furthermore, violence against rights activists continues. COPINH activist
Nelson García was killed in March 2016 and threats have forced his family
to flee Honduras. In October 2016, Tomás Gómez Membreño, Ms. Cáceres's
successor as the general coordinator of COPINH, and Alexander García, a
local COPINH leader in Llano Grande, survived assassination attempts. Most
recently, on October 18, 2016, four masked men gunned down two land reform
advocates from the cooperative MUCA in the Aguán Valley -- an area where
over 150 land rights advocates have been killed since 2009. MUCA members
are protected by the IACHR, as was Ms. Cáceres, but the Honduran government
has not yet complied with the commission’s protection order.

Finally, American taxpayer money should not be given to a government facing
accusations of operating outside the rule of law and collaborating in
targeted assassinations. We request that the U.S. government immediately
suspend all police and military aid to Honduras until these mounting human
rights concerns are addressed. We were disturbed to learn that on September
30, 2016, the Department of State certified the Honduran government had
complied with the human rights conditions placed on aid in the FY2016
Appropriations Act, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The
Act's requirements for aid included the protection of human rights
defenders and other political activists, prosecution of security forces who
have committed human rights abuses, and the removal of the military from
internal policing. Violations of these and other threshold requirements for
aid have not been adequately addressed. We ask for the Department of State
to reconsider immediately its decision. In addition, we reiterate the
concerns expressed in our March 2016 letter regarding the termination of
the Agua Zarca dam and reconsideration of U.S. support for loans from
multilateral development banks to Honduras.

It is our hope that Ms. Cáceres's death will lead to greater justice for
the Honduran people. We appreciate your assistance in the realization of
that goal and the consideration of the above requests.

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