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100+ human rights organisations call for justice and non-repetition measures for Guapinol

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20/02/2023.- A month ago we received through our colleagues at Equipo para la Reflexión, la Investigación y la Comunicación (ERIC/Radio Progreso) the news of the murder of two defenders of the Guapinol River in Honduras, Aly Domínguez and Jairo Bonilla. The Justice in Mining Network stands in solidarity with their friends and families and for this reason we have joined the Observatory for Justice for the Guapinol River Defenders and more than a hundred other organisations to demand justice and measures to ensure that this does not happen again. You can read the full statement below.

Honduras: One Month After the Murder of 2 Defenders of the Guapinol and San Pedro Rivers, Human Rights Organizations Call for Compliance with International Obligations to Guarantee Access to Justice and Measures of Non-Repetition

One month after the terrible murders on January 7 of Aly Dominguez and Jairo Bonilla, water and environmental defenders of the Guapinol community, the Observatory for Justice of the Guapinol River Defenders and the undersigned national and international organizations call on representatives of the Government of Honduras to assume their international human rights obligations.

The defense of the Botaderos Mountain “Carlos Escaleras” National Park and the Guapinol and San Pedro rivers has raised an international alert about the reaches of the extractivist model that still operates in Honduras, maintaining the permanent risk to entire communities and aggravating the human rights situation of those who live in these territories. Despite the extensive and exhaustive documentation of the situation of risk of the Municipal Committee of Common and Public Goods of Tocoa (CMDBCPT) and their multiple public alerts, the Honduran State has not responded in an effective way to the critical situation of danger of the defenders of the CMDBCPT, Guapinol, San Pedro sector and their families, omitting its international responsibility to grant protection to defenders, the due, prompt and impartial investigation of the facts, as well as the guarantee of non-repetition.

Likewise, we express the urgent need to guarantee the reliable, exhaustive and impartial investigation that clarifies the double murder of the Guapinol defenders, identifying the causes and the relationship with their work in defense of the rivers and the environment, as well as the acts of violence previously denounced and that remain unpunished due to the lack of substantive advances in the investigation stages. We support the request presented on January 17 for the investigation to be transferred from the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Tocoa to the Special Prosecutor’s Office for Crimes Against Life, with the assistance of the Technical Agency for Criminal Investigation, since the same local prosecutor’s office played a key role in the criminalization of defenders, including Ali Dominguez, the arbitrary detention of others for more than two years, and the violent eviction of the “Water and Life” camp.

In addition, the State must move forward in halting and repairing the environmental damage caused by the mining megaproject operating in the Botaderos Mountain, canceling projects that, being illegal, operate the State’s complicity and other companies that shields them from any responsibility. It is necessary that the origin of the various socio-environmental conflicts in Honduran territory be addressed from a human rights perspective and that the demands of those who inhabit the territories be met.

The Observatory for Justice for the Guapinol River Defenders and the national and international organizations subscribing to this communication regret that, despite a hopeful change of government for Honduras and the region, the patterns of violence against communities and Indigenous and peasant peoples continue, favoring private interests and the accumulation of wealth.

We recognize and support the work of human rights defenders in Honduras and stand in solidarity with the victims of reprisals and their families.

The undersigned subscribe to this communication:

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