Violent eviction being prepared for peasants in Aguán

Dina Meza

A violent eviction against the 28 peasant settlements in Aguán is being prepared for this Monday [today] by thousands of military, police and security guards of the land-owners, who have built-up around the recuperated places according to the latest information from this weekend.

Through the arrival of these combined forces from different parts of the country the zone is totally militarized, strong operations are taking place with the intention of intimidating the men and women who have joined the Unified Peasant Movement of Aguán, MUCA, who are struggling for a piece of land.

Psychological operations are a preamble to a violent eviction being prepared by the land owners with the support of the Armed Forces and the preventative police, which degerates into State terrorism against unarmed men and women.

According to denunciations from a communiqué of the Coordinator of Popular Organizations of Aguán, state terrorism is coming from this government, directed by the President, Mr. Porfirio Lobo Sosa, who has sent 29 commandos replete with soldiers and vehicles without license plates with high-calibre arms, who arrived to the Aguan region around 4:00pm on Saturday April 10th, 2010, with the objective of intimidating first of all the peasants who have undertaken the actions of recuperation and the population of the area so that the farm-workers accept the proposal given by the government of the republic, in defense of the interests of the three foreign land-owners situated through fraud in this valley, proof of which is that they are being housed in the facilities of the Oil Extraction Plant, property of Miguel Facusse.

In the document COPA adds that "We hold responsible the President of the Republic, the Minister of Security, and the Minister of Defense and the businessmen Miguel Facusse, René Morales and Reinaldo Canales for any violent act generated in the next few hours in the Bajo Aguán region which increases the number of killings of peasants."

According to information given by peasants in the left bank of the Aguán River, the military and police are concentrated at several points among which is Quebrada de Agua, near Miguel Facussé's African Palm processing factory.

“They have carried out intense patrols and they have us threatened, to the extreme of launching bursts of bullets against a little ten-year-old who went over to see them while they were doing their military exercises," denounced a peasant woman to defensoresenlinea.com, the evening of Sunday April 11th.

Meanwhile the 105th Infantry Batallion, the Naval Base and the Fourth Batallion are joining forces to go out in the early morning Monday to kick the peasants off the lands appropriated by the landholders that had been recovered by the peasants.

One proposal of the landowners that was presented by the government is a table of "dialogue" with thousands of arms pointing at the head of MUCA, in which they wish to leave the affiliates of that organization who are reclaiming government lands as work-boys for the landowners tied to their wishes. The answer is supposed to be given by MUCA on Tuesday.

The police/military mobilization that will leave millions in expenses for the Honduran people, to which must be added paramilitarys, was immediately preceeded by the assassination by men on a motorcycle of the farm-worker José Leonel Álvarez Guerra in Tocoa, Colón when he was coming home this past April 7th, in the middle of denunciations of the presence of Billy Joya, member of the 3-16 Death Squad who since the coup d'etat has been participating in actions violating human rights.

At the same time this happens in the midst of the announcement by TV and radio by the regime to remind people about the penal sanctions for the manufacture, storage, transport, use, import, acquisition of supply of arms, explosives or materials for war or combat, listing off AK47 rifles, sub-machine guns, pistols and home-made arms.

“They are training in the Tenth Batallion of Trujillo to activate explosives and mine all of the farms where we are and put an end to us in that way while masked men are besieging us,” denounced another of the peasants interviewed by defensoresenlinea.com.

Although the actions are public because of the denunciations of MUCA through the radio programs Voices Against Forgetting, of the Committee of Family Members of the Detained and Disappeared of Honduras (COFADEH) and the Resistance through the National Front of Popular Resistance, up till now the state institutions who should be taking measures to avoid a blood-letting in Aguán still haven't put out statements about the matter.

If this violent eviction becomes concrete thousands of peasants are at grave risk in these moments, for which we alert international human rights organizations to send urgent calls to the Honduran state to deter this massacre.

Fuente: hondurasresists.blogspot.com - Defensoresenlinea.com

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