arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

New Violence Against Landless Campesinos in Honduras:

(Preliminary report based on an emergency communication from Ivan Romero Jimenez, member of the national executive board of the National Center for Rural Workers (CNTC) received by the organization La Voz de los de Abajo, Chicago, IL, USA.)

On September 16th, at 4:30 pm, the campesino community “Unidos Venceramos” in the municipality of Victoria, in the state of Yoro was violently evicted from their lands by a group of heavily armed hired gunmen and the municipal police. They first murdered Cecilio Velasquez and kidnapped Teofilo and Ulises Gutierrez (father and son). The corpse of Teofilo Gutierrez then appeared on the community’s land. He is known to have been murdered by Jorge Torres (aka Pajarro Loco – Crazy Bird) who commands a group of 15 heavily armed hired gunmen.

Ulises Gutierrez later appeared in the custody of the municipal police. The bodies of Cecilio Velasquez and Teofilo Gutierrez could not be removed from the property by their families because the gunmen then controlling the land threatened to kill any campesino who tried to enter. On the morning of September 17th the two bodies appeared in the municipality town hall where they were then taken away by the Attorney General’s office.

The community’s cooperative, El Zapote, is affiliated with the CNTC, one of the most active campesino organizations in Honduras and an organization that has been the target of much violence from the big landowners and the repressive forces of the government. Under the current neoliberal president’s administration, the levels of violence against the campesinos movement and the social movement in general has excalated to levels close to those of the 1980’s. Only 2 months ago (July 2003), 2 other members of the CNTC were murdered, another wounded, and others detained. During that same week, a young ecology activist was also murdered in the state of Olancho.