CENTRAL AMERICA

• Honduras: Forest defender murdered in Olancho
• Second Meso-American Forum against Dams

LOCAL STRUGGLES AND NEWS

- Honduras: Forest defender murdered in Olancho

Around the year 2002, the forests in the department of Olancho were being devastated by the action of logging companies. Forest destruction was done to feed many saw-mills (both legal and illegal), and in some of them, several parliamentarians were directly involved. While the companies got richer, the local populations received the impact of timber exploitation, in particular the disappearance of water resulting from felling the forest and the ceasing of its function regulating the water cycle.

Faced with this situation, the local population started to organize itself and in 2002, the Environmental Movement of Olancho was created, with the aim of ensuring forest protection. For this purpose, they requested the government to regulate timber exploitation, to apply appropriate management methods, to carry out the necessary monitoring of felling and to protect protected areas. In some areas of particular cultural and biological value, they demanded that logging be banned for a 10-year period.

In order to achieve these objectives, the local population organized a series of actions, leading up to the March for Life, held on 27 June. This march, from the provincial capital (Juticalpa) to the national capital (Tegucigalpa), involved thousands of people marching for 7 days and covering some 200 kilometres to submit their demands to the president of the Republic. This march was supported by 27 organizations of students, workers, peasants, indigenous communities, pro-human rights activists and the Catholic and Evangelical Churches.

However, on reaching the Presidential House, they found that it had been surrounded by tens of anti-riot police, armed with metal shields, rubber truncheons and protective helmets. President Ricardo Maduro refused to receive them, although they waited for three hours outside his office.

One of the movement's main leaders, the priest Jose Andres Tamayo, summarised the situation, saying "For seven days we have peacefully marched to demand the government to eradicate the unmerciful logging of Honduras' forests, and specifically those of Olancho…and Maduro did not respond to our demands."

Faced by the government's lack of response, the local inhabitants were forced to take measures, among which the prevention of entry of loggers into forest areas. In four communities, a total logging ban was achieved this way.

The response was not long in coming. Threats and attacks were started and the preparation of black lists, and attacks on logging company facilities, carried out by people hired by the companies themselves as part of a strategy to blame the environmental movement for these attacks.

This went on until 17 July, when the Committee of Families of People Detained-Disappeared in Honduras (Comité de Familiares de Detenidos Desaparecidos en Honduras - COFADEH) issued a communiqué denouncing "that terrorism in Olancho is placing at risk the lives of those defending the environment." The communiqué ended by stating "no one wants to mourn the death of a forest martyr, what we want is to defend everyone's life, even those who live planning and executing death every day." The following day, Carlos Arturo Reyes, one of the people mentioned by COFADEH on the list of people threatened by sawmill owners was murdered in his own home.

Olancho and its forests are now mourning a martyr they never wanted. Will President Maduro now be willing to listen to the population of Olancho? Or will he continue to turn a deaf ear to their claims while the life of those defending the forest continues to be cut down by murderers paid by economic interests? No one wants any more martyrs, what is wanted is justice and forest protection. Is it too much to ask?

Article based on information from: interview to a member of the Olancho Environmental Movement, La Esperanza, Honduras, 20 July 2003. "Llegó a la capital 'marcha por la vida' que encabeza cura salvadoreño", Rebelión, 27/6/03 ( http://www.rebelion.org/ecologia/030627honduras.htm ) "Terrorismo en Olancho pone en riesgo la vida de defensores del Medio Ambiente", COFADEH, 17/7/03

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- Second Meso-American Forum against Dams

The Second Meso-American Forum against Dams "For the Peoples' Water and Life" was held from 17 to 20 July in Honduras. One hundred and fifty delegates participated, "concerned over the increasing invasion by dam-building projects imposed by large transnational companies and multilateral bodies, in partnership with the corrupt governments of the Meso-American region."

The Forum's main objective was to "share and analyze our experience to strengthen the struggle in defence of our natural resources, our culture, our territories and even our very life, which are being threatened by the imposition of economic and military plans attacking the self determination of our peoples."

In their assessment of the situation, the participants identified the existence of some 500 projects for hydroelectric dams in the region and noted that "the proliferation of hydroelectric projects in our countries is not due to the energy needs of our peoples but responds to the need to set up the necessary infrastructure to develop the neo-liberal economic model through the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), the various Free Trade agreements on a continental level, the Puebla-Panama Plan and the Colombia Plan, among others."

They also emphasized that the projects "are located in indigenous and peasant communities, characterized by their considerable natural and cultural wealth. Such projects attack the survival of our peoples and cause the disappearance of their territories."

One of the participants in the Forum (Mauricio Alvarez from Costa Rica), underscored other important results, in particular the fact that the meeting had made it possible to meet with and identify people affected by the dams, both in the region and outside it (such as Brazil and Thailand). It also enabled joint strategies to be prepared, networks to be set up and meetings among countries to be held, leading to the preparation of national and regional plans in opposition of what he called "a hydrogarchy basically comprising transnational companies that appropriate whole watersheds in the region. For this hydrogarchy, hydroelectric energy is secondary, as the process of appropriating water legitimises greater domination of all the other resources contained in the watershed."

In the final part of its declaration, the Forum demands that the governments "immediately halt construction of all the hydroelectric projects that are in process and do not grant any more concessions of any water body to private companies. Furthermore, we demand that the use of water be guaranteed and respected as community-benefiting collective property."

The Forum thus puts forward an alternative and opposing vision to the model presently in force, which gives priority to economic profitability over environmental conservation and social equity, tending to privatize all resources and in particular water and energy and their handing over to transnational companies. The Forum will meet again in one year's time in El Salvador, where actions carried out in the framework of the Action Plan approved at this meeting will be assessed.

Article based on information from: interview with Mauricio Alvarez, FECON, Costa Rica; Declaración del II Foro Mesoamericano contra las Represas "Por el Agua y la Vida de los Pueblos", La Esperanza, Intibucá, Honduras, 17-20 July 2003