The Nice Amnesty International groups, in collaboration with Amnesty International France, organized a meeting last night at the Amnesty House with Ms. Suani Isabel Martinez Vasquez, a land rights defender from Honduras.
More than 8600 Km separate Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, from Paris. This is the journey undertaken by Isabel Martinez Vasquez Suani, a Honduran and defender of human rights and ecology. She is visiting France at the invitation of the World Summit of Human Rights Defenders. She also made a stop in Nice yesterday. The activist came to talk about her association CEHPRODEC and the crucial issue in Honduras of land appropriation by multinationals, of the land of the indigenous people, which is sacred to their ancestors.
This meeting is part of the global Brave campaign, which mobilizes members and supporters of Amnesty International to defend human rights defenders threatened in too many countries.
Corruption, lack of security, jobs, money, and education have driven many Hondurans to flee to the United States. The current executive holds almost all the power, described as a plutocracy by many NGOs.
The main underground resources are ceded by the State to large multinationals. Today, there are more than 300 open-pit mines in Honduras. Yet, the people, through local communities, see no economic benefits. Consequently, Hondurans have considered this as plundering. Repression, assassinations, intimidations… human rights defenders are suffocated under the pressure of a government described as corrupt by Ms. Suani.
“The only solution for us is to appeal to international institutions,” declares the activist. “Three mining extraction projects have been prevented thanks to the work of activists.” However, poverty is gaining significant ground in the country of Los Catrachos (nickname).
Currently, thousands of Honduran migrants continue their journey through Mexico in the hope of reaching the United States. They are leaving a country where ultra-violent gangs operate and where poverty does not allow a large part of its inhabitants to live decently.
Donald Trump recently decided to send the army to the banks of the Rio Grande to stop the flow.
