http://quotha.net/node/1955
Declaration from artists and intellectuals on the Bajo Aguán and human rights in Honduras Thu, 09/01/2011 - 13:18 AP *My translation, original Spanish below* *To the national community, the government of the Republic and the international community* On the murders of campesinos and popular leaders in the Bajo Aguán region and the accelerated deterioration of human rights in the country *This is the moment in which silence becomes a crime.* Froylan Turcios *He who witnesses a crime and remains silent, commits it.* José Martí *To remain silent is to share in the crime.* José Adán Castelar The regimes that arose from the June 2009 Coup d'État, annointed by the U.S. government, the business lobby that has ransacked the country, and the fundamentalist churches, have brought about a resurgence of the repression that in the decade of the 1980s, plunged Honduras into suffering. If yesterday it was a fanatical, fascist and brutal militarism that trained and formed groups of assassins to selectively and clandestinely kidnap, kill and disappear popular leaders and politicians, today, that militarism that for many years lay dormant, now enhanced with better equipment and greater antidemocratic enthusiasm, has returned to undertake the task of extermination wherever it is directed. In the country and city, in the protests of citizens outraged by the crisis and the coup, in the students' and teachers' marches, wherever free people gather to protest, the apparatus of death is brought in with armored cars, rifles, teargas canisters, and pistols under the fallacious argument that it is through the rule of law and silent acquiescence forged by arms that progress, democracy and coexistence flourish. Just when the situation was supposed to improve based on the Cartagena Accords and when the presidents of Honduras and Colombia had declared that the promise to respect human rights is being kept, the bloody acts of recent days have revealed a regression, in particular because the campesino movement has been criminalized through allegations of ties with guerrilla forces trained and financed by foreign governments. While the situation is dire throughout the country, in the agricultural sector and particularly in the Bajo Aguán region it is unsustainable. The death count has now surpassed 50. Sending military forces is an attempt to distract from or blur the responsibility of the Armed Forces for the presence of death squads and in the protection of the repressive forces stationed in the region, known for their particularly provocative and homicidal vocation. Likewise, the manner in which the problem is being addressed allows us to deduce that what is being sought is to exhaust the campesinos' ability to fight in order to impose a predetermined solution privileging the interests of large agribusiness owners in the region. But the blindness of the government, its commitment to big business and failure to recognize civil rights laws prevents it from seeing that, in the campesino struggle, the ability to fight will not be exhausted and that, in the absence of a just and democratic solution to the agrarian problem in the near future, the Aguán region could open the floodgates for actions of greater magnitude that would threaten the future of the entire country. The escalation of violence has reached a key stage; a dramatic and bloody moment that obligates us, as academic and intellectuals, artists and creative workers of the most diverse affiliations, to denounce the vile behavior of the forces that attempt to resolve the latent structural conflicts in our society through political crimes, cold-blooded murder and intimidation of grassroots organizations. Additionally, we are shocked that, despite all the evidence, the majority of the media, identified with the coup d'état and dedicated to repeating the official propaganda line, ignores the symptoms of social and political decay and goes on pretending that nothing is happening. As such, femicides are blamed, in accordance with police claims, on the victims; crimes against leaders of popular movements are unquestioningly attributed to common crime, drug trafficking or internal battles. They have even reached the extreme of brushing aside and distorting the facts behind the murder of an adolescent student who was participating in a peaceful protest at the entrance to his school. These crimes continue to be met with total impunity and are carried out with greater and greater viciousness and cruelty, within the framework of a strategy to instill fear and neutralize our nation's will to fight. We do not aim to dictate a political economic or social course of action, but rather to call attention to the savagery being used to stifle fair and just social demands. Violence indicates a State incapable of governing, maintaining order and protecting our coexistence, attributes that are the sine qua non of sovereignty and legitimacy. In view of the above, we urge the national and international community to take a stand against the permanent bloodshed happening in the Bajo Aguán. Each life cut short for the sake of satisfying the interests of the national oligarchy and its transnational economic and political ties, is one more crime against humanity that distances us further from the possibility of rebuilding our coexistence. Rodolfo Pastor Fasquelle, historian Darío A. Euraque, historian Teresa de Maria Campos; anthropologist and artist Helen Umaña, writer Isadora Paz, sociologist and artist/dancer Aníbal Delgado Fiallos, sociologist Mario Gallardo, writer Mario Ardón Mejía, anthropologist Adrienne Pine, anthropologist Armando García, writer and photographer Geraldina Tercero, anthropologist Manuel de Jesús Pineda, writer Roxana Pastor Fasquelle, educator Guillermo Mejía, journalist Eduardo Bähr, writer Débora Ramos, writer J Antonio Fúnez, writer and diplomat Dana Frank, historian Julio Escoto, writer Patricia Murillo, journalist Gustavo Larach, historian María de los Ángeles Mendoza, historian A. Flores, publicist Allan Fajardo, sociologist and businessman Anarella Vélez, historian Héctor Martínez Mortiño, economist Emilio Guerrero, writer and businessman Héctor Castillo, artist Jorge Martinez, writer Sergio Raúl Rodríguez, musician Víctor Manuel Ramos, medical doctor and writer Mayra J. Mejía del Cid, lawyer Héctor Valerio, medical doctor and businessman Marcio Valenzuela, engineer and businessman Gustavo Zelaya, philosopher and historian Rosa María Messen Ghidinelli, sociologist Jorge A. Amaya Banegas, historian Daniel Reichman, anthropologist Oscar A. Puerto Posas, economist Russell Sheptak, historian and computer engineer Rosemary Joyce, anthropologist Mauricio de Maria Campos, economist and diplomat Iris Mecía, poet and journalist Joaquín Portillo historian Isbela Orellana, sociologist Omar Pinto, artist Edgar Soriano, historian Tito Estrada, playwright Natalie Roque, historian Cesar Lazo, journalist and writer Fabricio Estrada, poet Ricardo Salgado, policital scientist Soledad Altamirano, poet Rodolfo Pastor Campos, political scientist and diplomat Lety Elvir, writer September 1, 2011 ------------------------------ [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:laamn-unsubscr...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:laamn-subscr...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:laamn-dig...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:laamn-ow...@egroups.com?subject=laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:la...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/laamn@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! 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