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Honduras needs help from the South http://alainet.org/active/50977&lang=es Imagine that an opposition organizer were murdered in broad daylight in Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador or Venezuela by masked gunmen, or kidnapped and murdered by armed guards of a well-known supporter of the government. It would be front page news in the New York Times, and all over the TV news. The U.S. State Department would issue a strong statement of concern over grave human rights abuses. If this were ever to happen.Now imagine that 59 of these kinds of political killings had taken place so far this year, and 61 the previous year. Long before the number of victims reached this level, this would become a major foreign policy issue for the United States, and Washington would be calling for international sanctions. But we are talking about Honduras, not Bolivia or Venezuela. So when President Porfirio Lobo of Honduras came to Washington last month, President Obama greeted him warmly and said [http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/10/05/remarks-president-obama-and-president-lobo-honduras-bilateral-meeting]: "Two years ago, we saw a coup in Honduras that threatened to move the country away from democracy, and in part because of pressure from the international community, but also because of the strong commitment to democracy and leadership by President Lobo, what we've been seeing is a restoration of democratic practices and a commitment to reconciliation that gives us great hope.""Pedro Salgado, vice-president of the Unified Campesino Movement of Aguán (MUCA), was shot then beheaded at about 8:00 pm at his home in the La Concepción empresa cooperative. His spouse, Reina Irene Mejía, was also shot to death at the same time. Pedro suffered a murder attempt in December 2010. . . Salgado, like the presidents of all the cooperatives claiming rights to land used by African palm oil businessmen in the Aguán, had been subject to constant death threats since the beginning of 2011."The courage of these activists and organizers in the face of such horrific violence and repression is amazing. Many of the killings over the past year have been in the Aguán Valley in the Northeast, where small farmers are struggling for land rights against one of Honduras' richest landowners, Miguel Facussé. He is producing biofuels in this region on disputed land. He is close to the United States and was an important backer of the 2009 coup against Zelaya. His private security forces, together with U.S.-backed military and police, are responsible for the political violence in the region. U.S. aid to the Honduran military has increased since the coup.Recent U.S. diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks [http://www.thenation.com/article/164120/wikileaks-honduras-us-linked-brutal-businessman] show that U.S. officials have been aware since 2004 that Facussé has also been trafficking large quantities of cocaine. Dana Frank, a professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz who is an expert on Honduras, summed it up for The Nation [http://www.thenation.com/article/164120/wikileaks-honduras-us-linked-brutal-businessman] last month: "U.S. 'drug war' funds and training, in other words, are being used to support a known drug trafficker's war against campesinos."
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