Navy Commandos Deployed to Repress The Campesinos of La Trinidad

COFADEH – May 5, 2011 10:49 pm

The Committee of the Families of the Disappeared Detainees in Honduras (COFADEH) issue an urgent alert on the deployment, since 9:30 pm, of naval military troops to the La Trinidad Cooperative located in Aguan, Colon, lands that were recuperated on April 30^th by campesinos who since that date have been attacked, with bullets, by the army, police and security guards working for the landowner Rene Morales.

This is the third armed incursion with the aim of removing the campesinos from their lands, with the knowledge of and tolerance of the Prosecutors Office of the Public Ministry which maintains a complicit silence about the events that foments the impunity in which the  repressors operate.

Julián Hernández, president of the Cooperative, declared to COFADEH that a number of Naval commandos are mobilized, “we fear that during the night they will attack us, the danger is imminent and the lives of children, women, the elderly and men are at grave risk.”

He also stated that the intention is to enter (the lands) to torture and carry out attempts on their lives in the cover of darkness. Furthermore he denounce that on May 1^st the army together with the police and Morales’ security guards attacked them in an attempt to evict them, which they failed to do “because of the resistance that we maintained”.

COFADEH makes a call to the national and international community so that we unite our forces with the goal of stopping this barbarity.

MORE INFORMATION

Hundreds of military troops from the XV Infantry Battalion of Trujillo, Colon, policy and security guards of the landowner Rene Morales kept more than 300 campesinos from the La Trinidad cooperative surrounded since Saturday, April 30 when the campesino family recuperated the lands for which they have legal title.

This strong armed force attacked the campesinos at 5 in the morning on Thursday, May 5^th attempting to evict them but the campesinos defended their land and they state that they will not leave “even if we have to die”.

According to the information received there was a strong armed attack by the repressive forces and security guards using heavy caliber weapons which left two campesinos wounded, among them, Antonio Rivas.

The campesinos had returned to the land after 16 years of searching for justice, and they recuperated the lands of the La Trinidad Cooperative on the left bank of the Aguan River which is in front of the installations of the 15^th Infantry Battalion.