Hurricane Devastation - Appeal for Support

#Giving Tuesday 2020

In mid-November, two powerful, contiguous hurricanes battered Nicaragua, Honduras, and Guatemala, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake. Eta and Iota generated mudslides and flooding, burying villages, flooding homes, and destroying crops. Government responses have been woefully inadequate and many of our Partners have been seriously affected.

CoDev is raising funds for these partners: Artesana, a Guatemalan organization supporting imprisoned women and their families, and the Honduran Women’s Collective, CODEMUH which accompanies workers in the country’s maquila (sweatshop) zones.

Artesana has borrowed a truck and is delivering donations of food, clothing and sanitary supplies (masks, hand sanitizer, basic medicines) to affected families of imprisoned women. Artesana’s share of the donations sent by CoDev will support the truck’s fuel costs and purchase additional emergency supplies.

Seventy homes of CODEMUH’s shop floor advocates have been submerged by the hurricanes. These women received little warning to evacuate and lost most of their belongings to the floods. CODEMUH will use donations to provide them with clothing, bedding, new mattresses, cooking materials, food, sanitary supplies, and tools for cleaning the mud and debris from their homes once the waters recede.

Urgent Action: Constitutional Crisis in Guatemala

Since August 2017 when Guatemala President Jimmy Morales attempted to declare Ivan Velasquez, the head of the UN-sponsored International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) persona non grata, the Guatemalan government and economic elite have made multiple attempts to stop investigations of fraud, money laundering, and illicit campaign financing.In August 2018, the President announced that CICIG's mandate would not be renewed and Commissioner Ivan Velasquez was not permitted to enter the country. The Constitutional Court ordered immigration authorities to allow entry to Velasquez, but Morales, speaking through two ministers, said he would defy the court order. The Guatemalan government has violated legal resolutions issued by the Constitutional Court regarding CICIG’s mandate, and on January 7, 2019 illegally detained and denied entry to one of its investigators, Yilen Osorio Zuluaga and gave CICIG 24 hours to leave the country.According to Guatemalan Human Rights organizations these actions against CICIG could lead to a “Technical Coup” putting at risk the country's constitutional order, weakening specialized government investigation units, reducing the struggle against impunity on combating street gangs and empowering the old Illegal Groups and Clandestine Security Organizations.Please send our urgent action to show international solidarity with CICIG’s work in Guatemala.[formidable id="75" title="1"]

Urgent Action: Killings & Death Threats in Colombia

Call on Colombian authorities to stop the killing, stigmatization and death threats against social leaders and human rights defenders in Colombia.

CoDevelopment’s partner NOMADESC (Association for Research and Social Action), together with other human rights organizations of southwestern Colombia, are requesting support in urging the new government of President Ivan Duque Marquez to take immediate action to prevent the systematic killing of social leaders and human rights defenders in the country.According to Colombian human rights organizations, 123 social leaders were killed and 600 others received death threats between January and July 2018. One such threat was circulated August 9 in the city of Cali by the narco-paramilitary group Aguilas Negras (Black-Eagles). The leaflets declared 10 social organizations and 21 rights defenders military targets, stating: “The Aguilas Negras reiterate our position to counteract at the national level the urban structures of the insurgency, camouflaged as supposed social leaders, and direct our units to stop the advance of the so-called “Colombia Humana,” which promotes progressive “sellout” governments inclined to strengthen leftist organizations, contrary to the political project proposed by Doctor IVAN DUQUE.”Among the organizations targeted are the Valle del Cauca Teachers’ Union (SUTEV, a member of our partner, the Colombian Teachers’ Federation), and Margarita López, president of Valle del Cauca water worker’s union SINTRACUAVALLE, another CoDev partner.Please send our urgent action to Colombian President Ivan Duque:

1. To take concrete steps to stop the assassinations and threats against social leaders and human rights defenders.
2. To make public the new government’s human rights policy to designed to prevent killings and attacks against rights defenders.
3. To thoroughly investigate and identify those persons responsible for the killing, death threats and stigmatization of social leaders and human rights defenders.

[formidable id="73" title="1"]Please also send messages and photos of solidarity with Colombian social leaders and human rights defenders through social media:Facebook:Nomadesc: @AsociacionNomadescFecode: @fecodeSintracuavalle: @sintracuavalle.presenteTwitter, using the hashtags #SerLiderNoEsDelito #NoHayPazSinDefensoresNomdesc: @NomadescFecode: @fecodeSintracuavalle: @SINTRACUAVALLE

Urgent Action: Mass Arrests in Colombia

Please call on Colombia’s President to release rights defenders arrested April 20-22.

CoDev partner NOMADESC (works to train members of community organizations in southwestern Colombia as human rights promotors able to document and process rights violations. In a sweep of mass arrests April 20-22, Colombian authorities arbitrarily detained dozens of elected community leaders and rights defenders in the communities where NOMADESC works. Among the charges levelled against those arrested is membership in, or association with, the National Liberation Army (ELN), an armed rebel movement currently in peace talks with the Colombian state. The accusations are reminiscent of the “false positives” human rights crimes of the past decade, where the Colombian military abducted and murdered marginalized youth and community activists in order to dress them in military fatigues and claim them as guerrilla “kills.”Please send our urgent action to Colombian President Manuel Santos, urging him to release the detainees and guarantee their safety and rights to a fair and open trial.Follow NOMADESC to learn more about their incredible work: Twitter; Facebook; Instagram; YouTube[formidable id="72" title="1"]

Update from Buenaventura, Colombia

On Tuesday June 6, Colombian authorities and community leaders in the Pacific port of Buenaventura reached a deal to lift the 21 day civil strike that emphatically demanded the national government and President Juan Manual Santos, to fulfill their commitments with the peoples of Buenaventura signed in 2014.Peoples in Buenaventura were tired of seeing the economic interests of transnationals always placed first, while their basic public needs were shoved aside and communities forgotten and submerged in extreme poverty and violence.Under the deal, President Juan Manual Santos’s government promised to present a bill to Congress to create a 10-year special development plan for Buenaventura, and has pledged to invest US$500 million in Colombia’s most important port city. The government would be investing in the areas of running water 24 hours a day, basic sanitation services, housing and infrastructure, education, employment, the environment, healthcare provision, and access to justice.This hard-won deal comes after three weeks of civil striking that brought violent repression by ESMAD (Mobile Anti-Disturbance Squadrons) against communities in Buenaventura. At least two people have died and countless others have been injured.We greatly value and commend the peoples of Buenaventura, for their organization and perseverance in defending their human rights, territories, and life of communities in Buenaventura.We thank all of our supporters who responded to our urgent call to action and wrote letters calling on President Santos to halt the repression faced by citizens of Buenaventura. Our friends at NOMADESC (Association for Research and Social Action) appreciate your solidarity!

Fighting and Dying For Justice in Honduras

Just two short weeks after the death of Berta Cacerés, another member of her organization was gunned down and brutally murdered. Nelson Garcia, father of five, was on his way home for lunch when two unidentified assailants shot him in the face, four times.Local reports indicate that his murder occurred shortly after the Honduran government sent in bulldozers and heavily armed police to evict 150 Indigenous people from their homes, homes built on ancestral land. Garcia was meeting with these families just before his assassination.Cacerés and Garcia were members of the Indigenous rights group, Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH). The group was founded by Berta Cacerés in 1993 to fight for and protect the rights of her people, the Lenca, their ancestral lands and natural resources. Over the years COPINH succeeded in stopping 50 logging projects and 10 hydroelectric dams, securing 100 communal land titles and 2 Indigenous municipalities. And so much more.COPINH’s latest struggle and the one for which Cacerés and Garcia lost their lives, was the fight to prevent the construction of the Agua Zarca megadam. The dam is to be constructed over the Gualcarque River, a vital source of water for the Lenca people. The Lenca began peacefully protesting the construction when plans were revealed in 2011. When their appeals fell on deaf ears they began demonstrating. By 2013, police were arresting the protesters en masse. Cacerés was forced into hiding due to the numerous threats against her life and her family members. These threats are well documented. And still even with the world watching and listening, she died.Despite the international outcry condemning Berta Cacerés’ assassination, Nelson Garcia became the fourteenth member of COPINH to be murdered since its inception and one of more than 100 human rights and environmental activists to be murdered in Honduras between 2010 and 2014.How many more will meet a similar end? We need to scream “Enough!!” until we are hoarse.

Action urgente après l’assassinat d’une militante écologiste au Honduras

Un témoin de l’assassinat de la militante écologiste et autochtone hondurienne Berta Cáceres est retenu au Honduras

Les autorités canadiennes et honduriennes doivent agir

CoDevelopment Canada joins the many organizations expressing condemnation of the assassination of Berta Cáceres, general coordinator and co-founder of the National Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH).CoDevelopment Canada joint sa voix à celles de plusieurs organisations qui condamnent ouvertement l’assassinat de Berta Cáceres, coordonnatrice générale et co-fondatrice du Conseil national des organismes populaires et autochtones du Honduras (le COPINH).Mme Cáceres a été assassinée à La Esperanza, dans le département d’Intibucá, le 3 mars. Des individus se sont introduits dans la maison qu’elle occupait et l’ont tuée par balle. Nous craignons vivement pour la sécurité de Gustavo Castro Soto, un collègue mexicain de Mme Cáceres, qui a été témoin de son assassinat et a survécu au drame. Il est actuellement détenu au Honduras.Gustavo Castro Soto, citoyen mexicain et collègue de l’organisation Otros Mundos Chiapas, a été témoin de l’assassinat de Mme Cáceres. M. Soto avait pleinement collaboré à tous les volets de l’enquête sur l’assassinat de Mme Cáceres. Le dimanche 6 mars, alors qu’il tentait de quitter le Honduras légalement avec la protection de l’ambassade du Mexique au Honduras, M. Soto a été arrêté et détenu par les autorités honduriennes à l’aéroport sous prétexte qu’il devait poursuivre son témoignage sans avis préalable. Les autorités honduriennes ont ensuite insisté pour que l’interrogatoire de M. Soto se poursuive au sein du département d’Intibucá plutôt qu’en lieu sûr à l’ambassade du Mexique à Tegucigalpa.Après avoir donné à M. Soto l’assurance verbale qu’il pourrait quitter le Honduras après avoir complété son témoignage, le procureur général hondurien a émis une alerte migratoire de 30 jours obligeant M. Soto de demeurer dans le pays, et ce, malgré qu’il avait déjà pleinement collaboré à l’enquête. Il faut savoir que le Mexique et le Honduras sont signataires d’un traité qui prévoit la coopération dans les enquêtes criminelles et en vertu duquel Gustavo aurait pu continuer de participer à l’enquête depuis le Mexique. Rien ne justifie qu’il soit retenu au Honduras, et il est urgent que les autorités honduriennes révoquent l’alerte migratoire dont il est l’objet et collaborent avec les autorités mexicaines pour assurer son retour sécuritaire au Mexique dès que possible.De plus, la famille de Berta ainsi que le COPINH dénoncent la manipulation de l’enquête menée sur l’assassinat, car, plutôt que d’interroger les personnes dont Bertha dénonçait les menaces et qui sont soupçonnées d’être des tueurs à gage, l’enquête est orientée de sorte à davantage persécuter et criminaliser le COPINH.CoDevelopment vous invite à signer les deux lettres ci-dessous. La première lettre demande au gouvernement du Canada de faire pression sur le gouvernement hondurien pour que soit révoquée l’alerte migratoire en vertu de laquelle Gustavo est retenu au Honduras et qu’il soit promptement retourné en toute sécurité au Mexique, d’insister pour que le gouvernement mexicain maintienne et renforce les mesures assurant le bien-être physique et psychologique de Gustavo au Honduras et son retour au Mexique sain et sauf, de demander la participation d’enquêteurs internationaux indépendants agissant de concert avec la Commission interaméricaine des droits de l’homme (CIDH) vu l’inefficacité du système judiciaire du Honduras et l’absence de volonté politique d’assurer une enquête complète et impartiale sur l’assassinat de Berta Cáceres.La deuxième lettre demande aux autorités honduriennes de lever l’alerte migratoire et de permettre à M. Soto de quitter le Honduras. On y demande également aux autorités mexicaines d’intensifier les pressions sur le gouvernement du Honduras pour que M. Soto soit autorisé à quitter le Honduras.[formidable id="63" title="1"][formidable id="61" title="1"]