PBI-Honduras accompanies the Broad Movement (Movimiento Amplio) to a court hearing
On June 10, the PBI – Honduras Project accompanied the Broad Movement (Movimiento Amplio) and observed the judicial process against nine members of the San Francisco Locomapa tribe who live in Yoro department, Honduras.
The Broad Movement has previously explained, “Nine Tolupanes indigenous comrades are accused by the INMARE company and the Public Ministry for allegedly obstructing a management plan that has served to loot [extract wood from] the tribe’s forest.”
The Broad Movement further notes, “[The nine] face a judicial process because of the denunciation of a businessman who for years and years has plundered the common goods of the tribe leaving them only poverty, confrontation and pain.”
It adds, “His main accomplices have been the institutions of the state that have deaf ears, blind eyes and mouth closed to leave in impunity all the outrage against the Tolupán people.”
In terms of further context, the Organization of American States (OAS) has noted, “In Honduras, the IACHR [the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the UN Human Rights condemned the murder of Salomón Matute and his son Juan Samael Matute in February 2019.”
The OAS explains both were Tolupanes indigenous members of the San Francisco Locomapa tribe and the Broad Movement for Dignity and Justice in the department of Yoro.
And the OAS highlights, “Solomon Matute was a beneficiary of precautionary measures granted by the IACHR since 2013, due to threats, harassment and acts of violence in the framework of his work as an environmental and indigenous peoples defender.”
The Broad Movement says that “defending the forest and the ancestral territory is not a crime.”
It also notes in its Facebook post on June 10 that, “PBI – Honduras Project, made up of people from different parts of the world, are part of the delegations that participate as observers in this unfair [judicial] process against indigenous people.”
Photo by Movimiento Amplio Por la Dignidad y la Justicia.
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