PBI-Honduras accompanies CNTC at trial of ‘Fuerzas Unidas’ members for land usurpation

On March 2, the Peace Brigades International-Honduras Project posted on its Facebook page, “On February 24, we witnessed the second session of the oral and public trial against two members of the Campesino Fuerzas Unidas for the crime of land usurpation. We accompanied to this hearing the CNTC (the National Union of Rural Workers), which works for the right of access to land.”

Land ownership in Honduras

USAID has noted, “Approximately 70% of farmers [in Honduras] hold 10% of the land in minifundios [small holdings], while 1% of farmers hold 25% of the land in private latifundios [large estates]. Minifundistas have very limited access to land, while an additional 300,000 people are landless or very land poor.”

Usurpation

USAID has also noted, “Ambiguity of ownership challenges land tenure security in Honduras. Approximately 80% of the privately held land in the country is untitled or improperly titled. As of 2005, only 14% of Hondurans occupied properties legally. The remaining 86% held property outside the scope of the law.”

Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, the United Nations special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, has provided this definition of usurpation:

“Disregard of indigenous rights of traditional lands ownership breeds tensions, subsequent violence and criminalization, as indigenous peoples become trespassers or illegal occupants of their own lands, subject to criminal charges such as ‘usurpation’ or illegal occupation, and liable to forced evictions and removal from the lands they rely upon for their livelihoods, social and cultural cohesion and spiritual traditions.”

Fuerzas Unidas

Via Campesina has previously noted, “We condemn the criminalization campaign against the peasant families of the Campesino Production Associative Company ‘Fuerza United’, of the community of Ocotes Altos, located in the municipality of Trujillo, which is struggling to recover the land that for years the Livestock Fund has been abandoned.”

Via Campesina has also previously explained, “The peasant group United Forces Movement [is] characterized by its hard work and permanent struggle of all and all its members its main leader is the companion Enma Fúnez a woman fighter and with a lot of conviction that has she held important positions on the national board of directors of the National Central of Field Workers CNTC of which this Peasant Movement is a member.”

The CNTC

PBI-Honduras has noted, “The CNTC, created in 1985, is a small-scale farming and trade union organisation, which fights for the distribution of land. It is affiliated to the Unitary Confederation of Honduran Workers and is part of the Vía Campesina.”

“Its aim is to support affiliated small-scale farming families so that they have access to land and resources and can carry out productive agricultural, fishing, forestry and agro-industrial activities, contributing to their social and economic development.”

PBI-Honduras has accompanied the CNTC since May 2018.