The struggle of the Guapinol River defenders against the Los Pinares megaproject continues in Honduras
Guapinol Resiste photo: Water defenders face “arbitrary detentions, murders, forced displacements, breakdown of the social fabric, surveillance, state violence, threats, and online and face-to-face defamation campaigns.”
Community members and water defenders in Guapinol in the municipality of Tocoa in the department (state) of Colón in northern Honduras are peacefully resisting a megaproject upstream of the Guapinol River.
That megaproject includes an open-pit iron oxide mine, an iron oxide processing/pelletizing plant, a petroleum coke powered thermoelectric plant, and three water concessions on the Guapinol, Quebrada de Ceibita and San Pedro rivers.
About 14,000 people rely on the Guapinol River as a source of drinking water, bathing, cleaning, irrigation and cooking water.
Guapinol Resiste, the local community’s movement in response to the mining, has reported that even before mining began, the construction of the facilities and roads polluted both the Guapinol and San Pedro rivers.
Juana Esquivel, a representative of the Municipal Committee for the Defence of Common and Public Goods of Tocoa, has also commented: “[The thermoelectric plant] would require huge amounts of water to operate, threatening the drinking water supply of local communities. Waste would be discharged into the Guapinol River, seriously affecting aquatic life and the ecosystem. The company’s studies absurdly claim that the fish in the river will adapt to the warm water coming from the plant.”
Photo by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), September 2022.
Photo by Guapinol Resiste, December 2023.
Photo: The pelletizing plant under construction, August 2022.
Photo: The mining project and pelletizing plant.
Attacks against water defenders
The consequences for the water defenders protecting the river?
An encampment to block the company from further polluting the river was subjected to a police raid on October 27, 2018, that killed Levin Alexander Bonilla.
Photo: For nearly 90 days, the Guapinol camp in Defense of Water and Life blocked the mine. On October 27, 2018, the camp was raided by 1,500 police and military personnel who fired live bullets and tear gas.
Then Roberto Antonio Argueta Tejada and José Mario Rivera were killed on August 28, 2019, Arnold Joaquín Morazán Erazo on October 13, 2020, Aly Dominguez and Jairo Bonilla on January 7, 2023, and Óscar Oquelí Domínguez Ramos on June 15, 2023.
Photo: Water defender Juana Zúniga has been targeted and subjected to threats, intimidation, and sexist slurs. Photo by Giulia Vuillermoz/Trócaire.
Furthermore, 32 criminal injunctions have been issued against Committee members defending the river and eight men were illegally jailed/ arbitrarily detained for 914 days (they were released on February 24, 2022). Leonel George was also arrested in January 2024.
Photo: PBI-Honduras accompanied the celebration on February 10, 2022, when it was announced that that Guapinol defenders would be released from prison.
On July 23, 2024, Guapinol Resiste posted: “Despite having protection measures granted by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) since October 2023, the communities of Guapinol, Sector San Pedro and Tocoa, and others affected by questioning Emco Holdings’ Pinares/Ecotek megaproject, continue to facing a situation of serious risk, among others, due to the lack of implementation of the measures by the State of Honduras, which leaves the beneficiaries in absolute lack of protection. In recent months, the risk in the communities has deepened with the increase in defamation and stigmatization campaigns on social networks and local media, and the increase in death threats, while the communities continue to denounce the insecurity in the area.”
Ownership of the megaproject
Elvin Fernaly Hernández Rivera, a researcher at ERIC & Radio Progreso (ERIC-RP) has documented the ownership structure of the megaproject: “The two iron oxide mining licenses known as ASP and ASP2 were awarded to Inversiones Los Pinares belonging to the EMCO Group whose main partners are the married couple Lenir Pérez and Ana Facussé, who belong to one of the wealthiest families in the country. The mining licenses were preceded by the installation of the iron oxide pelletizing plant, located fifty meters from the Guapinol River. To carry out the iron processing, the EMCO Group created Inversiones ECOTEK S.A. because the licenses granted to Inversiones Los Pinares are for non-metallic mining, so they cannot be involved in the processing stage.”
Other investigative reporting has found a link between the US-based steel company Nucor and Los Pinares (between 2015 and 2019, the period in which three water defenders were killed and the beginning of the arbitrary detention of eight water defenders). Investors in Nucor have included the Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec, the Royal Bank of Canada, the Bank Of Montreal, and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. The Vanguard Group, that has been the largest shareholder in Nucor, has an office in Toronto.
PBI-Honduras has accompanied the Municipal Committee for the Defence of Common and Public Goods of Tocoa processes and Guapinol River defenders since January 2019.
Further reading: PBI-Honduras present as consultation rejects Ecotek petcoke plant that would power iron oxide pelletizing plant near the Guapinol River.
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