PBI-Honduras accompanies the Agrarian Platform and COPA as they denounce the link between armed group and companies

Published by Brent Patterson on June 5, 2025

On June 3, PBI-Honduras posted:

“Today, we accompany the Agrarian Platform and COPA [the Coordinator of Popular Organizations of the Aguán] in the press conference held in front of the Public Ministry of Tegucigalpa, where they have demanded security forces to intervene immediately in the Baja Aguán, due to the violent context that is being lived.

During the conference, representatives of the organizations reported the increase in threats, harassment and attacks against land defenders in the region. From PBI we express our concern about the increase in violence in Baja Aguán and reiterate the importance of ensuring the protection of those who defend the land and the territory.”

Statements from the Agrarian Platform

The Agrarian Platform is stating:

-“For decades, armed groups paid by agro-industrialists have displaced agrarian reform cooperatives, accompanied by disinformation campaigns that present the facts as simple confrontations between peasants.”

-“We demand that the government of President Xiomara Castro intervene in the areas where the armed groups that terrorize the communities operate with acts of violence. As well as investigating other similar violent events, the Platform has received information that buyers of palm fruit who operate with authorization from agro-industrial companies were involved in promoting the confrontation. The promotion of irregular armed groups by fruit buyers is a frequently observed pattern.”

-“We demand the prompt investigation of the murders and intervention in the areas where these criminal groups operate, where the authorities have full knowledge of the way in which these criminal groups operate that maintain terror in the communities.”

More context

The Spanish news agency EFE reports: “Agrarian organizations on Tuesday [June 3] demanded ‘the immediate intervention’ of the Public Prosecutor’s Office (Prosecutor’s Office) and the security forces in the face of the growing wave of violence in the Caribbean of Honduras, where a conflict over land has caused the death of 200 people in the last three decades.”

That article adds: “During a press conference in front of the headquarters of the Prosecutor’s Office, the spokesman for the Agrarian Platform, Yony Rivas, strongly condemned the violence caused by armed groups on the Paso Aguán farm and the community of Rigores, and asked the State for an urgent response.”

Adding more context and specificity, Criterio.hn reports: “From Bajo Aguán, agricultural cooperatives and peasant associative companies grouped in the Agrarian Platform and the Coordinator of Popular Organizations of Bajo Aguán (COPA) mobilized to the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Tegucigalpa to demand progress in the investigations against the criminal groups that operate in the region and that have generated violence and murders against peasants.”

That article also explains: “Yoni Rivas, spokesman for the Agrarian Platform, stated that there are formal complaints in the Public Ministry against Miguel Mauricio de la Soledad Facusse, executive head of the Dinant Corporation; Elvin Gabriel Martínez Echeverría, head of security; and Juan Carlos Lezama. The latter, arrested on May 7 and pointed out by the MP [Public Ministry] as one of the leaders of “Los Cachos” – a criminal structure that has sown terror in the area – according to Rivas, from prison continues to coordinate the criminal structure that attacks the peasant movement.”

Criterio.hn then highlights: “Yoni Rivas insisted that the authorities must intervene urgently to stop the violence and prevent more deaths, denouncing that many of these criminal structures enjoy protection from agro-industrial sectors, especially the Dinant Corporation. … The Agrarian Platform pointed out that there is concern about the participation of palm fruit buyers, authorized by agro-industrial companies, in the promotion of these confrontations, a pattern that has been repeatedly observed in the region.”

Avispa Midia further notes: “The Aguán regional headquarters of the agro-industrial company Dinant, and its palm oil extraction plant, adjoins the Quebrada de Arena community and the El Chile Cooperative, so witnesses affirm that Dinant would have provided logistical resources to “Los Cachos”, including the use of facilities as a refuge for hitmen and the transport of weapons”

That article adds: “According to the Platform, the defendants [Miguel Mauricio de la Soledad Facusse of the Dinant Corporation, Elvin Gabriel Martínez Echeverría, head of Dinant security, and Juan Carlos Lezama, one of the leaders of “Los Cachos”] coordinate the actions of an armed group of approximately 20 to 30 people and have criminal records for crimes such as murder, sale of narcotics and illegal possession of weapons. All were formally accused of forced displacement and illegal carrying of weapons in hearings concluded on May 14 and 15, in which preventive detention measures were issued. Despite this, they accuse that the court resolved a provisional dismissal for the crime of association to commit a crime. According to Rivas, despite being in prison, Lizama continues to coordinate the criminal structure that attacks the peasant movement.”

The palm oil industry in Honduras

Dialogue Earth has explained: “The Honduran government started promoting oil palm cultivation during the 1960s [but] it was really in the late 1990s that production skyrocketed [and by July 2023, when the article was published] the country has roughly 200,000 hectares of oil palm yielding close to 600,000 metric tonnes of oil a year.”

That article adds: “Of the total national production, 61% comes from just three companies – Corporación Dinant, Grupo Jaremar and Aceydesa – and their plantations are located where the highest levels of violence have been recorded.”

The Guardian further notes: “In Honduras, [palm oil exports are] mostly going to the Netherlands, the US, Italy and Switzerland, with a value of $334m in 2021. Six large companies control the production, and two claim more than half of all exports.”

Accompaniment

Proceso.hn further reports that peasant representative Johny Rivas told reporters: “These violent groups continue to exercise violence against the defenders grouped in the Agrarian Platform and COPA.”

Peace Brigades International continues to accompany the processes seeking security for defenders and a resolution to this situation.

On October 30, 2024, PBI-Honduras facilitated a visit for PBI-Canada with COPA representatives including Rivas, Raul Ramirez and Wendy Castro.

We continue to follow this.