On June 5, PBI-Honduras posted:
“Today, on World Environment Day, we remember defender Juan Lopez of the Municipal Committee for the Defence of Common and Public Goods of Tocoa (CMDBCPT), killed on September 14, 2024, after years of defending the Botaderos Mountain National Park in front of the mining. This week, we were in San Pedro Sula to observe the preliminary hearing against the alleged material perpetrators of this crime. Finally, the hearing was adjourned to August 14. Meanwhile, the CMDBCP continues to demand advancements in the search for the intellectual authority of crime, justice for the national park, and justice for the other defenders killed in recent years for their self-defense of the San Pedro and Guapinol rivers.”
Alleged material perpetrators
Radio Progreso reports that Óscar Alexis Guardado Alvarenga, Daniel Antonio Juárez Torres and Lenin Adonis Cruz Munguía are the three individuals implicated as the material perpetrators of the murder of Juan Lopez.
Amnesty International has noted: “On 6 October 2024, the Honduran Public Prosecutor’s Office announced that three people had been arrested as alleged perpetrators of Juan López’s murder. Three days later, a local court formally charged the suspects for the killing of the environmental defender and ordered their arrest. The three men have since been held in pretrial detention.”
The National Catholic Reporter has also explained: “In October, police arrested three men and charged them with being the ‘material authors’ of the assassination. After several delays, a preliminary hearing for the three men was held on June 3 where the judge delayed proceedings until Aug. 14.
Seeking the intellectual authors
The National Catholic Reporter has further noted: “Within hours of the Sept. 14 killing, the priest who heads the town’s San Isidro Labrador parish, Jesuit Fr. Carlos Orellana, alleged that the town’s mayor, Adán Fúnez, was responsible for the murder. Just days before he was killed, López, a member of the city council, had accused Fúnez of corruption and demanded that he resign.”
Radio Progreso has also reported: “At the end of the hearing, the analyst and Jesuit priest Ismael Moreno, known as ‘Padre Melo’, lamented the actions of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, which he accused of showing slowness and collusion with actors who seek impunity. …Moreno also pointed out that from the first day of the crime the names of the alleged masterminds were established, but that the inaction of the authorities suggests protection for certain actors, even for possible electoral purposes. ‘It seems that they are protecting something so as not to hinder the electoral process. Behind this crime there could be political interests,’ he warned.”
General elections are due to be held in Honduras on November 30, 2025, to elect the President, members of the National Congress and 20 members of the Central American Parliament.
Amnesty International has called “on the Honduran authorities to ensure that all those suspected of involvement in Juan López’s murder, whether as instigators or perpetrators, are brought to justice in fair trials.”
Corporate actors
Amnesty International has summarized: “Juan López was the coordinator of the CMDBCPT, an organization comprised by dozens of communities, religious groups and local environmental organisations from the municipality of Tocoa who since 2015 have been peacefully challenging the legality of the iron mining concessions granted to Inversiones Los Pinares (ILP), arguing that they have adversely affected the water quality of the Guapinol and San Pedro rivers, as well as the protected Montaña de Botaderos Carlos Escaleras Mejía National Park.”
An investigative report by Contra Corriente and Drilled reveals that U.S.-based Nucor maintained a relationship with Inversiones Los Pinares, the company behind a controversial mining megaproject in Honduras, at least until September 30, 2023, despite having claimed to have ended their ties in October 2019.
The Charlotte, North Carolina-based Nucor has an office in Burlington, Ontario. Investors in Nucor have included the Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec (an institutional investor that manages the Québec Pension Plan), the Royal Bank of Canada, the Bank of Montreal, and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. The Valley Forge, Pennsylvania-based Vanguard Group, the largest shareholder in Nucor, has an office in Toronto, Ontario.
Accompaniment
Honduras has the highest number of killings of land and environmental defenders per capita in the world, according to Global Witness.
Peace Brigades International has accompanied Municipal Committee for the Defence of Common and Public Goods of Tocoa (CMDBCPT) processes and Guapinol River defenders since January 2019.
