Honduras: Two campesino leaders shot dead
On 18 October, José Ángel Flores and Silmer Dionisio George of the Unified Campesino Movement of the Aguán were murdered. Both human rights defenders were shot dead after attending a meeting with several campesino (peasant farmer) people in La Confianza settlement, Bajo Aguán region, north-eastern Honduras.
UA: 241/16 Index: AMR 37/5015/2016 Honduras Date: 19 October 2016
URGENT ACTION
TWO CAMPESINO LEADERS SHOT DEAD
On 18 October, José Ángel Flores and Silmer Dionisio George of the Unified Campesino
Movement of the Aguán were murdered. Both human rights defenders were shot dead
after attending a meeting with several campesino (peasant farmer) people in La
Confianza settlement, Bajo Aguán region, north-eastern Honduras.
In the afternoon of 18 October, unidentified armed men shot at José Ángel Flores, the president of the Unified
Campesino Movement of the Aguán (Movimiento Unificado Campesino del Aguán, MUCA), and Silmer
Dionisio George, a member of the same movement, multiple times as they left a meeting with several campesino
people in La Confianza settlement. José Ángel Flores died immediately. Campesino activists took Silmer Dionisio
George to the hospital, where he died as a result of the gunshots. The Inter-American Commission on Human
Rights (IACHR) granted precautionary measures to both human rights defenders in 2014, along with another 121
leaders of the campesino movements in the region. The IACHR requested that Honduras take appropriate
measures in order to protect their lives and personal integrity, given the high risk they were facing.
A campesino leader of the Agrarian and Regional Platform of the Aguán Valley (Plataforma Agraria Regional del
Valle del Aguán) also covered by precautionary measures told Amnesty International that José Ángel Flores had
constantly received threatening calls in the past year. Earlier this year Silmer Dionisio George had to leave the Bajo
Aguán region because of repeated threats against him. The Committee of Relatives of the Disappeared in
Honduras (Comité de Familiares de Detenidos Desaparecidos en Honduras, COFADEH) confirmed that both
leaders faced constant threats because of their work as human rights defenders.
According to the Coordinating Committee of Popular Organizations of the Aguán (Coordinadora de Organizaciones
Populares del Aguan, COPA) there have now been 116 murdered campesino leaders in the Bajo Aguán region
since 2010.
Please write immediately in Spanish or your own language:
Urging the authorities to take prompt, appropriate and effective measures to protect the lives and personal
integrity of all the campesino human rights defenders covered by the IACHR precautionary measures 50/14 -
Campesino Leaders of Bajo Aguán, Honduras;
Calling on them to initiate a prompt, impartial and thorough investigation into the murders of José Ángel Flores
and Silmer Dionisio George, to identify both the material and intellectual perpetrators and bring those to justice;
Calling on them to protect MUCA members as well as other campesino movements in accordance with their
specific needs and adopted and implemented in consultation with them.
PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 30 NOVEMBER 2016 TO:
President
Juan Orlando Hernández
Presidente de la República
Casa Presidencial Bulevar Juan Pablo II
Tegucigalpa, Honduras
Email: karlacueva144@gmail.com
Twitter: @JuanOrlandoH
Salutation: Dear President/ Estimado
Señor Presidente
Attorney General
Óscar Fernando Chinchilla
Fiscal General de la República
Ministerio Público
Lomas del Guijarro
Tegucigalpa, Honduras
Email: fiscalgeneral@hushamail.com
Twitter: @MP_Honduras
Salutation: Dear Attorney General/
Estimado Señor Fiscal
And copies to:
Comisionado Nacional de Derechos
Humanos
Roberto Herrera Cáceres, CONADEH
Oficina Central, Colonia Florencia Norte,
Boulevard Suyapa, Tegucigalpa,
Honduras
Email: y.hernandez@conadeh.hn /
sofia.caceres@conadeh.hn
Twitter: @conadeh
Also send copies to diplomatic representatives accredited to your country. Please insert local diplomatic addresses below:
Name Address 1 Address 2 Address 3 Fax Fax number Email Email address Salutation Salutation
Please check with your section office if sending appeals after the above date.
URGENT ACTION
TWO CAMPESINO LEADERS SHOT DEAD
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Attacks and threats against campesinos in Bajo Aguán, in the Department of Colón, intensified in 2009. The campesinos are
working on issues of access to land in an area that is increasingly militarized and surrounded by miles of African palm
plantations. Campesino communities have reported that there is a clandestine cemetery in the community of Panamá where
they believe members of the movement have been buried. They have also been the victims of evictions in which excessive
force was used. There are numerous investigations and legal proceedings against campesinos accused of land usurpation.
According to COFADEH, between 2010 and 2016, around 700 campesinos from the region were the subjects of legal
proceedings. In the past year they have been the victims of six attacks, three kidnappings, 16 cases of permanent surveillance,
five cases of infiltration of the movement and eight cases of harassment.
In its last report on Honduras, the IACHR recommended that the Honduran authorities strengthen the Violent Deaths Unit of
Bajo Aguán, as well as establish a roundtable with campesino representatives from different organizations in the area. The
Commission also urged the authorities to strengthen efforts into the investigation of violent events that have occurred in the
region and to punish both the material and intellectual authors of these incidents, in particular clarifying responsibility in case of
possible involvement of state forces.
For more information on the situation of human rights defenders and defenders of land, territory and environmental rights
defenders in Honduras, see the reports ‘We are defending the land with our blood’: Defenders of the land, territory and
environment in Honduras and Guatemala (https:www/amnesty.org/en/documents/amr01/4562/2016/en/) and Defending human
rights in the Americas: Necessary, legitimate and dangerous (https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/amr01/0003/2014/en/).
Name: José Ángel Flores (m), Silmer Dionisio George (m) and other members of the Unified Campesino Movement of the Aguán (Movimiento
Unificado Campesino del Aguán, MUCA)
Gender m/f: all
UA: 241/16 Index: AMR 37/5015/2016 Issue Date: 19 October 2016