Evidence of meeting #75 for Subcommittee on International Human Rights in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was honduras.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Scott Reid
Order, please.
Welcome to the 75th meeting of the Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development. Today is April 16, 2013.
Today we are hearing witness testimony from Sister Elsie Monge, who is reaching us from Quito, Ecuador. She served on the alternative Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Honduras.
Sister Elsie, welcome to our committee. Please feel free to begin your testimony. We are listening attentively.
Sister Elsie Monge Executive Director, La Comisión Ecuménica de Derechos Humanos
Thank you very much. I would like to express my appreciation to the subcommittee on international human rights for investigating the serious violations of these rights that have taken place and are still being perpetrated in Honduras.
The coup of June 2008 cracked the social tissue in Honduras and affected the very roots of democracy. The country was polarized. The controversy centres around the convocation of a constituent national assembly and the drawing up of a new constitution that would reorient the nation on the basis of social demands, decolonize the country, revamp the justice system, eliminate historical privileges, redistribute natural and productive resources, and recognize the civil, political, economic, and social rights of the excluded majority, which in turn would place limits on the exercise of power.
On the other hand, a positive effect of this crisis is the intense debate and mobilization around the need to revise the Honduran model of democracy. The expression of that social mobilization is the National Front of Popular Resistance, which is made up of social organizations, NGOs, small businesses, environmental, student and teacher movements, human rights groups, youth, women, artists, intellectuals, indigenous and black people, the gay and lesbian community, and other organized sectors, all of whom comprise the most progressive force in the country.
Nonetheless, the National Front of Popular Resistance has faced continual defamation. Military intelligence labels them as potential insurgents. They face judicial and political persecution. In general, its members are the principal victims of human rights violations nationwide.
Honduras is the second most violent country in the continent, with a rate of 66.8 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, similar to that of a nation at war.
The truth commission's report, published in October 2010, points out that in Honduras a persistent aspect is the lack of justice for the victims of the coup d'état that ravaged the country over three and a half years ago, and its effects still continue. In other words, the chronic and structural problem of the Honduran society is impunity before, during, and after the coup.
It is hard to understand the fact that the current regime has not proceeded in the face of serious human rights violations, such as extrajudicial executions or disappearances and torture, and that its perpetrators have not been investigated by competent authorities unless these crimes are part of a systemic policy directed to persecute anyone who will be identified as opposing the coup.
The criminalization of the present movement in Bajo Aguán is another matter of concern. Between September 2009 and January 2012, 45 members of peasant organizations and a newspaper reporter and his wife were assassinated in the context of a land conflict in Bajo Aguán. Local, national, and international organizations have repeatedly asked national authorities to investigate these crimes and protect the people who are threatened. The response on the part of the state has permitted these crimes to remain with impunity. Additionally, the peasant struggle has been criminalized and the zone has been militarized.
Between the beginning of 2010 and the middle of 2011, over 166 peasants have been processed. In mid-August the state authorized a new permanent operation in the zone called Xatruch II, involving a thousand police and military personnel.
Within seven weeks previous to this operative, seven peasant men and one woman were assassinated. Two of them were the main leaders of the peasant movement in Bajo Aguán. Five other peasants were attacked and seriously wounded and two peasants were tortured, one of them a 17-year-old son of a peasant organization's president in Bajo Aguán.
According to the victims' testimonies, members of the Xatruch operation participated in the tortures. This information was obtained from the report entitled “Honduras: Human Rights Violations in Bajo Aguán”, which was published on July 11, 2011, and presented to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights subcommittee of the European Parliament.
Another issue I want to point out is that in 2012 the Honduran constitution was reformed in order to facilitate the creation of model cities, provoking serious discussions regarding sovereignty, fiscal protectionisms, detriment of state revenue, and questioning a model which would endow these areas with total administrative and judicial autonomy. Later, the supreme court of Honduras ruled against the model cities, recognizing that such reforms promoted by the executive were unconstitutional.
Nevertheless, the congress appealed this resolution. The government plans to establish these regions of special development in strategic points. One includes the Guatemalan border and Bajo Aguán. Another would be situated in Gracias, also on the Atlantic, and the third around the Gulf of Fonseca on the Pacific Ocean.
According to Tomas Andino, a political adviser, this project responds to transnational private interests, but there is also some state bureaucracy and Honduran businessmen who will benefit or want to benefit from this enclave. Social organizations that oppose such a venture fear that if investors were in charge of making the new laws, there would be a greater privatization of land, imposition of low wages, limits to organizing themselves, and among others, violations of social, economic and cultural rights. This situation would bring about more inequality.
Those would be the main issues that I wanted to point out.
Thank you.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Scott Reid
Thank you very much, Sister.
What we're going to do now is go to questions from the members of the subcommittee. I think we'll have time for six-minute question and answer rounds.
We'll begin with Mr. Sweet.
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Sister Elsie, we're grateful to have your testimony today. We're short of time, so I'll get right into questions.
You had mentioned that one of the positive aspects of all this turmoil that Honduras has gone through, with the coup and the human rights violations, has been a positive dialogue about the future and protection of individuals, etc.
What is the nature of the kind of protest that has been happening to get the message to the existing regime right now?
I suspect that the national resistance front is leading that. I would think that with the two major panels on reconciliation and the homicides—67 per 100,000, I believe you said—there must be a willingness for the people to really go out and demonstrate, and show the government that they want change.
Executive Director, La Comisión Ecuménica de Derechos Humanos
Yes, as I said before, what they see as a more permanent solution would be to draw up a new constitution that would respond to the needs of the majority of the people, which is not the case now. They keep pressing for that. Many times the demonstrations are by, for instance, youth, students, and teachers, but they are very harshly repressed. Also, there have been killings and harassment of newspaper reporters who try to cover these manifestations.
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON
The people are persecuted when they go into the streets. The press who try to report on it are persecuted as well. Even though this regime has made positive statements, they continue to allow this to happen.
Executive Director, La Comisión Ecuménica de Derechos Humanos
Yes, that's true. The truth commission, established by the national Human Rights Platform of Honduras, has recently drawn up a petition or given the information to the international penal court so that some of these crimes will not remain....
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON
I don't want to make assumptions that I shouldn't. Should I take it that the National Front of Popular Resistance is against the model city notion that was brought about by congress?
Executive Director, La Comisión Ecuménica de Derechos Humanos
I don't know if there has been a pronouncement from the Frente, but I know especially the people of social organizations—and, yes, they make up the Frente—would be worried about the consequences and they would be against them.
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON
Am I to assume that there's at least some level of trust in the supreme court, in the sense that they, certainly in this case that you mentioned, had the courage to be independent and ruled against this model city brought about by this constitutional change? Is that what's seen by the citizens of Honduras?
Executive Director, La Comisión Ecuménica de Derechos Humanos
Yes. It was a positive expression or positive move, but in the long run, I don't know how independent they are because congress is pushing it through anyhow.
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON
You've been talking about the Bajo Aguán state, where there's been a lot of land disputes. We've heard from other witnesses that this was one of the areas where there was a lot of private security, and a lot of the human rights violations were happening because of this private security. Is that still going on in that area?
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON
Is there any further evidence about the connection of this private security with either these foreign national companies or with the government?
Executive Director, La Comisión Ecuménica de Derechos Humanos
The security forces respond to big landowners. Those are the security forces...I mean, they are the ones perpetrating these massacres or killings or threats to the peasants not only in Bajo Aguán but also in the Zacate Grande Peninsula, in the Gulf of Fonseca. It's curious that the model cities…one would include Bajo Aguán and the other one would include the indigenous organizations in the Gulf of Fonseca. So of course they think that if they have land problems now and their subsistence is threatened, it would be worse when all that land is privatized around these model cities.
Conservative
Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
Sister, I'm Wayne Marston, from the official opposition. I'm very pleased that you're joining us today.
In your testimony, you mentioned the failure of proper investigation of many of the crimes. I would expect that very much compromises the capacity of the judiciary. Notwithstanding the ruling on the charter cities, do you feel that the judiciary there is up to international standards?
Executive Director, La Comisión Ecuménica de Derechos Humanos
Well, I'm not there, but from the evidence and the complaints about serious human rights violations, and systematic and generalized violations, it seems to point out that this judicial system is not functioning.
NDP
Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
My understanding of your testimony is that even when the supreme court rules, it's just being ignored by the government. Is that correct?
Executive Director, La Comisión Ecuménica de Derechos Humanos
That's right. In this particular case, I think they're going ahead.
NDP
Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
Is that the general attitude towards lower court decisions?
Executive Director, La Comisión Ecuménica de Derechos Humanos
I can't say it is in all the cases, but in this case, yes.
NDP
Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
From our standpoint here, looking at the situation, what do you think would be the most effective thing Canada could do in conjunction with efforts to stabilize this country?
Executive Director, La Comisión Ecuménica de Derechos Humanos
I think that the socio-economic and political situation is still in crisis. I think they are looking for some guidance from outside. I don't know. Maybe in the judicial system there could be training to make it more efficient, or there could be something like advisers. Something like that would be very positive.