Honduras, In a span of six hours, peasants and the brother of a Lawyer were murdered

Press release from Movimiento Unificado Campesino del Aguan (MUCA)

(Bajo Aguán, Saturday February 16th ). Among an ongoing militarization, the gunmen operate freely in Bajo Aguán; on Saturday February 16th at 1:30 pm, heavily armed men murdered Santos Jacobo Cartagena (55), while waiting for the bus that would transfer him to Tocoa.

 Cartagena was a member of the San Esteban Company that united the Unified Peasant Movement of Aguán (MUCA), and was murdered at a bus station in the diversion of community confidence of Sinaloa, led by men who were aboard a car, causing him multiple gunshot wounds in different parts of the body.

But hours later murderers led by land grabbers murdered Jose Trejo Cabrera (55) by several gunshots in the district of San Isidro de Tocoa Colon, who was the brother of the lawyer Antonio Trejo Cabrera, murdered on September 22 near the Toncontin airport in Tegucigalpa, and also a member of the Cooperative San Isidro belonging to the Movimiento Autentico Reivindicador Campesino del Aguán (MARCA).

The now deceased had repeatedly denounced to the media the murder of his brother Antonio Trejo Cabrera. He had never imagined that six months later murderers would take his life. 

The Honduran people should not forget the real culprits of this agrarian and food crisis in our country, who were denominated the anti reformers in 1992 for approving the fateful and unconstitutional Modernization and Development of the Agricultural Sector Law, among them Rafael Leonardo Callejas ex-president of Honduras, Rodolfo Irías Navas president of the National Congress, Juan Ramon Martinez minister of the National Agrarian Institute (INA).

We hold the National Congress (NC), which is directed by Juan Orlando Hernandez, responsible of the constant murders in the Aguán area, for approving selected laws that protect armed groups joined in the so called security companies of the land grabbers, so they can move freely with heavily armed weapons.

We condemn the inefficiency of the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ), because until now there is no one responsible paying for the 85 peasants murdered in the past three years in Bajo Aguán. 

We call on the national and international human rights defenders, to make an appearance on an ongoing basis to monitor at the constant human rights violations, as well as disrespect for the right to life in this area.

 We are not birds that live in the air, we are not fish that live in the water, we are peasants who need to live on land.

Movimiento Unificado Campesino del Aguan (MUCA)