Human Rights Violations Attributed to Military Forces in the Bajo Aguan Valley in Honduras

Human Rights Violations Attributed to Military Forces in the Bajo Aguan Valley in Honduras

Over the past three years at minimum 88 members or associates of campesino movements have been killed in the Bajo Aguan Valley in a campaign of targeted killings.
This report documents 34 acts of violence and other crimes attributed to the Honduran military’s 15th Battalion during the same period of time, typically in coordination with the private security forces of palm oil corporations, Honduran National Police agents and other military units, in a pattern of aggression that appears to confirm the general opinion in the region: that members of the 15th Battalion and other security forces in the region collaborate in what can only be characterized as death squad activity.
This report also describes extensive military assistance and training provided by the U.S. armed forces to the 15th Battalion and military units closely associated with it.

By Annie Bird, Co-Director, Rights Action

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Report Summary

The land conflict in the Aguan began in the mid-1990s when the titles of dozens of cooperatives which had obtained the land through the agrarian reform program were transferred to agri-businessmen. In the late 1990s, 28 campesino (small farmer) palm oil cooperatives presented lawsuits demanding annulment of title transfers they alleged had been carried out through fraud and coercion.

Following protracted lawsuits and difficulties in maintaining legal representation, between 2006 and June 2009 campesinos protested and occupied disputed land, resulting in an investigation into the legality of the land sales by the executive branch and Supreme Court. After this investigation came to a halt following the June 29, 2009 military coup, campesinos returned to the strategy of establishing possession of disputed farms, occupying 26 of the farms in December 2009 and January 2010.

An overwhelming array of testimonies describe violence directed against the campesino movements and their supporters by State security forces, including the Honduran Army’s 15th Battalion, over a time frame that coincides with a series of killings of at least 88 campesinos and their supporters, and 5 bystanders apparently mistaken for campesinos, the majority targeted assassinations. This report documents thirty-four human rights’ violations directly attributed by witnesses to uniformed members of the 15th Battalion or under other conditions that present compelling evidence of their participation. These are just a portion of the reported violations, which include threats, excessive use of force, torture, forced disappearances, and assassinations, among other acts of violence.

Impunity surrounding violations is so prevalent that it appears to constitute a policy of the state. Security forces apply the law unequally, criminalizing campesinos while providing protection to local businessmen, some reported to engage in drug trafficking. High-ranking government officials have distorted the nature of the conflict, accusing campesinos of engaging in criminal activities and claiming that an armed movement is operating in the region, unsubstantiated accusations that wrongly position campesino movements as the object of anti-terrorism and anti-narcotics operations just as regional security initiatives are being promoted by the international community.

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