If you or your organization is interested is interested in doing long-term accompaniment work, or sponsoring a long-term volunteer accompanier, please let us know. At this time (September 2010) and for the next several months, the project is looking for individuals with prior accompaniment-related experience in a related context and a high level of Spanish who can help respond to emergent accompaniment needs while supporting the establishment of the project in Tegucigalpa.

History: In the days immediately following the June 29, 2009 coup d’état in Honduras, Friendship Office Staff (formerly with the Quixote Center) traveled to Tegucigalpa at the request of Honduran social movement leaders to provide emergency accompaniment and help to assess needs. In the first weeks of the coup, we worked with partners in the Hemispheric Social Alliance to organize International Missions of Accompaniment, Solidarity and Witness to provide a seamless international presence and set up a mechanism for daily communication with the National Coalition against the Coup (prior to establishment of the FRNP) to coordinate efforts and disseminate information in a context of human rights violations, repression and a total news blackout.

Then, during a two day gap in July with no International Mission in the country, a bomb exploded in the STIBYS union office used for meetings and a movement leader was violently murdered – 26 stab wounds, every finger broken. The National Coalition against the Coup called with an urgent request to establish a program for permanent accompaniment.

In response, we initiated the Honduras Accompaniment Project with a two person team permanently based in Honduras. We sponsor US/Canadian Human Rights Accompaniment Delegations to increase the international presence and help to get information out. We place short term accompaniers to accompany specific individuals/organizations who request and require it and helped to facilitate emergency evacuations when requested.

Purpose: To accompany the Honduran people, especially the National Front of Popular Resistance in their historic, non-violent, struggle to transform their society by:

· providing international accompaniment for human rights defenders, communities and social movement leaders working for systemic change in an environment of repression, political persecution and personal risk in the interest of dissuading violence

· bearing witness to and supporting the documentation of events and human rights abuses

· providing consistent and accurate information to the international community

· communicating with international partners regarding emergency response needs on the ground in Honduras

Current Team: Caitlin Power Hancey is currently based in Honduras with the Accompaniment Project. Caitlin has done accompaniment work in Guatemala and brings that experience to the Honduran context. Jenny Atlee is based in DC and has done accompaniment work for many years in Central America. We are currently in conversation with partners in Honduras regarding accompaniment needs and working to develop a model and build a team that can begin to respond more fully to those needs. We are also in conversation with Coordination for International Accompaniment in Guatemala (CAIG-ACOGUATE) regarding their accompaniment model, collaboration around training for accompaniers and security measures. We will participate in the bi-monthly phone calls of the Honduras Solidarity Network (HSN) and collaborate with Chuck Kaufman regarding the Alliance for Global Justice (AFGJ).

For more information, please contact: Jennifer Atlee
jennya@friendshipamericas.org
Friendship Office of the Americas
PO Box 926
Greenbelt, MD 20768
301-614-0545/301-204-9549

1) The prisoners of La Tramacua be granted immediate access to potable water 24 hours a day;
2) They be supplied with sanitary, working toilets;
3) Inhumane punishments and all forms of torture cease immediately;
4) That the US Congress open immediate investigations into the US Bureau of Prisons and USAID relationship with Colombian prisons to assess their culpability in allowing these conditions to occur.

Please sign the petition today, and please print the petition and distribute it widely!

Main Sources:
DoD Base Structure Report (Fiscal Year 2009 Baseline)
International Conference Notebook 2 “Presencia Militar dos Estados Unidos en America Latina y el Caribe”

Liliany Obando is a unionist, academic and independent film maker who was arrested on August 8th, 2008, on the basis of evidence that has been thoroughly discredited. Charges against her stem from computers allegedly recovered when the Colombian military bombed a FARC camp in Ecuador. The Colombian Captain who oversaw the initial investigation of the computers has admitted that files were manipulated. INTERPOL, the international police agency, wrote in a report that the computers’ files could not be authenticated. Obando was arrested the week she was to release a report on the murders of more than 1,500 members of FENSUAGRO, Colombia’s largest union of farmers and farm workers. She is the only person originally investigated as a part of this process whose case has not yet been thrown out of court.

If you or your organization would like to be included on this Friend of the Court statement, please send an email to james@afgj.org. The Alliance for Global Justice is trying to gather as many endorsements as possible before Friday, Sept. 10th, 2010.

Endorsers so far include (partial list):

Noam Chomsky
Isabel García, founder of the Coalición de Derechos Humanos and recipient of Mexico’s National Human Rights Prize*
Rev. John Fife, founder of the Sanctuary Movement and No More Deaths, and former President of the Presbyterian Church USA*
David Bacon, US labor journalist and photographer
The Alliance for Global Justice
Latin America Solidarity Committee
Interconnect
Nicaragua Center for Community Action
Colombia Action Network
Anti-War Committee–Minneapolis

*For identification purposes only

View a video greeting from Liliany Obando.

See more information on her case.

View the cover letter for the Friend of the Court Statement.

· Suspend all aid to the Lobo administration

· Stop the U.S. State Department lobbying for recognition of the undemocratic government of Honduras.

· Recognize the Honduran people’s demand for a Constituent Assembly to establish a functioning, participatory democracy.

Contacts
Click here to contact Senators and Representatives.

To contact the State Department:
Fax: 202-647-8947, Voice: 202 647-8947, or Email:
Maria Otero, Under Secretary for Democracy and Global Affairs; c/o Laura Pena, Assistant: PenaL@state.gov

Dr. Arturo Valenzuela: ValenzuelaAA@state.gov
Ambassador Craig Kelly, Principal Deputy Asst./ Secretary, Western

Office of Hemisphere Affairs:
KellyC@state.gov (Fax: 202-647-0834)

Dan Restrepo, Special Asst. to the President, Western Hemisphere Affairs, drestreop@nsc.eop.gov

Paul Monteiro, Office of Public Engagement, Darron_P._Monteiro@who.eop.gov

To contact White House:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact and White House Comment
Line 202-456-1414.

Sample Letter
Dear ____________,

Non-violent protests by striking teachers and democracy supporters in Honduras have been attacked in recent days by the military and police causing many injuries and detentions. On Aug. 26 and Aug. 27 the Honduran military and police attacked demonstrators gathered at the National Pedagogical University Francisco Morazan in Tegucigalpa firing many rounds of tear gas and live bullets. When those trapped in the university tried to escape the tear gas, they were beaten, including pregnant women and at least two journalists.

Until the brutal repression of social movements in Honduras ends, I demand that the United States Government:

· Suspend all aid to the Lobo administration

· Stop the U.S. State Department lobbying for recognition of the undemocratic government of Honduras.

· Recognize the Honduran people’s demand for a Constituent Assembly to establish a functioning, participatory democracy.

Sincerely,
[name and address]

Background Information
A coalition of U.S. organizations today denounced the exercise of violent repression by Honduran military and police forces against members of a striking teacher’s union at a university in Tegucigalpa. The Honduras Solidarity Network (HSN) declared that “the recent brutal attacks by government forces against non-violent protests show that there has been no reconciliation after last year’s coup d’etat, and the U.S. government’s policy of support for the current government must be changed. We call for an immediate end to the repression and human rights violations against the opposition movement”.

The group referred to military and police attacks against members of the teacher’s union, COPEMH (Colegio de Profesores de Educación Media de Honduras (Association of Secondary Teachers of Honduras)), and their supporters, which took place at The National Pedagogical University Francisco Morazan in Tegucigalpa on August 26 and 27. The union has been on strike since May, and is generally viewed as opposing the regime of Honduran President Porfirio Lobo. The HSN based its action on reports received from the human rights group COFADEH and the General Workers’ Central Federation (CGT) labor
organization, and corroborated by local news from Radio Globo and eyewitness accounts that report the following:

On Friday, Aug. 27, police and military troops surrounded the National Pedagogical University, responding to thousands of teachers and members of trade unions, peasant organizations and other organizations supportive of the teachers gathered on the university grounds. The police and military forces sprayed tear gas from trucks and beat protesters with truncheons before firing canisters of tear gas into the University grounds. As people were overcome by the gas and tried to leave, they were beaten and many detained. Among the injured were two well-known reporters from Radio Globo, one of the
few independent radio stations in the country. Among those seriously affected by the gas were a number of children and pregnant women.

On Thursday, the police and military attacked the same group at a massive protest near the presidential residency in the capital city. Television stations aired video showing
soldiers firing their rifles during the repressive action and police beating protesters. Four teachers from the teachers’ union were seriously injured and, according to human rights organizations in Honduras, they were denied medical care at the main public hospital in Tegucigalpa. The teachers’ union then took the men to a private medical facility.

On Aug. 20, four leaders of the teachers’ union were badly injured when police attacked them during a union march. The men were detained at a police station for 12 hours during which time they were denied medical care and human rights observers were refused entry to the jail to verify their condition.

Throughout the month of August the level of conflict and the human rights crisis in Honduras has deepened. Non-violent protesters in Choloma were beaten, and three
members of peasant organizations in Aguan were killed. Another journalist, critical of the regime, was murdered bringing to ten the total of journalists murdered since Lobo took over in January.

Vicki Cervantes, a spokesperson for the Honduras Solidarity Network said, “The United States government continues its support for the oligarchy and Lobo in the form of aid and pressure on other governments in the hemisphere to accept the illegitimate Lobo administration.”

Meanwhile, on the ground in Honduras the opposition of the majority of Hondurans to the coup and the subsequent regimes, including Lobo’s, is growing. For the first time since 1954, Honduran trade union federations have all agreed to prepare for a general strike and nearly a million Honduran eligible voters have signed letters demanding the convocation of a constituent constitutional assembly with the peoples’ participation and leadership.

The Honduras Solidarity Network, a nationwide coalition of non-profit, human rights and educational organizations, and the Honduran Front for National Resistance (FRNP) call for:

· an end to police and military repression of the teachers and the protesters at the university;

· resumption of negotiations between the government and the Teacher’s Union;

· payment of back wages and an investigation into the violation of the teachers’ human rights.

The most serious charge in the article is that President Daniel Ortega has taken over the Supreme Court and other government institutions. The facts are:

· During the disastrous presidency of Enrique Bolaños, an overwhelming majority of the National Assembly voted in favor of constitutional and legislative initiatives that shifted power from the executive branch to the legislature. Among the changes were that 25 top government officials such as the magistrates of the Supreme Court and Supreme Electoral Council, as well as a number of agencies such as Human Rights Ombudsman would no longer be appointed by the president, but rather elected by the National Assembly.

· Late last year, due to boycotts and other strategies which have deadlocked the National Assembly, it became obvious that the legislature would not elect replacements for some of the expiring critical positions. President Ortega issued an executive order in January stating that position holders could remain in office until their replacements were elected by the National Assembly.

· Without that decree the judicial and electoral branches would have been decapitated and unable to perform their constitutional functions.

· The Sandinista Party holds a minority of 38 seats in the 92 member National Assembly. Even if a fractious and splintered opposition were able to agree on a single slate they would not have the 56 vote super majority needed to replace justices and other top-ranking officials whose terms have expired. Yet they prefer to try to make the country ungovernable rather than to negotiate with the Sandinistas. For the opposition to accuse Ortega of being a “dictator” under these circumstances is simply irresponsible.

Everyone quoted in the article is from the opposition political class. No Sandinistas were quoted and no ordinary Nicaraguans, much less those whose lives have been greatly improved through Sandinista poverty reduction measures that have been uniformly praised by UN agencies.

The US-funded Contra War in the 1980s was immoral and ruled illegal by the World Court. Is the Christian Science Monitor seriously proposing a new Contra War against the democratically elected Sandinista government when it accuses the US government of turning a “blind eye” to Daniel Ortega?

If Ortega is so unpopular, why do independent polls show him with 2-3 times greater support than his most likely challengers in the 2011 presidential election? The Center for Socio- Economic Research and Consulting (CINASE) released a poll on Aug. 17 (a sample of 1,250 people from urban and rural areas of the Pacific, North and Central parts of Nicaragua interviewed between April and August) which showed that Ortega would win in a three way race against the current declared candidates Eduardo Montealegre and Arnoldo Aleman with 28% for Ortega, 18% for Montealegre and 1.3% for Aleman. Forty- two percent said their party of preference was the Sandinista Party.

Did the Christian Science Monitor accuse former Costa Rican President Oscar Arias of being a budding dictator when he won the right to run for a second term using exactly the same Supreme Court strategy that Ortega used?

The Nicaraguan opposition-owned press accusing Ortega of being a dictator contains as much truth as the tea baggers’ claim that Obama is a socialist.

Feel free to add your own ideas and analysis to your letters. You can read the full Christian Science Monitor article at the link provided above.

“Our privileged status as US citizens can help insure the safety of Honduras democracy advocates” – Dale Sorenson, director, Marin Task Force on the Americas
Attacks and repression against the nonviolent resistance movement have escalated since defacto President Porfiro Lobo took office in January 2010 after he won a coup-organized faux election. Berta Oliva, head of Honduras’ most important human rights group, COFADEH, told a recent delegation that unless they have on-going international accompaniment, the resistance will be “cooked and served up in the next few months.”

Meanwhile the US government insists that democracy has returned to Honduras and Honduras should be reinstated in the Organization of American States and other international bodies from which it was expelled after the June 28, 2009 military coup. The US has even increased support for the very military that initiated the coup.

Join with solidarity activists to see and understand the Honduras situation with your own eyes from Sept. 14-22, 2010. September 15 (Central American Independence Day) is the day the Honduran Resistance will present the results of their Consulta calling for a Constitutional Assembly. Our presence will help insure their safety.

Delegates will meet with members of the Platform for Human Rights and learn about the “Commission of Truth” or “True Commission” launched as a counterbalance to the government-sponsored Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which is supported by the U.S. We will also be there for the anniversary of the day that President Zelaya returned to Honduras and took up residence in the Brazilian Embassy. We will meet with many sectors of Honduran civil society.

September is a difficult time for students and teachers to go on a delegation. We are particularly looking for retired people and people of faith who have flexible schedules that would allow them to travel on short notice. Please forward this announcement to everyone you know.

The delegation will be led on the ground by Andrés Thomas Conteris. Andrés works with Democracy Now! en Español and reported from the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa from September 2009 to January 2010 for numerous media outlets, including KPFA’s Flashpoints. He has been an activist for justice in Honduras for many years.

Cost: $750 covers hotel, transportation, and most meals. International airfare is not included.

Information: For more information and an application, contact Dale Sorensen, 415/924-3227 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              415/924-3227      end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              415/924-3227      end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              415/924-3227      end_of_the_skype_highlighting or geodale1@earthlink.net

Sponsors: Alliance for Global Justice, Nonviolence International, SOA Watch, Task Force on the Americas

Please copy and paste the following letter to your Senators and Representatives. Also consider sending it to the White House. You can find contact information here for Congress and here for the White House.

Dear [name],

In 2007, 48 civil society groups issued a declaration demanding that specific improvements be made to the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement (KOR-US FTA) and the process of its implementation, which was then being negotiated between the Bush administration and the government of South Korea. Three years later, despite the fact that not a single one of these demands were met, the Obama administration wants Congress to pass the Bush-era FTA by November. In light of this, I am writing to you to express my opposition to the proposed KOR-US FTA and urge you to reject this agreement if it comes before Congress.

I believe that the current trade model, which so far has provided enormous benefits for a disproportionate few, will not likely generate widely shared economic prosperity for the majority of persons in the U.S. and South Korea. Moreover, I fear that a renegotiation or acceptance of this agreement that does not affirmatively respond to each of the points below raised in 2007, will merely perpetuate this damaging model. Indeed, it would likely open the door to similar agreements in Colombia and Panama, where even more grave issues of egregious human rights violations and union oppression exist.

The previous declaration made by civil society emphasized the importance of maintaining public interest gains without narrowing the policy space of governments to respond to the needs or wants of their citizens. I wholly embrace economic and cultural relations with South Korea, but wish to make certain that the terms of that relationship are equitable to all.

In evaluating this trade agreement, I was guided by the following principles, set forth in the 2007 declaration:

Democracy, Transparency and Accountability:

Trade agreements must be negotiated under democratic mechanisms with broad-based citizen participation including workers, women, and indigenous and ethnic groups. This was not the case. The draft text, member country proposals, and negotiating agendas should be made available to civil society at regular and timely intervals in order for civil society participation to be meaningful. This did not occur. Negotiators should also meet with civil-society groups before each negotiating session, in order to discuss the proposals being advanced, and afterwards in order to report back on the results of those talks. This was not the case. Trade agreements must be subject to regularly scheduled environmental and social reviews by an independent body, which include an evaluation of the agreement’s impact on workers, women, people of color and indigenous communities. Final language of KORUS FTA does not include this. Any dispute arising under the agreement must be resolved in an accountable and transparent manner, with due deference to domestic laws and court systems. Trade disputes must be open to the public, and accept submissions from interested outside parties. The KORUS FTA final language does not include this.

Workers’ Rights:

Any trade agreement with Korea must ensure that all workers can freely exercise their basic rights as laid out by the 1998 ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work: freedom of association, the right to organize and bargain collectively, to refuse forced labor, to reject child labor, and to work free from discrimination. These rights must be recognized and protected in trade agreements and covered by dispute resolution and effective enforcement mechanisms. These mechanisms do not exist in the KORUS FTA. Any trade agreement with the region must also ensure that immigrant workers’ rights are protected fully regardless of their status. This is not the case. Technical assistance to improve labor standards in Korea can complement, but not substitute for, enforceable rules on workers’ rights. This issue is not addressed in the KORUS FTA. Finally, a trade agreement with Korea must include adequate protections and transitional assistance for rural and urban workers and farmers in Korea and the United States who are adversely affected by increased trade. This is not the case.

Protecting Family Farms:

No free trade agreement should prevent countries from establishing their own domestic agricultural policies that promote food sovereignty, appropriate for their particular economic conditions, geographic characteristics and cultural practices and beliefs. This agreement would limit both South Korea’s and the U.S.’s control over their domestic agricultural policy. Trade agreements must not interfere with the ability of countries to prohibit dumping of agricultural products that undermine the well being of family farmers and rural communities. This is not the case. Farmers’ livelihoods will be left at the whim of large agribusiness interests unless exporting countries of major commodities take the lead in establishing price floors to assure fair commodity prices worldwide and establish strategic international reserves to ensure food security. This point is not addressed. These mechanisms are necessary to prevent the pricing and export of commodities by agribusiness corporations at below a farmers’ cost of production. Countries must be allowed the flexibility to establish tariffs and appropriate types of subsidies to prevent a total collapse of rural economies and mass migration. The KORUS FTA would preclude this.

Environmental Protection and Natural Resources:

Trade agreements must not undermine any environmental standards but strengthen and enforce them. This is not the case. Trade rules must ensure that private investors cannot challenge domestic environmental and other public interest laws and regulations before international tribunals. The KORUS FTA does allow private investors to sue. Agreements should also reinforce governments’ responsibility to protect and promote farmer rights regarding plant genetic resources for food and agriculture as stated in the Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, including not limiting any rights that farmers have to save, use, exchange or sell seeds and other propagating material as afforded to them by national laws. This is not the case.

Protecting Basic Services:

Services that help meet people’s right to food, education, health and basic utilities, should be exempt from trade rules. This is not the case. In Korea there is deep concern that applying trade rules to these services, especially public services, would make it harder for governments to adequately support and regulate these services, resulting in price increases that are prohibitive to consumers, reduced access and compromised quality.

Investment rules must afford governments the leeway to implement legitimate economic development strategies for domestically oriented growth, especially to promote decent employment, to support domestic industries and investment, and to encourage the emergence of new and infant industries. The agreement does not afford this leeway. Investors must have binding responsibilities including compliance with international and national labor and environmental standards not just rights. This is not the case. Governments must have the authority to regulate capital flows in order to prevent and redress financial crises. This is not the case. Finally, investor-to-state lawsuits must not be part of trade agreements. This is not the case.

Intellectual Property Rights:

A trade agreement with Korea should not include rules that go beyond the existing intellectual property rights agreement of the WTO that may adversely impact women, farmers’ rights, food security, traditional knowledge and the protection of public health. This is not the case. Trade agreement’s rules should comply with the Doha declaration on access to medicines and with the Convention on Biological Diversity. This is not the case. Intellectual property rules must not limit countries’ ability to prohibit patents on genetic plant resources for food and agriculture. This is not the case.

Procurement:

Procurement rules must not prevent governments from using tax dollars to support responsible purchasing and contracting practices that favor local suppliers or contain other non-commercial criteria. This is not the case in the KORUS FTA. National and sub-national governments must retain the ability to use government procurement policies to promote local employment, assist small and medium-sized businesses, safeguard workers’ rights and human rights, and achieve other legitimate social and environmental goals. This is not the case.

Therefore, I urge you to oppose the proposed Korea-U.S. FTA, and any other similar agreement, that fails to address the aforementioned concerns. This agreement fails to protect workers’ rights, human rights, food security, and environmental standards, and instead undermines the ability of governments to regulate corporations to protect the common good. I stand in solidarity with the Korean people, and am resolved to press our government to reverse its course on trade.

I call on you to reject the failed NAFTA-style free trade model, and strengthen economic and trade relations with other countries based on the principles of mutual benefit, respect for democratic rights and national sovereignty. The Trade Reform, Accountability, Development and Employment (TRADE Act) put forward last session by Sen. Sherrod Brown and Rep. Mike Michaud (with over 140 co-sponsors in the House) would establish a trade model that achieves these objectives and would, if adopted, create a framework for renegotiating existing and proposed trade agreements in a way that would insure that US and foreign businesses and consumers share equally in the benefits of increased trade.

I urge you to pledge to oppose any trade agreement that is not based on the provisions and principles incorporated in the TRADE Act, including the KORUS FTA, the US-Colombia FTA, and the US-Panama FTA. I also urge you to support US withdrawal from the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA) and for new treaties, negotiated under the principles of the TRADE Act, be adopted in their place.

[Your name address and signature]

A group of nine SOA Watch activists is currently in Colombia to confront the escalation of U.S. policy in the region and to express solidarity with courageous Colombians working for peace and justice. On Tuesday, the group set up a vigil at the Tolemaida military base, where U.S. soldiers are stationed. Yesterday, two busloads of 65 activists from Justicia y Paz, the Movement of Victims of State Crimes, the Mothers of Soacha (who are seeking justice for their children who were killed as part of the “false positive” scandal), SINALTRAINAL, and others arrived to join the 9-member SOA Watch delegation, who proceeded to block the entrance to the base. Activists held banners denouncing US intervention in Colombia as well as Iraq. Click here to watch a video of the protest at the military base.

Father Roy Bourgeois said of the action: “It’s a great joy to be in Colombia speaking with Colombians, with one voice, against U.S. domination and militarization. Our delegation has been deeply moved by the strength and spirit of so many Colombians struggling for a just peace in Colombia.” National and international press reporting on the protest: Latin American Herald Tibune, El Espectador (Colombia), La Jornada (Mexico), TeleSUR (Venezuela), Common Dreams (United States).SOA Watch in Colombia SOA Watch in ColombiaLater today the SOA Watch delegation will leave the area and travel to Bogotá, is the capital city of Colombia. Tomorrow, the group will go to the U.S. embassy in Bogotá. Amplify the voices for justice and peace in Colombia by contacting ambassador Brownsfield now.

WHAT YOU CAN DO!
Call the U.S. embassy in Colombia at 011-571-315-0811 and tell them you support these protesters and oppose US military presence in the country. In addition, click here to send an email to the U.S. embassy in Colombia.

US Military Surge in Costa Rica
Six Months After the Quake
Organizers’ Conference
Building a Movement Against US Militarism
Day of Action Against US Militarism
News from Nicaragua

To read the latest edition, please click here.