August, 21 2009, 10:49am EDT
Over 90 Experts Call on Human Rights Watch to Speak Out on Honduras Abuses
WASHINGTON
93 scholars
and Latin America experts from institutions such as Yale, Harvard, and
New York University sent an open letter to Human Rights Watch today
urging the organization to highlight various human rights violations in
Honduras under the coup regime, and to conduct its own investigation.
The signers, who include well-known experts on Latin America such as
Eric Hershberg, John Womack, Jr., and Greg Grandin, Honduras experts
such as Dana Frank and Adrienne Pine, and well-known authors including
Noam Chomsky, John Pilger, and Naomi Klein, note that Human Rights
Watch could help force the Obama administration to denounce the abuses
and put greater pressure on the regime. Highlighting
"politically-motivated killings, hundreds of arbitrary detentions, the
violent repression of unarmed demonstrators, mass arrests of political
opposition, and other violations of basic human rights," the letter
notes that Human Rights Watch has not issued a statement or release on
the situation in Honduras since July 8, a little over a week following
the June 28 coup d'etat.
The signers write, "...the coup could easily be overturned, if the Obama
administration sought to do so, by taking more decisive measures, such
as canceling all U.S. visas and freezing U.S. bank accounts of leaders
of the coup regime."
The letter comes just a day after Amnesty International issued a new report on the coup regime's violations of human
rights in cracking down on protests, and as the Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights (part of the Organization of American
States) wraps up a fact-finding delegation to Honduras. The author of
the Amnesty International report, Esther Major, has stated
that the report was
released to call on the international community to take action to
"prevent a human rights crisis occurring in Honduras."
The full text of the letter follows:
August 21, 2009
Kenneth Roth
Executive Director
Human Rights Watch
Dear Mr. Roth,
We are deeply concerned by the absence of statements and reports from
your organization over the serious and systematic human rights abuses
that have been committed under the Honduran coup regime over the past
six weeks. It is disappointing to see that in the weeks since July 8,
when Human Rights Watch issued its most recent press release on
Honduras [1], that it has not raised the alarm over the
extra-judicial killings, arbitrary detentions, physical assaults, and
attacks on the press - many of which have been thoroughly documented -
that have occurred in Honduras, in most cases by the coup regime
against the supporters of the democratic and constitutional government
of Manuel Zelaya. We call on your organization to fulfill your
important role as a guardian of universal human rights and condemn,
strongly and forcefully, the ongoing abuses being committed by the
illegal regime in Honduras. We also ask that you conduct your own
investigation of these crimes.
While Human Rights Watch [2] was quick to condemn the illegal coup
d'etat of June 28 and the human rights violations that occurred over
the following week, which helped shine the spotlight of international
media on these abuses, the absence of statements from your organization
since the week following the coup has contributed to the failure of
international media to report on subsequent abuses.
The coup regime's violent repression in Honduras has not stopped.
Well-respected human rights organizations in Honduras, such as the
Committee for the Relatives of the Disappeared Detainees (COFADEH), and international human rights monitors have documented a series of
politically-motivated killings, hundreds of arbitrary detentions, the
violent repression of unarmed demonstrators, mass arrests of political
opposition, and other violations of basic human rights under the coup
regime. The killing of anti-coup activists has beendocumented in pressreports,
bringing to a total of ten people known or suspected to have been
killed in connection to their political activities. Press freedom
watchdogs such as Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to
Protect Journalists have issued releases decrying the regime's attacks
and threats against various journalists and the temporary closure and
military occupation of news outlets. Various NGO's have issued alerts
regarding the politically motivated threats to individuals, and concern
for people detained by the regime, but no such statements have come
from Human Rights Watch.
This situation is all the more tragic in that the coup could easily be
overturned, if the Obama administration sought to do so, by taking more
decisive measures, such as canceling all U.S. visas and freezing U.S.
bank accounts of leaders of the coup regime. Yet not only does the
administration continue to prop up the regime with aid money through
the Millennium Challenge Account and other sources, but the U.S.
continues to train Honduran military students at the Western
Hemispheric Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC) - the
notorious institution formerly known as the School of the Americas. If
the coup were overturned, and the democratically elected government
restored, it is clear that the many rampant human rights abuses would
immediately cease. If Human Rights Watch would raise its voice, it
would be much more difficult for the Obama administration to ignore
Honduras' human rights situation and maintain financial and other
support for its illegal regime.
We know that there are, sadly, innumerable urgent human rights crises
around the world, all of which require your attention. Addressing the
deteriorating situation in Honduras, however, is of paramount
importance given its potential to serve as a precedent for other coups
and the rise of other dictatorships, not just in Honduras, but
throughout the region. History has shown that such coups leave deep
scars on societies, and that far too often they have led to the rise of
some of history's most notorious rights abusers, such as in Pinochet's
Chile, Videla's Argentina, and Cedras' Haiti, to name but a few. As
human rights defenders with extensive experience in dealing with the
appalling human consequences of these regimes, Human Rights Watch is
clearly well placed to understand the urgency of condemning the
Honduran regime's abuses and to helping ensure the coup is overturned,
that democracy is restored, and that political repression and other
human rights abuses are stopped. Your colleagues in the Honduran human
rights community are counting on you, as are the Honduran people. We
hope you will raise your voice on Honduras.
Sincerely,
Leisy Abrego
University of California President's Postdoctoral Fellow
UC Irvine
Paul Almeida
Associate Professor, Department of Sociology
Texas A&M University
Alejandro Alvarez Bejar
Professor, Economic Faculty
UNAM-Mexico
Tim Anderson
Senior Lecturer in Political Economy
University of Sydney
Australia
Anthony Arnove
Author and Editor
Brooklyn, NY
Marc Becker
Truman State University
Kirksville, MO
Marjorie Becker
Associate professor, Department of History
University of Southern California
John Beverley
Professor of Spanish and Latin American Literature and Cultural Studies
University of Pittsburgh
Larry Birns
Director, Council on Hemispheric Affairs
Washington, DC
Jefferson Boyer
Professor of Anthropology (ethnography of Honduras)
Appalachian State University
Jules Boykoff
Associate Professor of Political Science
Pacific University
Edward T. Brett
Professor of History
La Roche College, Pittsburgh, PA
Renate Bridenthal
Professor of History, Emerita
Brooklyn College, CUNY
Bob Buzzanco
Professor of History
University of Houston
Aviva Chomsky
Professor of History and Coordinator, Latin American Studies
Salem State College
Noam Chomsky
Professor of Linguistics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
James D. Cockcroft
SUNY
Honorary Editor, Latin American Perspectives
Daniel Aldana Cohen
Graduate Student
New York University
Mike Davis
Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing
University of California-Riverside
Pablo Delano
Professor of Fine Arts
Trinity College , Hartford CT
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Professor Emeritus
California State University
Luis Duno-Gottberg
Rice University
Les W. Field
Professor of Anthropology
The University of New Mexico
Dana Frank
Professor of History
University of California, Santa Cruz
Todd Gordon
Department of Political Science
York University, Toronto
Manu Goswami
Department of History
New York University
Jeff Gould
Rudy Professor of History
Indiana University
Greg Grandin
Department of History
New York University
Richard Grossman
Department of History
Northeastern Illinois University
Peter Hallward
Professor of Modern European Philosophy
Middlesex University, UK.
Nora Hamilton
Professor, Political Science
University of Southern California
Jim Handy
Professor of History
University of Saskatchewan
Tom Hayden
Writer
Doug Henwood
Editor and Publisher
Left Business Observer
Eric Hershberg
Simon Fraser University
Vancouver, Canada
Kathryn Hicks
Assistant Professor of Anthropology
The University of Memphis
Irene B. Hodgson
Professor of Spanish, Director of the Latin American Studies Minor
Interim Director of the Academic Service Learning Semesters
Xavier University
Forrest Hylton
Assistant Professor of Political Science/Int'l. Relations
Universidad de los Andes (Colombia)
Susanne Jonas
Latin America and Latino Studies
University of California, Santa Cruz
Rosemary A. Joyce
Richard and Rhoda Goldman Distinguished Professor of Social Sciences,
Professor and Chair of Anthropology
University of California , Berkeley
Karen Kampwirth
Knox College
Naomi Klein
Journalist, syndicated columnist and author
Andrew H. Lee
Librarian for History, European Studies, Iberian Studies, & Politics
Bobst Library
New York University
Catherine LeGrand
Associate Professor
Dept. of History, McGill University.
Deborah Levenson
Associate Professor of History
Boston College
Frederick B. Mills
Professor of Philosophy
Bowie State University
Cynthia E. Milton
Chaire de recherche du Canada en histoire de l'Amerique latine
Canada Research Chair in Latin American History, Professeure
agregee/Associate Professor, Departement d'histoire
Universite de Montreal
Lena Mortensen
Assistant Professor, Anthropology
University of Toronto Scarborough
Carole Nagengast
Professor
Department of Anthropology
University of New Mexico
Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
Marysa Navarro
Charles Collis Professor of History
Dartmouth College
Sharon Erickson Nepstad
Professor of Sociology
University of New Mexico
Mary Nolan
Professor, Department of History
New York University
Elizabeth Oglesby
Assistant Professor
School of Geography and Development
Center for Latin American Studies
University of Arizona
Jocelyn Olcott
Department of History
Duke University
Christian Parenti
Contributing Editor, The Nation
Visiting Scholar
CUNY Graduate Center
Ivette Perfecto
Professor
University of Michigan
Hector Perla Jr.
Assistant Professor
Latin American and Latino Studies
University of California, Santa Cruz
John Pilger
Journalist and documentary filmmaker
Adrienne Pine
Assistant Professor of Anthropology
American University
Deborah Poole
Professor, Anthropology
Johns Hopkins University
Suyapa Portillo
Pomona College
History Dept.
Vijay Prashad
George and Martha Kellner Chair in South Asian History and Professor of
International Studies
Trinity College
Margaret Randall
Feminist poet, writer, photographer and social activist
Marcus Rediker
Professor and Chair in the Department of History
University of Pittsburgh
Gerardo Renique
Associate Professor, Department of History
City College of the City University of New York
Ken Roberts
Professor, Department of Government
Cornell University
Nancy Romer
Professor of Psychology
Brooklyn College
City University of New York
Seth Sandronsky
U.S. journalist
Aaron Schneider
Assistant Professor
Political Science
Tulane University
Rebecca Schreiber
Associate Professor, American Studies Department
University of New Mexico
Ernesto Seman
Journalist
Richard Stahler-Sholk
Professor, Department of Political Science
Eastern Michigan University
Julie Stewart
Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology
Assistant Investigator, Institute of Public and International Affairs
University of Utah
Sylvia N. Tesh
Lecturer, Latin American Studies
University of Arizona.
Miguel Tinker Salas
Professor of History
Pomona College
Mayo C. Toruno
Professor of Economics
California State University, San Bernardino
Sheila R. Tully
San Francisco State University
John Vandermeer
Asa Gray Distinguished University Professor
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
University of Michigan
Jocelyn S. Viterna
Assistant Professor
Departments of Sociology and Social Studies Harvard University
Steven S. Volk
Professor, Department of History
Director, Center for Teaching Innovation and Excellence (CTIE)
Oberlin College
Maurice L. Wade
Professor of Philosophy, International Studies, and Graduate Public
Policy Studies
Trinity College
Shannon Drysdale Walsh
Fulbright-Hays Fellow
Doctoral Candidate
Department of Political Science
University of Notre Dame
Jeffery R. Webber
Assistant Professor, Political Science
University of Regina, Canada
Barbara Weinstein
Professor, Department of History
New York University
Mark Weisbrot
Co-Director
Center for Economic and Policy Research
Gregory Wilpert
Adjunct Professor of Political Science
Brooklyn College
Sonja Wolf
Institute of Social Research
National Autonomous University of Mexico
John Womack, Jr.
Professor of History, Emeritus
Harvard University
Elisabeth Wood
Professor of Political Science
Yale University
Richard L. Wood
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology
University of New Mexico
Marilyn B. Young
Professor of History
New York University
Marc Zimmerman
Modern and Classical Languages
University of Houston
1). Human Rights Watch, "Honduras:
Evidence Suggests Soldiers Shot Into Unarmed Crowd." July 8, 2009.
Found at https://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/07/08/honduras-evidence-suggests-soldiers-shot-unarmed-crowd.
2).
Human Rights Watch, "Honduras: Military Coup a Blow to Democracy." June
28, 2009. Found at https://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/06/28/honduras-military-coup-blow-democracy
Keep reading...Show less
LATEST NEWS
'An Affront to the World': Shell Posts Billions in Profits as Planet Burns
"The grotesque wealth that this Earth-wrecking company continues to accumulate is something we cannot allow ourselves to accept as normal," one campaigner said.
May 02, 2024
Oil major Shell announced $7.7 billion in profits during the first quarter of 2024 on Thursday, as well as a $3.5 billion share buyback program.
The news comes as every month covered by the period was the hottest of its kind on record. The three-month period also saw the second-largest wildfire in Texas history, extreme heat in West Africa and the Sahel, and the beginning of the Great Barrier Reef's fifth mass bleaching event in eight years. Scientists have clearly linked global heating, and the weather disasters it exacerbates, to the climate crisis driven primarily by the burning of fossil fuels.
"As extreme weather accelerates and the cost-of-living crisis rumbles on, Shell's latest billion-pound profits are an affront to the world," Izzie McIntosh, climate campaign manager at Global Justice Now, said in a statement. "The grotesque wealth that this Earth-wrecking company continues to accumulate is something we cannot allow ourselves to accept as normal."
"This is the sad irony of the global energy system in which those causing chaos are the ones getting rich."
Shell's profits for the first three months of 2024 were around 20% lower than for the same time in 2023, CNBC reported. However, the company brought in $1.2 billion more than analysts had predicted. The world's largest oil firms, including Shell, saw record profits in 2022 following Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the energy crisis that followed.
"Shell has beaten expectations by a reasonable margin, despite the impact of lower gas prices during the first quarter," Stuart Lamont, an investment manager at RBC Brewin Dolphin, said in a statement shared by CNBC.
Global Witness pointed out that Shell's earnings to date amounted to over $58,000 a minute, more than the average U.K. nurse makes in a year.
"Shell continuing to rake in huge sums of money shows us that huge polluter profits were not a one-off but are the twisted reality of an energy system that benefits climate-wrecking companies to the cost of everyone else," Global Witness fossil fuel campaigner Alexander Kirk said in a statement.
Shell announced its profits one day after the U.S. Senate held a hearing on how large oil and gas companies, including Shell, have continued to deceive the public about the dangers of their products, moving from outright climate denial into making commitments they don't intend to keep or touting false solutions like carbon capture and storage that they then fail to develop. Shell, according to the testimony of Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), spent only 11% of its capital on low-carbon technologies between 2009 and 2023.
The hearing sparked calls for accountability from the fossil fuel industry—such as mechanisms to make climate polluters pay for the transition to renewable energy—and the news of Shell's profits generated more.
In the U.K., Labor Shadow Energy and Climate Minister Ed Miliband proposed increasing the tax on energy company profits. Shell paid the U.K. government around $1.4 billion in taxes in 2023, of which around $300 million went to the Energy Profits Levy, according toThe Guardian. Also last year, it paid its shareholders $23 billion, nine times more than it invested in its "Renewables and Energy Solutions" program.
"These results show yet again why it is so damning [that Prime Minister] Rishi Sunak refuses to bring in a proper windfall tax on the oil and gas giants," Miliband said. "These are companies that have made record profits at the expense of working people. Labor says tax these companies fairly so we can invest in clean homegrown energy that will end the cost of living crisis and make Britain energy independent."
Greenpeace U.K. called Shell's latest profits "shameless."
"Their reckless hunt for profits needs to end," the environmental advocacy group wrote on social media. "When will world leaders find their backbone and make polluters pay?"
When one commenter suggested governments held back out of desire to keep collecting Big Oil's taxes, Greenpeace fired back, "What taxes?" and noted that Shell avoided paying U.K. taxes for years.
"At the end of the day we want clean, cheap renewable energy not to face the worst impacts of climate change," Greenpeace continued. "Solutions exist, we just need the political and industrial will to get them in place."
Global Witness and Global Justice Now also took the opportunity to call for an energy transition.
"This is the sad irony of the global energy system in which those causing chaos are the ones getting rich," Kirk said. "This spiral won't stop until we make the urgent switch to a fairer renewable energy system that puts both people and planet first."
McIntosh concluded: "We urgently need to bring a fair and organised end to the fossil fuel era, and that means companies like Shell must stop trying to extract new oil and gas, and start paying what they owe for the loss and damage they've caused. Profit announcements like this for a corporate dinosaur like Shell need to become a thing of the past."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Stop Sending Arms': Global Day of Action to End Israel's Assault on Gaza
"The Global Day of Action must serve as a wake-up call to states that continue to supply arms to all parties to the conflict in Gaza that they are at risk of being complicit in war crimes," said one campaigner.
May 02, 2024
The straightforward demand consistently made by human rights experts, a top European Union official, and college students across the U.S. and in a growing number of countries formed the basis for a Global Day of Action on Thursday, with 250 groups organizing direct actions to call on governments around the world to "Stop Sending Arms" to Israel.
Groups including Amnesty International, the Norwegian Refugee Council, and the Center for Jewish Nonviolence helped organize actions in at least 12 countries, "with a strategic emphasis on countries with significant arms exports" and an "aim to resonate globally."
Protest events including rallies, "die-ins," and the projection of messages and images on government buildings were organized in countries including the United States—the top supplier of arms to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF)—Canada, Germany, Australia, South Korea, and Slovakia.
"The Global Day of Action must serve as a wake-up call to states that continue to supply arms to all parties to the conflict in Gaza that they are at risk of being complicit in war crimes and other violations of international law," said Erika Guevara Rosas, senior director for research, advocacy, policy, and campaigns at Amnesty International.
The groups and their supporters amplified the global campaign on social media using the hashtags #StopSendingArms and #CeasefireNOW.
The day of action comes a day after dozens of universities in the United Kingdom were warned by a legal group that they could be criminally liable for investing in weapons manufacturers that provide arms to Israel, and days after Amnesty International filed a report with the U.S. government detailing specific attacks on Palestinian civilians by the IDF in which Israel used weapons provided by the United States.
Dozens of U.S. and international lawyers, including some from President Joe Biden's own administration, have warned the White House that Israel's actions in Gaza—which have killed at least 34,596 Palestinians since October, the majority of whom have been women and children—violate international law.
The Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) in the U.S. noted that calls for divestment from Israel have spread across U.S. college campuses in recent weeks, despite violent crackdowns by police forces.
"While students have been calling on their universities to divest from Israel, FCNL is urging our government to stop military aid," said the group. "It's clear there's a growing demand to end U.S. complicity in the war in Gaza."
Organizers in Australia displayed signs reading, "Every F-35 [fighter jet] contains some Australian parts and components."
"Around the world, people are demanding their governments end complicity in [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu's war," said Heather McPherson, a member of the Canadian Parliament representing the New Democratic Party. "In Canada, the NDP calls on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly to impose a two-way arms embargo. End the suffering!"
Organizers called on arms experts, journalists, academics, and legal professionals to join the Global Day of Action and call for a "comprehensive arms embargo" on Israel "to stop the transfer of weapons, parts, and ammunitions being used to fuel violations of international law in the occupied Gaza Strip."
Guevara Rosas said that "following the conclusion by the International Court of Justice that there is a plausible risk of genocide in Gaza and in light of the obligation under international law of all states to prevent genocide, governments that continue to supply arms to Israel may find themselves in breach of the Genocide Convention."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Their Blood Is on Gene Block': UCLA Students Injured in Violent Police Raid
Officers in military gear fired flash-bang munitions and used batons to clear a nonviolent encampment calling for an end to Israel's U.S.-backed war on Gaza.
May 02, 2024
Los Angeles police wearing riot gear launched a violent attack on a pro-Palestinian encampment at UCLA early Thursday, using flash bangs and firing impact munitions at students demanding an end to their university's complicity in Israel's war on Gaza.
Video footage posted to social media by reporters present at the scene shows officers firing multiple "less lethal" munitions and sound-concussive devices at student demonstrators as they closed in on the encampment, which UCLA's leadership has declared unlawful.
Police reportedly arrested dozens of students as they advanced on the encampment.
"They'd rather shoot kids than stop this genocide," said one observer.
Police fire multiple impact munitions at protestors. 4:38am pic.twitter.com/960I4iVMtt
— Sergio Olmos (@MrOlmos) May 2, 2024
Graeme Blair, an associate professor of political science and member of Faculty for Justice in Palestine at UCLA, told the university's student newspaper early Thursday that police officers "violently dragged" students from the Gaza solidarity encampment and that some demonstrators were "visibly injured."
"Their blood is on Gene Block and the UC administration's hands for a series of catastrophic decisions over the last two days," said Blair, referring to UCLA's chancellor. "It did not need to be this way."
Blair said UCLA professors inside the encampment "plan to be arrested alongside students who have done nothing but talk about a genocide taking place in Palestine."
Matt Barreto, a professor of Chicano studies and political science, told the Los Angeles Times that "our job is to stand up for their First Amendment rights, their rights on their own campus."
Police arrest protestor 4:55am pic.twitter.com/udgS0Terc9
— Sergio Olmos (@MrOlmos) May 2, 2024
The police raid came 24 hours after Los Angeles officers and campus security stood by as a pro-Israel mob violently attacked pro-Palestinian demonstrators. Dozens of students were reportedly taken to hospitals for treatment following the assault.
The Daily Bruin, whose student journalists were on the scene, reported Thursday that police "continued to detain protesters in the encampment as the clock struck 4:00 am, marking one week since the initial erection of the solidarity encampment by the UC Divest Coalition and Students for Justice in Palestine at UCLA."
"At 4:05 am, a slew of loud noises presumed to be flash bangs went off," the newspaper added. "Dozens of protesters exited the encampment by climbing through the bushes near Powell Library onto the Janss Steps lawn. Protesters chanted, 'Gene Block, you can't hide, we charge you with genocide' and, 'We are students' as smoke from the presumed flash bangs thickened above Dickson Plaza."
The police crackdown at UCLA is part of a broader wave of police repression on campuses nationwide as universities refuse to grant their student's calls for divestment from companies profiting off Israel's assault on Gaza. More than 1,000 student demonstrators have reportedly been arrested across the U.S. so far.
"It is no accident that this indefensible police crackdown comes in service of an indefensible war," The Intercept's Natasha Lennard wrote in a column Wednesday following the violent police raid at Columbia University in New York. "The very extremity of protest repression speaks to desperation on the part of institutions of the American establishment."
"Israel's decimation of Gaza has—at least for millions more people—given lie to the redemptive myths of the post-World War II political liberal order," Lennard added. "Young people, even the children of the elite, even children of Zionists, are standing with Palestine. Their peaceful acts of protest count as disruptive because they count as un-American—which should be a badge of honor amid a U.S.-backed genocide."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular