Photo from Radio Progreso. The image on the banner is Bernardo Caal Xol, a leader of the Peaceful Resistance of Cahabón, a collective of 38 Maya Q’eqchi communities opposed to the Oxec and Renace dams on the Cahabón River and its tributaries.
Criterio.hn reports: “Alliance of defenders of water and territory demand an end to their criminalization in Central America.”
That article highlights that the Central American Alliance Against Mining (ACAFREMIN) held its seventh regional meeting on October 21 in Tocoa, Colón, Honduras.
It was attended by defenders from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. The membership of ACAFREMIN, which was founded in Managua in 2017, includes the Resistencia de La Puya which is accompanied by PBI-Guatemala.
The meeting analyzed “the impact of the continuity of the extractive economic model in an environment where the effects of climate change are felt more and more every day.”
Their statement highlighted: “The effects of climate change continue to violate the Central American populations, increasing the conditions of poverty and migration in the face of an economic model that continues to promote the migration of thousands of people in the face of the abandonment of their governments that prevent the development and decent living conditions of their citizens.”
Among their demands:
– freedom for Guatemalan political prisoner Bernardo Caal Xol
– an end to the criminalization of the defenders of water on the South Coast of Guatemala who face the sugarcane industry
– freedom for the Guapinol defenders in Honduras
– ratification of the Escazú Agreement
– Water Laws that have as a principle the human right to water and sanitation and that recognize shared or transboundary waters
– end the repression of human rights defenders in Nicaragua
– freedom for socio-environmental defenders in El Salvador.
The full Criterion.hn article can be read in Spanish at: Alianza de defensores del agua y el territorio demandan un alto a su criminalización en Centroamérica.
ACAFREMIN can be found on Twitter and Facebook.
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