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Rights Action
January 4, 2018
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Mining, Coups & Electoral Fraud in Honduras: “Story Behind the Story: What Aura Minerals didn't want us to see in Azacualpa”
 
In 2016, Aura Minerals –backed by the Honduran military and police- tried to block a delegation of Canadians from visiting the Azacualpa community and their cemetery.


 
Film-maker Maggie Padlewska writes:
On May 6, 2016 we, a small delegation of Canadian and local human rights observers and I, were invited to visit a small community living in a mountainous region of western Honduras. The Azacualpa community has been settled there for about 200 years.  Since 1983, a number of Canadian mining companies (including Aura Minerals since 2008) have been operating in the area. Despite efforts to work out a deal with the local population, the villagers were, and remain, strongly opposed to the presence of the San Andres open-pit cyanide-leaching gold mine on their territory.
 
Much of their landscape has now been devastated, with increasing pressure to expand the area that is being mined - which now includes the community's final resting place. The Azacualpa cemetery, located about 200 meters from the top ridge of the mountain being mined, is now slated for destruction as the company pushes to expand its pursuit of gold.
 
It's been about a year and a half since my visit - but having now learned that coffins of the deceased are now being unlawfully exhumed, against the will of the Azacualpa community, I could not help but revisit my footage - to share with you, our experience of what it meant to visit a community living near the site of a Canadian mining company.
 
For more information: www.rightsaction.org, www.miningwatch.ca, www.hondurassolidarity.org.
 
Thank-you for taking the time to watch this video.
 
Maggie Padlewska               
Video Journalist / Producer 
mpadlewska@gmail.com
 
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Mining, Coups and Electoral Fraud
Aura Minerals is arguably a direct beneficiary of the U.S. and Canadian-backed military coup in 2009, and of Canadian & U.S. government support for the November 26, 2017 electoral fraud and ensuing repression in Honduras (over 40 protesters killed, so far) that has –so far- kept in power the corrupt, repressive regime of Juan Orlando Hernandez.
 
Since the 2009 coup, the Honduran government vision has been to cut social spending, reduce labour costs and environmental protections, sign a Free Trade Agreement with Canada, and let global corporations and investors know that “Honduras Is Open For Business”.
 
Tax-Deductible Donations (Canada & U.S.)
Rights Action is sending projects funding and emergency relief funds to our long-term partner groups in Honduras and other community groups for their community development, environmental and human rights promotion work, and their emergency work in response to electoral fraud and repression.  Make check payable to "Rights Action" and mail to:
  • U.S.:  Box 50887, Washington DC, 20091-0887
  • Canada:  (Box 552) 351 Queen St. E, Toronto ON, M5A-1T8
Credit-Card Donations: http://rightsaction.org/donate/
Donations of stock? Write to: info@rightsaction.org
 
What to do
Please do NOT write your letters of protest to the Honduran government.  Through our denunciations and activism, we have to hold the “international community” –particularly the U.S. and Canada– accountable for their complicity with Honduras’ now endemic repression, fraud, corruption and impunity.  If political and legal accountability is not brought to bear on the military, economic and political backers of the Honduran regime, the repression, corruption and impunity – and suffering of the Honduran people - will not stop. 
  • U.S.:  Call the Capital Switchboard to get contact information for your Senators and Representatives: (202) 224-3121.  Get their phone numbers and email addresses.  Send them copies of this and other information.  Insist that they agree to the demands below.  Share your efforts with the media, family, friends and networks.
  • Canada:  Find your MP contact information by entering your postal code here: http://www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members.  Get their phone numbers and email addresses.  Send them copies of this and other information.  Insist that they agree to the demands below.  Share your efforts with the media, family, friends and networks.
Demands - short term
U.S. and Canadian governments and elected politicians must:
  • Do an about face, NOT accept the Nov.26, 2017 “elections”, and support the O.A.S. call for new elections;
  • Condemn the multiple acts of electoral fraud carried out by government of Juan Orlando Hernandez;
  • Condemn the killings and repression against anti-electoral fraud protesters and other citizens;
  • Hold the regime accountable for all electoral fraud and repression taking place;
  • Suspend all economic, military and police related relations with the corrupt government in power;
Demands - medium and longer term
  • There must be legislative inquiries in the U.S. and Canada into the causes of Honduras’ endemic repression and exploitation, corruption and impunity, with specific focus on the role played by the U.S. and Canadian governments:
  • supporting the 2009 military coup;
  • supporting and legitimizing fraudulent and violent elections in 2009, 2013 and 2017;
  • supporting the expansion of corporate interests in Honduras (sectors of mining, garment “sweatshop” industry, bananas, hydro-electric dams, tourism, etc.), while turning a blind eye to and – in effect – benefitting from repression, fraud, corruption and impunity.
More information / Get involved
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