It was reported July 7, 2020, that the owners of INCOBE, a Honduran heavy machinery company partnered with US and Canadian mining company Aura Minerals, must remain in pre-trial detention. They are accused of involvement with drug-trafficking organized crime.

"The government can't combat corruption because corruption is the government"
11 years, and counting, of repressive, corrupt, ‘open-for-global-business’ regimes in Honduras,
backed and legitimized fully by the U.S., Canada and the “international community”.

As the U.S. and Canadian governments battle Covid19 inside our borders (admittedly in quite different ways), our governments maintain full support for the military-backed, narco-trafficking, ‘open-for-global-business’ regime in power in Honduras that is impoverishing its own population, using military and police repression to enforce quarantines.

Ottawa Citizen article by Bianca Mugyenyi

In the midst of Covid19, Canadians debate “going back to normal” versus implementing real changes inside our borders related to: on-going legacies of colonialism and racism; systemic exploitation and economic inequality across the country; fossil fuels or a green way forward; on-going police and RCMP violence or real legal accountability and reform; etc.

The Constitutional Court of Guatemala has ordered the immediate suspension of the “Fenix” nickel mining operation, concluding that the mine (owned by Solway Investment Group, 2011-present; by Hudbay Minerals/Skye Resources, 2005-2011) has been operating illegally since 2005.

Two days after the Azacualpa Environmental Committee denounced the open-pit, cyanide-leeching mining operation of Aura Minerals and increased risk of spread of Covdi19 …
 
One day after the Azacualpa Environmental Committee –including Maria Ermita Rodriguez– collaborated with ASONOG to provide Covid19 related emergency food relief to local villagers

In times of Covid19, and now devastated by flooding caused by tropical storms Amanda and Cristobal, the Mayan Q’eqchi’ women of the Lote 8 village are suffering the multiplying impacts of the January 2007 gang-rapes and destruction of their home village by Guatemalan military and police, and armed security guards working for Skye Resources (Hudbay Minerals).

For years, villagers have been courageously resisting the environmentally harmful, socially divisive, open-pit, cyanide-leeching gold mine of the U.S./ Canada-based Aura Minerals (and MINOSA, its Honduran subsidiary) that are backed by the coercive power of the Honduran regime’s police and military.

Since mid-March, Rights Action has sent $43,000 in regular, small grants ($250-$1500) to community groups mainly in Honduras and Guatemala doing whatever they can to respond to Covid19, a pandemic that is worsening the “normal” pandemics of systemic impoverishment and racism, land dispossession, human rights violations and repression, corruption and impunity.