This NYT report –below- accurately describes some of the very oppressive conditions in which Rights Action continues our work in support of community defense and justice struggles, and COVID / hurricane relief projects in both Guatemala and Honduras.

With announcement of the “Biden plan” for Central America, incoming US President Joe Biden confirms the US will continue with full political, economic and military support for regimes in power in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador whose violence, exploitation and corruption create the very conditions that force so many of their people to flee into exile every year.

Articulo de Jackie McVicar, Prensa Comunitaria

“The defendant is a uniquely bad character, who along with his brother [President Juan Orlando Hernandez], is at the center of years of state-sponsored drug trafficking."
(US prosecutor Matthew Laroche)

The title is misleading. Hondurans are not “resigned” to life under the boot of this US and Canadian-backed regime. They are violently, corruptly forced to suffer in conditions of fear, corruption and economic desperation, forcing many to try and flee to exile in Mexico or the US.

“Part of what this book’s editors demonstrate in the book is that violating human rights, using repression, and acting with corruption and impunity is how the Canadian-dominated mining industry has operated in Guatemala.
If no publisher will publish the book then this has just compounded the problem of getting at the truth.”

Not “mistakes”
While the Open Letter includes many valuable policies that can and should be implemented by the Biden administration, it is imperative to understand that the US government has not been making “mistakes” in its policies and actions in Central America - going back generations.

To think they are “mistakes” leads one to think it is easier to ‘change course’. For generations, the US has been implementing policies of political, military and economic control of the region.

“If the US invades our countries, and imposes on us corrupt, murderous dictators,
we will migrate to your country and stop complaining.”
CInPH (Indigenous Coordinator of Popular Power in Honduras)

Will decision impact the Hudbay Minerals (Skye Resources) lawsuits in Canada, as decision puts into question the underlying legality of Hudbay/Skye’s years of mining in Guatemala (2005-2011), during which time the repression and harms linked to their mining operation occurred, including killings, gang-rapes, shootings, forced evictions and community destruction?