Honduras y Guatemala: los países más peligrosos para defender el medioambiente

CIUDAD DE MÉXICO, MÉXICO (Spútnik Mundo) Aquí las personas que dedican su vida a esta causa ponen en serio riesgo su integridad física y la de sus seres queridos. Los riesgos aumentan si las activi…

Origen: Honduras y Guatemala: los países más peligrosos para defender el medioambiente

Exclusive – Paperwork, rights concerns hold up U.S. aid for Central America

By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Congress approved $750 million in aid last December to help El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras combat the violence and poverty that are driving migrants towards the U.S. border, but the money has yet to reach the struggling countries.

In a departure from previous aid packages, the State Department first had to certify that the three nations had taken steps to reduce migration and human trafficking, bolster human rights and improve their justice systems.

Eight months after President Barack Obama signed a spending bill that included the funds, congressional aides told Reuters they were still waiting for the State Department certifications needed to release the money, which was budgeted for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30.

State has not provided its paperwork and Central American governments have not taken the required actions, congressional aides said. Lawmakers have been particularly unhappy about Honduras because of the murder of a prominent environmental activist there.

«The fiscal year 2016 funds have not been obligated because the State Department has not yet submitted a detailed plan as required by law, spelling out how, where and by whom the funds will be used, what their objectives are and how they will measure progress,» said Tim Rieser, a foreign policy aide to Senator Patrick Leahy, the top Democrat on the Senate subcommittee that oversees foreign aid.

The delay highlights the longstanding tension between Washington’s desire to promote human rights and the government’s responsibility to protect U.S. security, economic and other interests. In this case, American lawmakers are reluctant to send hundreds of millions of dollars to countries where human rights abuses remain common, despite the flood of migrants towards the U.S. border.

They want to avoid a repeat of past aid programs, in which large amounts of money sent south yielded few results.

«The results have been very disappointing. Programs were poorly conceived, the Central American governments did not do their part, and money was wasted,» Rieser said.

From October 2015 through January 2016, U.S. border patrols stopped some 45,000 Central Americans in the U.S. southwest, more than double the number during the same period a year earlier. Nearly half were unaccompanied children.

None of the countries has yet to meet all the conditions, congressional aides said, although Guatemala is further along. Honduras faces harsh criticism about human rights from lawmakers, due in part to the killing of internationally acclaimed environmentalist Berta Caceres in March.

Dozens of lawmakers have demanded an independent international investigation into her death, and Honduran authorities have arrested five suspects, including an Army officer and an employee of a company running a dam project she opposed.

A spokesman said the State Department was working to obtain congressional approval for the fiscal 2016 funds. In the meantime, he said, the department and U.S. Agency for International Development are using money from prior years to support the U.S. «Strategy for Engagement in Central America.»Guatemalan officials told Reuters they expected their funds to begin arriving between October and November.

In Tegucigalpa, a foreign ministry official who requested anonymity said Honduras has made progress fighting corruption and combating smuggling and hoped the funds would start being released later this year or early in 2017.

In San Salvador, a foreign ministry official said the government was awaiting word on the disbursement, also saying the government had made progress.

Separately, the Obama administration late last month announced the expansion of a programme to let people fleeing violence in the three countries enter the United States as refugees, and said Costa Rica agreed to shelter some of them temporarily.

(Additional reporting by Enrique Pretel in San Jose, Nelson Renteria in San Salvador and Gustavo Palencia in Tegucigalpa; editing by John Walcott and David Gregorio)

Origen: http://in.mobile.reuters.com/article/idINKCN10M20W?irpc=932

Golpes siglo XXI: nuevas estrategias para viejos propósitos. Los casos de Honduras, Paraguay, Brasil

El politólogo estadounidense Gene Sharp argumenta sobre la posibilidad de implementar estrategias de “acción no violenta” en las que no se necesita la fuerza bruta para hacerse con el poder. Esto se debe a que “la naturaleza de la guerra en el siglo XXI ha cambiado (…) Nosotros combatimos con armas psicológicas, sociales, económicas y políticas” [1].

Origen: Golpes siglo XXI: nuevas estrategias para viejos propósitos. Los casos de Honduras, Paraguay, Brasil

Policía desaloja toma y lanza bombas lacrimógenas en la UNAH –

Por: Redacción CRITERIO redaccion@criterio.hn; 4 noviembre, 2015

Tegucigalpa.-La Policía Nacional procede en este momento al desalojo de una toma que  un grupo de estudiantes mantiene en las afueras de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras (UNAH), donde se registra  la pérdida del conocimiento de un camarógrafo de un medio televisivo.

Producto del efecto del gas pimienta, el joven Carlos Martínez, camarógrafo del canal de televisión HCH, ha resultado con daños en sus vías respiratorias, por lo que una ambulancia se presentó al lugar para trasladarlo a un centro hospitalario.

El periodista y defensor de los derechos humanos, Cesario Padilla, dijo que la toma de las instalaciones de la Alma Mater inició de manera pacífica a eso de las 8:00 de la  mañana y que ya muchos estudiantes habían ingresado a recibir clases, cuando de repente aparecieron los policías lanzando las bombas al interior del centro de estudios.

Al lugar se han llegado dos  tanquetas de la Policía Nacional y el lanzamiento de los gases lacrimógenos continúa, mientras los estudiantes se han armado de piedras las que son lanzadas contra los uniformados.

De momento los accesos a la UNAH por el bulevar Suyapa han sido cerrados. También se conoció que Miguel Briceño, coordinador del movimiento social Indignados Honduras Somos Todos, ha sido detenido por la policía y  llevado a la posta de la colonia Kennedy.

El portavoz de la Policía Nacional. Leonel Suaceda, dijo que los elementos de esa institución han actuado con base a la ley y a los protocolos que Honduras ha suscrito con las Naciones Unidas, que faculta el uso del gas lacrimógeno para disuadir una manifestación cuando esta se ha tornado violenta.

Sauceda apuntó que la policía dio un plazo de tres horas a los estudiantes para que desaojaran la toma, pero no lo hicieron, por lo que la policía tuvo que actuar.

Añadió que todo ciudadano tiene derecho a protestar pero de manera pacífica, siempre y cuando no se afecte a otros. Señaló que quienes protestan solo piensan en ellos y en hacerle daño, supuestamente, al gobierno.

Origen: Policía desaloja toma y lanza bombas lacrimógenas en la UNAH –

How Gang Violence Affects Northern Triangle’s Youth

Written by Arron Daugherty Tuesday, 03 November 2015

A recent report details how youths in Central America’s Northern Triangle region (El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras) are forced to live under the oppressive threat of gang violence. 

In these nations, decisions like what street to walk on, what clothes to wear and how to style your hair can have fatal consequences, Honduran newspaper La Prensa reported.

«It’s crazy,» 18-year-old Mauricio Cornejo was quoted as saying. «You can’t use certain shoe brands because they’re part of the gang’s style and you might be confused as one of them.»

Like many youths in the Northern Triangle’s urban centers, Cornejo lives in territory disputed by the region’s two most powerful gangs, the MS13 and Barrio 18. People walking down his street could be threatened of killed by either group.

More than half of all of the Northern Triangle’s homicide victims are under 25, according to La Prensa. As a result of this threatening environment, young people in the region often opt to stay in doors.

«You can’t go to the public square or soccer fields because a gang fight could erupt at any moment,» Salvadoran university student Humberto Garcia told La Prensa. 

The limitations violence places on youths extend past their social lives and into their future job prospects. Young people are liable to be denied work by employers who demand proof of a clean criminal history, the report said. 

Even worse, gangs often recruit teens and even children as young as eight years old to join their ranks.

InSight Crime Analysis

This report highlights how youths in the Northern Triangle are affected in both small and profound ways by rampant gang violence. Given the sweeping consequences of crime and violence in the region, it is easy to lose sight of how these security threats are experienced at the personal level.   

Born in Los Angeles, the MS13‘s and Barrio 18’s arrival to the Northern Triangle during the 1990s — facilitated by stricter US deportation laws — placed them in the middle of turbulent post-war periods, where law and order was weak. This fertile ground for criminal activity enabled the gangs to flourish, and despite repressive «iron fist» policies targeting the gangs, the Northern Triangle nations are now among the five most violent in all of Latin America. In El Salvador, surging gang violence has resulted in homicide rates unseen since the country’s civil war.

SEE ALSO: Coverage of Homicides

The explosion of organized in the Northern Triangle during the post-war period raises questions of how Colombia will transition to peace after over a half-century of armed conflict. In September, the government and Colombia’s largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), announced they will reach a final peace deal by March of next year. But there are concerns organized crime will simply fill the vacuum left in Colombia’s underworld by the departure of the FARC, leading to a recycling of violence and crime.

Origen: http://www.insightcrime.org/news-briefs/gang-violence-impact-northern-triangle-youth