Environment, Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean

HONDURAS: Eco-Guerrilla ‘Poisons’ Local Environmental Movement

Thelma Mejía* - Tierramérica

TEGUCIGALPA, Aug 29 2003 (IPS) - A month after it appeared in Honduras, mystery continues to surround an alleged pro-environment guerrilla group in the northeastern Honduran department of Olancho. Local activists say it is an attempt to discredit their fight to protect area forests.

Roman Catholic priest Andrés Tamayo told Tierramérica that the Olancho Environmentalist Movement (MAO), which he heads, ”does not have any ties whatsoever” to the guerrilla group, which he said is a ”set up”.

On Jul. 28, the Honduran press published an interview with a hood-wearing ”Comandante Pepe”, who said he represents defenders of the environment who have decided to ”take action” because they are tired of ”waiting for the government to respond.”

Comandante Pepe was referring to the so far unsuccessful yet peaceful campaign by peasant farmers and ecologists to halt the logging operations that are wiping out the Olancho forests.

With an AK-47 gun in his hands, the spokesman of the so-called ”eco-guerrilla” asserted that the people of Olancho ”are one group, a single bloc.”

But Tamayo responded: ”They want to discredit us. Powerful groups are behind this, and we are going to find out who they are and denounce them. We are not party to death or violence. We are fighting for life, which begins by assuring the natural resources of Olancho are safe.”

”That group seems to be a strategy to set us up so that we can be blamed for any outbreak of violence,” said the priest.

>From Jun. 20 to Jun. 26, Tamayo led a peaceful march of thousands of Olanchanos to Tegucigalpa, but that action did not convince the government to ban logging in the Olancho forests.

According to the demonstrators, the logging trucks continue to make the trip from Olancho to the sawmills, while the overexploitation of forest resources is leading to potable water shortages as the natural watersheds are being devastated by deforestation.

At least half of Olancho’s 2.5 million hectares of forests have been destroyed, according to official figures. Honduras holds 11 million hectares of forest.

Expert Julieta Castellanos, professor at the Autonomous National University of Honduras, says the existence of a true guerrilla group in Olancho is difficult to believe.

”It gives the impression that there is an attempt to confuse, to delegitimise Father Tamayo’s movement and to generate fear in the area so that the people desist from their efforts to defend the forests,” she said.

Worse yet, the emergence of the guerrilla group ”could create conditions for greater violence and government crackdowns in the immediate future,” said Castellanos.

The alleged guerrilla group was announced just days after unknown attackers murdered Carlos Reyes, a Catholic social worker in Olancho.

And one of the first reactions after the group emerged was the decision of the Catholic Diocese of Olancho to suspend indefinitely its social pastoral programme.

”As long as persecution and confusion continue – with people being killed and harassed – we will not expose the lives of our workers and parishioners,” bishop Mauro Muldoon told Tierramérica.

The church denies that the members of Tamayo’s MAO are armed or that they represent a threat to the lumber companies working in the Olancho forests.

Bertha Oliva, an activist with the Honduran human rights group COFADEH, the news of an alleged eco-guerrilla group represents an intention to justify military intervention in Olancho ”and to generate through acts of violence a greater crackdown by authorities in the area.”

This new chapter in the Olancho dispute puts the Ricardo Maduro government in a bind, because now not only does the department’s security need to be ensured, but it must also control a group that is ”using its power to stand in the way of any attempt of support to protect the forests,” said Oliva.

The authorities have stepped up patrols in Olancho and have so far seized 186,000 board feet of wood that was illegally logged, a dozen vehicles, as well as chainsaws and AK-47s.

The local fight against logging has cost the lives of three environmentalists: Reyes, in July, Carlos Flores, in 2000, and Carlos Luna, in 1998. Their murders remain unsolved.

The Maduro government maintains that it will not tolerate the presence of irregular armed groups and will react swiftly to put down any outbreak of violence in Olancho.

In the 1980s, when civil wars were thrashing several Central American countries, there were five leftist guerrilla groups active in Honduras. But only two – the Cinchoneros and the People’s Liberation Forces – gained any notoriety, engaging in only sporadic actions.

(Thelma Mejía is a Tierramérica contributor.)

* Originally published Aug. 23 by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Environment Programme: www.tierramerica.net