The year 2022 was a year of change for Honduras: it was the first time in the country’s history that a woman assumed the presidency. For PBI Honduras, 2022 was also a year of change, but above all a year of growth: we began to accompany the organisations SOMOS CDC and ARCAH and we increased the number of activities carried out compared to 2021.
“If I fight for the mountain it is because we are the living river. The river speaks, and our mountain nourishes us. If they destroy it, we will have to leave because we ourselves are a part of nature.” - Dilma Cruz, human rights defender from the Guapinol community.
Forty years after Peace Brigades International was founded and at nine years since we first arrived in Honduras, we are continuing to provide integral accompaniment to organizations and human rights defenders at risk: “International presence is the indigenous communities’ bulletproof vest” (Donald Hernández, coordinator of CEHPRODEC).
The arrayán (Southern wax myrtle or bayberry) is a medicinal shrub that has curative properties, including the ability to cleanse the lungs. It is also the name of the village where in 1983 seventeen women created the peasant farmers’ organization Nueva Esperanza (New Hope), in the municipality of Comayagua (Department of Comayagua). The name, chosen for its powerful symbolic meaning, referred to the healing that they intended to bring to the “forgotten and mistreated” state-owned, untitled land* where they had lived for generations.
In January 2021, over 8,000 migrants left San Pedro Sula for the United States, fleeing the insecurity, poverty, and uncertainty of Honduras, a situation that had worsened due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the grave impacts of Hurricanes Eta and Iota. Participating in this caravan were approximately 300 members of the LGBTQI+ community, of whom 100 were trans woman.
As we await the final results of the Honduran elections, one thing is clear. This moment represents not only the culmination of an electoral process, but also the convergence of the multiple crises the country has faced since the 2009 Coup d’État, and particularly over the four years since the contested elections of 2017.
When the protests first began in Guapinol, Juana Ramona Zúñiga was in a meeting with the community council. She received a call; they wanted her to join a demonstration in the street. “The struggle is contagious.
“Honduras will not be ZEDE-d,” has been the main response of Honduran society in the face of the imminent implementation of Employment and Economic Development Zones (ZEDEs, as per the abbreviation in Spanish) in different areas throughout the country. These zones are defined by the Honduran Secretary for Economic Development as areas of Honduran national territory, which are subject to a “special regime”, and in which investors control fiscal policy, security, and conflict resolution.
