The need for this monitoring arose because of on-going human rights violations and the failure of the courts and local authorities to resolve the problems in spite of the obligations that the Honduran state acquired when it ratified international human rights instruments. Therefore a commission composed of twelve international experts and representatives of international organisations presided over the Public Hearing. 

Public enquiry

The Public Hearing took place on 28 May 2012, in the city of Tocoa. Its principal objectives were to receive the testimonies of peasants affected by the agrarian conflict in the Bajo Aguán, to learn about the analyses of Honduran human rights organisations, and to highlight the human rights situation in the Bajo Aguán. Representatives of the Executive Secretariat of the Inter-American Human Rights Commission, the Delegation of the European Union and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights attended as international observers.

The organisers of the Public Hearing also invited various representatives of the Honduran government to present their views on the conflict and the measures that have been taken to address it. César Ham, Minister-Director of the National Agrarian Institute (INA), was the only official who accepted the invitation. Nevertheless, at the last minute he was unable to attend. At the end of public hearing the commission released a special report highlighting specific problems regarding rights of peasants.

A more detailed information on the issues raised and conclusions reached at the Public Hearing is available here.

Historically rooted problems

Agrarian conflict in Honduras and the problems of the Bajo Aguán grow out of an historical context dating to the Spanish conquest, with the emergence of latifundios and minifundios. These problems worsened after independence with measures taken by “criollo” governments and with the arrival of transnational banana companies in Honduras. The efforts at land redistribution during the 20th century, especially in the agrarian reform launched in the 1960s, were followed in 1992 by structural adjustment programs and the Law for the Modernization and Development of the Agricultural Sector, the negative effects of which are still being felt.

This law not only stopped the process of distributing agrarian reform lands to smallholders and rural workers, but it also promoted the sale of agrarian reform lands and their concentration in a few hands, and the state’s withdrawal from providing services. After 1992 in the Bajo Aguán many peasant cooperatives were sold off, with the collusion of INA officials, leaving thousands of families dependent on day labour and making it difficult for them to meet their basic needs. The landless in this region began negotiations with the INA years before the coup d’état in order to gain access to lands that they considered their own. Since they were unable to obtain a clear response through legal channels, in December 2009 the peasant communities initiated a series of land recuperations in the Bajo Aguán. This conflict develops in the context of a large-scale expansion of monocultures, particularly African palm, in the Bajo Aguán.

Violence related to Bajo Aguan
Since September 2009, according to international human rights organisations, 48 individuals affiliated with the peasant organisations, as well as a journalist and his partner, have been assassinated as a result of the Bajo Aguán conflict. Moreover, on 15 May 2011, a peasant disappeared and remains missing. According to the Public Ministry, since the beginning of 2010, twelve private guards and a worker for one of the palm companies have been assassinated in circumstances that have still not been clarified. During the Public Hearing, 24 people testified about twelve cases of human rights violations related to the agrarian conflict.

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