In the Guapinol community in Honduras, the river that once supplied the local population with clean drinking water now supplies tap water that runs thick and muddy brown. Overzealous private security guards once gathered on the river banks to force away the protestors, but they were soon replaced with security forces from the Honduran government itself. And for two years, eight human rights defenders were trapped in arbitrary detention, with the future of the land they fought to protect still uncertain. 

A mine on the mountain

 In 2011, the Honduran government passed protections that banned development projects within national parks, including the Botaderos mountain upstream from the Guapinol river. Soon enough however, the government began to relax its own protections to accommodate a massive iron oxide mine near the mountain, despite continuous resistance from the local community. The mine is owned by Lenir Pérez and Ana Facussé, an enormously wealthy oligarch couple with deep political connections through their extensive business and family ties. With their names on this mining project, it was not difficult for the construction to get approved. 

The Committee for the Defence of Common and Public Assets (CMDBCP), a network of environmental rights groups in the region, has rightly asserted that there were clear irregularities in the granting of the mine permit, and many questionable incidents by the corporation that were never investigated. Already, more than 32 CMDBCP members have been prosecuted by the state or arbitrarily detained, and six have been killed. The Guapinol and San Pedro rivers, used by locals for drinking water, turned brown with sediment from construction and caused sickness and rashes in those who drank it. Not only does the mining company take water from the river for the production of iron oxide, it also stores wells full of toxic chemical byproducts of this process with communities of people living just down the mountain.

The government came down hard on the protests as concerns about the pollution started gaining traction— the region is now heavily militarized, and protestors have been targeted by state-sponsored smear campaigns, with many seeking asylum outside the country. It is part of a greater war that the government has waged against its people, with death squads operating freely in areas fraught with confrontations over land rights. 

The case that has gained international attention is the trial of the Guapinol Eight. Ewer Alexander Cedillo Cruz, José Abelino Cedillo Cantarero, José Daniel Márquez Márquez, Kelvin Alejandro Romero Martínez, Porfirio Sorto Cedillo, Orbin Nahuan Hernandez, Arnol Javier Alemán and Jeremías Martínez were all arrested while protesting the mining development and its resulting water pollution. Community protestors had created an encampment to block further construction before they were violently cleared by security forces. It is clear that the Eight were put away under trumped-up charges, intended both to smear their reputations and take advantage of a law allowing indefinite pre-trial detention for those with certain criminal charges. 

In the aftermath of the arrest of the Guapinol Eight, the issues with the mining company persisted, as did the need for the community to oppose them. "The activism of the families is still happening,” says UC Davis Human Rights professor Amy Argenal, who witnessed the trial as part of an international observation in January. “Now the women in the community are the ones doing the work. The men are in prison, but the women are the ones out there facing the fear and intimidation,” she says. Since the Guapinol Eight were detained, their families have reported intimidation tactics from the mining company, such as seeing private security forces around their homes. 

Isn’t there always a coup?

Honduras is considered one of the most dangerous countries to be an environmental rights defender in the world, with UN human rights experts condemning the arbitrary detention and murder of protestors, as well as the use of the military and police to brutalize demonstrators. The issue of environmental rights in Honduras goes far beyond Guapinol and the iron oxide mine. There is a reason the government has recently been so willing to open the door for development projects known to risk the health and safety of local communities. 

In 2009, just six months after President Obama took office, the United States backed a coup that overthrew left-wing president Manuel Zelaya, ushering in a new era of far-right leaders and persistent human rights abuses. One of these conservative presidents, the National Party’s Juan Orlando Hernández, was directly implicated in cocaine trafficking and has used Honduran security forces to terrorize anti-government protestors. 

The role of the United States in propping up Hernández is not a widely discussed aspect of American foreign policy, but it cannot be overlooked. Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State at the time of the coup, has since defended the choice to overthrow Zelaya. President Trump’s chief-of-staff John Kelly praised Hernández for his human rights record and anti-corruption stance. American dollars poured into Hernández’s coffers through scandal after scandal, and the State Department was silent after his 2017 reelection was plagued by so many irregularities that international observers called for a new election. 

While United States officials have praised Hernández for his pro-business and allegedly pro-human rights vision for Honduras, human rights groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have extensively documented the horrific instances of violence and suppression that have plagued his presidency. Hernández’s rule was part of a massive web of corruption: a network of politicians, wealthy oligarchs, and organized crime enriching themselves under the guise of economic liberalization. While the National Party’s self-proclaimed support of privatization is what earned it funding from the United States and International Monetary Fund, it is also the philosophy that is used as a justification for projects like the Guapinol mine that reek of corruption. 

We cannot ignore that these policies have fueled the harsh crackdown on environmental advocates like the Guapinol Eight. In 2011, the U.S.-backed Honduran government hosted a conference entitled “Honduras is Open For Business”, representing a political pivot to selling off the country to the highest bidder. This push for poorly regulated extraction projects carried out by multinational corporations has polluted and displaced communities. Combined with conservative authoritarian leaders with no qualms about using violence and intimidation tactics, this issue is a major factor in the large numbers of refugees fleeing Honduras for Mexico and the United States.

In a two-year investigation, watchdog group Global Witness deemed Honduras the deadliest country for environmental activists. The report reads: “Nowhere are you more likely to be killed for standing up to companies that grab land and trash the environment than in Honduras.”

The aftermath

In January of 2022, Honduras’s first left-wing president since the coup took office. Xiomara Castro is the wife of former president Manuel Zelaya, who was ousted in the coup. Castro has spoken extensively about the role of the United States in the coup and its role in backing the oppressive administration of her predecessor. With Castro’s election, there is hope for the future. In her inaugural address, she reminded the crowd of her Platform #11: freedom for the Guapinol Eight.

On February 9th, six of the eight Guapinol protestors were convicted through suspicious proceedings. The convictions came after years of illegal pre-trial detention, constant hearing delays, and accusations of doctored evidence. 

The defense lawyers have asserted that two of the judges assigned to the case were compromised, and in some way affiliated with the mining company. Bias in favor of the prosecution from these judges was documented in the international observation of the trial, with wide berth being given to prosecution witnesses and open hostility shown towards defense counsel. This corruption is important to note, as barely a day after the conclusion of the trial, the convictions were overturned by the Honduran Supreme Court.

However, the six wrongfully convicted activists were imprisoned for days after the verdict. The lower court initially refused to release them, but the activists were finally released on February 24th.  A massive crowd of supporters greeted them after weeks of protestors gathering in support of the wrongfully charged men, celebrating a victory for human rights and potentially a turning tide in the country. The corruption within the Tocoa court responsible for the conviction demonstrates fracturing in the government after the recent regime change. However, it is important to know that the Supreme Court ruling may never have happened if Honduras was still suffering under the Hernández administration.

Because of this, it is important to note that the United States has recently publicly flipped on its support for Hernández. Shortly before the Guapinol Eight were released, the U.S. requested Hernández’s extradition due to his long-known involvement in narcotics trafficking. It is a last-minute policy change that comes much too late after the United States’ many years of support for Hernández’s crimes against the Honduran people.

 “Successive U.S. administrations sullied our reputation by treating Hernández as a friend and partner,” wrote Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) following the arrest of Hernández. Leahy has previously been involved in an unsuccessful attempt to sanction Hernández for his administration’s inhumane treatment of protestors. He accused U.S. officials of “making excuse after excuse for a government…that functioned as a criminal enterprise.” 

The future

The years under the previous administrations have been incredibly damaging for Honduras; environmental degradation has run rampant as the leaders have failed the people, enriching themselves with illegal and lucrative contracts at the expense of the population’s safety. Even with a new administration that purports to support the Guapinol Eight and the right to a safe environment, it will be a long road towards undoing the damage that unmitigated extraction has done to Honduras. Special economic zones that allow foreign corporations to develop protected land must end.

Importantly, we cannot forget the role of the United States in what happened to Guapinol. It was the United States that helped install a government hostile to human rights. The United States provided military equipment and funding to Hernández through every corruption scandal, through his fraudulent 2017 reelection, through his use of government forces to attack activists, and through his direct involvement in narcotics trafficking. The United States’ history of overthrowing democratically elected left-wing leaders and installing dangerous authoritarians has haunted international diplomacy efforts for decades. Harmful regime change policies must be understood as what they are — imperialism. Shortsighted policymaking like regime change only stews international resentment and props up human rights abusers abroad. 

The trial of the Guapinol Eight is a microcosm of a much larger issue. It represents the causes underlying a refugee crisis, pollution, human rights abuses, modern-day imperialism, and political corruption. With Xiomara Castro’s election, the hope is that Honduras can be set on a better path to recover from the damage done to both its land and governmental institutions in the aftermath of the 2009 coup.