Monday, January 10, 2011

Resistance Leader Survives Kidnapping and Torture


Monday afternoon (January 10, 2011) Juan Chinchilla, a member of the Executive Committee of the FNRP was located having survived a kidnapping and torture for 2 days.

On Saturday, January 8, Chinchilla, a journalist and a representative of Youth In Resistance and the Unified Campesino Movement of Aguan (MUCA) was kidnapped as he rode his motorcycle to his home in the campesino settlement of La Concepcion in the municipality of Tocoa in the Aguan region in northern Honduras. Moments before being kidnapped he made a phone call to denounce the presence of motorcycle and car following him. Gunshots were heard, but when people arrived at the scene they only found his motorcycle with bullet holes.

Immediately human rights organizations, resistance organization, and solidarity groups internationally and nationally responded with urgent actions calling the local police, Honduran government, U.S. Embassy, U.S. State Department and other entities demanding that Chinchilla be “reappeared” alive and well. In Aguan the campesino organizations began a physical search of the rural area where the golpista landowners Miguel Facusse, René Morales and Reinaldo Canales are contesting campesinos’ rights to land. These landowners are responsible along with the de facto regime of Porfirio Lobo for the militarization of the region, the violent attacks on the campesinos and the disappearances and murders of numerous peasant activists.

Chinchilla reappeared and is safe in an undisclosed location. He has burns and bruises from torture.

Information from Los Necios; Red Morazanica; Resistencia, Rights Action

No comments:

Post a Comment

Related Posts with Thumbnails