The brutal wave of killings, threats, kidnappings, beatings, torture, and disappearances of labor and social movement activists in Honduras continues, directed at Afro-Indigenous women, LGBTQI activists, campesinos, trade unionists, independent journalists, and opposition political activists.
On Saturday November 16th, two men shot and killed Jorge Alberto Acosta in a billiard parlor four blocks from his house in La Lima, Cortes, Honduras. Jorge, 62, was a leader for SITRATERCO, the oldest union in the country, which represents Chiquita banana workers.
In early 2018, 2,800 banana workers held a 77-day strike after Chiquita illegally relocated its medical center — which had provided full healthcare to working families for over 60 years — to a far-off location and replaced it with an expensive, low-grade private medical center.
Workers on the picket line were met with live bullets from military police and mass layoffs from Chiquita.
After the strike ended, Jorge and his fellow trade unionists began receiving death threats, and were subject to physical attacks, surveillance, and break-ins. They repeatedly denounced these threats to government officials, who are obliged to investigate and provide adequate protective measures for threatened union leaders — but never did.
The authors of Jorge’s assassination know very well that the government of Honduras was never going to investigate the reported threats or protect the labor leaders, and they are counting on the government’s inaction now.
If you eat Chiquita bananas I’d encourage you to denounce this killing and the recent wave of violence against human rights defenders in Honduras. You can write a letter to Honduran officials via the International Labor Rights Forum at this link https://actionnetwork.org/letters/justice-for-jorge-alberto-acosta
Tim
Central Minnesota Political
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