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Share this action alert on your Facebook page or your Twitter account! Justice for Honduras - End U.S. Military Aid and Training Justice for Ebed Yanes!  One year ago this week, 15-year old Ebed Yanes was returning home in Tegucigalpa by motorcycle when he was murdered by the Honduran military. Soldiers pursued him in a Ford 350 truck donated by the US government to a checkpoint staffed by the US-trained, vetted, and equipped special forces.  Second
Lt. Josue Antonio Sierra, a 2011 graduate of WHINSEC/SOA, and member of
the unit specially vetted by the US, gave the order to start shooting
at the unarmed 15-year old. Ebed died immediately, his life forever cut
short. Click here to call for justice for Ebed Yanes and an end to US military aid to Honduras.Tomorrow, 6 military officials – 4 of whom are SOA graduates – will appear in court where they are being charged for covering up Ebed's murder. The cover-up runs deep and includes several high ranking officials, some of whom have since been promoted despite their role in hiding the murder of an innocent young person. Three-time SOA “Distinguished Graduate” Col. Jesus A. Marmol Yanes, the Commander of “Operation Lightning” and the checkpoint, is said to have lied to investigators. SOA graduate Lt. Col. Juan Rubén Girón told the soldiers involved to return to the scene of the crime and remove evidence of the murder while SOA graduate Lt. Col. Mariano Mendoza suggested to the soldiers who were to be questioned the testimony they should tell the investigators. Ebed is just one of the hundreds of Hondurans murdered by military or police since the 2009 SOA-graduate led coup, often with funding or training from the United States. In spite of links to numerous human rights abuses including extrajudicial executions, many of these U.S.-trained soldiers have been vetted by the US for human rights compliance.  Such
is the case of Col. Funes Ponce, the previous Commander of Honduras'
15th Battalion, who turned over the wrong weapons to investigators so
that ballistics testing wouldn't trace the soldiers to Ebed’s murder.
The 15th Battalion,
with SOA graduate Selman Arriaga in command of its special forces, is
also funded and trained by the US and has been implicated in repression
against campesinos in the Lower Aguan Valley, where almost 100
campesinos have been assassinated since the 2009 military coup.This week in the Lower Aguan Valley, members of the Honduran military's Xatruch III joint task force, commanded by SOA graduate Col. German Alfaro, together with private security guards of Honduras' most powerful landowner, have been inside the Paso Aguan Plantation  firing automatic weapons to intimidate the campesinos of the neighboring La Panama community.
The bodies of two campesinos who disappeared in the past year have been
discovered on the Paso Aguan Plantation and it is widely believed that
there may be additional clandestine graves
of other missing campesinos there. In addition to his forces
terrorizing the La Panama community in conjunction with paramilitary
security guards, Col. Alfaro has also been waging a media campaign aimed
at discrediting the campesino movements struggling for their land in
order to publicly justify the mounting number of murders.Despite widespread human rights abuses by the Honduran military and police, the US continues to pour millions into military and police aid in Honduras. US-vetting and certification unfortunately do not seem to mean much. In 2012, the State Department certified that Honduras was making sufficient progress on human rights to be able to receive the 20% of aid that Congress had specified should be withheld pending human rights certification. This starkly contradicts the reality on the ground, where repression, murders, and impunity still reign. Click here to contact your Senators, representatives, the State Department, and White House to demand an end to US military and police aid in Honduras. With the Honduran presidential elections just six months away and the new LIBRE party -- which grew out of the resistance to the military coup -- leading in the polls, the repression is only expected to increase between now and November.  Click here to receive updates and action alerts from the SOA Watch activantes on the ground in Honduras and add your voice to that of thousands of Hondurans calling for justice and self-determination.
Year after year, Honduras continues sending more and more soldiers to be trained at the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia. As the ongoing repression by Honduran military forces against the Honduran people show, it is more important than ever to close the SOA and demand a change in US foreign policy. Stay tuned for an update on organizing for this November's Vigil at the gates of the SOA in Ft. Benning! |
