Peaceful Protest Ends in Police Brutality

One example of how change and justice is possible in Honduras involves a legal case brought by a group of 45 indigenous people against the government. The 800,000 indigenous people who call Honduras home are often overlooked. For centuries, the indigenous populations of Honduras have found themselves in horrible living conditions, the victims of epidemics, underdevelopment and discrimination. They represent much of the 40% of the population who try to survive on less than a dollar per day. They suffer severe poverty and lack a political voice and access to means of communication. Honduran history reveals that when they do unite to approach the government about issues, they are often violently repressed.

On October 12, 1999, Columbus Day, a group of 8,000 indigenous and poor farmers came to the nation's capital (as they do every year) to demand their much needed rights to education, healthcare, transportation, and other basic necessities. The government had been notified well ahead of time of their intent to peacefully pass in front of the Supreme Court, the Secretary of Security, the United States and Spanish embassies, the Presidential House and the National Congress. However, when half of the group approached the front of the Presidential House, a police brigade blocked the street and illegally prohibited them to pass in front. After a few tense hours, the stand-off ended in violence when, without receiving orders, police opened fire on the protesters, who were supposedly throwing rocks.

During the following days, the confrontation was covered in all the Honduran media. The newspapers were splashed with stories presenting the police as victims and the peaceful protestors as drunken, angry paupers looking for a fight. The newspapers severely under-reported the number of individuals injured--figures ranged from as little as 5 to 18 indigenous wounded when the real number was 45. However, thanks to the work of COPINH and CONPAH, two indigenous rights organizations who denounced the events before the international community, the police responsible were temporarily suspended, and the president of Honduras promised to monetarily compensate those injured by the police, admitting that the violence was a mistake. However, the matter soon lost importance for the government, and months passed with no action taken towards paying this compensation.

AJS's Role
Domingo Gómez, a poor Lenca Indian farmer, was the most severely injured the day of the march, losing his left eye to a gunshot. After the government failed to fulfill promises of compensation, the Association for a More Just Society (AJS)'s Honduran partner organization, ASJ, along with COPINH and CONPAH arranged for reporters to interview Gómez and to recieve full reports regarding the victims. Soon the story of Gómez's injury and his community's poor living conditions spread over TV, radio and newspapers. After three months of growing media and international pressure solicited by ASJ, the government agreed to start negotiating the specific terms of compensation.

The following months were grueling and tense. ASJ mediated between the indigenous people and the government, visited victims in remote villages, and, together with COPINH and CONPAH, compiled an official list of the injured and their medical documents, and completed a 175-page proposal for the amount of compensation. During the course of all these weeks, international and media pressure was sustained to assure that the issue was not forgotten. The government never developed its own proposal for compensation. The ASJ lawyer Nelson Reyes, on behalf of the injured, completed a proposal, which in the end was accepted by the government.

Exactly one year and many prayers later, the government acknowledged that the indigenous groups' constitutional rights to peaceful protest had been violated and that the group was unjustly fired upon. In a public ceremony, Domingo Gómez and the 44 other victims recieved the long awaited monetary compensation. While the $160,000 the group received does not truly compensate them for their suffering, it represents the first time in Honduran history that the government accepted responsibility for violence committed by police while on duty. More important than the economic compensation, marginalized groups received an affirmation of dignity and respect, which all of God's children deserve.

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The Association for a More Just Society (AJS) oversees and funds initiatives carried out by Honduran partner organization la Asociación para una Sociedad más Justa (ASJ). AJS is a US-registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit, so all donations to AJS are tax-deductible for US taxpayers.