Innocent Hondurans Killed For The Climate  

Posted by Ryan in , ,

     Here is another example of the horrors that are being carried out in the name of climate change. Another company is in hot water over the killing of innocents in order to secure land for carbon credit schemes. See my earlier article on the recent news about Ugandans being treated in a similar manner.
British Corporation Evicts Villagers In Uganda

 
EU carbon credits scheme tarnished by alleged murders in Honduras
Calls for Honduran credits to be thrown out of ETS following alleged killings, while consultation process goes under review

Arthur Neslen for EurActiv, part of the Guardian Environment Network 
guardian.co.uk,

The reported killing of 23 Honduran farmers in a dispute with the owners of UN-accredited palm oil plantations has called into question the integrity of the EU's emission trading scheme (ETS), as carbon credits from the plantations remain on sale.

In Brussels, Green MEP Bas Eickhout called the alleged human rights abuses "a disgrace", and told EurActiv he would be pushing the European Commission to bar carbon credits from the plantations from being traded under the ETS. Several members of the CDM board have been "personally distressed" by the events in Bajo Aguán, northern Honduras, according to the board's chairman, Martin Hession, and have placed under review the CDM's stakeholder consultation process.

"Plainly, the events that have been described are deplorable," said Hession. "There is no excuse for them." But because they took place after the CDM's stakeholder consultations had been held, and fell outside the board's primary remit to investigate emissions reductions and environmental impacts, it had been powerless to block project registrations.

At the heart of the issue are the reported murders of 23 local farmers who tried to recover land that they say was illegally sold to big palm oil plantations, such as Grupo Dinant, in a country scarred by widespread human rights abuses.

In July, a report by an international fact-finding mission was presented to the European Parliament's human rights sub-committee, alleging that 23 farmers, one journalist and his partner, had all been murdered in the Bajo Aguán region between January 2010 and March 2011.

The alleged killings were facilitated by the "direct involvement of private security guards from some of the local companies who are complicit with police and military officials", the report said. In some cases it cited "feigned accidents" in which farmers were run over by security guards working for palm oil businessmen. In other cases, the farmers were simply shot, or had "disappeared"....

Charities like the Lutheran World Federation are particularly concerned, as they say the situation in Bajo Aguán is deteriorating. "There are worrying signs that the Honduran government is moving 1,200 police officers and military personnel into the area," said Toni Sandell, a rights worker with Christian NGO Aprodev.
Other human rights workers in the region claim linkages between Honduran state forces and the landowner's militias they protect, which are said to have connections to local drug traffickers.
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/oct/03/eu-carbon-credits-murders-honduras?newsfeed=true

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 4 at Tuesday, October 04, 2011 and is filed under , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the comments feed .

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