Following four days of protests at the construction site for the Patuca III dam, police and military personnel forcibly evicted residents yesterday to prepare for the first phases of dam construction. Residents of Olancho whose land would be flooded by the dam have not been reimbursed for their land nor provided any kind of reparations, according to Congressman Lucas Aguilera.
On October 10, over 100 protesters marched to the Presidential Palace in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, to demand a halt to the construction of the Patuca III hydroelectric dam. Miskitu, Garifuna and Lenca marchers called on the government to address 16 issues of concern to the Indigenous peoples of Honduras.
On September 10, 2011, the Honduran president’s office announced that the Minister of Finance signed a contract with the Chinese company Sinohydro to build three dams on the Patuca River, with construction scheduled to start in 2012. Sinohydro expects to fund the project with loans from Chinese financial institutions. A previous contract had only contemplated one dam, Patuca III, which will be built first.
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The Patuca III dam in Honduras is one of more than 250 dam projects being built by Chinese companies in 68 countries, according Peter Bosshard of the advocacy organization International Rivers.
In May 2011, Cultural Survival’s Global Response program launched a campaign to protect the Patuca River from construction of a hydroelectric dam by the Chinese company Sinohydro. This week, campaign partners OFRANEH, (the Federation of Garifuna People of Honduras) posted an expose of Sinohydro’s disreputable history in controversial dam projects around the world.
2011 Human World Geography Conference
Lawrence, KS. Leaders of the Miskitu and Tawahka Indigenous peoples will be at Haskel Indian Nations University this week to promote their campaigns to stop dam construction and to exercise Indigenous autonomy in Honduras’ vast Moskitia wilderness.
Cultural Survival's Global Response Program was invited to attend a conference held by campaign partners MASTA (Moskitia Asia Takanka) in Ahuas, Gracias a Dios, Honduras.
Human rights defenders in Honduras, including Indigenous leaders in the Moskitia, are vulnerable to assassination, assault, and other abuses, according to an editorial in the Miami Herald. Some 40 social movement leaders have been killed since President Porfirio Lobo took power following the coup that ousted the elected president, Manuel Zelaya. Mr.
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