Political Quotes

“Mr. President, 4 months ago I made a statement about the murder of Honduran indigenous environmental defender and anti- corruption activist Juan Lopez, on September 14, 2024, who at that time was the latest victim of an ongoing epidemic of vigilante violence in that country. As I mentioned then, my office, like others in Congress, had received reports of recurring threats, attacks, arbitrary arrests, and assassinations of members of the Guapinol, Tocoa, and other communities in the Bajo Aguan region of Honduras. The crimes were intended to silence those who opposed the Los Pinares open-pit iron oxide mine and the Ecotek Thermoelectric Project in an indigenous reserve which threaten their livelihoods and the region's environment, and who challenged the companies and corrupt officials who profit from those projects. Mr. Lopez, a winner of the Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award in 2019, had been a victim of wrongful imprisonment, false prosecution, and had spoken out against corrupt officials in Tocoa. His assassination was the latest in a pattern of similar killings that have not resulted in justice. Of the six other assassinations of members of the Guapinol water defenders, no one has been prosecuted or punished, nor for the murders of scores of other social activists, journalists, and human rights defenders in Honduras.…”