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Destrucción de los viveros de coco en Vallecito  7/8/2019 OFRANEH: "A pesar de los esfuerzo realizados por el pueblo Garífuna para recuperar uno de los alimentos básicos de la gastronomía de nuestro pueblo, parece ser que existe un complot entre los vecinos de Vallecito – entre los que se encuentran los heredero de Miguel Facusse- para destruir las plántulas destinadas a repartirse entre las comunidades, las que así eventualmente tendrán viveros con los cuales se iniciaría la replantación a nivel de la costa Garífuna. El pasado viernes, en horas de la noche, parte del vivero de cocos fue destruido por el ganado de algún mal intencionado “vecino”. Cabe señalar que desde años, grupos aliados al crimen organizado han tratado de apoderarse de nuevo de Vallecito, paraje que hasta el 2014 fue utilizado como pista clandestina."

Witness to the struggle of the Guapinol, Honduras Environmental Defenders: Criminalization of Protest, Grass Roots Victory, Challenges of Solidarity  3/20/2019 SHARE: "Back in August of 2012 the Honduran Congress established a national park in the lush tropical Botaderos Mountains, where seven rivers have their source, including the Guapinol River. In December of 2013, Congress modified the park’s extension, removing 537 acres from its core. Inversiones Pinares, a company linked to Facusse family, one of the wealthiest in Honduras, developed plans to strip-mine iron oxide at this same acreage, and did so without the input Honduran law requires from affected communities. By early 2018 the company had bulldozed a broad dirt road deep into the mountains and had removed all vegetation from the mine site. As a result, the formerly pure water of the Guapinol and San Pedro Rivers became contaminated and unusable by the people living downstream."

El clan Facussé y el recrudecimiento de la guerra de baja intensidad en el Aguan.  11/1/2018 OFRANEH: "Con el lamentable deceso de dos soldados en el Bajo Aguán, terminó un operativo de las fuerzas de seguridad del estado que se encontraban disolviendo una toma de carretera, a la altura del desvió de Guapinol; lugar donde se dio un día antes, una violenta represión en contra de los defensores de las cuencas hídricas del Parque Nacional Carlos Escaleras, en donde la empresa Minera Pinares, relacionada con el clan de la familia Facussé, viene destruyendo las cuencas hidrográficas para la explotación de óxido de hierro."

“Pepe” Lobo en lista de extraditables, según Adolfo Facussé  9/27/2017 Tiempo: "De acuerdo a Adolfo Facussé, empresario hondureño, el expresidente de Honduras (2010-2014), Porfirio Lobo Sosa, está en una lista de extraditables. Pero aduce que el gobierno no lo entrega porque teme un escándalo político. En ese sentido, el exdirector de la Asociación Nacional de Industriales (ANDI), dijo que “Pepe Lobo” ha sido pedido en extradición por los Estados Unidos. Pero, el gobierno se está negando a entregarlo. Lo anterior y de forma reiterativa, porque teme un escándalo político que lo puede afectar en los resultados de las elecciones de noviembre”."

Indigenous Hondurans Fight ‘Right-Wing Invaders’ Burning Crops  5/11/2017 teleSUR: "The culprits, according to COPINH, are intentionally setting fire to corn, bean and coffee plantations along Honduras’ Rio Blanco, or “White River.” The river, considered the “cradle” of Mayan civilization in Honduras, is the same one that slain activist Berta Caceres defended from exploitative multinational corporations for decades. COPINH claims wealthy, right-wing landowning families like the Madrids and the Facusse are behind the burnings. The organization, which claims these families are also hiring armed groups to intimidate Indigenous land defenders, has vowed to take action."

Meanwhile in the Aguán, More Military Terror Campaigns Against Campesinos  12/3/2013 MCRGC: "The persecuted are leaders Santos Marcelo Torres and Leodan Cartagena Castillo both MCRGC members who have been active in land recuperation in the Finca Paso Aguán which is in the possession of the landowner Miguel Facusse . Alexis Mirinda, also a campesino leader, was arrested this afternoon by members of the army. He received psychological torture to pressure him to give information about the whereabouts of the above mentioned peasant leaders."

Xiomara de Zelaya cuenta con la simpatía de los empresarios "golpistas"  11/13/2013 El Faro: "El presidente de la influyente Asociación Nacional de Industriales (ANDI), Adolfo Facussé, quien se manifestó a favor del golpe del 28 de junio de 2009, ha dado la sorpresa: declara simpatías hacia la aspirante del partido Libertad y Refundación (Libre), fundado por Zelaya. "Tenemos empresarios de todos los partidos. Libre tiene algo que me atrae mucho a mí que es la promesa del cambio. El país definitivamente tiene que cambiar", afirmó a la AFP el influyente empresario, quien calificó al actual gobierno de Porfirio Lobo como "un desastre"."

John Perry: Enjoy your Nutella  8/13/2013 Quotha: "Last week, the RSPO held its fourth Latin American sustainable palm oil conference in Honduras. Alongside the WWF and other proponents of sustainability, a prominent organiser and exhibitor was the local palm oil company Dinant, currently seeking RSPO certification. The company is led by Miguel Facussé, the largest landowner in Honduras. He’s also been called the ‘oil palm grower of death’. Much of the palm oil development is taking place in the lower Aguán valley where there is a worsening conflict between large landowners and thousands of landless peasants. In the 1990s, Dinant and other landowners ‘used a combination of fraud, coercion and violence’ to take land given to peasant farmers under agrarian reform laws. Farmers’ organisations are demanding that these ‘sales’ be declared void. They are under constant threat. At least 80 people have been killed."

Expanding Palm Oil Empires In The Name Of 'Green Energy' And 'Sustainable Development'  8/5/2013 AP: "From 6th-8th August, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) is holding its 4th Latin American Conference on so-called sustainable palm oil in Honduras [1]. (Conference website: http://rspo2013.com/). Environmental and social campaigners have been shocked to learn that one event sponsor is the palm oil company Dinant Corporation, owned and controlled by Miguel Facusse, the largest landowner in Honduras [and one of the larger drug traffickers]. They are calling on World Wildlife Fund WWF and three other organisations to withdraw from and denounce the conference being held in Honduras due to the Dinant’s sponsorship of the event and the serious human rights implications [2]."

URGENT ACTION on Vallecito, from OFRANEH - Process of Land Remediation is Renewed on the Garifuna Lands of Vallecito, Colon  9/4/2012 Quotha: "Any action suffered by the Garifunas will be the responsibility of the paid gunmen of Reinaldo Villalobo and of Miguel Facusse, as well as the government itself." [Facusse is one of the wealthiest men in the country and a large scale drug trafficker.]

Carbon Blood Money in Honduras  3/10/2012 Common Dreams: "Small farmers in this region have increasingly fallen under the thumb of large landholders like palm oil magnate Miguel Facussé, who has been accused by human rights groups of responsibility for the murder of numerous campesinos in Bajo Aguán since the 2009 coup. Yet Facussé’s company has been approved to receive international funds for carbon mitigation under the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)."

WikiLeaks Honduras: US Linked to Brutal Businessman  10/21/2011 The Nation: "New Wikileaks cables now reveal that the US embassy in Honduras—and therefore the State Department—has known since 2004 that Miguel Facussé is a cocaine importer. US “drug war” funds and training, in other words, are being used to support a known drug trafficker’s war against campesinos…. Miguel Facussé’s power base lies in the lower Aguán Valley, where campesinos originally settled in the 1970s as part of an agrarian reform strategy by the Honduran government, which encouraged hundreds of successful campesino cooperatives and collectives in the region. Beginning in 1992, though, new neoliberal governments began promoting the transfer of their lands to wealthy elites, who were quick to take advantage of state support to intimidate and coerce campesinos into selling, and in some cases to acquire land through outright fraud. Facussé, the biggest beneficiary by far of these state policies, now claims at least 22,000 acres in the lower Aguán, at least one-fifth of the entire area, much of which he has planted in African palms for an expanding biofuel empire."

Revelan lazos de magnate hondureño con el narco  9/3/2011 Dick Emanuelsson: "Obviamente, si bien Facussé tiene varias preguntas incómodas que responder a partir del contenido de este cable, los Estados Unidos harían bien en explicar cómo, si durante más de ocho años han tenido acceso a esta información, nunca actuaron sobre ella."

DRUG PLANE BURNED ON PROMINENT HONDURAN'S PROPERTY  9/3/2011 Wikileaks: "Post's JIATF-S TAT provided information to the HAF March 14 about a known drug trafficking flight with a 1,000 kilo cocaine shipment from Colombia, which resulted in a fruitless air interdiction attempt. Separately, a law enforcement source provided information that the aircraft successfully landed March 14 on the private property of Miguel Facusse, a prominent Honduran, who is one of the nation's wealthiest individuals, leading industrialist, and uncle of former Honduran President Carlos Flores Facusse."

Honduras: killings continue as Aguán becomes "new Colombia"  8/30/2011 WW4 Report: "African oil palms have replaced bananas as the main commercial crop in the valley, and tensions increased as landowners like Facussé saw the potential for the palms in the biofuel business, which could attract carbon credits and international financing. To maintain their estates, the landowners have hired private guards and supplied them with arms. Campesino groups consider the guards paramilitaries and blame them for most of the 51 killings of campesinos that they say have taken place in the past two years. Meanwhile, narco traffickers and other criminals have reportedly moved into the area."

Are Foreign Criminal Gangs Driving Honduras Land Conflict?  8/24/2011 Honduras Weekly: "Drug traffickers are certainly a powerful presence in Colón, but other reports have tied them to palm oil plantation owners, rather than to the peasant movements. The state, located on the Caribbean coast close to Nicaragua, is a key transit location for trafficking groups moving drugs from South America towards Mexico and the United States. A statement released by representatives of the Catholic Church in Honduras said that drug traffickers are in the process of becoming big landowners in the region, and that they dominate Bajo Aguán, flaunting their wealth. Similarly, the palm oil landowners have themselves been accused of using foreign firepower, with allegations after a series of killings in November 2010 that Facusse had hired 150 Colombian paramilitaries to form a private army and attack the peasant movements. Land conflicts in other parts of Latin America, driven by the accumulation of land to grow monocrops such as palm oil, have tended to feature organized criminal groups on the side of big landowners, rather than on the side of the peasants. In the 1990s and 2000s Colombia saw mass displacements carried out by paramilitary groups, who would remove peasants from their land on behalf of big agribusinesses like palm oil."

Miguel Facussé Blinks  6/11/2011 Honduras Culture and Politics: "His recent actions suggest he has reached the end of his rope. In short order, he has sued prominent critics; taken out self-promoting newspaper ads, including one in which he sought to unilaterally renegotiate the terms of a settlement with the Honduran government over disputed land in the Bajo Aguan; and continued his campaign of seeking police enforcement of judicial orders against campesinos living on land he refuses to cede."

African Palm and Afro-Indigenous Resistance: Race and Dispossession of Garifuna Lands on Honduras' Northern Coast  6/1/2011 Academia: "This thesis seeks to connect the Honduran state’s need for capital accumulation, it’s almost myopic focus on agro-industrialization and dispossessing Garífuna from lands valued for African palm production, and finally how the Garífuna have been able to effectively resist the state’s attempts to take Garífuna lands by force. One company in particular, the Dinant Corporation, poses the greatest threat to Garífuna communities in the remote Honduran territories of Atlántida and Colón. Dinant Corporation, owned entirely by Miguel Facussé, is a large commercial producer and processor of African palm in Honduras. The company is the largest and fastest gorwing African palm producer in Honduras. In order to expand so quickly, Facussé expropriated thousands of hectares of Garífuna lands in the Garífuna territories in Atlántida and Colón. The state has supported Facusse by providing troops, financing Facusse's expansion, and dispossessing the Garífuna from their lands. However, some Garífuna have been effective in protesting land expropriation and have even successfully reclaimed lands that commercial African palm producers had taken from the Garífuna communities. This project provides a close examination of how the state and African palm producers have worked in violent ways to expand the African palm industry and how the Garífuna have resisted expropriation of their lands."

Predators: Miguel Facussé Barjum, businessmen and landowner , Honduras  4/15/2011 Reporters without Borders: "A community radio station launched on 14 April 2010 in a fertile region coveted by the “oil palm magnate,” La Voz de Zacate Grande has been the constant target of physical attacks, censorship and persecution by private security guards in Facussé’s pay, with the police and army acting as accomplices. The same goes for the Afro-Honduran Radio Coco Dulce, a community radio station on the Atlantic coast. Ten journalists were murdered in Honduras in 2010. A probable or proven link to the victim’s work as a journalist exists in three of the ten cases. All are still unpunished."

Denunciation of Facussé and el Cardemal  1/15/2011 Quotha: "That in July 2009 we presented a formal complaint to the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor requesting an investigation and determination of whether the ex-President, Carlos Roberto Flores Facusee and Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez were responsible for Abuse of Authority and diversion of public funds, because, through an executive agreement in December 2001, the ex president authorized payment of 100 thousand lempira to the office of the cardinal monthly and permanently. This executive agreement was published in the newspaper La Gaceta and the Cardinal has publicly acknowledged that the money was received at least once by the archdiocese of Tegucigalpa."

Sus captores hablaban en inglés e idioma que Juan Chinchilla no reconoció  1/11/2011 Dick Emanuelsson: "Según la primera declaración de Chinchilla, los secuestradores eran guardias de Miguel Facussé, que incluso hablaban en inglés y en un idioma que no reconoció, posiblemente israelita que son expertos tanto en “consultoría de terrorismo estatal” como en ejecutar “acciones especiales” al servicio a los Poderes Facticos del mundo, pero siempre por un buen precio."

Honduras: Two Detained and Fear of Evictions by Coup Security Forces in Land Recuperations in Colon  12/17/2009 The Dominion: "Two active members of the Aguan Farmworkers Unification Movement (MUCA) were detained at approximately 11am yesterday, December 16th when they left a land recuperation in the department of Colon, in northeastern Honduras. Osman Alexis Ulloa Flores and Mario René Ayala were taken to the police station in Tocoa and remain in detention in the city. Local police authorities refused to comment via telephone on the arrest or charges. However, the local district attorney was able to confirm that the men have been charged with land usurpation, while resistance lawyers in the region confirmed that the accusing party is the Cressida Corporation owned by powerful businessman and landowner Miguel Facussé Barjum."

FRENTE NACIONAL DE RESISTENCIA CONTRA EL GOLPE DE ESTADO  9/27/2009 Frente Nacional: Twitter del Frente Nacional en vivo otra vez - "# Enviados de la OEA que aterrizaron hoy en Tegucigalpa fueron regresados por órdenes del fascista Micheletti. Muestra que no quiere diálogo. 3 minutes ago # Marcia Facusse, la diputada de las comidas rapidas que no pagan impuestos, mociona en el congreso para quitar niños a padres en Resistencia. 7 minutes ago # Hija del Dictador; Bianca MIcheletti ha sido deportada de USA hoy domingo en horas de la tarde. 10 minutes ago # Gobierno de facto crea decreto presidencial para cerrar medios de comunicación que no esten afines al gobierno usurpador. 11 minutes ago"

The boundless hypocrisy of the Inter-American Press Association  9/24/2009 Machetera: "The Inter-American Press Association (IAPA) that bemoans the “limitations” on press freedom suffered by media opposed to the coup d’etat, avoids recalling that two of the main conspirators behind the coup which led to the expulsion of President Zelaya from Honduras are also its main (and practically only) Honduran members. Associated for decades with the CIA and located in Miami, USA, the IAPA has issued “denunciations” of the electricity cutoffs to Channel 36 and Radio Globo, through which they are trying to give themselves a legitimate image… Carlos Roberto Flores Facussé, the former president of Honduras (1998-2001) and the owner of the La Tribuna newspaper, and Jorge Canahuati Larach, the billionaire owner of the La Prensa and El Heraldo newspapers are among the conspirators who brought about the coup."

Miguel Facussé: Fencing off Paradise  5/1/2005 Envio: "In Tocoa, in the northeastern department of Colón, it is said that Facussé offered 3 million lempiras to Carlos Escaleras, who ran as the mayoral candidate for the leftist Democratic Unification party (UD). Escaleras didn’t accept the offer and continued to openly criticize Facussé’s decision to set up a plant there to extract African palm oil without any apparent concern for the potential damage from vapors and chemicals to the hundreds of families living in numerous neighboring communities. A few months after the offer and Escaleras’ continued environmentally based criticism, he was gunned down by hired assassins. The crime has been lost in the thick fog of impunity hanging over Honduran justice, although human rights organizations did manage to get the case passed on to the OAS’s Inter-American Commission on Human Rights."

HONDURAS: GARIFUNA LEADER'S HOUSE BURNT DOWN AND SHOTS FIRED  10/20/1999 Garinet: "Tragically, it appears that this struggle has entered a stage of violence, as this past week, the house of one of the Garifuna leaders was set on fire by some type of flame-thrower weapon, and then shots of an automatic weapon were fired into it. The house, which was occupied by the family including children, is in Vallecito, where Garifuna have been living and working in an agricultural cooperative for over 9 years (Nuevo Amanecer). Their land abuts the ever-expanding lands of Facusse, one of the biggest land-owners in the country, who is also a relative to the president. The members of the cooperative have long been subject to invasions of their land and threats, but this escalation into outright violence has everyone fearful of a bloodbath. There is evidence of hired killers."
 

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