Prominent Honduran Rural Leader Under Police Protection Killed

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Telesur

Prominent Honduran Rural Leader Under Police Protection Killed



MUCA's President Jose Angel Flores was assassinated today. | Photo: Facebook

Published 18 October 2016


According to campesino organizations, at least 150 rural activists have been killed so far in the area, as a result of fighting for their land rights.

Honduras' prominent rural leader and head of the Unified Campesinos Movement of the Aguan Valley, or MUCA, Jose Angel Flores was assassinated in Tocoa, in the northern department of Colon, reported teleSUR's correspondent in Honduras Gerardo Torres Monday night.

The information was confirmed by MUCA's former President Johnny Rivas on Radio Progreso, without further details. Rivas blamed the assassination on the forces opposing the rural struggle for the right to land.

Flores had been under police protection since March, after many death threats.

Read more: http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Prominent-Honduran-Rural-Leader-Under-Police-Protection-Killed--20161018-0036.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. Indigenous leader assassinated in Brazil

Indigenous leader assassinated in Brazil

By agency reporter
October 18, 2016

A Brazilian Indian leader at the forefront of his people’s struggle to reclaim their ancestral land has been assassinated.

. . .

Seu João, as he was known, was heavily involved in the Xukuru-Kariri tribe’s campaign to live on their ancestral land, a right enshrined in Brazilian and international law.

Another Xukuru-Kariri leader told the Brazilian support group CIMI: “The region has a history of violence resulting from the land struggle. Seu João was a respected leader of our people.”

Land theft is the biggest problem the Xukuru-Kariri and other tribal peoples face, says Survival International, the global movement for tribal peoples' rights. Around the world, industrialised society is stealing tribal lands in the pursuit of profit. But for tribal peoples, land is life. It fulfills all their material and spiritual needs.

More:
http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/23501