World Bank dollars finance the green deserts of oil palms (Photo courtesy of sauvonslaforet.org)

Link to brief: http://rightsaction.org/action-content/written-submission-rights-action-and-global-initiative-economic-social-and-cultural
Link to Bajo Aguan report:  http://rightsaction.org/sites/default/files//Rpt_130220_Aguan_Final.pdf

Human rights advocates tell World Bank (WB) auditors that the WB is obligated to respect the rights of the "Panama" campesino community in Honduras, who were shot at while protesting the illegal and violent land usurpations that they are suffering at the hands of the Dinant Corporation, a WB loan recipient.

• Please send letters and call the US Secretary of the Treasury, the Canadian Minister of Finance, and the Executive Directors for the U.S. and Canada in the World Bank - Contact information below.

On March 6, 2013, the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (GI-ESCR) and Rights Action presented a brief to the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman (CAO) of the World Bank's International Finance Corporation (IFC) in reference to an ongoing audit the CAO is conducting of a $30 million loan to the Dinant Corporation, a Honduran African palm oil producer controlled by Honduras' largest landowner, Miguel Facusse.  The WB loan was made in late 2009, to the military-backed regime that came to power in Honduras after the June 2009 military coup, and that was engaged in widespread repression and human rights abuses against the Honduran people.

• Link to brief: http://rightsaction.org/action-content/written-submission-rights-action-and-global-initiative-economic-social-and-cultural

Even as the WB examines the loan, widespread violence and repression continues in the very region where the WB is invested in Dinant's African palm production.  The day before Rights Action and GI-ESCR presented the brief, Honduran security forces opened fire against a group of campesinos from the Panama farm protesting the ongoing usurpation of their land by the Dinant Corporation.

Two weeks ago, Rights Action published a comprehensive report investigation documenting human rights violations by Honduran security forces, and private security forces hired by African palm producers, describing the murders of 93 campesinos and those perceived to be their supporters. The day the report was released, February 21, Yoni Adolfo Cruz and Ezequiel Guillen Garcia disappeared; their tortured bodies were found on February 24th.

• Link to Bajo Aguan report:  http://rightsaction.org/sites/default/files//Rpt_130220_Aguan_Final.pdf

Demand that the World Bank, the U.S. and Canadian governments comply with international law and cancel the Dinant loan.

Ian H. Solomon
Executive Director
Office of the Executive Director of the United States
The World Bank
1818 H Street, N.W. (Mail Stop MC 13-1307)
Washington, DC 20433
f: (202) 477-2967
e: EDS01@worldbank.org

Jacob Lew
Secretary of the Treasury
United States Department of the Treasury
U.S. Department of Treasury
1500 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC  20220

Marie-Lucie Morin
Executive Director for Canada, Ireland and the Caribbean
The World Bank
1818 H Street, N.W.; Mail Stop MC 12-1206
Washington, DC 20433 U.S.A. 
f: (202) 477-4155
e: EDS07@worldbank.org

Jim Flaherty
Minister of Finance
Department of Finance Canada
140 O'Connor Street
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0G5
T: 613-992-1573 
F: 613-943-0938
E: finpub@fin.gc.ca

Source: rightsaction.org

More about THE GI-ESCR & RIGHTS ACTION BRIEF: WORLD BANK AND MEMBER STATES ARE OBLIGATED BY LAW TO PROTECT AND DEFEND HUMAN RIGHTS

Excerpt from rightsaction.org:

"NEW REPORT DOCUMENTS TARGETED CAMPESINO KILLINGS, DEATH SQUAD ACTIONS

According to an investigation published February 21, 2013, since January 2010, 95 members of campesino movements or those believed to be associated with them have been killed, 53 while waiting for buses riding bicycles or driving on public roads, 13 were in their homes or undisputed farmland, 10 abducted and their bodies later found, most tortured, while another 3 remain disappeared.  Another 16 were killed on or neighboring land in dispute, though many of those reportedly not in the context of an eviction but also apparently in targeted killings.

Reports indicate that hundreds more have been wounded, many disabled, raped, tortured, had their homes and families destroyed.  The day the report was released, February 21, Yoni Adolfo Cruz and Ezequiel Guillen Garcia disappeared; their tortured bodies were found on February 24th.

As the World Bank deliberates, the campesinos of Panama loose even more of their land at the point of hundreds of guns, and campesinos throughout the Aguan await the next victim of the violence the World Bank loan has facilitated."