 Okay, are we live? Okay, here we go. Sorry for the delay. Welcome to what the F is going on in Latin America, CodePink's weekly YouTube program of hot news out of Latin America and the Caribbean. In partnership with Friends of Latin America and Task Force on the Americas, we broadcast every Wednesday on CodePink YouTube Live, 7.30 p.m. Eastern, 4.30 p.m. Pacific. Tonight, we have a very special program with two wonderful guests. We have a slight change in the programming as I had promoted to all of you. We are gonna be joined this evening by Karen Spring, who is the Ground Coordinator for the Honduran Solidarity Network. And also before we discuss Honduras, we're very fortunate to have Seth Donnelly join us this evening from the Haiti Action Committee in the San Francisco Bay Area in California, United States. And Seth is gonna give us just a quick update on the situation in Haiti. I'm sure most of you in the audience discovered this morning, some of us woke up to this news this morning of the assassination of Jovenel Moise, the, I guess should we say acting president of Haiti or serving past his constitutional time but recognized as the president of Haiti by the United States. So welcome, Seth. Thank you. Thank you, Teri. Good to be back. So this was shocking news coming out of the Caribbean. And why don't, can you give us just a quick briefing of what is known so far? Sure. So the assassination happened last night around one in the morning Haitian time. And it was a professional, what seems to be a professional assassination squad that went to Jovenel Moise's house and his security didn't really put up a fight. They lied down when told to lie down. And the squad was speaking reportedly Spanish, maybe some English and identified as being DEA. And then they went into Jovenel Moise's bedroom and shot and killed him and shot his wife as well. I have not yet heard her status. She did not die immediately. So she might be pulling through. But it seems that this move was sanctioned by higher levels of power that Moise, even though he'd been a very loyal puppet of US interests and Haiti was becoming a liability insofar as the mass movement was becoming so powerful and he was unable to maintain order. He was increasingly muscling with him and his people into the business sector entangling with some of the Haitian elite like Reginald Boulos, a famous sweatshop owner who's a US ally. So it's quite possible that this assassination is kind of like DM in South Vietnam where a US asset or puppet wears out his welcome and then is killed. Wow. So there's a couple of things you said that I wonder if we could expand upon and I won't keep you because I know you've got a busy evening ahead of you as well. So this was a professional style assassination, clearly. And there are a number of, how would I say a number of players I guess that would benefit to the removal of this man. You've said you're the second or third person today who I've heard say that perhaps he's out, he outran his use for the United States government which is a curious thing to me because the Biden administration has recognized him as president beyond his constitutional term, said they would recognize him through December. And I believe it was an episode we did with you where we discussed this earlier in the year. And also the fact that he was one of the Caribbean president nation that recognized Juan Guaido as the president of Venezuela. So it's interesting that it may very well have been people who have wanted and used him to no longer want him to meet him. That's a helpful thing to the audience. Well, you know, the ruling PhDK party, Ket Kalei, which means bald head party, of which Jovenel was a member. That party came to power first with Michel Marcollet through fraudulent elections back under the Obama administration. And in fact, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the time, personally maneuvered so that Marcollet could come to power. And then Jovenel was a successor, right? When he came to Jovenel, he increasingly was so brazen in the looting of public funds through like the Petra Caribe scandal. So incompetent in being able to maintain quote unquote, this kind of stability US likes in neo colonies, right? Like the mass movement in Haiti is one of the most advanced revolutionary struggles in the world, you know? And then on top of that, just recently, like a few weeks ago, he was literally starting to muscle his way into the elite, like I mentioned, getting into conflict with people like Boulos. Now Boulos is a major oligarch in Haiti who is very tied into power for many decades and he's very close to the US. In fact, he's now, I think in the US, Boulos left Haiti. So we don't know, everybody's trying to figure out but it's quite plausible that the US fell and then Biden was under pressure and the Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken was under pressure to stop supporting Moise, right? Because there was a growing movement of people in Congress and progressive folks and others that were saying the US should not be propping up this dictatorship in Haiti. So at a minimum, it's quite convenient that Moise is now assassinated. So the narrative shifts to him as a victim and to, and meanwhile, the same regime is still in power. The PhDTK is still in power. His Prime Minister, Claude Joseph is still in power and the US is showering the police with millions of dollars. So it's, this whole thing is almost a distraction from the fact that the man has gone but the regime remains in power that's backed by the United States. So before I let you go, what constitutionally, what is supposed to happen next in Haiti under a situation like this? Because we already know what did not happen constitutionally with him remaining in power. Well, there's a few options that could happen constitutionally. One is that I think that the primary line of procession should be that the president of the Supreme Court should become the acting president. Moise had already arrested, it already attacked the Supreme Court. I think he arrested one or several members of the Supreme Court. The president of the Supreme Court died recently from COVID. So that person is unable to assume the presidency. Another option might be the Prime Minister backed by, but the parliament has to approve of that. There's two problems with that. One is that the parliament is not functioning. There were no elections under Moise to refill the parliament. So there's only like a third of the Senate that's in place. So there is no functioning parliament to ratify anything. And on top of that, right before Moise was assassinated probably following the OAS recommendation he picked a new prime minister on July 5th. So you have the acting prime minister who's Claude Joseph. And then you have a new prime minister. So it's not even clear who the prime minister is. So the whole thing right now is very chaotic. Is this why the Colombians asked for the OAS intervention earlier today? I'm not sure. Maybe that's just hearsay that I heard. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, the OAS has played a very horrible role here like they did with the coup in Bolivia or certainly with Cuba and Venezuela. There was a small OAS delegation that included the US and I think a Canadian and a few other folks from Latin America that went to Haiti a few weeks ago and stayed there for three days and issued a very problematic set of recommendations which one of which was from Moise to pick a new prime minister, which he did, right? But I don't know like what happened today with the OAS and with Columbia. Well, we got a lot more to wait and see and we hope that the country doesn't unravel. I mean, it really, the Haitian people are so beautiful inside and out. It's their country and it will be really fascinating to see how these movements, and of course these are movements that you and the A&M Committee work with as well, how, what their role becomes because this is a huge transition that could hopefully not become very chaotic. It's also an enormous opportunity for the Haitian people. It is, and I know you got your next guess, but- That's kind of a macabre thing for me to say. Yeah, well, the lava loss- Somebody was killed this morning, but- The grassroots popular movement, lava loss, is extremely strong. It's the most powerful political force in Haiti. And yeah, of course we don't wish death on anyone, not even folks that have been horrific like Moise, but this does create an opportunity for the ground on up to say, we need a true people's government and not just another cobble together US-backed interim regime that's gonna meet the new boss same as the old boss kind of thing. Right. Well, we'll watch as things unfold in Haiti and I hope that you will come back and keep us updated as things continue to unfold there. Thank you so much, Terri, for all your work and for listeners or viewers, that HaitiSolidarity.net is a good source. That's our website. Oh, great. Thank you so much. And also, I think Pierre is doing a webinar tomorrow morning. Where did I- Pierre is, yeah. Pierre Labossiere is doing a webinar tomorrow. It's actually at noon Eastern Standard Time. And so if you're on the West Coast like myself, it would be at 9 a.m. But it's a webinar with Margaret Prescott who does a lot of great journalism out of LA and has been to Haiti multiple times. And some other, they're trying to work out some guests from Haiti as if they can get through the technical aspect of streaming it, but it should be really, really good. And information on that would be on the website, HaitiSolidarity.net. Okay, great. HaitiSolidarity.net to our audience. And please, if you've got the time to watch that tomorrow, I'll be fabulous. And thank you, Seth. Always appreciate you joining us. It's really good to see you. Yeah, likewise. Okay, thanks for the update. We really appreciate it. Okay, bye. So now everyone, let's turn to Honduras. I know I had promised all of you we would be hearing from the Cher Foundation who is on the ground in Honduras right now. With their VAMOS, the Mirpa project. They have no electricity at the moment. They're in Tekoa, Honduras. They have no electricity. We are very, very thankful for my personal friend, but our friend of Honduras, Karen Spring, who is joining us today. Welcome, Karen. And for our audience, Karen is the Honduras Solidarity Network Ground Coordinator. She is Canadian, but lives and works in Tegucigalpa. She's currently home in Canada. Karen is also a board member of Task Force on the Americas. And we've been friends and solidarity activists together for many, many years. And our audience probably most of you recognize her from several previous episodes of what the F is going on in Latin America as well. So welcome, Karen. Thank you so much, Terry. I'm more than happy to step in for the shared delegation who is experiencing what many Hondurans experience on a frequent basis is the loss of electricity, particularly in the region where they are. They're in the Department of Colon, which is in Northern Honduras, which is also the location of some of the most fierce land struggles and in defense of water. And I imagine that the shared delegation is visiting the Wapinol water defenders who there are seven water defenders that are in prison on trumped-up charges for basically defending their water from a US-funded Honduran mining company. So I'm happy to step in. It's great to be here again, Terry. Always a pleasure to join you on your program. So, well, thank you. So let's start with, I think this is a good place to start is with the Wapinol. And let's give our audience a little bit of background as to that case because it does involve water rights and land rights. And of course, those two issues led to the assassination of Bertha Cáceres and you have been sitting in court every single day while one of her conspirators was in trial. So let's start with the Wapinol and the water rights and land rights issues. And then let's talk about the Castillo case. Sure. So the shared delegation went in to visit inside a Honduran prison in the department where they are right now, where they're struggling without electricity. They went in to visit the water defenders that have been in prison for over two years because they are trying to stop a mining company that is linked to the US Steel Company, Newport Corporation. And so the water defenders, they're also land defenders because it's really hard to disconnect water from land, obviously. And so they've been criminalized for trying to stop this mining company from destroying the environment and destroying the rivers. And this is obviously a pattern that many people will know of and hear of when they refer to the case of the well-known, internationally known, indigenous activist Bertha Cáceres who is commonly referred to as an environmentalist but she was far more than just an environmentalist. And so, Bertha Cáceres was murdered in 2016. She was trying to stop the construction of a hydroelectric dam on a river in Western Honduras. And then you sort of fast forward five years and there are now eight water defenders related to the Wapinol mining struggle that are trying to defend a river in another part of the country. And again, facing very similar things that Bertha faced, persecution, criminalization. They tried to send Bertha Cáceres to prison in 2014. And this is what the Honduran government continues to do against people that defend their land and defend their rivers. And so it's clear that, although there was some a victory, a recent victory on Monday, which we'll talk about, Terry, in the Bertha Cáceres case, it's very clear that these patterns of persecution against activists, against land defenders, environmentalists has not ended at all. And the Wapinol case that the shared delegation is accompanying, is speaking to, is interviewing in these days that they're in Honduras is an example of that. So one of the things that the shared delegation is also promoting is, and this is related to land and water rights as well, food summaries, the development, the encouragement development of small farms, small family farms, small individual farms, which of course is directly related to people having or not having land. And their program that they've launched is helping, and correct me if I'm wrong, is helping small farmers in land rights and also in local production of food. And that of course leads to food sovereignty, which is a key variable in preventing migration. When people have a piece of land and they can produce their own food, there's a tendency to stay where you are. And not just in Honduras, but throughout the world. Yeah, I think, I'm glad you mentioned land issues because obviously nobody can grow any land or grow any crops or food if they don't have land. And in order to have land, you have to have security. So the program that the shared delegation is supporting through Radio Progreso, which is a Jesuit-run radio in Northern Honduras, with Padre Mello, who's a very well-known Jesuit priest in Honduras, and he's known internationally as well, very outspoken against the government. They are working to support small farmers in a bunch of different areas of Honduras, even in the areas that were really affected by the two hurricanes that hit last year, in November of last year. And a lot of people lost their crops. And so I think what the program's trying to do is focus on small farming, supporting small farmers and supporting small farmers access to land and ability to fight for, to defend their land and defend their territory. Because even if you have a piece of land where you're growing crops and beans or corn, if you have a dam that's being built on the river, that's right next to your piece of land, it might flood out all of your farmland. And so this program, vamos a la milpa, or let's go to the corn field is basically what it's called, or the field is really important because small farmers are essential. They also sort of have to stand up against agribusiness, large-scale agribusiness like African palm, that's usually for export, bananas, usually for export to the United States, pineapple, across the board, coffee. And a lot of these things are not used and consumed by the Honduran population. These large tracts of land are taken from small farmers. They're given to large companies that use them for export to US markets. And that's what people purchase in the United States. So finding a way to encourage people, well, to legally have access to land and to find a way to keep them there and producing their own food is huge. It's huge. And it's also related to climate change to a certain degree as people are pushed off their land to, and I think our audience should be familiar with this. I think we've brought it up on a couple of different programs related to Central American countries is the expansion of what's known as the dry corridor in Central America and how that is pushing people off their land, not because they necessarily want to leave or because they are forcibly being removed by transnational corporations and or police and military entities, but they're moving because the land is no longer aggregable. There's no water, it's dry, it's not fertile. And that's pushing people to migrate into areas that they wouldn't necessarily go. Exactly. I mean, land and food sovereignty has connected to so many issues, a climate change, migration, some of the main reasons why Honduras is deep in another crisis again today. So it's a really important program. I'm really glad there's a delegation there and that are supporting this program that is an initiative run by really well-known Honduran organizations. So let's take this land and water issue back to Bertha Casares and in the case, the trial that you were attending, it was 49 days I think you sat every single day taking notes and reporting and that can all be found on your blog. But let's talk about what happened with this Castillo case and the fact that he was found guilty is huge, at least in words, it's huge for us. I mean, we don't get many victories in Honduras. So, and so it's really, I'll take a look at this. Yeah, I mean, This is pretty big actually. The conviction of Roberto David Castillo is really, really important, not just for Honduras, but for many countries in Latin America. And there's a couple of reasons for this. One is that David Castillo is a U.S. trained intelligence officer. So as we know from the many decades of U.S. intervention in Latin America, we know that the United States has played a key role in training military in all different countries in Latin America. They get their training, they get their expertise, they get a certain status because they've been trained in the United States, they return to their countries and then they use that training to carry out all of these extreme violations of human rights. That's exactly what happened in the 80s and it's what's happening now. Go ahead, Terry. I was just gonna say, just before we go a little deeper into this, can you tell our audience who Castillo is, how his relationship to the Bertha-Castillo assassination? Yeah, so David Castillo is a U.S. trained intelligence officer. He was also president of the dam company, which is called DESA. It's a Honduran energy company that is owned by Castillo, but also a very, very wealthy family in Honduras that is linked very powerful in the banking system, but a whole bunch of other businesses as well, like they own a soccer team, they own a chain of supermarkets, like very powerful Honduran family. And so David Castillo was both an employee of that very wealthy family, but he also was a Honduran military and he was president of this dam company and Bertha was fighting against the dam that his company was building. So DESA, the company was building the Aguasarca Dam on the Gualcarque River. And the Gualcarque River is located in Western Honduras in indigenous, Llanca indigenous communities and Bertha Casaris together with her organization, Copeen, they fought to stop the dam and they fought to denounce all of the international funding that was going to that dam. They said that it violated the indigenous communities right to consent to being consulted. And so David Castillo basically used his military intelligence training to supervise and coordinate the assassination of Bertha Casaris. And so this trial, he was arrested in 2018, accused of murder and he was convicted after like you said, 49 days in a very, very intense trial. He was convicted on Monday of murder. So he will go to prison for 20 to 25 years depending on his sentence. And so he was not one of the people that went into Bertha's home on March 2nd, 2016 and pulled the trigger, aimed the gun and pulled the trigger. He was someone that was sort of behind the scenes sort of pulling the thread, supervising, getting the logistics, paying for the team of hit men that went into her home. And so that's a really also important thing for Latin America because so often in Latin American countries, the intellectual authors as they're called in Spanish or the masterminds of murders are often never held accountable for crimes. And so David Castillo is one of those intellectual authors but there's still more. He's a co-author, he was part of it but he wasn't necessarily the person that paid for the crime. And so that's the Atala-Zabla family, the very wealthy family that owned the energy company. But David Castillo's conviction is just a step towards the direction of this family that is very powerful that was part of this murder plan. So I think it's important to celebrate the moment that the Honduran social movement that Bertha's family achieved through incredible international pressure. I don't think that you can achieve any convictions of any sort in Honduras because of the control of the government over the court system. And so because of all the international pressure and the Honduran social movement pushing and insisting, David Castillo was convicted and it's a huge victory. Can you share with our audience your blog site so they can read in detail your reporting, Karen, just a really, really deep dive with this case every single day. It's probably too much of a deep dive for the average person but it's such an important case that it was worth sitting every minute through the trial and writing notes. My blog is akiabajo.com and you can find my blog there all 49 days, all the conclusions of the case can be found there. And if you don't really want to get into the deep part of it just read the concluding remarks from the trial. So before I let you go, let's, this is one piece, it's a really significant piece and the symbolism associated with the guilty verdict is huge and not just in Honduras as you said, throughout Latin America, for all people facing, water grabbing, land grabbing, all of this, particularly in indigenous communities and we're seeing it in the United States as well with the pipeline developments. What can our viewers do as North American activists to stand in solidarity with Honduras and promote further human rights development and I would go a step further and say, what can we do to keep the US out of there? Good question. So I encourage people to go on delegations, the Honduras Solidarity Network organizes delegations as does the share organization that is currently in Honduras but I think what's important is the Berthecasadis Act. There's two pieces of legislation in the US Congress that people can support by calling their senators and their representatives and asking if they will support them. They are asking, the most important thing is they're asking for aid, military and police aid to be cut off to the Honduran government. So this is US public money going to the military and the police in Honduras and the Casares case is an example of that. There were three military officers convicted for being involved in Bertha's murder. Davi Castillo was one of them and so why is US tax dollars going into funding murderers and state institutions or the military that are then using this training and this money to basically murder environmentalists and land defenders? So find those, you can go to solidaritycollective.org. All the information about those two bills are there and people can get involved by getting their representatives to sign onto those bills and to support them. Solidaritycollective.org and for the audience, I will post all of these links in the program description on the Code Pink YouTube channel so that they're permanently there for all of you to reference or feel free to email me at terriacodepink.org for more information as well. So, okay, Karen, thank you so much for stepping in this evening. Always wonderful to have you on the program. It's great to talk with you and thank you so much for sharing with us what the SHARE Foundation is doing in Honduras for the next several days. And it is, it's a really ironic but also I think as you mentioned earlier an important thing for the audience to see that despite this Honduras being a US backed country that the electricity doesn't work there. And when we typically hear the electricity doesn't work in Venezuela, but guess what? It works in Venezuela, I just got back from there. It goes up all the time in Honduras, all the time. So, but- Which we're never here. Exactly. So, but Terry, thank you so much for having me, always a pleasure. Okay, thanks again. Good night everyone. Be sure to catch us next week, Code Pink, YouTube, what the F is going on in Latin America, 7.30 p.m. Eastern, 4.30 p.m. Pacific and also be sure to catch Code Pink Radio every Thursday, 11 a.m. Eastern, 8 a.m. Pacific on WBAI out of New York City and WPFW out of Washington, D.C. Okay, everyone, thanks again. Thanks again to our guests. Bye, Karen. Bye.