Is the World Bank Funding Death Squads in Honduras?

[Judi Lynn]

Is the World Bank Funding Death Squads in Honduras?
Written by Annie Bird, Rights Action
Thursday, 08 November 2012 12:38

The Dinant Corporation and subsidiaries of the Jaremar Corporation, both Honduran African palm oil corporations blamed by campesino movements for the murder of approximately 80 campesinos in the Aguan river valley region since the June 2009 military coup, have received millions of dollars from the World Bank since the coup. Most recently, on November 2, 2012, Orlando Campos, Reynaldo Rivera Paz, and José Omar Paz - all former members of a campesino movement which contests rights to the “ Panama farm” against Dinant Corporation’s illegitimate claims - were killed in a drive-by shooting as they waited for a bus. The following day, in an unprecedented arrest of a death squad member, police officer Marvin Noe García Santos was arrested for these assassinations.

On August 13, 2012, the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman [CAO] - internal agency of the World Bank that monitors compliance with Bank standards and safeguards - published its appraisal of a $30 million loan from the World Bank’s private financing arm, the International Finance Corporation [IFC], to the Dinant Corporation palm oil corporation of Honduras, and found that an audit of the Dinant loan should be conducted. This appraisal was “initiated by the CAO Vice-President in response to a letter submitted in November 2010 by Rights Action to the President of the World Bank Group in November 2010, and conversations between CAO and local NGOs.” It determined an audit of the World Bank loan’s social and environmental performance will be conducted.

On November 17, 2010, two days after five campesinos from the Movimiento Campesino del Aguan (MCA) were killed by security forces employed by the Dinant Corporation owned by Miguel Facusse, Rights Action sent a letter to the president of the World Bank charging that the Bank shared responsibility for the killings given that, one year before, on November 5, 2009, the World Bank released $15 million dollars to Dinant, the first half of the $30 million loan. This World Bank loan disbursement occurred while a military-backed junta controlled Honduras , in the aftermath of the June 2009 military coup, and brutal State repression was again becoming systematic throughout Honduras . For months on end, every single day, peaceful pro-democracy protests against the military coup took place in the streets of Honduras , and were violently repressed by the junta. Death squads began operating again in Honduras , targeting pro-democracy activists.

Faccuse’s Dinant Corporation has been involved in land rights disputes with campesinos since 1994 when, through violence and fraud, it began acquiring land titles to African palm cooperatives. Since January 2010, Dinant security forces have been accused of participation in death squad activities and are likely responsible for the murder of approximately 80 campesino land rights activists and bystanders.

More:
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/honduras-archives-46/3958-is-the-world-bank-funding-death-squads-in-honduras

[DollarBillHines]

1. Fuck Dinant and the WBO

They should be shot at daylight.

We get all worked up about Israeli/Palestine?

This is happening in our own backyard.

[Peace Patriot]

2. Of all the World Bank outrages in LatAm, this has to be one of the worst.

It certainly doesn't surprise me. They've gone from pillage to murder. They are so greedy, they'll stop at nothing--from smashing democracies to murder and mayhem--to extract profit from the poor.

It's sickening. And what is even more sickening is that our own government runs the World Bank.

The good news is that, with the successful leftist democracy movement in Latin America over the last decade, the World Bank's portfolio in that region has been drastically reduced. "Structural adjustment" (World Bank jargon meaning "austerity" for the poor while the rich get richer) is definitely on the outs, and sharing the wealth is in; also "south-south" cooperation to create regional development funds and keep regional control of it, so that social justice goals are served.

Much of South America is in open rebellion against World Bank/IMF dictates and influence, and those countries--the LEFTIST countries--are doing extremely well on both economic growth AND social justice.

U.S. client states like Honduras and Colombia are doing very poorly, with extreme discrepancies between rich and poor and extreme violence of rich against poor.

Note: The wiki article on the World Bank asserts that Obama's appointment of South Korean Jim Yong Kim as president of the World Bank is a significant improvement. (Virtually all presidents of the World Bank have been U.S. citizens serving U.S.-based and allied transglobal corporations.) That remains to be seen. The World Bank is set up to funnel billions of U.S. taxpayers' money into projects that serve U.S.-based and allied transglobal corporations. It does not serve us. It does not serve the people of other countries. It indentures and controls them, and robs and kills them. A South Korean can serve these purposes as well as an American. The article is otherwise an enlightening read, though it muffles some of the horrors of the World Bank in economic jargon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Bank