Hondurans Reject Handing Over Land To Private Capital

Representatives from several Honduran Campesino organizations announced that they would carry out protest actions against the approval of decree PCM 030-2020. This norm, called the "Banana Law" by rural activists, would give land plots to national and international private capital.

According to the campesinos, this decree is a retreat from the agrarian conquests obtained in recent years. It motivates the transfer of land (which is cultivated by small farmers) to the hands of the highest bidder.

As part of the initiative's actions, the Campesino movement presented an appeal of unconstitutionality against decree PCM 030-2020 before the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ).

RELATED:

The US and Canada Have Blood On Their Hands in Honduras

The leader of the National Rural Workers Union (CNTC), Franklin Almendares, said that the appeal is the first action to defeat the initiative, which has been the unified demand of several peasant organizations since the beginning.

"This appeal goes against the life of small farmers, is a step backward from the agrarian reform, and would increase criminalization in the countryside," stated Almendares.

"We say no to the new Banana Law, and many organizations are joining together, that is why we are doing this because we cannot allow something to be approved that comes to take away land from more than 450,000 families, increasing the crisis in the countryside, we know that there is no political will for agrarian reform," Almendares emphasized.

"Representatives of several Honduran peasant organizations announced the holding of protest actions

against the approval of decree PCM 030-2020."

 

From the peasant movement lawyers' point of view, the decree gives land to national and international agribusiness for 30 years, becoming a harmful decree for those it purportedly represents.

The CNTC warned that there are already agreements to hand over land to business people in the Colon department under this decree's protection. The situation is causing alarm among the peasantry and leading them to continue planning protest actions.

For this reason, they do not rule out that in the coming days, the protest actions may be through roadblocks, sit-ins, and public denunciations to put on the table the total repeal of what they have called the Banana Law.

"We will carry out permanent actions at the national level, takeovers, sit-ins, and protests. We know that they are going to criminalize us, but we assure you that we will continue to fight," Almendares concluded.