The peasants demand lands to live and to produce their food. A press release issued yesterday by several organizations says that great part of the occupied land belongs to the Honduran State and others are not fulfilling any social role. They claim that the national legislation clearly states that the state-owned lands should be allocated to the agrarian reform.

The struggle for land in Honduras continues to take its toll on the peasants. Nearly 50 peasants were killed in the past two years in Bajo Aguan as part of the agrarian conflict. The repression, persecution and murder of rural workers worsened after the coup d’etat staged on June 28, 2009 by Roberto Micheletti and the Armed Forces, and it continues to be the case under Porfirio Lobo’s administration.

Besides, Honduran peasant organizations report in their press release that they are suffering “hunger and extreme poverty”. These figures have reached 40% of the rural population according to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).

Some of the groups who signed the press release are: The National Rural Workers’ Central (CNTC), The National Honduran Peasant Association (ANACH), The Council for Rural Women’s Integral Development (CODIMCA), Honduras Peasant and Indigenous Union (UCIH) and the Unified Peasant Movement of Aguán (MUCA).

The organizations explain that the repeal of Decree 18-2008 and of the Agrarian Reform law led to increasing hunger in the rural areas. They claim that there has been no “political will” from the Congress speaker nor from the President of the Republic to pass the integral agrarian transformation bill they submitted in October of last year. “The bill is currently stalled. We demand it is passed immediately”, reads the press release, which had the support of La Vía Campesina International, a network of peasant organizations from around the world.

But Tuesday’s concerns over land are part of a struggle for survival in a terror context. “The requests for land have been filed years ago before the National Agrarian Institute (INA). However, the State is promoting overt repression, violent eviction, jailing and murder of peasants”.

“We demand the government to immediately deliver these lands to all the peasants. The harvesting season approaches and we want to produce corn, rice and beans for our peoples’ food sovereignty”, reads the release.

The Honduran peasant organizations are calling for solidarity with their struggle from the Honduran society. Besides the moral support, the rural workers need food, blankets, water and medicine for the people who are in the process of recovering the lands.

“We blame the government, the businessmen and land owners for the repression and violence in the countryside”, concludes the document, in a country where social workers are under constant threat of getting killed.

Tuesday’s land occupations in Honduras took place amid the celebration of the International Day of Peasant Struggle. On April 17, 1996, 21 peasants of the Rural Landless Workers’ Movement of Brazil (MST) were murdered by the military police in Eldorado de Carajas, Para State, while they were demonstrating for land. 69 people were injured.

La Via Campesina International organized 250 actions and demonstrations in several parts of the world to mark the International Day of Peasant Struggle. The peasant network said in a press release that “La Via Campesina is mobilising this year to oppose the current offensive by some states and large corporations at international level to grab land from the farmers, women and men, who have been cultivating it for centuries”.

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