The major peasant organizations of Honduras occupied 12,000 hectares of land on Tuesday and demanded the immediate granting of property titles and delivery of lands to all the peasants involved.

Real World Radio interviewed Juan Almendares, of Madre Tierra/Friends of the Earth Honduras. He described the massive land occupation as “a heroic act by the peasants” because of how they are exposed to being evicted by the private or public forces.

Almendares believes the protest measure of the Honduran organizations is the result of “the extreme poverty, the hunger, the injustice and plunder” caused by capital development and transnational policies. “This is not neoliberalism, this is imperialism”, he said.

In the case of Honduras, Almendares believes that a real agrarian reform is needed, one that will change the core of the problem, not just the laws. “The evictions only benefit the building of hydroelectric dams and the expansion of mining. It is a model that treats us like human waste”.

As an alternative to this model, the document of the occupying organizations puts forward specific measures like “the production of corn, rice and beans for our peoples’ food sovereignty”.