CIP's Central America Program Brings Delegation to Honduras to Support Local Environmental Movement's March

During the last week in June, thousands of Honduran campesinos will march on the capital city of Tegucigalpa to protest illegal logging and related environmental degradation in the country. The marchers intend to present the government with a list of demands calculated to put the brakes on illegal logging and the corruption that sustains it by involving communities in the management of local timber reserves. The “March for Life” (Marcha por la Vida) is being organized by the Environmental Movement of Olancho and the Committee of the Families of the Detained-Disappeared in Honduras, and will be supported by a number of religious, human rights, campesino, student, environmental and labor organizations.

Father Tamayo, the March’s chief organizer, predicts that 50,000 persons will participate. Campesinos will begin the march on June 24 from four different points around the country. Marching about 20 miles a day, they are scheduled to arrive in Tegucigalpa on June 30. Each night, community leaders will hold a teach-in for the host community. They will speak with residents about their rights as citizens in a democracy and encourage them to participate more fully in the civic life of the country.

The Center for International Policy (CIP) will bring an international delegation to Honduras at the end of June in support and solidarity with the “March for Life.” Delegates will visit the marchers to discuss the impact of illegal logging on their lives and their hopes for change. The delegation will meet with defenders of human rights and the environment, as well as Honduran government officials and business leaders.

The Delegation consists of key human rights and environmental activists including Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, former Lieutenant Governor of Maryland and daughter of the former Attorney General and Senator, Robert Kennedy; Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), Robert Edgar, Secretary General of the National Council of Churches (NCCC); Tony Kieropolous; Sub-Secretary of the NCCC; Allen Andersson, prominent businessman and investor as well as former Peace Corps volunteer in Honduras; Owen Lynch, Senior Attorney for the Center for International Environmental Law’s Human Rights and the Environment Program; Mike Farrell, well-known actor and Co-Chair of Human Rights Watch in California; and Joseph Eldrige, Chairman of the board of the Washington Office on Latin America and Chaplain of American University.