Board of Directors

Sr. Patricia Crowley, OSB

Prioress, Benedictine Sisters
Rev. Dan Dale
Pastor, Wellington Ave. UCC
Rev. Dr. Linda Eastwood,
Colombia Accompaniment Project
Eunice Escobar
AFRODES, USA
Jessica Havens
Anti-racism trainer
Stephen Haymes, Ph.D.
DePaul University
Richard Heidkamp (Emeritus)
Mary Seat of Wisdom Catholic
Church
Sidney Hollander
KAM-Isaiah Israel Congregation
Elizabeth Lozano, Ph.D.
Loyola University
Edward Osowski
St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church
Rigo Padilla
Immigrant Youth Justice League
Martha Pierce
UCC Illinois Maya Ministries
Rev. Chris Pierson
United Methodist Church-NIC
Daniel Rodriguez-Diaz, Ph.D.
McCormick Theological Seminary
Trinidad Sanchez
Honduran Fair Trade Organizer
Margot Worfolk
Pax Christi Servants
Mario Venegas
Amnesty International, Evanston

Staff
Lissette Castillo
Outreach Organizer,
Immigrant Justice Program
Sharon Hunter-Smith
Office Manager,
Human Rights Coordinator
Celeste Larkin
Public Policy Coordinator
Marilyn McKenna
Education & Outreach Coordinator
Mara Isabel Len Gmez,
Administrative Assistant

Senator Dick Durbin

Attn: Clarisol Duque
203 S Dearborn St, Ste 3892
Chicago, IL 60604

June 8, 2016

Dear Senator Durbin:

Today CRLN, La Voz de Los de Abajo, Witness for Peace, and several other organizations are
hosting from Honduras Toms Gmez Membreo, General Coordinator for the non-profit
Indigenous rights organization COPINH (Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous
Organizations). Toms is a member of the Lenca people, an Indigenous community in the
southwest of Honduras and has long been an active member of COPINH, using adult education
and community radio as tools for mobilizing indigenous communities. He became the leader
of COPINH after the recent assassination of land rights leader and COPINH founder
Berta Cceres.
Toms and COPINH have been part of a vibrant nation-wide network of organizations
representing small farmers, women, Afro-descendants and members of the LGBTQ
community since the 2009 coup. Most recently, COPINH has been organizing against the
Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam on their sacred Gualcarque river, one of more than 4 dozen
illegal development projects on Lencan land that have not been approved through proper free,
prior, and informed consent. Toms is visiting the United States to continue their advocacy for
justice for Berta's assassination, protection for Indigenous land in Honduras, and changes in
US security and development aid to the Honduran government.
In April of this year, CRLN visited your office and met with your foreign policy aid, Erum
Ibrahim, to ask that you support the following recommendations, which we and Toms
reiterate together today:

1. Support an independent, IACHR-led investigation into the assassination of

Berta Cceres.
2. Place an immediate hold on all security assistance to Honduras.
3. Support 100% human rights conditioning in the FY2017 State and Foreign
Operations Bill.
The murder of internationally renowned human and environmental rights defender Berta
Cceres demonstrates a new level of crisis in Honduras. While Bertas family continues to
call for an independent, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR)-led
investigation, the dysfunctional Honduran judiciary still affords abusive forces a 95-98%
impunity rate (according to the IACHR). Military takeover of domestic policing continues
at an alarming rate, exacerbated by President Juan Orlando Hernandezs creation of the
military police and recent calls to abolish civilian police, presumably replacing them with
his militarized forces. The steadily increasing militarization of civil society has not yielded
more safety, but rather human rights abuses, terrorizing of political opposition and
aggressive patrolling of airports, prisons, highways, buses, and residential neighborhoods.
We can have no confidence in the effectiveness of the anti-impunity/anti-corruption body
MACCIH to deliver justice in corruption cases or in the assassination case of Berta
Cceres. The MACCIH is not only closely tied with the Juan Orlando Hernandez

4750 N. Sheridan Avenue Suite 429 Chicago, IL 60640-5078 Phone: 773-293-2964 Fax: 773-293-3677 www.crln.org

administration and thus failing to adequately investigate his use of public health funds in his private election
campaign in 2014; the MACCIH is also merely an advisory body and has no power to implement any of its
recommendations.
Instead of funding the Honduran security system or prosecutorial and investigative capacities in the context
of no political will, U.S. policy should focus on conditioning human rights in 100% of security funding and
withholding all military and police aid to leverage political will at the top of the Honduran administration.
While we push for the establishment of independent oversight by mechanisms and officesperhaps of the
UN High Commissioner on Human Rights or a body similar to the International Commission Against
Impunity in Guatemalawe ask that you immediately move to support these recommendations.
As a ranking member on the Senates Defense Appropriations Subcommittee and a member on the
State and Foreign Operations Subcommittee, we ask that you use your power to immediately put a
hold on security aid to Honduras.

Respectfully,

Chicago Religious Leadership Network on Latin America

La Voz de Los de Abajo Chicago
Witness for Peace

4750 N. Sheridan Avenue Suite 429 Chicago, IL 60640-5078 Phone: 773-293-2964 Fax: 773-293-3677 www.crln.org