The family of one of two environmental activists killed in a rural area of northern Honduras say authorities are not properly investigating the killings of the couple who had faced threats for their work.
Aly Domínguez and Jairo Bonilla were riding a motorcycle between La Concepción and Guapinol on Sunday when they were shot. Both men were known supporters of the nearby Carlos Escaleras National Park.
On Thursday, Domínguez’s brother, Reynaldo Domínguez, filed a complaint with prosecutors in the capital stating that the investigation into the murders was not advancing.
He said his brother and Bonilla worked for a local cable company collecting payments in the rural area. On January 7, they were returning to Guapinol from La Concepción after taking their precautions when they were attacked, he said.
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“To date they have not done anything. The investigations are not advancing, because the Tocoa authorities are in collusion with the mining company that exploits” the national park, Domínguez said.
He said authorities consider robbery as the motive, but he disputed it.
“On the site was the motorcycle that is one of the most sought after by the thieves, there were their cell phones and the money they had collected was in their pockets because they had divided it up among themselves,” Domínguez said. “That’s why we reject that this was a robbery.”
Iron oxide mining within the park has been a hot spot for years.
Last year, just one day after six activists were convicted for alleged actions against a mining operation, the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court unanimously sided with the defendants in two longstanding appeals and dismissed their case. Most of the men had been in pretrial detention since 2019, charged with deprivation of liberty and aggravated arson. Two of the eight were acquitted.
Members of the Public Order Military Police (PMOP) prepare to mobilize during a special operation in Honduras on November 27, 2022. For environmental activists, Honduras is considered extremely dangerous.
(Photo by ORLANDO SIERRA/AFP via Getty Images)
Like Domínguez and Bonilla, they had protested the legality of the mining concessions granted within the national park and the damage it was causing to the Guapinol and San Pedro rivers.
One of the eight men in that case, Kelvin Romero, confirmed Wednesday that Dominguez and Bonilla were known defenders of the park.
“We have had personal threats, in messages, in calls,” Romero said. “So for us here, the judiciary and the authorities are ignorant even though we have protection measures for human rights defenders.”
Honduras is considered one of the most dangerous countries in the world for environmental activists. One of his most infamous cases was the 2016 murder of Berta Cáceres, who was protesting a hydroelectric project.
Honduran authorities said they initially treated the weekend killings as a robbery because when they got there, the crime scene had been disturbed.
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“They (relatives) did not let the morgue take the bodies and they buried them,” said Yuri Mora, spokesman for the federal prosecutor’s office. “Family and friends contaminated the crime scene. They took the things they were carrying and didn’t say anything until days later. This makes it difficult to investigate and find those responsible for this fact.”
The global human rights organization Amnesty International called for a “prompt, thorough and impartial” investigation.
