Prominent Honduran human rights activist Bertha Oliva will talk Monday about building solidarity with Honduras.
Building Solidarity with Honduras: Peoples’ Rights over Corporate Rights will take place April 7, from 12:30 to 2:30pm, in the Senior Common Room, 140 McLaughlin College, Keele campus. Refreshments will be served. The talk is presented by York’s Centre for Research on Latin America & the Caribbean.
Bertha Oliva
Oliva is general coordinator of the Committee of Relatives of the Disappeared and Detained in Honduras (COFADEH), a leading Honduran human rights organization. It seeks justice for current human rights abuses and for “disappearances” by state security forces in the 1980s, and trains local human rights activists.
Since the 2009 coup d’état that deposed democratically elected president Manuel Zelaya, Honduras has been gripped by extreme repression and human/labour rights violations affecting the entire population. The Canada-Honduras Free Trade Agreement was signed on Nov. 5, 2013, amid this political repression, further militarization and controversial Canadian investment in the Central American nation.
Oliva will share first-hand accounts of deteriorating human rights in Honduras and militarization of the Central American country since the controversial November 2013 elections. She will report on the aggressive privatization and extraction of natural resources, and how that contributes to social conflict. Violence and corruption in Honduras have reached an all-time high – 32 journalists have been murdered there since 2009.
For more information, visit the Common Frontiers website.