After 40 years of conflicts, protests and negotiations, the government of Honduras on Sept. 12 formally granted title to 654,496 hectares (about 1.6 million acres) to 128 indigenous communities on the remote Miskito Coast. With this move, the total land titled to Miskito indigenous communities in Honduras comes to nearly 970,000 hectares, more than 7% of the national territory, with a population of some 100,000. "With the recognition of the rights of the Miksito people to the lands of our ancestors, Honduras has taken an historic step that benefits all the world's indigenous peoples," said Norvin Goff, president of Moskitia Asla Takanka (MASTA), the organization that represented the communities in the talks.

Three members of Honduras' Tolupan indigenous group were shot dead on Aug. 25 near an anti-mining and anti-logging protest in the community of Locomapa in the northern department of Yoro. According to witnesses the killers were employees of a nearby antimony mine who were themselves members of the Tolupan group. Some 150 Locomapa residents have been demonstrating against logging in their territory and against the mine, which the protesters say is operating without a permit. At the time of the shooting, residents had been blocking the San Francisco Campo highway for 12 days, allowing local traffic to pass through but turning back loggers and vehicles that belong to the mine.

Honduras' National Congress voted on Aug. 21 to approve a law creating the Military Police of Public Order (PMOP), a new 5,000-member police unit composed of army reservists under the control of the military. This will be in addition to a 4,500-member "community police" force that the government is forming, according to an Aug. 12 announcement by Security Minister Arturo Corrales. Although he called the move a "change of course," Corrales failed to explain the difference between the community police, which to be operative by September, and the existing national police force.

Some 30 inspectors from the Honduran Labor Ministry visited the Kyungshin-Lear Honduras Electrical Distribution Systems auto parts assembly plant in a suburb of the northern city of San Pedro Sula on Aug. 13 after local media reported that some employees had to wear diapers at work because of restrictions on their bathroom breaks. Workers for the company, an affiliate of the Michigan-based Lear Corporation and Korea's Kyungshin Corp, say there are many other labor violations, such as forcing pregnant women to stand while doing assembly work. According to an Aug. 12 press release from the AFL-CIO, the main US labor federation, management has fired 26 workers so far this year for trying to form a union at the maquildora (assembly plant with tax exemptions producing for export).

Some 10 armed men identified as security guards from a mining project threatened and detained two foreign volunteers for the Honduras Accompaniment Project (PROAH) for more than two hours on July 25 in the Nueva Esperanza community in the northern Honduran department of Atlántida. Area communities have faced threats and harassment for at least a year while organizing in opposition to open-pit mining by Minerales Victoria, part of the Alutech metal company owned by Lenir Pérez. The two international volunteers, one French and one Swiss, went to Nueva Esperanza hoping that their presence would deter further aggression by the mining company. Less than 24 hours later security guards and a group of mineworkers threatened them and forced them to leave the community. 

Tomás García Domínguez, an indigenous leader, was shot dead on July 15 in Intibucá department in western Honduras during a demonstration at the headquarters for the Agua Zarca hydroelectric project. Four other protesters were wounded, including García's son, 17-year-old Allan García Domínguez, who was hospitalized in serious condition with a bullet in his lung. According to Civic Council of Grassroots and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) leader Berta Cáceres, the demonstration was peaceful, but "without saying one word the army opened fire against our companions, sending bullets into the bodies of Tomás García and his son, in the presence of police that remained paralyzed and did nothing to prevent it." A press release from the two companies constructing the dam—the Honduran company Desarrollos Energéticos S.A. (DESA) and the Chinese state enterprise SINOHYDRO—blamed the protesters and claimed the demonstration "included the destruction of installations, vehicles and personal property and direct aggression against the physical integrity of personnel."

A charred and dismembered body thought to be that of Honduran journalist Aníbal Barrow was found on July 9 in and around a lake in Villanueva, near San Pedro Sula in the northern department of Cortés. Barrow, the host of a popular morning talk show on the Globo TV channel and also a math professor at the National Autonomous University of Honduras, was kidnapped by armed men on June 24. Police said they had captured four men involved in the crime and were seeking six more; according to police, a "protected witness" led them to the body. National Police Chief Juan Carlos Bonilla Valladares told reporters that no motive had been established for the killing. Barrow's death would bring the number of Honduran journalists killed since 2010 to 28, according to human rights groups. (Reuters, July 9, via Huffington Post; El Heraldo, Tegucigalpa, July 10; Upside Down World, July 14, from IPS)

Members of communities opposing open-pit mining in the northern Honduran department of Atlántida have received death threats because of their activitism, according to a June 7 communiqué issued by the Broad Movement for Dignity and Justice (MADJ) and the Atlántida Environmentalist Movement (MAA). The groups said police agents in the service of Lenir Pérez, owner of the Alutech metal company, assaulted members of the Nueva Esperanza community on June 3, intimidating them and making death threats. On June 6 the residents received additional death threats from a group of "heavily armed men" operating in the area with the support of the national police, the communiqué charged. The groups blamed Tela municipality mayor David Zaccaro, who "instead of supporting the communities has made common cause with the mine owners, especially Lenir Pérez…who is carrying out violence and provoking the communities."