Threats from local authorities and security forces, which tried to take over its management, forced a local radio station in Honduras temporarily to stop broadcasting on January 14, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). The station, Radio Faluma Bimetu – Radio Coco Dulce in Spanish - belongs to the Honduran community of African origin (Garifuna) of Triunfo de la Cruz.
A delegation from the municipality of Tela, backed by police officers, turned up at the community on January 12 to impose a new, hand-picked board of management (patronato). The community of Triunfo de la Cruz had already planned a vote on January 28 to designate its future representatives. When the community refused to recognize the procedure, threats were made to burn the station down.
The threat was a reminder of the arson attack that destroyed the station on January 6, 2010.
With the support of the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC) and International Media Support (IMS), RSF gave its backing to the rebuilding of Radio Faluma Bimetu.
The Garifuna community has long been opposed to construction projects in the Atlantic region and has made its hostility clear through its small local media. The attacks on Radio Faluma Bimetu have intensified since the coup d’état of June 28, 2009. Alfredo López, one of its leading figures was held by the army and police on August 12, 2009.
All social and community movements and those expressing backing for them have experienced the same treatment, in disregard of the American Human Rights Convention and the injunctions of the Interamerican Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).
For example on January 5 two men dressed as electricity service technicians broke into the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (Copinh) at La Esperanza (northwest of the capital Tegucigalpa). They threatened those present and claiming to be acting under a contract with the government of Honduras cut off power to the building.
The community stations Guarajambala and La Voz Lenca immediately went off the air. In the region of Zacate Grande in the south of the country there is continuing harassment of the local radio station of the same name and of the community on which it depends as a result of a conflict with the agro-industrial magnate Miguel Facussé Barjum.
“The struggle against impunity involves not only light being shed on the 10 killings of journalists in 2010, as the government recently announced, while the results are slow to emerge, “ RSF said Tuesday. “It also demands a real protection for minority media and their representatives, in particular the victims of reprisals linked to the coup d’état. The frequencies of sabotaged community radio stations must be restored without delay. ”
