TO: Lawrence Cannon – Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs
CC: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
Dear Mr. Cannon
As Minister of Foreign Affairs for the Canadian government, you should be outraged that Canadian companies are profiting from repression in Honduras. You should be trying to stop it.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) just put out a report about the ongoing repression in Hondurans since the 2009 coup that ousted democratically elected president Manuel Zelaya.
Honduras remains suspended from the OAS because regional governments (quite rightly) rejected the sham election that brought Porfirio Lobo to power.
Canadian "Porn King" Randy Jorgensen's tourism "development" projects are poised to profit greatly from the grim human rights situation in Honduras. Since 2008, the local Garifuna community organization, OFRANEH (Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras) has denounced that the "Porn King" and his Life Vision Properties are illegally purchasing land belonging and titled to Garifuna communities. Ramon Lobo, the brother of Porfirio Lobo has been working on behalf of Jorgensen's interests. Under Lobo's regime, land conflict negotiations have been marked by the detention, kidnapping and torture of peasant advisors. Dozens of peasants have been killed.
The Canadian government should also be concerned about allegations – published in Macleans in 2001 – that Jorgensen had made "X-rated films with underage girls in his vacation home in Honduras".
Rights Action, a Canadian human rights group that has worked in Honduras, explained
"This is very worrying, considering his home in Trujillo, located within the Life Vision project confines, neighbours an orphanage, in a country with high levels of impunity and little political will to persecute wealthy locals and foreigners for their criminal activities."
Joe Emersberger
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