Would you be as brave as this man?
By Gonzalo Salvador and Robert Struckman
Two brothers, Moises and Misael Sanchez, were bicycling home on April 13 toward the suburb of Santa Ana de Yusguare after a successful organizing meeting of an agricultural union near Choluteca in Honduras. The route took them along a winding road, up through small residential developments amid the canyons and steep hills.
The campaign is a pivotal one. It’s in a key region in southern Honduras, where intimidation and violence have plagued every effort to improve the lives of poor and working people. The plantation in this case is a major source of melons and fruit in Europe and the United States. The fruit company is Irish multinational firm Fyffes, so the possibility of attracting international attention to abuses seems realistic. It would be the first successful union drive in the region. If it succeeds, others will surely follow.
It has not been easy. Organizers have been tailed and harassed, and early leaders were held captive and forced to sign anti-union papers.
The scare tactics incite a particular chill in organizers because union leaders get murdered in Honduras on a regular basis. Two men were killed last summer, and the deaths usually follow a pattern. One of the organizers on the Fyffes campaign recently got a death threat.
That’s one reason why Moises and Misael traveled together. The union activists have had safety training, but protection from the law is virtually nonexistent. It mostly comes down to folks protecting themselves and each other.
Two hooded men stepped onto the road in front of Moises and Misael. One of the men held a kind of homemade pistol, called a chimba. The other had a machete. It was early evening, about 6:30 p.m. No one else was on the road.
The man with the machete suddenly attacked Misael, hacking him on the face and nearly severing his left jaw. Misael, bleeding and reeling from the blow, stumbled away from his bicycle and into the canyon. The man with the machete ran after him.
As the hooded man with the machete chased after his younger brother, Moises stood on the road looking into the blackness of the barrel of the chimba and realized that both he and his brother were about to be killed, he said later.
Then, two more hooded men emerged a short distance away, stationing themselves at a curve in the road. The man with the chimba robbed Moises of his cell phone and began to look through his contacts to find the names and numbers of co-workers who had signed up to join the International Union of Food Workers.
After half an hour, the man with the machete returned. Gesturing toward Moises, he said to the man with the chimba, “Let’s kill him.”
But the man with the homemade gun replied that there was no need. He already had the list of union members, he said. The two warned Moises that if he continued to lead the effort to grow the union, they’d murder him for sure.
Moises walked the rest of the way home. The men had taken the bicycles and his cell phone. At Santa Ana de Yusguare, Moises found his brother, still bleeding heavily. He took him to the public hospital in Choluteca. A few days later, Misael was released. He has been recovering, but the ugly wound on his face remained bandaged two weeks later.
Here’s the thing. Moises has always known how dangerous it is to be a union leader at Fyffes. But this was different. He had come too close to death, and he had brought his brother too close to the same end.
Moises is married and has a four-year-old daughter. He has four grown children, too. Moises and his brother also financially support their parents, who are too old to work. Moises supervises the laying of perforated irrigation pipe on a 500-acre farm. He and his coworkers want a union, so they can bargain for better pay. Also, the chemicals used on the crops sometimes make the workers sick.
But Moises is done. He’s stepping to the side. “I can’t continue to lead right now,” he said. “I know if I quit, the union will continue, but if I’m dead, I’m dead,” he said.
Still, Moises felt compelled to file a police report, which itself takes a special act of courage. Asked if it was dangerous to do so, Moises replied, “Yes, it’s dangerous, but it’s also necessary.”
It’s necessary, say union leaders in Honduras, because the country must be ruled by laws. Even if some of the business leaders, police and politicians don’t respect the rule of law, the union activists will.
Labor and human rights groups, and workers on the ground like Moises, are preparing a petition to ask the government for protection so no more people get hurt. You can help by joining the effort for Freedom and Fairness for Fyffes Workers.
“We’ve already had this experience. I don’t want this to happen to anyone else, union or nonunion,” Moises said.
