Global Response is very happy to report on the inspiring March for Life in Honduras, which ended with a peaceful and powerful rally in Tegucigalpa on June 30. Thanks to all who sent letters in support of the march to Honduran government officials.
In the second March for Life, over 1,000 people from all regions of the country marched for six days from their homes to the capital. At a rally in front of the National Congress, organizers of the March for Life demanded an end to illegal logging and to the government corruption that supports it. Padre Andres Tamayo, of the Olancho Environmental Movement (MAO) and Bertha Oliva, director of the Committee of the Families of Detained and Disappeared addressed the marchers, as did other march leaders from the four regions.
Last year, Global Response organized an international letter-writing campaign to support the demands of the first March for Life. In spite of the international pressure brought to bear by Global Response and Amnesty International, one of the march’s organizers, Carlos Arturo Reyes, was assassinated.
During 2004, the March for Life grew into a national movement, supported by many religious leaders and a broad coalition of civil society. This Wednesday, June 30, 2004, when the marchers reach the National Congress in Tegucigalpa, Global Response’s program director Paula Palmer was be there to meet them and to express the appreciation and support of Global Response members throughout the world.
Padre Tamayo insisted that the March wasn't ending on June 30 -- it was just beginning. He congratulated the marchers for proving all the pre-march rumors wrong: there was no violence perpetrated either against the marchers or by them. Bertha Oliva, who received death threats before the march (as did Padre Tamayo and many other march organizers), told the rally: We must persist in this movement without fear, without intimidation.
