The following is the acceptance speech given by Juan, one of the members of the Municipal Committe for the Defense of Public and Common Goods of Tocoa, Colon, Honduras. They were the recipients of this year's Letelier-Moffit International Human Rights Award, given on October 3, 2019.  

Good evening to everyone here today at this solemn event.

On behalf of the Municipal Committee for the Defense of Public and Common Goods of Tocoa, Colon,  Honduras, we would like to thank the Institute for Policy Studies located in the capital of the United States for giving the Letelier-Moffit International Human Rights Award to our organization.

We recognize your solidarity with the people's resistance in Honduras and specifically in Tocoa--where Guapinol and many other communities and organizations are a symbol of dignity and hope.  In the name of our political prisoners and their families who defend water and life, we are infinitely grateful for this act of solidarity that strengthens us and encourages us to keep fighting until we win.

Receiving the Letelier-Moffit award fills us with joy and hope, but it also increases our commitment to continue fighting in the capitalist vortex that is eating away at the foundations and the lifeblood of society in Latin America and in world.

The impact of this economic model is devastating. The current economic order of extraction is only possible by polluting our water and environment, destroying biodiversity, and displacing entire populations, accelerating the extinction of humanity.  Capitalism has taken the human species, along with all other species, to the brink of extinction.

The planet Earth has limits, but the extractive economic model does not recognize limits.  The North has channeled the land, natural resources and hydroelectric energy of the South into its own storehouses.  Our land has been fenced off, given in concession, militarized, and colonized; and our brothers and sisters have been criminalized, jailed, and murdered in the violence produced by this kind of capital accumulation.

This city lies at the center of world government. It is the place where the future of the planet and humanity is decided. And its foreign policy wreaks more havoc than an atom bomb, causing irreversible harm to the entire world.  From this place, we lift our voices in protest against the economic, political, colonial, and military order.  We reject the imposition of US aid to the government of Honduras  because it is used to threaten the lives of human rights defenders.

Together with Dr. Allende--whose moral courage has become a source of inspiration for IPS and for social movements everywhere--we say once again that "we will not give up" on truth, love, justice, and peace.

Together with Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, we move forward holding fast to a dream. We dream of a world free of violence, drug trafficking, corruption, and empires that impose exploitation, poverty, misery, and war in the name of democracy and freedom.

We recognize the hospitality that the people of the United States have given to the Honduran diaspora.  In our country, 68% live in poverty and 44% live in extreme poverty according to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Carribean (ECLAC). That is the origin of the caravans that day after day run up against the wall separating the wealthy North from the impoverished South.

Solidarity between peoples will result in the liberation of geographic, cultural, and physical territories. We will free the political prisoners of Guapinol who are currently locked up in a maximum security prison for defending water and life.

The people refuse to die at the hands of the extractive corporate empire and the government that promotes and protects it. Facing this neoliberal empire, we say, in the spirit of Berta Cáceres:  "Wake up, humanity. There is no more time."

Long live solidarity. Long live the rebel embrace and the fight for life! May our sons and daughters live free and happy on a liberated Earth. Long live the hope and rebellion of the communities who are the true owners of the award that we are receiving today.

Thank you.