Predators of Press Freedom: Honduras - Miguel Facussé Barjum, businessmen and landowner

Miguel Facussé Barjum, businessmen and landowner, Honduras

An uncle of former President Carlos Flores Facussé (1998-2002), agro-industrialist Miguel Facussé Barjum is a member of one the powerful oligarchic families that control Honduras' wealth. He heads Dinant, a company specializing in producing and marketing palm oil, and was one of the leading supporters of the June 2009 coup that toppled President Manuel Zelaya and paved the way for a still-continuing crackdown on opposition and grass-roots media. Its targets include small radio stations that defend the interests of local communities and often challenge those of big landowners such as Facussé.

A community radio station launched on 14 April 2010 in a fertile region coveted by the "oil palm magnate," La Voz de Zacate Grande has been the constant target of physical attacks, censorship and persecution by private security guards in Facussé's pay, with the police and army acting as accomplices. The same goes for the Afro-Honduran Radio Coco Dulce, a community radio station on the Atlantic coast. Ten journalists were murdered in Honduras in 2010. A probable or proven link to the victim's work as a journalist exists in three of the ten cases. All are still unpunished.

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