On 20 December 2022, US corporation Honduras Próspera Inc. announced a $10.7 billion international legal claim against the Honduran government.

Próspera’s investors want to be compensated by the Honduran people for their democratic decision to overturn a 2013 law enabling the creation of special economic zones known as ‘ZEDEs’.

Sold to foreign investors as a crypto-libertarian paradise, these zones were granted autonomy from the national government creating spaces where companies can abuse workers rights, ignore international agreements and extract the nation's wealth into bank accounts in tax havens.

The country is now facing a total of seven international investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) claims from different corporations. Próspera Inc. alone is suing the government for a sum of $10.7 billion: two-thirds of Honduras’s planned budget for 2023.

That is why the Progressive International is mobilizing to Honduras: to hear directly from the communities affected by the ZEDEs, to draw international attention to the crime of corporate colonialism, and to support the government of President Xiomara Castro to defeat it.

Add your name to a letter to Joe Biden to tell Próspera to drop the case against Honduras and eliminate ISDS from US trade agreements.

Latest from the Movement

End the Nakba

Last week, as an intensified cycle of violence unleashed atrocities on civilians in Israel and Palestine, Council members from across the world issued a call to break the cycle, end the occupation, and form an international front for Palestinian liberation.

“Since oppression is the root cause of violence, to end all violence — the initial and ongoing violence of the oppressor and the reactive resistance of the oppressed — we must act to end oppression,” they wrote, citing the Palestinian BDS National Committee.

Since the publication of the Council statement, the siege of Gaza has worsened into a crime against humanity. Israeli forces have cut off electricity, food, water and fuel to Gaza, while they continue to carpet-bomb its people. “There’s an entire nation out there that’s responsible,” Israel’s President Isaac Herzog said of the people in Gaza, half of whom are children.

In response, PI member, the Palestinian Youth Movement made an urgent appeal for principled solidarity with the Palestinian resistance. You can read it here.

This Saturday, the world's progressive forces will march in their millions for Palestinian liberation. And the Progressive International has embarked on a process to build an international front to stop genocide in Gaza and support the liberation of Palestine through direct action, mutual aid, diplomatic pressure, legal prosecution, and trade union solidarity. To receive more frequent updates on the developments — and to get involved with these campaigns — you can sign up here.

Ecuador’s banana baron

Ecuador elected a new president last Sunday. Businessman and political scion Daniel Noboa defeated progressive former minister Luisa González 52-48. Noboa will be Ecuador’s youngest ever president. But youth is no barrier to great wealth.

Just two days before the election, Folha de São Paulo reported that Noboa controls, in part or in full, at least two shell companies in Panama, based on documents sourced from the groundbreaking 2016 Panama Papers investigations conducted by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). The reports suggest that Daniel Noboa is the direct beneficiary of other Panamanian tax haven companies and foundations inherited from his father, Álvaro Noboa, a banana trade magnate and Ecuador’s wealthiest man.

In a 2017 referendum, the Ecuadorian people voted, in a majority (over 55%) to pass a law explicitly prohibiting elected officials and public servants from holding “assets or capital, of any kind, in tax havens.” Noboa’s contravention of Ecuadorian law could therefore disqualify him from the presidency.

The Observatory of the Progressive International has demanded an urgent investigation into these apparent violations of Ecuadorian law — and calls on democratic forces everywhere to defend Ecuadorians’ right to hold their public officials accountable.

Teachers strike in Punjab

Teachers across Punjab in Pakistan were on strike this week to oppose the privatisation of schools and defend their right to pensions. “Our state is willing to give billions of rupees in subsidies to land, sugar and oil mafias but is unwilling to pay teachers their pension,” said Ammar Ali Jan, member of the PI’s Council and leader of PI member Haqooq-e-Khalq Party (HKP).

Dilemmas of Humanity

This week saw progressive movements and leaders meet in Johannesburg for the Dilemmas of Humanity conference. Several member organisations of the Progressive International participated in debates and discussions on building popular power to overcome capitalism and imperialism. You can watch back the public proceedings and read reports on the conference here.

Corbyn in India

PI Council member Jeremy Corbyn is in India today before returning to London to speak at the national march for Palestine tomorrow. He is in conversation with Varsha Gandikota-Nelluta, Co-General Coordinator of the Progressive International, to discuss internationalism for the 21st century and social justice in an age of crisis. Sign up here for more information and to watch the discussion.

Summit to Make Amazon Pay

The first ever Summit to Make Amazon Pay will take place next week on Friday 27 and Saturday 28 October in Manchester. Sign up here to follow the proceedings live as workers, unions, campaigners, regulators and parliamentarians develop strategies to Make Amazon Pay.

French opportunism

The French Socialist Party has pulled out of the opposition NUPES alliance over the solidarity to the Palestinian people shown by the largest party in the alliance, La France Insoumise, and it’s leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Statements from Mélenchon such as - “war crimes in Gaza must be denounced, prosecuted and punished... France must stop unconditional support for the government of Israel. The Palestinians are human beings, they deserve our help.” - proved to much to bear for the pro-imperialist rump Socialist Party.

We are mobilizing to Argentina

This Sunday, Argentina will host a general election with far-right extremist Javier Milei leading in the polls for its presidency.

Javier Milei is a professor, federal deputy, and the leader of political party La Libertad Avanza (Liberty Advances).

Milei is a self-described “anarcho-capitalist”, calling to dismantle the Argentine state and eliminate ministries such as Education, Labour, and Health.

That is why the Progressive International has dispatched a high-level international delegation to Buenos Aires: to accompany the electoral process; to strengthen ties with trade unions, social movements, and parliamentary representatives on the frontlines of Argentine democracy; and to unite, organize, and mobilize progressive forces around the world to stand with them.

Member in focus: Movimiento Semilla (Guatemala)

Movimiento Semilla (or the Seed Movement in English) is a progressive, democratic and plural political party in Guatemala. The party was founded in 2019 after protests against a governing regime of corruption and impunity, expressed in the historic social mobilizations of 2015. In Semilla’s first electoral campaign in 2019, the party won seven seats in the Guatemalan Congress. By 2023, that number increased to 23 elected deputies and the historic triumph of the election of president-elect Bernardo Arévalo, who will soon become Guatemala’s first progressive president in nearly a century.

Movimiento Semilla fights for a dignified life for all Guatemalans, seeks to build peace and unity in a country still suffering from the legacies of decades of civil war, and fights against persistent corruption. The party is governed by its respect for the principles of democracy, equity, pluralism, economic justice for Guatemala’s social majorities, and respect for nature.