Honduras: 200,000 march against illegitimate inauguration

[cyu]

Excerpts from http://quixote.org/more-hondurans-protest-inauguration-attend

buses and private cars surround the stadium as political party members, congressmen, international delegates, and mayors enter to attend the inauguration of the recently declared president of Honduras, Porfirio Lobo Sosa. Despite the high attendance close to 20,000, the stadium stands unfilled.

http://quixote.org/sites/qc/files/Marcha.jpg

Outside... over 200,000 Honduran teachers, small business owners, lawyers, youth, farmers, and many other employed and unemployed people march 5 kilometers across the city. They are protesting what they see as corruption and an illegitimate government.

In a country where multi-million dollar fast food chains like McDonalds and Pizza Hut, are protected from paying domestic taxes to the Honduras government, small Honduran business owners (who have to pay taxes) tell me that they had hoped that a reformed constitutional would make more equitable tax laws. Elementary school teachers say they wish this potential tax money could go to schools, where the average K-6 class size is 45 students.

Since the coup, ...thirty-two activists have been reported assassinated

Outside the enclosed stadium, over the past six months youth have written on street walls, VIVA LA DEMOCRACIA (May democracy live) and other democratic slogans. Each day, construction workers are paid to paint over the political graffiti... most international media sources have now lost interest in Honduras’s political situation... To some, the inauguration is the end – to others the beginning. It appears that the desire for democracy is not as easy to erase as the paint on the walls.

http://quixote.org/sites/qc/files/Graffiti.jpg

[Comrade B]

This story has sadly, long lost coverage in the media. I remember hearing a while ago Hillary Clinton declaring the Honduras situation a victory in US foreign policy.

[Rusty Shackleford]

This story has sadly, long lost coverage in the media. I remember hearing a while ago Hillary Clinton declaring the Honduras situation a victory in US foreign policy.


any source? i would like to see this.

[GPDP]

Here's to hoping the same thing that happened in Venezuela happens again in Honduras.

Down with the golpistas! May the working class of Honduras rise up to oppose their illegitimate rule!

[Nolan]

Viva Zelaya! Abajo con los golpistas!

[Comrade B]

She also claims that the US acted appropriately to stop the massacre in Guinea (http://anthonyclarkarend.com/humanrights/video-and-transcript-hillary-clintons-georgetown-human-rights-address/)


Sometimes, we will have the most impact by publicly denouncing a government action, like the coup in Honduras or violence in Guinea. Other times, we will be more likely to help the oppressed by engaging in tough negotiations behind closed doors, like pressing China and Russia as part of our broader agenda. In every instance, our aim will be to make a difference, not to prove a point. - Hillary Clinton

[cyu]

Hillary Clinton declaring the Honduras situation a victory in US foreign policy.

Pro-capitalists are in power, so of course she thinks it's a victory.

It's the same kind of victory that led to Pinochet getting into power: a victory for capitalism. US foreign policy hardly changes, no matter which pro-capitalist party is in power.

See also http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/CIAtimeline.html

[Comrade B]

Pro-capitalists are in power, so of course she thinks it's a victory.

It's the same kind of victory that led to Pinochet getting into power: a victory for capitalism. US foreign policy hardly changes, no matter which part is in power.
However on this issue the US was claiming to side with Zelaya, so they are saying that apparently this worked out in Zelaya's interest...
Even if they didn't really have helping as their intention, they still publicly claimed that it was

[Comrade B]

Pro-capitalists are in power, so of course she thinks it's a victory.

It's the same kind of victory that led to Pinochet getting into power: a victory for capitalism. US foreign policy hardly changes, no matter which part is in power.
However on this issue the US was claiming to side with Zelaya, so they are saying that apparently this worked out in Zelaya's interest...
Even if they didn't really have helping as their intention, they still publicly claimed that it was

[cyu]

However on this issue the US was claiming to side with Zelaya, so they are saying that apparently this worked out in Zelaya's interest...
Even if they didn't really have helping as their intention, they still publicly claimed that it was

Damage control.

This used to be at wikileaks, but that's down now. From http://www.prisonplanet.com/us-special-forces-briefing-to-congressman-miller-exposes-involvement-in-19-latin-american-countries-during-2009-including-honduras.html

On page 7 of the document, it is proudly proclaimed that the 7h Special Forces Group has conducted missions in every Latin American country.

On page 10 a map is given, revealing Special Forces deployments to 19 Latin American countries during 2009 alone, including two bases or missions in Honduras.

After the coup, there was international outcry against it. Only after general opposition became clear did the American regime offer lukewarm criticism of the de-facto government.

From http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jul2009/pers-j01.shtml

"A US official speaking anonymously confirmed to the New York Times that US Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Thomas A. Shannon, Jr. and US Ambassador to Honduras Hugo Llorens spoke to military officials and opposition leaders in the days before the coup. He explained: There was talk of how they might remove the president from office, how he could be arrested, on whose authority they could do that."

From http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/23384

"Obama administration has never condemned the massive human rights violations... documented by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the OAS Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), as well as Honduran, European, and other human rights organizations. There have been thousands of illegal arrests, beatings and torture by police and military, the closing down of independent radio and TV stations, and even some killings of peaceful demonstrators and opposition activists."

[cyu]

State Terrorism against the resistance movement

Excerpts from http://quixote.org/state-terrorism-against-resistance-movement-contradicts-discource-reconciliation

For the Committee of the Families of the Detained and Disappeared of Honduras, (COFADEH), the current regime is seeking to clean up an image that has been flooded with blood and terror by presenting itself as a government of reconciliation to the international community.

However, this is not reality. As wine is sipped in elegant hotels, the story of those who carried out the coup is heard... Outside, there are kidnappings, assassinations

Every effort is being made to white wash the coup d’état. Last week, an amnesty was approved that is a monstrous maneuver to cover the crimes of those who responsible for human rights violations.

Feb. 2, 2010 – Two young cameramen, Manuel de Jesus Murillo Varela and Ricardo Rodriquez were temporarily kidnapped by police officers dressed as civilians and taken to a clandestine jail. They were hooded and lost consciousness due to asphyxiation.

Feb. 3, 2010 – Vanessa Zepeda, a 29 year old nurse, active member of the resistance and union organizer, left her home at 2pm. Her body was later dumped out of a vehicle in the Loarque neighborhood between 6:30 and 7pm. Vanessa was the mother of three children; the youngest is 4 months old.

January, 2010 – Blas Lopez, a teacher and leader of the Pech ethnic group, was murdered in the village of Carbonal. He was an active member of the resistance.

[Klashnekov]

It seems a great opputnity for a Focoist style Armed Struggle

[Red Commissar]

Thanks for the update. I noticed there was little information leading up to the election aside from an announcement of the winner and Zelaya's subsequent exile.

There were people meeting him at the airport, and those who protested later on. So clearly there will still be discontent against this government which was installed by the power holders in the country, and possibly the region at large.

[cyu]

I noticed there was little information leading up to the election aside from an announcement of the winner and Zelaya's subsequent exile.

Here's some info from http://everything2.com/title/Honduras%202009

(November 27) Election in Honduras: Witch hunt against opposition to ruling regime
http://wsws.org/articles/2009/nov2009/hond-n27.shtml
"mayors have reportedly been ordered by the armed forces to draw up lists of people considered to be opponents of the elections for possible detention... government will criminally prosecute anyone in the media who advocates a boycott of the November 29 vote... incursion of cars bearing no license plates and with tinted windows, driven by heavily armed subjects, with their faces covered in ski masks in the neighborhoods identified with resistance to the coup."

(November 30) Election in Honduras: Army jams opposition radio
http://www.marxist.com/honduras-election-repression-boycott-resistance.htm
"On election day itself, a bomb went off outside the offices of the Women's Rights Centre in San Pedro Sula. The headquarters of STIBYS, the trade union of beverage workers... were attacked with machine gun fire in a drive by shooting... radio station Canal 36... 80% of the time is off the air, because the Army is broadcasting a powerful signal on the same wavelength, particularly when the station is broadcasting news or opinions against the de facto government"

(December 1) Election in Honduras: Soldiers ordered to destroy opposition to sham election
http://wsws.org/articles/2009/dec2009/hond-d01.shtml
"Over 1,000 people had marched to the central plaza and the San Pedro Sula Cathedral, where they sang the national anthem and carried crosses memorializing the dozens who have been killed during the last five months of repression... the soldiers set to work demolishing a truck that had carried sound equipment and posters protesting the illegitimate vote."

(December 6) Honduran elections exposed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1O_0uJqoVtI
A high ranking official at the election tribunal told me off camera that the president of the tribunal, Saul Escobar, on the night of the election, announced the number out of nowhere. When I asked the official to say that on camera, they responded, "Do you really want me to get shot?"

(December 7) Honduras: An election validated through blood and repression
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13MW9i2M5UE
"the electoral process is being run by the same assassins of our people... the only glass breaking we observed that day was done by the police themselves"

[bayano]

http://hondurasresists.blogspot.com is one of my main resources, and I actually have worked on it a little as well. Here's a recent communique from the resistance, though:


Dear Friends of Los Necios,



Urgent Call to the International Community



Continued Assassination and Persecution of Resistencia
15 February JULIO FUNES BENITEZ. Assassinated. Member of the SITRASANAA trade union. Shot in the face and chest in the city Comayaguela by four unknown men in a taxi.
12 February HERMES REYES. Tortured and beaten by paramilitaries in Siguatepeque.
12 February PORFILIO PONCE. Men identified as police violently entered his house breaking many belongings and taking his computer
9 February EDGAR MARTÍNEZ , CAROL RIVERA, MELISSA RIVERA and JOHAN MARTÍNEZ were kidnapped and heavily beaten. Melissa was violated. Upon being released on February 12 they were told that there experience was a gesture from Pepe (current Honduran dictator)
3 February VANESSA YAMILETH ZEPEDA. 27 year old union leader, mother and nurse assassinated in Honduras
Through this medium we make an urgent call to international human rights organizations, social and political organizations, and people in solidarity with the Honduran pueblo to publically denounce the continued assassination, torture and repression of Honduran people.
We place all responsibility upon the headed dictatorship of Pepe Lobo, Óscar Álvarez Security Minister, heads of the armed forces and the U.S government which continues to support the dictatorship.
Our work is to maintain the world aware of the struggle of the Honduran pueblo and the continued abuse of human rights committed by the civil- military dictatorship. Please support us by forwarding this newsletter or adding people to our mailing list: [email protected] (http://us.mc365.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected])
Los Necios
Tegucigalpa February 15, 2010
www.losnecios.com (http://www.losnecios.com/)

Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular – Assembly February 15 (http://docs.google.com/present/view?id=dcvd2v8w_28dvmw3xhn)
Article and Photos (http://docs.google.com/present/view?id=dcvd2v8w_28dvmw3xhn)

From “Christian Neoliberalism” to Socialist liberalism… (http://losnecios.com/?page_id=37)
Analysis by Gilberto Ríos Munguía, exiled militant of Organización Politica Los Necios (http://losnecios.com/?page_id=37)

Statement on Behalf of U.S. Labor & Progressive Activists Condemning the Murder of Union Leader Vanessa Yamileth Zepeda & the Repression Sweeping Honduras (http://losnecios.com/?page_id=37)

Honduran Dr Luther Castillo Among Reinforcements: International Team of Cuban-Trained Doctors Arrives in Haiti (http://www.medicc.org/ns/index.php?s=19&p=19)

[cyu]

Excerpts from http://www.mimundo-photoessays.org/2010/02/history-repeats-committee-of-relatives.html

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_V_HHeKTB7QU/S3IEr31Si6I/AAAAAAAAEJ4/GrSVrKE1nRg/s400/06.jpg

“I believe we are experiencing a dictatorship without precedents, even worse than in the 80’s. Back then, while we lived under the military boot, paramilitary groups and death squads would assassinate and disappear people in a clandestine manner, so that it was difficult to point them out as the criminals. Today, they do it in broad daylight

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_V_HHeKTB7QU/S3IEPtPWvdI/AAAAAAAAEJQ/lnne1R6T0Lk/s400/11.jpg

“The coup [against Mel Zelaya on June 2009] was planned by a loose association of businessmen lead by Carlos Roberto Flores Facussé, former President of Honduras (1988-2002). Flores Facussé’s ‘La Tribuna’ newspaper, in cahoots with two other major newspapers ‘La Prensa’ & ‘El Heraldo’, and TV channels 2, 3, 5 and 9, were the main pillar behind the coup… This group of businessmen, who control 90% of the country’s wealth, also includes Jaime Rosenthal and Gilberto Goldstein (directors of the Continental Group, a conglomerate that monopolizes the Honduran banking system, agro industry, and owns mass media outlets like ‘El Tiempo’ and channel 11), José Rafael Ferrari, Juan Canahuati, financier Camilo Atala, lumber mogul José Lamas, energy industrialist Fredy Násser, Jacobo Kattán, sugar baron Guillermo Lippman, construction tycoon Rafael Flores, and real estate and African palm magnate Miguel Facussé”.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_V_HHeKTB7QU/S3IEKXDBwJI/AAAAAAAAEJI/KDhOYNNDaKI/s400/12.jpg

Billy Joya Améndola, former member of Battalion 3-16 who has been accused of numerous human rights violations during the 80’s, served as advisor for Micheletti and has lead terror and torture campaigns for the de facto regime.

Recently-inaugurated president Pepe Lobo has wasted no time in revealing his firm associations with the coup plotters. “His first presidential act consisted of ratifying a political amnesty law proposed by the National Congress, intended to clear all crimes related to the political crisis stemming from Zelaya’s forceful removal from power.” Such bold action awards full impunity to the hundreds of criminals who committed thousands of human rights violations against members of the civic resistance movement.”

In addition, Lobo immediately set forth his strategy of containment against the ever-growing popular resistance catalyzed by last June’s events, by naming Oscar Álvarez as his Minister of Security. Having already served this post during the presidency of Ricardo Maduro (2002-2006), Álvarez has been highly criticized for his evasion of legal procedures, disregard for human rights... “Less than 24 hours after having been sworn in, Minister Álvarez carried out one of his infamous madrugones, or pre-dawn raids. These illegal forced-entry procedures, which often violate national laws, were rather common during his stint under Maduro. On this occasion, he sent a clear message to the Popular Resistance Movement.”

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_V_HHeKTB7QU/S3IEAhH22PI/AAAAAAAAEI4/5p14JHSX03c/s400/14.jpg

[Communist]

.
Regime change in Honduras brings more repression (http://www.workers.org/2010/world/honduras_0225/)
By Berta Joubert-Ceci
Feb 17, 2010

On Jan. 27 Jose “Pepe” Lobo was inaugurated as the new president of Honduras. His inauguration was the product of illegitimate elections held under a coup d’état, with pervasive repression of the opposition forces and with only 30 percent of eligible voters participating in the elections.

The inauguration ceremony was held in a stadium that holds 35,000 but was almost empty. Only three other heads of state attended: Ricardo Martinelli from Panamá, Leonel Fernández from the Dominican Republic and Ma Ying-jeou from Taiwan. Colombia, Peru, Malta, Japan and the United States sent representatives.

The resistance, led by the Popular National Front of Resistance (FNRP), filled the streets with more than 300,000 people who marched to show their opposition and non-recognition of the new government. They also bid farewell to their beloved legitimate leader, President Jose Manuel Zelaya. After four months housed in captivity in the Brazilian Embassy, Zelaya would fly to the Dominican Republic accompanied by the president of that country.

In a moving ceremony, resistance leader Juan Barahona received the legitimate presidential sash from Zelaya. In his speech, “Honduras has changed forever,” Barahona laid out the tasks ahead for the resistance: organizing, mobilizing and formulating ideology in order to strengthen the resistance “as the instrument of the peoples’ power for the conquest of power.” This, said Barahona, must be done in a very unified way and inclusive “of all the exploited, oppressed and marginalized of our nation, with no exception whatsoever.” (www.redaccionpopular.com (http://www.redaccionpopular.com))

The new Lobo government has started as a furiously repressive one, similar to the fascist Álvaro Uribe regime in Colombia. In fact, Uribe was the first president to visit Lobo after his inauguration, in order to sign security cooperation agreements. Other treaties have since been signed by the two countries in matters of defense, surveillance, terrorism, kidnapping, drug trafficking, etc. Colombian paramilitaries have been operating in Honduras in coordination with the country’s army and police. They were invited by the previous, fraudulent Micheletti government, of which Lobo’s regime is the continuation.

Illustrating the repressive character of the new regime and its declaration of war against the resistance, several peasants from the Unified Peasant Movement of Aguán were shot and injured by army and police on the day of Lobo’s inauguration.

On Feb. 2, two videographers who cover the resistance were temporarily abducted and tortured. The following day, the body of 29-year-old union leader Vanessa Zepeda was found after being disappeared and tortured. On Feb. 10, Edgar Martínez, his spouse, two brothers and a friend were temporarily kidnapped and tortured. Two women were raped.

On Feb. 11, two men raided the home of Porfirio Ponce, resistance leader and vice-president of STYBIS, the beverage industry workers union whose Tegucigalpa headquarters serves as the resistance’s main office. The men took Ponce’s computer and spilled blood on his bed as a warning. Ponce was in charge of hosting an International Action Center solidarity delegation to Honduras from the United States in October.

Hermes Reyes, member of the Artists Movement in Resistance, was temporarily disappeared and tortured on Feb 12. Three days later, Julio Fúnez Benítez, an active member of the resistance and the Union of Workers of SANAA, the National Service of Water and Sewage Systems, was shot dead by two paramilitaries on a motorcycle.

This is the government that the United States recognizes as “the road to democracy” in Honduras, just like it does with paramilitary president Uribe in Colombia.

Despite this criminal repression, the resistance is determined to prevail. Their slogan is “¡Resistimos y Venceremos!” (We resist and we will win!) It is the task of all progressive people around the world to follow the direct request of the resistance: Expose these crimes and refuse to recognize the government of Pepe Lobo.


__________




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