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Honduran Repression Continues Unabated - by Stephen Lendman
Earlier articles explained the June 28, 2009 coup and aftermath, the latest accessed through the following link:
For Hondurans, the event marked a new beginning, not an end to their dark history. Widespread killings and human rights abuses followed and a sham November election, installing Porfirio (Pepe) Lobo Sosa president, a US-friendly stooge heading a fascist regime. The nation's military is firmly in control against popular resistance, street violence and death squad terror its repressive tools. The Obama administrative stands firmly supportive. It blessed the coup, the new government and provides aid, all for hardline rule, none for popular needs.
Activists and journalists are especially threatened. Honduras is one of the most dangerous countries anywhere for those speaking openly about government corruption, human rights abuses, and despotism, the latest casualty - Radio Internacional reporter Zelaya Diaz, shot dead on August 24 along a rural San Pedro Sula road. According to press reports, he died from two bullet wounds to the head, another in his chest. Like similar past incidents, an investigation, if it occurs, will be whitewashed. No one will be held accountable.
Though not openly threatened, an earlier suspicious fire damaged Diaz's home, a message perhaps demanding he stop reporting on politics and crime. Since March alone, eight journalists have been killed, a disturbing pattern against others stepping too close to honest reporting about what Hondurans most need to know - the truth about their corrupted, brutal regime.
Despite the UN General Assembly's June 30, 2009 condemnation of the coup "by acclimation," 90 nations have now restored diplomatic ties, normalizing relations after the October 30 Tegucigalpa-Jose Accord (the unfulfilled agreement to form a National Unity/ Reconciliation Government) and Lobo's election - business as usual triumphing over the rule of law and democratic freedoms, Washington always in the lead, pressuring others to go along.
Resistance, however continues. On August 27, Honduras Resists reported that protests and police repression filled Tegucigalpa streets, the nation's capital, for the third straight day. Security forces surrounded the National Pedagogic University where teachers, students, unionists, campesinos, and other activists gathered inside demanding social justice.
They were attacked, police using tear gas, then beating some overcome and forced outside. Others were arrested. The previous day, thousands of teachers were assaulted near the Presidential Palace (Casa Presidential), the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in Honduras (CODEH) saying a number were wounded, yet Escuela Hospital refused to treat four injured professors. Protests erupted after negotiations with the Lobo government failed. Security forces responded repressively.
Honduran human and worker rights are consistently denied. As a result, on August 31, the National Front for Popular Resistance (FNRP) called for a September 7 nationwide strike for a living wage and other demands, including keeping the nation's natural resources public, not privatized.
According to Juan Barahona, President of the United Federation of Workers of Honduras (FUTH), it's also to "express our rejection of this regime," its repressive policies and neoliberal model.
In addition, FNRP wants a National Constituent Assembly to review and rewrite the Constitution, supported by most Hondurans. It also plans a September 15 national mobilization commemoration on the 187th anniversary of independence from Spain.
It needs another from Washington, Honduras' ruling oligarchy, fascist government, and repressive military and police, cracking down brutally against activists, campesinos, and supportive journalists for social justice.
Report from Rights Action (RA)
RA focuses on community development, emergency relief, environmental and human rights issues in Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and El Salvador. It aims to "build north-south alliances and carries out education, political and legal work for global equity and justice," following a "just development model."
On August 31, it reported that Honduran repression continues, elaborating on three-days of Tegucigalpa crackdowns. It followed weeks of public school teacher demands for the return of $200 million taken from the National Institute of IMPREMA, an institution managing their pension funds.
