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So, as Adrienne mentioned, there's been a movement ever since the coup to privatize both these things as much as possible, little by little, education and health care. And those are the things that often spark these kinds of movements. In 2015, it was the National Party of Juan Orlando Hernandez that also inherited the coup, which stole $300 million, US, from the social security fund of the Honduran people. And then the study by the National University found that at least 3,000 people died from lack of access to their social security funds. And you don't have to spend much time in Honduras to meet many people who can tell you stories of either themselves or their family who went to go get their social security after working for 30 years or whatever it might be in the service, and not being able to get access to it because it was stolen. So these are the kinds of things that the US Embassy and the Canadian Embassy and other governments have not denounced in the past. And maybe we'll get to this, but it seems like this might be changing.
GREG WILPERT: Now, Adrienne, what are the current protests all about? I mean, of course they've probably taken up many of these demands that have happened in the past, but what's the main issue at the moment? And what are the chances that their demands, whatever they are, of being fulfilled anytime soon?
ADRIENNE PINE: Well, so as Jesse mentioned, there have been nationwide protests since April led by doctors and nurses and teachers in response to new, even stronger efforts to privatize healthcare and education. But about two weeks ago, there were documents released in the Southern District Court of New York related to the drug trafficking case of the president's brother and former Congress member Tony Hernandez that demonstrated that the current sitting President, Juan Orlando Hernandez, is being investigated as a co-conspirator, "CC4," co-conspirator number four, in the drug trafficking case.
Basically, it gives credence to what everybody already knew in Honduras, which is that this is a narco-dictatorship. In addition to Juan Orlando Hernandez, the leaders of the police and military organizations have also been named in these documents as co-conspirators. People are outraged and see this as a potential turning point. And as such, beginning last Monday, there have been massive protests nationwide that both take on the themes that have been present in protest since April fighting against privatization, but more urgently, take on the demand that the dictator must go.
GREG WILPERT: Now, Jesse, President Hernandez, or JOH, as he's sometimes called, has been quite directly implicated, as Adrienne was saying, in drug trafficking. But he denies these charges and even claims, as we saw in the clip earlier, that he is leading the fight against drug trafficking. Tell us a little bit more about Hernandez's own background, where he comes from, and who he represents in Honduras society.
JESSE FREESTON: Yeah, Juan Orlando Hernandez is from Western Honduras. It's a coffee region that has recently in recent decades also become a main transit region for cocaine coming up from Colombia. Juan Orlando Hernandez's father was a main landowner and military colonel. And this is key I think to understanding his power base. He equally represents these two groups which are often unified in the history of Honduras and today in Honduras.
So that's a bit where he comes from, and he comes from the National Party. And then, I don't know if this is really important, but if there's an equivalent to Make America Great Again in Honduras, it's this kind of Make Honduras Safe Again. And it's an older generation that looks back to the years of dictatorship under the Carà as family, which was the National Party that Hernandez represents. And Hernandez's wife is actually a descendant of Tiburcio Carà as, and she actually has the last name Carà as.
So all that to say is that, for a regime that hasn't built a single school, that's seen the healthcare system completely collapse and be, well, ransacked by themselves, their only real claim has been that they've been leading the fight against crime and leading the fight against drug trafficking. And so that's why him being named directly in a US court, despite talking about how he works hand in hand with the US to fight against drug trafficking and is doing a historically good job of doing it, that's why it hits straight to home. And he really has nowhere to go. He can't say, "Oh, I'm doing great work in healthcare. I'm doing great work in education." He has to keep hammering this home, "No, I'm tough on crime," because that's really, when you talk to his supporters, that's the only thing they can mention that his government does, is invest in the military and invest in the police.
GREG WILPERT: Adrienne, that's actually what I wanted to ask you about as well. I mean, does Hernandez have any credibility left in Honduras at the moment? And how are the press and the political class responding to these accusations against Hernandez?
ADRIENNE PINE: Well, it's interesting, Greg, because the political class, or rather the mainstream press, has almost uniformly been supportive of Juan Orlando Hernandez, but they haven't been able to ignore this news. And so there's been something of a shift in the past week where they have to address the fact that in a United States Federal Court, the president that they've been supporting all along because the Honduran mass media is owned by the same people who supported the coup, the same people who've supported Juan Orlando Hernandez, and they've been basically his propagandists. But now what it's looked like over the past week is that there's a little bit of backing off because, ultimately, the sense is on the ground that Juan Orlando can't last that much longer. Nobody knows how long he's going to last, but there's a consensus that he's not going to finish out his presidential term.
GREG WILPERT: And if he doesn't, if he were to resign, what would that mean? Would there be new elections, or would the vice president take over? What do you think would happen?
ADRIENNE PINE: That's really the big question. That's the million dollar question because that determines everything that comes afterwards. And there's not a clear answer to it. It's doubtful that Ricardo Alavarez would want, who's next in line, would want to take on that position, because it's a position that will be so tainted, and he himself wants to be elected president, a legitimated president. And there's talk that perhaps there will be a governing council. But the thing is that, as people understand politics here, the real power lies in the US Embassy. And so, in large part, what people on the ground are saying is that it all depends on what they decide they want to happen in Honduras. And this is part of the ongoing usurpation of Honduran democratic processes and sovereignty that has been going on since well before the coup, but has really intensified since the 2009 coup.
GREG WILPERT: Okay. Jesse, do you want to add anything to that?
JESSE FREESTON: Yeah. I would say that this idea that the real power in Honduras is in the embassy " And I say the embassy because that's what people call it, they call it "la Embajada." They don't say "the US Embassy," they just say "the Embassy," because of the power that it historically and apparently right now has in Honduras. And I'd say this is the first time though where from Honduras, it looks like you're seeing two versions of US power, or two wills, or two desires coming from the North. Throughout the Obama government into the Trump government, there's really been, while the words may have been different, there's really only been one US. It's been very consistent in terms of its support for the government and all this stuff. And in Honduras, people are used to the judiciary being extremely political. So the idea that the judiciary would do something that the executive doesn't want is kind of it doesn't often happen in Honduras, and typically doesn't happen in the US necessarily either. But what we're seeing here is a New York Attorney General going after a sitting president of Honduras, and then the embassy, at least until now saying, "We still support this guy."
And so I think this is a really interesting moment viewed from Honduras to see two versions of the empire, two moving parts of the empire apparently, at this moment at least. And maybe the embassy is getting ready to maybe this is part of all one plan to replace him, but as for now it seems like there's two moving parts kind of going against each other, which I think is quite fascinating. And I would point out the other thing is just what this shows is empire, as well as it might be a good thing that Juan Orlando Hernandez should fall given all his corruption. And so, it's quite sad to see how in Honduras today if you want a decent education, you go to the US. If you want credit, you go to the US, whether it be to the stock market if you're a private business. Or if you're the government, you go to the IMF. And now if you want justice, you have to go to a court in New York. So I think that's another lesson to take from what's happening there.
GREG WILPERT: Okay. Well, we're going to leave it there for now, but hopefully we'll have either one or both of you back on again soon as we see how this situation develops.
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