07 September 2010 By Stephen
Lendman Earlier articles explained the
June 28, 2009 coup and aftermath, the latest accessed
through the following link: http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/08/honduran-junta-murdering-journalists.html 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. 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. The umbrella organization FOMH represents six teachers unions and their 63,000 members nationwide. After the June 2009 coup, they said the new regime took the money they want back. Students have demands as well, wanting 180 fired workers reinstated and National Autonomous University (UNAH) director, Julieta Castrellano's resignation. Allied with teachers, they also oppose Lobo's plan to privatize public education. As a result, it's been in crisis for months without resolution. Students occupied the university. Police assaulted it repressively. Peaceful protests continued. Hardline crackdowns followed. Police used water cannons, tear gas, rubber bullets, brutal beatings, and arrests, in the presence of women and children around the National Pedagogical University. From a black Toyota, a gunman fired a 9-millimeter weapon at protesters, the car belonging to the National Congress. Besides arrests, "Over 100 people were captured and 'guarded' by police against a fence outside the University." After human rights representatives intervened, they were released. Yet many teachers and students were trapped in classrooms suffering tear gas exposure. Seven or more others were injured, including a Globo TV/Radio journalist. Earlier in August, security forces brutally beat three union leaders and one teacher, fingered by regime infiltrators in their marches. The corporate-owned media call protesters "instruments of violence," accusing them of disrupting children's education. In fact, they're Hondurans for social justice. On August 31, the Honduras Solidarity Network (HSN), a coalition of US organizations, denounced state repression, saying: "the recent brutal attacks by government forces against non-violent protests show that there has been no reconciliation after last year's coup d'etat, and the US government's policy of support for the current government must be changed. We call for an immediate end to the repression and human rights violations against the opposition movement," its teachers, students, unionists and other supporters. HSN spokeswoman Vicki Cervantes said "The United States government continues its support for the oligarchy and Lobo in the form of aid and pressure on other governments in the hemisphere to accept" its legitimacy when, in fact, it has none. Meanwhile, popular opposition is growing. For the first time since 1954, Honduran trade union federations called a general strike. In addition, nearly one million eligible voters signed letters demanding a National Constituent Assembly to rewrite the Constitution. So far, hardline repression continues, Washington providing weapons and ammunition. Campesinos Struggling for Their Rights They're ongoing throughout Honduras, including in the northern Valle de Aguan, once the country's agrarian reform capital, campesinos now contesting their land rights agreed to in a MUCA arranged deal - the Movimiento Unificado Campesino del Agua. Signed in December, they agreed to abandon occupied areas in return for 11,000 acres of cultivated and uncultivated land. However, powerful landowners objected, using security forces to intimidate, threaten, and persecute farmers, killing eight or more and arresting others on grounds of "theft and trespassing." The Aguan land struggle continues, the Committee in Defense of Human Rights (CODEH), saying "the facts show that the justice system like the Public Ministry and the Police are allied with the landowners of the zone to persecute those who try to challenge their privilege." Decades of the country's dark history under a ruling oligarchy left up to two-thirds of Hondurans impoverished, unable to meet basic needs. Most are landless or have too little, over half unemployed or underemployed, while wealthy landowners control most valued areas and want more, never satisfied with enough. Despite the 1962 agrarian reform, the 1992 Law for Agrarian Modernization rolled back earlier gains. Thereafter, indigenous movements only marginally restored losses, no match against wealthy oligarchs backed by repressive state forces, enforcing death squad terror. Honduras' class struggle persists in the hemisphere's second poorest country after Haiti, committed to end decades of repression, injustice and poverty, a growing problem throughout most of the world, dark interests wanting more wealth and power at the expense of easily exploitable people. Final Comments In America, the major media suppress the Honduran story - the coup, deep repression, and popular struggle for change. Committed grassroots pressure continues, what's mostly absent in the United States on a fast track toward despotism, the kind Central America has long experienced, Haitians and Hondurans most affected, yet persist for their rights against long odds they're determined one day to overcome.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening. http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
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