Two articles on Honduras

Honduras: U.S. Support for Repression & Fraud

RIGHT-WING HONDURAN PRESIDENT Juan Orlando Hernandez (JOH) was inaugurated in a January 7, 2018 ceremony in a nearly empty National Stadium in the capital Tegucigalpa. Since the stolen election of November 26, 2017, the country had been totally militarized to protect his fraudulent victory — with a death toll of more than 34 killed by military and police.

The anti-dictatorship movement and organizations declared a civic insurrection, vowing that Honduras would be ungovernable. Hernandez’s authority will not be recognized by the citizenry.

Not surprisingly, the fraudulent election and subsequent repression were ignored by the U.S. government. The Trump Administration congratulated Hernandez for his “election victory,” confirming Washington’s support for the dictatorship. Hernandez is especially close to the Southern Command of the U.S. Military, to Donald Trump’s White House Chief of Staff General John F. Kelly, and to far rightwing forces in the United States and Latin America….

Honduras Since the 2009 Coup

ON NOVEMBER 26, 2017 national and local elections are scheduled in Honduras. This will be the third election since the U.S.-supported coup of June 28, 2009. Although more than eight years have passed, both resistance and repression continue. In fact the current coup regime led by President Juan Orlando Hernandez has hardened and tried to institutionalize dictatorship.

As this is being written, news arrives of arrests and serious charges filed against 14 community members of a poor area of Choluteca for opposing land grabs to build a solar energy plant; 28 small farmers in the northern Agujn Valley criminalized for trying to keep and work their land; and 31 university students and three human rights defenders facing jail after government attacks on student protests in Tegucigalpa.

This is not unusual, as repression and even violence including assassinations are a weekly if not daily occurrence….