Honduras

The Desperate Choices Behind Child Migration

June 28, 2014 Alexandra Early, www.PopularResistance.org Educate! Guatemala, Honduras, Immigration, Trade

The vast majority of Salvadorans, like other Central Americans, don’t want to migrate to the U.S. They love their families and communities and would much prefer to stay and work or go to school in their own countries. Creating stricter immigration rules and deporting more children will not stop this wave of forced migrants; only giving them the chance to survive and prosper at home will. The U.S. Government could do a lot to make life better in El Salvador and Honduras. But right now they are doing just the opposite. . . only a dramatic shift in U.S. foreign policy will help change conditions in Central America and ease the humanitarian crisis at our border. The U.S. government must stop pushing free trade and privatization and start funding social programs. But most of all it must stand up for human rights. And these include the right not to migrate but to stay, study, work, speak out and live happily in your own home country.

Imperialist Boomerang: Humanitarian Child Migrant Refugee Crisis

June 22, 2014 Hector Luis Alamo, Jr., www.latinorebels.com Educate! Guatemala, Honduras, Immigration, Mexico

The U.S. government’s primary objective in Honduras, as with the rest of Latin America, has never been to establish a safe and prosperous society for its citizens. The Honduran government has simply been a proxy for U.S. business interests, first the United Fruit Company, and now the U.S. military-industrial complex. And because Washington’s game plan has been so successful in Honduras, we have our glimpse at what could be in store for Central America and beyond. Order and peace is desired by policymakers insofar as it creates an environment for the U.S. government and the governments it controls can impose neoliberal policies on the region and extract wealth. It’s no surprise then that Honduras, the original banana republic, and the poster child for U.S. meddling run amok, should today be the country of origin for the greatest number of child migrants. The United States’ vampirish policy toward Honduras has drained that country.

Honduras Gold Mine Extracts Profits At Great Cost

January 27, 2014 Mark Taliano, www.rabble.ca Educate! Canada, Environment, Honduras, Mining

Rule by corporation, underwritten by the secretive Canada-Honduras Free Trade Agreement, is much preferred by corporate polities, including the Canadian government. Political economies that benefit Hondurans -- such as a higher minimum wage, better international financing, a moratorium on mining concessions, and the rule of international law -- are seen as an impediment to business. Since international human/labour rights conventions, including the International Labour Organization's Convention 169 (ILO Convention 169) -- to which Honduras is a signatory -- are not respected by many countries, including post-coup Honduras, globalized corporate governance will continue to be a "race to the bottom" rather than a "race to the top."

Photo & Essay: Why The World Should Care About Honduras Election

December 4, 2013 Mark Weisbrot, www.theguardian.com/ Resist! Democracy, Honduras

On Sunday, 24 November, Hondurans went to the polls to choose a new president, congress, and mayors. There were a lot of concerns about whether a free and fair election was possible in the climate of intimidation and violence (pdf) that prevailed in the country. As I noted before the vote, members of both the US House of Representatives and the US Senate had, in the prior six months, written to US Secretary of State John Kerry, expressing their concerns. Their worst fears proved justified. During the weekend of the election, three Libre party activists were murdered. This has received little attention from the media, but imagine if 120 Democratic party organizers (scaling up for the population of the US) were assassinated in the course of a US presidential election – a fourth Libre party activist was murdered on 30 November.

Thousands March To Demand Vote Recount In Honduras

December 2, 2013 Staff, www.AP.org Resist! Democracy, Honduras

Thousands of people marched peacefully Sunday in Honduras' capital to support opposition presidential candidate Xiomara Castro in her claim that last weekend's election was fraudulent. The electoral court has declared conservative Juan Orlando Hernandez of the ruling National Party as the winner. The court said that with 96 percent of ballots counted, Hernandez had 37 percent and Castro was second with 29 percent. Six other candidates shared the remaining votes. Both Castro and her husband, former President Manuel Zelaya, who was ousted by a coup in 2009, led the protest march from a pickup truck carrying the body of a militant of their Libre Party, who was shot to death hours before the demonstration began. "We are here to denounce the culture of death promoted since the coup, this can only be a political crime," said Zelaya, whose removal from office has left Honduras polarized.

Honduran Election Results Contested By International Observers

November 30, 2013 Kevin Edmonds, www.nacla.org Educate! Elections, Honduras, Imperialism

These elections were regarded as pivotal for Honduras, as the administration of the ruling National Party has done little to combat the country’s poverty rate which stands at over 60 percent. Instead the National Party has been focused on opening up the country to multinational corporations. This is best demonstrated by the National Party’s passage of a new mining law that would remove the moratorium on the granting of new mining concessions put in place by former president Zelaya in 2008. The new mining law, which was passed earlier this year, was drafted with the help of the Canadian International Development Agency. The law effectively allows for a return to destructive open-pit mining practices that have been linked to numerous human rights abuses and widespread environmental destruction.

Urgent: Calls To Honduran Authorities Needed Today, Election Intimidation Must Stop

November 24, 2013 Alliance for Global Justice, www.popularresistance.org Resist! Elections, Honduras

In the last two days, HSN election observers have either experienced or confirmed the following: Over 30 Military Police wearing ski masks attempted to forcibly enter a LIBRE party office in Tegucigalpa On multiple occasions, agents identifying themselves as workers of the Honduran Immigration Service, have harassed international election observers, tracking them down at their hotels or training centers to confirm that their documentation is in order. In some cases, this has occurred soon after these same observers have received official Training from the Supreme Electoral Tribunal. In one instance, the "agents" were armed and wearing ski masks. Please contact US and Honduran authorities to denounce these actions that continue to generate a climate of fear and intimidation before tomorrow's vote. Because of the Urgency of this matter, we are urging Spanish Speakers to CALL HONDURAN AUTHORITIES TODAY and ask them to end all intimidation of voters and election observers. PHONE NUMBERS ARE PROVIDED BELOW!

US Continues To Be On The Wrong Side Of Democracy

September 15, 2013 Dana Frank, www.miamiherald.com Educate! Honduras, Wars and Militarism

A driving force behind this militarization is Juan Orlando Hernández, the ruling party candidate for president in Honduras’ upcoming presidential election on November 24, who has promised to protect Hondurans with “a soldier on every corner.” Yet he himself supported the military coup that deposed President Zelaya, and this past December, while he was president of Congress, led the so-called “technical coup,” in which the Congress illegally deposed four members of the Supreme Court and named their replacements the very next day. In the polls, though, Hernández is far behind the front runner, Xiomara Castro Zelaya, the wife of deposed President Zelaya and the leader of a new opposition party, LIBRE, that arose out of massive popular opposition to the coup. As Honduras hurtles toward its elections, the State Department has yet to denounce the military takeover of policing. U.S. funding for the Honduran police and military has in fact increased every year since the coup.

International Day Of Action In Solidarity With Honduran Indigenous Defenders

September 7, 2013 Staff, www.otherworldsarepossible.org Resist! Food and Agriculture, Honduras, Indigenous Rights

On September 12, three leaders of the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) must appear in court to face charges by the Honduran government and a hydroelectric dam company. They are Berta Caceres, Tomás Gomez, and Aureliano Molina. The highly politicized case is aimed at criminalizing COPINH and breaking the strong Lenca indigenous resistance to illegal damming, logging, and mining in their territories. Beyond the plunder of their lands, forests, and waters, the physical, legal, and political attacks on COPINH members and other indigenous peoples have been increasing rapidly. Assassinations, kidnapping, machete slashing, arrests, and threats are weekly events in the communities which are resisting.

“They Fear Us Because We Are Fearless”: Reclaiming Indigenous Lands In Honduras

August 28, 2013 Tory Field and Beverly Bell, www.otherworldarepossible.org Strategize! Corporatism, Democracy, Honduras

Multinational corporations are moving into Central America to exploit gold and other minerals, rivers, forests, and agricultural lands. One area of high interest in the corporate feeding frenzy is the indigenous Lenca region in the southwest of Honduras. The government has given outside businesses concessions to dam, drill, and cut, in violation of national law and international treaties. More corporations have simply moved in on their own. The most pressing issue now affecting Lenca lands is a series of large hydroelectric dams which are already under construction. They are part of 41 dam concessions which may soon come under active exploitation. The concessions came thanks to a mining law passed in January 2013 by a national congress that was voted in under an illegal government that took power in the 2009 coup d’etat. The law allows for open pit mining as well as mining in populated areas, which opens the door for large-scale displacement.

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