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On June
28, 2009, the Obama administration carried out its first successful
overthrow of a popular elected government. The Honduran military dragged
President Manuel Zelaya out of his home at gunpoint and forced him onto a
plane, which landed at the U.S.
airbase at Soto Cano before flying him to Costa Rica, whose government became
an aider and abettor in the coup.
With President Zelaya’s ouster, Obama demonstrated that he
was capable of keeping the promises he had made in Miami before the Cuban
American National Foundation on May 23, 2008, when he vowed to reverse Latin
America’s growing assertion of its sovereignty and re-impose U.S. domination in
the region. Decades of plundering and exploitation by transnational corporations,
under regimes installed backed by the U.S. State Department and CIA, have
devastated Latin America, provoking widespread
rejection of neoliberal policies. This popular backlash is the driving force
behind the revolutions in Venezuela
and Bolivia
and the creation of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, among
other regional initiatives.
Zelaya’s overthrow and the managed “election” of Porfirio
Lobo allowed comprador bourgeois elements to regain full control of the
government. Honduras
was taken out of ALBA and the exploitation of its land, water and people has
been intensified.
Billionaire industrialist Miguel Facusse is turning Bajo
Aguán into a vast palm plantation to export the oil for biofuel, kidnapping and
murdering peasants who defend their land rights. David Zaccaro is the public
face of the consortium behind the Bahía de Tela that
is attempting to force local communities—especially the Garífuna—to leave their lands to
build a mega tourist resort. The mining transnational, Goldcorp, is
destroying agriculture and water sources. And U.S. financier Paul Romer has
launched an initiative to change the Honduran constitution to allow the
creation of privatized “charter cities,” autonomous areas with their own
governments and legal systems, serving private investors.
The coup sparked a militant uprising by the Honduran people,
whose resistance has not flagged over the last year and a half. In an
effort to reassert control over civil society, the government is trying to shut
down community radio stations in these contested areas. Radio stations have
been repeatedly attacked, and eight journalists were murdered in the first six
months of the Lobo administration.
Political murders, kidnappings and torture are common and
resistance leaders are under constant surveillance. Government forces have
killed more than 200 members of the resistance since the coup, with 36
activists and leaders murdered since Lobo took office. At least 50 more people
died in political violence. The LGBT community has been another target of
government repression—since the beginning of January three transgendered people
were murdered, and recently two more murders of LGBT people have been reported.
But in spite of the government’s brutality, it is far from
defeating the Honduran people. Under the leadership of the FNRP, the National
Popular Resistance Front, they continue to fight for a new constitution, in
order to build a new state for the Honduran workers and peasants.
The Party for Socialism and Liberation stands with the
Honduran people and the FNRP in their courageous struggle for
self-determination and liberation.
Solidarity with the Honduran people’s movement! U.S. hands
off Latin America and everywhere!
