November 2020 Honduras Coup, Hurricanes and Pandemic Update (tags)
Not only do Hondurans continue to suffer the repression and impoverishment of living under the JOH dictatorship for years following previous coup regimes, and suffer through the pandemic while the regime redirects resources meant for health care and public health to the pockets of politicians and big business; Hondurans are now additionally suffering from two hurricanes that have devastated them. The regime and politicians - who just a week before were visiting communities with their political campaigns - not only are largely absent in rescue, refuge and rebuilding efforts, but actively impeded Hondurans who autonomously organised to help with rescue and food, and equally impeded the entry of donations and rescue volunteers from neighbouring countries. Hurricane Eta arrived in Honduras on 4 November 2020, and Hurricane Iota followed in on 16 November 2020. Amidst the disasters, flooding, and heavy winds that ravaged the people and land and crops, political persecution did not rest in this time; hitmen made an attempt on the life of CNTC (National Confederation of Campesino Workers) treasurer of the Santa Barbara branch, only to five days later assassinate the son of an organiser of the same branch of CNTC. Also in November, ex political prisoner Raúl Alvarez was stabbed by attackers, having been released on bail in August 2019 after imprisonment for 18 months together with Edwin Espinal and towards the end with Rommel. Meanwhile, there have been some absolute heroes this month within communities in Honduras with their autonomous actions of solidarity in both rescue and sharing what they can. All this and more: https://sydneywithhonduras.wordpress.com/2021/01/13/november-2020-honduras-coup-hurricanes-and-pandemic-update/
August 2020 Honduras Coup and Pandemic Update (tags)
This August 2020, we see Honduran people continue to suffer the lack of healthcare and the militarisation under the pandemic, with stories of majorly blatant examples of the dictatorship’s approach to people, arresting and killing a 74 year old healthy man for ‘breaking the curfew’ outside his own home, disappearing a 16 year old whose family had been involved in ‘Where is the Money?’ campaigns, and arresting a COVID-19 frontline doctor, preventing his delivery of an oxygen tank to a patient who needed it, the doctor being someone critical of the JOH dictatorship regime. https://sydneywithhonduras.wordpress.com/2020/09/29/august-2020-honduras-coup-and-pandemic-update/
July 2020 Honduras Coup Update (tags)
This July 2020 in Honduras we saw many killings and disappearances against activists and we saw many COVID-19 deaths including of a political prisoner, an organiser, health care workers and jorunalists. Living under a dictatorship regime where global and national capital, together with regime leaders, continue to profit through laundering and exploiting the people and the land – when you put a pandemic into that equation it’s a disaster, as we can see in Honduras. Government offers no protection for its poor majority, the money officially designated for healthcare doesn’t translate into actual healthcare, and there is no welfare to enable people to stay home, but the military is controlling the streets and spreading the illness. Communities and organisations continue to campaign for the ‘Where is the money?’ campaign, with voices reverberating from zoom conferences, to managing to stage large letters across highways, printing the question on roads for drivers to see, and on walls for passers-by – people must have found holes in the militarisation. They paint their pained words about losing increasing numbers of fellow Hondurans to death from COVID-19, lives lost due to government’s greed and lies. This July 2020 we saw many attacks against people and organisers, and we continue to see that on the other hand, big businesses that don’t even have environmental permits are free to move around, operate, and act in ways that are harmful to people and environment. And similar to discourse familiar to all of us worldwide about balancing the economy over staying home, this regime, like others, is broadcasting that the nation only has a chance of surviving the pandemic, if ‘development (mega) projects’ of mining, logging, energy etc go ahead and if people also put up with low wages (not to mention threats, killings, and arrests to impose opposed projects) so that large profits can be made from them. International development finance organisations also continue to ignore the violence meted out by capital and by the regime and fuel this fire, passing loans to the regime and ignoring cries from communities who dream of a different kind of ‘development’. https://sydneywithhonduras.wordpress.com/2020/08/30/july-2020-honduras-coup-and-pandemic-update/
June 2020 Honduras Coup and Pandemic Update (tags)
https://sydneywithhonduras.wordpress.com/2020/07/17/june-2020-honduras-coup-and-pandemic-update/ In June 2020, police assassinated a man at a police checkpoint, police brutally bashed transport workers in protest, a newspaper director goes public about knowing of plans to kill him that come from the state, COVID-19 outbreak in prisons have worsened and impacts on political prisoners, only one of whom had been released during June while over 1600 other prisoners were released for COVID-19 reasons. A number more of health care workers had died of COVID-19 in Honduras and cases shot up during this month to upwards of 20,000 confirmed cases.
May 2020 Honduras Coup and Pandemic Update (tags)
In May 2020, a lot have happened in Honduras under the pandemic and dictatorship. Confirmed cases upsurged a lot this month. Workers continue to struggle a lot. There had been a lot of state repression against people just for being out on the streets, trying to earn a living or get something done. The prison began known COVID-19 outbreaks with two prisoners dying of COVID-19 under custody. Political prisoners continue at risk, in terrible conditions, locked up. There had been also attacks from angry police and the criminal rich, against people on the community who either self organised or were obligated, to watch the entrances and exits of their communities in attempt to keep their communities safe from COVID-19. One such community protector, who is black Garífuna, was murdered. Another Garífuna man was murdered inside a thermoelectricity plant. News about all this and more, see the update https://sydneywithhonduras.wordpress.com/2020/06/25/may-2020-honduras-coup-and-covid-19-update/
April 2020 Honduras coup and pandemic update (tags)
https://sydneywithhonduras.wordpress.com/2020/05/23/april-2020-honduras-coup-and-pandemic-update/
January and February Honduras coup update (tags)
This January and February in Honduras, another indigenous leader was disappeared and found dead, after two other cases, in different parts of Honduras. There continues to be political prisoners in prison, one in psychiatric hospital, another two on bail after a long time have updates on their court dates. Many others, especially enivironmental defenders, threatened with prison, charged, arrested. Two campesina organisations in different parts of the country were broken into and had information and equipment stolen. A new migrants caravan set out for the US in thousands. This and other news, see here https://sydneywithhonduras.wordpress.com/2020/04/01/january-and-february-2020-honduras-coup-update/
October 2019 Honduras Coup update (tags)
Summary: A campesino of the Bajo Aguan territory struggle was kidnapped by soldiers and murdered. Political prisoner Rommel’s mental health crisis forced a transfer to the psychiatric hospital. A Garífuna kindy teacher killed. Campesinos growing food in Siguatepeque were oppressed by cops and courts. A Libre party leader was assassinated. A journalist’s family home was attacked. Police intimidated another media. 18 October 2019 was also a date of major protests nationally because the regime president JOH’s brother Tony Hernández – also then parliamentarian – was declared guilty in New York as a drug trafficker and assassin. Police attacked many times with gases and arrests against ongoing protests against the dictatorship. A teacher leader was kidnapped and left for dead. A Miskita indigenous leader and spouse (teacher) were murdered by hitmen. One more Guapinol community member who opposed Mining company Inversiones Los Pinares was arrested.
May 2019 Honduras Coup update (tags)
This May 2019 in Honduras, starting with May Day, and culminating in 2 days of general strike in the continued struggle against the privatisation of education and healthcare. Way too many gunshots in different protests, and brutal repression generally. Several killed. Read on for details
October 2018 Honduras Coup update (tags)
This month: a glimpse at what the migrants are facing, and protest marches are also heavily repressed, environmentalists defending land water and life arrested and kidnapped and a whole camp militarised for a couple of days during which one family was especially terrorised in such a magnitude and fascist way that all this violence, and the barely known violent eviction of the camp and of the subsequent night time highway blockade, was quickly made invisible by announcing two soldiers were shot dead in the confrontations. Similarly, farmers have faced evictions and persecution. Read on to find out more sydneywithhonduras.wordpress.com/2018/11/16/october-2018-honduras-coup-update/
August 2018 Honduras Coup update (tags)
In August 2018, it was the students in primary school, high school and university who carried on the struggle against the increase in transport costs, since they and their families are hit hard by these. Students protested demanding the return of student transport allowances and the lowering of transport fees in general. There had been at least 12 days of road blocks throughout this month by the students and as many ruthlessly brutal evictions, and at the end of August, two high school students were removed by state investigative agents from one of their homes and their bodies found on the streets near their school afterwards. At the same time, there have been lots of attacks by the state against journalists who tell news of struggle and repression and corruption, while more HCH journalists who tell news that speak of police as the good guys and protesters as inconvenient and irrational complained of being abused by protesters in different contexts of struggle and confrontation. Campesinos, environmentalist and community struggles also continue as does the repression against these. https://sydneywithhonduras.wordpress.com/2018/09/06/august-2018-honduras-coup-update/
July 2018 Honduras Coup update (tags)
July 2018: Hondurans retake streets and highways as massive protests were organised by the transport sector blocking highways around the country, supported by student and just about everyone. Repression is rife including killings by likely government death squads/hitmen, of drivers/bus company owner, and against en environment defender. Many attacks in general. https://sydneywithhonduras.wordpress.com/2018/08/10/honduras-coup-update-july-2018/
June 2017 Honduras Coup update (tags)
This June 2017, 8 years since the military coup begun, the repression is heavy against uni students and the continued struggle in Río Blanco to kick out the hydroelectricity dam project Agua Zarca and demand justice for the murder against Berta Cáceres and for many other grave abuses and murders there. Another farmers group was evicted very violently with the full force of state, this time in La Paz. A journalist was assassinated after constant death threats. State official, politician and church leader all speaking publicly hate speech and smearing and attacking groups – student activists, marxists, lgbti persons, and others.
May 2017 Honduras coup update (tags)
20 uni students occupied an uni admin building in solidarity with 3 other arrested students, they all got repressed and arrested as did a journalist who answered their call to accompany them and cover what was happening, who was also beaten and tortured by security guards and then by police. A journalist who covers local corruption and gives coverage to local protests against a hydroelectricity dam received a chain of threats, to add onto old threats and aggressions. And, as usual council officials, who illegally sold ancestral land of a Garífuna community gets away with it, while an community activist gets arrested and charged for usurping their own ancestral land. A cameraperson for a media outlet has 6 gunshots fired at his body on his way home from work and is gravely injured. This and other abuses, happened in May 2017 in Honduras, read here https://sydneywithhonduras.wordpress.com/
April 2017 Honduras coup update (tags)
This April 2017 in Honduras, repression goes on, with melon industry worker/unionists threatened and interrogated by armed people on city highways, with organised farmers with years of living on land growing food getting arrested, with cops arresting high school students for participating in a protests where others had damaged cops' repressive tanks with stones, with stones and other things that can cause bodily harm being thrown at prochoice feminist demonstrators, with a public hospital doctor being suspended and threatened for saying the fees increase against patients is wrong .. these and a bit more here: https://sydneywithhonduras.wordpress.com/ https://sydneywithhonduras.wordpress.com/
August 2016 Honduras Coup Update (tags)
Another month of terror this August 2016 in Honduras. Farmers attempted against on two unrelated incidents (unrelated except they both involve attacks against farmers who organise to collectivise and work on land), one was killed in the crossfire. Another media closed off for being one that speaks up. The government blatantly announced investigation, surveillance and tracking against a list of human rights defenders. It arbitrarily arrested two other women human rights defenders. Its uni authorities covered up murals in memory of the assassinated indigenous activist Bertha Caceres that students painted with love and rage. Another enviro activist spoke up about threats they are getting. A young politician with an activist background was murdered. Snipers appeared at a protest. Agrarian Department suffered massive cuts, embodying an attack on land redistribution, in addition to job cuts.
January 2016 Honduras Coup update (tags)
This month in Honduras, 6 and a half years into the coup, attacks including fatal attacks continue against indigenous persons defending territory, workers from different walks of life, journalists, and even politicians. And from the general news section there are worrying warnings of increases of mass deportations from US, about Zika virus having been introduced as another US intervention as a form of biological warfare, and some updates on corruption and who is getting away with it and who might appear not to be..
July 2015 Honduras Coup update (tags)
https://sydneywithhonduras.wordpress.com/ The July Honduras coup summary is up... this time a lot of the repression was against hunger strikers, students linked to occupations, journalists and human rights defenders. Things are getting to an impossible point for many and there is some hope about how this rage be channelled.
Honduras Coup, 6 years on (tags)
6 years into the coup, the news for June 2015 of political persecution against indigenous peoples, activists, journalists, and lgbti activists. A look at the current situation of crisis and grassroots movement with the IHSS crisis.
May 2015 Honduras Coup update (tags)
May 2015 in Honduras.... it came out that high officials of a social security department stole $320 millions using companies, this ending up in the campaign funds for National Party's electoral campaign in 2013 and diverted to those who made this happen using ghost companies... assassinations, threats, evictions, law being blatantly on the side of money, all evidentially continue. Check the titles here in the May post to see if you want to read some of it....
Honduras Coup update January 2015 (tags)
Honduras Coup update January 2015 Starting yet another year with killing, shootings, a disappearance, threats and judicial processes against those who protest, with ever deepening militarisation using military police, and ever graver privatisation, using model cities amongst other laws.
Coup General: "We're Going After the Protest Leaders" (tags)
"The clock is ticking on this coup regime. And on television this morning, one could see the fear in the eyes of the macho generals that try so hard to show a fearless face. Their days are numbered, not because the other countries of the hemisphere and the world reject the coup, but so much more importantly, because the Honduran people are organizing to put a stop to it all by themselves. The coup generals don't have an end game. The civil resistance does, and is unanimous in it: The toppling of the coup regime, the reinstatement of the elected government, and a Constitutional Convention to remake their nation in a more authentically democratic form."
AFP in Honduras Hung By Its Own Photograph (tags)
Lobbyist Lanny Davis Seeks a Rematch with Obama over Honduras Coup (tags)
"And Zelaya is right. Playing along with such talks with an illegitimate coup regime any longer than they've gone on already would be folly. Diplomacy is for dealing with legitimate governments, not for criminals and terrorists. And, Mr. President, even if that story blows over in the news media, because Honduras is a relatively small country, you just know that if the Honduras coup succeeds in remaining in power that other military generals in other Latin American countries are going to take it as a green light to do the same. And when that happens, the next coup - in Bolivia, perhaps? El Salvador? Nicaragua? Or completing the circle from 1955, Guatemala, Señor Presidente? - will be known far and wide as “Obama’s coup,” because your administration will then be accurately perceived as having not lowered the boom – in all the economic, political and judicial ways that everybody knows you can and must do - on its predecessor. Worse, they’ll say you got beat by Lanny Davis. They’ll even say that kooky Lanny fellow was right about you in 2008. Those are his chips on the card table. Now show us yours. ----- Most Damning: Many will come to see that that (facilitate the coups) was what you were "hired" to do?" General Joe
It’s Still a Military Coup in Honduras (tags)
"We’ve already praised the singular work of TeleSur, and also of the courageous Hondurans who have broken the information blockade from below, filming coup abuses and the massive protests against them on their cell phones and uploading important videos to YouTube. And we’ve cheered as many corporate media organizations have become dependent on those reports-from-below in their own coverage. I’d like to add another media that deserves such recognition: Few have done the heavy lifting that Chiapas Indymedia has done, mainly in Spanish, to publish the communiqués, photos and videos that document the massive and organized nature of the Honduran grassroots movements with which it has worked and supported for years. (While the world mostly ignored Honduras in recent years, Chiapas Indymedia was shipping community radio transmitters and organizing communications workshops among Catrachos; that planting and cultivating bears significant fruit today in the information that does break out from behind the walls of censorship and simulation)."
BTL:Honduras Coup: Reaction to President Zelaya's Social Justice Agenda (tags)
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