One year after the Honduran Coup
One year after the military coup in Honduras, the US State Department continues to insist everything is going well in the country.
Since the election of President Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo, more than a dozen journalists have been killed and hundreds are missing.
An opposition group known as the Honduras Resistance is demanding immediate constitutional reform and an end to human rights violations. Marco Lemus is a member of the Honduran Resistance, his family is fighting a battle against a newly elected government still rejected by a majority of Latin American countries and EU member states.
The June 28 coup unleashed a wave of political upheaval throughout the central American country repressed by military and paramilitary violence under the coup regime of Roberto Michelitti. Hondurans and nearly every country in the Western hemisphere boycotted the elections as fraudulent as activists, journalists, resistance leaders and many others were killed, tortured or disappeared by paramilitary and security forces.
Jesus Marvodo, a member of FUR, an opposition group in Honduras would know, his leader was killed during the coup and according to this FUR member, nothing has changed under the new Lobo government
"We are still living in a state of fear, there is paranio everywhere, people are still going missing, being tortured and killed," said Marvodo.
“The steps the Lobo Government have taken deserve our support,” said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The State Department has been pushing to normalize relations between Honduras and the rest of the world despite rampant human rights abuses still fresh one year after the military coup.
Most Hondurans in the national resistance or supportive of the resistance believe the US was directly involved in the coup. They believe factions in Washington played a role in the June 2009 and remain influential in the Lobo government.
In Honduras, the situation is everything but democratic; judges on hunger strikes fired for criticizing the links the current government has to the coup regime, union worker still fighting against police and military oppression and the resistance filing a petition they hope to reach 2 million signatures by the 1st anniversary of the coup demanding immediate reforms to the Honduran constitution. A demand their former President Manuel Zelaya had granted them through a referendum on the eve he was removed from office by the Honduran military.
"June 28th changed our lives, we had thousands of us on the streets of Honduras and we were protesting in every corner of the country. No one was expecting this strong reaction. The coup changed our lives," said Ramon Enrique Barrios, a former judge.
As the US looks to June 28 as a day of National reconciliation for a country ravaged by last year’s military coup, the Honduran resistance is still going strong under a state of fear and at times martial law. They hope the one year anniversary will move the people to initiate their own coup on the very Hondurans and outside factions that destabilized their country, their history and their lives on year ago.
Watch the full interview with Eva Golinger
Eva Golinger, a lawyer and author currently in Caracas, Venezuela said conditions are anything but positive.
“There have been ongoing reports of different kinds of attacks towards those members of the resistance or those against the current government that’s in place that they consider illegitimate. There have been at least nine journalists assimilated actually, since the coup events of last year. There have been hundreds of detentions; there have been dozens of other people killed and tortured and all kinds of human rights abuses, abuses against freedom of expression, so no, the situation is actually considered to be much worse,” said Golinger.
She argued that in fact the events have further polarized the Honduran people and the region, a region who by majority continue to oppose the government that took power a year ago.
Currently the United States is the only nation pushing for Honduran reintroduction into regional multi-lateral bodies. Golinger argued that the US may have been involved in the coup itself.
Read also The US was responsible for last year’s coup – exiled Honduran president
The US was responsible for last year’s coup – exiled Honduran president
Manuel Zelaya, former president of Honduras, has accused the US of orchestrating the 2009 coup, which had him ousted and exiled.
“The USA was involved in that coup, yet it was corroborated later on, when the States began directly manipulating the process of halting social reforms in Honduras,” Zelaya stated. “The USA thus forfeited its reputation, and their involvement in that coup cost them the support of most of the Latin America and the entire world. What did the United States gain? Absolutely nothing. The only ones who benefited from that are reactionary rightist groups within the country, with their sectarian, 1980s vision, with the ‘hunt for the ghosts of the past.’ This is what they do all the time and, of course, this has brought no benefits to Obama's administration."
Zelaya was ousted from power in Honduras last June, after planning a referendum to rewrite the constitution which would have allowed him to remain in power for a second presidential term.
Zelaya’s removal prompted worldwide condemnation and repeated calls for his return to power. He still remains in exile in the Dominican Republic.
For a full interview with Manuel Zelaya, please watch RT’s Spanish channel, Actualidad RT.
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