Honduras before the 28th
The Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular strengthens the class struggle
Honduras before June 28th, 2009, was already a country in distress with strong clashes between the business class and the majority working class of the country. This fact has received little attention in media and popular accounts of the coup.
The unrest that preceded to the military coup was a result, on one hand, of unified actions of the social movement’s struggle against the neoliberal model, seeking structural and social transformations; and on the other hand, the actions of Manuel Zelaya who as President of the Republic placed himself in opposition to the Honduran oligarchy and the imperialist intervention the United States of America.
The Popular Movement
During the early 1990s with the imposition of the neoliberal model many of the forces of the social movement were dislocated, resulting in its subsequent weakening. The new century was greeted with the creation of the Popular Bloc/Bloque Popular (May 1st 2000) as a space for bringing together diverse social sectors with a base conformed of the most combative trade unions of the Federación Unitaria de Trabajadores de Honduras (FUTH, United Federation of Honduran Workers). The Bloque, as it is commonly known, assumed the task of fighting against neoliberalism and privatization.
In 2003, virtually all regions of the country had a federation of grassroots organizations with a similar style to the Bloque. On 26th of August of that year, the March of National Dignity led to the formation of the Coordinadora Nacional de Resistencia Popular (National Popular Resistance Coordinating Committee), which became the largest umbrella organization of grassroots movements in the country, meeting on a monthly basis with all its regional organized counterparts with an unmatched, unified agenda of struggle.
The Coordinating Committee gathered the most important demands of the pueblo (people/nation). Since 2003 national mobilizations grew, challenging and weakening the policies of the government of Ricardo Maduro (2002-2006), creating a difficult scenario for the ruling elites. Throughout this process as the social movement grew, the Honduran oligarchy played an increasingly repressive role; such that within a few years the movement’s focus would go beyond economic demands and advance to political positions.
Mel and the beginning of a new path
During his inauguration as President, Manuel Zelaya “Mel” passed the Ley de Participación Ciudadana (Law of Citizen Participation) that three years later he would use to promote the cuarta urna (fourth ballot box), a non binding referendum to decide whether to call for a National Constituent Assembly in November 2009 elections, the coup occurred on the day of the survey. During the early months of his presidency he did not venture far from the strategic plan of the dominant class and transnational companies; however, within a short period of time he was in confrontation with them for their refusal to allow even small changes to strengthen the national productive apparatus or to permit him to put the brakes on the privatization of the last resources that still remained to the State.
In response to the intransigence of the elites, Zelaya began to radicalize government policies. The President, guided by his human sensitivity, sided with the pueblo. More progressive measures were prompted, such as a sharp increase (40%) in the minimum wage, incentives for agricultural production, strengthening of state-owned companies and an independent foreign policy.
As Zelaya became closer to the pueblo, he moved away from the oligarchy. Actions such as the signing of oil importation contracts with Petrocaribe, the incorporation of Honduras into ALBA (the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas), his plan to convert the U.S military base in Soto Cano to an airport, his delay in accepting the diplomatic credentials of the U.S. ambassador Hugo Llorens in protest against U.S. policy toward Bolivia boycotting Evo Morales’ government and his refusal to sign an IMF agreement touched the interests of U.S imperialism and questioned their total control over Honduras as a country of much geopolitical importance in the region.
The popular movement which at first had confronted the neoliberal policies with which Zelaya had begun, were by the second year of his administration introducing some of their demands to the government’s agenda, to the point of working together on the most important project: setting up a National Constituent Assembly to rewrite the Constitution.
The business class of Honduras
Honduras suffers from an economic dependence on the U.S.A: 70.6% of exports go to U.S.A, 53% of imports are from the U.S.A and remittances from Hondurans living in the U.S.A are 21.2% of the annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
During the administration of Zelaya the country registered an economic growth of approximately 5% GDP; however, the poverty rate showed only a very slight reduction with an increase in inequality and a greater concentration of wealth. The neoliberal system that Honduras is subject to has not worked for the majority, the 75% of the population that live in poverty, and has taken a huge toll on Hondurans’ working conditions, has provoked environmental destruction and the sell-off of the productive sectors of the state.
An important factor in the development of the Honduran conflict has been the oligarchy that controls the means of production and shares the economic, political and media power between 10 families. It is significant to see that while the rest of Central American countries managed to establish a dominant class through coffee production, in Honduras the dominant class revolved around importation and as an agent of the foreign-controlled mining and banana enclaves. This situation led to the weakness of the national oligarchy and their submission to imperial interests.
The Honduran business class maintains its control of the means of production through corruption, manipulation and creation of laws, drug trafficking, and use of police and military force against the population, using the media to validate these actions. The visible face of the business class is evident in the councils and associations of private business that has representations at all levels of government. Past presidents (1982- 2006) of the new era of “Democratic Representation” were faithful defenders of private enterprise and interests of U.S. imperialism.
Transnational corporations in the oil, textile, pharmaceutical, mining, agriculture and food sales sectors represent the cowardly sale of human and natural resources by the business class to interests foreign to that of the Honduran nation.
Birth of the Resistance
The week before June 28, 2009, strong rumors circulated that Manuel Zelaya was to be ousted by a military coup. Wednesday (25 June) of that week several members of the Bloque and activists working on the project of the Cuarta Urna received the call to arrive at the Presidential House to avert a coup attempt. But it was not until the early hours of June 28 that the oligarchy, composed of conservative politicians, military, religious and business sectors carried out the military coup of Manuel Zelaya. That same day on the streets surrounding the Presidential House, the Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular was born.
The first actions of the pueblo were improvised and in line with the tactic social struggles had successfully employed for several years: direct action. The hours and days after the coup saw road blocks, marches and demonstrations. Through these acts against the violent and repressive coup the Resistencia grew quantitatively and qualitatively demonstrating that the struggle was not fleeting, but was rather the maximum expression of the class struggle from which the country has not yet freed itself.
The Resistencia was created around the structure of diverse popular organizations that formed the National Committee of Popular Resistance, as well as a large part of the Liberal Party that Mel, through his actions, had snatched away from the traditional and corrupt politics of the country. To the streets went citizens who previously had not been organized but who today are Resistencia, present in every corner of the country.
The new agenda of the exploited and marginalized surpassed qualitatively what existed prior to the coup. The need to achieve political power and control the State has become much clearer. With this, friends and enemies of social transformation have been uncovered.
Alexis Flores
Organización Política Los Necios militant
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Necios Opinion June 9th
One coup d’etat has not being enough for the oligarchy and imperialism. This new threat of striking against many of its own sectors is a real fact. Pepe Lobo tries to find an impossible equilibrium and the Ambassador (U.S) Hugo Llorens fails to square any of his perspectives. The coup is an incontrollable creature, strength is the argument to defend or attack positions. In the framework of the interests of capital reason is needless.
The regime is incompetent to address the problem of the economy, the coup leaders have taken power to steal all the resources without even leaving a few to hide their crime. The unproductive, retarded, parasitic, assassin and corrupted oligarchy puts in evidence its own achievement. The social crisis generalizes from their incompetency and the effects do not take long to appear. The mediocre and ignorant elite has nobody else to blame, therefore it lashes out against itself.
The Truth Commission fails, the people do not pay any more attention to the pro coup media, it is discovered in time the attempt to infiltrate and divide the Frente Nacional de Resistencia (National Front of Resistance), campesinos (land workers) from Aguán recuperate again and again the land of delinquent Miguel Facussé’s, teachers continue to defend their rights and retake to the streets, lawyers and judges with dignity assume positions and combat the regime, international solidarity is expressed in every forum, convention and even in States Assemblies where the de facto regime is not recognized and in many instances its presence is openly rejected; the pueblo (people) takes ownership of their right to protest, discontent multiplies as well as organization; the government does not exist and the Embassy does not find solutions.
The flood (caused by Tropical Storm Agatha) results insufficient to justify international support and continue the plunder. Coup supporters are experiencing worsening of the crisis for which some conservative sectors think the best way is to plot a new coup. Carlos Flores and Hugo Llorens analyze it and start to move their own threads to test their loyalties but history makes its own calculations and bring about another initiative. For how long are they planning to keep a nation in shame? Their defeat is obvious.
For its part, the Resistance has managed to forge the most important political movement in the country’s history; its organizational and ideological process has an acceleration that the enemy cannot stop. The journey towards the National Constituent Assembly continues. It is a fact, in Honduras a revolution spawns.
We will overcome!
¡Necedad!
OPLN
Tegucigalpa, M.D.C. Wednesday June 9th, 2010
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FIAN: Human Rights Situation in Bajo Aguán, Honduras
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Teachers ramp up the collection of signatures in the suburbs and communities for the Popular Constituent Assembly
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Truth In Honduras, By Jeremy Bigwood
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Inter American Commission on Human Rights publishes observations on follow – up visit to Honduras
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Oliver Stone: The Honduras coup d’etat was an embarrassment
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“The vacation of Lobo and his lambs in South Africa”
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Honduras Solidarity-Solidarity Event in Liverpool
On the 26th of May, students and local activists gathered in Liverpool Social Centre to take part in a presentation detailing the current situation for civilians in Honduras. The night was hosted by two activists from the UK, Dominic McCann and Kerstin Hansen, who recently visited Honduras to investigate the severity of human rights abuses and the progress of the Popular Resistance Movement in the country.
The audience were shocked by the rate of extrajudicial killings occurring in the country and the lack of coverage which they have received in mainstream media.
It was agreed that a fundraiser will be organized by the group for the radio station Radio Faluma Bimetu and that efforts focus on consolidating the Solidarity Group in Manchester with others in the Northwest to spread the word! The date of the fundraiser will be 26th of June.
Dominic McCann zapaman@hotmail.co.uk
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Honduras Solidarity-Solidarity Event in Liverpool
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Latin America Still Divided Over Coup in Honduras, New York Times
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Behind the Camera Lens in Honduras, By Joseph Huff-Hannon
An article about “Quien dijo miedo” film
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Honduras is the new Cuba: Mario Canahuati
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Reflections by Comrade Fidel Castro: The Empire and the War
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Reflections by Comrade Fidel Castro: The Empire and the Lie
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“Operation Justified Vengeance”: Israeli Strike on Freedom Flotilla to Gaza is Part of a Broader Military Agenda, by Michel Chossudovsky
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Honduras Resists – Transmitting to the World
Radio Show June 1
News, activities, opinions, human rights denouncements, solidarity with Honduras from the
Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular
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FNRP Colon, Public Statement
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CODEH: Extrajudicial Killings During Coup d’Etat and Curfew
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Armed Men Break in to STIBYS’ Center in San Pedro Sula Wounding One Person
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Trailer of video about the Honduran coup ‘Quién Dijo Miedo’ (Who is Afraid?), by Katia Lara
Terco Producciones
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New Threat to Campesinos in Aguan
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Solidarity with Honduras, Manchester England, Interview with LGTC Activist
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Foosball with the Devil: Haiti, Honduras and Democracy in the Neoliberal Era, by Adrienne Pine
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Reflections by comrade Fidel, THE HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF JOSE MARTI’S DEATH
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Public Statement No. 58
The National Front of Popular Resistance inform to the Honduran population and the international community:
1. The dictatorship headed by Porfirio Lobo on behalf of the oligarchy and imperialism, has unleashed a repressive crackdown through the Judicial Courts that try to silence any dissonant voice that points out the serious violations to Human Rights that are committed everyday in our country.
2. In the frame of increase of violence against the peaceful Resistance that is being developed by the Honduran people and against all forms of claim for popular sovereignty and justice, judges Ramon Barrios, Luis Chevez, Guillermo Lopez and magistrate Tirza Flores were dismissed from their positions, they are organized in Association of Judges for Democracy and they manifested against the military Coup that installed a de facto regime from June 28 until now.
3. On May 17 members of Association of Judges for Democracy and from Ample Movement for Dignity and Justice started a hunger strike to denounce the repression lived by all social sectors that claim democracy and justice, and to demand: a. that the Honduran State to assume its responsibility in human rights violations, b. that a restructuration of the entire judicial system, including the Supreme Court of Justice and the Public Ministry occurs and c. that the judges and the magistrate who were unjustly separated from their duties are reinstated.
4. With this attack the oligarchy consolidates an absolute control of the State, that is in turn an instrument that guarantees an unlimited source of wealth for a privileged minority that exploits workers and steals public goods. Once more, it is evident that the crisis in Honduran society, will only be overcome through the transformation of social relations of work and distribution of wealth and the replacement of corrupt institutionalism that defend the status quo.
5. The National Front of Popular Resistance manifests its entire support to the action undertaken by the Association of Judges for Democracy, and in this sense summon the Popular Resistance to retake the actions of daily mobilizations towards Plaza La Merced, where the hunger strike is installed. Likewise, we call the Honduran citizens to manifest its rejection to the regime, organizing actions of refusal where the presence of the toy of the oligarchy Porfirio Lobo takes place, in any part of the country.
6. We call upon the international community to maintain its position of non recognition of this oppressive regime which with its clumsy measures of military and judicial repression expresses its weakness and announces its definitive failure.
7. We reiterate that we have chosen the non-violent methods of struggle and that the first stop towards the restoration of democratic order and the construction of an egalitarian society is the establishment of a National Constituent Assembly with popular majority.
We resist and we will defeat!
Tegucigalpa, M.D.C. May 19, 2010
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COPINH and resistance member assassinated
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Protect Carlos H. Reyes from Honduran death squads
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Ricardo on LGBTI persecution and Walter Tróchez
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Honduras: Judges Declare Hunger Strike Against Impunity
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“It was a coup”: Porfirio Lobo Sosa
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IACHR report on human rights in Honduras
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Honduras still looking for truth in 2009 coup
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Imperialism and the Washington office on Latin America, By Michael Barker
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US ambassador Lomellin violates OAS charter
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Public Statement No. 57
The National Front of Popular Resistance declares in alert due to the recent actions from the oligarchy which through the de facto regime of Porfirio Lobo intends to eliminate the right to public education and the rights and achievements of the teacher unions’ movement.
1. We denounce the oligarchy’s intentions to privatize elementary and secondary education through a General Law of Education that would be approved by the illegal and illegitimate legislative power and in which the State would be absolved to warrant public education, while the “Estatuto del Docente” and other laws guaranteeing the rights acquired by education workers would be delegitimized.
2. We unconditionally support the hunger strike carried out by the workers of Honduras Autonomous National University Union, who are demanding their illegal dismissal to be reversed and all juridical actions against them to stop. Likewise, we note the intransigent attitude of Director Julieta Castellanos who does not promote a viable solution to the conflict.
3. We summon all militants of the Popular Resistance to an appointment settled at Instituto Hibueras this Thursday at 8 am in order to give our support to the just causes that teacher unions are defending.
4. We reiterate that the only solution to the conflict lived by the Honduran society as a result of the implementation of the neoliberal model and the Coup d’Etat, is the installation of a National Constituent Assembly with popular majority, which promotes structural changes leading to an equal and democratic society.
We resist and we will defeat!
Tegucigalpa, M. D. C. May 11th, 2010
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Murdered: two youths of the FNRP
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Another environmental movement leader murdered
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Who is Killing Honduran Journalists?
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This Week in Honduras: Money or Human Rights?
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A wolf with no direction, a government with no compass, by Ismael Moreno
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WOLA’s hawks go a-editing, by Tim Padgett
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The hateful tyranny imposed on the world, Reflextions by Comandante Fidel
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Globalization Marches On, by Noam Chomsky
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A New Earthquake Hits Haiti: Monsanto’s deadly gift of 475 tons of genetically-modified seeds to Haitian farmers, by Fr. Jean-Yves Urfie
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Honduras Resist – Transmitting to the World
Radio Show May 10th
News, activities of the Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular, opinions, human rights denouncements and cultural discussion from Honduras.
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Necios Opinion – May 7th, 2010
Friends of Los Necios
This time Clinton takes control of the affair – Hillary-, representative of the rancid interests of capital in North America, she leads its cause and attempts a rise of fascism in the nearest region of the empire, its backyard that is its own front line.
The military coup against Latin-American democracies began with the electoral victory of Obama. Ever since, it is about the war willingness of the financial beast; violent and consumerist, who takes life away from the world making its needs “priority objectives” for its national security.
The friendly afro-descent will never get to control the machine and its historical mechanisms. On the contrary, by perceiving its mandate as a luxurious achievement of the ancient struggles of humanity to escape from slavery, he ends up with the same shackles with which centuries ago his ancestors arrived to US territory; with bleeding ankles follows the martial drum rhythm that indicates the frequency of the oars. The tragedy is repeated.
The plan of the North met with a disregard committed by the Bush administration with the governments of the region. Due to his enormous underestimation of Latin America, for years he placed his eyes in distant Asia, foreseeing the dangers of China’s growth against his decadent human exploitation machine; in control of Europe; in the cruel domination of the Middle East, and in the construction of a permanent wall to its military rivals, the Russians. The Underestimated America, advanced.
The failed coup of April 2002 in Venezuela turned the gaze on the region that represents the closest and cheapest source of human and natural resources. Was it possible not to have absolute control of the countries of the south forever dominated? No. Then, it was urgent to calibrate the tools and proceed, when pertinent, with the highest expression of science and technology of the imperial power: the war.
Evo detects on time death attacks; Correa received his mandate with multiple murders and threats; Lula stands up, resist but do not advance; Aristide falls, who is taken from his people; Filiberto Ojeda Rios is killed in Puerto Rico; Colom is accused of murder, shakes and bends; Mauricio is dominated by forces with which his poor conscience cannot cope; Cuba firm, it maintains in front but Fidel gets sick…then he thinks over, he writes to us and comes back; Colombia has inside a cancer from a drug addicted fascism and the FARC painfully survive its wounds; Argentina is on and off; to Mexico they are stolen and they speed up the mortal neoliberalism; in Chile it is a victory but a we are defeated; Uruguay takes from the left but ends up making the right; Peru is trapped.
The consultation is not binding. Mel Zelaya has less than half a year ahead in office. However, they deliver a military Coup. On June 28, 2009 the pueblo observed a violent throwback to the America of the Gorillates during the sixties, while people around the world are amazed by the wrongdoings…that in a few months were diluted in hundreds of lies that circulate in the international media also controlled by imperialism.
Seven new military bases are placed head first with the border in Venezuela, a military invasion takes more than 50,000 American regular troops with the guise of an earthquake in Haiti. The campaign is raging against Cuba. Nicaragua is threatened and another U.S. military base is place in Honduras.
They run elections, dismantle democracies, oligarchies assembled, they control the history and freedom of people of the world, but some react.
A nice little figure assumes the continuation of the coup in Honduras: Pepe Lobo, another servant in the board. He turns to be incompetent to install the tricks and traps of the imperialist strategy, then enters as a main players Hugo Llorens, a Negroponte student, member of the team coached by Clinton.
The situation is clear, the beast does not necessarily agonizes, maybe stands up, lives its crisis outwards and will extract from the world what its disease would need in order to heal. The lives of individuals on the south side of the earth depend for moments on the mood of a fanatic executive of imperialism who decides on thousands of people over coffee in the morning, coolly balancing cost and benefit of the impact in the media between hundreds or thousands of dead.
The people in nations of the south inform themselves and arm…with conscience. The Spanish colony provoked less pain and still we had to get rid of it, now is the turn of imperialist of the north. Together we can.
We will defeat!
Necedad!
OPLN
Tegucigalpa, M. D. C. Friday May 7, 2010
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2 May 2010
News, humans rights abuses and opinions from the Honduran social movement
Workers Day and the Resistance
Unions and the Resistance join forces during May the 1st Parade in Honduras
For the first time ever in Honduras, May 1st saw workers unions march in the streets accompanied by a wider representation of popular sectors, such as the “Barrios” (neighbourhoods) and Christian youth organizations which are completely new to the social movement. The amount of demonstrators has become of secondary importance, as the Resistance continues to grow, adopting a clearer and more vocal demands for a “constituyente” (constituent) and the re-foundation of the country.
For first time the major three workers unions converged, Confederacion Unitaria de Trabajadores de Honduras (CUTH), Central General de Trabajadores (CGT) and Confederacion de Trabajadores de Honduras (CTH). Workers proclaimed for a National Constituent Assembly to be installed in order to write a new constitution, the non privatization of State-owned companies and institutions, cancelation of Water Privatization Laws, dismissal of the 1992 Law of Modernization of the Agrarian Sector and the implementation of an integrated Agrarian Reform in order to achieve Food Sovereignty for the nation.
This was the first Workers Day parade after president Manuel Zelaya was ousted in a military Coup which led to the emergence of an unprecedented uprising from the grassroots in Honduras. The parade culminated in an act of tribute at Isis Obed Murillo (first Resistance Martyr) plaza which was full of representatives of student, public workers, social movements, “campesino” (land workers) gay-transexual sectors. Present for the first time since leaving the country on January 27th was Doña Xiomara, who read a statement from Manuel Zelaya, her husband who is in exile in the Dominican Republic. Listening crowds claimed for an immediate return to his homeland.
In its History, never has Honduras seen such a popular movement uprising from the very grassroots organizations and from spontaneous support by ordinary citizens. Undoubtedly this May 1st will remain as a departure point to the National Constituent Assembly, the most immediate of objectives of the Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular (National Front of Popular Resistance) for which a thorough process of collection of signatures have already started. Before next June 28th, one year after the Coup, 1.2 million Hondurans are set to express their desire to change the constitution in order to re-found a New Nation and Honduran State.
We will defeat!
Necedad!
Organizacion Politica Los Necios
Tegucigalpa, Honduras – Sunday May 2, 2010
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Photographic presentation of Workers Day
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US Union Letter of Solidarity to the Honduran Union Movement
International Workers Day 2010
May 1, 2010
Dear brothers and sisters of the Honduran trade union movement:
In celebration of International Workers’ Day, we send fraternal greetings of solidarity to all the workers of Honduras and their allies. The labor movement of Honduras is engaged in a historic struggle for justice, as the brave Resistance challenges the ongoing defacto regime, its violent intimidation of the Honduran people, and widespread violations of basic human rights. We pledge to stand with you in the fight for justice for working people and for all Hondurans and in your efforts to exercise your basic labor rights in spite of the obstacles.
In solidarity,
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Oscar Flores’ testimony, kidnapped by the Honduran police for the second time
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Honduras, a monster the US created (Video RT), Adrienne Pine
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Honduras return of the death squads, by Jeremy Kryt
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Honduras misrecognition, by RAJ
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I for you and you for me, by Joanne Shansky
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Photographic presentation: Aguán Unified Campesino Movement´s extreme living conditions in the recuperated land
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The Honduran Resistance begin referendum to convene a Constituent Assembly
The campaign aims to collect more than one million signatures
Giorgio Trucchi
Rel-IUF
Thousands of Hondurans were mobilized throughout the country to start the process of collecting signatures, which will end on June 28, the first anniversary of the military coup. The aim is to show the current government and the powers who staged the coup, that the people demand the reestablishment of Honduras through a new constitution. After the mobilization, they denounced the kidnapping of a well-known activist of the Resistance.
Ten months have passed since the day that the Honduran people we were severed of their aspirations to determine their own destiny.
On the morning of June 28, 2009, people had woken up early and were prepared to get out and vote in the referendum. It was to decide the presence of a fourth ballot in the November election, which would vote for the installation of a Constituent Assembly.
The powers that control politics and economy, in collusion with the repressive forces of the State and its international allies, violently suppressed and banished the legitimate President of Honduras.
What we did not anticipate was the reaction of the population and the effects that the golp caused between various popular organizations and people in general. A “boomerang effect” that consolidated a resistance struggle which has lasted 298 days.
Now, the National Front of Popular Resistance (FNRP) newly called upon Honduran people to demand a reworking of the country through a popular and democratic constituent assembly..
Given this new challenge the FNRP called for a new march involving tens of thousands of Hondurans in all of the country.
“Today, April 20, we begin the campaign for the Popular Referendum in which we will collect signatures for the installation of a National Constituent Assembly, told member of the national coordination of the FNRP, Juan Barahona.
We are also calling for the unconditional return of Father Andres Tamayo and former President Manuel Zelaya to the country.”
Barahona explained that the collection of signatures will conclude on June 28, the first anniversary of the coup, and that the FNRP has the minimum objective to obtain more than one million signatures.
“The Constituent Assembly is an urgent need, and the Honduran people demand it. The different departmental, municipal and local coordination of the FNRP “continued Barahona will be responsible to promote the collecting signatures across the country, in coordination with the national structure.”
Nourished during the march that was held in Tegucigalpa, thousands of people signed the Sovereign Declaration for the Constituent and for over three hours, took the road south, blocking national and international traffic.
“What starts today is a process starts that will allow us to re-launch our nation” said the leader of the liberals in resistance strength, Rasel Tomé.
They wanted to undertake a coup to stop the process of change that was coming, but they were wrong. The Honduran people have continued their peaceful resistance and joined, forming the FNRP, perhaps the social and political platform that our country has had, “said Tome.
Finishing the mobilization and before the arrival of the police special forces, the demonstrators chose to march to the domestic airport, where they finished their activities.
“In recent days, former President Rafael Callejas said we will never achieve a Constituent Assembly, because we do not have the support of the population.
“We will demonstrate to him, said Juan Barahona that we are the majority of Hondurans who struggle to achieve this goal.
We’re going to show these oligarchs, that what made the June 28, 2009 was only to postpone for a few months the route to the Constituent Assembly.
Our fight has not finished, and we will continue in the structuring, training and mobilization of the FNRP “concluded Barahona.
At the time of writing this article, circulated information that the member of the Resistance, Oscar Flores, had disappeared immediately after the march.
According to information which will have to be confirmed in the coming hours, Flores made a final call from his cellphone, claiming that he had been kidnapped by the police. The call was abruptly interrupted and it was impossible to communicate with him again.
Human rights organizations immediately began a search in all police stations, with no major results.
Oscar Flores has attended all the demonstrations organized by the FNRP, carrying a placard which adds up the days of resistance. A few days before the election last November suffered a kidnapping attempt by the military, which the managed to escape.
Source: http://www.rel-uita.org/internacional/honduras/democradura/la_resistencia_inicio_consulta.htm
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Marcha de los sombreros April 16, video and photos
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Truth Commission Under Fire from All Sides By Thelma Mejía
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Alternative truth, official truth, or honest disagreement?
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Honduras: Healthcare Access for the Poor and Indigenous
Radio interview with Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular members Dr Juan Almendares and Dr Luther Castillo
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¿Quién dijo miedo? Trailer for soon to be released film on the military coup of June 28 2009
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School of Americas Watch: Stand with Honduras!
Send a message to your Member of U.S Congress
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Necios Opinion
Friends of Los Necios,
On this occasion we send a special message in support to the liberation struggle of the heroic Palestinian people. Decades of resistance, sacrifice and dignity against the imposition of the Zionist state of Israel which also receives the full support of U.S. imperialism to commit crimes, using the Occupied Territories also as a platform for nuclear weapons to threaten and attack all peoples of the Middle East.
We express our solidarity with the more than 7,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, who have held a hunger strike from April 8 to enforce their rights, the immediate end to harassment on a daily basis and are subject to humiliation end up living relatives to visit them.
From OPLN we make a call to Human Rights organizations to pronounce on the inhumane conditions to which Palestinian prisoners are subjected in more than a dozen prisons in Israel, while encouraging other organizations and personalities of our hemisphere to comment on this terrible event, thus contributing to breaking the media blockade and the impunity of criminals.
We’ve known about the complicity of the State of Israel and its police in advising the repression after the oligarchic-imperialist military coup of June 28 last year in our country, Honduras. We also know the overall shape the actions of the enemies of the people, so we also call for popular organizations to come out against the actions of imperialism and its allies around the globe.
Globalize the struggle, globalize hope!
Long Live Free Palestine! We will defeat!
OPLN
Tegucigalpa, M.D.C. Saturday April 17, 2010
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MUCA signs agreement with government, says repression continues
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Threats to Radio Progreso
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Due to Public Pressure WOLA backs off! – April 14 protest CANCELED
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Real News Video: Honduran campesinos under the gun
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Disappearing the Truth in Honduras:“national reconciliation” & the “truth commission” provide cover for repression aimed at destroying the demand for a new constitution
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WOLA vs. Honduran Democracy
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America’s Imperial Design. Prompt Global Strike: World Military Superiority Without Nuclear Weapons by Rick Rozoff
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U.S. Venezuelan Relations: Imperialism and Revolution by James Petras
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Note of Bereavement
Wednesday, April 7th our compañero José Leonel Álvarez Guerra, member of the La Confianza Cooperative, the MUCA (Unified Campesino Movement of Aguan) and active member of the Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular (National Front of Popular Resistance) was assassinated.
We vehemently condemn his death at the hands of assassins hired by the landowners, Miguel Facusse, Reinaldo Canales and Rene Morales, with the approval of and complicity of the government’s security apparatus.
José Leonel becomes another martyr of the peasant struggle, the uncontained expression of the necessity of changing this system of exploitation and oppression that marginalizes, silences and kills the working people.
While they murder our compañeros and compañeras and threaten to massacre entire campesino communities, the regime of Porfirio Lobo tries to present itself as being concerned about human rights. We reiterate our call to the international community to demand punishment for those responsible for the crimes committed against the Honduran people in Resistance.
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STATEMENT No. 54
The National Front of Popular Resistance alerts the Honduran population and the international community of the grave threat hanging over the lives of 3 thousand organized campesino families in the Unified Campesino Movement of Aguan (MUCA), against whom a military and police operation of large dimensions is being executed with the objective of forcing them off the lands that they currently occupy.
In the last few hours an increase in the aggressiveness of the military has been reported and it is feared that at any moment the oligarchy will order the de facto regimen of Porfirio Lobo to use the repression bodies of the State to move against the campesino families who are peacefully demanding their rights to the land.
We hold Porfirio Lobo; the defacto Minister of Security, Oscar Alvarez; and the landowners, Miguel Facusse Barjum, Reinaldo Canales and Rene Morales, responsible for any violation of human rights committed by the army, the policy and the paramilitary groups that form part of the military deployment.
We call on the international community to condemn these violent acts against the civilian population and to demand the immediate end to this offensive that could end in a massacre.
There will not be peace in the zone, or a satisfactory agreement if the following conditions are not met:
- Recognition of the rights of the small farmers to have access to land as established by the Constitution of the Republic.
- Immediate and unconditional withdrawal of the army from the campesinos’ settlements.
- The dismantling of the paramilitary organizations working for the landowners.
- Investigation and condemnation of those responsible for the assassinations and other human rights violations.
We are calling for a “March of the Campesino Sombreros”, April 15th in Tegucigalpa in solidarity with the compañeros and compañeros of MUCA and with all of the campesino struggles that exist in the country. We call on the members of the Popular Resistance to be alert to other coordinated actions that will be carried out to defend the rights of working people.
Long Live the Heroic Campesino Movement!
We Resist and We Will Win
Tegucigalpa, April 12, 2010
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The Reagan generation, the lost generation.
In the early eighties the Reagan administration concentrated a significant amount of economic, military and intelligence resources in Central America, to fight the people and their expressions of liberation which showed a clear and strong rise in consciousness, mobilization and social commitment. They were the first years of construction of the Sandinista Revolution, the rise of the armed struggle of the FMLN in El Salvador, and also a worsening conflict in Guatemala and Honduras –and the same as today – a strong popular movement.
The international context, beyond the borders of the five brother countries, presented a critical review of the contradictions of a bipolar world that disputed between the socialist paradigm of popular governments in the exercise of a more direct democracy, less representative and the dictatorship of local oligarchies which represented, as now, the interest of imperialism or global corporations.
The Central American region considered of geostrategic importance for the empire of the north, suffered the escalation of state terrorism, deployed in the particular case of Honduras by John Dimitri Negroponte (today this role is played by Hugo Llorens). In the Central American nations each had his own ambassador from the north; special envoys of capitalism, in those years represented by the mediocre C –list movie actor and president of the United States, Ronald Reagan.
Around 400,000 people lost their lives in the war-financed and promoted by the U.S. State. In the case of Guatemala, where the armed conflict continued for over 36 years (1960-1996) and worsened in the same period, the death toll rises to more than 200,000; 75,000 in El Salvador and near to 50,000 in Nicaragua. This barbarity that happened just 30 years ago was denied or withheld from a generation in the discussions of the history of formal academia.
The eighties also represent the military and political defeat of the liberation struggles of the peoples of Central American region. The laws of history that Marx spoke of suffered a sharp downturn during all that time. The socialist bloc collapsed, represented in the West by the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Imperialism decided to intensify the exploitation and the concentration of socially produced wealth, through immediately implementing structural adjustments and the neoliberal model, which clung to the dogma of development through injustice, disgrace and exploitation.
This would newly bring an enormous cost in lives for the inhabitants of the region, the survivors also lost all hope in the ability to produce their own food, to obtain means for a dignified life and of course to produce culture. Misery and famine have dominated Central America to this day, in which the oligarchs continue to use the State to concentrate the benefits of work, while promoting the servility and delivery of national economies to its master in the north.
However, the real desire to making this brief account of the struggle of peoples for their liberation and the right to self-determination, is nothing less than to mention another tragedy that in the studies of the OPLN School of Political Formation, we call the Reagan generation.
An entire generation of humans was lost because of the imperialist wars of that time which proliferated the ideological, human and social confusion, for an entire sector of the population, which in the dates of the early eighties, were just taking their first steps and that by the end of the armed conflicts had lost contact with the link to continue the chain of the struggle and liberation.
Student movements completely stalled through torture, murder and persecution, did not survive to rescue the critical and analytical thinking necessary for social development in all its manifestations: with this academia and universities fatally lost their scientific or liberating essence.
The Reagan generation recalls the stages of their life in connection with U.S. television series which coincided with adolescence, with the Japanese cartoons with their large metal machines and also for the adventures for the lame that hundreds of versions video game consoles contained. While the poverty of the majority also increased at the same rate of increase in the exploitation and social exclusion; workers, academics, young people in cities and campesinos (poor landworkers) lived the fiction of development promoted by who knows who of international cooperation. The Reagan generation lived detachment, confusion, denial of their history, their origin, identity and by losing their beginnings lost their end.
At present the main leaders of the Frente Nacional de Resitencia Popular (National Front of Popular Resistance), constitute a real bastion of social struggle and revolutionary vindication of the country. They are survivors of other golden ages of the struggle of peoples in facing imperialism and injustice with permanent protest but also with armed struggle.
Through many ways the social movement of Honduras tried for years to reach the thinking of the new youth and demonstrate the importance of political and class consciousness that one must have to taken to achieve a better and more dignified life, a conscience that would serve as a tool to change and transform the society; many of the efforts were futile.
The coup has represented a historic opportunity to forge a new generation of struggle that vindicates with greater facility the true causes our underdevelopment and our domination.
Marx spoke of history not as a closed cycle, but as a growing spiral; today the story is about to release a new stage of liberation and the pueblo (people) recruit, ready to win every battle. The new cycle of the growing spiral is undoubtedly more important.
A crop was lost some time ago; today struggle, sacrifice and freedom are sown never to be lost again.
We will Defeat!
Necessity!
Gilberto Ríos Munguía
Secretary of Political and Ideological Formation
OPLN
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Photographic Presentation of the Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular Demonstration of April 7 at the National Congress.
Many thanks to the website Venas Abiertas.
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Real News Video: US Covering Up Reality in Honduras. Excellent Report – Please Watch
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Jose Leonel Alvarez Guerra, Member of MUCA Assassinated
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Cuban Medical Aid to Haiti
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The U.S. Economy and China: Capitalism, Class, and Crisis
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Public Statement
Given the continued harassment, persecution and murder of the colleagues of Movimiento Unificado Campesino del Aguán MUCA (Unified Campesino Movement of Aguán) and the repression unleashed by the state security forces and the complicit failure of the government institutions responsible for implementing the law, especially constitutional guarantees of Human Rights, we pronounce the following:
1. We strongly condemn the cruel assassination of Miguel Alonso Oliva (22) occurred today Thursday April 1 in the morning, who in use his legitimate right to occupy land for life and work, was hit by murderous bullets of the armed guards of the landowner René Morales.
2. We condemn the actions of the landlord of Nicaraguan nationality, René Morales who gave orders to his guards to murder the colleagues of MUCA .
3. We denounce the ungovernability and the resulting social, economic, political and judicial insecurity that has been brought upon the country by the oligarchy after the military coup of 28 June.
4. We call on national and international human rights organizations denounce the usurper government of Porfirio Lobo for continuing a policy of repression against the people and that stimulates the oligarchy groups to abide by the law of force in all sectors of the country. At the same time, we ask that they avoid any approach with the usurper government, outside of any particular considerations that tends to give legitimacy to the de facto administration of Lobo Sosa.
5. We demand an end to the repression of working people and ,
6. We call on all sectors to demonstrate for the just struggle of the companions of MUCA and solidarity with family members of the murdered colleague.
Miguel Alonso Oliva Present!
Agrarian Reform NOW!
STOP to the Repression!
¡Venceremos!
¡Necedad!
OPLN
Tegucigalpa, MDC. 1 April 2010
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Necios Opinion
Amig@s de Los Necios:
Llorens (U.S Ambassador in Honduras) has two basic tasks: keeping the government of Lobo afloat and rebuild bipartidism. He rushes from side to side to try to maintain the coup marching with its agenda and needs. He places the most obedient in every strategic corner of the state, Lobo does not even govern his own office. Stealing is not governing, the coup does not understand the difference and further from stabilizing the economy they resort to desperate fiscal measures that cause more discontent in the population. The coup becomes the negation of the administration; his inability and lack of internal cohesion play a role in its decomposition. Llorens devotes all his time, but his defeat is inevitable.
The re-construction of bipartidism is now not possible in the country’s history. The cynicism of the corrupt, exploitive, drug dealer oligarchy and slave of imperialism is an issue that the pueblo (people) decided to settle once and forever. The rise of the Resistencia (Resistance) and its organizational, formative and mobilizing strategy covers all aspects for the creation of a political instrument to serve for the transformation of Honduras. The party is of a new type, set in the image and likeness of the needs for plurality and diversity of the people. The party´s of the oligarchy are discarded by the majority. The Partido Nacional (National Party) does its last show with a performance of the past, the Partido Liberal (Liberal Party), or what’s left of it, try to maroon in a less embarrassing isolation. Llorens fails despite all their efforts.
The Resistencia, the universe of visions and hopes, is placed in the soul of the majority and the continuous march of a people that is against the traditional political system, the imposition of an oligarchy increasingly less dominant. There is a crisis in power, weakness and uncertainty; the superiors of the hierarchy wobble because the millions of dollars do not arrive to save them and their apostles do not take out of their pockets or their banks what it takes to rescue them. It is better to die with money tight to their chest than to imagine a different world. In short: the magnitude of the depletion of oligarchic power can only be compared with the growth of the new religion of the people: the Resistencia.
For every martyr a Popular Resurrection!
¡Venceremos!
¡Necedad!
OPLN
Tegucigalpa, M.D.C. Wednesday 31 March 2010
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Campesinos of Aguan Valley – lives threatened by paramilitaries and illegal police brutality
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Miguel Alonso Oliva, MUCA member, assassinated
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Statement – Movimiento Unificado Campesino del Aguan (Unified Peasant Movement of Aguán) Repression in Aguán Imminent
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The Military: Willing to Deal
Article written in 1979 by Victor Meza which accounts the hide tide of revolution in neighbouring countries and 16 years of military rule in Honduras
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Statement of World Peace Council regarding the recent attack by the European Parliament on Cuba
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Fidel Castro – Reflexions of the U.S.A Health System
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Necios Friends First Radio Broadcast – Dedicated to José Manuel Flores
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Necios Opinion
Los Necios Friends
The constant attacks against the Cuban Revolution and its recent episodes, as it relates to the common criminals that the imperialist media are masquerading as dissents, is simply another demonstration of harassment to which is submerged the experience of the most beautiful and important Socialist Revolution of all Latin American history. At the same time reflecting an increase period in gringo targeting of our continent.
Many are the examples of solidarity that, from a sacrifice of a revolutionary and combative pueblo (nation), have demonstrated the essence of the Cuban process. Its leaders are maintaining these unwavering principles and, despite the continuing sabotage of the enemies from the north, they continue to struggle in all battlegrounds for social transformations and a better world for all.
Millions of poor people around the world have benefited directly by the Cuban medical brigades, that in clear struggle against a merchandising of health and for dignity in life, have shown that the revolution is limitless in its love for humanity. Other hundreds of thousands have also recovered their vision with joint efforts of Cuban doctors and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. They have also greatly contributed to the literacy of millions of human beings in the continent and have given scholarships to thousands of underprivileged youth in universities and institutions specifically set up to provide that service.
On its turn, the so called Cuban dissents fully agree with the fundamental values of the international ultra-right-wingers and extols an unexplainable concept of freedom, which briefly, is no other than that of the Market and the transnational companies that routinely humiliate and marginalize the great majorities of the planet from the benefits of work.
For the world and especially for Latin America, the Cuban Revolution and its gigantic example of humanism and dignity, is an important reference for our societies still backward and dominated by imperialism and the capitalist system.
Cuba is our older sister, along with her we build a homeland for everyone: A freed homeland.
¡Viva Cuba Socialista!
Long live Raul and Fidel!
We will defeat!
¡Necedad!
OPLN
Tegucigalpa, M.D.C. Sunday March 21st, 2010
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Statement No. 53
The Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular (National Front of Popular Resistance against the military coup) informs the Honduran population and the international community:
1. The Honduran oligarchy through its representative, the de facto regime of Porfirio Lobo Sosa, undertake a plan to further enrich themselves at the expense of the theft and exploitation of the nation. Taking advantage of full control of state powers, guaranteed by force of arms, they are repeating the neoliberal model that has generated so much poverty and dependence in our country, and are preparing for the privatization of public assets, the loss of the social achievements and the handover of natural resources.
2. Recently, the dictatorship has demonstrated its intention to close the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH), denying the people the right to public education in order to benefit large private companies that turn everything into a commodity.
3. They have also initiated political persecution of union leaders who are threatened with jail for defending the rights of working men and women. The dictatorship threatens to ignore the trade union and pronounce void the union worker´s collective contract, increasing the already grave human rights violation, mentioned and condemned internationally, and would represent a precedent for the dismantling of social gains that cost huge sacrifices to the oppressed classes.
4. The strategy of repression by legal means complements the campaign of terror that they develop from the very day the coup in a steady manner and in recent days has been boosted with the murder of comrades Jose Manuel Flores, Francisco Castillo, Jose Antonio Cardoza Jose Carias and Nahum Parker. All victims of state security forces and paramilitary organizations formed by the oligarchy at the urging of people like Oscar Alvarez, de facto security minister, or Miguel Facussé, emblematic representative of the oligarchy.
5. Given this situation we affirm that the only way to return to an institutional order that ensures democratic participation and enable a structural change of the social system in a peaceful manner, is the installation of a National Constituent Assembly with a popular majority.
6. In that sense we return to announce the completion of a National Consultation to gather the will of majorities in favor of the process of re-founding the country, thus strengthening grassroots organizing that will inevitably lead to the hearing of sovereign voice of the people.
Resist and overcome!
Tegucigalpa, M.D.C. March 25, 2010
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University union leaders arrested and with sedition
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Assassination of Manuel Flores – teacher, trade unionist, socialist and Resistencia member
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Inter-American Commission of Human Rights reiterates that Honduras must adopt urgent measures to guarantee human rights
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Rights Action: ‘TEXT-BOOK’ STATE TERRORISM IN HONDURAS
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Necios Opinion
Los Necios Friends,
Miguel Facussé is a thief, murderer, drug dealer, predator of the environment and Golpista (partaker in the military coup). The pueblo (people) already know about it and after the military coup they call things by their name, the rise of class struggle is, therefore, inevitable. The greatest exponent of the Honduran oligarchy’s moral, role model to follow for the ten richest families in Honduras, which control 90% of the country’s economy, they find hope in the malevolence that triumphs, of a prevailing malevolence, malevolence that never fails. They are wrong.
Almost 40 years ago he did not exceed the level of an average businessman, however, and along with his national entrepreneurial skills he quickly discovered the sacred formulas of primitive accumulation of capital from the national oligarchy: State robbery, an over exploitation of workers and his direct linkages to drug trafficking. Today Facussé is the richest man in the country, though he falters in his loneliness and pride.
Ten thousand employees, distribution trucks and prefabricated signs in support of his persona, demonstrated a morning of last week through the streets in Tegucigalpa, their motto is “work” but actually they defend the Capital. In a gala of desperation Facussé pushes all workers from his companies to travel to the capital city in order to organize a demonstration of…Force? The employees chat about the threats of dismissal and sanctions in case of not attending their commitment with the Patron. Others, deceived, attended the meeting and while marching for an alien cause reaffirmed their sense of Resistance.
The crimes of the greatest exponent of the capitalist system in Honduras become a synthesis of the need for change; social progress and development is necessarily the denial of his figure, of his existence.
Facussé makes a call to the oligarchy and asks support of Llorens (U.S Ambassador in Honduras). Again, he needs to defeat the bourgeois legal system and prepares murder, crime and barbarism. However things have changed in Honduras during the last months, the National Front of Popular Resistance is now with the peasants.
On its turn, the Bajo Aguan valley prepares a defense for life, for the lands being worked by them are now their belonging, they prepare the defense of basic human rights, the right to food, to survival. Facussé prepares his checkbook so that all injustice would be legalized, he prepares the national