Hondouras

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Re: Hondouras

Post by blindpig » Fri Mar 17, 2023 1:28 pm

Xiomara Castro ditches Cold War legacy, Honduras to establish relations with China

Honduras was one of the 13 remaining nations that recognized the Republic of China in Taiwan. The switch marks further reinforcement of the One-China consensus

March 16, 2023 by Peoples Dispatch

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Xiomara Castro had indicated over the course of her presidential campaign that she planned to establish relations with China.

Honduras has announced plans to establish relations with the People’s Republic of China, in yet another blow to Taiwan. The move was announced by leftist president Xiomara Castro on Tuesday, March 14 on Twitter. Castro stated that she instructed her foreign minister to begin negotiations with Beijing, in a move that would implicitly cut ties with the self-proclaimed Republic of China (ROC), based in Taiwan.

“I have instructed [foreign minister Eduardo Enrique Reina] to manage the opening of official relations with the People’s Republic of China, as a sign of my determination to comply with the Government Plan and expand the borders freely in concert with the nations of the world,” Castro tweeted.

Castro had indicated over the course of her presidential campaign that she planned to establish relations with China. After she took over the presidency in 2022, riding on the back of an emphatic electoral victory, Castro’s administration enacted the Government Plan which included establishing diplomatic ties with the PRC.

“We will seek to establish the most cordial and friendly diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China and with the communities of Asian and African countries that want to interact with us,” read the Government Plan.

Elaborating on the Honduran president’s announcement, Reina asserted in a statement made on Wednesday, March 15, that the decision was “pragmatism, not ideology.” He also indicated that the move was part of the government’s plan to establish close relations with major economies both in the region and around the world. “The global situation is complicated, we need to open up,” Reina added.

Since the arrival of the progressive government of Xiomara Castro, the Central American country has moved further away from US foreign policy orientations and closer to its regional counterparts. During the government of conservative President Juan Orlando Hernández, Honduras broke off diplomatic relations with Venezuela and expelled the Cuban doctors working in the country, moves which were reversed in the first six months of Xiomara Castro’s government.

Her decision regarding China will put Honduras in league with the growing number of nations in Latin America that recently switched their diplomatic ties from Taiwan to China. Since 2017, Panama, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua severed their ties with Taiwan.

Honduras was one of the last 13 sovereign nations that holds official diplomatic relations with Taiwan, eight of which are in Latin America and the Caribbean.

These countries have a long history of right-wing and US-supported governments and as a result still hold onto a Cold War legacy of refusing to recognize the PRC as the authority over the whole of China. Even as the US itself began recognizing the PRC in 1979, many right-wing governments have continued the policy of shutting out the People’s Republic.

While Reina insists that President Castro’s decision was not ideological, domestic politics have often influenced relations with China and the rest of the world. South Korea recognized the PRC after its democratization in 1988 and South Africa did the same after the fall of apartheid. In Latvia, the fall of socialism and the nation’s exit from the Soviet Union in 1991 resulted in briefly cutting ties with China under a conservative and right-wing government.

Nicaragua, the latest country to cut ties with Taiwan in 2021, has a more dramatic history when it comes to its relations with China. The country had first recognized the PRC over the ROC in Taiwan in 1985, shortly after leftist Daniel Ortega first came to power as president. But right after Ortega lost to a conservative-backed administration under Violeta Chamorro, Nicaragua reverted to maintaining full diplomatic ties with Taiwan.

China has welcomed the Honduran government’s decision. “On the basis of the one-China principle, China is willing to develop amicable and cooperative relationships with all countries around the world, including Honduras,” said China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/03/16/ ... ith-china/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Hondouras

Post by blindpig » Mon Apr 24, 2023 2:28 pm

President of Honduras Condemns Conspiracy Against Her Government
APRIL 23, 2023

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Honduran President Xiomara Castro speakng at a ceremony commemorating the 92nd anniversary of the creation of the Air Force of Honduras, April 21, 2023. Photo: Twitter/@gobprensaHN.

The president of Honduras, Xiomara Castro, decried that her government is the victim of “a conspiracy in the making” by the very same people who had plotted and perpetrated the coup against ex-President Manuel Zelaya in 2009.

“There is a conspiracy in the making, and it must be made clear to the people of Honduras,” President Castro said in a statement released by her office. “We have to only look at those who are backing this conspiracy, the same people who had perpetrated the coup in 2009.”

She warned that these sectors “are now trying to destabilize a government elected by the people” in November 2021.


The president stressed that those who are trying destabilize the country should be considered traitors to the nation and face justice.

“If there is a rule of law, then those who are trying to incite destabilization should be called before the judiciary for treason,” she said.

Castro added that those who “plundered the country in the past and drowned it in debt now claim to be honest and supporters of democracy, thus trying to evade their historical responsibility.”

Former President Manuel Zelaya was overthrown on June 28, 2009, seven months before the end of his four-year term.

President Castro’s comments come a few days after a United Nations team arrived in Honduras to start the installation of the International Commission Against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras (CICIH).


(Últimas Noticias) by Ariadne Eljuri

https://orinocotribune.com/president-of ... overnment/
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Re: Hondouras

Post by blindpig » Thu May 04, 2023 2:23 pm

While Projecting a Friendly Face and an Extended Hand, the Biden Administration Has Continually Challenged the Initiatives of Honduras’ New Progressive Government and Ignored the Voice of the Honduran People
By James Phillips - May 3, 2023 0

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Honduras President Xiomara Castro [Source: resistediverso.blogspot.com]

The dangers of a coup remain, given past policies
In November 2021, Hondurans resoundingly elected a new government, headed by President Xiomara Castro, that pledged to end official corruption, reduce violence, and move away from reliance upon a destructive, extractive economy controlled by foreign corporations.

Castro’s government committed to moving the country toward an economy that allowed people to work for themselves, their families, and their communities instead of toiling for others while falling ever deeper into poverty and dependency. That election seemed a remarkable break, especially from the previous 12 years. But various dilemmas have plagued the new government’s attempts at change.

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Xiomara Castro at her inauguration. [Source: Photo courtesy of Lucy Edwards]

The former Honduran government of Juan Orlando Hernández, unwaveringly supported by the U.S., became a nationwide criminal enterprise that included gangs, drug traffickers and corrupt corporate interests—elements that continue today to foment daily violence and resistance within Honduras against any movement by the new government toward reform and renovation.

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Sketch shows former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández in court after being charged with narco-corruption. [Source: cnn.com]

And the Biden administration has continually challenged the initiatives of the new Castro government and ignored the voice of the Honduran people.

The U.S. maintains control under the guise of partnership and assistance, peppered with criticisms and veiled threats. Given these pressures, what are the prospects for the future of Honduras, and for U.S. policy and practice?

Elections and the Popular Will
To understand the importance of the election of Xiomara Castro, it is useful to compare it to the three previous Honduran elections. The 2009 election was held in the wake of a coup d’état and it was “won” by those who had perpetrated the coup. The voting took place as the military and the police violently repressed massive popular protests that continued for months after the coup.

In the presidential elections of 2013 and 2017, Juan Orlando Hernández—one of the chief proponents of the 2009 coup—claimed victory, despite widespread claims that his National Party (Partido Nacional, PN) had won through fraud.

Hernández was not legally eligible to run for re-election in 2017 (the Honduran Constitution prohibits a president from running for a second term), but the Supreme Court that he had stacked with his own judges allowed it, ignoring the Constitution.

After each of these elections, protests erupted and were brutally repressed by security forces with liberal use of tear gas, beatings, arrests and killings. These post-coup years of National Party rule, when Hernández retained the presidency and systematically concentrated the powers of the state under his control, were marked by extreme violence (with a murder rate and a femicide rate among the highest in the world), pervasive official corruption, criminality with impunity, and deepening poverty, both for the nation and for a majority of Hondurans.

Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department accepted the validity of these elections and continued to certify that the Honduran government was making progress in protecting human rights and democracy—a conclusion that could only be arrived at by systematically ignoring the loud protesting voices of Honduran human rights leaders and popular organizations.

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Demonstrators carry a banner reading, “When tyranny is law, revolution is order. Damn the soldier who points his weapon at his people.” Tegucigalpa, Honduras, December 3, 2017. [Source: upsidedownworld.org]

As the 2021 elections approached, Hernández’s hand-picked successor and the National Party hoped to retain power by offering “bonuses” to groups of people, especially poor households in rural areas, who would promise to vote for the PN. The PN also kept trying to revise voting laws and procedures so as to control local election committees, and to exercise coercion where it might be effective.

To oppose Hernández and the PN, three opposition political parties joined to support Xiomara Castro for president, with a platform that pledged to eliminate official corruption and impunity, protect women and human rights, and transform the country’s heavy dependence on resource extraction and foreign investment that had reduced many Hondurans to poverty.

In November 2021, the Honduran people overwhelmingly elected Castro.The parties supporting her gained a fragile majority in the Congress and control of several major cities. In the year since Castro’s inauguration, her government has faced increasing resistance from Hondurans who fear major reform; increasing criticism and impatience from those who voted for her and now want to see real change; and constant pressure from the United States to abandon plans for meaningful change. For the new Honduran government, this is a time of hope and danger.

Achievements of the New Government
Despite the headwinds, the Castro government has managed in its first year to take important steps toward fulfilling the promise of a better future for the country. The new Congress has repealed some of the previous legislation that had enabled impunity, corruption and the curtailment of labor rights.

The government is engaged in negotiations with the United Nations to establish an independent body that can investigate and begin to prosecute corruption. The government has also intervened in at least a few prominent cases to seek satisfactory solutions where communities were being forcibly evicted by corporations or large landowners. It has helped to dismiss some cases brought against human rights and environmental defenders by supporters of the previous government.

The President and the Congress have established entities and endorsed educational efforts to address the high rates of femicide in the country, although the results so far have been meager. The Congress passed a law establishing important assistance for the 300,000 Hondurans internally displaced by unlawful eviction and gang violence. These (and more) are a few important steps that hold promise.

The Castro government also declared a 30-day “state of exception” that suspended some basic rights in various neighborhoods in Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula in order to crack down on the widespread criminal extortion of poor communities, small and medium-sized businesses, and the transport sector. The Congress then extended this for several more weeks.

Many Hondurans applauded this, since extortion has affected so much of Honduran daily life. But the use of the police and the military to carry out the crackdown is controversial, given the allegedly deep involvement of the security forces in criminal enterprises and their many alleged and documented human rights abuses.

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[Source: Confidencialhn.com]
The Dilemma of a Honduras “Open for Business”

At the core of the Castro program is a transition from the foreign-dominated extractive political economy of the country—one that had in the past 12 years reduced Hondurans and their communities to dependents working to enrich others—to an economy that favored the promotion of local initiative and greater national self-reliance.

The implications of such a transition are not only economic. They also signal a shift in identity and dignity for individuals, communities, and the nation itself. Clearly, such a transition would threaten the current situation in which Honduras is a colony, a source from which foreign corporate interests and a few wealthy Hondurans extract resources while leaving the Honduran people with a poverty level that currently stands at upwards of 73%, the second highest in the hemisphere. Corruption and state-sponsored or condoned violence are bitter fruits of this externally oriented colonial model. All of this is what the Xiomara Castro government has pledged to change, and what the Honduran people overwhelmingly voted to change.

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Poverty remains ubiquitous in Honduras. [Source: globalgiving.org]

Conflict is brewing in Honduras between the Castro government and the promoters and investors of the “special development and employment zones” (zonas especiales de desarrollo y empleo, ZEDEs). The ZEDEs are essentially sovereign enclaves for foreign investment and enterprise that are carved out of Honduran territory.

There are currently several ZEDEs in Honduras, all in the early or initial stages of development. For many Hondurans, including members of the business elite, the ZEDES represent a threat to Honduran communities and businesses and a violation of national sovereignty. Castro’s government and the new Honduran Congress recently repealed the law of the previous government that had authorized the creation of ZEDES.

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Blueprint for special economic zone. [Source: proceso.hn]

Developers of the Prospera ZEDE have charged breach of contract and have threatened a $10.75 billion lawsuit against the Honduran government unless the Congress reinstates legal permission for the ZEDEs. Additional pressure came from a letter by two U.S. Senators (a Democrat and a Republican) supporting the ZEDEs and criticizing the Castro government for obstructing free enterprise and “development” initiatives.

A Florida Congressman warned Honduras that it faces “serious sanctions” if it “illegally expropriates” U.S. investments in the Prospera ZEDE. U.S. Ambassador to Honduras Laura Dogu urged the government to keep the country open for business, by which she clearly meant business as usual, including the ZEDEs.

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Laura Dogu [Source: processo.hn]

Her remarks were taken as intrusive criticism, even a mildly veiled threat, and provoked a pointed response from Foreign Minister Eduardo Enrique Reina.

There are legal arguments to counter these threats, but the threats are significant, and they have generated further threats of legal action against the new government. Meanwhile, many Hondurans are demanding the repeal of the ZEDEs. The government feels pressure from outside and from its own people pulling in opposite directions.

From his prison cell in New York, Hernández himself issued an open letter to the people of Honduras. He and members of his close circle are in detention in the United States on charges of overseeing massive drug trafficking from Honduras to the U.S. during his presidency.

His open letter was a litany of his accomplishments for the Honduran people. The actual benefit of most of these “accomplishments” is questionable, but the letter painted a rosy picture of his presidency, ignoring the rise in violence, corruption and poverty under his rule. He also criticized the new government.

Why was Hernández allowed to write and publish this letter while he is in custody in the U.S.? It could only happen with the permission, perhaps even the blessing, of U.S. authorities. While the U.S. has offered friendly assistance and partnership to the Castro government, Hernández’s letter and its publication from a U.S. prison reinforces the idea that a largely unregulated extractive economy controlled by foreign interests must be maintained if Honduras is to prosper—a proposition clearly contradicted by the experience of the past 12 or more years.

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Arrest of Juan Orlando Hernández. [Source: getindianews.com]

Significantly, Hernández’s letter to the Honduran people also seems to reinforce a basic policy assumption of the Biden administration’s initiatives for curbing emigration from Central America by supporting more foreign aid and investment in business as usual. It seems that the U.S. and other powerful interests continue to promote the same remedy that has sickened the patient.

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Hondurans fleeing poverty and violence. [Source: jimbakkershow.com]

One might think that, if the United States were serious about curbing emigration from Honduras, it would embrace and support the efforts of the Castro government to make the transition to a political economy that actually enables Hondurans to work for themselves and their families instead of schooling them in dependence on foreign interests. Instead, the United States and the powerful foreign and Honduran interests that profit from the country’s colonial dependency are hard at work threatening, resisting and undermining almost every impulse and initiative for change from the new government or the Honduran people.

The Dilemma of Ongoing Violence
The Castro government has pledged to curb violence, but it faces the entrenched interests of powerful landowners, foreign corporations and politicians and activists of Hernández’s National Party, many who still control municipalities and regions of the country and have close ties to corrupt police and gangs. Police still engage in the eviction of poor communities at the behest of powerful and wealthy interests, and the criminalization of peasant and local community leaders who try to stop the theft of their land. It is proving difficult to combat a corrupt system that has had 12 years to grow. Violent incidents, threats, disappearances and assassinations continue.

Shortly after its inauguration in January 2022, the Castro government formed a Presidential Commission to investigate and respond to land conflict and violence against peasant communities and groups in the Aguán Valley. The conflicts arise in large part because of the often illegal and violent attempts of large landowners and corporations to take land from peasant communities and cooperatives.

The openness of the Castro government to assist peasant groups has generated new energy for these groups, but also a backlash from large landowners and corporations that takes the form of an increasing number of assassinations of peasant leaders and members of peasant organizations, according to the Honduran Center for the Study of Democracy (CESPAD) and others.

Harassment and attacks against Indigenous and other rural communities over land and resource control continue in many parts of the country, including the north coast department of Atlantida, where powerful interests use hired gunmen (sicarios) to threaten members of local groups belonging to the National Confederation of Rural Workers (CNTC). There are too many incidents of this kind to detail here.

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[Source: pbicanada.org]

Some Hondurans see the roots of such violence in the interests behind the current extractive economy and the failure, so far, of the government to control unregulated extractive industries. Joaquín Mejía, a prominent Honduran human rights lawyer, said the new government was partially responsible for the murders inasmuch as it had failed to suspend or cancel the illegal mining concessions granted by the former regime.

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Joaquín Mejía [Source: wp.radioprogresohn.net]

Over the past decade Honduras suffered one of the highest rates of femicide in the world. Despite the Castro government’s pledge to address and reduce the killing of women and other gendered violence, such violence has continued and even increased in the past months.

Some remaining members of the National Party in Congress continue to use obstruction and accusation to stop most attempts to repeal laws and policies of the previous government that encouraged corruption and impunity. There is a more sinister threat in this, as well.

In October 2022, a National Party member of the Congress issued a call for Hondurans to put on their white shirts, a reference to 2009 when supporters of the coup d’état wore white shirts. This was a not-so-veiled call for a coup against the Castro government.

The nationwide network or system of interrelated actors and interests that rely on violence and intimidation to accomplish their goals is based on relationships of collusion among corrupt police, criminal gangs, drug traffickers, PN activists, powerful landowners and those with vested interests in extractive industries, and their security guards, a network of corruption described in a 2017 report from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

This interrelated network of interests and dependencies allows the powerful and prominent to use hired assassins to do the actual dirty work. Political and human rights assassinations can be made to seem like common crimes. This interrelated network of interests has not substantially changed since it formed under the former post-coup governments.

Its underpinning was widespread impunity for the perpetrators. The Hernández government and the National Party in Congress revised the Honduran Criminal Code to weaken the punishments for actual criminal behavior while expanding the categories of popular protest and resistance that were defined as criminal behavior, essentially turning the criminal justice system on its head—codifying a system of rewarding the perpetrators and blaming the victims. The Castro government has been working to repeal such laws and is faced with the enormous and dangerous task of trying to dismantle this system of violence, corruption and impunity.

The ongoing violence cannot be understood simply as a series of random or unconnected incidents. This violence serves several purposes. It targets and eliminates individuals who in any way contest, contradict or hinder the workings of the network of corruption. Individuals targeted for assassination can include local community leaders who try to protect the land and resources of the community from extractive projects. Or investigative journalists uncovering corruption. Or local leaders and activists of the government’s Libre Party. Or human rights defenders. Or women and leaders and members of the LGBTQ community. Violence can also take the form of threats, illegal evictions, repression and criminalization of communities that stand in the way of lucrative projects.

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Investigation of death of community activist. [Source: processo.hn]

Eliminating these individuals and communities weakens the Castro government’s ability to fulfill its promised agenda, inasmuch as it eliminates some of Castro’s natural allies. The campaign of violence weakens the new government by creating a sense of chaos, and a government powerless to provide protection and stability. Creating chaos and fear is calculated to destroy people’s hopes in the Castro government.

The Dilemma of Dependence on the Security Forces
Some of these recent incidents reflect another major dilemma for the Castro government: its dependence on the country’s security forces. This poses concerns because of the role the security forces have played in recent Honduran history. The corrupt and dictatorial Hernández government relied on the military and the police to enforce its will and to enable its corruption.

The security forces were implicated in aiding the cover-up of assassinations, the unlawful eviction of communities at the behest of powerful corporations and landowners, and the brutal repression of peaceful popular protests. But the Castro government must do something to reduce gang and drug-trafficking violence and to address some other seemingly intractable problems such as environmental degradation and illegal land seizures. Using the security forces to address these problems is a temptation in a context where solutions and relief are demanded and are needed quickly.

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Honduran security forces have been implicated in their share of human rights crimes. This begs the question of how a progressive government should use them. [Source: ticotimes.net]

The Castro government pledged to disband the Military Police, reduce the power of the military, and clean up corruption in the National Police, but it has been hard for many Hondurans to see much progress toward these goals. The “state of exception” that the Castro government declared deploys the police and the military to enforce this.

But human rights leaders and others have expressed concern about the use of the security forces to combat extortion in certain cities since it provides the military and the police with yet another arena for increasing their hold over Honduran society and reflects the weakness of the government and civil society to deal with the problem. The Honduran military has in recent history staged coups against civilian governments it did not like.

After several decades of a rampant extractive economy—mining (including hundreds of broad mining concessions, some using open-pit mining with cyanide), as well as logging, plantation agriculture, tourism—Honduras faces serious environmental degradation. Mining and palm oil enterprises have also invaded legally protected ecological reserves such as the Carlos Escaleras National Park.

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The San Pedro River, in the Carlos Escaleras National Park, was one of the many rivers under threat of devastation by open-pit mining. [Source: greenleft.org.au]

Local communities that have tried to defend their environment from extractive industries continue to suffer reprisals, as the now emblematic case of Guapinol illustrates. The Castro government plans to use the military to form “Green Brigades” to enforce environmental laws and reduce illegal land practices. The reliance on the military here is particularly concerning for many communities that have long endured the presence of the military as an occupying force in the service of the same powerful interests that are largely responsible for extractive destruction.

The close relationship of the Honduran military to the U.S. military has long been a source of concern about the very sensitive issue of sovereignty. The Castro government raised the hope that Honduras would be able to assert its independence in the face of strong pressures from the United States. This would be a major feat, given the history of U.S. influence over Honduran life. This concern over national sovereignty was exacerbated during the years of the Hernández government, and it continues unabated. Within this concern is the ongoing dilemma of how to reduce corruption and criminality in the security forces and change their entire ethos.

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U.S. soldier pins lapel on Honduran trainee at the Soto Cano Air Base in Honduras. [Source: jtfb.southcom.mil]

Human rights leaders and many other Hondurans express serious concerns about the militarization of Honduran society. As if to heighten these concerns, the government’s proposed budget for 2023 includes an increase in funding for the security forces rather than the reduction that many expected. There is concern also that what is given to the security forces will be taken from important social services and other programs, just as it was under Hernández.

The critical response to Castro’s action can be seen clearly in this excerpt from a news report in CriterioHN, an important Honduran news outlet:

The promise to demilitarize security in Honduras remains a chimera, or at least this is evidenced by the actions of the government of President Xiomara Castro, who despite having promised to take the military off the streets, is doing the opposite by allocating them more resources compared to last year.

The Dilemma of Financing Change Without Selling the Country
All of this external and internal pressure is directed toward a Honduran government that is financially weak, dependent and vulnerable, and does not control the entire country. The past 12 years of post-coup governments, greatly increased the country’s debt (now estimated at close to 60% of the country’s GDP) while corrupt officials systematically pocketed huge amounts of state finances and starved basic social services.

The Castro government finds itself with a financial dilemma, needing money to pay the debt and to finance services such as public health and education that have been so neglected that they will require more money to restore and rebuild to adequate functioning. Sources of funding are problematic. With one of the poorest populations in the region, Honduras cannot rely heavily on taxes and fees from its own people.

Extractive industries bring in revenue, but many of these industries—mining, logging, export agriculture, tourism—also operate under contracts favorable to the investors and companies, contracts negotiated by the Hernández government, that enrich the extractors while returning little wealth to the country.

Mining actually provides only a small percentage of the country’s income, but it is protected by the powerful interests that benefit. Because Honduras has been so reliant on extractive industries, those who control them—both Honduran elite and foreign interests—wield an outsized influence in the country.

There are other sources of income for the Castro government. Foreign aid, loans and investment are available to the Honduran government. But since the government is known to be in need of money, it seems to be in no position to negotiate for favorable terms. The problem here is to distinguish what assists self-reliance and change from what reinforces dependency and “business as usual.”

The inherent danger with reliance on this area of finance is that government plans and programs are reshaped to suit the needs of the foreign sources of income, to put reform on hold in order to attract needed income. In addition, high levels of violence, corruption, and extortion in Honduras over the past decade have been a source of concern for some potential foreign investors. For those interests that want to cripple the Castro government, chaotic acts of violence serve the same purpose of discouraging investment.

Without the funds to service the debt and address basic social needs, there is a political price to be paid for deferring change indefinitely. It is the pressure from below, from the Honduran people who elected Castro and who need or expect her government to transform at least some of the worst conditions in basic services in the country. The urgency of this demand is becoming increasingly evident in the function of daily basic services such as public health and meeting needed raises to salaries for public workers such as nurses.

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Hondurans at the polls on election day in 2021. [Source: Photo courtesy of Lucy Edwards]

The Dilemma of Emigration
In 2009, the year of the coup, approximately 1,000 Hondurans left the country seeking asylum. By the later years of the Hernández government (2015-2020), as many as three hundred people may have been leaving Honduras each day, a significant number out of the total population of Honduras (approximately 9.5 million). So far, this emigration flow has shown few signs of diminishing since the inauguration of the Castro government.

Hondurans in the United States during the past 12 years have been sending back remittances to Honduras that have totaled in excess of $4 billion a year, amounting to almost 20% of the country’s income.

This situation presents a dilemma for the Castro government. The flow of remittances that Hondurans in the United States have sent back to Honduras in recent years has been a substantial support for many Hondurans, relieving some of the economic pressure on some Honduran families. This is very real income for Honduras. When the Castro government was taking office early in 2022 and wondering how to finance both the country’s debt and meet its public social needs, remittances seemed like an important resource.

But this boost to the economy also comes with significant risks and costs. Remittances depend on several factors not under the control of the Honduran government, including fluctuations in the U.S. job market and attitudes and policies toward immigrants in the United States. The flow of remittances is thus unreliable over time.

The cost of this flow of people out of Honduras is evident. It represents a significant loss of youth, energy and creativity out of the country—a negative flow of social capital. This social capital is one of the major resources Honduras must have and retain if the promises of transition and reform under the new government are to become reality.

Such a large emigration also represents yet another sign of the dependency of Honduras on the United States as its benefactor. The large emigration to the U.S. allows the United States to use immigration policy and the image of migrants as a weapon to control and hold Honduran governments accountable. The fate of Honduran e/immigrants becomes a bargaining chip in the relationship between Honduras and the United States.

The Administration’s Call to Action initiative promises millions of dollars to Honduras and other Central American countries to promote investment, attract foreign corporations and create jobs, supposedly to create conditions for Hondurans to remain in Honduras. But to receive this aid, it is clear that the Castro government must agree to do nothing to seriously alter or challenge the current dominance of foreign corporations and “business as usual.” To some Hondurans and foreign observers, this seems like the same failed policy again—or worse, a form of extortion.

There is also the serious problem of immigrant child labor in the United States. As the number of children and teenagers immigrating to the U.S. from Honduras and other Central American countries has exploded in the last few years, individuals posing as “sponsors” have trafficked children and teens into dangerous and difficult jobs, violating U.S. child labor laws and keeping these immigrant youth in debt servitude, as a February 26 report in The New York Times reveals.

Many of these young people are under immense pressure to make money to send home and to pay back their “sponsors.” Many die through work-related accidents or illnesses. So far, U.S. authorities and agencies charged with the welfare of immigrant children do not seem to have been able to gain control of the situation. All of this raises questions about the real value of remittances coming from child labor. Cynics point out that child labor is common in Central America, but that is another of the realities that the Castro government must work to change.

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Child laborers in Honduras. [Source: rebellion.org]

The Problematic Relationship with the United States
For 150 years, the United States has influenced and sought to control the economic and political life of Honduras. In the age of U.S. expansionism and empire building, Honduras became a colony.

U.S. mining, and then banana and fruit company interests that gained such control over Honduran political life in the early 20th century were followed by the strengthening of relationships between the militaries of the two countries beginning in the 1950s. Civilian governments have come and gone in both countries, but the military relationship and collaboration has remained. The U.S. turned Honduras into its chief vassal state in the region, and the base for projecting U.S. military power. So dominant was the U.S. presence in the 1980s that Honduras was called the “USS Honduras,” and one Honduran congressman said, “Everyone knows Honduras is run by the U.S. Embassy. Honduras is an occupied country…”

Honduran governments, controlled by a small political and economic elite, found it to their advantage to keep the country “open for business,” especially for U.S. and other foreign investment.

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Honduran soldiers in the 1920s who were trained by the U.S. [Source: latinamericanmusings.wordpress.com]

The country alternated between periods of military rule and weak civilian government. Honduras was a nation with weak institutions and a powerful elite aligned with U.S. interests, despite the misgivings of many Hondurans about the loss of national sovereignty under the control of the U.S. Embassy.

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Honduran soldiers operate a mortar for members of the U.S. Army 82nd Airborne Division during a joint exercise, March 1988. [Source: revcom.us]

In the past decade, U.S. involvement in Honduran affairs has continued. Consider the response of the Obama administration to the coup in June 2009 that deposed Manuel Zelaya’s mildly reformist government. After a brief delay, the U.S. recognized the post-coup government in the interest of moving on and promoting “business as usual.” As the Hernández government became ever more mired in human rights abuses, corruption and violence, the State Department continued to certify that the country was making progress in democracy and human rights, ignoring the mountain of evidence to the contrary.

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Obama shakes Manuel Zelaya’s hand at the Summit of the Americas not long before Obama backed a coup against him. [Source: latinamericanmusings.wordpress.com]

When Hernández finally left office last January, the U.S. requested his extradition on charges of drug trafficking. Many Hondurans breathed a sigh of relief, but they also saw this as another sign of the colonial-style relationship of their country to the United States. Some asked, “Why did we need the U.S. to indict Hernández? Why couldn’t our own institutions do it?”

Some Honduran human rights leaders argued that the U.S. indictment of Hernández, who was for so long a staunch U.S. ally, was an effort to clean an embarrassing image so that the exploitative reality could continue as usual with a cleaner, friendlier face.

The U.S. military presence in Honduras, the training of Honduran military in the U.S., and the joint military training exercises since the 1980s have been a part of the Honduran relationship to the U.S. for years, and has expanded to include the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Currently, the U.S. is promoting more “security” agreements with the Castro government.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is constructing a massive new embassy in the heart of the Honduran capital. The current embassy complex is already large, and the new one raises questions about its actual purpose in a country with a population of fewer than ten million. What agencies, offices and military units might be housed in this new embassy? The workers building it have been on strike for several months, with complaints of working conditions and owed pay against the contractor hired by the U.S.

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Blueprint of the new U.S. embassy compound in Tegucigalpa. [Source: ai-architect.com]

The United States is committed to the idea that it needs Honduras as one of its primary allies in the region, and one that is, conveniently, next door to Sandinista Nicaragua.

From the viewpoint of Washington, Honduras cannot be allowed to loosen its ties with the U.S. and move toward the sort of people-oriented political economy espoused by, for example, Nicaragua. This thinking—this fear—drives reaction to what the Castro government is trying to accomplish.

The Dilemma of Fractured Solidarity
Honduran human rights leaders have said repeatedly over the past decade that they welcome external solidarity, and that it can be of much help. But the pressures and dilemmas exerted on the Xiomara Castro government as it tries to move Honduras toward a more just and livable society threaten to create yet another dilemma, one of fractured solidarity, both internal and external. Internal solidarity with the new government comes from the support of the Honduran people for the programs of the new government and a stake in the general direction in which the government is leading the country.

While still strong, this support is strained by an increasing perception that the government cannot deliver on its promises, that it is internally divided, or worse, that it is making compromises with the very actors and forces of the old regime—police, military, big extractive and foreign businesses, the National Party, and the U.S Embassy. Internal solidarity can give way to disillusionment, passivity, emigration, or other reactions that further weaken the government’s support.

This situation also shapes external solidarity—the solidarity of groups and organizations in Europe, the United States, Canada and elsewhere. The image of a government that cannot seem to deliver the transformations it has promised; a country in turmoil, division, and violence; and a country whose government is forced to resort to drastic and seemingly repressive measures to “fast-track” some of its promises. All this can confuse and weaken the sense of solidarity from abroad.

What are people of good will outside of Honduras to think of what is happening in the country? A confusing and negative image is easily amplified by news media controlled or influenced by the forces (internal and external) that do not want change in Honduras. Perception and news media play critical roles in this shaping and fracturing of solidarity.

This sort of weaponization depends on: (1) portraying a distorted picture of friendly and legitimate criticism as a mass movement against the Castro government as a whole; (2) suggesting that the problems and “failures” of the Castro government are the result of its own policies rather than the entrenched legacy of the previous government aided by the U.S.; (3) erasing the historical context of U.S. control and interference in Honduran life; and (4) using terms such as human rights and democracy selectively to reshape and re-direct sentiments of support to serve the purposes of the U.S and other vested interests instead of the Honduran people.

By these means, solidarity can be weakened, diverted or invited to support narrow interests determined in Washington and foreign corporate board rooms without ever revealing these interests. Hondurans are wise to the ways that U.S. administrations and agencies and some of their own governments have tried to deceive, co-opt and suppress their aspirations. But the situation for Honduras at this moment raises concerns that both internal and external solidarity with the Castro government may become strained, if not endangered.

What Next?
The interrelated dilemmas facing the Castro government seem to present a “damned either way” situation. The bright light for Honduras is its people. They have a long history of organized, creative and peaceful resistance to the exploitation of their land and resources and the dangers to their national sovereignty. Honduras has very active and politically astute popular organizations and a strong and independent community of defenders of human rights, local communities and the environment. Their election of the new government was another powerful action to take back their country.

At this precarious moment, what constitutes real solidarity with the Honduran people? For U.S. citizens whose primary responsibility is the actions of their own government, recognizing and working to change the role of the U.S. government and corporations in perpetuating the status quo of “business as usual” would be a primary expression of solidarity since it would address one of the primary obstacles to change in Honduras. Re-thinking the failed strategy of more foreign investment and foreign aid for large-scale extractive development in Honduras would help considerably.

Finding ways for consumer action, legal action and legislation to hold U.S. corporations and investors accountable for their practices in Honduras is a related form of much needed solidarity with the Honduran people.

Working for major reforms in immigration policy could be another form of solidarity for U.S. citizens. In this, it is worthwhile to work toward ending mechanisms and excuses for mass deportations of Hondurans and others (excuses such as Title 42).

The United States government continues to talk of “partnership” with Honduras, but the relationship is intrinsically one of dominance. After more than 150 years of assumed superiority by successive U.S. administrations, it will be a difficult challenge to significantly change this official attitude to one of real partnership. The heart of solidarity with Honduras will require a significant change in attitude and practice. The human people-to-people connection that animates solidarity will be a great asset in this effort. What happens to Honduras will tell us much about the future of Honduras, Latin America and the United States.

https://covertactionmagazine.com/2023/0 ... ce-of-the/
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Re: Hondouras

Post by blindpig » Fri Jun 02, 2023 1:56 pm

Honduras: Psychological operations against Xiomara Castro’s government
June 2, 2023 Ricardo Arturo Salgado

Image
Xiomara Castro

The right-wing wars in Latin America are waged, to a great extent in the minds of people, especially those who still think they are part of the privileged class, even though neoliberalism is gradually making them lose purchasing power. Psychological operations, whose spearheads are in the media and social networks, have been relentless against the progressive government of President Xiomara Castro since the very day she took office.

In Honduras, private media constitute 98% of all media, and the number of troll and bot farms created by the narco-regime of the National Party of Juan Orlando Hernandez, occupy a huge space, which has the strong support of the most virulent communities of the right-wing in the United States.
For that reason, for example, it is almost impossible to get a social network, such as Twitter, to unsubscribe a fake account in the name of the Government of Honduras.

During the last few weeks, the current administration has undertaken a fight to change the rules of the game in tax matters. Basically, the idea is to put an end to the special regimes that have exempted a small group of businessmen from paying taxes for the last fifty years. Thanks to this system of tax exemptions, things as dissimilar as fast food, the media, fossil fuel energy generators, and even drug trafficking companies have been able to flourish while poverty and inequality have accelerated.

In the eyes of public opinion, this is a battle won by the government in spite of a costly campaign by the elites, including the political sector of the right that is bent on fulfilling its task of preventing the richest from losing their privileges and competing with an immense number of companies that not only pay taxes but also pay infinitely higher rates for loans from local banks. Fundamentally, for a small entrepreneur to get a loan, he or she must prove that he or she does not need the money. There is nothing further from the panacea of the free market than what is happening in Honduras; the rich are getting rich by plundering the poor.

The other hot issue is the entry of Honduras into the Andean Development Community, CAF, which must be ratified by the National Congress, with a predominance of the right, from the opportunist to the fascist. The point here is not to ratify the adhesion in order to prevent the government from accessing new sources of financing. If we look at the big picture, the purpose is to prevent access to funds and the reordering of finances that would help to bear the burden of the social debt accumulated after twelve years post-coup d’état.

In the current context, the steps taken by President Castro’s government tend to favor the great majorities, and the public opinion matrices, at least the regular ones, are insufficient to convince the population that it is a good idea to continue maintaining a parasitic system in which, in the name of competitiveness, the country’s economy has been destroyed. With an economically active population of 4 million people, the richest 5% of the country barely generates 6% of the jobs. Moreover, it is to this sector that we owe the largest corruption construction existing for many years. Even at the end of 2021, after the right wing had lost the elections, the outgoing Congress approved 4 new regulations of privileges for the same 25 families.

The government of the republic has taken giant steps in a number of areas, some of them historic and, until recently, unthinkable, such as the opening of diplomatic relations with China, from which favorable agreements are expected while being conducted within the framework of the up most of respect. Although it maintains many difficulties, mainly in Education and Health, the current administration has many relief programs for the crisis that comes from the global transition to multipolarity and the disastrous legacy of the 12 most fateful years in our history.

Unable to achieve a favorable balance in the public opinion, the elites, stimulated by political sectors of the United States, activated spokespersons with a multi-directional campaign, in which the most significant part has been the presentation by the National Anticorruption Council (NGO financed by State funds and controlled by the United States), of a pseudo report on “Nepotism and Excess of Concentration of Power”. In the midst of a Disneyland-like light show, a propagandistic display has been made against the government, without presenting a single concrete case of corruption, under the premise that Nepotism produces corruption.

Enemies have surfaced, both outside and inside the government, who have tried to throw a layer of slime over public officials, all activated in unison, in what is clearly a psychological operation to displace from the national discussion the fundamental problem of the privileges of the ruling class, the complicity of the right-wing in this unequal relationship, and above all, the class struggle implicit in this process. It is worth noting that, to date, there had been no cases with indications of corruption until, in the same week of the psychological operation, audios of an official appeared that leave little to the imagination and that point to corruption in the DINAF, the entity in charge of dealing with children’s issues in the country.

The question of the concentration of power omits an inscrutable fact: power is the capacity of a class to impose its interests, even by force if necessary. That power, real power, in Honduras continues to be wielded by the elites, with the firm support of the United States. Nevertheless, this government is accused of being intolerant, of not respecting freedom of expression, although every journalist in the pay of the right-wing rants against the government and even disrespects the president, at any time of the day, without any restraint to date on the immense amount of mass of slander and lies that they throw out every day.

This being a popular government, which, in spite of obtaining a landslide victory in the last presidential elections, it is correct to say that it is in an unequal battle, in which the ruling class is trying to generate conditions of discontent among the population, perhaps with the intention of generating conditions for a color revolution type movement. To date, however, its social support base remains very poor and depends more on fake news, memes, or poorly made montages.

The fundamental mission of government communications must be to reach the majorities with the truth, who must now understand that we are in a real struggle for power, in which those who drowned us in unthinkable poverty have an infinity of resources and have no scruples to lie, to steal, or to kill. This is what history teaches us; we have seen this in other parts of the world.

They accuse us of polarizing as if the poor were happy to be screwed all their lives. We must not forget that the only field of consensus that the oligarchy accepts is that in which the working class surrenders and accepts to sign the unconditional surrender, which favors and increases their already obscene privileges.

Today we are facing a smokescreen type of psychological operation, but the slogan continues to be that we all pay taxes, that those who earn more pay more. Whoever tries to distract us from that truth is our enemy.

Source: Telesur, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – US

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Re: Hondouras

Post by blindpig » Mon Jun 12, 2023 2:14 pm

President of Honduras Starts Official Tour of China
JUNE 10, 2023

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Honduran President Xiomara Castro being greeted by the authorities of the Communist Party of China in Shanghai, June 9, 2023. Photo: Twitter/@gobprensaHN.

The president of Honduras, Xiomara Castro, started her six-day official visit to China on Friday, with a view to consolidating bilateral relations in various fields. Upon her arrival in Shanghai on Friday, June 9, the Honduran president was received by the highest authority of the Communist Party of China in the city of Shanghai.

The secretary of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of Honduras, Enrique Reina, reported, “The highest authority of the Communist Party in Shanghai and secretary of the Municipal Committee, Chen Jining, received President Xiomara Castro, and expressed his support to promote cooperation and open the market to coffee producers [of Honduras].”


The Honduran foreign minister and other officials of the delegation accompanying Castro arrived in China on the night of Thursday, June 8.

According to the Honduran Press Secretariat, President Castro and her delegation will hold a number of meetings with Chinese authorities in Shanghai and Beijing.


President Castro is scheduled to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping, and the former president of Brazil and current head of the New Development Bank of the BRICS group of emerging economies, Dilma Rousseff.

Castro’s visit to China comes almost three months after the reestablishment of diplomatic relations between Honduras and China, after Honduras announced its support for the One China policy and broke off diplomatic relations with Taiwan that it had maintained since 1941.


Last week, President Castro announced the appointment of scientist Salvador Moncada as the Honduran ambassador to China. Three days later, Beijing opened its embassy in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras.

https://orinocotribune.com/president-of ... -of-china/

Honduran President Xiomara Castro Requests for Honduras to Join the BRICS Bank
JUNE 12, 2023

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Xiomara Castro, President of Honduras, met with Dilma Rouseff, New Development Bank (NBD) of the BRICS. Photo: Presidency of Honduras.

The President of Honduras, Xiomara Castro, emphasized from Shanghai that relations with China will bring development opportunities to her country.

On her six-day official visit to China, Castro affirmed that the Honduran people recognize the One China principle and contended that establishing relations with Beijing will “bring development opportunities for Honduras.”

“The Honduran people admire China’s achievements in development, especially the country’s efforts in poverty alleviation. Striving for the welfare of the people is the common goal of Honduras and China,” she assured.

“I believe that the friendly ties between Honduras and China will be maintained. We will continue to strengthen them through cooperation between the two peoples,” she was quoted saying by Xinhua.

Honduras applies to join the BRICS bank

Xiomara Castro requested this Saturday to join the New Development Bank (NBD) of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), during her meeting today with the president of the entity, former Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff.

The formal request for the country’s entry into the financial entity of the BRICS was announced on Twitter, by the Government of Honduras.


In another message, the governmental entity explained that a technical commission of the Honduran government will travel to initiate this process in the coming days.

“We see that we have ample opportunity here to find mechanisms that will allow us to develop our economy, as well as to find permanent allies that can aid us in giving a different quality of life to our people,” said the president when meeting with Rousseff.

https://orinocotribune.com/honduran-pre ... rics-bank/
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Re: Hondouras

Post by blindpig » Wed Jun 21, 2023 2:35 pm

Honduras: Women’s Prison Riot Leaves 41 Dead

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The Fire Department said it responded to the scene and managed to contain the fire after receiving a call at 8:00 a.m. local time. Jun. 20, 2023. | Photo: Twitter/@zetacompa

Published 20 June 2023 (13 hours 21 minutes ago)

The riot followed by a fire in the prison facilities is linked to "organized crime," said Deputy Security Minister Julissa Villanueva.


At least 41 people died in a riot on Tuesday at the National Women's Penitentiary for Social Adaptation (PNFAS), a prison located in Támara, department of Francisco Morazán, in Honduras.

"We will not tolerate vandalism or irregularities in this penitentiary," said the deputy minister of security, Julissa Villanueva, who authorized the intervention in the prison "with the accompaniment of firefighters, Honduran police, and the military."

The official announced via Twitter the declaration of emergency in view of the events. According to Villanueva, the riot followed by a fire in the penitentiary facilities is linked to "organized crime" due to the actions carried out by the authorities.

The spokesman for the Public Prosecutor's Office, Yuri Mora, said that "there are around 25 burned bodies," while another 16 inmates were reportedly shot. Mora said that "five forensic medicine teams have been deployed."


My condolences to the families of the prisoners who lost their lives today in this terrorist attack in the women's prison of Tamara FM. The scientific evidence already at 70% at the crime scene opens the light of justice for these victims.

Local media reported that some inmates had locked up their rivals and set fire to the cells with them inside, and that shots were also fired.

In statements to the local press, the Fire Department said it responded to the scene and managed to contain the fire after receiving a call at 8:00 a.m. local time. According to the Fire Department spokesman, Cristian Sevilla, the fire was located in module 2, where "extinguishing, cooling, and removal tasks" were carried out.

The Honduran president, Xiomara Castro, described the event as a "monstrous murder of women" in the penitentiary "planned by gangs in full view and patience of the security authorities."

The president warned of the need to take drastic measures and expressed "my solidarity with the families" of the victims. The president warned of taking drastic measures and expressed "my solidarity with the families" of the victims.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Hon ... -0018.html

*************

Honduran president dismisses security minister

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President Xiomara Castro announced that former Security Minister Ramón Sabillón will take a position in the foreign service of the Central American country. | Photo: EFE
Posted June 21, 2023

President Xiomara Castro appointed the director of the National Police as the new Minister of Security for the Central American country.

The president of Honduras, Xiomara Castro, dismissed the country's Security Minister on Tuesday night, after the death of at least 41 women in a riot at the National Women's Penitentiary for Social Adaptation (Pnfas), near the capital. Tegucigalpa.

Through a statement, the Honduran presidency indicated that the head of state resolved to appoint Gustavo Sánchez, who has served as director of the National Police, as the new Minister of Security.

President Xiomara Castro announced that former Security Minister Ramón Sabillón will take a position in the foreign service of the Central American country.


The Head of State assured that her Government remains committed to combating organized crime and dismantling the boycott against internal security promoted from prisons.

After learning about the death of more than 40 women in Cefas, Xiomara Castro expressed her shock at the criminal act in the prison compound planned by the criminal groups in alleged collaboration with the prison security authorities.

"My solidarity with relatives. He summoned the Minister of Security and the president of the Audit Commission to render accounts. I will take drastic measures!" Castro emphasized.


Honduran authorities reported on Tuesday the death of at least 41 women during a riot at the Pnfas located in the department of Francisco Morazán.

In said penitentiary center in the town of Támara, 25 women were burned and 16 were killed by firearms, while five women deprived of liberty are reported to be admitted to the Hospital Escuela due to trauma, blunt wounds and firearms.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/presiden ... -0001.html

Google Translator

***********

Honduras: Expose right-wing attacks against the people
June 21, 2023 Lucy Pagoada-Quesada

The historic meeting of presidents Xiomara Castro and Xi Jinping has enraged the U.S.-backed right wing in Honduras.
The recalcitrant Honduran right wing is enraged at the country’s new diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China and the agreements for collaboration reached by President Xiomara Castro de Zelaya to benefit the vast majority.

It is only a matter of listening to their voices and seeing their megaphones, paid for by the disinformation media and out-of-touch representatives with “anti-communist” discourse, to realize it.

And their response is to ferociously attack the government of Democratic Socialism, not only through information warfare but even perpetrating crimes such as the terrorist attacks against the Honduran National Electric Power Company (ENEEH) and producing fatal blackouts that cause terrible damage to the people, as denounced by Minister of Energy Erick Tejada on national television June 13.

The purpose of the attacks and sabotage of the ENEEH is to outrage the population and turn it against the government, create chaos, destabilization, violence, and make it look ineffective in order to justify a possible coup.

This is nothing new. In Venezuela, the right-wing did the same in 2019. It perpetrated terrorist attacks against the electrical power system and produced terrible blackouts throughout the country as a way of destabilizing the government of President Nicolás Maduro.

But they did well in Venezuela, and we will do well in Honduras. We are going to beat them this time as we have beaten them before. They will not be able to stand against the people.

Our call to the Honduran people, then, is not to fall into the trap of the right and the powerful groups composed of the same coup leaders as always. Therefore, do not allow yourself to be manipulated by the failed strategies of the right, which does not want and has never wanted the good of the majority.

An example is that in Honduras since President Xiomara took office, more than a million poor Hondurans do not pay for energy. But of course, the megaphones on the right don’t talk about that.

For this and for all the important actions that our government is taking and that the right-wing media hide, we must support it. President Xiomara Castro is doing everything possible to solve the problems inherited from the drug dictatorship, even though it is a great challenge. She works tirelessly to make sure the community gets justice.

The coup plotters shall not pass!

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Re: Hondouras

Post by blindpig » Wed Dec 27, 2023 4:07 pm

Image
Sarina Martínez, Vivos los llevaron / They took them alive, Honduras, 2020

Why is Biden endorsing corporate colonialism in Honduras?
Originally published: The LPE Project on December 11, 2023 by David Adler and José Miguel Ahumada (more by The LPE Project) (Posted Dec 27, 2023)

In August 2017, Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández made a rare visit to the coastal community of Crawfish Rock. Tucked away in dense forest on the tropical island of Roatán, Crawfish Rock is home to hundreds of English-speaking families of Black Caribbean descent, 165 miles and a stretch of sea away from the capital Tegucigalpa. In his meeting with the community, President Hernández apologized for long decades of government neglect, and promised to build parks, roads, and internet infrastructure to compensate its residents. “Better roads mean better job opportunities and access for everyone,” said Hernández.

Meanwhile, in the very same month, a new LLC was born to the State of Delaware: The Society for the Socioeconomic Development of Honduras (La Sociedad para el Desarrollo Socioeconómico de Honduras). Back in 2013, the Honduran government–after sacking and replacing four members of its Supreme Court–pushed through the so-called ‘ZEDEs law’, establishing new special “Zones for Employment and Economic Development” modeled on economist Paul Romer’s vision of a Charter City: Honduran territory packaged and sold to foreign investors for a penny. “Who wants to buy Honduras?” asked the New York Times.

The Society for the Socioeconomic Development of Honduras did. Later rebranded Honduras Próspera, the new LLC set its sights on the island of Roatán as the ideal home of the world’s first true charter city. Spread out over 1,000 acres, the Próspera ZEDE claimed to deliver on President Hernandéz’s promise of overdue development. “The concept of free private cities and charter cities, specifically what Próspera is trying to do, is the most transformative project in the world,” said Joel Bomgar, a member of the Mississippi House of Representatives who moonlights as President of Próspera.

There’s not a sort of Singapore of Central America right now. And so that’s what we’re trying to create.

Fast forward six years, and President Hernández has been extradited to the United States on charges of drug trafficking with El Chapo; his successor, Xiomara Castro, has been elected with the mandate to eliminate the ZEDEs; and her government is locked in a legal battle that will determine the future not only of crypto-libertarianism in Central America, but of international trade law across Latin America at large.

WEAPONS AGAINST THE WEAK
Próspera presents its ZEDE as a libertarian paradise, an earthly instantiation of the spirit of its Pronomos Capital funders, Peter Thiel and Marc Andreesen. “We are a private venture in which all relationships are determined by contracts between the organizer and the individual business or residents,” said one Próspera advisor. According to this account, the ZEDEs’ operation would be as immaculate as their inception: “quasi-independent city-states that begin with a clean slate and are then overseen by outside experts,” as The Economist described them.

They will have their own government, write their own laws, manage their own currency and, eventually, hold their own elections.

At every step of their implementation, however, the ZEDEs have been protected by the legal, political, and economic power of the United States government. Ten years ago, that power took the form of U.S. support for the coup governments of the National Party. Despite the military coup against President Manuel [Mel] Zelaya–unanimously condemned at the General Assembly of the United Nations–the Obama administration funneled millions of dollars to the coup government of President Porfirio Lobo Sosa as he reshaped the country’s constitution and recomposed its Supreme Court to force the ZEDEs into law. Today, the U.S. marshals its power to defend the ZEDEs against what two U.S. Senators have described as “threats of expropriation or actions of the Honduran government relative to U.S. investments.”

The residents of Crawfish Rock did not remain silent when Próspera rolled onto the island of Roatán. Together with other community organizations across the country, they founded the National Movement against the ZEDE and in Defense of Sovereignty. “We are not nor do we accept being the scene of a neocolonial invasion, much less giving up our space, to the detriment of economic, social, cultural, environmental, ancestral and constitutional rights,” the Movement declared.

On the campaign trail, presidential candidate Xiomara Castro heard their call. “Every millimeter of the Homeland that they usurped in the name of the sacrosanct freedom of the market, ZEDES, was irrigated with the blood of the native peoples,” she said. “My government is going to return to a state of justice and law so that this does not happen again.” In January 2022, the Honduran Congress voted unanimously to repeal the ZEDEs law, and the President formed a special Commission–which includes the country’s Attorney General, Finance Minister, Foreign Minister, and Presidential Commissioner against the ZEDEs–to oversee their elimination.

Próspera’s retaliation was swift. In December 2022, the corporation filed a $10.7 billion dollar claim against the Honduran government with the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID)–a claim that would equal more than 80% the government’s total 2022 expenditures–citing the U.S. Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR). Members of Congress and the Biden administration quickly rallied to defend and expand these CAFTA provisions. “We are considering proposing enhancements to the U.S. investor protections of 22 U.S.C. §2370(e), commonly known as the ‘Hickenlooper Amendment,’ to address any threats of expropriation or actions of the Honduran government,” Bill Hagerty (R-TN) and Ben Cardin (D-MD) wrote to Secretary of State Antony Blinken. The U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, for her part,

urged Honduras to take measures to improve its investment climate.

In Crack-Up Capitalism, the historian Quinn Slobodian exposes the myth that–in Honduras and across the world–the anarcho-capitalist project could be realized without the ruthless application of state power. He cites an admission by the Seasteading Institute’s Michael Strong:

Libertarians don’t like international trade law, but it turns out international trade law is tremendously helpful.

The Próspera case reveals, however, that U.S. international trade law is a precondition, not simply a “helpful” backstop, for these anarcho-capitalist adventures. In 2014–just one year after the passage of the ZEDEs law–the coup government in Honduras signed a treaty with the State of Kuwait for “reciprocal promotion and protection of investments,” which promised to protect all Kuwaiti investments in the ZEDEs for “a period of no less than 50 years.” Today, Próspera cites the “Most Favored Nation” principle enshrined in CAFTA to extend this 50-year protection to U.S. investments, as well–and uses that 50-year timeline to calculate the $10.7 billion in expected future profits lost to the democratic decision to derogate the ZEDEs law.

If the ZEDEs have generated the most international outrage–a clear-cut case of corporate colonialism set among the poorest communities in Honduras–the system of Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) is the true scandal. The ISDS system, written into U.S. bilateral investment treaties across the world, provides the international scaffolding for corporate power and its abuses, allowing investors to threaten, extort, and extract billions of dollars from governments in the developing world for any regulation that might impinge on their profit margins–from minimum-wage provisions to environmental protections.

The scandal is not only that ISDS serves as a one-sided legal weapon against the weak: through ISDS, corporations can sue governments, but governments still lack a legally binding instrument to hold foreign corporations accountable for their crimes. It is also that, through the “Most Favored Nation” principle, the legal weapon of the ISDS can only grow stronger, as new treaties extend and defend the privileges of the last. The case of Próspera and its application of the Honduras-Kuwait Treaty thus reveals the spiraling injustice of the ISDS system, shifting the balance of power in the international trade system toward the corporation and away from the state, toward the multiplication of profits and away from the fundaments of democracy.

RULES FOR THEE
Since the start of the Biden administration, the United States has celebrated a seachange in its approach to international trade law. If Donald Trump “crippled” the World Trade Organization, the Biden administration has recast this crisis as an opportunity to ditch the old orthodoxy and welcome new trade rules that “equip it to better tackle modern-day imperatives,” as Biden has defined them. “The WTO and the multilateral trading system’s rules were never meant to be immutable or static,” said the U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai.

Right now, being committed to the WTO also means being committed to a real reform agenda.

Among its Southern neighbors, this celebration has felt more like a gaslighting ceremony. While the U.S. shapes a new set of trade rules to fit its “modern-day imperatives,” countries like Honduras are still constrained, disciplined, and potentially bankrupted by the old set of trade rules to the benefit of U.S.-domiciled LLCs like Próspera. In trade, as in so many other policy areas, the Bien administration’s commitment to a “rules-based international order” looks more rules for thee, but not for me.

Honduras is already contesting this injustice. In early November, we joined a high-level delegation to Tegucigalpa to support President Xiomara Castro and her Commission for the Defense of Sovereignty and Territory to develop a strategy to resist, challenge, and reform the international trade system to restrict corporate power and dismantle the investor-state dispute settlement regime. As Honduras takes over the presidency of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) in 2024, President Castro has an opportunity to bring the issue to the head of the hemispheric agenda.

The Biden administration must be ready to negotiate. President Biden has already pledged not to sign any future trade deals that include ISDS provisions. But the case of Honduras shows that this pledge is insufficient: only the elimination of ISDS from existing U.S. trade agreements can defend democracy from these brazen corporate interventions.

The stakes for Honduras are not simply the billions of dollars otherwise destined for health, housing, and education. They are the very existence of Crawfish Rock: the past and future of the families who have inhabited the island for centuries. “If you take away our land, if you take away our cultural heritage, our way of living, you take away everything, the entire identity of the group as English-speaking blacks,” says the Vice President of the Crawfish Rock governing council Venessa Cardenas Woods,

then you would be eliminating an entire people.

https://mronline.org/2023/12/27/why-is- ... -honduras/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Hondouras

Post by blindpig » Tue Feb 20, 2024 3:11 pm

Honduras 2023 saw the U.S.-supported right wing escalate its attacks against the people's elected government. Will 2024 bring any accountability or change?

by Victoria Cervantes,

Victoria Cervantes is an AFGJ Board Member and one of the Honduras Solidarity Network coordinators. Vicki is a founding member of the group La Voz de los de Abajo Chicago which has been accompanying the Honduran campesinx and social movements in solidarity since 1998.

Join us live!
8:30am PT / 9:30am MT / 10:30am CT / 11:30am ET https://default.salsalabs.org/T65a564f5 ... 0a5e862e77

2023 saw aggressive actions from the remnants of the narco-dictatorship and their supporters, encouraged by the State Department, fanning fears of the possibility of a political coup in Honduras. At the end of October, the National Congress's 2023 session came to its scheduled close in the grips of a crisis caused by the determination of right-wing congress members to keep the office of Attorney General under their control. Taking action to counter this, the President of Congress, Luis Redondo, created a Permanent Council of 9 members of Congress based on articles in the Constitution. That committee then selected an interim Attorney General independent of the narco-dictator structures. The right-wing opposition responded by holding a meeting claiming to be a session of Congress to extend the Congressional session until January 2024 to give them another chance to maintain control. This led to physical confrontations with some LIBRE Party collectives supporting Redondo and President Castro and even a Congressional security guard being threatened by an armed congressman from the rightist National Party.



Meanwhile, the State Department didn't take long to start tweeting its "concerns," denounced by numerous outraged Hondurans and answered by the Honduran Foreign Minister, who finally called the U.S. Ambassador to report to his office for a formal complaint. Marco Rubio even got involved on the side of his old friends from the dictatorship. Also, he was answered by the Vice President of the Honduran Congressional Commission for Foreign Relations and Regional Integration.



The plot in the congressional crisis thickens - a number of the Honduran opposition members had just been in Washington DC on October 25 for a hearing about "Xiomara Castro de Zelaya's Socialist Government" held by the Western Hemisphere sub-committee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The ultra-conservative Rep. Maria Salazar chaired the subcommittee and hearing.



The congressional stand-off continued without the opposition achieving their goals until 2024 when some members of the rightist parties voted with Castro's LIBRE coalition, and the new session of Congress started without significant problems.



All this is a continuation of the plan that began as soon as President Xiomara Castro was elected to derail the dismantling of the dictatorship structures and block the social democratic reform and refoundation of Honduras.



Although Juan Orlando Hernández's narco-dictatorship lost at the ballot box in Honduras in November 2021, its forces and allies have not stopped fighting to maintain what power they still have to undermine the possibilities for change won by the new President, Xiomara Castro. The U.S. initially greeted President Castro with a smile and handshake, literally, from Vice President Harris at Castro's inauguration and figuratively with Harris' announcement of the U.S. "Partnership for Central America." However, that partnership has not gone as promised, and the U.S. has shown itself still to be a partner to the right wing in Honduras, just as it was during the post-coup governments 2009-2021 and for most of Honduran history.



In June 2023, the 14th anniversary of the 2009 U.S.-backed coup against the then-elected president, Manuel Zelaya, the right-wing campaign targeting President Xiomara Castro and her political party, LIBRE (Libertad y Refundación) began escalating at a disturbing rate in the press, social media, and actions by the opposition in the Honduran Congress with tweets from right-wing accounts talking about a new coup. The government canceled the most significant public events and the mass march planned to commemorate the June 28, 2009 coup, reportedly due to concern about possible pro-coup violence.



President Castro's reforms to labor laws, electricity access equity, and the cancellation of the Zones for Employment and Economic Development (ZEDES), private charter cities, raised alarm bells for the U.S. in 2022. U.S. State Department officials and some elected representatives and senators joined in. The Honduran government still faces lawsuits and legal action from the ZEDES corporations. For more information, see this report by Karen Spring for Honduras Now and the Honduras Solidarity Network. https://default.salsalabs.org/T7d8afe3f ... 0a5e862e77



In 2023, Castro's administration started the process of removing the judges illegitimately elected by Juan Orlando's regime from the Honduras Justice Department, which, together with members of Congress from the National and Liberal Party, is recognized as a power center for the remaining forces of the narco-dictatorship First came the election by Congress of a new Supreme Court in early 2023. Then, in May, nominations and negotiations began to elect a new Attorney General and Assistant Attorney General. The right-wing has actively sabotaged this process. Another recent controversy was President Castro's introduction of a tax reform bill that would force the wealthy and corporations to pay taxes.



In the face of these new advances by Castro and her allies, the opposition became even more aggressive. Salvador Nasralla, appointed as one of three Vice Presidents for President Castro in January 2022, started publicly opposing the President and LIBRE. Nasralla joined a coalition with LIBRE in 2017 (as the coalition presidential candidate) and 2021 elections. Today, the Salvador Party (Partido Salvador de Honduras) and some of its followers are part of the newly organized "Citizens Opposition Block" (BOC in Spanish), along with the Liberal and National Parties. The national business association COHEP has joined the BOC in a campaign against President Castro. There is a torrent of attacks and fake news on social media against Xiomara Castro and supporters of LIBRE, and many of them echo the darkest days of Cold War anti-communism. Nasralla, for example, published a tweet on September 11 (the anniversary of the bloody 1973 coup in Chile) praising that coup for "saving Chile from communism."



The U.S. backed away from the worst public vitriol but continues the pressure in defense of corporate interests in the U.S. and Honduras. After supporting the all-time most corrupt and violent regime in Honduras for 13 years, the U.S. is now making noise about corruption and human rights. Still, despite its rhetoric, the U.S. interferes with undoing the narco-structures.



Besides pressure about the internal policies of Honduras and interference with desperately needed reforms, the U.S. pushes Honduras to back it up in the international arena. It has reacted negatively to Honduras breaking diplomatic relations with Taiwan to open formal relations with the People's Republic of China and its joining BRICS. Any move away from abject dependency on the U.S. elicits "concern."



The BOC & the entire right-wing gang have a plan that depends on undermining Xiomara's presidency, taking advantage of weaknesses and the obstacles it faces by maintaining constant public attacks and fake news and using their force in the Honduran Congress and Justice Department to try to block or water down essential steps that the government tries to take. Violence against water and land defenders, small farmers, and indigenous communities continues to be perpetrated by the same old mix of big landowners, developers, and organized crime aided by the elements of the police, military, and judges loyal to the dictatorship who have yet to be rooted out.



They hope to paralyze the government, divide and demobilize the popular movements, and destroy support for the government so that the refoundation of Honduras envisioned by the 13 years of resistance disappears in the next election, even if there is not another coup attempt before then.

Image
https://default.salsalabs.org/Tcf3eb5b5 ... 0a5e862e77

(This from my mailbox, not yet on https://afgj.org/ from which it came.)
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Hondouras

Post by blindpig » Fri Feb 23, 2024 3:06 pm

Honduras 2023 Saw the US-Supported Right Wing Escalate Its Attacks Against the People’s Elected Government. Will 2024 Bring Any Accountability or Change?
FEBRUARY 22, 2024

Image

By Victoria Cervantes – Feb 20, 2024

Victoria Cervantes is an AFGJ Board Member and one of the Honduras Solidarity Network coordinators. Vicki is a founding member of the group La Voz de los de Abajo Chicago which has been accompanying the Honduran campesinx and social movements in solidarity since 1998.

2023 saw aggressive actions from the remnants of the narco-dictatorship and their supporters, encouraged by the State Department, fanning fears of the possibility of a political coup in Honduras. At the end of October, the National Congress’s 2023 session came to its scheduled close in the grips of a crisis caused by the determination of right-wing congress members to keep the office of Attorney General under their control. Taking action to counter this, the President of Congress, Luis Redondo, created a Permanent Council of 9 members of Congress based on articles in the Constitution. That committee then selected an interim Attorney General independent of the narco-dictator structures. The right-wing opposition responded by holding a meeting claiming to be a session of Congress to extend the Congressional session until January 2024 to give them another chance to maintain control. This led to physical confrontations with some LIBRE Party collectives supporting Redondo and President Castro and even a Congressional security guard being threatened by an armed congressman from the rightist National Party.

Meanwhile, the State Department didn’t take long to start tweeting its “concerns,” denounced by numerous outraged Hondurans and answered by the Honduran Foreign Minister, who finally called the U.S. Ambassador to report to his office for a formal complaint. Marco Rubio even got involved on the side of his old friends from the dictatorship. Also, he was answered by the Vice President of the Honduran Congressional Commission for Foreign Relations and Regional Integration.

The plot in the congressional crisis thickens – a number of the Honduran opposition members had just been in Washington DC on October 25 for a hearing about “Xiomara Castro de Zelaya’s Socialist Government” held by the Western Hemisphere sub-committee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The ultra-conservative Rep. Maria Salazar chaired the subcommittee and hearing.

The congressional stand-off continued without the opposition achieving their goals until 2024 when some members of the rightist parties voted with Castro’s LIBRE coalition, and the new session of Congress started without significant problems.

All this is a continuation of the plan that began as soon as President Xiomara Castro was elected to derail the dismantling of the dictatorship structures and block the social democratic reform and refoundation of Honduras.

Although Juan Orlando Hernández’s narco-dictatorship lost at the ballot box in Honduras in November 2021, its forces and allies have not stopped fighting to maintain what power they still have to undermine the possibilities for change won by the new President, Xiomara Castro. The U.S. initially greeted President Castro with a smile and handshake, literally, from Vice President Harris at Castro’s inauguration and figuratively with Harris’ announcement of the U.S. “Partnership for Central America.” However, that partnership has not gone as promised, and the U.S. has shown itself still to be a partner to the right wing in Honduras, just as it was during the post-coup governments 2009-2021 and for most of Honduran history.

In June 2023, the 14th anniversary of the 2009 U.S.-backed coup against the then-elected president, Manuel Zelaya, the right-wing campaign targeting President Xiomara Castro and her political party, LIBRE (Libertad y Refundación) began escalating at a disturbing rate in the press, social media, and actions by the opposition in the Honduran Congress with tweets from right-wing accounts talking about a new coup. The government canceled the most significant public events and the mass march planned to commemorate the June 28, 2009 coup, reportedly due to concern about possible pro-coup violence.

President Castro’s reforms to labor laws, electricity access equity, and the cancellation of the Zones for Employment and Economic Development (ZEDES), private charter cities, raised alarm bells for the U.S. in 2022. U.S. State Department officials and some elected representatives and senators joined in. The Honduran government still faces lawsuits and legal action from the ZEDES corporations. For more information, see this report by Karen Spring for Honduras Now and the Honduras Solidarity Network.



In 2023, Castro’s administration started the process of removing the judges illegitimately elected by Juan Orlando’s regime from the Honduras Justice Department, which, together with members of Congress from the National and Liberal Party, is recognized as a power center for the remaining forces of the narco-dictatorship First came the election by Congress of a new Supreme Court in early 2023. Then, in May, nominations and negotiations began to elect a new Attorney General and Assistant Attorney General. The right-wing has actively sabotaged this process. Another recent controversy was President Castro’s introduction of a tax reform bill that would force the wealthy and corporations to pay taxes.

In the face of these new advances by Castro and her allies, the opposition became even more aggressive. Salvador Nasralla, appointed as one of three Vice Presidents for President Castro in January 2022, started publicly opposing the President and LIBRE. Nasralla joined a coalition with LIBRE in 2017 (as the coalition presidential candidate) and 2021 elections. Today, the Salvador Party (Partido Salvador de Honduras) and some of its followers are part of the newly organized “Citizens Opposition Block” (BOC in Spanish), along with the Liberal and National Parties. The national business association COHEP has joined the BOC in a campaign against President Castro. There is a torrent of attacks and fake news on social media against Xiomara Castro and supporters of LIBRE, and many of them echo the darkest days of Cold War anti-communism. Nasralla, for example, published a tweet on September 11 (the anniversary of the bloody 1973 coup in Chile) praising that coup for “saving Chile from communism.”

The U.S. backed away from the worst public vitriol but continues the pressure in defense of corporate interests in the U.S. and Honduras. After supporting the all-time most corrupt and violent regime in Honduras for 13 years, the U.S. is now making noise about corruption and human rights. Still, despite its rhetoric, the U.S. interferes with undoing the narco-structures.

Besides pressure about the internal policies of Honduras and interference with desperately needed reforms, the U.S. pushes Honduras to back it up in the international arena. It has reacted negatively to Honduras breaking diplomatic relations with Taiwan to open formal relations with the People’s Republic of China and its joining BRICS. Any move away from abject dependency on the U.S. elicits “concern.”

The BOC & the entire right-wing gang have a plan that depends on undermining Xiomara’s presidency, taking advantage of weaknesses and the obstacles it faces by maintaining constant public attacks and fake news and using their force in the Honduran Congress and Justice Department to try to block or water down essential steps that the government tries to take. Violence against water and land defenders, small farmers, and indigenous communities continues to be perpetrated by the same old mix of big landowners, developers, and organized crime aided by the elements of the police, military, and judges loyal to the dictatorship who have yet to be rooted out.

They hope to paralyze the government, divide and demobilize the popular movements, and destroy support for the government so that the refoundation of Honduras envisioned by the 13 years of resistance disappears in the next election, even if there is not another coup attempt before then.

(Alliance for Global Justice)

https://orinocotribune.com/honduras-202 ... or-change/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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