8/11 & 8/28 Emergency Honduras Solidarity Actions

Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Posted in Peace | Tagged Peace

The International Action Center is calling on the anti-war and progressive movement to participate in National Days of Solidarity with the people resisting the coup d’etat in Honduras on the two month anniversary of the coup Friday, August 28, 2009.

In addition, we have just learned that the resistance forces against the coup in Honduras have placed an emergency call to the international community to hold any kind of action in solidarity with their struggle on Tuesday, August 11. That day tens of thousands of people who have been mobilizing from all parts of the country since August 5, will converge in Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula to demand that constitutionality be restored in their country.

On August 28, it will be two months since the June 28 indefensible coup. August 11 can be a day to hold press conferences and/or pickets announcing the August 28 National Days of Solidarity in addition to expressing national and world wide solidarity with people of Honduras.

We call on all progressive individuals and organizations from all sectors: antiwar, immigrants, community-based, religious, youth and students, women, LGBT, labor, cultural, etc. to join in this effort and make them Days of Repudiation of the criminal coup d’etat, in solidarity with the resistance in Honduras and to demand from the United States an immediate end to any aid and support to the illegal government in Honduras.

Background: On June 28, the legitimate President of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, was forcibly taken from his house by the country’s military at gunpoint and taken outside the country. An illegitimate and criminal government was installed with Roberto Micheletti as its President.

It has since then ruled by extreme force and repression of the masses, with constant curfews, mass detentions, assassinations and multiple acts of violence perpetrated by the police and the army who have established in Honduras a state of siege where human rights violations are committed constantly against the majority of the people who are demonstrating against the coup. It has violated as well the freedom of expression, closing radio and TV stations that were reporting what was happening.

The international community with the exception of Israel, has condemned the coup. Latin American countries recalled their ambassadors, the ALBA countries, the SICA, the Rio Group, the OAS and the UN have all imposed sanctions to the illegal government.

Yet these actions are not enough. The Micheletti government, emboldened by the United States’ government refusal to recall its ambassador and cut ALL TIES and AID and follow through with severe sanctions agreed upon in the OAS, has only intensified its repressive actions by heavily armed police and army against a defenseless, unarmed poor population who are vehemently opposing this criminal coup.

In spite of the unrelenting repression, under tear gases and live ammunition that so far have killed 8 people, injured scores and detained more than 1,500, the people, organized under the National Popular Front of Resistance against the Coup (FNPCGEH), have been on the streets daily since June 28 courageously demonstrating to bring back their elected President Zelaya, to restore constitutionality in the country and for their right to have a Constitutional Assembly to forge the future that they want in their own country.

THE ONLY SUPPORT THAT HOLDS THE COUP D’ETAT IN HONDURAS AND PREVENTS THE RETURN OF DEMOCRACY IN THAT COUNTRY IS THE UNITED STATES. The U.S. is Honduras’ major trading partner and has used that country as its military outpost against the Nicaraguan and Salvadoran Revolutions in the 80’s. It is in Honduras where the criminal “Contras” operated, trained by the infamous School of the Americas. The Honduran military is intimately linked to the Pentagon from which receives every kind of material aid and weapons, assistance in training, surveillance and military actions.

Support the demands of the Popular Front of Resistance:

            1. The immediate, safe and unconditional reinstatement of President Zelaya to the presidency;
            2. release of all political prisoners, end curfews, stop repression and all violence against the people;
            3. punishment of the coup leaders;
            4. demand from the U.S.: to recall its ambassador, cut ALL TIES and AID and follow through with severe sanctions against Micheletti’s government agreed upon in the OAS.

In Addition, the IAC demands:

5. Expose the criminal complicit silence of the U.S. media on the repression occurring in Honduras and its biased reporting favoring the illegal coup

Some proposed actions:

Press conferences, demonstrations in front of mainstream media headquarters and U.S. Federal Buildings, hold public meetings to expose the truth about Honduras, call/fax/email the White House to show your outrage about U.S. support for the criminal coup. Boycott products made in Honduras, etc.

White House phone: 202-456-1111; fax: 202-456-2461;
State Dept phone: 202-647-4000; Secy Clinton fax: 202-647-2283
Online email petition to Obama, Clinton, Biden, Congress, the U.N. and the media at http://www.iacenter.org/honduraspetition

Endorse at www.iacenter.org/hondurasendorse List activity at www.iacenter.org/hondurasvolorgcent

To find out more contact the IAC at: or

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