Tag: Honduras

Interim Bolivian Government Taps Same Lobby Firm Hired To Sell The Coup In Honduras

Coup President Jeanine Áñez, who came to power in November, has rejected claims that her predecessor, Evo Morales, was ousted in a coup — while cracking down on dissent and calling for new elections to solidify the rule of conservative opposition forces that seized control of the government in Morales’s absence.

As many critics have noted, the cycle bears a striking similarity to the coup d’etat that ousted Honduran President Manuel “Mel” Zelaya a decade ago. The left-wing leader was whisked out of office by the military, only to be replaced with an interim government led by right-wing opposition forces that swiftly consolidated power through a controversial election process.

The parallels were apparently not lost on the Bolivia’s new rulers.

2019 Latin America In Review: Year Of The Revolt of the Dispossessed

A year ago, John Bolton, Trump’s short-lived national security advisor, invoked the 1823 Monroe Doctrine making explicit what has long been painfully implicit: the dominions south of the Rio Grande are the empire’s “backyard.” Yet 2019 was a year best characterized as the revolt of the dispossessed for a better world against the barbarism of neoliberalism. As Rafael Correa points out, Latin America today is in dispute. What follows is a briefing on this crossroads.

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Honduras: A Dangerous Place For Human Rights And Environmental Defenders

Honduras is a dangerous place for human rights defenders. Over 120 environmental activists were killed in Honduras between 2010 and 2017 (according to conservative figures), and many others are continuously threatened, attacked or imprisoned. For women, the risks multiply in a context where the impunity rate for violent crimes against women is 95%. Ten years after the coup d’état in 2009, and following three elections tarnished by fraud, Honduran activists and women human rights defenders (WHRDs) continue to face violent backlash.

Environment Honduras Human Rights

Accused Drug Trafficker Murdered In Prison Implicated Honduran President

Shortly before 10:30 on Saturday morning, suspected drug trafficker Nery López Sanabria chatted with a pair of uniformed security guards in a hall inside a maximum-security prison in western Honduras. Dressed in a white t-shirt and black gym shorts, López Sanabria can be seen on a security camera as one of the guards, wearing a hood, walks to a red, metal prison door, dangling keys.

A few seconds later the heavy door slides open and the masked guard steps aside. A brutal and horrific scene ensues. Out leaps a prisoner with a gun who quickly unloads the entire cartridge at López Sanabria.

The violent spectacle comes barely a week after a U.S. federal court in New York found Juan Antonio ‘Tony’ Hernández guilty on four counts of drug trafficking and related weapons charges.

Assassination Drug Trafficking Honduras Juan Orlando Hernandez

The US Double Standard In Venezuela Vs. Honduras

The recent conviction of Tony Hernández for massive cocaine smuggling in a federal court case in which his brother, Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández, was an unindicted co-conspirator demonstrates one thing beyond a doubt: Honduras is a narco-state. The equally compelling evidence of widespread corruption, electoral fraud, and savage repression confirms Honduras’s status as a rogue state and begs comparison with Venezuela, which has faced similar accusations.

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Honduras Is Ruled By A US-Backed Drug Cartel – And The Country’s Opposition Just United To Oust It

The main forces in the political opposition in Honduras have come together in an historic unity agreement to oust the right-wing government of President Juan Orlando Hernández — one of the most corrupt regimes on Earth. Hernández, commonly referred to by his initials JOH, is a key US ally in Central America, and is notorious for his documented involvement in the international narcotics trade. While the United States federal government and military has thrown its weight behind JOH and his unpopular government, the US justice system recently confirmed his role in drug trafficking and the shocking levels of corruption festering under his watch.

Honduras Latin America Regime Change

Four Takeaways From US Trial Against Honduras President’s Brother

The US drug trial against the brother of Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández brought the nexus between organized crime and political power to the forefront, undermining the country’s purported role as an ally in the fight against corruption and powerful drug trafficking groups.

Over the course of the two-week trial that ended with the conviction of former Honduran congressman Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernández — the president’s brother — on drug and weapons charges, little doubt remained about the importance his connections to political power and dirty members of the country’s security forces played in facilitating his network.

Still, it’s unclear if this conviction alone — especially in the wake of past convictions that in hindsight only temporarily shook up Honduras’ elite — will knock down the criminal structures firmly in place.

Criminal Justice System Honduras JOH Narcotics trafficking

The Honduras Narco-State Began With US Coup

Donald Trump said last year that migrant caravans, mainly of Hondurans, were coming to the US from ‘shithole countries’. But now he says that the president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, is doing a ‘fantastic job’. Trump and JOH recently reached an agreement declaring Honduras to be a ‘safe place’ for asylum seekers trying to reach the US. JOH also promised to help the US tackle transnational criminal organisations. He’s well placed to do this. Last November, his brother Tony was arrested in Miami and accused of drug trafficking and possessing illegal weapons.

coup Drugs Honduras US Imperialism

Free Honduran Political Prisoners, Stop Criminalization Of Social Movements

On October 18th, 2019, Antonio “Tony” Hernández, brother of Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández was found guilty of drug trafficking charges by a jury in the Southern District Court of New York. While the evidence and testimony of the trial implicate the Honduran president and other high officials of the Honduran government in “state-sponsored drug trafficking”, obstruction of justice, severe abuses of power, and violence, the Honduran regime has criminalized activists and everyone that is opposed to Juan Orlando’s administration.

The continued criminalization of activists in Honduras has led to 10 political prisoners being held pre-trial in prison and at least 173 people who face prosecution for their participation in protests or their opposition to the regime.

Honduras political prisoners US coup

Brother Of Honduran President Found Guilty In U.S. Drug Trial

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Honduran politician Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernandez was found guilty of U.S. drug trafficking charges on Friday after a two-week trial that featured dramatic accusations of corruption against his brother, the Central American nation’s president. The verdict against Hernandez, 41, on all counts was handed up by a jury in federal court in Manhattan. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 17 and faces up to life in prison.

Corruption Electoral Politics Honduras

Pink Tide Against US Domination Rising Again In Latin America

Once again, the left is rising in Latin America as people revolt against authoritarian regimes, many of whom were put in place by US-supported coups. These regimes have taken International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans and are under the thumb of international finance, which is against the interests of people.

After the embattled President of Ecuador claimed that President Nicolas Maduro was the cause of the massive protests against him, Maduro made clear what was occurring in Latin America, saying: “We have two models: the IMF model which privatizes everything and takes away the people’s rights to health, education and work; and the humanist-progressive model which is emerging in Latin America and has the Bolivarian Revolution at the forefront.”

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Mother Of Assassinated Activist Berta Cáceres On The US-Backed Honduran Dictatorship

It has been three years since your daughter, Berta Caceres, was murdered by a private military organization with connections to the government, paid for by a private corporation.

But when we were driving here to visit you, I noticed on many of the buildings and on many of the fences you still see the words “Berta vive,” “Berta lives,” here.

How still, three years later, does Berta live here, in Esperanza, but in the country?

Berta Caceres Honduras US Regime Change

18-Month Struggle To Free Honduran Political Prisoner

In an apartment in Honduras’ capital city Tegucigalpa, a husband and wife played chess together for the first time. It might seem an ordinary scene – boring even – but it’s an experience both feared would never happen. Edwin Espinal has been separated from his wife since they were married, after becoming a prisoner in a maximum-security detention centre in Honduras. His life has been threatened by criminals and he has battled disease, infection, and malnutrition. He was charged with inciting terrorism – a charge so loosely defined in Honduran law, it has been condemned by the United Nations.

Honduras political prisoners

US-Trained Honduran Police Get Midievel

Tegucigalpa, Honduras – “It’s sad how the United States is supporting this corrupt government,” Honduran political prisoner Edwin Espinal told MintPress News immediately after his release from prison, where he had spent 19 months.

Edwin’s case — and the medieval violence to which U.S.-trained police in Honduras tried to subject me — perfectly illustrate the often lethal repression that has fueled the migrant crisis. After hours of police hurling stones and tear gas at student protesters last week, young children gathered the aluminum scraps from the ground to sell, underscoring that the poverty brought on by U.S.-backed neoliberal measures has gone hand-in-hand with police violence in fueling the human-rights catastrophe at the heart of the central American exodus.

Honduras Police abuse Studentsse US coup

Protests And Repression Continue in Honduras

This new round of protests are a continuation of struggle undertaken by the Honduran people to reject the Juan Orlando Hernandez (JOH) government, accused by courts in the United States of allegedly receiving money from drug trafficking to fund his election campaign. The main thrust of the protests is calling for the immediate resignation of JOH and that he should brought to justice for corruption and impunity he has spread in the country.

Social leader Salvador Zuñiga said protests are stronger every day to demand the ending of what he called a narco-government.

Honduras Juan Orlando Hernandez

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