Communiqué No. 71
Thursday, August 26 2010 14:47 FNRP

The National Popular Resistance Front communicates to the population of Honduras and the international community:

From yesterday. More translations to come.

Stop killings of Honduran journalists
Miami Herald. August 27, 2010

OUR OPINION: Solving murders must be a top priority.

Honduran radio reporter Israel Zelaya Díaz was found dead Tuesday night on the side of a rural road in San Pedro Sula, making him at least the eighth journalist killed in that country this year.

From Democracy Now's headlines today:
Zelaya: US Subverting Honduran Democracy

The ousted former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya is renewing criticism of the Obama administration’s support for his successor, Honduran President Porfirio Lobo. Speaking to Democracy Now! en espanol/in Spanish, Zelaya said US backing for Lobo is subverting Honduran democracy.

This story is, of course, getting a huge amount of press in Honduras. As horrifically tragic as it is, it also fits into a narrative currently espoused by Nationals and Liberals alike that blames the violence faced by Honduran migrants solely on Mexicans and United Statesians (Arizonans in particular). The problem is that although they are not incorrect in pointing out the atrocious violence faced by migrants in Mexico and the United States, it is the violence of their own neoliberal/golpista policies (in collaboration with many of the same forces violating immigrants once if and when they make it here) that force so many Hondurans to make the decision to migrate in the first place.

Car Blast Near Mexico Site of Mass Grave
Friday, Aug. 27, 2010
By AP/ E. EDUARDO CASTILLO

A friend in Tegucigalpa just emailed me the following:

Adrienne: near my house the army is attacking teachers with bullets and gases. I am writing a longer note about it (tomorrow I will send it to you because I need more information about the women and men who have been wounded and arrested). The entire city is a battlefield. The toxic gases reached all the way up here, along with the noise from the military planes and the patrol cars. They don't want to treat the wounded at the national hospital, nor in the Social Security health center, there urgently needs to be a denunciation of this.

August 26, 2010 letter from Vera Leone, Witness for Peace Mid-Atlantic Regional Organizer:

I just returned late last week from an urgent delegation to Honduras to learn about the human rights crisis that continues worsening, more than a year after the June 28 military coup. I am honored to share with you the news of this fall's Mid-Atlantic speakers tour:

JUSTICE IN HONDURAS: Witness for Peace Mid-Atlantic Fall Speakers Tour will be November 1 - 22 with Nectali Rodezno, Co-Coordinator of National Front of Lawyers in Resistance Against the Coup in Honduras.

"You men who have abused the most sacred rights of the people for your own sordid and petty ends...I am talking to you, enemies of independence and freedom!" -Francisco Morazán

by Juan Almendares

The media campaign against Honduran teachers' organizations is local and international. The essence of propaganda is to privatize education and to impede the liberation of the peoples of Latin America.

The formal component is to introduce the teachers as the enemy of education. Justify the reduction of public expenditure and destroy the teachers' organizations.

Not new news, leaves out the brutal police attacks on teachers, and implies the teachers are to blame for the police actions, but the last line nails it. Turns out it was well below 50%; more like 600,000 voters total in the November elections legitimated through fraud and deceit by what I've now learned is being called among the small liberal U.S. high-level circle of policy people who know that Honduras exists el shannonazo. The sad thing is that because of the election Lobo has no legitimacy, not on the left, nor on the right, and both State Department and Congressional actors (who claim to be at odds with each other) are propping him up like any number of its other ruling puppets without a mandate around the world, not acknowledging the depth of their failed strategy and/or the fact that more of the same (i.e., supporting the delegitimized Truth Commission & government of "reconciliation and unity") is only making it worse.

Honduran Police Break Up Teachers’ Road-Blocking Protest

Another Journalist Killed in Honduras
By Ana Luisa Brown
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Tegucigalpa, Aug 25 (Prensa Latina) With the death of reporter Israel Zelaya, 10 journalists have been murdered in Honduras so far this year, authorities reported Wednesday.