The Lobo government is the continuation of coup plotter Micheletti

Honduras: No more persecutions or repression!

13/04/2010

Porfirio Lobo’s government, a result of the fraudulent elections in the wake of the civilian-military coup that defeated Manuel Zelaya, is maintaining persecutions and repression against the Honduran workers and people.

This is shown by the illegal raids, like that carried out on February 11 in the residence of Porfirio Ponce, Vice President of the Central del Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Industria de la Bebida; imprisonments for "sedition," of workers’ leaders struggling for wages, like the imprisonment on March 25 of the leadership of the Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras; murders of workers and campesinos, like that of Flores Arguijo, a teachers’ leader and a militant of the Partido Socialista Centroamericano (PSOCA), who was assassinated on March 23; kidnappings and torture of members of the Resistance, and even the recent murder of 5 journalists, who had been reporting on the brutalities by the regime, like the land grabs currently undertaken against the campesinos.

Porfirio Lobo has been using, with a dual purpose, this selective but systematic policy of repression and persecution against militants and sympathizers of the Frente Nacional de Resistencia, which opposes the coup d’état. On the one hand, Lobo wants to impose the "normalization" of the government that arose from the fraudulent elections called by the coup plotter Micheletti, who enjoys the open support of the US Embassy and the main international financial organizations. To this task are added governments like that of El Salvador and that of Guatemala, which have begun to ask for the re-admission of Honduras to the OAS (Organization of American States).

On the other hand, Lobo seeks to impose a series of fiscal measures that would allow him to return to the circle of those who owe money to the IMF. In this sense, Lobo has proposed fiscal belt-tightening measures and a controversial "package" that will increase the burden on the backs of working people, besides an increase in the price of fuel. At the same time, he has increased spending for the security forces (the army and police), for the hiring of 2,000 new soldiers and cops, as well as buying new helicopters.

More than ever, it is necessary to surround with solidarity those who opposed the coup and now condemn repression and persecution by Lobo’s government, as a continuation of the coup plotter Micheletti, as well as the workers and campesinos fighting to defend their wages, lands and organizations.

No more persecutions or repression! No more violence against working people! Punishment for those responsible for the hundreds of crimes against the people, perpetrated by the coup plotters that still enjoy complete impunity!