Honduran President Xiomara Castro recognized the victims of the 2009 coup against former President José Manuel Zelaya, including leaders of the popular resistance who defended democracy and the process of change after the military coup.

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The ceremony took place amid widespread mobilizations called by the governing party, Libertad y Refundación (Free), to repudiate the coup d’état and support the anti-neoliberal administration of President Xiomara Castro.

The mobilizers also demand that the Honduran National Electoral Council (CEN) guarantee elections free of fraud, in reference to the general elections scheduled for 30 November.

No more coups, no more fraud, Castro emphasized at the event called ’16 years of the Coup d’Etat and the birth of popular resistance’, held at the Presidential House in Tegucigalpa, where hundreds of soldiers from the Libertad y Refundación (Free, in power) Party marched in rejection of the overthrow of Zelaya and the abuses against democracy.

Zelaya was deposed on June 28, 2009, while promoting a popular consultation known as the “fourth ballot box,” aimed at initiating constitutional reforms, despite the legal impediments alleged at the time by Honduran institutions.

We are commemorating this day so that never again in this country will there be an attempt against democracy and against the Honduran people, the president emphasized in her speech, in which she also sent greetings to the demonstrators mobilized in defense of popular suffrage.

The Honduran president denounced that ten families and 25 economic groups of the oligarchy finance bipartisanship, attacking democracy in the country.

Castro also emphasized that his party, Libre, is the heir to 16 years of popular resistance against the forces that seized the country after the coup, reaffirming their commitment not to surrender in the face of these adversities.

In addition, Castro asserted that the continuity of the process of change demands the resolute support of the people for the left-wing candidate in the upcoming November general elections, Rixi Moncada.

He urged the Libre members to not allow any more electoral frauds and coups d’état to happen again, with the same impetus with which they elected her President in 2021, when they defeated the narco-dictatorship headed by former President Juan Orlando Hernández, who is now imprisoned in the U.S.

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