• Live
    • Audio Only
  • google plus
  • facebook
  • twitter
News > Latin America

Hondurans March Against Corruption, Unite to Strengthen Demands

  • Demonstrators hold torches during a march to demand the resignation of Honduras' President Juan Orlando Hernandez in Tegucigalpa, July 10, 2015

    Demonstrators hold torches during a march to demand the resignation of Honduras' President Juan Orlando Hernandez in Tegucigalpa, July 10, 2015 | Photo: Reuters

Published 11 July 2015
Opinion

“In Honduras we must defeat that small group of corrupt figures who have taken control of the country,” said a youth protester.

Tens of thousands of Hondurans took to the streets Friday night to call for an independent investigation into government corruption and the resignation of President Juan Orlando Hernandez in the seventh consecutive week of torch-lit protests sparked by fraud and impunity.

“In Honduras we must defeat that small group of corrupt figures who have taken control of the country,” youth protester Gabriela Blen told teleSUR. “I believe that the opposition parties can be a force to prevent the concentration of power in just one individual, as is now the case with President Juan Orlando Hernandez.”

Protesters chant “Out with JOH!” the initials of President Juan Orlando Hernanderz.

The latest round of marches, with some 60,000 people lighting up the streets of the capital Tegucigalpa alone and smaller protests in other cities, come in the wake of the sixth anniversary of the 2009 coup that ousted the democratically elected president and sparked a national resistance movement.

While there are differences from 2009, today’s marches similarly have brought outraged Hondurans to the streets to protest injustice and an assault on democracy perpetrated by an elite, protected by the country’s deep impunity.

RELATED: Disaster Capitalism and Outrage in Post-Coup Honduras

“A new tactic of weekly torch marches to the congress has revived a national movement that has been rising and falling in waves for six years now,” said documentary filmmaker Jesse Freeston, whose film “Resistencias” documenting the campesino movement in Honduras has been broadcast on teleSUR. “Despite global condemnation in June 2009 nobody was ever punished for overthrowing an elected president and killing hundreds of activists who opposed the putsch, so why would the same coup-plotters fear being punished for pillaging the social security fund?”

“Torch-lit mega march in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.”

Friday’s protests also coincided with the end of a five-day United Nations visit in Honduras to facilitate a government-initiated dialogue process.

While the U.N. mission applauded the dialogue process for demonstrating a desire to combat corruption and impunity , a diverse opposition coalition has rejected the dialogue proposal , reiterating calls to establish an independent U.N. anti-impunity body to lead investigations into government corruption .

The political opposition, including former ousted President Manuel Zelaya, has formed an alliance with the movement of weekly marches in order to strengthen calls for independent investigations, starting with the president, teleSUR’s correspondent in Central America Gerardo Torres reported.

“Today the opposition and outraged youth reaffirmed our unity in favor of Honduras ending impunity.”

“The movement is getting stronger every day,” said national resistance activist Edwin Espinal in a statement, adding that the weekly marches are accompanied by other actions, such as hunger strikes, to pressure the government. “We will be in the streets until President Hernandez resigns and an International Commission Against Impunity, like the one operating now in Guatemala, is installed.”

The proposed accountability body, referred to as CICIH and at the center of the demands of popular protests, would be modeled after the U.N. anti-impunity body called CICIG that has led recent fraud investigations in neighboring Guatemala.

“”Torch-lit marches for CICIH going towards the U.N. office in the capital! Honduran people with a definied route. Out with JOH.”

Hernandez and his ruling National Party are accused of receiving US$90 million of more than US$200 million embezzled from the public coffers of the country's Social Security Institute, known as IHSS, to fund the 2013 election campaign that saw him narrowly win amid widespread calls of electoral fraud. While Hernandez has admitted to accepting corrupt funds, he has denied personal responsibility.

RELATED: Washington Complicit in Honduras' Corruption Scandal

The post-coup government’s response to political turmoil and resistance has been increased militarization in the name of improving security, a strategy that has been endorsed by the United States. The U.S. has also deployed 280 U.S. Marines to Central America, mostly to Honduras, while Obama’s US$1 billion security plan for Central America’s Northern Triangle remains pending.

Human rights violations and criminalization of political opposition and social movements have dramatically spiked in the wake of the coup.

Comment
0
Comments
Post with no comments.