From Military Coup de tat, to illegitimate government of force - Entering the year 2010

This week’s kidnapping, disappearance, torture and interrogation of journalist Cesar Omar Silva by a street patrol with military training confirms the existence of a pattern of systematic violations of human rights committed by the same structure that violated the constitutional order on June 28, 2009.
 
This pattern is the responsibility of the “hard hand” of the coup regime that imposes state violence on a citizenry that resists through popular, non violent insurrection.

The related murders of Walter Tróchez and Edwin Renán Fajardo, editor of documentaries and reports produced by the journalist Silva for various international media outlets, the sustained kidnappings and attacks on the staff of El Libertador and Radio Globo and in recent days against journalist Rony Martinez whose tires were slashed and has experienced constant persecution by unknown individuals as well as police, confirms that a death squad with terrorist infrastructure is operating in the country with the knowledge of the Police and the Army. 

In addition, the violent deaths of other members of the National Popular Resistance Front carried out in a selective manner by hit men in the service of the de facto regime, the pursuit, disappearance, torture and interrogation of independent journalists repeats the pattern of the decade 1980-1990 which left a tragic legacy of dozens of political assassinations and hundreds of forced disappearances. 

As in the “dirty war” years, today the people are organized in Committees of Imprisoned and Pursued and Political Exiles, Committees for the Defense of Life, Students for Freedom and the broad based National Popular Resistance Front which with great determination are pushing for the emergence of a new Social Pact that will re-found our country.

In response to this unstoppable mobilization on the part of the population the government of the National Party, which emerged from the coup, offers systematic violence as the only alternative for staying in power given its enormous social and political illegitimacy.

Today we enter the first hours of 2010 in an atmosphere of terror with which the coup regime – civilian and military, national and international – intend to silence the voices of millions of legitimate Honduran citizens who reject the use of violence as a means of coercing consent and governing the state.

The Committee of the Families of the Detained and Disappeared of Honduras (COFADEH), calls on the international community to keep its eyes on this Central American country and to declare maximun alert in terms of the human rights situation.

The economic, political and diplomatic isolation of the coup regime and its successor as of the 29th of November, reduce its ability to maneuver in the civilized world although it adds to the vulnerability of the population.

It is extremely urgent that multilateral organizations open legations in Honduras before the sham transfer of power on January 27th and after this date in order to coordinate efforts to save the lives of social and political leaders opposed to those who have seized power. 

Honduras is advancing at an accelerated pace, far from the international eye, towards a state of absolute defenselessness and requires intervention.

The selective and systematic bleeding could reach the massive proportions which the submissive Honduran Cardinal projected in his unfortunate national radio and television program at the service of those responsible for the violence.

Today, we share the Plaza of the Disappeared with members of the Committee of Imprisoned and Pursued and Political Exiles, their families, friends and some of those who are currently pursued by the dictator.  For them we demand fair trails and respect for the due process of law, freedom for the four political prisoners in the National Penitentiary and the return of over one hundred people who have been forced to leave Honduras to save their lives.

Without a popular Constituent Assembly, peace and tranquility are not possible; without a new Social Pact and minimal political consensus governability will not be possible.  

Freedom for political prisoners

Impartial trails for those who are pursued by the dictatorship
Stop political persecution

FOR THE ACTS AND FOR THOSE RESPONSIBLE NO FORGETTING, NO FORGIVENESS

Committee of the Families of the Disappeared and Detained of Honduras

COFADEH, Tegucigalpa, January 1, 2010

(Source: Received at Axis of Logic from inside Honduras)