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Vanessa Yamileth Zepeda, 27 year old union leader, mother and nurse assassinated in Honduras Printer friendly page Print This
By Statement of Protest
Presente Honduras
Tuesday, Feb 16, 2010

Vanessa Yamileth Zepeda, 27 year old union leader,
mother and nurse assassinated in Honduras

STATEMENT ON BEHALF OF U.S.  LABOR & PROGRESSIVE ACTIVISTS CONDEMNING THE MURDER OF UNION LEADER VANESSA YAMILETH ZEPEDA & THE REPRESSION SWEEPING HONDURAS

The right to organize is a basic human right of every worker. It is a right defended by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In Honduras, that right is being denied on a daily basis.

Since the 1980s, militarists in Honduras have trained paramilitary forces to torture and murder labor unionists and other activists to prevent the people from exercising their basic right to resist exploitation and oppression.

When the U.S.-backed military coup against the legally elected President Jose Manuel Zelaya took place last June,  many of the military participants were the perpetrators of this travesty. They discharged their military, paramilitary and police forces to torture and murder labor union leaders, students, LGBT activists and peasants.

The U.S. government may claim that the election of José "Pepe" Lobo was a "triumph of democracy," but that is an out and out lie. The remnants and new recruits of the genocidal U.S.- trained Battalion 3-16 are still conducting political assassinations in Honduras. 

Since the coup, our fellow labor activists have been murdered at an unprecedented rate, and murdered stealthily in a way that allows the Lobo government to claim that these murders were not political.

But the murder of the  leader of the SITRAIHSS labor union (Workers Union for the Honduran Social Security Institute),  Vanessa Zepeda,  who was abducted when she was leaving a union meeting, leaves no doubt in our minds that this is an OFFICIAL POLICY and OFFICIAL COVER-UP by the fraudulently elected Lobo government.

We the undersigned members of

U.S. labor unions as well as progressive organizations, declare our opposition to this official policy of neo- fascist repression in Honduras, and call upon our own unions to denounce this illegitimate government, and to support our fellow unionists in Honduras. . .

Furthermore, we oppose the enabling role the U.S. government has played in the election and “legitimizing” of the Lobo regime, which is only an attempt to justify and sanitize the criminal coup of June 2009.


  
Anne Pruden
Bryan G. Pfeifer, Staff Organizer, Union of Part-Time Faculty-AFT, Wayne State University, Detroit*
Gavrielle Gemma
Greg Dunkel, Professional Staff Congress-CUNY
Heather Cottin:  Plainview-Old Bethpage Congress of Teachers: Retired, PSC-CUNY
LeiLani Dowell, Fight Imperialism, Stand Together
Martha Grevatt , Chair, Civil and Human Rights Committee, UAW Local 122*
Milt Rosenberg
Sean P. Schafron, Coraopolis, PA 15108
Teresa Gutierrez, National IAC Coordinator,  Immigrant and Latin American Projects, Co-Coordinator May 1st Coalition
Berta H. Joubert-Ceci, MD, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Dave Welsh: Delegate, San Francisco (Calif.) Labor Council
Gloria Rubac, Houston Federation of Teachers, Local 2415, Retired
Joan Marquardt
Leslie Feinberg: Co-founder Rainbow Solidarity for the Cuban 5
Mike Gimbel; DC 37, New York City Labor Council Delegate
Michael Kramer, Jersey City, New Jersey, Vets for Peace 
Monica Moorehead, Millions for Mumia
Shelley Ettinger, member, AFT Local 3882
Sue Harris, co-director- Peoples Video Network
Wellington Echegaray, Colombian activist
Sharon Black, Bail Out the People Movement Union Coordinator
Joe Piette, Mail Handlers Union, Philadelphia
Brenda Stokely, Million Worker March
Hannah Frisch, Chicago
Mike Gimbel, Local 375 AFSCME Chair of Labor/Community Unity Committee
Abayomi Azikiwe, Editor of the Pan-African News Wire
Gregory Butterfield, member, National Organization of Legal Service Workers Local 2320, UAW *
Michelle Gore-Butterfield, member, Theatrical Wardrobe Union Local 764, IATSE *
Nayereh Tohidi, Ph.D, Professor,Department of Gender & Women's Studies, California State University, Northridge
Tom Paine Cronin
Chuck Kaufman, Alliance for Global Justice
Andy Griggs, L.A. -United Teachers Los Angeles (NEA/AFT)*, Screen Actors Guild*, Actor's Equity* For identification purposes only
Ron Chew, Oak Park, IL 60302
Maria Urbina Gonzalez
Diana Canales
Dale Sorensen, California, USA
Allan Fisher, AFT Local 2121
Chito Quijano, Auditor, International League of Peoples' Struggle & Lead Organizer, CNA/National Nurses United
Panama Alba
Louis Barrios
Les Blough, Editor, Axis of Logic

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