June 28, 2024 is the 15th anniversary of the 2009 right-wing military & political coup in Honduras that overthrew the democratically elected president, Manuel (Mel) Zelaya. On June 28, 2009, Zelaya was targeted for his vision of an independent Honduras, a part of the Latin American movement, “looking South not North,” and his reforms to benefit Honduras’ overwhelmingly poor population. The U.S. government supported and helped extend the life of this assault on Honduran democracy.

For 13 years the Honduran people fought against the coup governments in the streets, territories, and rural communities. Beginning in 2013, the LIBRE party, founded out of the resistance, also took the fight to the ballot box. After two previous elections marked by fraud and violence, in 2021 LIBRE’s candidate and the wife of former president Zelaya, Xiomara Castro, won the presidential election. In April 2022, the narco-dictator Juan Orlando Hernandez (JOH) was extradited to the U.S. and charged with narcotics trafficking and other criminal charges. He was convicted of those charges on March 8, 2024. 

This week as the anniversary of the coup is commemorated, JOH was sentenced to 45 years in prison by the U.S. Southern District Federal Court. 

This anniversary week is also remarkable as the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) organization is holding a meeting for the first time in Honduras. CELAC is the latest regional initiative of Latin American and Caribbean countries, an organization independent from the State Department of the kind that President Zelaya was attacked for supporting. In another first this week, the São Paulo Forum, founded in 1990 by progressive parties and organizations in the Americas, is also meeting in Honduras.

President Castro’s government has implemented important steps trying to dismantle the damaging effects of 13 years of a neoliberal narco-dictatorship. Some examples of the president’s proposals and actions are: taking steps in eliminating the law allowing privately owned charter cities (ZEDES); withdrawal from the “Investor-State Dispute System” (that allows ZEDE and other corporations to sue Honduras); reforming  tax law and labor law. These reforms have been met with virulent opposition from the right wing and business interests. Unfortunately, the U.S. State Department and some elected officials have backed up that opposition, increasing the pressure on President Castro to drastically limit moves toward more independence from the U.S. and deeper changes in Honduras.  

At the same time, social movements and organizations, active in the resistance to the coup and in permanent resistance to injustice over decades, are still struggling to achieve demands for protection of rights and territory for indigenous communities, agrarian reform and the defense of water and the environment. Their demands are violently opposed by the remaining narco-dictatorship actors and the wealthy class with opposing economic interests. 

Whenever the government has attempted to take action in favor of grassroots demands, pressure against the communities escalates.  Assassinations and attacks on small farmer leaders occurred shortly after a government commission was formed to resolve land disputes in the Aguan Valley. Armed intimidations and threats have increased against the Garífuna communities after the government formed a commission, following mass mobilizations by the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH), to begin to comply with the rulings by the Inter-American Human Rights Court (IAHRCrt) in favor of those communities’ rights to their ancestral lands. 

In 2024, the scenario for Honduras is further complicated by preparations for the 2025 general elections. Political supporters of the coup and JOH, whose wife may become the National Party candidate, are backed up by bots and trolls on social media as well as by the conservative press. All are already escalating attacks using wildly anti-left cold war rhetoric against LIBRE.

The Honduras Solidarity Network was formed shortly after the coup with two goals: organizing solidarity with the Honduran people and their organizations, and building opposition to U.S. and Canadian policies and actions that support human rights violations, injustice and disaster in Honduras. 

Many things have changed in Honduras since 2009, the need for solidarity work continues. The U.S. government, Canada and other international supporters of the 2009 coup and its regimes have yet to be held accountable for their past actions,and they continue interventions against Honduran democracy, sovereignty and human rights. The people’s movements in Honduras continue to struggle in defense of  their rights and interests. They call for solidarity to support their movements and their push for the government to act on their demands. 

Join us in these campaigns! Let’s show our continued solidarity with the people of Honduras today!

U.S. and Canada Accountability in Honduras

We monitor and oppose U.S. and Canadian interference in Honduras. Join our campaign for US/Canada accountability in the coup and aftermath! Please Urge the U.S. Congress and State Department to respond to our demands and watch for new actions. 

Solidarity with OFRANEH

The Honduras Solidarity Network supports the campaign for a resolution in the House of Representatives condemning violent and illegal appropriation of Garífuna territory, calling on the State of Honduras, the State Department, and multilateral development banks to fully comply with the Inter-American Court rulings and to investigate human rights violations committed against the Garífuna people of Honduras. 

Justice for Berta

Justice for the Lenca indigenous, feminist, and radical visionary leader Berta Cáceres, assassinated in March 2016, is incomplete. We support her organization COPINH’s demands and call for solidarity.

The Honduras Solidarity Network