State terrorism against the resistance contradicts discourse of reconciliation
The state terrorism carried out since June 28th against the Honduran people continues through targeted crimes, political persecution and other violations of human rights, contradicting the discourse of reconciliation and the installation of a truth commission.
For the Committee of Family Members of the Detained and Disappeared in Honduras, COFADEH, the current regime has a two-faced approach, which seeks to clean up an image drenched in blood and terror to present itself to the international community as a government of reconciliation.
Nonetheless the reality is different. While they drink wine in elegant hotels to listen to the same story from those who perpetrated the coup d'etat and give their orders with regard to the formation of the Truth Commission, outside there are kidnappings, assassinations and the refining of perverse strategies to dismantle the resistance, which has remained strong since the day of the coup d'etat and which continues to advance in its struggle to achieve a National Constituent Assembly to elaborate a new Constitution.
All this is in the service of whitewashing the coup d'etat. Last week they approved an amnesty that for us is a monstrosity with the aim of covering the crimes of the human rights violators.
In the country there is a very serious situation of human rights violations. These cases are only one example of the emergency that we are living in with regard to respect for fundamental rights:
The state terrorism carried out since June 28th against the Honduran people continues through targeted crimes, political persecution and other violations of human rights, contradicting the discourse of reconciliation and the installation of a truth commission.
For the Committee of Family Members of the Detained and Disappeared in Honduras, COFADEH, the current regime has a two-faced approach, which seeks to clean up an image drenched in blood and terror to present itself to the international community as a government of reconciliation.
Nonetheless the reality is different. While they drink wine in elegant hotels to listen to the same story from those who perpetrated the coup d'etat and give their orders with regard to the formation of the Truth Commission, outside there are kidnappings, assassinations and the refining of perverse strategies to dismantle the resistance, which has remained strong since the day of the coup d'etat and which continues to advance in its struggle to achieve a National Constituent Assembly to elaborate a new Constitution.
All this is in the service of whitewashing the coup d'etat. Last week they approved an amnesty that for us is a monstrosity with the aim of covering the crimes of the human rights violators.
In the country there is a very serious situation of human rights violations. These cases are only one example of the emergency that we are living in with regard to respect for fundamental rights:
On February 2nd, the young cameramen Manuel de Jesús Murillo Varela, of the program Hable como Habla and Ricardo Rodríguez, of the news show Mi Nación by a police unit of officers dressed as civilians who drove them to a clandestine prison where they hooded them [preventing them from breathing] until they lost consciousness from asphyxiation. In addition they kept them under continual threat of cutting off their heads and toes if they did not say where they had weapons and money.
That same night resistance members Ariel Lobo and Ricardo Domínguez were captured by preventive polive who took them to the El Manchén police station, where they were also interrogated about weapons. In August 2009, Ariel Lobo was the victim of an attempted kidnapping by members of the army and heavily armed men dressed in civilian clothing who carried out an operation in the center of the city.
On February 3rd the young woman Vanesa Zepeda (29), active member of the resistance since the coup d'etat and union leader with the Honduran Institute of Social Security IHSS was found dead. She had left her house at two in the afternoon and after that moment nobody had had contact with her. Her body was thrown from a vehicle in the vicinity of Colonia El Loarque, between 6:30 and 7:00 pm that day. The preamble to her death was administrative persecution by means of firing hearings in the Social Security office.
In mid-January, schoolteacher, Pech [ethnicity] leader in the department of Olancho and active member of the resistance Blas López was assassinated in the village of Carbonal.
The ongoing persecution and crimes against the peasant farmers of the Unified Movement of Aguán, MUCA, makes clear that the groups in power will not cede an inch, after all they have the whole judicial system kissing their golden fist.
To the above points we can add the early morning raids carried out by the Minister of Security, Oscar Álvarez, which are nothing more than crass human rights violations, now accompanied by attorneys from the Public Ministry, whose task will not be to prevent these illegal acts but rather to legalize them.
COFADEH asks the international community to not allow itself to be deceived by the siren's song that has the end goal of putting to sleep the fight against impunity. We urge you instead to continue accompanying the Honduran people in their fight for liberty, justice, and the search for the truth.
For the crimes and the criminals: We shall neither forgive nor forget.
To the above points we can add the early morning raids carried out by the Minister of Security, Oscar Álvarez, which are nothing more than crass human rights violations, now accompanied by attorneys from the Public Ministry, whose task will not be to prevent these illegal acts but rather to legalize them.
COFADEH asks the international community to not allow itself to be deceived by the siren's song that has the end goal of putting to sleep the fight against impunity. We urge you instead to continue accompanying the Honduran people in their fight for liberty, justice, and the search for the truth.
For the crimes and the criminals: We shall neither forgive nor forget.
Comité de Familiares de Detenidos Desaparecidos en Honduras
COFADEH
Tegucigalpa M.D.C. February 5, 2010
