As the U.S. murders people in small boats off the coast of Venezuela and ramps up Canadian and Western-European-backed efforts to try and oust the government of President Nicolas Maduro, we are devastated at Rights Action, though not surprised, by the U.S.’s crushing of Honduras’ fragile democratic process and pardon and release from jail of the drug-trafficking former President, all of which will make life worse again for the majority poor population.
Two days before the November 30 elections, Trump posted:
If Tito Asfura wins for President of Honduras, because the United States has so much confidence in him, his Policies, and what he will do for the Great People of Honduras, we will be very supportive. If he doesn’t win, the United States will not be throwing good money after bad, because a wrong Leader can only bring catastrophic results to a country, no matter which country it is. […]
Additionally, I will be granting a Full and Complete Pardon to Former President Juan Orlando Hernandez who has been, according to many people that I greatly respect, treated very harshly and unfairly. This cannot be allowed to happen, especially now, after Tito Asfura wins the Election, when Honduras will be on its way to Great Political and Financial Success.
VOTE FOR TITO ASFURA FOR PRESIDENT, AND CONGRATULATIONS TO JUAN ORLANDO HERNANDEZ ON YOUR UPCOMING PARDON. […]
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/115629406693931908
Direct U.S. intervention in Honduran elections! Ho hum. Pardoning former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez (JOH), in jail for life for operating a drug smuggling cartel from the President’s office! Ho hum. That these illegal and malicious U.S. interventions in Honduras are received with a deafening complicit silence by key U.S. allies: Canada, Germany, Britain, France, Italy, etc., … ho hum.
Anyone who has followed our work in Honduras since 1998, and the work of Karen Spring and the Honduras Solidarity Network (HSN) since 2013 (Karen worked with Rights Action from 2008-2013), will understand how destructive all this is, and why life will likely worsen for a majority of the population.
12 years, 7 months of a U.S./Canadian-backed narco regime
Find here (https://rightsaction.org/hn-regime-archives) articles, reports and films, etc., documenting the courageous struggle of the Honduran people primarily, and groups like Rights Action, the HSN and more, from the day that the U.S. and Canadian-backed coup on June 28, 2009 ousted the elected government of President Mel Zelaya, through to the day, January 27, 2022, that President JOH was forced to step down.
Berta Caceres remembered
Documented in our archives are countless assassinations and killings of narco regime resisters, land, rights and environmental defenders, lawyers and prosecutors, and members of opposition parties.
Upon learning of President Trump’s pardoning of JOH, I thought immediately of Berta Caceres and her family. Since the day of the U.S. and Canadian-backed coup in 2009, Berta was one of the most loved and respected voices of opposition to everything the military-backed, “open for global business”, drug-trafficking regime represented and was doing to people, communities and the environment across the country. It devastated all, but surprised few when the U.S. and Canadian-backed regime decided to plan, pay for and carry out the assassination of Berta Caceres on March 2, 2016.
Forced migrancy
Documented in our archives (https://rightsaction.org/forced-migrancy-archives) are just a few of the stories of the many hundreds of thousands of Hondurans forced to leave home and country during the years of forced land dispossession and increased impoverishment, violence and repression carried out by the regime, and seek refuge elsewhere, particularly in the U.S.
“Democratic allies”
It can’t be repeated enough in the U.S. and Canada that during the entire 12 years and 7 months of support for the narco regime, our governments – and media for the most part - referred to JOH and the National Party governments as “democratic allies”.
No accountability in U.S. or Canada
There was close to zero political oversight and zero legal accountability for the foreign policy decisions taken by Canada and the U.S. to fully support the drug trafficking governments of JOH and the National Party. The main stream media largely misreported on the complicit and harmful role of the U.S. and Canada in Honduras during the entire time.
The Honduran people prevail
Finally, the Honduran people prevailed in their courageous and very costly resistance struggle, electing Xiomara Castro as president. Within days of her taking power on January 27, 2022, the U.S. government released a drug trafficking indictment against JOH that had been prepared years before, but shelved by the U.S. government that chose to maintain full relations with its “democratic ally”.
Operating drug smuggling cartel from president’s office
In April 2022, Hernandez was extradited to the U.S. to be put on trial. On March 8, 2024, he was convicted and sentenced to 45 years in prison for trafficking more than 400 tons of U.S. and eventually Canadian-bound cocaine, amounting to some 4.5 billion individual doses of cocaine. Find in our archive (https://rightsaction.org/narco-states-archives) some of Karen Spring’s reporting from the trial.
There is little doubt that during the entire 12 years and 7 months, the U.S. and Canada knew that our Honduran ally “conspired with some of the largest drug traffickers in the world to transport tons of cocaine through Honduras to the United States”, as the U.S. Department of Justice concluded. Operating from the President’s office, JOH coordinated with sectors of the military and police in partnership with drug cartels to the south and north.
Now, after four difficult years of President Xiomara Castro’s government beginning to dig Honduran State institutionality and the majority population out of the pit of corruption, poverty and violence where narco regime had left them, the U.S. stomps on the country again, aided by the silent acquiescence of Canada and key European allies.
Venezuela connection
This direct undermining of Honduras’ democratic process can only be understood as part of historic and on-going patterns U.S.-led, Western-backed imperial interventions.
It leaps off the page that the U.S. pardoned JOH and undermined Honduran democracy as it is tightening a military circle and Canadian-backed economic blockade against Venezuela, aiming to oust the elected government of Nicolas Maduro, falsely accusing him of doing what JOH actually did - operating an organized crime drug cartel while in office. As these regime change threats and actions increase, the U.S. military is maliciously murdering people in small boats off the coast of Venezuela, falsely claiming they are traffickers.
Again, one hears little but complicit silence from the key Western allies of the U.S.
The struggle continues / La lucha sigue
So it goes. This is the local-to-global human community we live in. This is the unequal, unjust Nation State order we live in.
As the hardships and challenges that the majority population of Honduras face increase, Rights Action will continue, as best we can, to support the work and struggles of longtime community-based partner groups in Honduras. We will continue to collaborate closely with Karen Spring of the HSN.
At the same time, the real challenge – a moral, legal, economic and political challenge – is the time-worn challenge to increase awareness, work and struggle to hold the rich, powerful, global north countries – particularly the U.S. and Canada in the case of Honduras and Central America – legally and politically accountable for our on-going, greed-driven interventions in country after country.
The real challenge remains to transform how we co-exist as people, communities and Nation States on our one and only planet.
Grahame Russell
[email protected]
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