The Global Campaign to Reclaim Peoples Sovereignty, Dismantle Corporate Power and Stop Impunity strongly supports the struggle of Honduran democratic forces against the consolidation of a military dictatorship in this country
Statement
4th December 2017
The morning after the general election of Sunday 26th November 2017, the results were showing very clearly that Salvador Nasralla, the candidate of the Alliance against the Dictatorship had won the Presidential election with a difference of more than 5%, which appears to be irreversible. But then numerous irregularities were committed by the “Tribunal Electoral de Honduras”, an institution widely controlled by the current President such as several others-, as it was denounced by Marisa Matias, the chief of the Observation Mission of the EU on Tuesday 29th November. The Alliance against Dictatorship of Mr Salvador Nasralla has formulated 11 clear and legitimate demands in order to guarantee minimum transparency in the counting process. It has also mobilized his supporters to peacefully defend the victory for the Presidential election as it appeared very clearly with a difference of over 5% the morning after the vote. The main demand of the Alliance is the recount of 5200 polling station minutes that allowed the TSE to invert the result of the vote in few hours on Wednesday 29th November after several interruption of the counting.
The answer of the regime of the current President and candidate Juan Orlando Hernandez, -himself involved in the military coup of 2009- was to establish a curfew, to suspend the constitutional rights, and to allow the army to use violence against peaceful protestors, with a result of at least 11 people dead, among them a teenager, a pregnant woman and her baby, and hundreds of people injured. The TSE finally made official the supposed victory of Juan Orlando Hernandez, with a difference of 1%. Opposition challenges are currently expected and the climate of instability is deepening.
Since 2009, the year of the coup against Manuel Zelaya, Honduras has been a country captured by transnational corporations (TNCs), which have imposed their power in all matters of society and the state. The current fraud is the consolidation of corporate power, represented in Juan Orlando Hernández, his party and other associated actors. The Global Campaign to Reclaim Peoples Sovereignty, Dismantle Corporate Power and Stop Impunity is deeply worried about the situation in Honduras. Already in 2016 it demonstrated its indignation in front of Berta Cáceres assassination and joined the International mobilisation of Solidarity with COPINH and the demand of Justice in the case of Berta[1].
Today, the Campaign strongly condemns the establishment of a curfew and the suspension of constitutional rights, the killing of unarmed citizens by the national army, and calls on the international organizations and the foreign countries to condemn the violence and to request to the Honduran Government to stop any kind of violence and to restablish Constitutional rights, among them the right to protest peacefully, to support the request to recount with full transparency the 5200 polling station minutes, and to exert pressure on the current Honduran President so that he accepts the democratic decision of the Honduran people as expressed in the election of 26th November. The wish of the Global Campaign is that democracy returns soon to Honduras, and that impunity and corruption are detained.
The Global Campaign to Reclaim Peoples Sovereignty, Dismantle Corporate Power and Stop Impunity is a network of over 200 social movements, networks, organisations and affected communities resisting the land grabs, extractive mining, exploitative wages and environmental destruction of transnational corporations (TNCs) in different regions at global level.
More information: https://www.stopcorporateimpunity.org
[1] See: https://www.stopcorporateimpunity.org/international-solidarity-mission-to-honduras-justice-for-berta-caceres-and-copinh/
