Thread by @Americas_Crimes

On this day in 2009, the US backed a military coup against Manuel Zelaya, the democratically elected president of Honduras. The coup led to a decade of right-wing dictatorships, which unleashed death squads on political opponents & implemented harsh neoliberal economic policies.

President Zelaya had increased rights for the poor, the landless, and for unionists. He joined Petrocaribe and ALBA, began negotiating to restore land rights to rural communities, and sought to limit US influence.

This enraged the Honduran elite, who had always run the country, so they went to work removing him. On June 28, 2009 Honduran soldiers stormed the president’s home, arrested and kidnapped him at gunpoint, then rendered him to Costa Rica.

The plane that rendered Zelaya to Costa Rica stopped to refuel at a joint US-Honduran military base, and 4 of the 6 top generals who oversaw the coup against Zelaya were trained at the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia.

Reporting has emerged showing the educational arm of U.S. Southern Command located at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C., supported the Honduran coup regime.
theintercept.com/2017/08/29/hon…

The Obama administration endorsed the Nov 2009 sham elections that brought Porfirio Lobo, of the conservative National Party, to power. Sec of State Hillary Clinton even denied a coup had occurred. Following the coup, the US ramped up military aid to the brutal coup regime.

From 2010–12, the US increased military to Honduras by nearly 50%, and raised funding for the CARSI security agreement by 33%, and gave an additional $45 million for expanding Soto Cano Air Force Base and establishing 3 more US bases.

The coup was met with large-scale protests, which were violently crushed. Following the coup, wealthy landowners and the government unleashed a targeted campaign of gang rapes and assassinations on peasants, activists and journalists and the regime’s political enemies.

The murder rate in Honduras is now among the highest in the world & a harsh privatization scheme is causing education, health & other basic infrastructure to fail. This has pushed thousands to flee North, where a so-called “migration crisis” fuels anti-immigrant media narratives.

Last month, protests returned to Honduras over the regime’s harsh neoliberal policies.
cnn.com/2019/05/31/ame…

This week, protesters have been out in the streets calling for regime leader Juan Orlando Hernández to step down.
latinousa.org/2019/06/21/joh…