Why Hondurans Set Fire to the US Embassy

[Judi Lynn]

June 13, 2019 Alexander Rubinstein

Ten years after a US-backed coup handed Honduras over to big business, the country is rising up. A leader of deposed President Manuel Zelaya’s party explains to The Grayzone what’s behind the protest wave.

By Alex Rubinstein

The streets of Honduras were filled with protesters and clouds of tear gas as the month of June began. The national police fanned out through the country to crush the protests with heavy-handed tactics at the direction of President Juan Orlando Hernández, the US-supported neoliberal leader who won power in elections marred by documented fraud.

As the protests peaked, fire was set to the doors of the American embassy in the capital, Tegucigalpa, in an apparent act of retribution against the United States for its role in propping up the widely unpopular president. It was a striking act of symbolic resistance that recalled events in 1988 when Hondurans burned the vehicles of US embassy personnel to protest Washington’s dirty war against Nicaragua. The fortifications installed around the US embassy after that incident may have prevented the latest burning from consuming the rest of the building.

Ten years ago, the democratically elected center-left Honduran President, Manuel Zelaya, was whisked away from his residence in a brazen military raid supported by the United States. Zelaya’s removal cleared the path for the interests of big business across the country. As the ten year anniversary of the U.S.-supported coup approaches, Hondurans are rising up against neoliberal austerity measures imposed by Washington and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that have triggered mass public sector layoffs and raised prices on basic goods.

Following mass demonstrations on Friday, May 31 which were especially sizable in the capital of Tegucigalpa, The Grayzone spoke by phone with Gerardo Torres, Secretary of International Affairs for the Liberty and Refoundation Party (LIBRE), the new party to which Zelaya now belongs.

More:
https://orinocotribune.com/why-hondurans-set-fire-to-the-us-embassy?fbclid=IwAR3LkUE6NccITJT4VTJ1X9-G5F10yTNGIzLxEhjYWQMxQtPFfNJePdv2KUY

[alwaysinasnit]

1. Thanks for posting.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Thanks for taking the time to read, aias.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Have to post the song embraced whole-heartedly during the people's reaction to the coup in 2009,

which has been updated for use during this current grotesque war against the poor:

Nos tienen miedo porque no tenemos miedo

(They fear us because we are not afraid.)