La Voz Delegation to Honduras

La Voz Delegation to Honduras
From Chicago to Honduras -Teachers and Youth Fight Back

Report 1

Our 14 person delegation of teachers from Chicago’s Teachers Union and youth from the Chicago organization, Fearlessly Leading Youth (FLY) arrived in Tegucigalpa the evening of June 27th just in time to accompany one of the activities in commemoration of the June 28, 2009 military coup  - a vigil in front the U.S. Embassy organized by Movimiento Morazanista por el Poder Popular to remember and condemn the role of the U.S. in the coup itself and in the continuation of the coup with its support for Porfirio Lobo.

Today, June 28th -many thousands of Hondurans all across Honduras celebrated four years of resistance, commemorated their martyrs and loudly declared themselves to be ready to continue their fight for the re-founding of their country for the benefit of the people of Honduras - in the streets and at the ballot box in November 2013 with the Party of Liberations and Refoundation (LIBRE).

We accompanied the massive march  in Tegucigalpa. There were so many marchers that we couldn’t see the beginning or the end of the march from where we were. The marchers: teachers (despite being threatened with firings if they missed work today to march), trade unions, campesino organizations, women’s organizations, LGBTG activists; and thousands of people from the neighborhoods wound through the streets for several hours with the marchers chanting, singing, and playing music the entire time.

There were flags with the logos of the FNRP (National Peoples Resistance Front) and LIBRE (the resistance political party) and placards, flags and banners of all kinds.

Passing by the offices of the human rights organization COFADEH (Committee of the Families of the Disappeared Detainees) marchers paid homage to the hundreds of murdered and disappeared since the coup as we passed COFADEH’s display of the pictures of the martyrs. Police and military presence was restrained but heavily armed units of the National Police were guarding the fast food franchises that are owned by the pro-coup oligarchs and government buildings. There were also big marches in other cities including San Pedro Sula and Choluteca. Two members of the Political Organization Los Necios, Carlos Matute and Edwin Vega were detained by the police in La Ceiba right before the march started there.