Honduras

On September 21st, President Manuel Zelaya returned clandestinely to Honduras and took refuge in the Brazilian embassy in the capital city of Tegucigalpa. Honduran police fired tear gas to disperse Zelaya’s supporters gathered around the embassy. They also launched tear gas at the human rights group COFADEH, where men, women and children had taken refuge after the attack at the embassy.   People detained for violating a newly established curfew are being held at the football stadium, where observers saw people who had been severely beaten. The situation in the capital and elsewhere is extremely tense.

We know that you are anxious for a resolution of the situation in Honduras and are wondering what is going on. Where is President Zelaya? Will he return? What is the U.S. doing to move the negotiations forward?

With the chaos following the June 28th coup and the shuttering of media outlets, it has been hard to learn about the state of human rights in Honduras.  That’s why it’s so important to read the report that the Honduran Association of the Detained and Disappeared, COFADEH, released July 15t on the human rights situation in Honduras since the coup on June 28, 2009. 

     “I urge all leaders in the Americas to see the Honduran crisis for what it is: an urgent call for the profound social and institutional changes our region has delayed for far too long.”

This is how Costa Rican President Oscar Arias closed his strongly worded op-ed, which was published in the Washington Post on Thursday, July 9th.