Since 26th November 2017, when general elections in Honduras were held, the social and political crisis situation has increased, due to fraud denunciations issued from the opposition on elections in which President Juan Orlando Hernández was proclaimed. Hernández assumed his new mandate on 27 January 2018.
And, since Hernández was proclaimed by the Electoral Tribunal as the winner over the opposition candidate Salvador Nasralla, massive mobilizations against fraud have been taking place. As a result, 40 Hondurans has been killed by the repression during demonstrations.
The elections were plagued by irregularities, as mentioned by OAS through its Head of electoral mission, Bolivian Tuto Quiroga in an official statement indicating that there were "deliberate human intrusions in the computer system", such as intentional removal of digital traces, open suitcases of votes; ballots of vote in state of recent impression, among others, added to the "narrow difference of votes between the two most voted candidates".
Several weeks after the elections, the Electoral Tribunal offered the final results, granting the victory to Hernández for 42.95% against 41.5% for Nasralla. The recent history of elections in Honduras occurred in contexts of rights restrictions and freedoms as well as interventions of the United States through logistical support and training to the Honduran army. In 2009, as a result of a coup, Manuel Zelaya was forced to depose and was taken out by force from his home and deported to Costa Rica. FREE again, he ran for elections in 2013 but lost against Juan Hernández, the same who fraudulently winned the elections of 2017.
During these years, attacks against journalists, peasant leaders, indigenous and environmental organizations has been one of the most systematic attacks carried out by State agents in many of these cases. One of the most notorious murders was the one of Berta Cáceres, known indigenous activist and winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize. She was killed as a result of her struggle against the construction of a hydroelectric power dam.
Suspects in Cáceres' murder had links with the Honduran army and DESA, the company in charge of the dam project.
According to an article by Nicolás Honigesz, Honduras has become a "laboratory" where "new modalities" of coups d'etat have been tried "that have as characteristics, a political impulse from the Judicial Power together with media manipulation..."
The BWI and its main trade union political structure in the region, the Regional Committee, is deeply concerned about the state of defenselessness in which the Honduran population is submerged, especially the popular and trade union organizations, including our affiliates SITRAINCEHSA and SITRAASPE, since current application of neoliberal policies affects the individual and collective rights that are being applied in the current administration of the State.
The deepening of the political crisis continues to affect not only ungovernability, but also continues to affect the poverty conditions of thousands of Hondurans, who by 2017 represented 68.8% who live without satisfying their basic needs.
The BWI Regional Committee for Latin America and the Caribbean, in its role to promote solidarity among affiliates, provide assistance and support to affiliated unions and to represent trade unions, cannot stay in silence to such arbitrary actions against Honduran people and their social and political organizations.
We demand guarantees on the exercise of democracy and fundamental freedoms. We demand respect for human rights violated to thousands of people. We demand the cessation of repression against Honduran people who peacefully mobilize at the streets. We agree with the need to call to new general elections, where the sovereign will of the electors is respected.
We support the National Front of Popular Resistance (FNRP) of Honduras that brings together the social movement that today faces violence. We reject the democratic farce that today, installed in the government, seeks to legitimize itself by force of arms.
Panama City, on 22 February 2018.
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