Sep 24, 2009

GLW Honduras Updates: Street battles rage, coup tries to repress pro-democracy uprising

Green Left Weekly is planning to run ongoing coverage on the dramatic developments in the struggle for democracy and justice in Honduras over the coming days. Four reports, from September 21 and 22, are published below.
Federico Fuentes, Caracas

September 24 — Street battles are continuing to rage late into the night of September 23 in the poor neighborhoods of the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa, after a day marked by a brutal military and police attack on a massive demonstration in support of ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya.

Zelaya, whose pro-poor policies outraged the Honduran elite and US corporations, was overthrown in a June 28 military coup and exiled to Costa Rica. On September 21, Zelaya stunned the world by announcing he had re-entered Honduras and was inside the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa.

This announcement — after 88 straight days of resistance to the coup with strikes, protests and road blockades by the poor majority —set off a renewed wave of mobilisations across the country to demand Zelaya’s reinstatement as the legitimate president.

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