Reflections from after the Coup: Letter from Honduras

By Jimena Paz

Two years ago today, the president of my country, Manuel Zelaya, was forced at gunpoint onto a plane in an SOA graduate-led coup.  As Zelaya flew away, the integrity of Honduran sovereignty and democracy disappeared with him, but left behind on the ground was the resolve of my people to struggle to get it back.  This determination quickly exploded into what is now the Popular Resistance Front of Honduras.

Until that morning two years ago, I had never taken part in a demonstration on the street. All that changed on the morning of June 28th as I joined together with people I had never known – members of the LGBT community, Afro-Hondurans, indigenous leaders, and campesinos – to recover our stolen democracy.

Honduras Freedom Ride: Video of Zelaya’s Return

By Lisa Sullivan
School of the Americas Watch

This past Saturday, Fr. Roy Bourgeois and I accompanied President Manuel Zelaya back to his native Honduras, almost two years after a military coup led by SOA graduates removed him from his country at gunpoint. The short flight
we took with him, from Managua to Tegucigalpa, was a journey packed with laughter, tears, songs, nerves, hugs, and decades of history.

Above all, this was an epic Latin American journey, a brief Latin American freedom ride of sorts. It was a moment to display to a world that does not often look this way, a loosely woven cloth of Latin American sovereignty and integration. As the only U.S. citizens invited to be part of a small group of international accompaniment, Roy and I felt extraordinarily privileged to be sharing this moment with our Latin American sisters and brothers.

Cindy Sheehan on Venezuela, Honduras and CELAC

The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) was formed February 2010 to exclude the US and Canada which control the OAS (Organization of American States), and will be formally launched on July 5, 2011. ~Ed.

“Yankees, go Home!”

By Cindy Sheehan

“Nobody messes with Venezuela. Venezuela must be respected.”
Rafael Ramirez, Venezuelan Energy Minister

I am in Caracas, Vz today (May 29th–Casey’s birthday)—a country I love and a people that I support with all my heart in their struggle against US imperialism and corporate interests so they can make their own lives better.

Nine of us came from the US to support the people of Venezuela in rejecting the US economic sanctions that were imposed by the State Departments because, apparently, Venezuela sent two shipments of oil product to Iran.