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Canada's continuing support for the Honduras coup government
Posted Thu 14 April 2011, 9:40am

Here's a letter I just sent to my Member of Parliament. If anyone else is considering taking action on this, please do.

Hi Pat,

I have two questions for you about Honduras. The Lobo government is holding a conference called "Honduras is Open for Business" at the start of May.

Honduras has still not been re-admitted into the OAS since the 2009 military coup, and for good reason; their elections were neither free nor fair. Human rights abuses have been harsher under the current Lobo government than under the military government. Teacher's strikes have been broken up, and some of the teachers killed, along with harsh repression of members of the LGBT community and political dissidents, including extrajudicial executions.

There has been an attempt by the government to whitewash its own atrocities to get readmitted into the OAS. My questions are:

  1. Is Canada in any way participating in the "Open for Business" conference?
  2. Will Canada allow Honduras to be readmitted into the OAS before it holds legitimate elections and stops repressing civil society?

I would like to encourage you to prevent the Canadian government from allowing either of those to happen. There are so many other Latin American countries to build relationships with, yet Canada seems intent on cultivating ties with the worst rights abusers: Honduras and Colombia.

I look forward to the answers to my questions, and good luck with your campaign,

Macho Philipovich

Simcoe Street

Winnipeg

Photos from the teacher's strike in Honduras
Posted Tue 31 August 2010, 11:38am

The photos above come from Quotha.net, the People's Daily Online -- English, and the one of the young child who's been tear-gassed is by Karen Spring.

Canada was the quickest country to start making excuses for the coup government that took power in Honduras last summer. We're seeing the results now: murdered journalists and police repression that started late last week of the weeks-long teacher's strike. The strike followed a struggle that included a student occupation of the National Autonomous University. The occupying students and allies were able to repel the police from the university grounds.

The US is making a push to whitewash the human rights situation in Honduras so they can be readmitted into the Organization of American States (OAS). Rights Action have some suggestions (bottom of the page) about what can be done to show solidarity with people in Honduras.

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