Urgent: Military Coup in Honduras Marks a Sad Day for Latin America

In many ways, the FISL Week represents the great achievements in Latin America over the last decade: countries that had spent decades under the repressive control of military dictatorships are now experiencing a historically unprecedented re-birth and the culture of information freedom that we write about on this news website is representative of what could be called the new “open source societies” all over Latin America. Since the end of the Cold War, only one military coup was attempted in Latin America — in Venezuela in 2002 — and that coup was defeated as millions of Venezuelans poured into the streets demanding that their democratically-elected president be returned to power.

Unfortunately, one day after the closing ceremonies at FISL, on a day when Honduran people were expecting to participate in a non-binding election regarding constitutional reforms, a small group of soldiers from the Honduran military kidnapped the democratically-elected President Manuel Zelaya, declared martial law and installed a new, unelected president in his place. All flights in and out of Honduras have been canceled by order of the military and normal television and radio news outlets have been shut down at gunpoint. However, there are some things that are known:

• Congressman Cesar Ham, from the leftist political party Democratic Unification of Honduras, was assassinated by a squad of soldiers sent to his house early on Sunday morning.
• The mayor of San Pedro Sula has been kidnapped at gunpoint by masked members of the military. His whereabouts are unknown but his wife was visiting family at the time in another city and is deeply concerned about her children, who were with their father.
• Martial law is in full effect in Honduras, at this hour: Many other members of the government are being “arrested” by the military. The national media is off the air and the state-run TV station has been shut down. Radio stations have been raided and shut down. The national telephone system has been shut down and electricity has been cut off to many parts of the country. The military has set up checkpoints throughout the country to restrict travel. Many citizens who had volunteered to help the constitutional reform effort have either been detained or they are in hiding.
• The installed president has announced that a nation-wide curfew is in effect, requiring all Hondurans to be in their homes between the hours of 9PM and 6AM.
• One by one, the countries who are members of the Organization of the American States have condemned the illegal military coup, refused to recognize the military-installed regime and insisted that President Zelaya be returned to power. Globally, nations and international organizations have rushed to condemn the military coup that is taking place, including the United States, Brazil, Venezuela, Ecuador, Antigua, Bolivia, Peru, Haiti, Belize, Barbados, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Spain, El Salvador, the European Union, the UN General Assembly, as well as the entire 35-country membership of the Organization of American States, who held an emergency session once news of the coup came out.

Currently, the world is demanding that the democratically-elected president be returned to power, martial law be ended and democracy be restored in Honduras. People in the United States and elsewhere are being asked to contact the Department of State, Honduran embassies and their congressperson to insist that democracy be restored in Honduras. While it may seem like the world is lining up to condemn the situation in Honduras, if they feel like no one cares, they may not apply the pressure needed to change things. To allow this type of military coup to succeed in Honduras would be rolling back the advances made in the Americas by 30 years. At NXS, we work with Latin America on a daily basis and we could not, in good conscience, allow this military coup to proceed without saying something.

1. State Department: 202-647-4000 or 1-800-877-8339
2. White House: Comments: 202-456-1111, Switchboard: 202-456-1414
3. Contact your elected representative!
4. Honduran embassies around the world