Solidarity Actions – June 28 – Five Years of a Coup and Resistance

HSN members are organizing and participating in actions for the anniversary of the coup on June 28th in Boston, Chicago, New York, Washington DC, Milwaukee, St. Louis and the San Francisco Bay Area. More info below.

New York City

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Boston

CHICAGO

June 28th – Solidarity procession downtown 12-2pm. Meet at Michigan Ave. and Congress. The procession will stop at symbolic sites to commemorate the martyrs and the struggles since June 28, 2009 (organized by La Voz de los de Abajo; Chicago Religious Leadership Network on Latin America, 8th Day Center for Justice)

Join La Voz de los de Abajo in participating in the Gay Liberation Network’s Pride Parade contingent on refugee and immigrant rights. We will be highlighting the violence agains the LGBT community and activists in Honduras. 11 am. sharp meet at the Target Store (4466 North Broadway).

On July 2nd – 7pm-9pm at the Berger Park Cultural Center, 6205 North Sheridan Road. Come hear Nelson Arambú, long-time LGBT leader and a member of the Honduran resistance organization Movimiento de Diversidad en Resistencia (organized by the Gay Liberation Network and Chicago Religious Leadership Network on Latin America -CRLN)

Saint Louis, Missouri: The Honduras Task Force of the Inter-Faith Committee on Latin America in St. Louis will be marching in the the Pride Parade in St. Louis on Sunday, June 29th, carrying posters of our martyred compañeros y compañeras en Honduras and signs about the coup. At the IFCLA’s annual dinner that evening, there will be a presentation about the situation in Honduras and Honduras will be represented at a local weekly peace vigil on a busy street corner in the city and speak about the anniversary and current situation.

Washington DC

Five years ago, on June 28, 2009, graduates of the School of the Americas overthrew the democratically-elected government of Honduras.

In a well-planned operation, 200 masked soldiers under the command of SOA graduate General Romeo Vásquez Velásquez stormed the presidential palace in the middle of the night. The soldiers grabbed President Zelaya from his bed, forced him onto an airplane and flew him into exile. The state television was taken off the air. Electricity to the capital, Tegucigalpa, was cut, as were telephone lines and cell phone service.The leadership of SOA graduates in the coup follows a pattern of anti-democratic actions by graduates of the school (renamed Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, WHINSEC), a U.S. military training facility for Latin American soldiers.

The past five years have been marred by violent repression against the Honduran social movements, continued U.S. aid and training for the abusive Honduran security forces, fraudulent elections that kept the coup supporters in power, and the torture and murder of members of the opposition. Despite the violence, campesinos, indigenous groups, environmentalists, LGBTI communities, feminists, students, and human rights activists are mobilizing for justice, dignity and self-determination.

On June 28, 2014, the 5th anniversary of the SOA graduate-led military coup in Honduras, SOA Watch will join the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition (TASSC) International for a vigil in Lafayette Park at the White House in Washington, DC from 9:00am – 5:00pm

We will stand in solidarity with the Resistance in Honduras, commemorate all the victims of torture by keeping vigil, celebrate life, remember lost friends and family, and renew our commitment to a world where peace rules and torture is forever banned.

For more information about the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition’s 17th Annual June Survivors’ Week (June 25-29, 2014), visithttp://tassc.org/node/161
To read the article “Honduras: 5 Years of Militarization and Repression” by Brigitte Gynther, visit http://www.soaw.org/about-us/equipo-sur/263-stories-from-honduras/4226-honduras-5-years-of-militarization-and-repression