Declaration for Justice for Child Refugees from Central America

TELL PRESIDENT OBAMA: DON’T DEPORT THE CHILD REFUGEES!

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 Honduras Solidarity Groups Demand Justice for Child Refugees from Central America

July 14, 2014: The Honduras Solidarity Network, a network of over 30 US solidarity organizations, and Department 19, a network of Hondurans living in the US and Canada, members of the FNRP/LIBRE Party, are appalled and saddened by the refugee crisis on the US border. Children fleeing military and police, drug cartel, corporate violence and extreme poverty in Central America, to reunite with family members in the United States, cannot and must not be viewed through a nativist lens as illegal aliens, but rather as the refugees that they are.

We are ashamed that the response of our political class and the Obama administration to this crisis is to call for yet more militarization of the border and quicker deportation processes with a complete lack of acknowledgement of the responsibility of the US government for creating this crisis over both the long and short term. 

The problem of the child refugees is in part blowback from US policy in the 1980s when our government trained and funded Salvadoran and Guatemalan military and police to prevent popular revolutions, and more recently when the US supported the coup against President Manuel Zelaya in Honduras.  US foreign policy, anchored in the militarized Drug War and pursued by both the Democratic and Republican administrations, has only empowered brutal and corrupt armies and police forces, particularly in Honduras and Guatemala.

US so-called free trade and structural adjustment policies have required the countries of Central America and Mexico to cut social services and credit to small farmers while wiping out local producers with a flood of low-cost, US taxpayer-subsidized products from US agribusiness. These policies have increased poverty and desperation in Central America and Mexico and created a fertile recruiting ground for drug cartels and criminal gangs.

The Obama administration bears particular responsibility for the influx of refugees from Honduras. The US turned a blind eye to the military coup of June 28, 2009 which overthrew the democratically elected government. After a brief suspension of aid, the Obama administration devoted its full diplomatic weight to return Honduras, under its coup-spawned government, to the OAS and UN despite opposition from most countries in Latin America. US Ambassador Lisa Kubiske was quick to recognize current defacto President Juan Orlando Hernandez’ election last November while credible complaints of massive fraud were still coming in. The Obama Administration has spent millions of dollars since the coup to equip and train Honduras’ murderous and corrupt military and police with the result that massacres of small farmers and political assassinations of reporters, Libre Party activists, human rights defenders, indigenous, labor, women, campesinos and LGBTI activists have skyrocketed. 

We are especially saddened and incensed that President Obama’s $3.7 billion request to Congress for emergency funds to deal with the refugee crisis contains almost $2 billion for more incarceration and removal of minors and refugees, without regard to their due process rights or the root causes of their desperate flight from their home countries. Indeed, in order to speed their deportation, he has called for suspending a 2008 law which requires minors to be transferred out of detention to centers where they can locate family members to care for them. 

We call on the Obama administration and all elected officials to stop playing politics with the lives of children, and we demand:

That the Obama administration abide by international treaties and US laws concerning the treatment and due process rights of refugees claiming asylum and of minor children; and

Stop all deportations until a comprehensive immigration reform bill, based on human rights and family reunification, not militarization of the border, is passed by Congress, and

Thoroughly revise our trade and economic, drug and military policies so that they respect the right of self-determination of the peoples of Central America and Mexico to create alternatives to displacement and migration with living wage jobs, prosperous communities and accountable and democratic governments. 

 Honduras Solidarity Network (HSN)

www.hondurassolidarity.org/

July 14, 2014

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HSN Actions for June 28th Coup Anniversary

HSN member organizations organized actions and participated in Pride Week activities to commemorate 5 years of resistance and violence in Honduras.

balascSan Francisco Bay Area

 

 

New York City

NewYorkGayPride newyorkjune28June 27, 2014 the Colectivo Honduras USA Resistencia (D19) together with International Action Center (both members of the Honduras Solidarity Network) organized a protest in front of the Honduran Consulate in New York for the 5th anniversary of the coup d’e’tat in Honduras against President Manuel Zelaya Rosales and the Honduran people. From Honduras, Nelson Arambú, a member of the Diversity Movement in Resistence from Honduras participated and presented during the activities. 

Este pasado viernes, 27 junio de 2014, el Colectivo Honduras USA Resistencia (D19) junto al Centro de Acción Internacional (Ambos miembros de la RED Nacional de Solidaridad con Honduras) realizamos un plantón frente al Consulado de Honduras en Nueva York, con motivo del quinto aniversario del golpe de Estado en Honduras, perpetrado contra el Presidente Manuel Zelaya Rosales y el pueblo hondureño. Tambien contaron con la participacion de Nelson Arambú del Movimiento de Diversidad en Resistencia quien esta en gira en EEUU. 

Boston 

CrDOPXbRIuteq99xMsDTEvJ9-x6o5lHB_n46oTZGwvgucPivko1LjlBA_00228 de junio, a cinco años del Golpe de estado en Honduras; Como ya lo hemos venido haciendo en años anteriores, este año nuevamente vestimos de rojo la Placita del municipio de Chelsea, Massachusetts. Contamos con una presencia nutrida de miembros, simpatizantes de libre y representantes de la solidaridad que siempre han caminado con nosotros los resistentes hondureños organizado en los EEUU.

June 28th, 5 years since the coup d’e’tat in Honduras, as we have done in past years, this year we again, covered the Plaza of Chelsea, Massachusetts with red. We had the participation of members of the D19 Colectivo de Libre in Boston,sympathizers of LIBRE and representatives of solidarity groups that have always walked with us – Hondurans resisting, organized in the USA. 

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Members of the Honduras Solidarity Network ( La Voz de los de Abajo, CRLN, 8th Day Center for Justice) worked to organize a procession/protest in downtown Chicago. We were joined by Gay Liberation Network, Radios Populares, US El Salvador Sister Cities (Cinquera-Chicago), and more solidarity activists.

For an article and more photos: Click Here chicagonelsona

Chicago HSN groups also participated in chicagopridethe immigrant rights contingent in the Gay Pride parade and with Gay Liberation Network hosted Nelson Arambú of Honduras’ Diversity Movement in Resistance for a public meeting on July 2.

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