In the wake of confused elections marred by widespread abstention, resistance leaders in Honduras vowed not to end the struggle launched June 28 when the military removed President Mel Zelaya.
On Dec. 4 the French wire service AFP reported that with 57% of the votes from Honduras’ Nov. 29 general elections officially counted, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) had revised its earlier turnout estimate down from 61.3% to about 49%…. Read moreHonduras: confusion wins in turnout dispute
Honduran de facto authorities announced that Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo Sosa of the right-wing National Party had won the presidency—but resistance leaders claim 70% abstentionism.
Thousands of campesinos blocked highways in Guatemala to press demands for new allocations to the National Lands Fund for renting farmland to be used by more than 100,000 families.
Soldiers are deployed across Honduras in an atmosphere of violence and repression as the coup-installed regime holds presidential elections that the civil resistance has pledged to boycott.
The OAS will send no election observers to Honduras because many member states do not recognize the vote. The de facto regime is meanwhile jamming the signal of opposition TV Channel 36.
United Students Against Sweatshops announced an agreement with Russell Athletic of Atlanta to rehire 1,200 workers it laid off when it closed its Honduras plant after the workers joined a union.
Four were arrested at Ft. Benning as thousands marched in pouring rain to protest the US Army School of the Americas on the 20th anniversary of the murder of six Jesuits in El Salvador.
Panama’s National Police used tear gas to allow cattle company bulldozers to destroy the Naso indigenous settlement of La Trinchera on contested land in Bocas del Toro province.
A Sandinista party member was killed and an undetermined number of Liberal Party opposition followers injured in clashes between rival demonstrators on highways around Nicaragua.
Rodolfo Padilla, mayor of San Pedro Sula, joined a growing list of candidates who have withdrawn from the Honduran elections to protest control of the process by the de facto regime.
Student activists blocked roads in Panama to protest what they called plans for US military bases. Authorities say the bases will be Panamanian, but part of the US-backed Mérida Initiative.
