Honduran Resistance Front Forms Political Party
Honduran Resistance Front Forms Political Party
By W. T. Whitney Jr.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Honduras's National Front for Popular Resistance (FNRP) gathered in Tegucigalpa February 11-12 to launch a political party. The name, "Liberation and Re-foundation Party (Libre)," is timely: Honduras is mired in catastrophe.
Its murder rate is the world's highest. Political violence, crime, militarization, poverty, malnutrition, drug trafficking, and police corruption are overflowing. Landowner thugs kill family farmers; the two-year toll of murdered journalists is 13. The economy shrunk 2.1% in 2009. On February 14 a prison fire killed 350 mostly uncharged and untried inmates. Most died behind doors the police didn't unlock.
Honduras's political problems have changed from dictatorship in the 1980s; power trade-offs between two establishment parties later on; a military coup removing President Manuel Zelaya on June 28, 2009; to now free rein for privatization, big mining operations, and agri-business. Zelaya had advocated a minimum wage, land reform, and a constituent assembly. He had also brought Honduras into the ALBA regional alliance for sharing social resources. Incumbent President Porfirio Lobo took office through doctored elections.
The U.S. government, complicit in the coup, has used Honduras as a regional military command, communications, and supply center. U.S. military installations proliferated. The current U.S. administration proposes doubling U.S. military aid.
More:
http://www.zcommunications.org/honduran-resistance-front-forms-political-party-by-w-t-whitney-jr