The Honduran Coup’s Ugly Aftermath

[Judi Lynn]

3. Regarding drug corruption, filthy elections, from the article:

The coup represented a disastrous step backward for Honduran society as well as its politics. University of California historian Dana Frank observed that “A vicious drug culture already existed before the coup, along with gangs and corrupt officials. But the thoroughgoing criminality of the coup regime opened the door for it to flourish on an unprecedented scale.

“Drug trafficking is now embedded in the state itself . . . all the way up to the very top of the government . . . A former congressman and police commissioner in charge of drug investigations declared that one out of every ten members of Congress is a drug trafficker and that he had evidence proving “major national and political figures” were involved in drug trafficking. He was assassinated on December 7 [2011].”

Yet the Obama administration has continued giving tens of millions of dollars in aid to Honduran police and military in the name of fighting drugs.

Such crime and corruption have rendered millions of Hondurans destitute and desperate. Two-thirds of its people now live below the national poverty level and Honduras’s soaring homicide rate leads the world at nearly one per thousand people each year. These conditions, in turn, fueled a horrifying surge in child migration to the United States.

Seeking to reform conditions in Honduras, Zelaya’s wife ran for president in 2013 on a social democratic platform, but the ruling National Party allegedly stopped her campaign with the help of tens of millions of dollars embezzled from the Honduran Social Security Institute, the national health fund.

“It is widely assumed that Hernández owes his electoral victory in part to these stolen funds,” said Frank. (President Hernández denied knowing the source of the ill-gotten funds and said they amounted to a mere $1.5 million. The prosecutor assigned to the case had to flee the country in the face of death threats.)

So sad.

Hope Hondurans simply take this as a learning experience, not a defeat.

If you recall, the prosecuting attorney for the government in Venezuela, was bombed in his car when he was investigating the oligarchs who were involved in the coup there in 2002. There is an unmistakable pattern.

Regarding Danilo Anderson's assassination, from Wikipedia:

. . .

On 25 July 2004, from his exile in Miami, former President Carlos Andrés Pérez declared "Violence will allow us to remove him. That's the only way we have... [Chavez] must die like a dog, because he deserves it"[5] to the Venezuelan daily El Nacional. On October 25, 2004, famous Venezuelan TV actor and former military friend of Chávez, Orlando Urdaneta, hinted his support of the assassination of Chávez on Miami television.[6] Cuban exile groups in Florida had expressed that they would support anti-communist groups in Venezuela.[6]

Assassination[edit]

On 18 November 2004 at about 9:45 pm, Anderson was in Urbanización Los Chaguaramos in Caracas, driving home in his yellow Toyota Autana from the University Institute of Forensic Science where he was taking postgraduate classes. Anderson stopped at a street and as he accelerated, a military-grade C-4 plastic explosive device placed on the frame under the driver's seat detonated from a wireless device killing Anderson instantly. The blast had such force that it broke windows in the vicinity and covered the street with glass. Witnesses say they heard two loud explosions and saw the vehicle, already in flames, roll into the front of a nearby building. Firefighters and CICPC investigators arrived at the scene shortly after the explosion. Anderson's body was charred an unrecognizable and he had to be identified by his fingerprints and dental records. Anderson's sister and girlfriend also helped identify him as the victim by recognizing personal belongings such as his Glock automatic pistol, two cell phones, his girlfriend's photo, his wallet and a chain.[1][4][6]

Within a few hours, many government officials had gathered at the scene and Attorney General Isaias Rodriguez began to mention Anderson's involvement in the investigation of those who signed the Carmona Decree. The Venezuelan government and opposition, multiple national organizations and international bodies such as the OAS and the IACHR condemned the assassination.[1][6]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Danilo_Anderson

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