Honduran president threatens striking teachers

[Judi Lynn]

Honduran president threatens striking teachers
1 hr 36 mins ago

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – Honduran President Porfirio Lobo on Sunday threatened to fire teachers if they continue a three-week-old strike that has aggravated divisions caused by a 2009 coup.

Teachers who fail to show up in classrooms Monday will be suspended without pay, according to the president's decree, which was read on radio and television stations. If teachers don't appear by April 4, they will be fired.

Lobo said he has the power to dissolve the teachers' unions for backing the strike.

The protesters oppose a proposed law that would give parents oversight of schools and they say the government owes six months of back pay to 6,000 teachers. They also demanding the return of leftist former President Manuel Zelaya, who was ousted in a 2009 coup backed by the nation's congress and courts.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110327/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_honduras_protests

LBN:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4789260

[rabs]

1. More protests set for Monday

Teachers have said they will demonstrate again on Monday. Public-sector workers threatening to join the protests (over lobo regime raising retirement age from 58 to 65 (volunteer) and from 65 to 70 (mandatory). Look for more repression tomorrow.

One of the seamier sides to lobo's proposed reforms of the national educational system is that catholic and protestant fundamentalist priests would be allowed access to public school classrooms. In other words, sex-starved men in robes would be allowed access to young, innocent boys and girls.

Article 151 of the Honduran Constitution stipulates national education shall be "laica." (Secular), but that is not stopping the golpista lobo government.

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Educators on the march last Thursday, when police killed a woman teacher.



Lest we forget

[Bacchus39]

2. any word on that photo of Ilse Velesquez being hit by a tear gas canister?

I haven't seen anything just a video of her getting run over by a pickup truck. looks like Carlos Zelaya Rios the man who ran her over will be charged with negligent homicide. the pickup belonged to a television station HCH.

http://hridigitalplus.wordpress.com/2011/03/20/velan-restos-mortales-de-la-maestra-que-fallecio-en-manifestacion/

[Judi Lynn]

3. So pathetic. This is really radical, and a HUGE leap far backwards.

They are really running amock there, rabs. Simply beyond belief.

How can the people help BUT protest? They are pushing and pushing them right into a bloodbath.

The fact these protesters are always unarmed doesn't seem to phase them, doesn't slow them down a bit. They just shoot into them as we learned when they used live ammo at the airport, then at the Brazilian embassy.

Thanks for your updates.

[rabs]

4. The teacher had been dying of a heart attack for two days

Members of the IACHR incredulous of the golpista delegation.

There was an Interamerican Commission on Human Rights meeting in Teguz on Friday to investigate the lobista repression in Honduras.

Reps from Honduran human rights organizations were there, as were reps. from the lobista regime -- from the Supreme Court. the presidency and the army (police, the most brutal repressors, did not send representatives).

The government reps came under ridicule.

In the case of teacher Ilse Ibania Velásquez, killed by police last week, the representative of the government, Danelia Ferrera, said the police were NOT responsible for her death because THE TEACHER HAD BEEN IN THE PROCESS OF HAVING A HEART ATTACK SINCE TWO DAYS BEFORE.

(caps mine)

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These golpistas are touching the bottom of the stupid-arguments barrel in attempting to legitimize the lobista regime.

[Judi Lynn]

5. How can they even say things like that and keep straight faces?

It's a vicious insult to someone to tell them something that stupid.

The Commission members don't look impressed, do they? Who would be? They will all need long, cleansing baths after getting away from these bloody, greedy monsters.

Thanks for the reminder about their trip. Hope we will be hearing something worthwhile from them soon.

[Judi Lynn]

6. So wouldn't privatization put education of children out of the reach of very poor people?

The thought just crossed my mind that now schools will be run for profit, which introduces completely different elements.