SF Protest Against Honduran Coup

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People gathered outside the Honduran Consulate today in San Francisco to protest the illegal coup in Honduras and demand the reinstatement of President Manuel Zelaya. The action was in solidarity with the Global Day of Action for Honduras.

August 11-Protesters gathered at 5 p.m. today in front of the Honduran Consulate to protest the coup that removed elected President Manual Zelaya, and called for an end to repression in Honduras and the return of Zelaya to office.

Zelaya was seized at gunpoint in his pajamas during the early hours of June 28 and forced onto a plane that flew him to Costa Rica. Honduran General Romeo Vasquez, who ordered this action, is a two time graduate of the notorious School of the Americas at Ft. Benning, GA, also known as the School of Assassins.

School of Americas Watch (soaw.org) has documented five other Honduran officers trained at the School Of Americas who have been playing key rules in the coup regime.

The coup regime has refused to allow Zelaya back into Honduras. When Zelaya attempted to return to Honduran by plane in July, he was refused landing at the main airport in the nation’s capital, Tegucigalpa.

But, according to the July 19 Independent /UK, permission to land was subsequently also refused at Palmerola Air Force base, HQ of the Honduran Air Force, as well as the US Joint Task Force-Bravo, from which Black Hawk helicopters operate in support of the US War on Drugs in Central America.

In the 1980s Oliver North ran the Contra terrorist war in Central America out of Palmerola.

The SF Honduran Consulate is located in the Flood Building, in room 875 at 870 Market Street, near Powell and Market. The consulate’s phone number is 415-392-0076.

According to one protester, the consulate closed early today, at 2:30 p.m.

Streets of San Francisco

At today’s action, protesters threw up a picket line in front of the Flood Building, chanting “Regresson Zelaya a Hondura/Bring Back President Zelaya.”

One man in the picket line carried the blue and white Honduran flag and had tape across his mouth, dramatizing the coup regime’s current attempts to repress the Honduran media specifically and freedom of speech in general.

Other protesters lining the front of the Flood Building also had taped mouths. Around their necks hung large color photos of Hondurans protesting the coup in their homeland.

Today’s SF action was in solidarity with the Global Day of Action for Honduras. Other actions took place in Spain and throughout Latin America. In North America solidarity actions happened in Atlanta, Boston, Miami, Milwaukee, NYC, Phoenix, Portland, St. Louis, Vancouver and DC.

All these actions were in support of the culmination of a week long march in Honduras to protest the coup and call for Zelaya’s return. According to KPFA’s evening news, a 10,000 strong march arrived in downtown Tegucigalpa today, where it was greeted by Zelaya’s wife.

The SF action was sponsored by the Bay Area Latin American Solidarity Coalition.

A coalition member said representatives of the coalition would be paying a visit to the SF Honduran Consulate in the near future.

The coalition handed out the following statement at today’s action:

Honduran Media Silenced by the US-Trained Military. We Don’t Have to be Silent.

Tuesday will culminate a week-long march against the illegal coup in Honduras by…Hondurans nonviolently calling for the immediate and unconditional restitution of elected president Mel Zelaya.

You may not hear about it from US media, but even Hondurans may not know about it, because Honduran soldiers have attacked, occupied and closed Honduran radio, print and TV stations. Journalists who report on resistance to the coup have received death threats and been killed. This struggle has now entered a crucial phase as the National Front of Resistance Against the Coup d’Etat and the farmers movement have summoned the social, union and democratic movements to a National March that began on the 5 of August and will culminate on August 11 in Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula. They have asked for actions of solidarity around the world.

Tuesday at 5 pm we will visually dramatize the attempt to silence journalists, human rights defenders, activists working for a return of democracy and thousands of ordinary Hondurans by violence, arrests, and threats. Join us!

Contact: Salvador Cordon 415-753-7723

Originally published at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/08/11/18615428.php

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