London Picket against Honduras Coup

Manuel Zelaya, popularly known as 'Mel,' won the 2005 presidential elections for the Liberal Party, but in office began to pursue progressive policies which favoured the poor majority of the citizens, losing the support of the centre right but gaining the backing of peasant and workers organisations.

His policies began to break the control of the oligarchic ruling class and mainly US multinationals, siding with the Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas (ALBA), a regional alliance led by Venezuela.

200 soldiers surrounded the President's residence on Sunday, and after a short gun battle he was arrested and deported to Costa Rica. Leading generals in the coup were trained by the US in a CIA run facility, although their present activities may not be supported by the current US administration. President Zelaya denounced the military coup as the work of "right-wing oligarchs" and issued a call for the people to mobilise on the streets, pledging to return to his country.

Honduras in the last century was a classic "banana republic", quite literally so with the US giant United Fruit controlling most prime agricultural land and essentially running the country.

Protesters in London called for an end to the coup and a return to democracy in Honduras at an emergency picket called by Co-ordinadora Latinoamericana (Hands Off Venezuela, Bolivia Solidarity Campaign, Colombia Solidarity Campaign, Ecuadorian Movement in the UK, Latin American Workers Association and Polo Democratico UK) and supported by Colectivo Acuerdo Humanitario. They included many with Unite banners and campaigners from 'Cleaners for Justice'.

Protesters from Global Women's Strike drew attention to the earlier coup in Haiti, when US-backed forces, supported by Canada and France forced President Jean-Bertrand Aristide out of office in 2004. Aristide, a priest who espoused liberation theology, was democractically elected and enjoyed popular support. Two months later, a UN force occupied the country, and is still there. This force has been responsible for rapes and murders while control of the country has effectively passed to a small elite.

A weekly vigil takes place in London every Wednesday from 5-6pm at the Brazilian Embassy (32 Green St, WC1) for grassroots human rights activist Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine, who was kidnapped in Haiti on 12 August 2007 (more on the blog:  http://www.lovinsky.org, and an online petition at www.petitiononline.com/lovinsky/petition.html)

There is a further protest called by Co-ordinadora Latinoamericana against the military coup in Honduras on Friday from 4.30pm on Friday July 3 outside the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square.