Witness for Peace

Honduras Coup: Dispel the Myths, Expose the Truth

Mainstream media coverage of the June 28 Honduran coup has been laden with patently false coup justifications, while widespread human rights violations have gone largely unreported. Get the truth out in your community by submitting a quick letter to the editor (the most-read part of any newspaper).

With this tool you can automatically send a letter to the local newspaper of your choice in just a few minutes. Just follow the quick and easy steps.

Once you select your paper, you will have the opportunity to adapt a sample letter we have provided. You can also click on the talking points to the right of the sample letter to include them in your letter. We encourage you to personalize the letter and/or relate it to a recent article in your paper. Try to keep your letter to around 150 words. We ask for your phone number because papers will often want to call you to verify your identity before printing.

Thanks for helping us flood papers around the country at this critical moment for the people of Honduras.

Step 1 - Select a Recipient

Start by selecting the paper you'd like to submit your letter to. Be sure to write down the phone number listed, so that you can call to follow up about your letter if you'd like.

Step 2 - Write your message

Subject:

Your Letter:

Late last month the State Department finally revoked diplomatic visas for four of those responsible for Honduras’s June 28 coup.  But just last week the same State Department sent a letter to the Senate that incredibly names President Zelaya, not the coup-plotters, as responsible for his own ouster.  The U.S. response to the coup should not be a matter of supporting or rejecting the prior actions of Manuel Zelaya; it’s a matter of supporting or rejecting a flagrant usurpation of Hondurans’ right to exercise their democratic will.   
 
The coup regime seems to have as much regard for human rights as it does for democracy.  One week after the coup, the military fired 160 rounds of live ammo into a nonviolent crowd, killing a teenager.  Since then, the coup regime has overseen nine politically-motivated murders, countless military attacks on peaceful protesters, the arbitrary arrest of over 1,300 people, and the systematic military occupation and shutdown of most independent media outlets.
 
This dangerous and illegitimate coup regime merits clear, consistent condemnation from the U.S., not the schizophrenic response seen thus far.

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Some in our government have tried to claim that Zelaya’s ouster was not a coup. When the military captures a democratically-elected President in his pajamas and whisks him out of the country, it’s a coup.

Latin America recently emerged from a dark era when power was often seized, not transferred. If the Honduran coup-plotters remain in power, it will send a clear signal to would-be coup plotters throughout the hemisphere that military coups are now once again a viable means of attaining power. Such a regression would jeopardize democracy and human rights not just in Honduras, but throughout Latin America.

Some commentators have implied that the coup was justified because a number of Hondurans did not support President Zelaya. Legitimacy should not be confused with popularity. Former U.S. President Bush’s popularity hit historically low levels during his second term—should the Marines have invaded the White House one morning, captured Bush, sent him to Canada, and installed a new President? No, of course not.

Perhaps the most common and least accurate justification used to support Zelaya’s military ouster is that he was trying to conduct a referendum to get re-elected. This claim is patently false. Zelaya was attempting to conduct a non-binding survey, not a referendum to change the Constitution. The survey simply asked Hondurans whether they’d like the upcoming November elections to include such a referendum. Conducting an opinion poll certainly does not justify a military coup. Even if Zelaya would get his way and the referendum would happen, it could not possibly facilitate his re-election. In November Hondurans would vote on the referendum at the same time that they would elect a new President to take office in January 2010. Regardless of the referendum’s results, the ballot could not include Zelaya.

The U.S. needs to move swiftly to more meaningful responses. While revoking four diplomatic visas is a first step, its significance is eclipsed by the many coup-plotters who still hold U.S. visas. While cutting off $16.5 million in military aid is a welcome move, it is overshadowed by the continued operation of Palmerola, a U.S. military base in Honduras that remains active amidst an active coup. To levy the sort of pressure that could actually hasten the coup’s end, the U.S. should revoke visas and freeze U.S.-held assets for the full list of coup-plotters and cease all operations at the Palmerola military base. The U.S. cannot afford to delay further—with every day that passes, the coup regime grows more intransigent and its human rights violations grow increasingly flagrant.