Labor Express interviews four Honduran civil society leaders, who visited Chicago on 7-8 August 2009 as part of the Honduras Coup Resistance Speaking Tour sponsored by the National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities (NALACC): Abencio Fernández Pineda, Gerardo Torres, Maria Luisa Jimenez, and Luther Castillo.
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“We are here, in the United States, to tell the people that, first of all, this is not a fight of people of the same party as Zelaya, or blind followers of Zelaya. This is a struggle of an entire country and its people, and people around the world who are fighting with us, against the de facto government, against the coup d’etat. . . . Every day that passes, more people are getting killed, more people are getting jailed, more people are getting hurt by the repression of the military forces and the police forces. And the people of Honduras are not fighting just for Zelaya to come back to the Presidential House. . . . The national resistance has this final goal: a national assembly to make a new constitution in which women, indigenous people, ethnic groups, peasants, workers, a majority of the population of Honduras are the ones that decide, not the businessmen and corporations that have been the owners of not just the country but the future of the population. So, this is our final goal. The final goal is to have a national assembly and a new constitution, in which we can re-found our nation.” — Gerardo Torres, a member of the National Coordination of the National Resistance against the Coup d’Etat in Honduras
“Se declara punible todo acto por el cual se prohíba o limite la participación del ciudadano en la vida política del país.” — Artículo 45 de la Constitución de Honduras
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