Dec
Advocacy, Get Involved, International Meddling
Honduras Advocacy Update
Along with our partners in CRIPDES, we are outraged about the current situation in Honduras and the recent fraudulent elections. Sister Cities members, who accompanied the Salvadoran elections process last year, know that elections take months of planning and intense observation in order to be free and fair. The Honduran elections on the other hand, took place under a military dictatorship, with the current president a refugee in a foreign embassy, where there was a state of siege instead of the freedom to campaign. And even though the Honduran electoral tribunal lied about the voter participation on election day, the U.S, and many other foreign governments have backed the elections and expressed their support for the new government.
When we see that our U.S. government is provoking and supporting terrible injustice, we must take action. As our sisters and brothers in CRIPDES mobilized to protest at the border between El Salvador and Honduras, encouraging the Honduran people to continue in their non-violent struggle for democracy, our Sister Cities network has mobilized in protest of the coup
Representatives from the Lawrence, KS and Bangor, ME organized and represented us in a meeting with the State Department Representative Christopher Webster at the end of November, lobbying against the U.S. stated support for the elections. A description of the meeting is posted by Adrianne Pine here, and referenced in an analysis about the US role in the coup here. In coordination with other organizations working in Honduran solidarity, another meeting with the State Department is planned for the coming months of 2010.
Also supporting advocacy against the coup in Honduras, Sister Cities members distributed a massive Urgent Action at the School of the Americas Protest on Nov 22nd in Ft. Benning, GA. Our members from New Jersey and their friends distributed over two thousand Urgent Actions asking people to call the State Department to express their outrage about the coup.
We will have a lot more advocacy to do to oppose the coup in Honduras in the following year, so we encourage everyone to stay updated with information about the coup resistance, to TAKE ACTION against the coup, and encourage others to do the same.
