Free Party Calls for Mobilization Against Coup Plot in Honduras
Honduran President Xiomara Castro (C), 2024. Photo: X/ @pvillegas_tlSUR
September 2, 2024 Hour: 7:40 am
The ruling party rejected the interventionist actions of the U.S. Embassy in attacking former Defense Minister Zelaya.
On Sunday, Honduras’s ruling party, Liberty and Refoundation Party (Free), led by President Xiomara Castro, accused U.S. Ambassador Laura Dogu and retired military personnel of conspiring for a new coup d’état” in the country and called for a mobilization in support of the government on September 15.
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After concluding an extraordinary session, the Free party issued a statement condemning the “delicate and interventionist declarations” of the U.S. diplomat and retired military groups, accusing them of conspiring for a new coup d’état and discrediting the sovereign, democratic, and independent decisions made by President Castro to maintain peace and internal security.
The Free party also vowed to repel external threats that endanger the conduct of free, fair, and democratic elections in 2025 and to prevent the repetition of the tragic events of the 2009 coup against former President Manuel Zelaya.
The ruling party expressed its rejection of “the interventionist actions of the United States Embassy in attacking the Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Armed Forces (Roosevelt Hernandez) and the former Defense Minister (Jose Manuel Zelaya), violating principles and international agreements in an attempt to destabilize” the armed institution.
The statement also highlights the “voluntary appearance” before the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Honduras by the secretary of the Honduran Parliament, Carlos Zelaya, who is President Castro’s brother-in-law and the brother of former President Zelaya, after admitting on Saturday that in 2013, he met with two drug traffickers who offered him money for the political campaign.
The Free Party’s statement also mentions that ruling party deputy Rafael Sarmiento has resigned as head of the parliamentary bloc after the secretary of the Congress pointed out that he was one of those who organized the meeting with Juan Matta Waldurraga, the son of drug trafficker Juan Matta Ballesteros, who has been serving a life sentence in a U.S. prison since 1990, and Devis Rivera, the former leader of the Honduran cartel Los Cachiros. Sarmiento asserted that he has never met with drug traffickers and will make himself available to the Public Prosecutor’s Office for investigation.
The Free Party also rejected “the internal and external aggressions” against the Honduran government and called for a “great mobilization” in Tegucigalpa on September 15, as part of the commemorative acts marking the 203rd anniversary of Honduras’s independence from the Spanish Crown.
teleSUR/ JF Source: EFE
