The United States doesn’t talk about Honduras, because it’s shameful. They are ashamed to talk about what they’re supporting in Honduras. And the onl… - Manuel Zelaya
" "The United States doesn’t talk about Honduras, because it’s shameful. They are ashamed to talk about what they’re supporting in Honduras. And the only thing to do about it is to denounce it, because there are murders. There are death squads. They’ve exported what’s called Plan Colombia to Honduras, the false positives, where many opposition leaders, such as Berta Cáceres, to mention one, or Murillo at the time of the coup, or another person who was asphyxiated—a 24-year-old who was asphyxiated by the gases—all of these, there’s no way to describe these crimes over the last 10 years other than by calling them crimes against humanity. And this country should be brought before the International Criminal Court, because what U.S. policy is doing is supporting genocide in Honduras and in Central America....
In focusing on migration, they’re going to look for some solution to the system that is provoking the migrants, because everyone talks about migration, but the causes of migration are the U.S. policies, the IMF policies, the policies of the Southern Command for this region, are provoking more and more migrants with each passing day. So, militarizing Central America, militarizing Honduras means that that escape valve that the Honduran people have had, which is to be able to get work in the United States... Migration is a human process, seeking to find solutions. When they militarize the border, what they are going to provoke here will be greater convulsions, greater explosions.
About Manuel Zelaya
José Manuel Zelaya Rosales (born 20 September 1952) is a Honduran businessman and politician. He became the country's president in 2006 but was deposed in 2009 after a Coup. He now represents Honduras as a deputy of the Central American Parliament and is married to Xiomara Castro de Zelaya, who won the presidency in the 2021 general election. Upon his wife's inauguration he will be the first First Gentleman in Honduran history.
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Additional quotes by Manuel Zelaya
Ten years ago, John Negroponte, undersecretary of state, and President George W. Bush warned me and threatened me, when I was president of Honduras, saying that if had relations with Hugo Chávez, then I would have problems with the United States. Six months after that warning, I was removed from power and removed from this country. But if you think about the elite in the U.S. government... they want to go back to the 1980s, which was marked by the Cold War, stigmatizing the opposition. They’ve created shock forces, psychological war, dirty war. Well, if they think that they’re going to be able to stop migration in this way, well, it’s only going to worsen. The gangs are a link in the drug trafficking business, and they come about because there’s no jobs.
There’s an excess of poverty... Youth find no solution... the drug trafficking organizations come on the scene, and instead of creating more jobs, the government brings more repression...
...Drug trafficking is managed by the DEA. The DEA knows of each shipment that comes out of Venezuela and Colombia. The DEA knows about it. And some pass through without any problem, and others are stopped. So, there is not a fight against drug trafficking. There is a fight against cartels.
We don’t need the help of the United States. The United States gives very little assistance. What the United States wants is to exercise economic control over the structures of the macroeconomy worldwide. For example, the World Bank gives Honduras some $150 million a year, $150 million. The Inter-American Development Bank, a similar sum. So, all told, we might get about $240 million. And that is controlled by the United States... The IMF authorizes a letter that is signed every year so that Honduras can go into debt at very high interest rates, because it is a government that is allied with the United States. What that provokes in our region is clear, I think. I think it’s evident, what it causes in our region. I believe that that relationship, where they say they’re going to cut the assistance, has almost no effect.... Let me put it in clearer terms. Honduran migrants send to Honduras about $4 billion a year. Let me repeat this, Amy: $4 billion a year. And the United States, together with the World Bank and the IDB, sends $200 million... It’s all based on U.S. policy and on the interference and meddling of the United States in Honduras.... we should not be a vassal of the United States. We are a small country, but with the same dignity as the Europeans and the U.S. have.