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<DIV><FONT class=Apple-style-span face="'Times New Roman'">Hi All,</FONT></DIV>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT class=Apple-style-span
face="'Times New Roman'">Please <SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial; FONT-SIZE: small" class=Apple-style-span>distribute
as widely and as quickly as possible to our professional organizations and
universities. <SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; FONT-SIZE: medium"
class=Apple-style-span> Please send all signatures, with
affiliation, to Kevin Coleman (<A
href="mailto:kecolema@indiana.edu">kecolema@indiana.edu</A>) by 10 AM on
Tuesday, June 25th. <SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial; FONT-SIZE: small"
class=Apple-style-span> </SPAN></SPAN></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal>By noon Tuesday, I will submit the signed petition
to the American Historical Association’s Conference of Latin American
History: Jeffrey Lesser and Mary Kay Vaughn. I will send to U.S. State
Department and U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal>Also, I will distrubute a translated version of our petition
to Honduran media.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal>Thanks.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal>Kevin</P>
<P class=MsoNormal><BR></P><B><SPAN style="TEXT-DECORATION: underline"
class=Apple-style-span>Petition of Support for Darío Euraque: Illegally
dismissed by Coup Government in Honduras</SPAN></B><BR>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia">The
undersigned, researchers, university faculty, administrators, and students, from
a wide range of universities and institutions, condemn the illegal dismissal of
<O:P></O:P></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia">Professor
Darío A. Euraque by the coup government in Honduras. We urge the international
community and, in particular, the United States to use its leverage to restore
constitutional rule in Honduras.</SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin">Professor
Euraque’s</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma">
seminal work, <I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Reinterpreting the Banana
Republic: Region and State in Honduras, 1870–1972</I>, transformed the
historiography of Honduras. In it, he demonstrated that the relative liberalism
on Honduran elites could be traced to a tension between North Coast
industrialists of Middle Eastern descent and </SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'">the conservative <I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">criollo</I> (descendants of Spanish
colonists) oligarchy of the country’s interior. In subsequent studies, he has
offered some of the most innovative and original interpretations of Honduran
history.</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: ES-CR" lang=ES-CR> His
investigations into nationalism, ethnic identity, and sexuality have opened new
paths of investigation for other researchers in Central America.</SPAN></P>
<P style="mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none"
class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma">Since
June 2006, Professor Euraque has served as the Director of the Honduran
Institute of Anthropology and History (IHAH), a government agency tasked with
overseeing all of Honduras’s cultural patrimony, including the national
archives, archeological sites, and public museums. Under his leadership, the
IHAH has thrived, offering multiple in-depth workshops for local historians from
around the country, greatly increasing the quantity, quality, and plurality of
its publications, and significantly expanding the number of historical and
archaeological sites protected by the national government.</SPAN></P>
<P style="mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none"
class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma">On
Friday, August 21<SUP>st</SUP>, Ms. Myrna Castro, the new Minister of Culture
appointed by the coup government, added to the long list of constitutional
breaches committed by the de facto regime. Violating the laws in place for
discharging political appointees, she skipped over the IHAH’s Board of
Directors, who would have to vote on a resolution to dismiss Professor Euraque,
and simply sent him a letter of dismissal. Rather than go quietly, he has
decided to contest it.</SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma">This
comes on the heels of an attempt by the Reserve Forces of the Honduran Military
to occupy the National Archives in Tegucigalpa. When Professor Euraque’s office
received a letter from the Reservists of Honduras, the IHAH immediately issued a
clarification, noting that the building itself and the archives it houses are
Honduran cultural patrimony and, as such, protected by the Law for the
Protection of the Cultural Patrimony of the Nation (Decree 220-97). </SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'">Even in the case of a situation of
national emergency or a legally declared State of War, this National Monument,
and any other National Monument inventoried as Cultural Patrimony of Honduras,
is under the protection of the Convention of the Hague of 1954, "Convention for
the Protection of Cultural Properties in case of Armed Conflict.”</SPAN></P>
<P style="mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none"
class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma">As
a community of researchers, we offer our solidarity to Professor Euraque and the
tens of thousands of Hondurans who are bravely risking their lives to restore
democratic rule in their country. Furthermore, we condemn the coup and the
systematic human rights violations that have followed in its wake. We call upon
the U.S. government to increase pressure, perhaps by freezing the personal bank
accounts of the coup leaders or the funds allocated to Honduras through the
Millennium Challenge Corporation, until constitutionality is reestablished in
Honduras.</SPAN></P>
<P style="mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none"
class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma">Kevin
Coleman<O:P></O:P></SPAN></P>
<P style="mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none"
class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma">Doctoral
Candidate in Latin American History<O:P></O:P></SPAN></P>
<P style="mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none"
class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma">Indiana
University, Bloomington<O:P></O:P></SPAN></P>
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