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<div id="viewer"><a name="1"></a><div style="width:1019px;height:1319px" class="" id="pageContainer1"><div style="width:1019px;height:1319px" class=""><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:21.6667px;font-family:sans-serif">
HONDURASS OLIDARITY</div><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:21.6667px;font-family:sans-serif">Network</div><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:15px;font-family:sans-serif"><a href="http://www.hondurassolidaritynetwork.org">www.hondurassolidaritynetwork.org</a></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-size:15px;font-family:sans-serif"><a href="mailto:honsolnetwork@gmail.com">honsolnetwork@gmail.com</a></div><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:20px;font-family:sans-serif">July 14, 2014</div><br><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:25px;font-family:sans-serif">
Honduras Solidarity Groups Demand Justice for Child Refugees from </div><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:25px;font-family:sans-serif">Central America</div><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">The Honduras Solidarity Network, a network of over 30 US solidarity organizations, and Department </div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">19, a network of Hondurans living in the US and Canada, members of the FNRP/LIBRE Party, are </div><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">
appalled and saddened by the refugee crisis on the US border. Children fleeing military and police, </div><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">drug cartel, corporate violence and extreme poverty in Central America, to reunite with family </div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">members in the United States, cannot and must not be viewed through a nativist lens as illegal </div><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">
aliens, but rather as the refugees that they are. </div><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">We are ashamed that the response of our political class and the Obama administration to this crisis </div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">is to call for yet more militarization of the border and quicker deportation processes with a </div><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">
complete lack of acknowledgement of the responsibility of the US government for creating this </div><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">crisis over both the long and short term. </div><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">
The problem of the child refugees is in part blowback from US policy in the 1980s when our </div><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">government trained and funded Salvadoran and Guatemalan military and police to prevent popular </div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">revolutions, and more recently when the US supported the coup against President Manuel Zelaya in </div><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">
Honduras.</div><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">US foreign policy, anchored in the militarized Drug War and pursued by both the </div><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">
Democratic and Republican administrations, has only empowered brutal and corrupt armies and </div><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">police forces, particularly in Honduras and Guatemala. </div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">US so-called free trade and structural adjustment policies have required the countries of Central </div><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">
America and Mexico to cut social services and credit to small farmers while wiping out local </div><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">producers with a flood of low-cost, US taxpayer-subsidized products from US agribusiness. These </div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">policies have increased poverty and desperation in Central America and Mexico and created a fertile </div><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">
recruiting ground for drug cartels and criminal gangs. </div><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">The Obama administration bears particular responsibility for the influx of refugees from Honduras. </div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">The US turned a blind eye to the military coup of June 28, 2009 which overthrew the democratically </div><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">
elected government. After a brief suspension of aid, the Obama administration devoted its full </div><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">diplomatic weight to return Honduras, under its coup-spawned government, to the OAS and UN </div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">despite opposition from most countries in Latin America. US Ambassador Lisa Kubiske was quick to </div><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">
recognize current defacto President Juan Orlando Hernandez’ election last November while credible </div><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">complaints of massive fraud were still coming in. The Obama Administration has spent millions of </div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">dollars since the coup to equip and train Honduras’ murderous and corrupt military and police with </div></div><div class=""></div></div><a name="2"></a><div style="width:1019px;height:1319px" class="" id="pageContainer2">
<div style="width:1019px;height:1319px" class=""><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">the result that massacres of small farmers and political assassinations of reporters, Libre Party </div><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">
activists, human rights defenders, indigenous, labor, women, campesinos and LGBTI activists have </div><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">skyrocketed. </div><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">
We are especially saddened and incensed that President Obama’s $3.7 billion request to Congress </div><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">for emergency funds to deal with the refugee crisis contains almost $2 billion for more incarceration </div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">and removal of minors and refugees, without regard to their due process rights or the root causes of </div><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">
their desperate flight from their home countries. Indeed, in order to speed their deportation, he </div><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">has called for suspending a 2008 law which requires minors to be transferred out of detention to </div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">centers where they can locate family members to care for them.</div><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">We call on the Obama administration and all elected officials to stop playing politics with the lives </div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">of children, and we demand: </div><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">1.</div><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">
That the Obama administration abide by international treaties and US laws concerning the </div><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">treatment and due process rights of refugees claiming asylum and of minor children; and </div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">2.</div><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">Stop all deportations until a comprehensive immigration reform bill, based on human rights </div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">and family reunification, not militarization of the border, is passed by Congress, and </div><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">
3.</div><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">Thoroughly revise our trade and economic, drug and military policies so that they respect </div><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">
the right of self-determination of the peoples of Central America and Mexico to create </div><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">alternatives to displacement and migration with living wage jobs, prosperous communities </div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-size:18.3333px;font-family:sans-serif">and accountable and democratic governments. </div><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:41.9918px;font-family:monospace">!</div><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:41.9918px;font-family:monospace">
!</div><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:20px;font-family:sans-serif">Honduras Solidarity Network (HSN) </div><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:20px;font-family:sans-serif"><a href="http://www.hondurassolidarity.org/">www.hondurassolidarity.org/</a></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-size:20px;font-family:sans-serif">July 14, 2014</div></div><div class=""></div></div></div>
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