The central issue at stake in Honduras today – and the spark for the oligarchy’s risky decision to carry out the coup in June – is the increasingly adamant insistence on the part of Honduran social movements for a constituyente, the striking of an assembly to re-write the constitution. It was, indeed, this very question that was to be put to a non-binding referendum on the morning of the coup and it was expected that the people would support the idea overwhelmingly. Like many of its Central and South American neighbours, Honduras’ principle legal code was written during a period dominated by U.S. Cold War imperialism and local comprador quasi-fascists. The legacy of the Operation Condor/School of the Americas era was, among so many other tragedies, legal and political structures that ensured the continued dominance of the elite few and Honduras was a perfect case study.

In fact, the current constitution of Honduras was ratified in 1982, during the period in which it earned the nickname ‘U.S.S. Honduras.’ The most successful resistance group in Honduras in the 1970s was called the National Federation of Honduras Peasants (FENACH) and wasn’t able to muster the kind of strength that the Sandinistas in Nicaragua built, nor even to achieve the limited level of challenge of the guerillas in Guatemala or El Salvador. As a result, Honduras became the perfect base for U.S. operations in Central America, and indeed the Contra Wars against Nicaragua were waged from the U.S. military base at Palmerola, just outside of Tegucigalpa, among countless other interventions and terror campaigns in the region.

A really great article about the coup in Honduras by Tyler Shipley.

(via Instapaper)