Leader of Honduras' gay community abducted, murdered
Source: Associated Press
Leader of Honduras' gay community abducted, murdered
12:45 PM Sunday Jun 5, 2016
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) " A leader in Honduras' gay community has been buried several days after he was kidnapped and killed in the city of San Pedro Sula.
Rene Martinez, 39, was a city employee working in anti-violence outreach programs and a rising member of the National Party.
The attorney general's office said in a statement that his body showed signs of having been strangled. No motive for his murder was given.
Martinez's family said in a statement that assailants kidnapped him on Wednesday after he arrived home, forcing him into a vehicle. Family members alerted police but his body was found two days later in another neighborhood. He was buried on Saturday.
Read more: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11651048
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Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)this wouldn't have happened if the democratic government hadn't been overthrown.
DURHAM D
(32,609 posts)and unnecessary deaths happen all over the world, including in every so-called democratic country.
Shame on you.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)And I posted what I did because I respect your intelligence enough to ask you to see and make the link.
This wasn't just the unnecessary death of ONE individual(which would be tragic in itself).
It's a product of the mindset of imperialism-a mindset that those in this country who abetted that coup share.
This shows us the big picture...how it all affects us all.
"Don't mourn...ORGANIZE!", as the Swede said.
The fact that the US continued its regular aid to Honduras during the political turmoil is what is controversial. And you know what? If the US had stopped aid during that period, the anti-US crowd would say that was a part of the evil plot, too, and the US would still be at fault, somehow.
The US is probably the #1 promoter of LGBT rights in the world, and is not to blame for anti-gay death squads in Honduras. If you're looking for govs to hate for doing that, you don't have to look far.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)of momentary partisan urges. Why would you seek to reduce or dismiss this political murder? I don't get how that serves to make us safer.
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)The chapter on Latin America, particularly the section on Honduras, a major source of the child migrants currently pouring into the United States, has gone largely unnoticed. In letters to Clinton and her successor, John Kerry, more than 100 members of Congress have repeatedly warned about the deteriorating security situation in Honduras, especially since the 2009 military coup that ousted the country’s democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya. As Honduran scholar Dana Frank points out in Foreign Affairs, the U.S.-backed post-coup government “rewarded coup loyalists with top ministries,” opening the door for further “violence and anarchy.
First, the confession: Clinton admits that she used the power of her office to make sure that Zelaya would not return to office. “In the subsequent days [after the coup] I spoke with my counterparts around the hemisphere, including Secretary [Patricia] Espinosa in Mexico,” Clinton writes. “We strategized on a plan to restore order in Honduras and ensure that free and fair elections could be held quickly and legitimately, which would render the question of Zelaya moot.”
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/9/hillary-clinton-honduraslatinamericaforeignpolicy.html
Response to Ichingcarpenter (Reply #2)
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uhnope
(6,419 posts)That's all. And now that's to blame for deadly macho culture? (BTW are you really concerned about anti-gay death squads? It seems you are very selective in your outrage.)
And you know what? If Clinton had, instead, cut aid during the coup, you anti-US CTers would find fault with that too, and the US would still be to blame.
Ridiculous.
Behind the Aegis
(53,951 posts)It can be really scary, deadly, as shown, in some places. This man is a martyr for a cause which many still ignore.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)If our country hadn't abetted the violent overthrow of the Zelaya government(the first government in Honduran history to pass ANY pro-LGBTQ legislation whatsoever), this most likely wouldn't have happened.
It's why we all need to work for a world free from all oppression. The struggles for justice are always connected, and victory for justice only comes when those connections are recognized.
May the loss of this courageous man not be repeated.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)some evil reason.
Betty Karlson
(7,231 posts)Things are so much better when dictatorships get in and start relying on impunity for the excercising of bigotry.
Also praise Nancy Reagan, that other first lady who had so much silent activism for gay people while her husband went about to overthrow democratic governments.
uhnope
(6,419 posts)Last edited Sun Jun 5, 2016, 05:56 AM - Edit history (2)
Not even the more wild-eyed anti-US CTers on DU contend that "Clinton decided to overthrow" Honduras.
The fact that the US continued its regular aid to Honduras during the political turmoil is what is controversial. And you know what? If the US had stopped aid during that period, the anti-US crowd would say that was a part of the evil plot, too, and the US would still be at fault, somehow.
But it's hilarious that you reach back to Nancy Reagan to bash the US, which promotes pro-LGBT causes around the world. That says a lot
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)in March of this year. In doing so, she totally altered my relationship to straight people in this Party, whom I now see as something less than informed and something less than allies.
closeupready
(29,503 posts)to "independents" and those on the "center right". 
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Dancing with Monsters: The U.S. Response to the 2009 Honduran Coup
"A coup anywhere in Latin America is a very big deal.”
By Alvaro Valle
Harvard Political Review, April 13, 2015
SNIP...
The U.S. Response
Latin American governments immediately denounced Zelaya’s ouster as a military coup. The United States was not quite as decisive in its diction, with the initial statement from the Obama administration merely calling on “all political and social actors in Honduras to respect democratic norms.” Obama did go on to denounce the coup in the following days, but Frank noted that Obama’s characterization of the government change was very important. “He very clearly failed to call it a military coup. If he had called it a military coup, the United States would have had to immediately suspend all police and military aid,” Frank explained. “Eventually some money sent was suspended, but the vast majority was not.”
Following the coup, President Obama called many times for the reinstatement of Zelaya. In contrast, Secretary of State Clinton made remarks that were far more equivocal. When asked if the United States had any plans to alter aid to the coup government, , “Much of our assistance is conditioned on the integrity of the democratic system. But if we were able to get to a status quo that returned to the rule of law and constitutional order within a relatively short period of time, I think that would be a good outcome.” Clinton seemed to prioritize having a stable regime over preserving democratic ideals.
As further evidence, Clinton wrote in her book, Hard Choices, “In the subsequent days [after the coup] … we strategized on a plan to restore order in Honduras and ensure that free and fair elections could be held quickly and legitimately, which would render the question of Zelaya moot,” revealing that even as the administration publicly advocated for Zelaya’s return, Clinton was not working to ensure that it would happen.
Pastor added that Clinton had personal connections with supporters of the coup government that may have led her to soften her stance. For instance, Lanny Davis, Bill Clinton’s former personal lawyer and a longtime Hillary Clinton supporter, lobbied in Washington for the Honduran coup government, Honduran elites, the Business Council of Latin America, and the American companies that took issue with Zelaya’s reforms. Bennett Ratcliff, another top Democratic campaigner with close ties to the Clintons, also worked for the Honduran coup government as a lobbyist in Washington. These personal connections to advocates for the coup government raise troubling concerns that political ties influenced Clinton’s stance.
In Clinton’s defense, these personal connections were not the only political forces supporting the coup. Levitsky noted that initial opposition to the coup in the United States may have given way because “Republicans held a couple of major U.S.-Latin America appointments: the Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs and the Ambassador to Brazil. They held these positions hostage to a softening of U.S. policy toward the coup government.”
CONTINUED w/ links sources etc....
http://harvardpolitics.com/united-states/us-honduran-coup/
Of course, it's plausible that all this just happened to favor Empire at the expense of Democracy. Then, it would be mere coincidence that today many if not most of the progressive -- socialist -- regimes in South America and Central America have been replaced by rightist regimes. What else I find disgusting is President Obama just "going along to get along" on it.
L. Coyote
(51,129 posts)awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)Sorry that some insist on making this about the fucking primaries. I wish they would keep their douchebaggery in GD P
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)How is that any different?
Arazi
(6,829 posts)Hillary supported the coup that overthrew Zelaya and installed these bastards
http://www.washingtonblade.com/2013/02/13/honduran-gay-leader-appeals-to-u-s-for-help/
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/4416513.html
So yeah, relevant
uhnope
(6,419 posts)see post #11 or 13
Arazi
(6,829 posts) no, you should ignore whoever is peddling you conspiracy-theory BS that you then post on DU
LiberalLovinLug
(14,173 posts)You are defending the indefensible.
Learn to pick your battles. There was plenty more the State Department could have done. She could have denounced the coup, and suggested crippling sanctions if they did not bow to the will of the people and reinstate the democratically elected President.
She is part of the club now and knows that any country in the backyard that dares to threaten the hegemony of the US corporate class, many of them her and Bill's personal friends, will not be tolerated. Fuck the foreign brown skinned poor workers in those countries.
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)
L. Coyote
(51,129 posts)
Response to Judi Lynn (Original post)
closeupready This message was self-deleted by its author.
Peace Patriot
(24,010 posts)...in a phony election--under martial law, with leftists being murdered, and the elected president, Mel Zelaya, banned from his own country--when all reputable election monitoring groups refused to participate!
Clinton did more than supporting and funding these murdering, fascist bastards, she installed them in power.
There are many women leaders of environmental, labor and pro-democracy movements in Honduras. They are being brutalized, raped, imprisoned, murdered--the most famous one being Berta Caceres, winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize--murdered by a fascist deaths squad, ex-soldiers right out of the U.S.-funded Honduran military, in March of this year. Gays were making progress on gay rights with President Mel Zelaya. They are being targeted as well, and are also often leaders of social movements, as Martinez was.
Clinton's feminism is not for Hondurans, nor, if the truth were known, for poor women here in the USA. Clinton's support for gay rights and human rights is also selective--not for Hondurans, and not for poor gays and other poor minorities in this country. Then there are the tens of thousands of women who are being brutalized and murdered in Libya, after Clinton cleared the path for brutal IS jihadists into that country.
Feminism is rooted in the peace and social justice movements of a hundred years ago. Clinton's feminism is NOT rooted in peace and social justice. It is faux feminism, in which women are permitted into the global predator elite if they are willing to be "blooded" as Clinton was in Libya and Honduras.
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)and the president.
