Honduras: 'Caravan of Insurrection' Protests Election Fraud

By teleSUR

24 February 18

The leaders of the Opposition Alliance against Dictatorship said protests President Hernandez’s reelection would continue despite U.N. and OAS inaction.

upporters of former Honduran presidential candidate Salvador Nasralla went back to the streets Friday as part of what they called "Caravan of insurrection", to continue their protests against fraud during the November elections which handed President Juan Orlando Hernandez a second term in office.

The caravan of hundreds of vehicles, organized by the Opposition Alliance against Dictatorship coalition, denounced the electoral fraud and demanded the resignation of Hernandez. "This is a protest against the murders, the abuses and the electoral fraud," said former Honduran President and coordinator for the coalition Manuel Zelaya.

The caravan started in Colonia El Sitio, in the east of the capital Tegucigalpa, before arriving at the front of the headquarters of the Organization of American States.

The tour took place under a persistent drizzle and was headed by Zelaya and Nasralla. "Fuera JOH,” read banners carried by demonstrators referring to President Hernandez.

"The Secretary General of the OAS, Luis Almagro, said that new elections had to be held," Zelaya said referring to Almagro’s comments after an OAS observer mission concluded that the irregularities of the election process were so many that the winner could not be decided.

He added that the alliance awaits a response to a request made to the Permanent Council of the OAS to call a meeting to present a report "on the abuses that this dictatorship is committing."

But Nasralla further slammed both the United Nations and the OAS for their lack of action so far on the fraud allegations as well as the government-led violence against post-elections protest that left 30 people dead.

"The UN turned its back on us, the OAS turned its backs on us, but that does not mean that the Honduran people are going to lower their arms. Throughout the country we are going to make demonstrations like this one," said Nasralla during the latest demonstration.

The protest caravan by the opposition comes days after a United Nations mission that visited Honduras last week issued a vague report on the post-elections crisis, supporting a dialogue between the government and the opposition factions but falling short of taking any concrete decisions.

Nasrallah slammed the U.N.’s report Thursday calling it “delaying tactics” and accused it of diverting attention from the real cause of the conflict, which according to him is that "practically nobody" accepts Hernandez as the country’s president.

The crisis erupted after the electoral authorities awarded the Nov. 26 presidential victory to Hernandez, who ran for a controversial reelection, after the first vote counts gave an advantage to the candidate of the Opposition Alliance Nasralla.