Since June 2009, Honduras has been hit with a wave of growing domestic violence. A report from Honduras released on March 31, 2010 from the head of the National Commission for Human Rights, Ramón Custodio, had noted that Honduras now has the highest murder rates in Central America, with 66.8 murders per 100,000 inhabitants. This is an increase from 2006 numbers, when Honduras had the third-highest murder rate in the region, trailing behind El Salvador and Guatemala. Today, it is ranked first. Hondurans are victims of criminal organizations and drug cartels. We must ask what has triggered the sudden spike in death tolls in this state. A sudden increase in murder rates is chilling to hear about, especially two decades after an era of civil wars and Latin American death squads. Even more chilling is the fact that these deaths come during the reign of a new government to power, led by right wing leader Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo, who came in power five months after a coup d’état hit Honduras. High death tolls and a coup d’état? The socio-political map in Honduras is looking much like Central America from 1970s-1990s.

In June 2009, the democratically elected president Manuel Zelaya was ousted from Honduras, and replaced by a temporary military regime led by Roberto Micheletti. The coup was answered by widespread popular mobilization from municipal and rural communities who demanded the return of their elected president. This movement was met by military forces who arrested, detained, killed, and beat down protestors and community organizers. Opposition to Pepe Lobo, which consists of rural farmers, workers, intellectuals, students, and journalists, boycotted and denounced the elections — which occurred during a de facto military regime — and declared them illegitimate. A general boycott of the elections was declared by all those following the Resistance movement. Five months later, in November 2009, a contested election brought the right-wing National Party into power, with candidate Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo as president.

Fast forward to 2011. Today, Hondurans around the Aguan region have mobilized and voiced their opposition to the new regime of Pepe Lobo, who they say has been putting the concerns of those who have backed the coup over the needs of the impoverished communities in the North. In response, community activists from groups such as the United Campesino Movement of Aguan, the Campesino Movement of Aguan and the National Movement of Popular Resistance have been attacked and threatened by paramilitary groups and police forces resembling the death squads which once haunted Latin America. Groups such as Rights Action have been documenting the human rights abuses occurring to those in opposition to the new government of Pepe Lobo, including unsolved killings of community activists, arrests, disappearances, and occupations of communities by the military.

The situation in Honduras is looking very much like the Central America from which many Latin American immigrants escaped; reliving a history that once haunted the region. The increased death tolls come from an illegitimate state ruled by those who ousted a democratically elected president through the use of military force, and silenced the opposition movement through the same brutal tactics used by death squads during the civil wars in Central America. Resistance against the coup and the new government has mounted since the initial ousting of president Zelaya, with thousands from both the rural and municipal population rallying throughout the capital, Tegucigalpa. From these communities, the National Resistance Movement took form, and continues to oppose the illegitimate government. The Honduran government has also gone to such lengths as censoring the media in the country. From the beginning of the coup, the state shut down media outlets that questioned its leaders, asking whether the coup was legitimate, and documenting the process of the resistance. The response to media questions was censorship, arrests, beatings, and threats from the military in power.

I have tried to shed light on the issues occurring in Honduras, and to condemn the illegitimate government by discussing the disgusting methods it is using to silence community organizers, beat them, and kill them in order to preserve itself. Arguments in favour of the coup state that, by law, the military had a “legal” (if you would like to call it that) right to act in opposition to the president. Manuel Zelaya wanted to push a constitutional reform that would allow the president to be elected on two consecutive instances in order to prolong the presidency. This bill was rendered unconstitutional by the senate, whose members were largely against the president. Manuel Zelaya tried to push the referendum, handing out ballots to the public. The senate and the courts ruled this to be illegal, and took decision to act in ousting the president. With this, the Honduran state now legitimizes its government.

But in the end, how is a state legitimate when it kills and oppresses its civilians using forces resembling death squads? Furthermore, Manuel Zelaya was an elected president, who was just ending his term prior to the coup. In calls to the UN, Zelaya pleaded to be reinstated in order to finish his term. The coup was essentially a halt to the democratic process replaced by a hostile regime which continues to silence opposition. Simply put, Honduras is following a path similar to the harmful methods of Central American oligarchies of the twentieth century through its illegitimate and oppressive government. If this instance sets a precedent for further actions by the military groups against elected governments, Latin America may very well continue living the past it will never forget.