Erasto Reyes, trade unionist and representative of the Honduras Resistance Front returned this Wednesday to the European Parliament as part of his European solidarity visit. Reyes requested concrete support from the Parliament.
In a press conference he declared that: “Parliament must denounce and vigorously condemn the coup which took place in Honduras. We ask all the members of the European Parliament to help us to restore democratic power and to secure President Zelaya’s unconditional return as the only legitimate President of Honduras. This is why we ask that the European Union refrain from sending observers to the elections envisaged in November and that, like the UN and the OAS, it declares the current electoral process illegitimate.”
In his speech, GUE/NGL Spanish MEP and Vice President of the EUROLAT assembly, Willy Meyer expressed his support for the demands made by Erasto Reyes and expressed the absolute solidarity of his parliamentary group. Meyer (who went to Honduras representing the GUE/NGL just four days after the coup) stressed the fact that “no solution is acceptable if it does not guarantee the restoration of constitutional order in Honduras and therefore the return of President Zelaya. If this does not happen before the November elections, they can not be considered legitimate: they are the work of a putschist government that has suspended the fundamental rights of Hondurans.”
Willy Meyer denounced the fact that a delegation of members of the European Parliament from the EPP group went recently to Honduras to meet the de facto government of Roberto Micheletti, “implying that they recognise an illegitimate government.”
Portuguese GUE/NGL MEP João Ferreira, who went to Honduras in August and met President Zelaya, emphasised the large popular resistance against the coup and in favour of the restoration of democracy and the return of Zelaya. “This is not a coup against the Honduran people; it is a putsch against all the countries of Latin America where social progress is in motion.”
French GUE/NGL MEP Jean-Luc Mélenchon underlined the efforts and initiatives of his parliamentary group which demonstrated that all the members of the European Parliament are not on the putchists side, contrary to what the shameful silence of Parliament on this subject could lead one to believe. “It is inadmissible that the European Union is the major absentee in the fight against the trivialization of this coup d’Etat” he said, before denouncing “the completely unacceptable calls for restraint” by the Swedish Presidency who had scandalously dismissed both putschists and resistance supporters last July. “We have to be aware that Honduras is a kind of “rough work notebook” for the method of overthrowing governments which resist the Empire. We are seriously concerned by the return of such methods in Latin America, because we know that when they start they don’t stop,” he maintained, before concluding by calling on all to take part in a protest of support for Honduras to take place afterwards.
This article first appeared in the Web site of the Confederal Group of the European United Left – Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) in the European Parliament on 8 October 2009.