LAST MINUTE

No to the campaign of terror and selective killings 

targeting the National Popular Resistance Front!

On Tuesday, March 23, three hooded men murdered José Manuel Flores Arguijo, a leader of the teachers' union and active member of the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP), gunning him down as he was teaching a class at the San José del Pedregal Institute in Tegucigalpa.

This cowardly murder is part of a campaign of terror that is being perpetrated by the repressive forces of the Honduran state since the civilian-military coup of June 28, 2009, a campaign that has already claimed at least fifty victims among members of the Resistance and is trampling the human rights of thousands of Hondurans.

Once again the teachers' union and the organized resistance are lamenting the death of one of their own and denouncing the repressive wave unleashed against members of the Resistance.

José Manuel Flores Arguijo, a secondary school teacher who worked and served on the board of the San José del Pedregal Institute and was a union leader with the Honduran Secondary Teachers' Association (COPEMH), was shot several times on the back by hooded men, who, according to the initial reconstruction of the crime, are thought to have entered the school through the roof.

According to leaders of the teachers' union, this new murder is part of a campaign of selective killings that is targeting high- and mid-ranking labor and popular organization leaders who are participating in FNRP actions, and in particular members of the Honduran teachers' union.

"The murder of José Manuel Flores is not an isolated incident, but part of a real strategy implemented by the coup perpetrators," Eulogio Chávez, COPEMH president, told SIREL.

"Honduras has seen a resurgence of the infamous 'Batallón 3-16,' a military squad that murdered and disappeared leaders from teachers', labor and peasant organizations in the 1980s. Now they are deploying the same strategy and using the same methods to spread terror among the resisting population."

According to Chávez, five teachers have been murdered since June 28, four of whom were members of COPEMH.

"José Manuel Flores Arguijo participated actively in Resistance actions and repeatedly denounced the rampant corruption in the Ministry of Education," Chávez said.

"We are in a critical situation and are highly concerned. Neither the Police nor the Prosecutor's Office are doing anything to find the people responsible for these murders and for the human rights abuses committed against Hondurans," he said.

FNRP called on the people of Honduras to march on Thursday, March 25, to denounce this new murder, support the protests of the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH) workers, who are demanding the renewal of their Collective Agreement and salary raises, and back the peasant organization of the United Peasants Movement of Aguán (MUCA), who are fighting to recover the lands that were unjustly seized by large landowners who supported the coup.

"This government and its repressive forces want to persecute and murder us. They want to spread terror so the people will stop participating in the actions of the Resistance. But they won't get away with it, as with each passing day more and more people are becoming aware and rebelling against repression," Chávez concluded.