The delegation found that extractive industries like mining in Guapinol; the loss of sovereignty, as in the CAFTA [Central America Free Trade Agreement]-imposed ISDS [Investor-State Dispute Settlement] tribunal on the $10.7 billion ZEDE [Employment and Economic Development Zone] Próspera suit against Honduras; the dispossession of campesinos in the Aguan Valley and Garifuna communities along the north coast; and Canada’s praise for textile company Gildan, which has closed a factory, violating injured workers’ rights, all benefit multinational corporations while failing to solve the deep issues of inequality in Honduras.

These companies benefited economically from the coup and continued doing business to their own profit and benefit under the narco-state.

The U.S. is now seizing the opportunity of the trial of Juan Orlando Hernández (JOH) and his cronies, including the former head of the national police and a family member of Hernandez, to whitewash its own complicity in the narco-dictatorship from 2009 to 2022. It is obvious that those being tried could never have committed the dreadful crimes they are accused of without being enabled by the U.S. and Canada in exchange for favorable treatment for the U.S. military, its drug war and for North American corporations.

For all these reasons, the Honduras Solidarity Network and its members are launching a campaign and will present evidence of the complicity of the two nations during the trial. The campaign will take place before, during and after JOH’s trial in New York that begins on February 5.