Open letter from Honduran activist to Biden

January 20, 2021
New York

To President Joe Biden:

You were vice president in 2009, when the government of your party led by President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton supported the military coup in Honduras against our constitutional President Manuel Zelaya Rosales.

In 2010, the U.S. government imposed on us Porfirio Lobo-Sosa, whose son Fabio Lobo is imprisoned in the U.S. for cocaine trafficking. In 2013, they also imposed on us the narco-dictator Juan Orlando Hernández (JOH), whose brother Antonio (Tony) Hernández is imprisoned in New York for trafficking tons of cocaine and weapons to the United States. In 2017, the U.S. also imposed on us for the second time (in an illegal reelection) the narco-dictator JOH.

It was from the moment that this violent narco-dictatorship of the National Party was imposed on us that our country, Honduras, plunged into the worst social, economic and political crisis in our history. It is for this reason and in the face of despair that the Honduran people flee in the massive exodus of displaced human beings called caravans. They do not come in search of the American dream, but rather they flee from the nightmare that our country, the United States, has imposed on them.

The fascist government of Trump signed agreements with the countries of Guatemala and Mexico so that their repressive forces prevent the passage of the displaced victims, so that they do not reach the U.S. border, which is their destination to seek asylum and refuge.

So, President Biden, the caravans are the result of the failed policies of the “savage capitalist” system, as Pope John Paul II said, which the U.S. imposes on the Latin American region and the world. And if you and your government want the immigration “problem” to end, then we ask for a halt to U.S. intervention in our internal affairs.

The capitalist system that our country, the United States, imposes on to other countries in the region has not worked. On the contrary, it has produced and deepened extreme inequality, poverty, violence and the massive and inhumane exodus of entire displaced families.

You have been elected at a time of profound racial division, inequity, and economic and health crisis due to COVID-19. Therefore, you must understand how difficult it is when going to an electoral process under those circumstances.

Like you and the North American people, we in Honduras are fighting to recover our democracy, justice and peace, which was destroyed by the 2009 coup d’état. And this coming November 2021, we are going to presidential elections for the third time after that terrible historical moment that changed our lives.

Therefore, the only thing we demand from your government is to allow us to decide at the polls and that our sovereign decision as a people be respected. Do not let your government intervene. And I assure you, that, in this way, your government will not have to face the massive exodus of people who are fleeing from Honduras in search of what was unjustly taken away from them.

With all due respect and hoping that the purposes of your administration are fulfilled for the good of the people,

Lucy Pagoada-Quesada
North American-Honduran citizen and New York teacher