The Civil Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) DOES NOT
recognize the statement made yesterday by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) which claims Juan Orlando Hernández as the winner. This decision represents the final consummation of the electoral fraud through which they seek to make a mockery of the Honduran people’s will expressed on November 26th, which is to expel the dictatorship and its corrupt cabal from the presidency. The fraud carried out throughout the process is clear and evident, starting with the illegality of Juan Orlando Hernández (JOH)’s candidacy itself and especially in the hours following the closure of the polls when the opposition’s victory became apparent. With their timid statements the OAS and EU have corroborated what the people have already declared in the streets - all of the irregularities of the corrupt electoral process and Honduran state make clear that this is the imposition of a dictatorship. The statement by the TSE is yet another affront to the Honduran people and we denounce that all of its members who were involved should be prosecuted.
*COPINH calls for the permanent mobilization and organization in the streets of the Lenca and Honduran people as a whole to make the legitimate demand that JOH immediately step down, or, short of that, for there to be a new electoral process with guarantees and transparency, supervised by the international community, beyond the OAS and also including representation of the Honduran grassroots social movements.
*COPINH demands that the armed forces and Honduran police immediately cease their repression against the Honduran people who are exercising their constitutional right to protest a government based on imposition!
*COPINH calls on the international community to denounce the violent and murderous actions by agents of the state’s repressive forces, which have already taken 22 Honduran lives, and to push for the governments of the world to refuse recognition of the criminal declaration by Honduras’s TSE.
*COPINH and the Lenca people are rising up, not in defense of a party or a candidate, but rather in defense of dignity itself.
For the blood spilled by Berta Cáceres and all of our ancestors, we demand justice! We demand the downfall of the killer regime!
With the ancestral strength of Berta, Iselaca, Etempica and Mota we raise our voices full of life, justice, freedom, dignity and peace.
December 18th, 2017
La Esperanza, Intibucá, Honduras
