A Honduran teacher died three days after he was shot in the head while protesting the ouster of president Manuel Zelaya, as the military-backed regime threatened to crackdown on future demonstrations.
Roger Abraham Vallejo, 38, who was shot on Wednesday during a protest in the Mercado Zonal Belen, in northern Tegucigalpa, succumbed to his injury on Saturday.
Witnesses have said he was shot when hundreds of police officers charged a crowd of pro-Zelaya marchers. Police allege he was shot by his fellow protesters.
PHOTO: AP
“All I know is that the police killed him for struggling for a just cause,” his 78 year-old mother Maria Soriano said, as hundreds of Zelaya sympathizers crammed into a hall to mourn Vallejo.
Vallejo became the third Zelaya supporter killed since the leftist president was bundled out of his bed gunpoint and kicked out of the country in a military-supported June 28 coup.
“The blood that is being spilled will not be in vain, because we are going to fight tirelessly” to reverse the military-supported coup, said Zelaya, from the Nicaraguan town of Ocotal, on the border with Honduras.
“The people have the right to insurrection when someone takes power by force of arms, and we are using that right,” Zelaya said.
He is organizing what he has called his “Popular Peaceful Army,” made up of hundreds of Hondurans who crossed into Nicaragua to support his cause. On Friday he threatened the interim Honduran regime with “generalized violence” if the coup was not reversed.
Honduran police, perhaps anticipating further clashes, issued a warning late on Saturday that they would fully enforce the penal code forbidding protest marches “when they could affect free circulation and the rights of others.”
People who organize or lead “in an illicit manner any demonstration” face up to four years prison and hefty fines, the statement read.
The coup has been roundly condemned abroad, and the regime, headed by acting president Roberto Micheletti, has been trying to find a peaceful solution to the crisis that does not involve restoring Zelaya to power.
Micheletti said he was surprised that Zelaya had taken to the hills and “called for an insurrection.”
Micheletti said in a televised address on Saturday that his government is resisting “with pride” the international condemnation and sanctions that have included the suspension of aid programs and freezing of military assistance.
He also reiterated that his government reserves the right to cancel visas for US diplomats after Washington revoked the diplomatic visas of four officials in his government.
Meanwhile representatives of foreign human rights groups visiting Honduras called on authorities to “respect” the demonstrators, including activists from Spain, Argentina, Brazil, France and El Salvador.
over a week ago with Zelaya who stepped across the border but turned back in the face of Honduran riot police.
On Friday, Zelaya’s militia in training chanted “Down with the coup plotters!” as they went through their drills. The volunteers did their best to follow unfamiliar maneuvers like moving quickly while on all fours.
The lone woman lagged behind her male colleagues, then seemed to have a leg cramp. She dropped out of the exercise and opted to do some abdominals instead.
Most of the would-be troops were young and strong-looking if a bit out of shape. One jogged around, trying to embarrass laggards into getting back on the training track, shouting, “You are here to train!”
Leaders of the group said training of the new militia force also was being carried out in several similar camps along the border.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
RSS