Nov 25 - Dec 2, 2009
Honduras Human Rights Observers Daily Reports
A bi-national delegation of Canadian and US representatives from labour, human rights, and faith-based organizations is in Honduras to conduct human rights accompaniment and observation at the time of the country’s controversial elections on November 29. The bi-national delegation has been co-organized along with the Quixote Centre in the U.S. (that has organized 7 previous delegations since the June 28 military-backed coup). The delegation’s members hope that their presence will mitigate human rights violations by the Honduran military and police, and that they will be able to document any violations that occur. The team is posting regular reports which appear below, with the most recent report on the top. The members of the delegation are listed in the left column.
Daily Report #7 - Scott Marshall
Scott Marshall’s Day 3 report
We have just returned to our hotel. Today was a busy day. We met with the Canadian Ambassador to start the day. He presented us with an official position taken by the G16 (written paper), as well as the press release yesterday from Minister Peter Kent. The Ambassador indicated that Canada has not stated that they will recognize the elections on Sunday, but he did also not take a position that they would not recognize the elections. We appear to be sitting on the fence.
After the morning meeting we travelled north to San Pedro and attended a meeting with about 20 community leaders. They were deciding what they would do tomorrow. As a group they decided upon a peacefull protest march away from the polling stations. They are very concerned for their safety tomorrow. We then went downtown to visit a member of the resistence on a hunger strike and heard his story. During this visit crowds gathered with us - they were very happy to see us there. We explained our visit as one to observe, witness, and tell the story of what we haveseen. We were asked to go to a local student run alternative radio station - radio one. We were led there and were on a live radio talk show for a couple of hours.
We will be going to witness the protest march tomorrow.
Scott.