SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
For Immediate Release
July, 20 2009, 09:18am EDT
Contact:
Dan Beeton, (202) 239-1460
Over 55 Organizations and Scholars Call on Obama Administration to Warn Honduran Regime Against Further Violence
WASHINGTON
56
representatives of organizations and academic experts on Latin America
and scholars issued the following statement today:
The Obama administration's recent statements are endangering the lives
of Hondurans, including the president Manuel Zelaya. From the Wall
Street Journal, July 18, 2009:
"A senior U.S. official said Friday the Obama administration continues
to stress to Mr. Zelaya its opposition to him trying to return. The
official said Washington fears another attempt by Mr. Zelaya could
reignite political tensions while undercutting efforts to find a
negotiated settlement. 'Zelaya is well aware of our position," the
official said.'"
Such statements are very disturbing, especially combined with the fact
that the administration has not issued a single warning to the coup
government, which has already shot and killed peaceful demonstrators,
that such human rights abuses are unacceptable.
In fact, there has not been a single
statement from the Obama administration since President Zelaya was
overthrown on June 28, condemning the violations of human rights and
civil liberties committed by the coup government. These violations
include shootings and beatings; arrests, intimidation and deportation
of journalists; and the closing of independent radio and TV stations.
These abuses have been documented and condemned by the Inter
American Commission for Human Rights, by
human rights organizations such as Human
Rights Watch, Amnesty
International, the Committee
to Protect Journalists, Reporters
Without Borders, and a report from the Honduran
Committee for the Relatives of the Disappeared Detainees.
President Zelaya is, as President Obama has pointed out, the legitimate
president of Honduras. He is also a Honduran citizen, and has the right
to return to his country. The United States government should be
defending democracy in Honduras, and the civil and human rights of its
citizens - not trying to make it look as though those who defend these
rights are doing something wrong.
The Obama administration's position puts it outside the consensus of
the hemisphere and the world, which has called - through the OAS and
the UN General Assembly -- for the "immediate and unconditional"
reinstatement of President Zelaya. The repeated
refusals of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,
when asked by the press, to say that the United States government also
seeks Zelaya's reinstatement have
further muddied the waters about where the administration stands. Such
ambiguity feeds the resolve of the dictatorship to try and run out the
clock on President Zelaya's remaining months in office.
The United States has trained and funded the Honduran army; the
generals who led the coup were trained at the School of the Americas in
Ft. Benning, Georgia; the Obama administration by its own admission was
in discussions with the Honduran military up to the day before the
coup. All of this places greater responsibility on the administration
to help reverse this coup. Yet the administration has refused to take
even modest steps such as freezing the bank accounts of the
perpetrators, despite appeals from the legitimate government of
Honduras and from civil society.
We call on President Obama to condemn the human rights abuses committed
by the dictatorship, and to make it clear that violence against the
civilian population is a crime that will not be tolerated by the
international community; and to make it clear to his own State
Department that the United States government stands with the Honduran
people and all other governments, for the immediate and unconditional
return of the elected President of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya.
Signed,
Tim Anderson
University of Sydney
Australia
William Aviles
Associate Professor of Political Science
University of Nebraska, Kearney
Nikhil Aziz, Ph.D.
Executive Director
Grassroots International
Elizabeth Bast
International Program Director
Friends of the Earth U.S.
Jules Boykoff
Associate Professor of Politics and Government
Pacific University
Oscar A. Chacon
Executive Director
National Alliance of Latin American & Caribbean Communities
James D. Cockcroft
Honorary Editor
Latin American Perspectives
Lauren Coodley
Professor of History
Napa Valley College
Pablo Delano
Professor of Fine Arts
Trinity College
Hartford CT
Arturo Escobar
Professor of Anthropoology
UNC, Chapel Hill
Linda Farthing
Journalist, independent scholar
Mario D. Fenyo
Professor of History
Bowie State University
Luis Figueroa
Associate Professor of History
Trinity College
Hartford, Connecticut
Bill Fletcher, Jr.
Executive Editor
BlackCommentator.com
Dana Frank
Professor of History
University of California, Santa Cruz
Gavin Fridell
Assistant Professor, Department of Politics
Trent University
Gilbert G. Gonzalez
Professor Emeritus
University of California, Irvine
Manu Goswami
Department of History
New York University
Greg Grandin
Professor of History
New York University
Peter Hallward
Professor of Modern European Philosophy
Middlesex University, UK
Art Heitzer
Chair
National Lawyers Guild Cuba Subcommittee
Doug Hertzler
Associate Professor of Anthropology
Eastern Mennonite University
Katherine Hoyt
Co-Coordinator
Nicaragua Network
Forrest Hylton
Assistant Professor, Political Science and International Relations
Universidad de los Andes (Bogota)
James Jordan
Coordinator
Campaign for Labor Rights
Gil Joseph
Farnam
Professor of History and International Studies
Yale University
Chuck Kaufman
Co-Coordinator
Alliance for Global Justice
Benjamin Kohl
Associate Professor and Undergraduate Chair
Geography and Urban Studies
Temple University
Michael A. Lebowitz
Professor Emeritus (Economics)
Simon Fraser University, Canada
Eric LeCompte
SOA Watch
John Lindsay-Poland
Latin America Program Director
Fellowship of Reconciliation
Florencia E. Mallon
Julieta Kirkwood
Professor of History
University of Wisconsin
Luis Martin-Cabrera
Assistant Professor, Literature
University of California, San Diego
Frederick B. Mills
Professor of Philosophy
Bowie State University
Kirsten Moller
Executive Director
Global Exchange
Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
Diane M. Nelson
Department of Anthropology
Duke University
Hector Perla Jr.
Assistant Professor of Latin American & Latino Studies
University of California, Santa Cruz
Adrienne Pine
Assistant Professor of Anthropology
American University
Beatrice Pita
Faculty Supervisor for lower division
Spanish
Dept. of Literature
University of California, San Diego
Vijay Prashad
George and Martha Kellner Chair in South Asian History and Professor of
International Studies
Trinity College
Peter Ranis
Professor Emeritus
CUNY Graduate Center
Gerardo Renique
Associate Professor, Department of History
City College of the City University of New York
Milla Riggio
James J. Goodwin Professor of English
Coordinator, Trinity-in-Trinidad Global Learning Site
Member, Executive Board of the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and
Politics
William I. Robinson
Professor of Sociology
Global and International Studies
Latin American and Iberian Studies
University of California-Santa Barbara
Rosaura Sanchez
Professor, Department of Literature
University of California, San Diego
T.M. Scruggs
School of Music
University of Iowa
Kent Spriggs
Counsel
School of the Americas Watch
Richard Stahler-Sholk
Professor, Political Science
Eastern Michigan University
Miguel Tinker Salas
Professor of History
Pomona College
Steven Topik
Professor of History
University of California Irvine
Alberto Toscano
Lecturer in Sociology
Goldsmiths, University of London
Maurice L. Wade
Professor of Philosophy, International Studies, and Graduate Public
Policy Studies
Trinity College
Hartford, CT
Jeffery R. Webber
Assistant Professor, Political Science
University of Regina, Canada
Mark Weisbrot
Co-Director
Center for Economic and Policy Research
John Womack, Jr.
Professor of History Emeritus
Harvard University
LATEST NEWS
As Trump Pushes 'Polluters First Agenda,' 2027 Budget Blasted as 'Bloody New Deal'
"This proposed budget is exactly what America does NOT need when facing rising energy bills, more frequent extreme weather, and rising insurance rates," said one climate campaigner.
Apr 03, 2026
US President Donald Trump continued his "war on science" on Friday with his budget request for the 2027 fiscal year, which critics have denounced as "grossly irresponsible" for its proposed $1.5 trillion in military spending and "a moral obscenity" because of its cuts to social and scientific programs.
In the lead-up to Trump's request to the Republican-controlled Congress, as he and Israel waged war on Iran, Sean Manning, a Herbert Scoville Jr. Peace Fellow in the Union of Concerned Scientists' Global Security Program, wrote that "if this Bloody New Deal actually passes, it could give unparalleled increases in financial power to defense contractors and support for the political work they already do to influence Congress."
"Sane voices need to act now, building opposition to this unprecedented plan," Manning argued. "Progressives should be unflinching in defining this proposal as a blank check for the same contractors who cannot deliver ships on time, munitions at scale, or clean audits. Pouring funds into a defense sector that has repeatedly failed basic tests of accountability will not miraculously produce innovation."
In addition to railing against the budget for the Pentagon—the world's largest institutional climate polluter—after it was officially released on Friday, progressive voices directed attention to some particular proposed cuts and their consequences.
To fund the Pentagon's massive war-making budget, "the Trump administration is requesting the cancellation of billions of dollars in funds for renewable energy, environmental justice, carbon removal, space science, and climate change education," Emily Gardner reported Friday for Eos, the American Geophysical Union's news magazine.
As Katherine Tsantiris, Ocean Conservancy's director of government relations, pointed out, among the targeted federal agencies is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The proposed cuts, she said, "fly directly in the face of the clear bipartisan support Congress showed earlier this year by protecting funding for this critical agency."
"Slashing NOAA's budget would weaken weather forecasting, disrupt fisheries management, and stall ocean research—putting American lives, livelihoods, and global scientific leadership at risk," Tsantiris continued. "Congress should once again reject these cuts to ensure NOAA has the resources it needs to support our economy, protect our ocean, and keep Americans safe."
Quentin Scott, federal policy director at the Chesapeake Climate Action Network Action Fund, argued that "this proposed budget is exactly what America does NOT need when facing rising energy bills, more frequent extreme weather, and rising insurance rates."
"By gutting funds for climate science and innovation, the budget jeopardizes our ability to understand and respond to the accelerating climate crisis," Scott said. "Defunding climate research at NOAA doesn't make the problem go away—it makes those hazards more dangerous and more expensive. Families across the country are already paying the price through higher utility bills, flooding, and storm damage. This budget would only make those burdens worse."
Big Oil-backed Trump's budget proposal came on the heels of devastating flooding in Hawaii and as high temperatures hit the Western United States. It also followed an annual World Meteorological Organization report on the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency, which last month led UN Secretary-General António Guterres to declare that "every key climate indicator is flashing red."
Devastating.
[image or embed]
— Scott Kardel aka Palomar Skies (@palomarskies.bsky.social) April 3, 2026 at 12:29 PM
Trump also proposed slashing the Environmental Protection Agency's budget—amid calls to oust Administrator Lee Zeldin for "so brazenly" betraying the EPA's core mission to "protect human health and the environment." Trump also proposed cutting the agency's budget. Noting that attack, Climate Action Campaign director Margie Alt described the president's plan as "anything but a serious" one and "a declaration of who this administration is willing to let suffer."
In a nod to some of the rich executives whose campaign cash helped Trump return to power after promising to scrap his predecessor's climate policies and to enact a "drill, baby, drill" agenda, Alt also called it "a reiteration of this president's devotion to fossil fuel interests."
"This budget would slash the EPA budget by 52%, gutting the agency's ability to protect the air our children breathe, the water our families drink, and the communities that already bear the worst of extreme weather and climate change," she said. "It is a deliberately callous choice to remove the protections that keep families safe, healthy, and shielded from the impacts of pollution and climate change."
According to Alt:
This is not just a continuation of last year's rollbacks. It is an escalation of the Trump administration's Polluters First Agenda and their assault on public health safeguards. Since January 2025, among other abuses, this administration has fired 600 National Weather Service staff, proposed eliminating critical climate research institutions, waived mercury pollution standards for 60 dirty power plants, and gutted the Clean Air Act. This budget is the Trump administration's payback for their big oil, coal, and gas friends and contributors. It slashes resources for clean energy, it zeroes out environmental justice, and pushes oil, gas, and coal, at a time when prices for these energy sources are skyrocketing.
Never before have we had an administration that so blatantly treats American lives as expendable, as proven by this budget. Congress must reject this inhumane budget in full. The American people deserve a federal government that protects them, not one that trades their health, their safety, and their futures for big oil, coal, and gas profits.
As Gardner reported, Trump's budget also "proposes consolidating the Endangered Species Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act, but did not provide details outside noting the program would be housed at the Department of the Interior," among other changes and cuts.
Chris Westfall, senior government relations legislative counsel at Defenders of Wildlife, said that "the administration is yet again demanding that an overworked and grossly understaffed federal workforce do more with less. The proposed budget recklessly consolidates US Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries without the needed resources to preserve scientific expertise, opens our lands and waters to extractive industries, and hollows out the already strained workforce that provides crucial conservation work."
"This proposed budget pushes us further in the wrong direction—potentially triggering even more staff layoffs and providing less resources for wildlife conservation, which are pivotal to recovering America's imperiled species," Westfall warned. "Our nation's lands and the wildlife that depend on them for habitat deserve better than to be ignored by agencies that are shells of their former selves."
The president's proposed attack on endangered species came just days after the administration's so-called "God Squad" voted unanimously for an exemption allowing fossil fuel operations in the Gulf of Mexico to ignore policies intended to protect them. In response, Andrew Bowman, president and CEO of Defenders of Wildlife, said that "I cannot stress enough how unprecedented and unlawful this action is."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Univ. of Washington Removes Mideast Center Director Who Criticized US-Israeli War on Iran
"There’s a chilling effect on not just my academic freedom, but that of my colleagues; anyone who dares to speak out against the war and against aggression," said UW professor Aria Fani.
Apr 03, 2026
The University of Washington has removed a professor from his role as director of its Middle East Center after he criticized the illegal US-Israeli war of choice on Iran and condemned Zionism, the settler-colonial movement for Jewish hegemony in Palestine.
Aria Fani, who will remain an associate professor at UW’s Jackson School of International Studies, told The Seattle Times on Friday that new interim widirector Daniel Hoffman told him last week he was fired from his leadership role at the Middle East Center.
Fani, who was born and raised in Iran and came to the US when he was 18 years old, said he was hired for his research on Iran. However, he told the Times that he now feels "profoundly hurt and betrayed" by his removal.
"There’s a chilling effect on not just my academic freedom, but that of my colleagues; anyone who dares to speak out against the war and against aggression," he said.
In a separate interview Friday with My Northwest, Fani said he was removed "for improper use" of the center's listserv, an email application.
"I sent out two memos about this atrocious war on Iran in which I offered historical analysis that’s lacking in the media,” Fani said. “I was told that my email made ‘certain constituents feel attacked.’ By certain constituents, I assume the university means Zionists who would like to keep bombing every Middle Eastern country and continue dehumanizing their people.”
Last July Fani told the The Daily UW, a student newspaper, that President Donald Trump's militaristic foreign policy—he's bombed 10 countries, more than any other US leader—is not making the world safer.
“If you tell the dozens of children that were killed in Israeli bombardment... in Iran, or the families of the nuclear scientists who were just wiped out, I hardly imagine they would say that the world is a more peaceful place," he said amid the first round of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran.
Since then, many more Iranian children have been killed by US and Israeli bombing, including more than 100 students who were among around 175 people massacred in the February 28 US cruise missile strike on a girls' school in Minab.
“The [only] peace this secures is for weapons manufacturers, for oil companies, for drone companies," Fani said in an implicit rebuke of Trump's claim to be the "president of peace."
"It secures peace for them, fills their pockets with money, and makes them fully invincible," he added. "It’s creating a class of people that are living [on] an alternate planet."
Fani was a close friend and defender of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, the 26-year-old Turkish-American UW grad and International Solidarity Movement volunteer who was fatally shot in 2024 while peacefully protesting the expansion of Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. Witnesses said Israeli occupation forces deliberately shot Eygi in the head.
The professor also called Zionism—some of whose founders acknowledged the colonial nature of their endeavor—a "cancerous" ideology.
Fani noted that his removal from his position at the Middle East Center coincided with a recent town hall-style meeting attended by UW President Robert Jones and right-wing media personality Ari Hoffman. According to Fani, Hoffman "specifically asked Jones" about the professor's leadership at the center.
“All we can do is try to remind people of their responsibilities as members of the university community,” Jones said at meeting. “Not trying to tell them that they can’t have a discussion about Palestine or about Israel, but let’s be clear that those discussions need to be had in a way that doesn’t perpetuate an environment where people feel unsafe.”
According to its website, UW's Middle East Center seeks "to strengthen an understanding of the Middle East in all sectors of American society through training and research at the University of Washington, as well as through delivery of outreach programming across the nation."
Fani is one of dozens of US academics who have been fired, had their contracts terminated, lost job offers, or faced other punitive repercussions for advocating Palestinian rights or opposing Israeli policies and practices.
Earlier this week, Shirin Saeidi, who headed the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, was terminated for social media posts deemed supportive of Iran's government, despite the fact that the school's Faculty Committee on Appointment, Promotion, and Tenure ruled unanimously in February that she should return to her position.
Late last month, Texas State University philosophy professor Idris Robinson sued school officials after he was fired for what he says was his 2024 off-campus lecture in North Carolina titled “Strategic Lessons from the Palestinian Resistance."
Israel's conduct in Gaza is the subject of an ongoing International Court of Justice (ICJ) genocide case filed by South Africa and formally supported by nearly 20 nations. The International Criminal Court has also issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza.
The ICJ found in 2024 that Israel's occupation of Palestine is an illegal form of apartheid.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Message to Senate Dems: No Confirmation of New AG Without Commitment on Epstein Files Release
“The American people are tired of a system where the powerful operate under a different set of rules. This is a moment to draw a line."
Apr 03, 2026
With Pam Bondi fired from her position as US attorney general, progressive campaigners on Friday said that Democrats in the Senate, although they are in the minority, must use the leverage they have to force a release of all the remaining files concerning convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
"Even in the minority, Senate Democrats have tools to exert pressure—by withholding votes, slowing proceedings, and setting clear conditions," said the grassroots group Our Revolution as it launched a nationwide petition demanding that Senate Democrats block the confirmation of Bondi's replacement unless they commit to the document release. "That leverage must be used."
Our Revolution elevated a call from US Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who along with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) has led the push for the US Department of Justice (DOJ) to release all of the Epstein files.
The latest release of files, which Bondi oversaw and which didn't occur until more than a month after a December 2025 deadline, failed to protect the identities of some survivors of the abuse perpetrated by Epstein and his vast network of powerful associates, while redacting the identities of many of the alleged abusers. Last month at a congressional hearing, Bondi refused to apologize to the survivors in attendance.
Khanna and Massie as well as Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) have led Democrats in demanding the release of 3 million more files that remain, which Garcia said in February include official FBI interviews regarding allegations that President Donald Trump sexually assaulted a 13-year-old child.
The release of files in late January included thousands of references to Trump, but Khanna said the release amounted to a "cover-up" due to the absence of many official FBI survivor statements.
Khanna said in an interview with NPR on Friday that "the Senate should make it absolutely clear they will not confirm a new attorney general unless that attorney general commits to the release of all these files and commits to starting investigations. And if that new attorney general doesn't live up to that word, they will have the same fate as Pam Bondi."
He added that acting Attorney General Todd Blanche—who stepped into the role vacated by Bondi without needing to go through the confirmation process due to his previous confirmation as Bondi's deputy—has falsely stated that "all the files" the DOJ can release have already been disclosed to the public.
"That's just not factual," said Khanna. "In the past, he said that there are 3 million files that have not been released. Now, he claims that they're not releasing those because they're protecting the identity of survivors. But if you talk to the survivors, if you talk to the survivors' lawyers, they will tell you, in fact, that the DOJ was reckless and did not protect their identity. And the 3 million files that haven't been released have the survivors' statements to the FBI agents, where the survivors name the rich and powerful people who raped them, abused them, showed up to Epstein's island, and that they are protecting a group of people who aren't playing by the same rules. This is about two tiers of justice in America."
Massie offered his congratulations to Blanche on Thursday before telling him, "Now you have 30 days to release the rest of the files before becoming criminally liable for failure to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act."
Our Revolution said Senate Democrats must condition any confirmation vote for Bondi's successor on "a clear commitment" to:
- Release all Epstein-related files with only the most limited and necessary redactions;
- Provide full disclosure of what the federal government knows about the Epstein files;
- Initiate credible investigations and prosecutions of the Epstein network and any co-conspirators; and
- Uphold the rule of law without targeting political opponents or shielding elites.
“The American people are tired of a system where the powerful operate under a different set of rules," said Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of Our Revolution. "This is a moment to draw a line. There should be no confirmation vote without a clear commitment to release the Epstein files, pursue prosecutions, and restore trust in the rule of law.”
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular