http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2009/julio/sab4/28MessH.html
Havana. July 4, 2009
Message from President Zelaya to the Honduran people
. Announcing his return to Tegucigalpa this Sunday
TEGUCIGALPA, July 4 (PL).-President Manuel Zelaya sent a message to the
Honduran people today assuring them that he is prepared to make any effort and
any sacrifice to obtain the freedom that the country needs.
Below is President Zelaya's proclamation prior to his return tomorrow to
this Central American nation to reoccupy his post after the coup d'état on June
28.
Proclamation of José Manuel Zelaya, constitutional president of the
Republic of Honduras, to the nation, July 4, 2009.
Compañeros and compañeras;
Honduran compatriots:
This is your President Manuel Zelaya Rosales speaking to you.
I want to tell you that my life's destiny is bound to the destiny of the
Honduran people.
Compañeros and compañeras;
In the morning of June 28, while I was getting ready to go to exercise my
vote in a referendum promoted by the Honduran people, I was the victim of
outrages, of assault and violation, kidnapping; I was taken prisoner and
expelled from my country by the military forces of Honduras; military forces
that today have lent themselves to and are in complicity with the voracious
elite that is exploiting and asphyxiating our people. They are obeying its
orders, they are not defending our nation or our democracy.
This cruel blow is against the Honduran nation and has exposed before the
world that in Honduras there is now a species of barbarity and persons who have
no awareness of the damage that they are inflicting on our country and its
future generations.
Via this means of communication I am urging that we continue with the
participation of the people, the principal actors in our democracy and in the
solutions that there can be to the major problems of poverty and inequality
that our nation is experiencing.
We Hondurans we have confronted many problems and we have always known
how to unite in order to move forward, and this is a great opportunity to
demonstrate to the world that we Hondurans are capable of standing up to these
problems and advancing, despite the obstacles of this criminal sect that is
currently trying to appropriate the fate of our nation and of our sons and
daughters.
I am talking to you, coup perpetrators, traitors, Judases who kissed my
cheek before proceeding to deliver a great blow to our country and to democracy.
You have to rectify things as soon as you possibly can, you are
surrounded. The world has made you a vacuum, all the nations of the world have
condemned you, without exception, there is a general repudiation of you; your
deeds are not going to go by in vain, because the international courts will
have to impute you for the genocide that you are committing in our country by
suppressing liberties, by repressing our people.
I am organizing my return to Honduras. I ask all campesinos, housewives,
inhabitants, indigenous peoples, youth, the various labor organizations,
businesspeople; the various political friends that I have throughout the
national territory: mayors and deputies, to accompany me on my return to
Honduras, which is the return of the president elected by the sovereign will of
the people. This is the only means of electing presidents in Honduras; we will
not lose our right, we will not allow individuals to start to make decisions
that correspond to the Honduran people through their legitimacy and their
popular will.
I am prepared to make any effort, any sacrifice to obtain the freedom
that our country needs.
Either we are free or we will be permanent slaves, if we lack the valor
to defend ourselves!
Do not carry weapons, no weapons! Practice what I have always preached:
non-violence. Let them be the ones to bear violence, weapons and repression,
and I will make the coup perpetrators responsible for every life, for every
person, for the physical integrity of everybody, and for the dignity of the
Honduran people.
We are going to appear at the international airport of Honduras in
Tegucigalpa with various presidents, various members of the international
community and, on Sunday, this Sunday, we shall be in Tegucigalpa embracing
each other, accompanying each other, in order to assert what we have so much
defended in our lives, which is the will of God through the will of the people.
Greetings, compatriots.
May God protect and bless us all!
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
