Reuters

The newspaper La Jornada
Friday, August 30, 2024, p. 29

Tegucigalpa. Honduran President Xiomara Castro yesterday denounced that a plan is being hatched to destabilize her government using the armed forces, amid friction with the U.S. administration.

The president made the comments a day after her administration canceled a century-old extradition treaty with the United States in response to comments by the White House ambassador to Tegucigalpa, Laura Dogu, who criticized a meeting between Honduran and Venezuelan officials in Caracas.

A plan is being hatched against my government and it is important that the people know this.Castro said.

I will not allow the instrument of extradition to be used to intimidate or blackmail the armed forces. We are defending the army, not coups d’état.he added

The president, a 64-year-old leftist wife of former president Manuel Zelaya (2006-2009), said that the attacks They put at risk the general elections scheduled for November 2025, where the president, deputies, mayors and other positions will be elected.

Laura Dogu expressed her concern on Wednesday after seeing images of a meeting in Venezuela between the Honduran Minister of Defense, Manuel Zelaya – nephew of the president – ​​and the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Roosevelt Hernández, sitting next to a drug dealerwithout giving further details.

In the photographs of the meeting, Zelaya appears with his Venezuelan counterpart, Vladimir Padrino, who has been accused by the United States of conspiring to distribute cocaine aboard a US-registered aircraft.

The extradition treaty was considered a key tool to dismantle the “narco-state”which, according to the American justice system, was created in Honduras under the government of President Juan Orlando Hernández (2014-2022), currently imprisoned in the United States.

Honduran Foreign Minister Enrique Reina said he had information that in the country a barracks coup would be promotedwhich would mean a movement in the barracks for the removal of military leaders.

In 2009, following a confrontation between then-President Zelaya, Congress and the country’s highest court, the president suffered a coup d’état that, according to those close to Zelaya, was supported by Washington.