Memories of a Honduran coup

How the events of 2009 in Honduras shaped my worldview.

Twelve years ago, in the wee hours of June 28, 2009, Manuel Zelaya, the president of Honduras, was abducted from his residence by heavily armed Honduran soldiers and carted off to Costa Rica in his pyjamas, never to be restored to his rightful post. Prior to the coup, the slightly left-leaning Zelaya had raised the urban minimum wage to $300 a month and pursued a smattering of other domestic adjustments. While these measures hardly did much to alleviate institutionalised misery, they were still too abominable a departure from business as usual for the right-wing Honduran elite – faithful acolytes of American empire and replicators of capitalist oppression. Following Zelaya’s overthrow, the Barack Obama administration in the United States took its sweet time debating whether the coup had actually been a coup and should therefore trigger the required cutoffs in aid to Honduras.