{"id":70911,"date":"2025-12-04T12:09:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T12:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/70911\/"},"modified":"2025-12-04T12:09:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T12:09:10","slug":"honduras-reacts-with-mixed-feelings-to-the-release-of-juan-orlando-hernandez-international","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/70911\/","title":{"rendered":"Honduras reacts with mixed feelings to the release of Juan Orlando Hern\u00e1ndez | International"},"content":{"rendered":"

Omar owns a small fleet of cars in Tegucigalpa, works as a driver, and manages other drivers. His small business survives despite the constant threat posed by gangs and organized crime networks<\/a> that conduct their illegal business in Honduras, a country mired in violence. \u201cI have to pay extortion,\u201d he says. \u201cOtherwise, I can\u2019t work.\u201d He\u2019s referring to the threatening calls he receives regularly demanding payments. This robust man supports the conservative National Party and makes no secret of his sympathy for former president Juan Orlando Hern\u00e1ndez, who was released by a pardon from Donald Trump<\/a> after being sentenced to 45 years in a U.S. prison for his ties to drug trafficking. Omar\u2019s reason for supporting the politician is simple: he says he felt safer under Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s government. His support is a reflection of how divided the country is after the release of a president also accused of corruption on a massive scale.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow I only have to pay one criminal group,\u201d Omar says resignedly. \u201cBefore, up to three groups would call me, but that decreased with Juan Orlando\u2019s iron fist. They would kidnap fellow drivers and demand ransoms for their release. They killed several. Once, they called us demanding 100,000 lempiras (about $4,000) to release one of our colleagues. They threatened to cut off a finger or his hand. We scraped together 25,000 lempiras and paid,\u201d he recalls. He says that with the current government of Xiomara Castro<\/a>, the feeling of fear has returned, so, for him, Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s administration wasn\u2019t bad. He doesn\u2019t forgive him, however, for the corruption cases and especially for having remained in power in violation of the Constitution, which categorically prohibits reelection. He maintains, however, that Hern\u00e1ndez was the victim of political persecution.<\/p>\n

Juan Orlando Hern\u00e1ndez in Tegucigalpa, in April 2022. Jorge Cabrera (Getty Images)<\/p>\n

This is how the landscape in Honduras has changed in the four years since the politician\u2019s arrest. People voted overwhelmingly against the National Party in the 2022 elections, a clear demonstration of their weariness with corruption and what was known locally as the \u201cnarco-state<\/a>,\u201d because Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s critics maintain that part of his government\u2019s power rested on pacts with drug traffickers. Meanwhile, public discontent grew due to the corruption scandals that plagued his presidency. One of the most notorious cases was the embezzlement of over $200 million from the social security institute. Journalistic investigations revealed that some of that money was used to finance the National Party\u2019s election campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe pardon doesn\u2019t erase the accusations of drug trafficking, using the state for organized crime, and arms purchases. The pardon doesn\u2019t erase what he politically represented in terms of state intervention, privatization, repression, and militarization,\u201d explains Luc\u00eda Vijil of the Center for Studies for Democracy (Cespad), a progressive organization that monitors power in Honduras. \u201cIn the historical memory of this country, Hern\u00e1ndez represents the negative aspects, the interests of business and organized crime.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the political spectrum, the division is more pronounced. The so-called hardline vote of the National Party (an organization that throughout the country\u2019s political history has shared power with the Liberal Party) supports Hern\u00e1ndez, to such an extent that his wife, Ana Garc\u00eda, participated in the primaries of that political organization and obtained 20% of the party\u2019s support.<\/p>\n

In Honduras, politics has always been controlled by families, as shown by the current leftist government of Xiomara Castro: her husband, former president Manuel Zelaya, is a presidential advisor; her son H\u00e9ctor is a private secretary; another son, Jose Manuel, is Minister of Defense, and her brother-in-law, Carlos Zelaya, is Secretary of Congress.<\/p>\n

Nasry Asfura on November 30.Leonel Estrada (REUTERS)<\/p>\n

The nationalist candidate in the November 30 election, Nasry Asfura<\/a>, justified the pardon of Hern\u00e1ndez as a nod to his core supporters. \u201cFor the family, the pardon puts their sorrows behind them and allows them to regain the peace and happiness they deserve,\u201d the politician said.<\/p>\n

Zelaya, for his part, criticized Trump\u2019s interference in the election and called it an \u201celectoral coup\u201d against the candidate of the ruling LIBRE party, Rixi Moncada. \u201cThey resort to interference because they can\u2019t win fairly. The maneuver is crude: a blatant, threatening, unjust, and infamous foreign intervention to twist the popular will,\u201d Zelaya wrote on social media. \u201cThey make the same mistake as always: underestimating the Honduran people and our capacity to fight. Mr. Donald Trump, you don\u2019t intimidate us. We have withstood coups, monumental fraud, political assassinations, and persecution. If we survived the narco-dictatorship, do you think one of your tweets is going to bend us to your will?\u201d the former president said, referring to the 2009 coup that ousted him from office<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Zelaya\u2019s party, LIBRE, emerged from the popular movements that gained momentum after the coup, including the National Front of Popular Resistance (FNRP). Its humiliating defeat in Sunday\u2019s election (it only garnered 19% of the vote) is seen as a punishment from the electorate that supported it in 2022 in the hope of change. \u201cIt failed to thoroughly confront the power structures that dominate the country, compounded by its disconnect from grassroots organizing and the inefficiency of some state officials, who abandoned their social commitment to prioritize personal interests,\u201d explains the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPIHN), the organization to which activist Berta C\u00e1ceres<\/a>, murdered in 2016 during Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s administration, belonged.<\/p>\n

Among those convicted for that crime are the three hitmen who shot the environmentalist, three former military personnel, and two workers linked to the company Desarrollos Energ\u00e9ticos S.A. (Desa), which would build the hydroelectric dam that C\u00e1ceres opposed.<\/p>\n

\u201cHondurans have no historical memory,\u201d criticizes analyst Vijil. \u201cIt seems there\u2019s no understanding of what the web of corruption and drug trafficking entailed in all state institutions and the consequences it has had,\u201d she adds. \u201cBut Hondurans have a lot of faith in the United States and see it as a benchmark in terms of the kind of country we aspire to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

What is clear is that Hern\u00e1ndez remains an influential figure in Honduras, as evidenced by opinions like that of small business owner Omar, who is willing to forgive him despite the accusations and court convictions against him. \u201cHe has leadership within the ranks of the National Party and could be an opposition candidate because he managed to shape, reshape, and redesign the state to serve his interests,\u201d Vijil notes. \u201cWhat is happening in Honduras is a disappointment in terms of justice, but we must wait to see what the true reaction of the people will be if Hern\u00e1ndez sets foot in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sign up for our weekly newsletter<\/a> to get more English-language news coverage from EL PA\u00cdS USA Edition<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Omar owns a small fleet of cars in Tegucigalpa, works as a driver, and manages other drivers. His…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70912,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[409,14690,38303,139,141,140,40248,40874],"class_list":["post-70911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-donald-trump","tag-honduras","tag-juan-orlando-hernandez","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-tegucigalpa","tag-xiomara-zelaya"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70911\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}