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Castro said he would not allow the current treaty with the United States to be selectively exploited to dismantle the Armed Forces.
Honduran President Xiomara Castro on Tuesday denounced the existence of a plan to “destroy” her government and “deal a new coup d’état” in the country, and condemned “all types of negotiations between drug traffickers and politicians” following the release of a video showing a meeting in 2013 between her brother-in-law, Carlos Zelaya, and drug traffickers.
“The plan to destroy my socialist, democratic government and the upcoming electoral process is underway. The same dark internal and external forces of 2009, with the complicity of the national and international corporate media, are reorganizing in our country to carry out a new coup d’état, which the people must repel,” Castro said on national radio and television.
He added that the Crime Solution Plan, approved in March 2023, demonstrates his “political commitment in favor of extradition,” but assured that “I will not allow the current treaty with the United States to be selectively exploited to dismantle the Armed Forces, overthrow my Government and destroy the elections” that the country will hold in 2025.
Castro confirmed that “the internal peace and security of the Republic are at risk” and recalled “the threats” of the United States ambassador in Tegucigalpa, Laura Dogu, who accused the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Armed Forces, Roosevelt Hernández, and the Minister of Defense, José Manuel Zelaya, who resigned from his post after his father Carlos Zelaya confessed that he met with drug traffickers.
The Honduran government decided last Wednesday to “terminate” the bilateral extradition treaty with the United States amid diplomatic tension with the US ambassador in Tegucigalpa for criticizing a recent meeting between Honduran authorities and the sanctioned Venezuelan Defense Minister, Vladimir Padrino López.
On the same radio and television channel, the Honduran government revealed a list of opposition politicians who are being investigated in the US for drug trafficking.
Tools and technology to combat drug trafficking
The Honduran president on Tuesday ordered the Honduran Attorney General’s Office to “take drastic action” in the cases disclosed about opposition politicians who are believed to be involved in drug trafficking, “without any selectivity in the fight against drug trafficking.”
He asked the Honduran parliament, where the Libre party does not have a majority, to reform the laws necessary to ensure that the state security force, “currently limited, can combat this organized crime with force.”
Castro ordered his defense minister to provide the Armed Forces with the necessary tools and technology to “prevent Honduras from continuing to be used as a bridge for drug trafficking, which is consumed by the ton in the destination countries.”
Regarding the video released today of a meeting in 2013 between her brother-in-law Carlos Zelaya and drug traffickers, the president said that “I condemn all types of negotiations between drug traffickers and politicians.”
According to a report by the US non-governmental organization InSight Crime (Organized Crime in the Americas), released Tuesday by the local Honduran press, Carlos Zelaya, Castro’s brother-in-law and brother of former President Manuel Zelaya, met with drug traffickers in 2013 and was offered to donate more than $500,000 to the campaign of the ruling party Liberty and Refoundation (Libre).
Carlos Zelaya admitted on Saturday that he met with drug traffickers in 2013 who offered him money for the Libre Party campaign, although he denied having received any money, and announced his resignation as secretary of the Honduran Parliament.
InSight Crime highlights that the video “is further shocking evidence of the depth of drug traffickers’ infiltration of Honduras’ political class,” and confirms “long-held suspicions that Honduras’ current ruling party, like politicians such as (Juan Orlando) Hernández, was not immune to the influence of drug money just as campaigns for the 2025 elections are intensifying.”
The video was handed over by Devis Leonel and Javier Rivera Maradiaga, former leaders of the Los Cachiros cartel, after reaching an agreement with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in December 2013.
