A statement released by the organization indicates after three days of dialogue with citizens, communities, deputies, and Honduran Executives, that the so-called employment and economic development zones (ZEDE) privatize national sovereignty.

Such effects are similar to those of the 2009 coup d’état that stripped the Honduran people of their rights to self-determination and caused more than 12 years of destruction to the country’s security, prosperity, and sovereignty.

The organization highlighted the exceptional public and private corruption scandal of the ZEDEs, and described it as an “authoritarian abuse of the most sacred rights of the Honduran people by the sordid and petty pirate interest of foreign corporations.”

It stated that the ZEDEs represent a violation of Honduran sovereignty and the social, economic, and environmental rights of its citizens and that their real name should be “new corporate colonialism.”

According to the international delegation of diplomats, parliamentarians, analysts and experts who worked in Tegucigalpa last weekend, the ZEDEs constitute a threat not only to Honduras but to all the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean.

The ZEDEs project was approved in 2013, and in June 2021 it received the endorsement of the Supreme Court of Justice. In April of last year, the National Congress of Honduras repealed the law on the creation of these zones after strong social and political pressure.

jrr/llp/lam/ybv