Thousands of people marched in the Honduran capital on Saturday, September 14, to support President Xiomara Castro, who was shocked by a video showing her brother-in-law meeting with drug traffickers suspected of having negotiated the financing of her campaign in 2013.
“Xiomara is not alone”chanted protesters in front of the presidential palace in the capital, Tegucigalpa. “As coreligionists we must support him”“Carlos Umanzor, a 65-year-old farmer from a border area with El Salvador, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
METROme Castro announced in late August the cancellation of the extradition treaty with the United States, saying that she feared it would be used against military loyal to him and facilitate a coup attempt. She had denounced this pact, attacking“United States interference and interventionism”.
Key instrument in the fight against drug trafficking
However, the opposition says he cancelled the treaty to protect members of his government and his family. Thousands of opposition protesters marched in the capital in early September to denounce the cancellation of the treaty.
Three days after the announcement of the end of the treaty, a brother-in-law and a nephew of the leftist president resigned: Congressman Carlos Zelaya, after admitting to prosecutors that he had met drug traffickers in 2013, according to a video published on Tuesday, September 3 by the investigative site InSight Crime and the Univision channel, and his son, the Minister of Defense, José Manuel Zelaya.
The extradition treaty, a key instrument in the fight against international drug trafficking in this Central American country, was signed in 1912. Under this pact, some fifty Hondurans have been handed over to the United States since 2014.
