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Sacramento Local President Witnesses Coup in Honduras

When Greg Larkins, president of Sacramento, Calif., Local 340, joined a delegation hosted by Manuel Zelaya, the president of Honduras, to be an observer of a June referendum in that nation, he knew that the experience would be different from his work as a poll watcher in elections back home.

But Larkins, political director of the Sacramento Labor Council, never could have imagined himself witnessing a political coup.

Front row (front left): Bill Camp, executive director, Sacramento Central Labor Council; Dion Archuleta, Teamsters Local 150; Arturo Aleman, SEIU.  Middle row: (from left): Lloyd McKinney, Sheet Metal Workers Local 162; Kate Allen, SCLU intern.  Top row: (from left): Chris Bender, SEIU Local 1000; Greg Larkins, president IBEW Local 340.

Directly upon arriving in Central America, Larkins was invited to a dinner where he sat eight feet from Zelaya while the president explained the controversy in his nation over a referendum on changing the nation’s constitution.

“Zelaya was a good president who raised the minimum wage and developed social programs for his people,” says Larkins, who has participated in a California relief effort to raise medical and educational support for Honduran citizens. “The hierarchy and the ‘haves’ didn’t like what he was doing to help the ‘have-nots,’” he adds.

Waking up the next morning, Larkins went to his hotel lobby to catch a bus to a polling place.  TV cameras were everywhere.  Amidst the chaos, he learned that Zelaya had been abducted by masked military men in early morning and removed from office. 

“It was surreal,” says Larkins.  “Our host was on the public enemy list and they were rounding up his supporters.” 

The last thing the leaders of the coup wanted was intervention by the United States, says Larkins.  His delegation was told to “lay low” by personnel at the U.S. Embassy until a plane would arrive to take them back home.  The next day, they returned to California.

Read the story of the Sacramento labor delegation’s saga in Honduras in Sacramento News and Review:

http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/PrintFriendly?oid=1080620