The president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro Moros, reaffirmed his absolute commitment to brotherhood with the Honduran people and with the process of change led by President Xiomara Castro:
“I want to send you from Venezuela our love, the solidarity and absolute commitment of the Bolivarian Revolution, from the people of Simón Bolívar, from the people of Hugo Chávez to the process of change of the Honduran people, to President Xiomara Castro,” he expressed.
The message of the Venezuelan President was presented by Manuel Zelaya during the second edition of the forum of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, CELAC Social 2024, within the framework of the 15 years of the coup d’état in Honduras, during the mandate of former president Manuel (Mel) Zelaya:
“That June 28, 2009, when a criminal attack tried to kill President Mel Zelaya and took away democracy and the rights of the people of Honduras,” said President Maduro, detailing that during his time as Chancellor of Venezuela, he was instructed to rescue the former Honduran president:
“Commander Hugo Chávez told me: Send the vice minister for Latin America, commander –Francisco-Arias Cárdenas, with a plane immediately to Costa Rica to rescue Mel Zelaya. And so it was done (…) -Zelaya- he was in the middle of a press conference, Commander Arias Cárdenas appeared and rescued him because they had kidnapped him, they almost killed him and they criminally removed him, kidnapped from his country of Honduras,” he pointed out.
Likewise, he praised the rebellious and brave character of Zelaya, who “got on the plane from Venezuela, the plane of the ALBA – Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our Americas – People’s Trade Treaty – and went to Nicaragua and there it began this whole process: Presidential meetings, we went to the OAS-Organization of American States-, we went to the UN-United Nations Organization-”, while praising the resistance of the Honduran people against the dictatorship that was imposed on them.
“The popular resistance in the streets for days, weeks, months, I believe is the most exemplary and longest day of popular resistance known against a dictatorship in the history of Latin America and the Caribbean,” he pointed out.
The Venezuelan head of state detailed the path that the Honduran people lived until reaching the “candidacy of comrade Xiomara Castro, the fraud against Xiomara and against the resistance, and then the victory, that victory that has always belonged to the people of Honduras,” he indicated.
