On the evening of July 11 a group of men entered the home of Honduran activist Roger Bados in the 6 de Mayo neighborhood of the northern city of San Pedro Sula and shot him dead. Bados was the former president of the union at a local cement factory and a member of the leftist Democratic Unification Party (UD) and of the Popular Bloc, a coalition of grassroots organizations active in the struggle against the military coup that overthrew President José Manuel Zelaya Rosales on June 28. Erasto Reyes, another grassroots leader, told the Venezula-based television network TeleSUR that the murder came at "a moment in which the political crisis is aggravating the security situation for leaders." But he said the organizations will continue to carry out "peaceful, nonviolent" mobilizations. "We're not letting down our guard; we're continuing in the struggle."

Ramón García, also a UD member, was killed the same night in the Callejones area of the western department of Santa Bárbara. Unknown persons ordered him to get out of a bus and killed him, according to a UD leader, Renán Valdés, who said that García's sister and his nephew's wife were also wounded. (TeleSUR, July 12)

From Weekly News Update on the Americas, July 13

See our last post on Honduras.