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'More terror' in Honduras, as another unionist murdered
The body of 29-year-old Vanessa Yamileth Zepeda, still dressed in her nurse's scrubs and killed by a bullet, turned up in the Loarque neighborhood of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, on February 4. Zepeda had young children and was a leader of the SITRAIHSS labor union (Workers Union for the Honduran Social Security Institute). She had been abducted that afternoon while leaving a union meeting.
The administration of the newly inaugurated President Porfirio "Pepe" Lobo has called Zepeda's murder and other recent attacks common crime. But the Honduran resistance movement–mobilized since the June 2009 coup against then-president Manuel Zelaya–see it as a clear message.
Trade unionists, especially public sector workers like Zepeda, are among the strongest and largest factions making up the resistance coalition. Opposition to powerful unions was apparently among the motivations for the coup in the first place, and all the country's major union federations are part of the resistance front.
Unions are an impediment to neoliberal pushes to increase privatization, and foreign companies fear clashes with unions or unionizing efforts in Honduras' maquila (factory) sector.