We would like to inform the brotherly organizations, national and international cooperatives institutions the incident that touched the lives of more than 5.000 Honduras workers/ the markets workers in Tegucigalpa, of which 1,800 are affiliated to our federation that lost as much as they had invested on their stalls /working areas.
All and each one of the companions remain at the mercy of the government support. The government does not build nor maintains again their working spaces in order to continue exercising their activity with which they have earned themselves the life for more than thirty years. The incident was caused by huge fire that burnt into ashes five markets located in the centre of the capital of the republic of Honduras specifically in Comayagüela municipality of the central district.
The incident took place in the framework of a series of incidents that happened in the period of the recent past week. Some are related to incidents that were never seen in our country such as: the arrozaso and the gasolinazo, the first one related to the illegal introduction of thousands of tons of rice to which the Honduran producers reacted immediately, what became a national and international scandal. The same thing occurred with the introduction of illegal sale of fuel. All this happened in view of patience of the competent authorities, who are directly and indirectly guilty and had not been taken to courts of justice. (the impunity continues). The fires, these occurred in the middle of the scandal of the arrozaso and the gasolinazo, and is considered as largest fires and most painful history in Latin America, that happened in the night of February 14 exactly at 9: 51 pm, in the penal farm located in the valley of Comayagua where more than 850 inmates were found imprisoned. The national opinion is that the crime was planned due to lack of help for the victims from the authorities when they wanted to escape death as none of the authorities of the penal helped them. Instead the prison authorities responded with gun shots without giving attention to the calls of aid. The firemen team reported to the incident place but upon arrival at the entrance of the prison, the prison authorities did not allow them to enter in due time. Consequently 359 people died of burns and they were burnt beyond recognition. Presently, the process of identification by forensic authority is in progress. More than 10 people managed to escape from the flames with small and large burns. 6 of them died in the hospital while the other are in the process of recovery. Among those are relatives of our affiliates. They are mainly located in Comayagua. The other incident is the fire that burnt down 5 markets that had the same rapidity. The national public think that this matter of another incident was properly planned and executed by criminals.
CONCLUSIONS
-At present we are in a political year and is curious that similar facts have smaller impact and proportion they have been given in other political years of recently passed times, as it is the case of the jail of El Porvenir , Department of Atlanta and that of San Pedro, where a quantity of inmates died burned and the responsible authorities. Up to now it has not been presented a convincing report (9 years), it is suspected that they intend to deviate the attention of the gasolinazo and the arrozaso so that the same remain in the impunity, similarly , it is suspected that someone may be creating these scenarios and utilize them to win followers and political sympathy. In the case of the prison in Comayagua the authorities did not know the regulation related to cases of emergency. By any means, the Honduran nation and her social organizations are requesting a truthful and exhaustive investigation and free from any political criterion in the meantime our organization is realising recollection activities of any kind of solidarity support for contributing on certain immediate needs of our affiliates and, likewise we motivate some type of supportive initiative that come from you for being able to channel it for our means, we are structured internally for facilitating that reach directly the affected people.
San Pedro Sula Cortes, 20 February 2012
FOTSSIEH EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
