Honduras: Political Pamphlets

Pamphlets, leaflets, reports, court reports and testimonies issued by Americas Watch Committee (U.S.), Asociacin Centroamericana de Familiares de Detenidos Desaparecidos, Catholic Institute for International Relations, Centro de Documentacin de Honduras, Centro de Estudios Pesquisa e Planejamento (CENPLA), Christian Aid Education Department, Comit de Familiares de Detenidos-Desaparecidos en Honduras, Comisin para la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos en Centroamrica, Comit para la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos en Honduras, Confederacin Universitaria Centroamericana, Coordinadora en Apoyo a la Lucha del Pueblo Hondureo, Empresa Nacional de Energa Elctrica (Honduras), EPICA (Organization), Instituto de Investigaciones Socio-Econmicas (Tegucigalpa, Honduras), Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Internationale Gesellschaft fr Menschenrechte (IGFM), Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, Programa de Defensa de la Autonoma y Solidaridad con las Universidade, Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores Centroamericanistas de Honduras, Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Industria de la Bebida y Similares, Unin Nacional de Intelectuales Democrticos de Honduras, Washington Office on Latin America.

From 1963 to 1978 Honduras endured a series of military coups and disputed elections as well as the 1969 war with El Salvador and the devastation caused by Hurricane Fifi which killed an estimated 10,000 in 1974. Though the country moved towards an ostensibly civilian form of government from 1978, culminating three years later in an election win for the Partido Liberal de Honduras (PLH), the growing insurgencies in neighbouring El Salvador and Nicaragua during this period led to an upsurge in regional tensions, and a growing influx of refugees. As Honduras became drawn into the US-backed Contras' struggle against the Sandinista government in Nicuaragua the army used the opportunity to crack down on dissent at home, and reports of human rights abuses began to increase. When the Sandinistas lost the 1990 Nicaraguan election the significance of Honduras to the United States largely disappeared, as did the aid that had formerly been liberally provided, leaving the country facing the same economic concerns as in the 1970s. The materials held here date primarily from the this period in the late 70s to the end of the main Central American guerrilla struggle, and deal with both the country's economic situation and with the war and the human rights fallouts thereof. The material comes from trades unions and political groups, though not from the major parties, as well as from external human rights organisations and NGOs.

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Open to all for research purposes; access is free for anyone in higher education.

"Description compiled by Daniel Millum, Political Archives Project Officer at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies and the Institute for the Study of the Americas

Records at item level on library catalogue (SASCAT)

Copies can usually be obtained - apply to library staff.

The majority of the materials held in the political archives of the Library of the Institute for the Study of the Americas (ISA) originate from the Contemporary Archive on Latin America (CALA), a documentation and research centre on Latin America which donated its holdings to the Institute of Latin American Studies (ILAS) upon its closure in 1981. In 2004 ILAS merged with the Institute of United States Studies (IUSS) to form ISA, which inherited the political archives. The core collection has continued since 1981 to be supplemented by further donations and by materials acquired through the visits of Institute staff and their contacts to the relevant countries.

Further accruals are expected

See also Political Pamphlet material for other countries in the region, as well as related material in the library's main classified sequence, all held in the ISA library.