Juan Orlando Hernandez, former president of Honduras & convicted drug trafficker, returned home on July 26, 2026
By Grahame Russell, Rights Action
Another nail in the coffin of Honduras:
The majority population keep on suffering the consequences
Juan Orlando Hernandez (JOH) - former drug-trafficking, military-backed president of Honduras; former long-time “democratic ally” of the U.S., Canada, Israel - returned home on July 26, 2026, after President Trump pardoned him in December 2025.
“We’re talking about the boss of all drug bosses.”
(Joaquin Mejia, Reflection, Research and Communication Team)
Trump pardoned JOH right after the U.S. government intervened in and trashed Honduras’ general elections in November 2025, ensuring that long-time JOH ally Nasry Asfura was ushered into the President’s office in January 2026. JOH had been serving a life sentence in jail in the U.S. for over-seeing a drug-trafficking cartel from the President’s office (2014-2022).
Honduras’ recent history from 2009-2026 offers a most depressing, violent and corrupt example of U.S., Israeli and Canadian interests and policies. That there is virtually no outrage or calls for accountability from the dominant political parties of these countries, and little honest reporting about the role of the U.S., Israel and Canada in Honduras’ recent history demonstrates the breadth of the complicity through political, economic, informational-media and legal institutions.
“But I know that if we don't tell this story as it is in Honduras — with the dispossession, the repression, the drug cartels' power, and the international interests and complicity — we're going to lose the battle for the narrative of what is actually happening.”
(Reina Rivera, Criterio.Hn)
Excerpts from a Reuters / AP report
Former President Hernandez returns to Honduras after Trump pardon?
By Reuters and The Associated Press, 26 Jul 2026
Former President Juan Orlando Hernandez has returned to Honduras from the United States after President Donald Trump pardoned him after he received a 45-year jail sentence for drug trafficking. […] Trump granted Hernandez a presidential pardon in December, asserting that he did not receive a fair trial and was set up by former U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration. […]
Arrest warrant suspended
Despite his pardon on the U.S. charges, Hernandez is expected to appear in court on August 3 to face the Honduran charges. However, he was not detained upon arrival in Honduras because an arrest warrant was suspended in June, and local activists are concerned that the trial will turn out to be a sham.
“Everything points to the suspension being the first step,” said Joaquin Mejia, a lawyer and researcher for the Reflection, Research and Communication Team, a human rights organisation. “He’ll come, they’ll likely issue him alternative measures to imprisonment to keep up appearances, and then he’ll end up without any problem, without any sanction.”
“There is a social majority that is outraged but doesn’t speak out because of fear,” Mejia added. “We’re talking about the boss of all drug bosses.” […]
Full article: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/7/26/former-president-hernandez-returns-to-honduras-after-trump-pardon
Opinion piece by Reina Rivera, Criterio.Hn, July 25, 2026
Honduras: The Perfect Storm and the Pardon That Brought Back Juan Orlando Hernández
(Translated by Rights Action)
https://criterio.hn/honduras-la-tormenta-perfecta-y-el-retorno-indultado-de-juan-orlando/
This is not just another crisis in Honduras. It is a convergence of serious situations that reinforce one another: economic, political, social, and territorial issues, violence, and now the return of a ghost with real power.
The government of President Nasry Asfura took office on January 27, 2026, amid allegations of fraud, propelled by the Donald Trump/Washington machine and its “Shield of the Americas” [new alliance of right-wing, repressive governments in the Americas] — an offensive aimed at labeling “the left” as terrorists — with accusations of algorithmic [electoral] fraud hanging over them in several countries across the continent (while now targeting Spain).
In the past six months, Asfura has traveled to the United States multiple times and held in-person meetings with Israeli officials there; he has also visited Israel and Ukraine. These three countries share common interests: espionage technology, multipurpose drones, and transnational technology businesses.
Meanwhile, we have not succeeded in even getting TPS (Temporary Protective Status) [for Honduran migrants] reinstated in the U.S., nor have we managed to get the U.S. to lower its 10% tariffs on us. In fact, they are keeping them at the same level — the very thing they criticized so much during President Xiomara Castro’s administration, which at least provided substantial and permanent subsidies to control the cost of living.
What has progressed is the territorial dispossession (4% of the island of Roatán is no longer Honduran territory, despite the Constitutional Court’s ruling), and now the Próspera ZEDE is coming to the mainland on the country’s northern coast — the port of Satuyé in La Ceiba and surrounding Garifuna territories.
It is said that behind ZEDE Prospera are multimillionaire investors, some of whom are associated with Silicon Valley billionaires, OpenAI, and other investors in technologies, cryptocurrencies, perverse biological experiments without ethical safeguards, and other ventures we cannot even imagine — but whose investors have the financial power to shake up the entire planet if they so choose.
And they’ve decided that they need the sovereignty of poor countries, because their own businesses are no longer enough for them, and they’re also bothered by the rules and laws of the countries of the global North. They need the “flexible rules” of poor countries — and of the Honduran Congress, the National Party representatives, and the high-society types that Salvador Nasralla left us as representatives, even though they later betrayed him; still, he chose that elite classes to suit his own needs.
Thus, the Nationalists, supported by the National-Liberal coalition government, quickly aligned themselves with the transnational far right, especially the U.S. and Israel.
This isn’t just theory: it’s the purchase of drones for espionage and repression, the presence of Israeli security firms to monitor us, control over networks, and interference with servers to control what enters the electoral process. They say it’s for security—to address issues related to drugs, technology, and both illegal and legal transnational business. Today, they have a very porous border.
Economically, they’re suffocating us: they’re seizing land and privatizing public assets. The ENEE [National Electric Power Company], the state’s last major asset, is being dismantled. They say it’s because of losses, but who isn’t paying? The business owners with concessions—the ones who owe millions. They give poor people 30 days to pay their bill, or they cut off their electricity.
A perverse system where some accumulate wealth while others struggle to survive—and it has also privatized medical and hospital care.
Add to that the exhaustion of unemployment and the daily struggle to survive: paying rent, school fees, and food—all while out of work. How can you take action when you don’t know if you’ll have enough to eat tomorrow?
While they silence all criticism: alternative media outlets like Criterio HN have had their news websites and social media pages taken down, and police patrols harass them. No local human rights organization stands with them. In a country with almost no protection for defenders, that is censorship under threat of death.
The spreading fear is no coincidence. It has reached the highest echelons of oversight bodies. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, under pressure from an impeachment proceeding, resigned; electoral judges and both regular and alternate council members who could have served as a counterweight were removed through impeachment proceedings. Nearly half of the Libre Party’s congressional caucus now face legal investigations initiated by the Attorney General’s Office, and we’re seeing them keep a low profile.
And against this backdrop, former President Juan Orlando Hernández is returning. They say he is innocent, but he was convicted in the U.S. of conspiracy to export cocaine and weapons and was granted a political pardon—a presidential pardon.
His brother is serving a life sentence in the U.S. for drug trafficking as well, but JOH walked free.
He’s not just any former president. He’s been pardoned by Trump, with Marco Rubio and Israeli Zionism backing him. He wields more power than President Asfura himself, because he pulls the strings that truly call the shots on the international stage, including the ZEDE Próspera lobby, which owes its existence to its former president and founding father.
And before he returns [on July 26], “with a clean slate,” with the approval and undisguised joy of the AG’s Office, the media, the CNA, the ASJ, and others, we cannot fail to mention that violence has increased, since we know that both common and organized crime are nothing new, but are now intertwined with transnational power. It is said that Israeli investments—the same entities that commit genocide with impunity in Gaza—are here in Honduras in the security and defense sectors.
The recent backdrop includes the unsolved massacre of 20 campesinos in Rigores, Trujillo, Colón; the killing of five police officers from the recently disbanded DIPAMPCO in Omoa; the spike in homicides and femicides; and the shocking rise in massacres. Could this be the return of the structures that once served local power and now serve transnational interests?
On the positive side, however, there is resistance. I see it in the Garifuna people, in the farmers who refuse to be evicted, and in communities that are organizing despite their fear. But it is scattered, poorly organized, and lacks effective support from the people.
Precisely for that reason — because the system is designed to demobilize us — we need to understand it, as a warning and a call to action. If we don’t connect the dots, if we don’t see that fear, perverse alliances with powerful groups, and the use of social media and technology are its main tools, we will continue to react from a position of vulnerability, rather than acting in a coordinated manner both nationally and internationally.
I don’t know if the people will wake up. But I know that if we don't tell this story as it is—with the dispossession, the repression, the drug cartels' power, and the international interests and complicity—we're going to lose the battle for the narrative of what is actually happening. And that battle is just as important as the battle over land or energy.
Mobilization is not a luxury; it is a necessity. Even if it hurts, even if it’s scary, even if we’re tired. Because otherwise, this perverse system will continue to rob us of everything and destroy us in countless ways, swallowed up by any of the tentacles of this perfect storm.
Reina Rivera: a Honduran attorney, legal scholar, and human rights defender with extensive experience in the fields of justice, international cooperation, and civil society work.
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Reina Rivera finishes her passionate, clear-headed assessment of how bad things are in Honduras with a call to action:
“Mobilization is not a luxury; it is a necessity. Even if it hurts, even if it’s scary, even if we’re tired. Because otherwise, this perverse system will continue to rob us of everything and destroy us in countless ways, swallowed up by any of the tentacles of this perfect storm.”
Rights Action, together with other U.S., Canadian-based groups, will continue our chipping away work, directly support land, rights and environmental defenders as best we can, and always exposing and denouncing the complicity of our own political, economic and legal institutions.
“Impacts of North American Tourist Investments on
Afro-Indigenous Garifuna Lands, Rights & Communities in Honduras”
Eastern Canada speaking tour, Sept.29-Oct.9, 2026
OFRANEH & Karen Spring (HSN)
To host an event:
Karen Spring, karen@hondurassol.org, +504-8785-5757 (Whatsapp), +1-705-816-1849 (Canadian number)
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EcoJustice Radio interview with Grahame Russell
Garifuna people & Hondurans in resistance to U.S. & Canadian exploitation, violence & corruption