Honduran police - including the US-trained elite officers - announced they will no longer obey orders from the government until the political crisis is resolved.

"This is not a strike, this not about salaries or money.  It's that we have family.  We are tired.  And our job is to give peace and security to the Honduran people, not repress them.  We want all Hondurans to be safe," said an exasperated member of the elite US-trained Cobra force.

This comes after days of civil unrest over the botched presidential election, after which police arrested hundreds of protesters - in at least one case, entering a neighborhood known to be an opposition stronghold and arresting residents for the "offense" of banging pots and pans in protest of the government.  The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights says it has reports on eleven Hondurans killed in post-election violence.

"We condemn all forms of repression (and) regret all the deaths," said Marisa Matias, leader of the European Union delegation of election observers.  "In a democracy it’s normal that people have the right to peacefully protest."

The country and observers are frustrated that there is no definitive result from the the 26 November presidential election.  The initial results indicated that opposition leader Salvador Nasralla, who leads a Left-Right coalition, was five percentage points ahead of conservative incumbent President Juan Orlando Hernandez.  After sitting on the ballots for more than a week, election officials on Monday claimed that Hernandez was slightly ahead in the count.  But the electoral commission balked at calling the election for Hernandez, and instead hinted that another recount is likely.

Nasralla is having none of it.  "I am the president-elect of Honduras, the president chosen by the people," he declared on Monday.