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HONDURAS: Anti-Coup Resistance Movement
"Firmly United"
By Juan Ramón Durán
TEGUCIGALPA (IPS) - The National Resistance
Front Against the Coup d'Etat (FRN) in
Honduras is carrying out a nationwide
consultation among its members to establish
its position with respect to the expected
talks between ousted President Manuel Zelaya
and the de facto government, the movement's
leaders said.
Although face to face talks between Zelaya
and de facto President Roberto Micheletti
have been ruled out for now, a dialogue to
come up with a solution to the political
crisis will begin next week, John Biehl, an
adviser to Organisation of American States
(OAS) secretary general José Miguel Insulza,
said Friday.
Marvín Ponce, a lawmaker of the left-wing
Democratic Unification (UD) party, said the
FNR is "firmly united," despite the
diversity of social, labour and political
sectors represented by the movement that
began to take shape and hold protests
immediately after Zelaya was removed from
his house at gunpoint by the military and
put on a plane to Costa Rica on Jun. 28.
"We are carrying out a consultation process
to decide how and with what position we will
participate, with regard to the different
proposals to solve the conflict," Ponce told
IPS Thursday, under the close watch of a
squad of policemen who just a few minutes
earlier had violently broken up a protest by
some 300 members of the FNR outside the U.S.
embassy.
Demonstrations have also been held outside
the Brazilian embassy since Zelaya slipped
back into the country and took refuge there
on Sept. 21.
Ponce said the FNR is made up of the UD, the
Movement of Liberals (members of the Liberal
Party) against the Coup, a faction of the
Social Democratic Innovation and Unity Party
(PINU), the country's three central trade
unions, the federation of teachers' unions,
a group of cooperatives, a coalition of
trade unions of public employees known as
the Popular Bloc, and the Coordinator of
Popular Resistance, an umbrella group of
grassroots and popular organisations.
This broad range of organisations, with a
total combined membership of around 100,000
people, have come together in the FNR around
two basic demands: the reinstatement of
Zelaya to finish out his presidential term,
which ends in January; and the election of a
constituent assembly to rewrite the
constitution, in order to bring about
significant social changes in Honduras, said
Ponce.
Koritza Díaz, a former president of the
powerful union of high school teachers, said
it is only logical that sometimes
contradictory views would emerge from within
such a large social movement as the FNR,
after so many months of continuous action.
"The FNR has short, medium and long-term
aims," said Díaz. "The popular pressure
exerted by means of daily protest marches in
the streets of Tegucigalpa has kept the
usurper government from consolidating its
hold on power.
"President Zelaya's presence in the country
and his reinstatement are the first point on
the country's agenda and have overshadowed
the campaign (for the Nov. 29 presidential
elections) in the public mind. The de facto
government had to declare a state of siege
to intimidate us and try to curb such a
vigorous protest, never before seen in this
country," said the trade unionist, in the
middle of a shoving match between the police
and demonstrators.
On Sunday, Micheletti declared a state of
siege for 45 days, suspending key civil
liberties. But after allies in Congress, the
electoral authorities, the media association
and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged
that the emergency measures be lifted,
Micheletti said he would do so.
After removing a small sign reading "No to
the Coup" that was covering her mouth, Díaz
said the movement had achieved 50 percent of
the short-term aim of the return and
reinstatement of Zelaya.
The medium-term focus, she said, was to push
for a constituent assembly. And the
long-term struggle, she said, is for "true
democracy in Honduras, not this democracy
that just involves going to vote every four
years, but a real solution to the country's
problems, especially a radical fight against
poverty and corruption."
As Díaz was talking to IPS, some 20 Women's
Rights Centre activists showed up dressed in
black and holding white carnations, formed
two lines and began to sing the national
anthem. But they were immediately surrounded
by police. In response to the shoving by the
police, they sang "they're afraid of us,
because we're not afraid." However, they
eventually yielded to the police pressure
and left.
One of the women's rights activists, Regina
Fonseca, said the de facto government "talks
about dialogue, but look at how it blocks
our right to protest."
"They propose dialogue while pointing their
rifles at us," she said, before telling the
police chief heading the operation to break
up the protest: "Look, dog, you should
defend democracy instead." To which the
officer just smiled.
New proposals emerge
Ponce said the situation has been changing
so quickly from one day to the next in
Honduras since Zelaya returned that four
different initiatives for dialogue and
proposed solutions have emerged amidst the
climate of extreme tension.
Up to two weeks ago, the only proposal was
the "San José Accord" or "Plan Arias" put
forward by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias
in his failed attempt to broker talks
between the two sides after the coup.
The first initiative was that of assistant
Catholic bishop of Tegucigalpa Juan José
Pineda, who spoke with Zelaya in the
Brazilian embassy and later met with
Micheletti, thus taking on the role of
mediator.
At first, Pineda talked about a "Plan Arias
II" but he then said it was better to speak
in terms of a "Tegucigalpa Plan", as a
Honduran solution to a Honduran problem –
thus sending "a message to the international
community that we can solve our own
problems."
But both Ponce and Díaz said the dialogue
proposed by Pineda might be a "trap"
designed by the coup government to divide
the resistance movement.
They said the aim might be to win the
agreement of the Liberal Party followers of
Zelaya and thus gain time to allow the
Micheletti government to win international
recognition of the late November elections
and of the newly elected administration.
That would represent the continuity in power
of "the same old vested interests," made up
of politicians from the two traditional
parties – the centre-right Liberal Party of
both Zelaya and Micheletti and the
right-wing National Party - and the business
elite, who have had a hold on power since
the country returned to democracy in 1982,
they said.
Another initiative emerged from four of the
six candidates running for president in
November, who initially met in San José with
President Arias and said they would act as
mediators, attempting to get Zelaya and
Micheletti to sit down at the negotiating
table.
In meetings sponsored by U.S. Ambassador
Hugo Llorens, Adolfo Facussé, president of
the national association of industrialists,
proposed that Zelaya be reinstated as
president for a few days before he is put
under house arrest – rather than thrown into
jail, as he is facing an arrest warrant -
until the elections.
The Honduran office of the Friedrich Naumann
Foundation, a German foundation for liberal
politics with ties to Germany's pro-business
Free Democratic Party, set forth a
five-point proposal that would involve the
resignation of both Micheletti and Zelaya
and the naming of the next in line as
president, under the Honduran constitution,
to ease the tension until the elections.
A former Zelaya administration minister,
Francisco Sibrián, said a division in the
FNR was not likely to arise.
"The movement's social foundation is made up
of around 60,000 primary and high school
teachers, most of whom are Liberals, and
they all agree there was a coup (which is
denied by the Micheletti government and its
supporters) and that it is urgent to
overturn the coup by reestablishing Zelaya
in his post," he said.
"They are trying to divide us and break us
up, to weaken us, but they aren't going to
succeed because the Liberals are
historically opposed to coups," said Sibrián.
Ponce said one option that is gaining
support in the FNR is that once Zelaya has
been reinstated as president, a Broad Front
would be created to support the independent
candidacy of trade unionist Carlos Reyes or
UD candidate César Ham.
Ponce said Ham has greater electoral weight
while Reyes has more influence in the labour
movement. "César Ham is willing to step
aside as a presidential candidate so that we
can all throw our weight behind Reyes," said
Ponce.
Sibrían, a member of the Liberal Party, said
he would not back the party's candidate
Elvín Santos, because he supported the coup.
"My feeling is that President Zelaya and his
followers agree on supporting Carlos Reyes,"
he said. |
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