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Honduras After the Coup: Fear and
Defiance
By Peter Lackowski
"Nos tienen miedo porque no tenemos miedo." ("They are
afraid of us because we are not afraid of them.") This
slogan was chanted by the thousands of demonstrators who
defied the illegitimate de facto government imposed by
the Honduran military in the protests that erupted
throughout the country immediately after the after the
coup of June 28, 2009.
I recently visited Honduras along with a delegation led
by Rights Action, a human rights group based in Toronto
and Washington, D. C. I was introduced to the role that
fear plays in the political life of the country, and to
the importance of the fact that so many people are ready
to defy that fear.
Background to the Coup
Honduras has long been an important platform for the
United States to dominate the region. The military
forces that overthrew the democratic government of
Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala in 1954 were organized and
trained there. The CIA used Honduras to organize the
terroristic attacks of the "contras" against the
Nicaraguans in the eighties. The Palmerola air base is
used by the United States as a training base and to wage
its "war on drugs."
The leadership of the Honduran army is dominated by
officers who have been trained at the School of the
Americas (now renamed WHINSEC) in Georgia, where they,
along with the elite of many other Latin American
armies, have learned methods of torture and repression
to be used against their own people. The Honduran
oligarchy have been subservient to US interests since
the days when banana growing corporations came to
dominate this original "banana republic." International
mining interests and corporations running sweatshops
have a free hand in exploiting the country's resources
and people. Whenever their rule has been effectively
challenged, death squads, acting with impunity, have
eliminated labor leaders, peasant organizers, or anyone
else who got in the way of the political, military, or
corporate masters.
Political life has been dominated by two parties,
Nationalists and Liberals. The Nationalists have
traditionally had close ties to the military. The
Liberals once had a tradition of struggle for
progressive reforms; because of this many of them were
murdered during the forties and again in the sixties.
But in recent years they have taken their place as a
party that can be trusted to loyally serve the powers
that be. Thus it was expected that Liberal Party
President Jose Manuel "Mel" Zelaya Rosales, son of a
wealthy, conservative rancher, would carry on in the
service of the rich and powerful.
In retrospect, some analysts believe that Zelaya had an
unstated agenda of serious reform when he came into
office, trying to position himself so as to be able to
carry it out. Early on he attempted to get close to the
army by raising their salaries. One by one he replaced
key government officials and started making changes.
Agrarian reform had been started back in the late 60's
and 70's but was derailed; Zelaya got it going again. He
improved the working conditions for teachers, raised the
minimum wage by 60%, refused to renew the contract of
the US military to use the Palmerola air base, lowered
the price of fuel, set up processes for poor people to
have ownership of their houses registered and to help
them improve their housing, and impeded the process of
privatizing ownership of energy and communications.
In August of 2008 Zelaya signed the papers that made
Honduras a member of ALBA, the Bolivarian Alliance for
America, a trade organization including Venezuela, Cuba,
Bolivia, Ecuador, and other countries which was set up
as a rival to the US led FTAA (Free Trade Alliance for
the Americas). Then, in March of 2009, he proposed that
a referendum vote be taken along with the next election
in November, asking whether a constituent assembly
should be convened to rewrite the nation's constitution.
These moves truly frightened the oligarchy. ALBA is an
initiative that was launched by Hugo Chavez of
Venezuela, who has been leading a peaceful socialist
revolution in his country for the last ten years. One of
the first things that Chavez did upon taking office in
1999 was to convoke a constituent assembly to write the
most progressive constitution in the world, guaranteeing
the rights of all people to a decent life, including
women, workers, and indigenous people, and promoting
participatory democracy. In the intervening years,
Bolivia and Ecuador did the same thing. The worst
nightmare of the oligarchy was about to come true!
The establishment went into full court press. The
congress, the supreme court, and especially the media
declared such a referendum illegal, unconstitutional,
and a communist inspired power grab designed to install
Zelaya as dictator for life. It didn't matter that any
constitutional revision would happen months or years
after Zelaya was out of office, they just kept repeating
the same thing: "He wants to change the constitution so
he can be president for life!" Zelaya changed the plan
to be a non-binding public opinion poll, but even this
was more than they could tolerate. The early morning
before the poll was to be held, on June 28, soldiers
blasted their way into the president's bedroom, forced
him onto a plane, and dumped him in Costa Rica.
Nearly everyone was surprised at the reaction to this
move. For one thing, the Organization of American States
unanimously condemned the coup as a barbaric violation
of democratic norms, similar to the 20th century coups
in Chile, Brazil, Argentina, etc. But far more
surprising was the response of the people of Honduras.
The spontaneous outrage was overwhelming. Not only had
the oligarchs acted illegally, and not only had they
deposed a president who had for once shown some sign
that he might actually want to do something about the
crushing poverty of the majority of the people, but they
were trying to justify their actions with an argument
that was so transparently false that people saw it as an
insult to their intelligence.
Labor, human rights organization, women's rights
activists, indigenous peoples, gays, campesinos,
community organizers, virtually every progressive in
Honduras saw this as the last straw, and they came
together on the streets, determined that this shall not
stand. The Resistance was born.
The Defiant
Betty Perez is the leader of a coffee producers' coop in
Marcala, a town in the mountains to the west of
Tegucigalpa. Betty was one of the thousands of
volunteers who were expecting to conduct the referendum
the morning of June 28. When she went to pick up the
ballot boxes to take to polling places, she found that
the army confiscated them, and that there had been a
coup. People got together and marched around town with
Honduran flags, and had a meeting where they decided
that they would go into Tegucigalpa to demonstrate. But
the local head of the army said that they would not be
allowed to go.
The next morning Betty got in her pickup truck and
scouted ahead, finding that there were five checkpoints
on the way to the capital. People filled three buses and
set out. They would drive until they were a little short
of a checkpoint, get out, and walk up through the
mountains, coming back to the road where they were out
of sight of the soldiers. Meanwhile, Betty and people in
a few other cars would go to the checkpoint and distract
the soldiers, telling them various stories about why
they were going into the city, keeping them busy so they
wouldn't go looking around.
The trip from Marcala to Tegucigalpa normally takes
about three or four hours, but under these conditions it
took all day. Some people got stopped, some just
couldn't keep trekking, two of the buses were stopped
before they got all the way. About fifty of Betty's
group got through to a union hall in Tegucigalpa where
people were streaming in from all over. The next day
they joined a huge demonstration.
As the summer went on, protests continued. San Pedro
Sula is a commercial and manufacturing center about 180
miles north of Tegucigalpa. The road between the two
cities is a major artery; given the mountainous terrain
and the deplorable condition of all but the most
important roads, there is no practical alternative
route. The teachers planned a roadblock, and many women
went around with trumpets, singing the national anthem,
recruiting people for the action. Betty went with her
truck to get a load of tires to burn, and some young men
showed her a back road route to get around a police
checkpoint.
The roadblock went from ten in the morning until four in
the afternoon. When there are road blocks like this,
people get out of their bus and walk around, then get on
a bus on the other side which turns around and takes
them on their way. As they were walking past they would
say, "I'm with you, but I'm on a trip and have to keep
going!" There was no repression this time, they made
their point and called it a day.
The next time was different. About 8 people came from
Marcala to this one, joining teachers, campesinos,
women, and people from other towns; about two hundred
people. This roadblock was in August, near Palmerola,
the big air base. When they arrived, Betty suspected
that this would be different, because there was a small
airplane circling over them. There were a lot of police
this time, and they said, "We'll give you until one
o'clock." But people said, "We plan to stay until two."
Then the police charged, shooting guns and tear gas
grenades.
Betty has asthma, so tear gas would be especially
serious for her, maybe even fatal. She ran for her
truck, changed her appearance as well as she could, and
pretended that she was just someone waiting out the
roadblock. Others were not so lucky. Some took refuge in
houses along the road; the police dragged them out. The
women that they caught they took by the hair and dragged
them on their faces along the road. They knocked the men
down and stood over them, beating them severely. Then
they put them all in a closed truck and threw in a tear
gas grenade. When people stuck their heads out to get
air, they beat them on the head with their clubs.
Betty started calling everyone they could--human rights
organizations, the Red Cross, people back in Marcala--to
try to get people freed and to see that their wounds
were treated. She was going to go to the jail to help,
but someone told her to stay away; those who were
captured were afraid that the police had caught her and
were going to "disappear" her, so they gave the police
her name and demanded to know what they had done with
her. Finally, at one in the morning, they were released.
The person injured the worst was a man who had multiple
fractures in both arms. After extensive surgery to put
in steel pins he is finally regaining the use of his
arms.
In September, when President Zelaya snuck back into the
country and took refuge in the Brazilian embassy, people
knew they had to act fast. They filled three buses and
raced into Tegucigalpa to join the massive
demonstrations of support. The next day an empty bus
went ahead and Betty went with one of three groups of
people who set out through the mountains to meet the bus
down the road. This time the police and the army were
looking for them. There was an around-the-clock curfew,
with all travel banned.
The police caught Betty's brother and a doctor, and then
called the people in the mountains on their cell phones.
They said the only way they would let their two captives
go was if the whole group turned themselves in. By then
it was very late, and it was clear that they were not
going to make it all the way, so they agreed, but not
before they spray painted resistance slogans on the way
to where the police were waiting. The police took their
pictures before they got on the bus. After they passed
the last checkpoint back to Marcala they started
chanting slogans to raise their spirits--and the bus ran
out of gas. They walked home in the rain, exhausted but
satisfied that they had done what they could.
I commented to her that even with the round-the-clock
curfew and roadblocks, the demonstrations around the
Brazilian embassy were massive. Betty replied that if
people had been allowed to gather freely there would
have been millions; they would have gone to the
presidential palace and driven out the dictator
Micheletti.
I asked Betty if I could use her name, and she said to
go ahead. The police know all about her, there would not
be much that I could add. She is well aware that they
could come for her at any time, and that she might
either just disappear or be the victim of another
"unsolved" murder.
A visit to the office of COFADEH, the Committee of
Families of the Disappeared, can be a sobering
experience. Their walls are covered with pictures of
people who have been murdered or disappeared by the
regime, and one has the sense that more will be added as
time goes on. At the time of my visit, the COFADEH had
about 36 ironclad cases of people who have been murdered
because of their
politics, cases that would stand up in any international
court. The catch is that international human rights
institutions demand that before they will take up a
case, the national processes must be exhausted. But in a
country like Honduras, where impunity reigns, turning to
the "authorities" in place would not only be an exercise
in futility, it would also imply recognition of their
legitimacy.
But beyond those cases that are beyond dispute, there
are countless other deaths of activists, organizers, and
leaders that are widely assumed to be "lessons" for
those who might consider taking up their work. Beyond
the murders and disappearances there are the rapes, the
torture, and the beatings of activists, and the
relatively random killing and wounding of people who are
involved in or even just nearby a demonstration. And
even more, there are many people who are abused but
don't dare say anything about it to anyone, for fear of
more harm to themselves or their families.
Berta Oliva of COFADEH is a survivor of the barbarities
of the eighties, when death squads enforced "order" on
what was seen then as the USS Honduras. She now senses
the same kind of fear. Of the 20 people who work with
COFADEH, half have been individually persecuted or
intimidated since the coup.
False charges are used to discredit and imprison
activists. While President Zelaya was in the Brazilian
embassy, Channel 8 news said that Berta Oliva was his
"mule"--that she was smuggling drugs in to him. In fact,
she says, she has never met Zelaya. She did try to get
some food to him, but the guards around the embassy took
it from her. Then for weeks the libelous stories were in
the news.
Our delegation learned of another case of libel being
used to punish when we interviewed Maritza Arita. She
was a supreme court judge for eleven years, in the
section of the court that hears criminal cases. The
police charged three people who had been in a
demonstration with arson--there had been a fire in a
business along the way. After reviewing the evidence,
she ruled that they should be granted bail. This
displeased the Micheletti dictatorship, so she was
summarily (and illegally) removed from the criminal
section of the court and given only civil cases. This
was followed by thirteen days of scurrilous attacks in
the right wing media, to the point that she felt
physically threatened. Judges who are threatened have a
right to security protection, but when she asked for it,
the government did not provide it. (Later, another judge
dismissed the charges against the three demonstrators.)
I learned that a group of international volunteers were
helping to rebuild a community radio station, so I took
a bus north to spend a few days helping. There I met
Alfredo Lopez, a leader of the Garifuna community along
the north coast of Honduras. Alfredo was imprisoned for
seven years on a false drug charge, because of his work
in opposing developments of luxury vacation resorts that
threaten to destroy communities and disperse the
Garifuna people. Now, Lopez is back in his community,
organizing a string of community radio stations that
have a key role in informing and mobilizing the struggle
against the well funded developers who covet their
beautiful beaches.
In February the radio station in Lopez's town, Triumfo
de la Cruz, was broken into, equipment was stolen or
vandalized, and a fire was set. A month after the
attack, with the help of volunteers, it was ready to
broadcast again. No one knows for sure who was
responsible for the destruction, but it is clear who
stands to benefit from it. The developers hold out the
illusion of jobs and prosperity, even though in similar
developments they have brought in outsiders to work in
their hotels, and only a handful of locals benefit.
These illusions have a disruptive effect on the
community. As I was walking on the beach I met Ricky
Lyon, a dreadlocked fisherman who had immigrated to
Honduras from Belize. He started with an impassioned
speech about discrimination in Belize, where he said he
and other black people are seen as "monkeys", and how he
felt so much more at home among the Garifuna, who are
mostly descended from Africans. Then he told me that he
was a "community leader" who was organizing young people
to bring in a new kind of economy. He himself wants to
open a diving school for tourists. He was very angry
about the role of the Garifuna radio stations. He said,
repeatedly, that the people running the station were
lucky that only property was destroyed. If they go on
with what they are doing, "Maybe next time somebody will
get killed." I mentioned this to Alfredo, and he said,
"Yes, Ricky was part of the movement when he first came
here." Clearly he has gone over to the side of the
developers. Given the history and ongoing threats of
violence, there are plans to guard the station in the
future.
While all of the big daily newspapers have supported the
coup, some national radio and TV stations were opposed
it. But even big, nationwide media have been shut down,
their equipment vandalized and confiscated, and their
employees intimidated and attacked. Radio Globo and
Channel 36 have been resolute in reporting the truth and
opposing the coup, and have been on and off the air
regularly. Since they depend on advertising revenues,
some wonder whether they will be able to hold out over
the long haul, or if they will be softening their
attitude toward the Lobo government. The monthly
opposition newspaper El Libertador has been bravely
publishing and maintaining an informative website, but
the editorial staff has suffered from torture and death
threats.
Given this censorship, together with the violence and
intimidation of those who objected to the coup, the
elections held on November 27, 2009 were not recognized
as legitimate by the Resistance and by many foreign
governments. The United States and a few other countries
that have interests that coincide with those of the
Honduran oligarchy have recognized the "winner," in the
interest of "stability."
The Fearful
Not everyone who is opposed to the oligarchy is able to
defy them.
I was walking over a bridge in Tegucigalpa when a man
coming from the other direction said, "Hello!" This is
not uncommon, since I look very much like a gringo, and
people often try out their few words of English in a
friendly greeting. But this time was different. He went
on to ask, "Where are you from?" followed by, "Why are
you here?" When I told him that I had come with a human
rights delegation, and that I was staying on another
week to do my own informal investigations, he asked if I
would like to talk for a while, "English or Spanish,
your choice." It was clear that he wanted a chance to
practice English; we spent the rest of the afternoon in
a very revealing conversation.
I will call him Juan, and I will be vague about some
particulars, for reasons that will be apparent. He lives
with his mother who is in her eighties. She raised many
children as a single mother in one of the poorest parts
of the country. She worked constantly, making tortillas,
taking other people's wash down to the river, domestic
service, whatever she could do. Finally, when she was
about sixty her legs became so swollen that she could
not work. He is glad that he was able to bring her to
the city and can provide her with a home now; her legs
are much better. His sister also lives with them. She is
in her thirties and has a disability which makes it
impossible for her to work.
We visited his home. It is in a new development on the
edge of town. Row upon row of identical concrete block
houses, one story, about 20 or 25 feet square, quite
close together, nearly barren ground around them with a
few chickens wandering around. The streets are paved,
and the water, sewers, and electricity are all there, so
it provides the basics for housing.
I asked Juan if he is married. He laughed and said that
he was embarrassed that although he is in his late
thirties and would like very much to be married, it was
just not possible. His economic situation is precarious.
He works two jobs, one is in a government agency, and at
night he teaches teenagers and adults. He has a mortgage
on his house, and even with his two jobs it is hard to
cover his expenses.
Juan is outraged at the situation in Honduras.
"Everything is broken!" Justice, education, the
economy..."We are alone in this country." Corruption is
everywhere. As for the rich, "They hate us!" But he
doesn't dare say a word to anybody about what he thinks,
because if he spoke out he might lose one or both of his
jobs. Of course those who favor the coup are free to
sound off as much as they like, and people like Juan
just bite their tongues.
It is impossible to know what proportion of the
population share Juan's frustration; it is revealing
that a very large proportion of people who respond to
public opinion polls say they have no opinion. Fear of
the death squads is very real and ever present for those
who dare to take leadership roles. But in a country
where people face great economic insecurity, the fear of
losing a job or missing out on a promotion forces even
those who are not political activists to keep their
opinions to themselves.
The Resistance
In Marcala I sat in on a meeting of the resistance at
its lowest, grass roots level. Campesinos came, some
with their children, after a day's work, to listen to a
presentation made by a couple of men who had been to a
meeting at the provincial capital and projected the text
of a manifesto by Juan Almendares, one of the national
leaders of the resistance. They read the text aloud,
possibly so as to help any in the audience who might
have trouble reading.
Afterwards several people spoke about their disgust with
the government and their determination to see this
struggle through. They had hoped that they could elect
representatives to the regional committee, but due to
short notice not enough people had come to the meeting,
and they felt that it was important to take their time
and include everyone, so they put off elections until
next time.
I was also lucky enough to catch a few minutes of a
regional meeting, and to participate in an encounter
between some of the central leadership and two of the
human rights organizations that were in Tegucigalpa for
the inauguration and the demonstration that happened
across town. My contact in both cases was relatively
brief, but I could see that this movement is being run
by experienced individuals.
The number of people who are prepared to demonstrate
their support for the resistance is astonishing. On
Wednesday, January 27, Porfirio "Pepe" Lobo was
installed as president. The stadium downtown was filled
with dignitaries, including representatives of the
United States and various clients, such as Israel,
Columbia, Panama, etc. In another part of town there was
an immense march, several kilometers long, ending at the
airport where President Zelaya was scheduled to fly away
to the Dominican Republic, accompanied by the president
of that country.
It would be difficult to estimate the number of marchers
with any scientific accuracy, but many observers put it
at around a quarter of a million. I was somewhere in the
first half, and whenever we got to one of the various
high spots along the route all I saw was a thick stream
of people stretching out as far as I could see ahead and
behind. After marching for the better part of an hour
someone nearby called on their cellphone to a couple of
journalists who had stayed back at the beginning to
record people as they left, and they said that people
were still leaving.
The next day I looked at every page of one of the big
daily newspapers, El Heraldo. There was lavish coverage
of the inauguration, but not a single word about the far
larger event that was going on at the same time in
another part of the city. In a recent demonstration a
new chant has been raised: "No somos conco, no somos
cien, prensa vendida, cuentanos bien." ("We are not
five, we are not a hundred, sold out press, count us
right!")
Unlike most of the other large demonstrations since the
coup, there was no repression along the route. (This was
anticipated, because Lobo was stressing
"reconciliation," and it might look bad if people were
being beaten simultaneously with his speech.) Later I
learned that there were roadblocks on the roads coming
into the city, and that people trying to get to town for
the march were turned back. There were police and
soldiers along the route, but they were just standing
and watching with their clubs and shields. As we were
passing along in front of the central portion of the
airport I saw several people looking up and gesturing
with their middle fingers. When I asked what they were
doing they said to look up at the control tower. A
couple of soldiers were standing there, leaning against
the wall. "Not them. Look closer." A friend had a
powerful telephoto lens on his camera and he showed me
the image on his camera's screen. There were
sharpshooters lying in a prone position on the walkway
around the control tower, watching us through their
telescopic sights. This had a chilling significance,
because just such a sniper had killed a young man in one
of the first demonstrations after the coup.
Strategy of the Resistance
The newly-installed government of Pepe Lobo presents
itself as a government of reconciliation. Lobo has
appointed ministers from opposition parties, and has
begun to set up a "truth commission" to be led by a
former vice-president of Guatemala. The United States is
leading an effort to get other countries to restore
diplomatic relations, and a few of its clients, such as
Israel and Colombia have done so. South Korea and Taiwan
have an interest in the cheap labor available in
Honduras, so they too are falling into line.
But the resistance is not accepting any of these moves.
Whatever credibility the newly appointed ministers may
have had evaporated as soon as they accepted positions
in a government that owes its existence to an election
held under conditions of violent repression and
censorship. The "truth commission" includes not a single
representative of those who have been repressed, and is
therefore seen as a sham, a "whitewash commission."
Since it is generally assumed that the United States was
complicit in the coup in some way, any international
recognition that the Lobo government achieves will not
add anything to its credibility in Honduras.
The hollowness of Lobo's statements about
"reconciliation" and "truth" was demonstrated on
February 4, with the discovery of the body of 29 year
old mother of three, Vanessa Zepeda, an activist of the
Union of Workers of the Honduran Social Security
Institute, and an emerging leader of the Resistance. On
the same day a report came that two young cameramen
working for the opposition TV Globo had been kidnapped
and tortured by men who claimed to be police. As usual,
these crimes are "unsolved," and no disciplinary action
is contemplated against the police.
The Honduran armed forces have 20,000 members on active
duty, and there are about 8,000 police. There are also
about 60,000 private security guards. You see these
guards all over, armed with shotguns, not just in front
of banks, but guarding supermarkets, hotels, pizza
places, etc. Developers, mining concerns, factories, and
other corporate interests have their own armed security
forces. Given all of these armed men serving the
interests of the oligarchy, there is clearly the
possibility of another coup if a truly legitimate
government were to be elected. I asked several people
whether elements within the army might develop some kind
of patriotic rebellion, but this was dismissed as
impossible. The answer I got was variations of, "The
only thing we can hope for with the army is that it
would disappear," since the only function the Honduran
army has is to repress the Honduran people.
Given the massive forces of repression ready to crush
any kind of armed resistance, this route is rarely
mentioned. The Resistance has been resolutely
non-violent, apart from some spontaneous responses to
police violence very early in the struggle.
Honduras is the third poorest country in the Americas.
The economic problems of the United States affect
Honduras intensely, since the United States imports 70 %
of Honduras's exports, and also because remittances from
Hondurans living in North America have fallen off. The
turmoil that has accompanied the coup and its aftermath
has had a very negative effect on Honduran business.
Recognition by the United States and a few other
countries will probably lead to some increase in
business activity, but the overall prospect seems bleak.
The Resistance expects the struggle to go on for years,
hoping to build a movement that brings in many people
who have not been active in the past. Communication is a
big concern, with community radio stations playing a
role, especially if the anti-coup commercial radio
stations that depend on advertising revenue are not able
to continue providing the solid support that they have
given the movement in the past. The internet will also
be useful. Political education will be important, as
well as a democratic organization solidly based on broad
participation of all popular sectors.
The basic program of the Resistance has three elements:
non-recognition of the Lobo government, no dialogue or
negotiation with what is seen as an illegitimate regime,
and a constituent assembly to create a new, just
constitution as the only real solution to the situation.
Work on a new constitution is proceeding even without
official sanction. COPINH, Consejo Civico de
Organizaciones Populares y Indigenas, was founded in
1993 to defend the interests of the Lenca people who
live in the Western Highlands. COPINH has issued a call
for a Peoples Assembly in the city of La Esperanza,
March 12 to 14, where the ideas that would be embodied
in a new constitution will be discussed.
At a recent meeting in the southern city of San Lorenzo
leaders of the Resistance planned to build an
organization that will be able to take power through the
elections in 2013. No one knows whether the oligarchs
will allow this program to proceed. The one thing that
is certain is that there are many people who are willing
to risk everything, including their lives, for the sake
of a country that is no longer governed by fear.
Peter Lackowski recently returned from a Rights
Action human rights delegation in Honduras. |
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