HONDURAS: Military Back on the Political
Scene
By
Thelma Mejía
TEGUCIGALPA (IPS) - The demilitarisation
process that got underway in Honduras 15
years ago was buried on Jun. 28 when more
than 100 soldiers surrounded President
Manuel Zelaya's home, pulled him out of bed
at gunpoint and sent him into exile. Now the
armed forces are making no effort to conceal
their interest in political protagonism.
After breaking their silence and offering
statements to just about any media outlet
that crossed their path, in order to justify
their role in Zelaya's ouster, the military
brass have not beat around the bush, saying
the country has entered "a new era," and
that the armed forces are an essential
pillar in the country's power relations.
"If this table were the state and the legs
holding it up were an expression of power,
we would say that what is represented here
is political power, economic power, social
power and military power," said the head of
the army, General Miguel Ángel García
Padgeth.
After toppling Zelaya in compliance with a
court order, as the military chiefs have
stated, they have once again taken a front
row position on the political scene
"If we were proud before of being ranked in
first place by society in terms of
credibility, we are even happier today
because of the backing received from a
majority of the population for enforcing the
constitution, since the country was moving
towards an illegal political model," said
García Padgeth.
He was referring to the shift to the left
taken by Zelaya, elected as the candidate of
the centre-right Liberal Party, after he
took office.
The armed forces held the real power in this
Central American country in the 1970s, 1980s
and early 1990s, when the traditional
political elites would knock on the doors of
the barracks for approval for decisions to
be taken. But a demilitarisation process
began in 1994.
But the late Liberal Party President Carlos
Roberto Reina began to undertake a
demilitarisation process during his
1994-1998 term, abolishing compulsory
military service and sending soldiers back
to the barracks – measures that earned him
intimidation and even two bomb attempts on
his life, which were never clarified.
The active participation of human rights and
women's groups, as well as factions of the
media and private enterprise, was decisive
in that process.
But it appears today that the armed forces
once again enjoy "veto power" in Honduras,
political scientist Ernesto Paz told IPS.
The analyst said the coup "has not only
damaged our democracy, but also represents
an extremely serious setback to the
demilitarisation process.
"Now they once again want to become the
country's political arbiters, recovering the
veto power that was so hard to take away
from them," he said.
The university professor said "the political
class is among those responsible for the
military's return to the political scene,
because of their incapacity to manage the
crisis faced by the country, which has been
aggravated by the abrupt ouster of President
Zelaya."
Tuesday's appearance of the military brass
on the country's leading TV station, Canal
5, is an indication that "we must step up
the struggle for more education and
political training among the political
elites and society at large, which have not
yet realised that we are losing 15 years of
progress made in strengthening civilian
control and democracy," he said.
The military chiefs, who showed up at the
television studio in combat uniform, said
Zelaya's removal was a "painful decision,"
but that there "was no other option."
"Either we obeyed the constitution or we
complied with an illegal order. Former
president Zelaya was aware that he was
asking us to do something illegal, and we
had to live up to the law and safeguard the
stability of the country," said air force
chief, General Luís Javier Prince.
He was referring to the military's refusal
to distribute the ballot boxes and provide
security for a non-binding referendum –
ruled illegal by the courts - in which
voters were to be asked, on Jun. 28, whether
they wanted to elect a constituent assembly
to redraft the constitution. In response,
Zelaya sacked the head of the joint chiefs
of staff, General Romeo Vásquez, and refused
to comply with a Supreme Court ruling that
reinstated him.
In the television interview Tuesday, Vásquez
denied that the military had carried out a
coup d'etat when they forced him out of bed
and put him on a military plane for Costa
Rica, still in his pajamas.
"If it had been a coup, things would be very
different: we would have declared a state of
siege and a lot of people would be in
prison," said Vásquez. "But who is governing
now? The branches of power are operating as
usual, and we are still in the barracks.
What happened was a constitutional
succession."
The military officials argued that Zelaya's
removal thwarted a supposed "expansionist
plan" by left-wing Venezuelan President Hugo
Chávez, to be carried out by means of ALBA
(Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas),
which he leads. Under Zelaya, Honduras
became a full member of the bloc, along with
Antigua and Barbuda, Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador,
Dominica, Nicaragua and Saint Vincent and
the Grenadines.
"But they didn't reckon that in Honduras,
the military and society would get in this
South American leader's way," García Padgeth
said in the interview.
He added that three years ago, in a meeting
with military officers in Washington, he had
warned them of Chávez's "expansionist
tendencies" and asked them why the United
States had abandoned Latin America, one of
the U.S.'s "back gates."
Paz said "what this military language
indicates is that the progress they boast of
has had very little effect on the armed
forces, and that the laws governing the
military and the constitution itself must be
reviewed again, to deprive them of that
'supra-power' discretional status they are
granted, or we will return to the barbarism
and authoritarianism of the past."
Zelaya actually helped boost the military's
growing presence on the public scene. Since
the start of his government in 2006, he gave
them authority normally enjoyed by
civilians, putting for example the temporary
management of the state power utility in
their hands, and giving them unprecedented
visibility in the media by inviting officers
to accompany him in a range of public
activities, from concerts and trips to scuba
diving sessions.
He also considerably expanded the defence
budget and incorporated them into tasks
usually done by civilians, such as the
construction of an air terminal at the
Palmerola airport in the central valley of
Comayagua, where a U.S. military base is
located with around 700 troops.
According to the Social Forum on Foreign
Debt and Development (FOSDEH), a local NGO,
defence spending in Honduras grew from 47.3
million dollars in 2005 to 96.1 million in
2008.
Sociologist Leticia Salomón, an expert on
civic-military issues, said the political
and economic elites took advantage of the
military's newfound visibility, placing in
front of the cameras, prior to the coup,
retired officers who had been involved in
the human rights violations of the 1980s,
"who incited disobedience and urged active
members of the military to engage in
insubordination" against the Zelaya
administration.
The legitimacy that the military had
gradually built up over a decade and a half
began to deteriorate "when they were seen in
the streets, side by side with the police,
chasing and beating Honduran citizens"
protesting the coup, Salomón told IPS.
On Wednesday, the riot police used water
cannons and tear gas to crack down on
student protesters at the Autonomous
University of Honduras, beating several
students and journalists and even shoving
the rector, Julieta Castellanos, to the
ground as she was trying to approach to ask
them to leave the premises.
The coups d'etat staged by the military
throughout the history of Honduras have been
marked by close ties with power groups
linked to the two traditional parties: the
centre-right Liberal Party and the
right-wing National Party, both of which are
around a century old.
The image of the military was further
undermined during the Cold War years, when
in a Central America torn by civil wars,
Honduras housed U.S. military bases and
served as the operating base for the
U.S.-funded "contra" fighters who fought the
leftist Sandinistas in Nicaragua in the
1980s. |
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