HONDURAS: Regime Says 'Yes' to Talks but
Squelches Protests
By Thelma Mejía
TEGUCIGALPA (IPS) - While it publicly
declares its willingness to continue to
engage in dialogue, the de facto regime led
by Roberto Micheletti in Honduras is taking
a hard-line approach to protests demanding
the return of ousted President Manuel Zelaya.
So far three people have been killed, around
100 have been injured, and 150 have been
arrested and held for several hours or days.
In the 36 days since Zelaya was hauled out
of bed by soldiers and put on a plane to
Costa Rica, the authorities say 260
demonstrations, roadblocks and public sector
strikes have been held around the country by
the president's supporters.
High school teacher Roger Vallejo, who was
shot in the head when the police broke up a
roadblock on Thursday in the capital, died
after two days in intensive care. Another
teacher, Martin Florencio Rivera, was
stabbed to death after leaving Vallejo's
wake Saturday.
Both deaths are under investigation. The
teachers' union, which has been on strike,
demanding Zelaya's return, blamed the police
for Vallejo's death and urged the
prosecutors to carry out a swift inquiry.
In the same police operation, activist
Carlos Reyes' arm was broken. Reyes plans to
run as an independent presidential candidate
in the general elections scheduled for Nov.
29.
Vallejo's wake is being held at a high
school, and the burial will take place on
Tuesday, to give relatives from outside the
capital time to arrive.
The wake has drawn large numbers of
teachers, students, social activists and
members of the general public.
At the wake, the leaders of the Resistance
Front against the Coup d'Etat announced a
six-day march that will set out Wednesday
from different parts of the country and
converge on the two biggest cities:
Tegucigalpa, and San Pedro Sula in the
north.
The plan is to form two large groups of
demonstrators to demand the restoration of
the constitutional government.
The first protester to be killed was
19-year-old Isis Obed Murillo, who was shot
by the security forces at Tegucigalpa
airport on Jul. 5 when Zelaya's attempt to
return to the country by plane was thwarted
by the military.
A leader of the teachers' union, Lina
Pineda, told IPS that "we never imagined
that the break-up of the roadblock (where
Vallejo was killed) would be so violent.
They surrounded the demonstrators and began
to lob tear gas canisters at them and beat
several leaders with their nightsticks,
while others were taken to police posts,
although they were released shortly after."
Pineda said that although the police had
warned in a Jul. 29 communiqué that they
would not tolerate any more roadblocks
"because we were hurting the economy and the
country's powerful elites, we never thought
that warning was going to end in tragic
violent incidents like the death of our
colleague Vallejo."
"We are going to use the authority given to
us by law; people have the right to hold
peaceful protests, but not to block other
rights," police spokesman Orlin Cerrato told
IPS, referring to occupations of buildings
and traffic blockades.
Over the weekend, the de facto regime lifted
the curfew in place for nearly a month,
except along the border with Nicaragua,
where a 6:00 PM to 6:00 AM curfew remains in
place.
Hundreds of Zelaya supporters have crossed
into Nicaragua, where the leader has spent
much of his time over the last two weeks
near the Honduran border.
Micheletti said Monday that "we are going to
restore order and control; we will not allow
the economy to be further damaged, and we
will not permit violence on the part of
protesters; we are going to enforce the
law."
Local and international human rights groups
have called for respect for constitutional
guarantees in the border zones, and for
measures to protect human rights defenders
and social activists.
From his centre of operations on Nicaragua's
northern border, Zelaya lamented Vallejo's
death and announced that "peaceful people's
militias" have started to be trained by his
supporters on several estates in the
Nicaraguan region of Ocotal, 25 km from the
Honduran border post at Las Manos in the
southeastern Honduran province of El
Paraíso. On Monday, Costa Rican President
Óscar Arias, who has been brokering talks
between Zelaya and the de facto regime,
planned to meet with Organisation of
American States Secretary General Jose
Miguel Insulza, Spanish Deputy Prime
Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega,
and Enrique Iglesias, head of the
Organisation of Ibero-American States
secretariat.
Micheletti praised the meeting between Arias
and Iglesias, and asked that the latter be
sent to Honduras as a foreign envoy, to meet
with different political and social sectors
to discuss the crisis and Arias's 11-point
compromise proposal, which includes the
return of Zelaya as president and a
political amnesty.
In the meantime, Zelaya has begun to send
out signals that he is interested in
returning to the talks with Arias, after
meeting last week in Managua with U.S.
ambassador to Honduras Hugo Llorens and
State Department officials.
Although the results of the meeting were not
reported, remarks to the Honduran press by
Zelaya's foreign minister Patricia Rodas
indicate that Llorens insisted on another
round of talks mediated by Arias.
"The more time that goes by, the stronger we
become," deputy foreign minister of the de
facto regime, Martha Lorena Alvarado, told a
local TV station Sunday night. "But we are
willing to engage in any dialogue that
respects our constitution, and we believe
that although the international pressure has
been strong, we have the unity needed to
withstand it, without abandoning the
negotiations."
The regime boasts that it has survived the
first month, despite the international
pressure and isolation: no foreign
government has recognised the de facto
government, the EU and Latin American
countries have withdrawn their ambassadors,
and the U.S. and EU have suspended millions
of dollars in aid.
According to the head of the industrialists'
association, Adolfo Facussé, "things are
settling down here, and we have begun to
make contact with foreign investors who were
not interested in coming to the country
before.
"We are channeling investments of nearly 500
million dollars from Canadian and U.S.
business interests, and I think Zelaya is
waging a struggle that makes no sense,"
Facussé told IPS.
"From outside the country, they want to
impose on us a president who is not popular
domestically, and if he comes, he won't make
it, he won't be able to govern, because no
one is behind him," he argued.
Zelaya, a wealthy rancher who was elected as
the centre-right Liberal Party candidate,
veered to the left after taking office in
2006, alienating the country's conservative
elites, the military, the courts and the
legislature.
The coup was precipitated by his attempt to
hold a non-binding referendum asking voters
whether they wanted to elect a constituent
assembly to redraft the constitution. In the
days leading up to the coup, the courts
ruled that the referendum was illegal,
Zelaya sacked the armed forces commander for
refusing to distribute the ballot boxes for
the vote, scheduled for Jun. 28, and Zelaya
refused to reinstate the military chief
after the Supreme Court ordered him to do
so. |
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