El Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular comunica a la población hondureña y la comunidad internacional:

Responsabilizamos a Miguel Facussé Barjum y al régimen de facto de Porfirio Lobo por cualquier acto de violencia que se desate contra esta comunidad campesina.

Asimismo, denunciamos los medios de comunicación de la oligarquía, especialmente los Diarios La Prensa y El Heraldo, propiedad de Jorge Canahuati Larach, y los canales de televisión de la Corporación de Televicentro, propiedad de Rafael Ferrari, que pretenden mostrar las familias trabajadoras y dirigentes populares como terroristas.

 ¡Resistimos y Venceremos!

Tegucigalpa, M.D.C. 4 de marzo 2010 --

Están cordialmente invitados al evento organizado por La Voz de los de Abajo

El Derecho de Resistir

Una platica sobre la resistencia del pueblo hondureño, ante el Golpe de Estado Militar del 28 de Junio del 2009, y el impacto histórico que este tiene, para con el proceso irreversible que se encamina hacia una profunda transformación social.

Es decir hacia la refundación de Honduras.

Con la participación Especial del Padre Jesuita Hondureño

Ismael Moreno Coto

El Padre Ismael Moreno Coto (conocido como Melo) es director de ERIC (Equipo de Refleccion, Investigación y Comunicación) y es el actual director de Radio Progreso.

( http://www.eric-sj.org ; www.radioprogresohn.org)

Lugar Décima Musa

1901 S. Loomis

Sábado 6 de Marzo

De 7:00-10:00pm

En Solidaridad con la resistencia del Pueblo de Honduras.

Breve biografía

El Padre Ismael Moreno Coto nació en El Progreso, Yoro, el 1 de enero de 1958. Ingresa a la Compañía de Jesús el día 12 de febrero de 1978. Se ordena de sacerdote en El Progreso, el 9 de enero de 1989.

A partir de entonces desempeña distintos cargos tanto en El Salvador como en Honduras, entre otros: Párroco en las Iglesias de Tocoa en Honduras, y el Ixcán en Guatemala, superior de teólogos, director de la oficina de Planificación Apostólica y Secretario del Consejo Apostólico Provincial en El Salvador.

Desde el 27 de agosto de 2001 se desempeña como director del Equipo de Reflexión, Investigación y Comunicación (ERIC-SJ) y a partir del año 2006 como director de Radio Progreso, en esta ciudad de El Progreso.

Participó en la huelga de hambre iniciada por 4 fiscales contra la corrupción en Honduras, que tuvo su sede en los bajos del Congreso Nacional de Tegucigalpa, por espacio de 38 días. Como resultado de la huelga de hambre, se organizó el Movimiento Amplio por la Dignidad y la Justicia (MADJ), del cual ha sido asesor.

Desde el 28 de junio, fecha del golpe de estado en Honduras, las dos instituciones que dirige el P. Ismael se han mantenido en contra de la usurpación violenta del poder ejecutivo, apoyando incondicionalmente todas las manifestaciones del Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular contra el golpe de Estado.

Join us to hear from Jesuit priest in a talk about the resistance of the Honduran people,

against the military coup of June 28- 2009, and the historical impact that this has with the irreversible process that is heading for a deep social transformation. putting it another way,

to the new foundation of Honduras.

The right to Resist

With the special participation of Jesuit priest

Ismael Moreno Coto

Father Melo (Ismael Moreno Coto) is the Director of E.R.I.C. (Equipo de Reflexion, Investigacion y Comunicacion - Team for Reflection, Investigation and Communication) and is the director of Radio Progreso. ( http://www.eric-sj.org ; www.radioprogresohn.org)

Décima Musa

1901 S. Loomis

Saturday 6 of March 2010

From: 7:00-10:00pm

In Solidarity with the Resístanse, of the Honduras People

Biography:

He was born in El Progreso, Yoro , Honduras on January 1, 1958. He joined the Company of Jesus (Jesuits) in 1978 and was ordained in El Progreso in January of 1989. Since then he has held different posts in Central America including in the Parish of Tocoa in Honduras , and Ixcan in Guatemala . He was the Director of the Office of Apostolic Planning and Secretary of the Provincial Apostolic Council in El Salvador . Since August 27, 2001 he has held the post of Director of E.R.I.C) and since 2006 the position of director of Radio Progreso in the city of El Progreso , Honduras .

In 2008 he participated in the hunger strike protest initiated by four government prosecutors in protest against corruption in Honduras . The protest strike lasted 38 days during which time the hunger strikers occupied a part of the public area of the Congressional building in Tegucigalpa . Father Melo became an advisor to The Broad Movement for Dignity and Justice (MADJ Spanish acronym) which was organized out of the protest.

Radio Progreso has been in existence for 50 years, and is a part of the Catholic Network of Radio Stations, but is also well known for its independent, progressive and stand for social justice in Honduras .

Padre Mel is an outspoken critic of the coup d’etat of June 28, 2009 and an active participant in the anti-coup resistance. Since the coup, Radio Progreso has been threatened and was raided by military troops. Padre Melo and other staff have been personally threatened. For example, on 23 September, a correspondent and three other staff of Radio Progreso, based in the north-west of Honduras , received a threatening text message on their mobile phones. It read: “The sons of gorilete [Micheletti] in Progreso offer half a million Lempiras (equivalent to US$26,500)for the head of Padre Melo”. To date no advances have been reported in the investigation into this threat or other threats.

Christians in Resistance - January 26, 2010

The delegation met with members of a coalition of different Christian groups against the coup including the Christian Popular Movement the Network of Pastors in Resistance, Agape, the Ecumenical Human Rights Observation, and others.

They told us that the church hierarchies, both Catholic and Protestant were clearly for the coup. In the base communities of the protestant churches, there was a lot of confusion. There was a sector that did not accept support for the coup and a sector that followed the leaders blindly. Some of the people who did not accept supporting the coup, while not a part of any hierarchies, are leaders of the base communities.

“So under this situation of the coup we took the brave and risky position to be on the side of justice, on the side of persecuted, suffering people, and denounce those who used weapons against the people with the blessing of the church hierarchies. Those of us here represent Christians who have a clear theological position about what is happening in Honduras.”

“The Popular Christian Movement is ecumenical and includes Protestants, Catholics, and those who are not of any particular faith. Our fundamental theology is the theology of liberation.”

The pastors involved with the Ecumenical Human Rights Observation told us , “We accompany the resistance; we are in the streets, we march with the resistance, we pray with the resistance and we sing with the resistance, and we are beaten and swallow tear gas with the resistance because we see the Christ who walks with the people. But also we provide humanitarian help, medical help, food, and lodging when the resistance has needed it.

As Christians we are on the side of human rights for those who have been persecuted by the de facto government.

We are few but with Jesus we are many.”

The Network of Pastors in Resistance is composed of pastors of different denominations with the wish to serve the community with social consciousness. Their most important ministry is the medical brigades. “That has helped us see that this country needs structural change and that the church has a responsibility to obtain these changes.” After the coup, the group issued a communiqué that was heard on the radio by others who then joined the movement.

The Church hierarchies accuse the resistance Christians of getting money from Hugo Chavez. “The only money that we receive is money that God sends through our members. We are independent because we haven't sold our conscience to anyone.”

The Ecumenical Observation (Observatory) of Human Rights is part of a larger project. In August, the World Council of Churches and the Latin American Council of Churches came to Honduras and they recommended a broader commission to document the situation and cases of human rights violations. In Honduras, there is a national board of the Latin American Council made up of 5 churches, the historic churches such as the Lutheran, Episcopal, Methodist, reformed church, Mennonites and others. And at the Latin American level it is 180 churches or so of various denominations.

The project of the Observatory is to get information out to the rest of Latin America and Europe and to develop campaigns on human rights cases. Part of the human rights work also included not recognizing the elections on November 29th and demanding the restitution of Zelaya . The project visits police facilities and has helped liberate detained persons. The organization ahs also visited the families of the killed, detained and disappeared and offers help to those who have to leave the country.

“We suffer a lot, this is hard work. We don’t know if the police or military will assassinate or repress us. We have had the great satisfaction to feel free when we are able to help someone.”

We asked what has been the response of the church to their organizations.

The Agape Church pastor answered that Agape is a member of the Cofraternity of Churches.

“We have been strongly questioned within this organization and there is the idea that we receive money to support the resistance. In this Cofraternity, Agape and the Network of Pastors are considered subversive. In some radio stations, they say that we are supporting delinquents. The response of the believers who belong to the churched varies: there are 3 responses, “I don’t want to hear anything, I want to pray in the temple.” A smaller group has said, “good for the coup” because Chavez (Satan) will come and bring communism so then the coup is from God”. A third group, which is our group, says we want to reject the coup. And we have raised a prophetic voice in favor of the poor and the most needy. “

The pastors said that there has also been pressure from the U.S. religious leadership on Honduran churches not to oppose the coup.

There has also been repression against religious figures in resistance. “Father Tamayo had his citizenship nullified by the golpistas and he was expelled from Honduras. (Note: Father Tamayo is a prominent resistance priest who was originally from El Salvador and became a Honduran citizen)

“We want to establish relationships with churches outside of Honduras to assist the resistance from a perspective of faith and to support our projects of theological meetings to develop faith committed to the people.

The resistance does have God. The resistance knows it but the media says that God is on the side of the coup.”

Meeting with Activists from the Gay-Lesbian-Bisexual-Transgender-Intrasexual Community

We met with GLBTI activists at the office of Kukulcan. The organization is named after the Mayan god of the sun. It represents the beginning of a new era, a new dawn for society. The organization works with diverse sexualities and gender issues. We met with Eric, the human rights organizer for Kukulcan. We also met with Sandra from the Association for a Better Life for people affected by HIV/AIDS in Honduras and other representatives of the LBGTI community from the Violet Collective and other organizations.

We asked them about the effect of the coup on the LBGTI community and their perspectives on the situation and the future.

They said that before the coup, sexual diversity groups were not very strong. However, when Zelaya was elected, he made efforts to include the community that has traditionally been repressed by the church and by big businesses. Zelaya felt that they should be part of his “fourth urn” project to rewrite the constitution to expand the base of government. As a result, when the coup first occurred, communities of sexual diversity were part of the group that spontaneously surrounded the presidential palace.

After the coup, the community found that it had common ground with the resistance and became involved in the struggle. Although there was initially some prejudice, as the community became more involved, it was able to overcome this and become a real part of the Frente. One thing they have learned is to involve themselves in the political process. Before the coup, they didn't have much contact with campesinos or unions. When they became involved in the movement, even in the resistance, terms would be used that were derogatory. But they talked about these issues with the Frente and on Radio Globo and the Internet and overall they saw a transformation in the acceptance and inclusion of their community in the resistance. In this sense they felt that the coup and the resistance have moved Honduras forward in a big leap.

However, the GLBTI community has also been among the most brutalized by the coup. The community has lost 19 members who have been murdered by different security forces.

The best known victim was Walter Trochez, an LBGTI activist and member of the resistance. On December 13, a few days before he was to leave Honduras because of threats against his life including an earlier kidnapping, he was kidnapped and tortured by the security forces. The military refused to do the requested autopsy after his body was found, because they claimed he had AIDS. However, it was obvious that he had been shot in the eye and his tongue had been cut out. There has been no official investigation of his murder. Walter's parents are U.S. citizens and have asked the U.S. embassy to investigate, but so far there has been no satisfactory response.

Other deaths of members of the GLBTI community of a suspicious nature are also attributed to the coup. Many of them have been made to look like common crimes but there have been many more deaths than would be expected statistically. Also, of the 19 deaths, four were well known to be members of the Frente.

The activists we talked to hope that their community which in the past has been invisible, will become visible, that perhaps in the future they will have more participation in political life, maybe someone from the community could even be be a congressperson when democracy is restored. They believe that it may be four years or 10 years, but that they will see a society where they will be recognized.

Meanwhile their organizations plan to continue participating in the resistance. The activists we interviewed reiterated their committment to the movement and to the belief that a new Honduras is possible.

The Unified Campesino Movement of Aguan attacked - Campesinos Seriously Wounded.
The La Voz de los de Abajo delegation received reports this afternoon from the CNTC and, via telephone, from a leader of the MUCA in Colon of the following urgent situation in communities affiliated to the CNTC.

While Pepe Lobo, the new de-facto president, assumed office with pomp and ceremony; the real face of the “reconciliation” coming to Honduras on January 27th was revealed again as repression in northern Honduras left 3 campesinos seriously injured - one in critical condition.

Edwin Diaz and Reynaldo Reyes were wounded in the leg and foot and Marco Antonio Estrada was shot in the face in the face when National Police and privately contracted paramilitaries came into the campesino community in Aguan and opened fire.

The Movement Unification de Campesinos de Aguan (MUCA), in English The Unified Campesino Movement of Aguan, was founded 16 years ago by campesinos whose lands, were illegally sold to three large landowners in the region. The landowners Miguel Facusse, Rene Morales and Reynaldo Canales are members of the Honduran oligarchy and powerful figures in the region. In 2001 the campesinos recuperated their lands while fighting the illegal sale in the agrarian legal system. After 8 years, the MUCA communities were violently forced off the land on December 19, 2009 and again on January 8, 2010. On January 14, there was another violent attack that evicted campesinos from the section of lands that are claimed by Rene Morales.

Today, January 27th, at 6 a.m. the campesinos recuperated their land again. At 10:30 a.m. a truck carrying troops from the National Police and a private car carrying paramilitaries hired by Rene Morales drove into the community, opened fire and drove off. Diaz, Reyes and Estrada were wounded by the gunfire. The community was able to call for medical help and an ambulance came. As the ambulance with the three campesinos inside attempted to go to the hospital it was stopped by army troops that arrived on the scene and was delayed for at least 10 minutes. Diaz and Reyes are in the hospital in La Ceiba while Estrada was transferred to San Pedro Sula because of the seriousness of his condition. The police and military are at the hospitals, causing concern for the campesinos safety according to the MUCA because Rene Morales is known to have ties and influence in the military battalion stationed in the region.

The MUCA and the CNTC are very worried about more attacks against the campesinos of the MUCA and about the safety of the 3 campesinos. It is also unknown as of this report whether Marco Antonio Estrada will survive the attack.

Please send an email to de-facto president Lobo condemning this attack and holding him responsible for the safety and security of the campesinos of the MUCA. Go to the link below and fill out the contact form for Mr. Lobo.
http://www.presidencia.gob.hn/?page_id=58

Photo of resistance march 1/27/2010:
We march against the developers, planners, executors and inheritors of the Coup d'Etat

The Civil Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras COPINH communicates to the peoples of the world and to the people of Honduras in particular the following:

Marchamos Contra los Gestores, planificadores, ejecutores y Herederos del Golpe de Estado.

El Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Populares e Indígenas de Honduras COPINH comunica a los pueblos del mundo en general y al pueblo hondureño en particular lo siguiente:

Juan Barahona, General Coordinator of the National Front of Popular Resistance and the United Federation of Honduran Workers

The delegation was able to meet with Juan Barahona, General Coordinator of the National Front of Popular Resistance and the United Federation of Honduran Workers. As a long time activist leader in Honduran social movements, Juan took a moment to offer a brief historical perspective in addition to the current activities of the resistance. What follows is the information he shared with the delegation.

In Honduras, the decade of the seventies was characterized as a period of strong social movements that included students, workers, campesinos, and most social sectors. In the eighties, however, a National Security Doctrine was imposed with support of the United States which weakened the social movements through a strategy of deterntions, dissappearances, and severe repression. By the 1990's, neoliberal model is applied to Honduras in all of it's measures, including privatization, taxes, devaluation of the currency, and the shrinking of the state. That is except the military and police force.

With the beginning of the new decade, on the second of May 2000, the Popular Block was organized which included teachers, workers, indigenous, students, and campesino organizations. The social movements began to retake the streets that were lost in the eighties. The movement was born out of the need for unification and identified itself against the neoliberal model and anti-system. The Popular Block developed regional organizations as well as mobilizations at the national level. By 2003, there was a need for a coordinating structure and the National Coordinator-ship of Popular Resistance was formed. On the 26th of August 2003, in the early morning hours, a mobilization was carried out to takeover all four principal entrances to the capital Tegucigalpa. This action brought recognition to the movement and it's demands as a popular movement of the people.

The first two years of the Zelaya administration were the same policies as usual by the government. However, several actions took place which generated sympathy from the people. There were positions against the mining and oil companies, joining the Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas (ALBA), the increase in the minimum wage, and the survey to consider a proposal for a 4th ballot box around the issue of forming a Constitutional Assembly. The oligarchy in Honduras did not fear the 4th ballot box itself, they feared a Constituational Assembly that would take into account needs other than their own.

Thus the coup was staged at 5:20 am on the 28th of June. Due to the popular sympathy generated by Zelaya's policies, there was an immediate and spontaneous response after the coup. By 7am on the same day, there was a large amount of people at the presidential palace and by 1pm the entire street in front of the palace was filled with people. After staying overnight, the next day on the 29th there was an agreement to form a structure to articulate the strong opposition to the coup. Since then, as the National Front Against the Coup made up of almost the entire Honduran social movement, small, big, medium, political and social organizations and have become a majority force in the country. The two demands that founded the movement were the restitution of President Zelaya and the call for a Constituational Assembly.

In the end we weren't able to obtain restitution but we did defeat the coup. The oligarchy and the United States government which supported it won't be able to export this coup to other countries. They wanted it to be a successful coup but with the struggle of the Honduran people, it has failed. Now the resistance is organized in all 18 departments. We are a political force that not only has the demand for the Constituational Assembly but we have assumed the responsibility of the each of the member organization's demands as well.

Regarding the elections, Barahona noted that approximately 70% of the eligible voters did not vote. There was such a small number of people that went to vote that the numbers had to be inflated by the election commission, which happened to be under the control of the coup, and now Lobo is known as the inflated president. Also, the majority of resistance candidates withdrew from the elections citing the repressive conditions under which they were held.

In addition to the illegitamatacy of the elections that he supposedly won, the Lobo government does not provide hope for the Honduran people as he 1) is part of the oligarchy and 2) reneged on signed agreements on water legislation during his term as president of the congress. Pepe Lobo's claims to provide amnesty, reconciliation, and even calling for a constitutional assembly then is not something that can be trusted as it will only serve the interests of the oligarchy. Despite the idea that a military coup was a thing of the past, Honduran society is living it currently and suffering the repression at the hands of the armed forces. Millions is being spent on equipment for the military, something is is outrageous in a country as poor as Honduras.

Since the coup, there have been repeated violations of human rights including rape of women, arbitrary detentions, and assasinations. To date there is count of up to 140 cases of assasinations and more than 10,000 illegal detentions. In his assessment, the Honduran oligarchy that carried out the coup with the military does not have independence from the U.S. Government and is always at his service. Historically, the U.S. Embassy is cited as the real power in Honduras. In fact, at the moment Zelaya was abducted and taken out of the country, the plane that flied him out stopped at the infamous U.S. Military base at Palmerola before going on to Costa Rica, indicating the complicity of the U.S. Government in the coup.

Finally, much of this information is not known outside and even inside Honduras due to the media blockade. Independent local radio and tv station signals were cancelled immediately after the coup and have been under constant threat. On the day of the coup itself, the mainstream stations programmed cartoon shows and soap operas, intentionally not covering the story of the crisis in the presidential palace. That is why it is important to continue to tell the story of the reality that is happening in Honduras through all means possible.

Alba Ochoa - El Comite de los Presos Politicos, Los Perseguidos, y los Exiliados

Alba Ochoa is a long-time activist in Honduras who is the founder of a green agricultural project for fair trade coffee. Since the coup she has been a participant in the resistance and is in charge of the Committee of Political Prisoners, the Persecuted and Exiled.

Since the coup, she reported, there have been about 50 deaths among the resistance and those who are identified with the resistance. However, despite video evidence of the police firing on victims, there have been no charges filed against them. The only charge has been against the high command of the military for abuse of power in taking the president out of the country, probably to avoid more serious charges against others involved in the coup.

Many of the deaths have been clumsily arranged to look like something other than assassination. About a month ago, Alba said, a compañero from the resistance died in what was made to look like suicide. Because he obviously had been beaten and was considered highly unlikely to commit suicide, they knew he had been murdered. Other killings have been made to look like common crimes. Some of those victims have left orphaned children.

Under the current justice system, there is nowhere victims’ family or friends can find redress. They cannot go to the police or the attorney general, and the judges refuse to treat the cases fairly. Further, there is talk of giving blanket amnesty for these crimes.

As for political prisoners, Alba says, that there are 70 people who were arrested, and are now under restrictions that force them to report every week to the police and they cannot leave the country. As of now, there are only four people still held in prison. Alba says though, that there are seven million political prisoners because the whole country of Honduras is in jail.

Although no one is sure of the numbers, Alba also said that approximately 30-50 people have been forced to flee the country in fear of their lives.

She then related her own story of being arrested and beaten by the coup regime. On August 12, as a march was taking place, she observed hundreds of military police searching backpacks and taking photographs of participants. She then saw a member of the police beat a marcher with an iron bar, breaking open the back of his head. When she told the policeman not to hit him, three policewomen began to beat her with nightsticks. She said that this occurred below the Congress building where she could see members of Congress watching. Not a single one did anything to stop the beating. She along with about 25 people was thrown onto a bus, beaten some more and threatened with being doused with gasoline and set on fire. It was not until several hours later when they were taken to a hospital that their families were able to find them.

When her case went to court, one of the policewomen who beat her testified against her. The judge in the case believed the policewoman's testimony and further said that Alba had been guilty of damaging property, stealing and illegal demonstration.

Since then, there are more than 130 cases pending for charges of sedition, terrorism and other crimes.

CNTC- Central Nacional de los Trabajadores del Campo (National Center of Rural Workers)

“Honduras is a country with many hands with no land, and a few hands with lots of land”, Agostin Ramos, the General Secretary of the CNTC repeated this common saying as he described the history of his organization to our delegation.

Honduras has a long tradition of campesino organizations and struggle. More than 60% of the population is rural and poor, and the struggle for land and economic justice for the campesinos is a constant part of the Honduran popular movement. The National Center for Rural Workers (CNTC) is one of the largest and most active campesino organizations with affiliate communities in 14 of the 18 provinces in Honduras. It was founded in 1985, dedicated to obtaining land for the landless and poor campesinos through a combination of legal and direct action strategies. The Honduran government (both Liberal Party and National Party presidents) have used trickery, violence and legal delays to keep the poor campesinos from being able to obtain and keep land or to survive economically on the land they do have.

“Despite having had over the years many arrests and assassinations of our members we have continued fighting in the same fashion that we did at our foundation. In wasn’t until some time after President Zelaya was in office that he began to approach the campesino movement and we began to see possibilities in the opening of doors for development”.

In 2008 there were land conflicts that had been held up in the National Agrarian Institute (INA) for as long as 25 and 30 years. Zelaya signed the president decree #18-2008 to allow the resolution of these conflicts in favor of the campesinos. He also created a project with us through the ALBA agreement to build a large number of houses for the poor campesino communities. There were scholarship programs from Venezuela and Cuba and medical assistance for us. We were in this struggle to implement these programs when the coup occurred, and everything was buried.

We have no hope in any change coming from this illegally elected government. There can’t be a government of reconciliation when they are the ones who kicked the elected president out. The resistance is not ending. The crisis has awakened people to seek liberation. The project ahead of us is to take power and resolve the poor situation for the people. Clearly at the CNTC we have had our initiatives crushed by the coup; we have only gotten 8 land titles resolved out of all that were pending.

We are conscious and clear that Pepe Lobo is from the most conservative political sector. We dont' expect beneficial changes for us. The fact that a few people went to vote doesn’t mean that this is a president. This is a continuation of the coup. And it isn't true that people went freely to vote, in some places people voted under armed force.

There is no rule of law in this country. There is violence, and beatings of men, women and children. For example in Colon we have the struggle of the campesinos of the MUCA against one of the largest landowners who is from an oligarchy family, Flores Facusse. They have asked to be affiliated to the CNTC. The lands were supposed to be given to the campesinos but there were a lot of tricks to steal the land from them. On January 8th they were violently evicted from the lands. Their struggleis being supported by the Resistance. The fact that the country has so much land and still people are dying for lack of land is just not just.

La crisis in the country has left us poorer but as campesinos we're already poor. What we have now after the coup is the unity of the people. The struggles of each group, the CNTC, the teachers, and so on is not just their own struggle but the people's struggle. Our goal is that to get power and stop giving it away. If we don't see this happen, our children will and we will directly struggle for it.

God left the land for everyone, not just for four or five familes. We know that we are going to be hit hard. Wherever we have conflict we will be protesting in the streets and through the resistance we will challenge this system.

REPORT FROM HONDURAS - DAY 2 of Todos Somos Honduras Delegation
Honduras Resists is published by La Voz de los de Abajo, a group based in Chicago that has been working in solidarity with the Honduran social movement for over ten years. La Voz is currently leading a delegation to accompany the Honduran Resistance as they contest the inauguration of coup-conspirator and illegitimate "president-elect" Pepe Lobo. Below is the second report from the delegation:

The second day of the delegation brought us to Tegucigalpa and we were able to meet with members of the Political Organization the Necios. Included were the Secretary of Communication as well as the Secretary of International Affairs. Both also belong to the International Commission of the National Front of Popular Resistance (Frente Nacional de Resitencia Popular). They provided a background of the Necios, their participation in the National Front of Popular Resistance (FNRP), and the current crisis in the country.

The Necios were members of the Popular Block, one of the strongest social organizations in the country within the past decade whose focus was working against the neoliberal policies of privatization, free trade agreements, and related policies. Later on, the Coordinadora Nacional de Resistencia Popular (The National Coordinator of Popular Resistance) was formed of which the Necios also formed part. This movement developed a set of 12 demands that unified the different social movements across the country. Following the coup the Necios as well as the Popular Block and National Coordinatorship became part of the National Front Against the Coup, the previous name of the National Front of Popular Resistance.

The Necios has three main goals; political formation, organization, and the last is propaganda. The Necios has dozens of core members as well as many more aspiring members who take part in 6 months of organizing work as well as classes covering 3 primary modules: 6 months of current issues, 1 year of philosophy, and 2 years of political economy. Necios members also form part of the National Youth in Resistance and has been entrusted by the FNRP to carry out the task of political formation using their long experience in that area working with youth.

For example, for the Resistance's demonstration opposing the inauguration of the illegitimately elected Pepe Lobo on the 27th of January 2010, the Necios has been taking on the tasks of working with the youth sector, the international affairs, and direct participation in the march covering security responsibilities. They've also coordinated the artist in resistance.

The ideology of the organization is that ideology is something to be constructed and they do not adopt one particular model, although the formation is primarily marxist but open to all thoughts. The goal is to create a concept of power that comes from below, from the bases, and that any government should lead by obeying “mandar obedeciendo”.

Honduras, as a country run by a few families, is the latin american country with the least social spending with some of the highest incidents of mortality under the age of 5, HIV, and is the second most poorest country in Latin America. The Necios believes that this is something that absolutely has to be changed.

Since the coup, much like many social activists in Honduras, members of the Necios have suffered strong repression at the hand of the police and military such as surveillance, threats, and accusations of terrorism. Up to now, four members have had to go into exile for fear of their safety. Attempts have been made to entrap them in actions involving weapons. This has lead to an increase in security related efforts and it continues to the present. However, also since the coup, the Necios has also seen a great increase in applications for membership as well.

The Necios also offered their analysis of the day of the coup itself, highlighting, much like other organizations, the brutal nature of the coup, the accompanying media blockade, and the strong repudiation of the population across all social sectors. They highlighted the many benefits the projects with the ALBA, the Alternativa Bolivariana de las Amercias (Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas) had in the areas of agriculture, education and medicine.

These projects were canceled by the coup, independent media outlets shut down, and activists attacked. However, with the strong response of the majority of the Honduran population against the coup and with much international support, they've been able to maintain a strong resistance that continues to grow up to the present day.

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Red Comal - Siguatepeque January 24, 2010

On November 28th, one day before the scheduled defacto elections Honduras, more than fifty soldiers, national federal police and local police arrived at the facilities of the cooperative organization, Red COMAL - EcoSol in Siguatepeque; they pulled a military truck with a machine gun mounted on it up into the yard in front of the building and pointed it at the building. This is the beginning of the story of what “democracy” looks under a military coup as told to the La Voz delegation by Red Comal staff.

Miguel and Aravey, related the story of the military incursion against Red Comal in which the fifty troops kicked in doors, broke into filing cabinets and closets even though they were offered the keys to open them. They confiscated computers, financial records, canceled checks, mailing lists and other documents and terrorized the staff for 3 hours. They left without finding any weapons or contraband. Twenty minutes after the army and police had left the golpista local commissioner showed up and read the search warrant out loud- it had been granted to look for weapons, but Miguel and Aravey say the real reason is obvious, Red Comal’s participation in the peaceful anti-coup resistance.

Red COMAL was founded in 1993 with the goal of assisting the campesino communities in producing marketable products and getting the products to the consumers without going through commercial “middle men”, through the cooperative. They also have a network of small stores and 5 distribution centers to distribute the products.

Red Comal has a center, EcoSol and a restaurant. It has around 40 staff members who work in Siguatepeque and out in the countryside. They have also started using an alternative currency within the network. Campesinos are members of the board of directors and involved in all of the work.

Miguel and Aravey said that from the first minute of the coup on June 28, Red COMAL didn’t hesitate in taking a public and active position against the coup and to join in the resistance movement. Miguel explained that Red Comal wasn’t created just to distribute goods but to serve the campesino movement and it has always been a part of the social movements. Red Comal participated in the marches from Siguatepeque to Tegucigalpa, and in the local and national protests. It is also a part of the regional National Front Against the Coup and both Miguel and Aravey say it is clear that even though none of their activities are illegal, it is their participation in the resistance that led to the military raid on November 28th.

We asked about their perspective on the future:

“After January 27th, the conflict will not be over, but rather all the repercussions of the last 7 months of economic and social crises will come out. We can’t be confident, as a political and social movement about the declarations about reconciliation that really have no meaning. People are giving up hope in the old electoral process. There's been a big awakening but there's still more to do. If there is to be a Constituent Assembly for a new constitution it must be highly participative and representative of all of the social sectors. We have heard that the new defacto president, Pepe Lobo, has even called for a constituent assembly but that might be just the same process as usual, with the same politicians and nothing to do with the concerns of the people.”

Red Comal filed legal complaints against the local police, and military for the damage done during the November raid, but have not received any answers to the complaints. None of the seized equipment or papers have been returned to the organization even though nothing that was taken had any relationship to the reason for the search warrant.

Honduras Resists is published by La Voz de los de Abajo, a group based in Chicago that has been working in solidarity with the Honduran social movement for over ten years. La Voz is currently leading a delegation to accompany the Honduran Resistance as they contest the inauguration of coup-conspirator and illegitimate "president-elect" Pepe Lobo. Below is the first report from the delegation:

Report #1 - Todos Somos Honduras Delegation Report - January 23-24, 2010

Both the resistance and Honduras are at a crossroads, and a decision has to be made of how to go forward in a new phase that opens with the January 27th inauguration of Pepe Lobo. This was the message from different leaders of the resistance movement in the northern region during our first 2 days in Honduras.

Delegation members from Chicago and New York arrived in San Pedro Sula on a hot Saturday morning and traveled by car to El Progresso to meet with both long time and the new generation of social justice activists and members of the anti-coup resistance. We met with Radio Progreso and Father Melo; with Carlos Amaya, activist and independent political candidate and a leader of the Socialist Workers’ Party. We talked about their work and their assessment of the situation going forward since the November elections.

This region of Honduras contains acres and acres of lush banana plants with the ripe banana bunches wrapped in plastic ready for harvest. It was in this region that first the British and later the US banana companies established the dictatorship of “The Company” (referring to United Fruit, Standard Fruit: now respectively Dole and Chiquita) in Honduras. It was here that in 1954 the banana workers went out on what became a national general strike of most of the organized workers in Honduras. A monument to the banana workers and the 1954 strike stands in the Parque Central of the city of El Progreso, just down the street from Radio Progreso.

RADIO PROGRESO

Arriving at Radio Progreso we found the compañeros in the middle of a marathon fund raiser for the people of Haiti, out in the street in front of the Radio facility with live broadcasts and collecting donations from people passing by on foot or in cars.

We were met by Karla Rivas, Director of Press Communication, with whom we discussed the work of the radio station and the challenges for its work in the new situation.

The station is celebrating more than 50 years of existence in May of this year. From its beginnings the radio station worked with the trade unions, workers’ associations and campesino communities. Organizations, such as the CNTC (National Center of Rural Workers) have programs on Radio Progreso. In 2005 the station began to emphasize work with youth. Currently besides the radio shows, the station publishes print bulletins as well.

In 1979 the radio station was shut down for three months by the government under the National Security law - the violation of national security cited in the closure was that the radio had played a song by Chilean musician, Victor Jara. The station has always faced political pressures because of its political positions.

The day of the coup, June 28, 2009, the military came into the radio facilities and shut down the transmission. The radio reopened the next day and the decision was made to report about the coup and to serve as a source of information and at the same time to inform in a different way. “We decided to report the information that was the most factual possible and to allow for opinions and dialogue. Karla emphasized that the coup changed everything and that Radio Progreso will never be the same.

“The coup left us with many lessons. Everything the radio has worked for over time bore fruit at a time of crisis, locally, nationally and internationally. Look around, you see the average age here of our team is people in their 30s. Very few of us had lived the experience of the coups and repression of our history; we had only read stories, but not lived it.” Our team had to learn to take security measures for themselves and how to be active citizens in the country. “Sometimes we would say, “are we crazy” because we were the only ones reporting what was happening here.”

“The radio’s programming is aimed at accompanying the people in the new situation in which hopes and dreams have been awakened and the possibility of the new Honduras, that the people deserve, is really a possibility it may be 5 years or 10 years, but it is possible”.

“The problem is not just the constitution but goes deeper than that. How do the people see themselves participating in the process of governing the country and what role do the politicians have in serving the people. The people have to advance to create a change in the rules of the game with a new organization where people in their own communities create the proposals and that government has to take those into account.”

Padre Melo

We met over a long breakfast with Father Ismael “Melo” Moreno. Padre Melo is the director of Radio Progreso and of the center, ERIC, Equipo de Reflexion y Investigacion Comunitaria (in English, The Team for Community Reflection and Study). ERIC is a Jesuit institution in Progreso founded in 1980. ERIC currently is conducting two studies: 1. The study of religious phenomenon in Honduras to identify which phenomena demobilize society and which mobilize society. 2. A study of how political culture and democracy and citizen to answer the question of why a political culture exists that allows the government to be the property of the elite. The center also organizes “schools” for political education and citizenship formation. These schools consist of 8 months-long courses that consist of modules including gender, the environment, human rights and other elements. On the human rights front ERIC also works directly on human rights cases and has helped bring cases to the Inter-American Court on Human Rights.

We also asked Padre Melo about the goals and the challenges of the resistance movement in Honduras.

“Honduras is at a crossroads facing two different roads. One of the roads leads in a direction that is already in progress: a strong authoritarian political regime.” The actors in this regime are the military/police, big business and the traditional politicians. This regime, now being launched with the presidency of Pepe Lobo uses repression and de-legitimization to criminalize and attack any opposition but also uses an element of charity to the poor to generate the appearance of governmental benevolence. This regime works to create internal conflict in the social movements. It uses a conservative fundamentalist religious ideology combined with traditional neoliberalism.

“The other road is the road to build a participative peoples’ democracy; a patriotism that is not aligned with international monopolies or multinational corporations”. This requires creating a social pact that has to have at least these elements: 1) Define the common content of the pact, the social demands, such as education, health, land rights, the use of natural resources. 2) Define new political actors in the process. The actors in this new road won’t be the traditional parties. Participation in the electoral process could be through independent candidates or through the creation of new party structures. 3) Define the electoral strategy and the structural changes that need to be made in the political institution. This road would allow the creation of a Honduras that is not in the hands of the elite.

Padre Melo was asked about why fundamentalist religion seems to believe that it owns God.

“This is a real issue and ongoing discussion. The ideological argument used by the elite religious hierarchy is that the communists will come and take away God. Sometimes this is made worse when leaders of the left disrespect those who join in the social struggle and have religious ideas.” The elites in power have an interest in making people think that those who struggle for political transformation are all atheists. This is promoting a type of faith that is locked up in the Bible and isn't involved in real life.

“Those who keep saying that faith doesn’t have anything to do with politics are those who want to legitimize the politics of the powerful. The most important mission of those of us with faith who believe in the struggle of the people is to nourish and educate our people to link their faith to life. When we question why God is being trapped in the Church, they (the hierarchies) won’t stand for it. God is not a god of the politicians but of the people.”

Carlos Amaya

Carlos Amaya is a well known activist, independent political candidate and a leader of the Socialist Workers Party in Progreso. The delegationmet with Amaya and with members of the Young Socialists in La Comuna, the offices of the PST in Progreso. The Young Socialists includes unemployed youth, university students, and high school students. The group included students from the National Autonomous University in San Pedro Sula and Pedagogical University “Francisco Morazan.

Carlos Amaya provided some historical background on some of the organizing that was taking place in the movement way before the coup and that was a factor in forming such a strong opposition when the coup was staged.

According to the Amaya, since 2002 there has been an effort to lead initiatives from the community bases in the different regions, and not necessarily from the capital city. One example the compañer@s gave was the launch of the struggle against the privatization of potable water in Progreso in 2003, the struggles in defense of natural resources, and protests against privatization in general. For almost 7 years before the coup, there was the process of unification and by 2008 a list of 12 key demands were developed that were the points of unity of what became the National Coordinator-ship of Popular Resistance (Coordinadora Nacional de Resistencia Popular).

The coup wasn't necessarily against Zelaya's presidency but more so an attack on the organizeworker's's movement that was getting stronger and stronger. The idea that removing Zelaya from the middle would allow the coupmakers to attack the principal organizers directly. As seen, following the coup, there were more than 50 activists killed, arbitrary detentions, activists charged with terrorism and treason, and a growing number of political prisoners.

Amaya identified a contradiction for the coupmakers in that they wanted to carry out anti-democratic, repressive policies but at the same time try to keep up the false appearance of democracy to attempt to legitimize the coup as a democratic removal of Zelaya. Immediately after the coup, the organizations that made up the Coordinadora Nacional de Resistencia Popular along with the movement for the fourth ballot box, came out to protest. After a process of 2-3 weeks, the National Front Against the Coup, Frente Nacional en Contra del Golpe, was created to oppose the coup.

The coup, as seen by the PST, is an expression of the class division of the country. It is not a split within the bourgeoisie but a conflict between the bourgeoisie and the working class. Historically, the winner of a Honduran election wins everything, positions, state contracts, etc. With the elections of the 27th of January, the country saw the highest abstention rate ever. Pepe Lobo, the declared winner, now needs to negotiate with every golpista sector to govern. He has a quota to meet with each sector and is not necessarily appeasing each everyone. Already, one Christian Party leader has gone as far as to accuse Lobo of being in bed with Chavez, ironically, the same accusation made of Zelaya. With this quota and facing a strong opposition, the thought is that it will be very hard for him to govern.

Another interesting analysis was the unique experience in Honduras in that the process of social change has begun with a strong popular movement. This is unlike Venezuela or Bolivia where a popular person wins power and then the alliances are forged afterwards between the organizations in the movement.

At this point the same state institutions that created the coup are still there, the supreme court, congress, public ministry, etc. Under this type of rule, who convokes the constitutional assembly and under what parameters? Lobo himself has proposed an assembly as well. However, under these conditions, that would produce the same type of outcome as the coup and not represent the interests of the people. It would seem that Lobo would need to be removed from office before beginning the Constitutional Assembly process.

The Frente finds itself at a crossroads. Some sectors say that joining the electoral process is necessary in order to capture state power in 2014. Others say that joining that process will tie up the movement and risk losing much effort to election fraud. Along with this the Liberal Party members want to rescue the Liberal Party. and rebuild it while others propose independent candidates. Alternatively, the PST proposes is a national strike as a strategy. It will be up to the Frente for if they get internal democratic consensus, they might be able to get a unifying plan of action.

The Young Socialists added that youth have and continue to play an important role in the movement. After the coup, students formed their own independent organizations to address issues within their schools as well as to participate in resistance to the coup. One of the most significant accomplishments was a huge march of 4000 high school and university students against the proposed reinstatement of obligatory military service by the defacto government. Students as young as 13 and 14 years old have come out to the marches and carried out their own actions.

With the inauguration of Porfirio Lobo Sosa, boz suggests, the Honduran coup has ended.

Certainly, it is this inauguration that has led to the end of the direct domination of Honduran governance by Roberto Micheletti.

We have already noted that any expectation that this transition will reconcile polarized parties in Honduras, will end the quest by a variety of interested groups for constitutional reform, or erase from historical memory the events of the past months, is unrealistic.

But we agree that it is no longer the same situation, and thus, Honduras Coup 2009 has reached an end. But one that also marks a new beginning for us.

Like boz and Greg Weeks at Two Weeks Notice, we think that Honduras is entering a critical period when it would be well if the world continued to pay attention. And like the author of IKN, we are half-expecting the world to turn its collective back and ignore Honduras once more.

And that means that our mission remains: to address "the confusion encouraged by lack of basic knowledge about Honduras" and to continue to call attention to the writing of Honduran writers and scholars who are best positioned to place the struggle to come into broader context.

So we invite you to join us at our new blog, Honduras Culture and Politics. There we intend to continue to foreground the intersection of culture in all its forms with events that involve differentials of power.

We know that many readers of this blog will want to be kept up to date on what happens to the major players who dominated the last seven months, and we will cover developments there. We intend to keep track of stories we have been following-- the devastation of the economy, the distortion of the legal system, the recognition or lack thereof of human rights violations, and the politicization of cultural policy.

But we also hope that people who originally began paying attention to Honduras this last year solely due to a breakdown in constitutional order may have gained an interest in the country that will make it worth a few moments a day to see what we find interesting and worth presenting to you with context, analysis, and yes, opinion.

And if not: thank you for being part of this project. We will continue to support our friends and colleagues in Honduras in every way possible. We will continue to prize the new colleagues we have come to know throughout the world who are dedicated to progressive agendas and not disheartened by the struggle. This has been a transformative year for us and for many of our close colleagues and friends, and we appreciate those readers who were not willing to settle for the simplifications and misrepresentations of mainstream media.

If there was any doubt that the United States is orchestrating the political choreography going on in Honduras right now, it should be put to rest. Arturo Valenzuela, representing the United States at Porfirio Lobo Sosa's inauguration, told the press today that the United States has not made any decision about restoring aid to Honduras yet. "We haven't made any determinations yet," said Valenzuela. "The new president of Honduras has taken the country in the right direction," Valenzuela added after Lobo Sosa talked both about establishing a government of reconciliation, and establishing a truth commission in his first 100 days in office, both of which Valenzuela called "essential elements" to the restoration of democratic order in Honduras. "Things are moving pretty much in the right direction."

Manuel Zelaya Rosales went by car from the Brazilian embassy to Toncontin International Airport about 20 minutes ago and arrived at the airforce base there. He was accompanied by his wife, a daughter, Rasel Tomé and escorted by President Porfirio Lobo Sosa, fresh from his inauguration ceremony, President Colom of Guatemala, and President Fernandez of the Dominican Republic. At the same time, the other people within the Brazilian embassy who were Zelaya supporters left the embassy without incident, La Tribuna reported. At the airport was a large crowd organized by the Frente de Resistencia to see him off. Crowd photos showed that there were many thousand people gathered peacefully there. At the air force base the Zelayas and Tomé boarded a twin engine Embraer jet, which has just taken off for the Dominican Republic.

Update 2:35 pm PST: The spokesperson for President Alvaro Colom of Guatemala is denying that Colom attended Lobo Sosa's inauguration and accompanied Zelaya to Toncontin Airport as various Honduran newspapers have reported today.

Update 4:21 pm PST: Zelaya has arrived in the Dominican Republic. La Tribuna reports that General Romeo Vasquez Velasquez was at the Airport to see Zelaya off. "Political phenomena are one thing, another is the friends you keep," Vasquez Velasquez told the press.

Thanks to our good friends in the Honduran anthropological and historical research community for the photo reproduced here of the long line of marchers headed to the airport to see Mel Zelaya off.

is brought to you by Voice of America, which starts its story from this morning with the following headline and tagline:

Honduran Congress Grants Zelaya, Coup Plotters Amnesty

Supreme Court also clears military of criminal charges; both moves seen as steps toward national reconciliation before President-elect Lobo takes office Wednesday.

Really? seen as "steps toward national reconciliation" by whom?

From the very first version of the US-inspired San Jose Accord, there has been a proposal for amnesty in the agreements that were proposed to end the coup.

Just as consistently, both sides in Honduras have rejected the call for amnesty. Some English-language commentaries suggested this was due to the fierce animosity between the two sides, and the desire by both to keep open the possibility for revenge prosecution.

But as we are seeing now, the issue for Hondurans is actually a good deal more complex than amnesty/no amnesty. Papered over in the VOA story is the continued uncertainty about the status of the additional bill of charges against President Zelaya, produced after the installation of the coup regime, which are not covered by this amnesty. The amnesty, as we noted in the previous post, is for specific identified crimes, those considered "political" or connected to them.

The debate in congress and the party-line split vote reveal major disagreement about the best way toward "national reconciliation" within the Congress itself.

What we are seeing in the spin given these moves by VOA is the US perspective. The US insists that Honduras go through a theatrical performance of enacting the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord even though that brokered compromise absolutely failed and is utterly irrelevant now. One hopes the US State Department doesn't suffer the illusion that Zelaya will not be prosecuted when he eventually returns to Honduras, because if so, they will likely be disappointed.

It is perhaps not too much to treat the VOA article as a proxy for how the US State Department would like to rewrite the story of the coup. From that perspective, two further things leap out.

First, in reporting on the shameless use of the Supreme Court as a mechanism to cleanse the Armed Forces of all responsibility for their actions on June 28, the VOA states that the Court found that the Armed Forces "acted to preserve peace in Honduras". That is certainly part of the court's argument; but by selecting that piece, and leaving out the part about the Armed Forces not acting out of "malice", the VOA gives a tweaked impression of the arguments being offered to justify the Armed Forces violating the Constitution as well as exceeding the Supreme Court warrant produced to justify their actions.

Bad enough that good intentions alone can clear the military of wrong-doing (thus creating a precedent for future interventions in government "to preserve peace". Are you listening, Pepe?) But perhaps it would be worth paying attention to the fact that the Honduran stakeholders feel there is something more involved: the question of whether people were motivated not just by their better angels, but by "malice". This is not a conflict that will be sanitized by formalized actions.

Which is, in essence, what the Congressional debate over "amnesty" showed. In our post from yesterday, we simply reported that the Liberal party abstained. The real story is more complicated, as Tiempo reported in the article we linked to in the previous post:

The Liberal Party abstained from voting because they could not come to agreement, since only 8 had defined a position (five against and three in favor), while among the rest there were diverse positions on the sense that it was necessary to know in depth the reach of the project [of amnesty], to socialize the decision more, to listen first to the Truth Commission and then consult the people in a plebiscite.

(For the public consultation observers out here, that would be consultar el pueblo en un plebiscito...)

In other words: the Liberal Party congress members are wary of how the Honduran public will react. As the party that occupied both sides in the coup, they have been burned the most by the political fallout. And they are worried about who this will affect, what the public will think about it, and how it will harmonize with the expected Truth Commission. Better to get the public to ratify it and relieve the political pressure.

And the second thing that leaps out in the VOA article: even to the bitter end, the English language media still think the real cause of this coup was a non-existent attempt to prolong the current Presidential term in office; as the last sentence of this meretricious piece of writing sums up the whole sordid seven months

Mr. Zelaya's opponents say he was ousted because he was trying to illegally change the constitution to extend his term in office. [emphasis added]

And VOA, like the US State Department, gives those "opponents"-- the architects of the coup-- the last word.

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[Nerdy word usage aside here: technically, the verb "socializar" has two meanings, the first to privatize something, as in State seizure of property, and the second

Promover las condiciones sociales que, independientemente de las relaciones con el Estado, favorezcan en los seres humanos el desarrollo integral de su persona

To promote the social conditions that, independently of relations with the State, favor in human beings the integral development of their persons.

The closest to the sense here would be that the Liberal Party congress members feel the need to promote the idea of amnesty among Honduran society, to introduce it as a social value that presumably they are not sure already exists. In other words, they are dubious that amnesty is part of the Honduran habitus.

The National Congress last night approved amnesty for political crimes and the common crimes connected to them before and after the overthrow of President Manuel Zelaya, but did not include acts of corruption such as the use of State resoures to support the "cuarta urna" [campaign], nor violations of human rights such as homicides, tortures, and other outrages against demonstrators.

Delitos de traición a la patria.
Delitos contra la forma de gobierno.
Sedición.
Terrorismo.

Abuso de autoridad.
Violación de los deberes de los funcionarios.
Desobediencia.
Usurpación de funciones.

Of these, traición, delitos contra la forma de gobierno, abuso de autoridad, and usurpación de funciones (treason, offenses against the form of government, abuse of authority, and usurpation of functions) are the specific crimes included in the petition against President Zelaya submitted to the Supreme Court, which should mean that the original arrest warrant against him is now moot.

But these are also the most likely crimes with which the de facto regime and other coup participants could have been charged. So the bill passed by Congress actually is at least as much about protecting the authors of the coup as about achieving some sort of reconciliation. The addition of sedition, terrorism, and disobedience, not part of the warrant against Zelaya raises the question, who exactly is being helped by this part of the new law?

A conservative rancher is being sworn in as Honduras' new president...

The left-leaning Zelaya said he would accept that he was no longer president - but only the moment his four-year constitutional term officially ended Wednesday.

As a sign that Honduras is trying to erase memories of the coup, a Supreme Court judge cleared military leaders of any wrongdoing on Tuesday after prosecutors accused them of abuse of power for rousting Zelaya from his bed at gunpoint.

It will come as no surprise to our gentle readers that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Jorge Rivera Aviles, dismissed charges brought by the public prosecutor, Luis Rubi, against the military high command for forcibly exiling President Manuel Zelaya Rosales from Honduras on June 28.

"While there is a prima facie case and recognition by the accused of being responsible for the acts that the Attorney General identifies as crimes, in the absence of intent he has not been able to establish full proof of the commission of crimes."

Rivera Aviles argued that they acted in defense of democracy. In the legal brief dismissing the charges, Tiempo reported today, Rivera Aviles sites the grave risk to the public order, the expected loss of many lives, and the violent actions of Zelaya supporters. He also cited the lack of a safe, secure place to hold Zelaya. General Romeo Vasquez Velasquez told Radio America, "we are thoroughly pleased." The public prosecutor's office announced it will appeal.

Yesterday Phillip Crowley said in the daily press briefing:

"In Honduras, we welcome de facto leader Micheletti’s decision to step down and see that as a positive step that will advance the process of national reconciliation in Honduras. And we look forward to working with the government of President-elect Lobo and note that important work remains to be done to reestablish democratic and constitutional order in Honduras, and we continue to – we will work with the new government in Honduras on full implementation of the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accords."

First some context. This was part of a prepared statement Crowley read at the start of the press briefing, not an ad-libbed response to a question.

As the gentle reader will already know from our previous post on what Micheletti said in his announcement the other day, he did not step down or otherwise remove himself from power; he merely has removed himself from the public eye.

As if on cue, Micheletti popped up yesterday after the State Department statement hit the Honduran papers to reiterate he was still in control of the de facto government.

So why would the State Department make a statement perpetuating the inaccurate portrayal of Micheletti's actions? After all, major US newspapers quickly corrected their language to ensure readers knew Micheletti had not resigned. Are they just using sloppy language to describe what Micheletti's position is?

I think we can rule out the use of sloppy language. This was a written statement, not an answer to a question made in passing. Professional diplomats need to use language which conveys all the nuances of their position. The speaker, Phillip Crowley, who is Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, is a professional. As the public voice of the State Department, he would use precise language in formal statements to the press.

Likewise I believe we can rule out shoddy translation. In November, the State Department used a less misleading translation of the same words. Robert Wood, deputy department spokesman, in speaking about Micheletti's last "leave of absence" (his words) before the November election, was clear that the State Department understood the nature of Micheletti's statement. At the time the State Department made positive noises about it.

Wood said of that November action by Micheletti:

"Well, as I think many of you are aware, there was a statement made last night by Mr. Micheletti about taking a leave of absence. And we welcome that he is going to take a leave of absence and expect its prompt implementation."

Micheletti used the same language to describe the present "leave of absence" as the last one, so presumably the State Department fully comprehends what it entails, especially since they asked him to do it the first time, in November.

So why say that Micheletti "stepped down" when he did not? This advances the spin the State Department is trying to create to make it more acceptable for them to carry out their recognition of Porfirio Lobo Sosa as legitimate president of Honduras and return to the status quo, resuming US AID aid, and encouraging other governments and international lending institutions to resume aid and lending to Honduras.

In essence, the State Department is putting the best face on a bad situation. And Micheletti is not playing along.

The majority of world governments have made it a condition of recognition that Lobo Sosa not receive power from the illegitimate and unrecognized government of Roberto Micheletti.

With the statement that began this post, the State Department is creating confusion about whether that condition has been met. Crowley, by describing Micheletti's move as "stepping down", suggests that a condition the international community has insisted on for recognizing the new government in Honduras has been met, when it has not.

El Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular comunica a la población hondureña y la comunidad internacional:

1. Anunciamos la realización de una consulta nacional para llamar a la Asamblea Nacional Constituyente Incluyente y Popular. La convocatoria está planteada para el 28 de junio de 2010, día en que se cumplirá un año del golpe de Estado y representará la voluntad impostergable del pueblo para construir democracia verdadera y transformar el sistema de injusticia y represión instalado por la oligarquía.

2. Condenamos la injerencia del gobierno de los Estados Unidos en los asuntos internos de nuestro país, llevada a cabo a través de su embajador, que de manera vulgar intenta darle una cara de legitimidad al régimen de facto mediante un falso diálogo nacional que ignora el rechazo mayoritario de la población a la dictadura.

3. Alertamos a las organizaciones de derechos humanos y a la comunidad internacional con respecto a la grave situación en que se encuentran nuestros compañeros y compañeras del Movimiento Unificado Campesino del Aguan (MUCA), contra quienes se está llevando a cabo una campaña mediática y política para desacreditar su lucha justa por el derecho a trabajar.

Responsabilizamos a Miguel Facussé Barjum y al régimen de facto de Porfirio Lobo por cualquier acto de violencia que se desate contra esta comunidad campesina.

Asimismo, denunciamos los medios de comunicación de la oligarquía, especialmente los Diarios La Prensa y El Heraldo, propiedad de Jorge Canahuati Larach, y los canales de televisión de la Corporación de Televicentro, propiedad de Rafael Ferrari, que pretenden mostrar las familias trabajadoras y dirigentes populares como terroristas.

4. Reiteramos que el FNRP rechaza la ofensiva que le régimen de facto emprende contra la clase trabajadora y sus representantes. Exigimos que se respete el fuero sindical de nuestros compañeros y compañeras del Sindicato de de Trabajadores de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras.

5. Convocamos al Segundo Encuentro por la Refundación de Honduras que se realizará en la ciudad de La Esperanza, entre los días 12 y 14 de marzo. En este evento se continuarán las actividades para diseñar y exigir la Asamblea nacional Constituyente.


¡Resistimos y Venceremos!

Tegucigalpa, M.D.C. 4 de marzo 2010

A los representantes de Gobierno y Estado que integran el Mecanismo Permanente de Consulta y Concertación Política reunidos en Cancún México con motivo de la vigésimo tercera Cumbre del Grupo de Río expresamos:

1. Honduras continúa bajo un régimen de facto, instalado y sostenido por la fuerza de las armas desde el 28 de junio de 2009 hasta la fecha, período durante el cual el pueblo hondureño ha sido sujeto de contantes violaciones a los derechos humanos.

2. En vano empeño, la ilegitimidad e ilegalidad del actual régimen quiere ser negada con el cambio de rostro de las figuras que administran el Estado, pero que no logra engañar a nadie porque es de conocimiento público que éstos obedecen a los mismos grupos de poder que ordenan la represión y el asesinato y que impiden el desarrollo de una democracia verdadera.

3. El proceso electoral, con el que se pretende validar a los nuevos personeros de la dictadura, fue a todas luces ilegal al haber sido regido y administrado por autoridades cómplices del golpe de Estado que impidieron la libre participación de los opositores, e ignoraron el ambiente de terror predominante. Razones por las cuales dicho proceso no fue observado por ningún gobierno, mecanismo de integración regional o institución con credibilidad.
La ilegitimidad de tal proceso se ratificó con la abstención a votar de la gran mayoría de la población hondureña votar y que consecuentemente desconoce los resultados. No es casual que el l pueblo continúe la lucha no violenta por derrotar el régimen totalitario actual para volver al orden democrático.

4. La situación de los derechos humanos es grave y está empeorando. En las últimas semanas se han registrado más asesinatos, hostigamientos y persecución contra las personas organizadas en la Resistencia Popular. Y desde los encargados de dirigir los órganos de seguridad del Estado se anuncia una ofensiva militar para acabar con la oposición al régimen.

5. Diversos sectores de la comunidad internacional, gobiernos amigos, organizaciones sociales y de defensoras de de derechos humanos han manifestado su desconocimiento del actual régimen.

Por tales razones declaramos:

a. Solicitamos a los representantes de gobiernos y Estados integrantes del Grupo de Río que mantengan su posición de desconocimiento de la dictadura hondureña en tanto no se restablezca el orden constitucional democrático y se detengan las violaciones de los derechos humanos.

b. Continuaremos nuestra lucha sin importar las acciones de terror del Estado controlado por los golpistas.

c. Agradecemos a los Gobiernos y organizaciones sociales amigas su preocupación por la grave situación que atraviesa nuestro país y las acciones de solidaridad para superar la crisis.

Tegucigalpa M.D.C. 19 de febrero de 2010

El Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular condena las intenciones del régimen de facto de Porfirio Lobo Sosa que planea despedir una gran cantidad de empleados públicos y eliminar o cooptar las organizaciones de trabajadores que defiendes sus derechos.

La Asociación Nacional de Empleados Públicos de Honduras (ANDEPH) ya ha recibido amenazas de asalto para destituir a la dirigencia actual y reemplazarla por una que sea dócil a los intereses de los golpistas.

Tal acción se lleva a cabo en el marco de la estrategia de la oligarquía para debilitar a las organizaciones populares que casi en su totalidad se sumaron a las protestas contra el golpe de Estado y continúan siendo fuerza fundamental en el reclamo del pueblo por restablecer la democracia e instalar la Asamblea Nacional Constituyente y Popular.

La dictadura que encabeza Lobo en nombre de un reducido grupo de grandes empresarios se encamina a intensificar la aplicación del modelo neoliberal que les permita seguir concentrando la riqueza a costa de la explotación, el robo y la destrucción de los recursos naturales.

Hacemos un llamado a todos los miembros de la Resistencia en todo el país y particularmente a las organizaciones de trabajadores a que estén alertas ante la embestida neoliberal de la oligarquía. Debemos cerrar filas frente a los enemigos de la clase trabajadora.

Tegucigalpa.- La coordinación del Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular de este municipio, reitera la decisión de desconocer el régimen de Porfirio Lobo, por considerarlo la continuación de la dictadura que la oligarquía impuso a través del golpe de Estado el 28 de junio. En consecuencia, declaramos que la Resistencia no ha autorizado a ninguno de sus miembros a formar parte de cualquiera de los poderes del Estado; tampoco ha decido participar en el falso diálogo que los golpistas proponen para validar un Plan de Nación, que es la continuación del fracasado modelo neoliberal y un medio para mantener los privilegios de la clase minoritaria que usurpa el poder.

Desmentimos aseveraciones de medios de comunicación golpistas y de algunos políticos que rotulan como representantes de la Resistencia a los miembros del Partido Unificación Democrática, integrantes de la directiva del espurio Congreso Nacional y del gabinete ejecutivo de la dictadura, decisiones que emanan de la Junta Directiva de la UD y no de la voluntad de la gran mayoría de sus bases, que siguieron fielmente el acuerdo consensuado de las fuerzas políticas del FNRP de NO participar en las elecciones ilegales e ilegítimas del 29 de noviembre y que, en consecuencia, repudian a las autoridades de relevo en el golpismo.

¡Resistimos y Venceremos!

Tegucigalpa, M.D.C. 26 de enero de 2010

El Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular (FNRP) de Honduras se solidariza con el pueblo haitiano en estos momentos en que vive la tragedia ocasionada por el terremoto que hasta el momento ha dejado miles de muertos, heridos y enormes daños materiales.

Lo que pasó en Haití nos ha tocado de manera muy cercana y nos ponemos a la orden para lo que podamos ayudar. El desastre producido por este terremoto viene a sumarse a las desgracias que ha vivido este país en tantas formas parecido al nuestro. Nos sentimos directamente identificados con los atropellos que en nombre de la paz y la democracia ha sufrido este pueblo y por lo tanto ponemos a su disposición todas nuestras energías y nuestros esfuerzos, que aunque limitados, son completamente sinceros y sin segundas intensiones.

Nada es ajeno a su contexto y la desgracia de Haití la viene viviendo desde el tiempo de la colonia, así como con las varias décadas como víctima del neoliberalismo feroz, del capitalismo inhumano, presa de la injerencia ejemplificada claramente con el Golpe de Estado del 1991 cuando se despojo de su mandato al presidente Aristide que había llegado al poder con el 75% de los votos, para después poner un gobierno dominado por los interés internacionales que hoy tratan de culpar a la naturaleza por la desgracia de la cual en gran parte ellos mismo son responsables por la situación de vulnerabilidad social que han ocasionado sus políticas públicas.

Compartimos una realidad muy similar a la de nuestros hermanos y hermanas haitianos, como ellos hemos sentido el dolor de fenómenos naturales convertidos en catástrofes humanas por el tipo de sistema económico que nos han impuesto.

Sin embargo, a pesar de las limitaciones que impone el empobrecimiento de nuestros pueblos, Honduras recibió el apoyo inmediato de las organizaciones populares haitianas cuando la oligarquía y el imperialismo ejecutaron el golpe de estado del 28 de junio.

Como FNRP haremos todo lo posible para articular las iniciativas ya encaminadas de varias compañeras y compañeros en resistencia para llevar ayuda a esta población que hoy vive uno de sus días más tristes. De la misma forma aplaudimos la acción de otros países amigos que como siempre ponen enfrente la solidaridad sin esperar recompensa, Honduras conoce bien esta solidaridad que después pretende ser desconocida pero que los pueblos nunca olvidan.

¡Todo nuestro apoyo al pueblo de Haití!

Tegucigalpa M.D.C. 15 de enero de 2010