January 27, 2010 ends one chapter in the unexpected history of Honduras, as the illegal regime headed by Roberto Micheletti cedes power to Porfirio Lobo Sosa, selected through a deeply flawed electoral process held while Honduras lacked freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, and personal security for citizens exercising their constitutionally guaranteed right to freedom of conscience.
As ex-President José Manuel Zelaya Rosales exits office and leaves Honduras, the political goals that existed from June 28, 2009 to January 27, 2010 must be transformed by the members of the resistance movement who remain in the country.
It would be a great mistake if the world once again comfortably forgot to pay attention to what happens in Honduras. Whatever else you can say about the coup of 2009, it was unexpected, surprising to major world powers, including the United States.
Honduras has continued potential to surprise.
There is a continuing popular movement of resistance to illegitimate governance that is in the process of planning the next steps in a campaign for constitutional reform, now free of the entanglement with a sitting president whose motives could be too easily impugned. There is the question of what, after all, the new Nationalist government will actually do with a country drained of economic reserves and soured and polarized by the events of the last seven months.
There are the wonderful artists, scholars, academics, and activists whose work we have tried to bring to the attention of English-speaking readers. And of course, our own research, which while disrupted and transformed by the coup, will continue to concern the culture, history, and sociopolitics of Honduras.
So: welcome to the next stage of Honduras Coup 2009. We hope to continue to bring you analysis of Honduran news and links to the work of Honduran scholars.
And we will share with you research on Honduran history and culture that has long occupied us and in which we have collaborated with many of the people whose struggles we have covered in the last months. Let us know if there are particular questions you want us to cover, and thanks for recognizing that Honduras deserves better of the world.
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5 comments:
I am so very glad that you will continue to focus on my beautiful and restless country.
If possible or available, please include indigenous history, work, and art, besides Maya. In my limited experience, I have found it to be scarce.
Thank you.
That is the one thing you can count on: while we have tried to call attention to the impact of the coup on Honduras' cultural diversity, we have not been able to draw on our own research, which deals with Honduras' multiple cultures, as much.
I will keep reading your posts. You've done a great job. Congrats.
Best,
Rapha
PS: could you put the link for the Amnesty Law the Honduran Congress enacted? Thanks.
The amnesty, which had to be ratified in a second session of congress and then signed by Porfirio Lobo in his role as President, will be official once published in La Gaceta. When it is published we will translate and link to it.
Until then, only news reports give scraps of details. It is reportedly for 40 years and covers all of 2008, 2009, and 2010 through the inauguration.
Thanks for all your work since last June, and I'm very glad you'll be continuing to focus on Honduras from a slightly different perspective.
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