Lobo: Honduras Wants Change

Porfirio Lobo Sosa will start his dialogue with the organized social and political organizations this coming Saturday.

Already he's saying that the results of that dialogue need to be proposed as constitutional changes before the end of this year, because changes proposed in 2012 would require approval by whoever wins the 2013 elections.

Speaking to his Cabinet, he said

"There are those who don't want us to listen to the people, being mixed up; leave them behind; they're not important; I tell those of you who have confidence in me that no one will remove me from my path, no one. Why? because, just as some of you don't like to read much, some, but I read every day: the doctrine of christian socialism; that's where I am placed and no one will remove me unless they do something (he laughs) which violates the norms."

Lobo announced that each session of his dialogue will last three or four hours and participants will be encouraged to present their vision of necessary changes: not just political, but economic and social as well.

"There go those crickets who go, the assembly which Pepe Lobo is talking about is the Constituyente. I have not said a Constituyente. I have said that we cannot sit waiting for a Constituyente, if a Constituyente comes, or does not come, I have the responsibility to make changes because Honduras wants change."

Lobo Sosa's consultations do not depend on the much-touted law that was supposed to enable plebiscites and referenda, because that law is gathering dust in Congress.

The law was passed by two-thirds of Congress, but the actual operationalization, drafted in committee, sits in a drawer somewhere.

As drafted in committee, the law actually makes it almost impossible to hold a referendum, requiring signatures of at least 2 percent of the registered electorate, plus the support of ten congress persons and a Presidential resolution, in order to get considered by the Congress.

Then, and only then, Congress has to discuss the issue and vote to move it forward or not, and determine the language used in the referendum before handing it off to the Election Tribunal.

Any referendum approved following this process will pass if it receives the support of 51 percent of an electorate equal in size to that which voted in the last general election.

These are high barriers that predictably will have the result of preventing anything controversial from being considered by the voting public.

As El Heraldo noted, every proposal has to pass through Congress, where members can halt anything that damages their interests.

Pepe Lobo may be right about Honduras wanting change.

But the law that is supposed to make that possible shows that Congress clearly does not.

(Not) Talking Constituyente

The AFP, in an article entitled "President of Honduras to convoke dialogue on a National Constituent Assembly", reported today that Porfirio Lobo Sosa will begin on July 9 a series of dialogues across the country to talk with various sectors about constitutional reform.

The AFP's headline is somewhat misleading: Lobo Sosa will not be calling for a Constituyente.

What he says he will do is quite a bit different:

"After they tell us the reforms, we will translate them into proposals for the National Congress to do what is normal in Congress, to analyze, discuss, generate consensus, and reform laws or approve new laws....I will advance the discussion of reforms because we can't sit around waiting for a Constituyente to be approved."

So pretty clearly, no Constituyente; no popular debate about fundamental reorientation of the political system and codification of rights of women and minorities; just constitutional reform as business-as-usual, perpetuating existing power relations.

That doesn't merit the headline of the AFP, or the promotion the same misinformation is getting now in venues like the AP.

Lobo Sosa won't be proposing anything himself; he'll just be listening.

Historically, Lobo Sosa has used dialogues like this to cull ideas for legislation, meeting with the obvious interest groups to which he and the National Party are oriented, not, for example, the FNRP or campesino groups.

The groups presenting ideas in the present dialogues will come from recognized sectors of society (e.g. business associations, the churches, the UCD, the political parties), each in its own separate dialogue with Lobo Sosa.

The participants will be limited to invited interest groups, and if you don't fall into one of those groups you will be voiceless in this process.

So, the key will be seeing who is invited to talk to Lobo Sosa. Will the FNRP get a hearing? How on earth could Lobo Sosa think he can accommodate what the Frente is calling for within the existing government processes?

One Year of Resistance: What Could Porfirio Lobo Sosa Do?

As I write this on June 26, one year has passed since the day we left Honduras. We had tickets to return in a couple of weeks to continue our work. We also knew we would be returning later, in August or September, for another event.

The political situation was tense enough that we told the students who were staying to be careful. In particular, despite any interest they might have, we suggested they stay away from the central square in San Pedro Sula on Sunday, when the polling for the cuarta urna initiative would take place. We were concerned there would be violence, given the passion and at times, frenzied irrationality, of those protesting Manuel Zelaya's proposal to test the depth of support for constitutional reform.

But despite conversations about rumors of a coup with Honduran colleagues, we did not believe, truly believe, that Honduras could turn back to that past. So when we were wakened on June 28 by a call from one of our students with the news of President Zelaya's kidnapping and expatriation, the disruptions of media and internet service, and cut-offs of electricity, we struggled to come to terms with this failure of democratic process.

We are still struggling to understand it, and the events that followed under the de facto regime, and continue under the administration of Porfirio Lobo Sosa. We have, with many others, found the actions of the United States disappointing, and determinative in breathing new life into the de facto regime at points when it seemed that a restoration of the elected government might be possible. Instead, Roberto Micheletti held on to his delusional "presidency", destroying any chance for elections to be held that would allow for participation by dissenting politicians and that might have honestly acknowledged the level of nonparticipation and open repudiation of elections held after such a breach of public order.

One of the things we struggle with constantly is the question, what could a real leader in Honduras do at this point to begin a process that might allow the country to come to terms with these events sooner rather than later? We have, like others, been horrified at the cynicism of the US position that ticks off a list of gestures in order to claim that the coup is behind us. We think there is ample evidence that the gestures Porfirio Lobo Sosa is performing satisfy no one except the US, and have further weakened Honduran government and civil society.

So we debate, constantly, the question: what might Lobo Sosa do now that could genuinely make a difference? Is Honduras doomed to spend an entire presidential administration in this state of suspended animation? In commemoration of one year of Honduran resistance to this coup and its aftermath, we offer the following list of actions that a Honduran president who truly wanted to start a process of national dialogue would have to take:

(1) Declare officially that the coup d'etat was an unconstitutional disruption of the rule of law. We know from his candid statements to Spanish media that Lobo Sosa admits that a golpe took place. But Lobo Sosa not only was incapable of leading the members of his own party to repudiate the coup after the November elections, he assented to the Congressional resolution reaffirming the illegitimate actions of June 28, 2010. As long as the official line in Honduras is that what happened was legal, there is no possibility of coming to terms with what happened.

(2) Recognize the existence of the FNRP as a legitimate voice of opposition, respect the insistence of the FNRP on determining its own structure and leadership, and acknowledge its communications as legitimate political statements of an autonomous public opinion that cannot be dismissed as "radical". This one is complicated. Honduran politicians want to neutralize the FNRP by drawing attention to its internal debates (as if such differences in opinion are absent in other political groups), by characterizing it as radical, and if those attempts do not work, by suggesting it is simply a typical political movement that will be converted into a conventional party. It will be a challenge for Lobo Sosa to craft a statement that accepts the legitimacy of the Frente without also attempting to redefine it or minimize its importance. But it is critical that he acknowledge that the conventional political parties whose presidential candidates he drafted into his cabinet do not represent the opposition to the coup, and thus, that his government is not one of "reconciliation and unity".

(3) Fund Sandra Ponce, the Fiscalia de Derechos Humanos (who has the investigative and prosecutorial authority for responding to complaints of human rights abuses) and direct her to immediately investigate the human rights abuses documented by the IAHRC. State clearly and in public that he accepts the IAHRC's findings and acknowledge that abuses continue today.

(4) While we doubt Lobo Sosa has the political power to do it (and we question whether he has the support to accomplish even the first three items we list) if he could, he should remove from executive branch offices those proponents of the coup d'etat appointed by Micheletti who are still to be found throughout the Honduran government.

(5) Acknowledge formally that he cannot guarantee Manuel Zelaya Rosales that if he returned to Honduras, which is his legal right, he would be free of politically-motivated prosecution. By insisting that Zelaya can return anytime, without admitting that the judicial branch, full of adherents of the de facto regime and complicit in the coup d'etat, is primed to pursue prosecution of a frivolous list of charges, Lobo Sosa is being disingenuous. Hondurans were encouraged in the months leading to the coup to be afraid of political differences, and were inspired to call for adherence to narrow orthodoxies of thought, belief, and action. Zelaya is one of the most powerful symbols of the purging of political diversity, and if Lobo Sosa would acknowledge that the country cannot tolerate his presence, he would be acknowledging that the country is not capable of healthy political debate.

(6) Finally, we would hope that Lobo Sosa could find the courage to reject the utility of the artificial performance of the steps outlined for Micheletti in the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord. He needs to be the one to admit that having politicians from other parties in his cabinet is not "a government of unity and reconciliation". He should be the one to say that Honduras is not ready for a "Truth Commission" constructed simply to give cover to a few powerful international allies that want to stop having to deal with Honduras. He could do more good by saying clearly what everyone in Honduras knows: the truth of what happened on June 28, 2009 is well established. There is nothing about the events that is unclear. It is how people in support of the coup justify those events, in contrast to how the opposition understands them, that is separating Hondurans. And those are not matters of truth: they are matters of interpretation. If Honduras needs to move on, what it needs to move on from is precisely the terms of the Accord, which never worked, never really stemmed from Honduran intentions, and stands in the way of the country beginning to confront the fissures that broke open one year ago today.

"They ask for the constituyente": Lobo Sosa

Porfirio Lobo Sosa, interviewed at length in Proceso Digital, manages to combine exasperation with the resistance-- which reports having obtained half a million signatures in favor of the constitutional assembly-- with a somewhat misleading appearance of reasonableness that echoes ironically with the history of June 28, 2009:

"OK! what has to be done is consult the people, and if the people are in accord, the constituyente will be convened..."

Pardon those of us who have not lost our short-term memory for wondering why this would be OK now, when it cost José Manuel Zelaya Rosales his position and his country?

Here's a translation of the (long) passage on this topic; notice that I am translating "consulta" simply as "consultation", even though it is one of the series of words that former president Zelaya used for the vote he proposed on June 28, 2009, and thus could have been translated as "poll". What is shaded in this passage, with its evasion of power ("I cannot impose anything"), is the responsibility that a leader of the nation should have in bringing about change demanded by the people. It is not clear exactly who would be consulted, and how, if the unnamed others made a consulta happen without Lobo Sosa "imposing" it.

"They say 'constituyente' to me, OK, What's the problem? Today I see that it is a theme that interests many, I hear the resistance that is with the constituyente, I hear the businessmen that also shout constituyente. OK! What has to be done is consult the people, and if the people are in accord, the constituyente will be convened, the representatives to the constitutional assembly will be elected and it has to be in an atmosphere that would permit the will of the people to be reflected", said Lobo.

"What I am not able to do is from here, from this Casa de Gobierno, to impose anything. I am for consultation, it fascinates me, what the people might decide, what I cannot do is impose criteria. And so, on this theme of refounding, I am going to say, there are things that are clear: the State itself that ordains and rules in all economic activity and political-social activity, as has been seen is not a system that functions", he added.

In 1989-- Lobo continued-- the Berlin wall fell, in 1991 the Soviet Union fell, or that is, statism as a system is losing, and on the other side, pure or savage capitalism as we might call it, says that the market regulates itself, but it also has shown that it cannot give a response; so, pardon me but there only remains one road, which is the one that God has marked out, that is the fact that there should be an economy in which he who invests will have a guarantee of his investment, but that he should understand that he has to have social responsibility, or that is, that which today we denominate a social market economy, which takes advantage of the real efficiency of the market to generate wealth and development, but with social justice. There has to be economic growth, but there has to be seen on the part of the investors in it an understanding, certainly, that we all want to be rich.

If the businessmen speak of the Constituyente, does that signify that the country is on the route toward that process? I ask this as the Honduran president, who does not wish to refer to periods of time, but was emphatic to point out that 'I am going to speak with the sectors to see what it is that they want; as they wish, from here we are not going to impose anything. But if a consultation is done, the people have to decide Yes or No; if the people decide Yes, well the date in which it is going to be convened will have to be decided and then how the representatives to the constituyente are going to be elected will have to be said...'here is the route', pointed out.

May Day: a Constitutional Assembly is "the final objective"

May first, traditional date throughout the world for demonstrations by organized labor, this year presented a particular opportunity in Honduras for the Frente de Resistencia to make visible popular support in the face of a Honduran government and international community determined to ignore the existence of an organized popular opposition.

Reports and photography by participants in the marches leave no doubt that anti-coup, pro-constitutional assembly messages were critical to the marches that took place in the major cities of Honduras.

What is harder to know is the scale of the marches. Pro-coup newspapers chose to portray the presence of Resistence participants as usurping the events, displacing "authentic" laborers. El Heraldo continued to equate the Frente de Resistencia with the Liberal Party, taking advantage of slogans by some Resistence marchers calling for the government to allow José Manuel Zelaya Rosales to return to Honduras, to portray this as the main demand of the marchers. The newspaper also claimed, without any evidence, that marchers displayed "more Cuban and Venzuelan flags than Honduran", although the photograph captioned with this provocative claim actually showed Doña Xiomara Castro de Zelaya giving a speech in a crowd holding a poster entirely occupied by Honduran imagery-- including the Honduran flag.

El Heraldo gave no overall estimate of the crowd in Tegucigalpa, only claiming that the speeches given by people it condemned as "political" were heard by 5,000 people, while the speeches of union leaders were heard by only 3,000, as part of its argument that the Resistance illegitimately took over a workers' march, ignoring the substantial overlap between the Resistance and unionized labor and campesino groups.

However, even the pro-coup newspaper, La Tribuna, was forced to acknowledge a strong turnout, reporting that the march in Tegucigalpa

did not bring together the 150,000 people that the organizers hoped for, but it was sufficiently massive to paralyze the city with the closing of nearby commercial centers and to alter vehicular traffic in the perimeter that the route embraced. A caravan of motorcycles headed the protest, followed by dozens of union members and campesino organizations, with large placards on which could be read messages like "We want a Constitutional Assembly", "Neither forget nor forgive the authors of the coup d'Etat".

In another story in La Tribuna, the number of marchers is estimated at "more than 100,000".

Meanwhile, El Heraldo reported that in the southern city of Choluteca, marchers-- again described as the "liberal resistance" and portrayed as "inserting" themselves inauthentically into the occasion-- took over the Panamerican Highway for an hour and a half.

While again no estimate of the size of the crowd was provided, the effective ability to block the main highway for that long suggests a substantial body of demonstrators. In its coverage of this demonstration, El Heraldo described the demand for a Constitutional Assembly, oddly, as having been a defeated campaign point of the UD party in November 2009, rather than admit that the call for the Constitutional Assembly is not merely the policy of a particular political party.

Separate reporting on marches in San Pedro Sula, again lacking any estimate of crowd size, noted the presence of marchers representing the Frente de Resistencia. But it also makes clear what other stories tried to confuse: that the Frente and the unions worked together to advance a shared set of themes, including calls for greater economic justice but also the demand for a Constitutional Assembly.

Israel Salinas, president of the Confederación Unitaria de Trabajadores de Honduras (CUTH), is quoted as saying that workers will join in demonstrations called for June 28:

“the people are and will continue to be in the streets until there is a national Constitutional Assembly, because this is the final objective"...