Truth Delayed?

The official government truth commission, headed by Eduardo Stein of Guatemala, announced yesterday that the commission's report would be delayed until the middle of June.

As recently as 11 February, Stein announced the report would be ready by mid-march.

On April 13, Stein told us report was to be delivered at the end of May, in time for review prior to the OAS General Assembly in June. At that time, he said it was specifically to be previewed to the OAS before it would be made public, in order to help them with their deliberations, so the change of timing now is odd.

Odder still is the announced reason for delaying again: to not influence the OAS member countries in their vote to return Honduras to full membership. In a complete reversal, Stein now says:

"We want to avoid it serving as an excuse or argument for anyone to contaminate the discussion over the return of Honduras."

But it seems that was precisely the point a few weeks ago, to influence the OAS discussion. So what's changed?

Stein himself has admitted the report is done, the list of recommendations finished.

He has a few questions he would like to ask Manuel Zelaya Rosales, who has refused to deal with the commission, but believes he has sufficient knowledge of events from other sources.

Stein told reporters:

"We would have liked to historically document his version of some of the topics, because it it impossible for us to speculate what the intentions of ex-president Zelaya were on taking up certain positions and making certain decision, things that only he can clarify.... For us the work is finished, save some questions that we would have liked to ask him [Zelaya], but it was his decision...."

One wonders why influencing the OAS was fine in April, but has become anathema in May.

And in either case, we wonder if it is appropriate for a so-called "Truth Commission" to be scheduling the release of its findings to advance a political goal of the people whose actions are supposed to be under scrutiny.

Of course, if you begin your hunt for "truth" having prejudged that the current political administration bears no responsibility for the actions that many of its members took to implement a coup and the repression that followed, maybe that kind of politicization doesn't seem at odds with truth at all.

But we continue to think that a truth commission that starts with conclusions, and that times its reports for political ends, has very little credibility.

Honduras and the OAS: The Plot Thickens

The issue of what to do about Honduras will come up again at the next OAS General Assembly in early June. As readers will recall, Honduras has failed to fulfill the requirements set by members of the OAS opposed to readmission. Most discussed has been the failure to find a way to dismiss politically motivated charges against former president José Manuel Zelaya Rosales, which would allow him to return to the country. This has come even to overshadow the concerns expressed about continued human rights abuses in post-coup Honduras.

Porfirio Lobo Sosa asked again on April 15, for the Supreme Court of Honduras to do what is necessary to make it possible for Manuel Zelaya Rosales to return to Honduras.

Jorge Rivera Aviles, the Supreme Court Chief Justice, says that if it does, it will just be "a happy coincidence", not because of Lobo Sosa's pressure on the court.

This battle has been going on since Lobo Sosa took office in January 2010. Porfirio Lobo Sosa has done all he can to make it possible for Zelaya to return, but ultimately it is beyond his power. He cannot command the Supreme Court, and so far, they've declined to cooperate with him.

It took the negotiations of Arturo Corrales, once negotiator for Roberto Michelleti, and currently head of Lobo Sosa's Strategic Planning Commission, and the brainstorming of a legal team, to find a legal way the court can dismiss the remaining charges: nullification.

Here's what will happen next with the Zelaya legal case:

--on or about April 20, a three judge appeals panel of the Supreme Court will rule on an appeal by the Public Prosecutor's office to reinstate the arrest warrants for Zelaya that have previously been vacated.

--after that, there's another motion pending before Judge Chinchilla to dismiss the two remaining charges because of procedural errors by the Public Prosecutor, Luis Rubi.

(The procedural errors? Under Honduran law, Rubi had to formally notify Zelaya he was the subject of an investigation, and that notification had to occur before any charges were filed. Rubi filed charges in July 2009, just after the coup, without ever notifying Zelaya. This seems to be the core of the argument for nullification of the charges.)

--if the charges are dismissed, Rubi's office can be expected to appeal, prolonging the case for up to two more weeks.

In any event, if the Supreme Court does not drag its feet again by mid-May it should have heard all the possible appeals and ruled definitively and finally on the charges against Zelaya, either dismissing them or allowing them to go to trial.

There is a lot more now riding on what Rivera Aviles claims would only be a "happy coincidence" being the outcome.

After meeting in Colombia with Lobo Sosa, and with Zelaya and representatives of the Frente de Resistencia yesterday, Hugo Chavez has said that if Lobo Sosa can deliver on the long-demanded dismissal of charges against Zelaya, then he will support reintegration of Honduras in the OAS.

He has promised both Lobo Sosa and Zelaya he would work to bring about a resolution favorable to both sides. Juan Barahona, on behalf of the Frente de Resistencia, has said they put their trust in Chavez as a mediator as well.

There are still, of course, things that making it possible for Zelaya to return will not heal.

At the same OAS General Assembly, the government-sponsored Truth Commission (which isn't really a truth commission because its charter fails to conform to the UN standards for truth commissions), will brief OAS members on the contents of its final report.

Eduardo Stein said the report will be submitted without the help of Zelaya, who refused to give testimony to the commission, because they have a large body of press releases and statements by members of his cabinet to the press to confirm what happened, and that those statements are consistent with other reports made to the commission.

Contradicting himself, he noted that there were some topics where only Zelaya could provide information about his intentions and actions, and he regretted that Zelaya had refused to cooperate.

So, the Truth Commission, which has been touted as providing a means to reconcile Hondurans divided by the coup, is not likely to add much forward momentum. And the human rights situation in Honduras has not been improving. Both the US State Department and the Inter-American Human Rights Commission have recently condemned deteriorating human rights conditions in Honduras.

But it is probably a reasonable bet that Honduras will return to the OAS soon-- that is, if the Supreme Court delivers its "happy coincidence".

Honduras has Two Truth Commissions

Honduras has two truth commissions: one set up and overseen by Porfirio Lobo Sosa, and one set up and overseen by Human Rights Platform, a confederation of human rights organizations, both Honduran and international.

Why is there a truth commission at all?

The establishment of a truth commission was one of the 12 points Oscar Arias proposed in the original San Jose Accord proposal. It survived in the Guaymuras (AKA Tegucigalpa-San Jose) Accord eventually signed by both Manuel Zelaya and Roberto Micheletti. It thus has its origins in the international community, not from Honduran aspirations.

The Tegucigalpa Accord was almost immediately violated by Micheletti, and declared no longer in effect by Zelaya, when Micheletti tried to unilaterally set up a government of reconciliation on his own. At the time, verification commission member Ricardo Lagos declared that these actions violated the accord. Nonetheless, the US has promoted what it calls full implementation of the Accord under the administration of Lobo Sosa, despite Lobo not being a party to the agreement which in any event was violated and declared dead by the two parties it attempted to reconcile.

And so Porfirio Lobo Sosa has established what he (and the US State Department) call a "government of reconciliation and unity", based on participation by representatives of opposing political parties. Just who this government unifies and reconciles is, of course, the question: it does not include participation by the Liberal party, and members of the UD party have disclaimed those party officials who agreed to serve in the government. Nor does it include what might be recognized as movements that actually opposed the de facto regime, such as the Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular (FNRP), or even supporters of Manuel Zelaya.

Not much unity there, and precious little reconciliation.

Nor was forming the "unity" government enough. Lobo Sosa has had to form the Truth and Reconciliation Commission called for in the Guaymuras Accords to address one of the requirements placed on Honduras as it seeks readmission to the OAS and the international community. But that brings us to why Honduras has two truth commissions.

The Official Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Eduardo Stein, a consultant at the time to the OAS, was commissioned by Lobo Sosa to write the charter of, and recommend foreign members for, this truth commission. Of the international candidates recommended, Lobo Sosa picked Michael Kergin and Maria Amadilla Zavala. To complement these, Lobo Sosa selected Honduran members: Julietta Castellanos and Jorge Omar Casco, with Sergio Membreño as secretary. This governmentally chartered truth commission is funded by countries including the United States and Spain, and staffed by the OAS.

According to his OAS biography Eduardo Stein got his doctorate in Communications Sciences from Northwestern University in 1978. He then taught Political Science and Communications at universities in Guatemala, El Salvador, and the United States. He served as an advisor to Panamanian President Aristides Royo (1980-82). In the 1990s he served as Panama's representative to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and then as the IOM Regional Project Counselor for Central America. From 1996-2000, Stein was Foreign Minister for Guatemalan President Alvaro Arzu, a conservative who nonetheless signed a peace treaty with the Guatemalan URNG ending the civil war. In 2004-288 he was Vice President of Guatemala under President Oscar Berger Perdomo, another conservative president. More recently he has been a consultant to the OAS, and an OAS election observer/monitor. [The link to this biography could not be embedded as this was written.]

Michael Kergin is a Canadian career diplomat who entered foreign service in 1967. He served in the Canadian embassies in the United States, Cameroon, and Chile before becoming ambassador to Cuba in 1986. In the 1990s he held positions on political and international security affairs, and became the Canadian equivalent of the National Security Advisor. He became ambassador to the United States in 2000, serving until 2005. He is currently an adjunct professor in Political Science at the University of Ottawa, and a senior advisor at Bennett-Jones LLP.

Maria Amadilla Zavala is former President of the Supreme Court of Peru. She has also served as Peruvian Minister of Justice, and as Peru's representative to the OAS. She is reportedly close to the current conservative President of Peru, Alan Garcia.

Julieta Castellanos is currently Rector of the National Autonomous University of Honduras. She has also served as a consultant to the UN Development Program

Jorge Omar Casco is a former Rector for the National Autonomous University and a lawyer.

Sergio Membreño, who serves as the commission's secretary, is a university professor and participant in Transformemos a Honduras.

The Alternative Truth Commission

The Honduran Human Rights Platform is made up of representatives from the Centro de Investigación, Prevención y Tratamiento de Víctimas de la Tortura (CIPTVT), the Comité de Familiares de Detenidos Desaparecidos en Honduras (COFADEH), the Centro de Derechos de Mujer (CDM), the Centro de Investigación y Promoción de los Derechos Humanos en Honduras (CIPRODEH), and the international anti-hunger organization Food First Information and Interaction Network (FIAN).

The Human Rights Platform coalition, unconvinced of the impartiality and human rights mandate of the official truth commission, decided to set up and fund its own truth commission with international representatives Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Rigoberta Menchu, Francois Houtart, Mirna Antonieta Perla Jimenez, Nora Cortiñas, and Elsie Monje. Its Honduran representatives are Helen Umaña and the Father Fausto Milla. This truth commission is funded by donations from individuals and non-governmental organizations (to donate, see the link here).

Adolfo Pérez Esquivel is an Argentinian, trained as a sculptor and architect, who in 1974 relinquished a teaching post to devote full time to coordinating the activities of non-violent Latin American groups through a group which he helped found, Servicio, Paz, y Justicia. He initiated a successful campaign to create the United Nations human rights commission. The Argentinian junta imprisoned him in 1977 and released him in 1978 under restrictions. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1980 for his work on human rights.

Rigoberta Menchu, a Quiche Maya activist from Guatemala began work on women's rights in Guatemala as a teenager. Her father, mother, and brother were arrested, tortured, and killed by the Guatemalan government. She joined the Committee of the Peasant Union (CUC) and participated in strikes to improve farm worker conditions on the Pacific Coast of Guatemala in 1981. She joined the 31 of January Popular Front and taught resistance to military oppression. By the end of 1981 she fled Guatemala to Mexico and began working to organize resistance to oppression from abroad, in addition to working for peasant rights. She was part of the founding of the United Representation of the Guatemalan Opposition in 1983. In 1986 she became part of the National Coordinating Council of the CUC. She won a Nobel Prize in 1992 for her work on indigenous peoples' rights. She is a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador promoting a culture of peace.

Francois Houtart is a Belgian sociologist and Catholic Priest. He served as a consultant to the ecumenical council of Vatican II. He serves as an advisor to the Centre Tricontinental (CETRI) which he founded in 1976 to promote dialogue and cooperation between third world social groups. In 2009 he won the UNESCO-Madanjeet Singh Prize for the Promotion of Tolerance and Non-Violence.

Mirna Antonieta Perla Jimenez is a justice of the Supreme Court of El Salvador. She testified before the Inter American Commission on Human Rights in 1988 and 1992, and testified before the UN in 1988, 89, 90, and 1992. She was Vice President of the International Federation of Human Rights in Paris (1988-90). She served as Vice President of the Comision para la Defensa de Derechos Humanos en Centroamerica (CODEHUCA) 1988-92 and a member of the Human Rights commission in El Salvador (1992-93).

Nora Morales de Cortiñas is a defender of human rights and member of the Asociacion de Madres de Plaza de Mayo, an Argentinian human rights organization that was formed initially by mothers whose children were disappeared by the Argentinian dictatorship of 1976-1983. She is a social psychologist and professor at the Universidad de Buenos Aires.

Sister Elsie Monge is a Maryknoll nun who is known for her efforts for human rights in Ecuador. She has taught grade school in Guatemala, and high school in Panama before returning to her native Ecuador. In 1981 she served on the Ecumenical Commission for Human Rights (CEDHU) in Ecuador, becoming its Director in 1994. In 1996 she become president of the Federation of Human Rights in Ecuador. In 2004 she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. She currently serves as Executive Director of the Ecumenical Commission for Human Rights.

Helen Umaña is a professor of literature at the National Autonomous University of Honduras-Sula Valley. She was raised in Guatemala, where her family lived in exile. She both graduated from, and taught at, the University of San Carlos in Guatemala. She received the 1989 Honduran National Literature Prize for her literary criticism about Honduran writing.

Father Fausto Milla Nuñez, a native of Guarita, Lempira, Honduras, is diocesan priest of the church of San Martin de Porres, Santa Rosa de Copan, Honduras. He was educated in El Salvador and Colombia. He taught school for 17 years in Popoyan, Colombia. In 1963 he was called to the priesthood, and was ordained in 1964. In 1969 the then Bishop of Santa Rosa, Monseñor Carranza Chévez, posted him to the church in Guarita, which a few months later bore the brunt of the so-called Soccer War of 1969 between El Salvador and Honduras. He was transferred to the church in Cerquin in 1970 where he began his work in human rights. This assignment also began his interest in Lenca culture and foodways. He was jailed in 1981 by the Honduran military junta and went into exile in Mexico. In 1985, he returned to Honduras assigned to Santa Rosa de Copan, where he returned to the community organizing and human rights work he had been doing since before his exile in Mexico.

These are the kinds and quality of people selected by Porfirio Lobo Sosa and the Human Rights Platform to form their respective truth commissions, to look into the events surrounding the coup d'etat of June 28, 2009, the de facto regime that seized power, and the human rights abuses that resulted. The government's truth commission began work in May. The Human Rights Platform's truth commission will begin work on June 28.

I know which group I think is more qualified. Which group seems more qualified to you?

More semantic juggling by Eduardo Stein

Pity poor Eduardo Stein, former Guatemalan Vice President saddled with leadership of the "Truth" Commission that no one in Honduras really believes will arrive at any truth.

As we previously noted, in his efforts to bend over backwards to please right-wing forces in Honduras that know they have everything to lose if even a shred of light is cast on the events leading up to and following the coup, Stein decided not to use the word "coup". Which is absurd on the face of it, as it begs the question: what is the event that triggered the need for a Truth Commission?

Now, courtesy of another excellent article by Marc Lacey in the New York Times, we have Eduardo Stein's own answer:

“In our minds and in the evidence we’ve gathered, it is clear that it was a forced expulsion of a president who had been elected by popular vote,” he said by telephone from Tegucigalpa. “What do you call that?”

Well, obviously-- coup. Or if you prefer the original Spanish, golpe de estado.

And that can be translated back into English as: irrelevancy. Which is what the Truth Commission has accomplished by not adopting the forthright term for the events of June 28, 2009.

"It was a coup": Porfirio Lobo Sosa

Courtesy of Vos el Soberano, readers today can watch clips from a televised interview with Porfirio Lobo Sosa on CNN from his current Spanish tour.

The post there, drawing on reporting on the alternative Honduran news site La Vanguardia, also provides quotations from the interview (the full video is available on CNN México). The key exchange:

José Levy of CNN: Was what happened in Honduras a coup d'Etat?

Lobo Sosa: "Of course, put it how you will but it was a coup."

Remarkably, this puts Lobo Sosa in the position of being more direct and honest-- more truthful, in fact-- than the head of the emasculated "Truth Commission" which has started its task by agreeing not to offend the retrograde forces in Honduras that carried out, supported, and continue to demand a whitewash of the events of June 28, 2009.

Which were, unequivocally, by all international standards, and under Honduran constitution and law, a coup d'Etat.

As the person now occupying the uncomfortable position of intending to lead Honduras with limited legitimacy and constrained authority recognizes.

And attempts to legitimate:

"Democracy did not have sufficient mechanisms to guarantee its maintenance."

Guarantee its maintenance against what? Lobo Sosa goes on to repeat his own previous assertion that he knows that President Zelaya intended to "stay on". This is how the pro-coup elite in Honduras has tried to justify the coup: by predicting that the Cuarta Urna public opinion poll would have passed, and that the existing Constitution would have been immediately suspended, and President Zelaya would have remained in power at the head of the government during the period leading up to the Constituyente, which they further argue could only have been intended to eliminate the presidential term limit.

This is, in the end, the most frightening thing about the 2009 coup and its supporters: they literally believe that disrupting constitutionality was a way to protect the democratic order. And they believe that making this argument justifies the coup. And every time the international community gives way on calling a spade a spade, this argument gains vigor.

Hence we now see Lobo Sosa-- who evaded the same question throughout his presidential campaign and the dictatorship of the Micheletti de facto regime-- happy to admit it was a coup. But not that bad old kind of coup: the good kind. Too bad about the deaths and human rights violations but in order to save the village, we had to destroy it.

"Are you deliberately avoiding the word 'coup'?"

Our headline comes from a question the Los Angeles Times asked in a Q/A with Eduardo Stein today.

His response?

"That is precisely what we want to clarify. ... There are people here who argue it was a constitutional succession, with minor mishaps along the way. I went on record [shortly after the coup] saying that a forced expulsion of a popularly elected president, taken by military people and thrown out of the country, is a coup. ... Here, I have been reprimanded for taking sides. So now we are calling it an alteration of political institutionality, and we will examine whether there was a constitutional framework and if rights were respected." [emphasis added]

"Here" is Honduras, where Stein was in Tegucigalpa while being interviewed.

If anyone is in doubt as to why members of the Frente de Resistencia doubt the potential for this "Truth Commission" to help resolve the conflict that continues in Honduras, let this be a moment of clarification.

Holding open the possibility of supporting the spurious argument that the coup d'etat that occurred was actually a "constitutional succession" means starting by having already yielded to the faction that was responsible for disrupting constitutional government in Honduras.

And there is more to sustain the suspicions of opponents to the coup:

"there are some things that happened that have antecedents of not just weeks but maybe months or years. Eruption was a date and time, but it took a long time to cook."

Through the repressive rule of the de facto regime, a repeated claim was that the world-wide repudiation of the coup d'etat was unfair because international agencies would not listen to their interpretation of events throughout the term of José Manuel Zelaya Rosales as evidence justifying the coup. Well, it sounds like they will get their way on this one as well.

Not that Stein actually cares that progressives in Honduras will not cooperate with him:

"Among the Zelayistas and the resistance, they see us as just an extension of the coup, only window-dressing."

I suppose that we should be grateful that Stein at least differentiates between personal supporters of Zelaya and the broader resistance. But on the downside, he equates progressives and the extreme right, and thinks that by refusing to acknowledge those with the most at stake in the conflict, the Truth Commission will somehow be able to make a difference:

"We are not worried about the extremes. We have found enough interest among groups who want to come forward. And we have to be surgically careful not to allow ourselves to be sucked into the political squabbles."

Well, I hate to tell him, but the Truth Commission has already been sucked into "political squabbles". That should be the whole point, surely: to clarify the issues that surround differences in power and the exercise of authority about which stake-holders disagree.

And when you think you are avoiding being drawn in, you actually are in danger of accepting the premises offered by one side or another. Such as that it may not actually have been a coup, and the "causes" (read: justifications) may have developed long before the decision was made to kidnap the legally elected president, expatriate him unconstitutionally, and appoint a member of Congress as "president" without legal justification.

The business of the Truth Commission is business

What does it mean when the most accurate English language reports about the aftermath of the Honduran coup come from the business media?

Not for the first time, Bloomberg has a clear and accurate story, and it even includes new information: citing Foreign Minister Mario Canahuati, the economic impact of the coup was a reduction of 6.6 percent of gross domestic product, equivalent to $930.6 million.

Bloomberg also manages to actually cite a Honduran against the coup without describing him inaccurately as a "leftist", a "Zelaya supporter", or any of the other terms used to diminish the authority of those opposed to the Lobo Sosa administration and to the international movement to artificially impose closure on Honduran society:

Coup opponents such as Andres Pavon, head of the Honduran Human Rights Defense Committee, say they fear the truth commission, headed by former Guatemalan Vice President Eduardo Stein, isn’t qualified and will whitewash the coup.

This is the crux of the matter. And it does matter: to the extent that a major constituency in Honduras sees the "truth commission" as illegitimate, it cannot be successful in bridging polarization among Hondurans.

But then, that is not what the commission is for: Bloomberg reports that Canahuati hopes it will help the country return to the Organization of American States and reduce investor concerns over political instability:

"We want to do what we can to leave behind the shock to our economy... Our intention is to have friends and alliances.”

Which is a far cry from working through the internal fractures exacerbated by the coup and the de facto regime, which were not healed by the inauguration of Porfirio Lobo Sosa.

Alternative truth, official truth, or honest disagreement?

An article published by IPS today, written by Thelma Mejía, attests to the widespread skepticism about the newly formed Honduran Truth Commission.

Composed of former Guatemalan vice president Eduardo Stein; Michael Kergin, a Canadian diplomat; María Amadilia, former Peruvian minister of justice; and Honduran members Julieta Castellanos and Jorge Omar Casco, assisted by Sergio Membreño as technical secretary, the Commission will begin its work on May 4.

As Mejía points out, conservative forces in Honduras-- notably the Unión Cívica Democrática (UCD)-- are opposed to including Julieta Castellanos. In addition, Mejía points out, "human rights groups criticised the inclusion of Casco, whom they link with the most radical fringe of the political right". Meanwhile, the Human Rights Platform notes that the Truth Commission has been established without following international norms.

The selection of the international members of the commission appears to have been constrained by the need to avoid participants from countries that have been critical of the coup. Since few governments in the world refrained from expressing outrage about the de facto regime, and many governments have not yet recognized the Lobo Sosa administration, the range of candidates was restricted from the outset. While Mejía cites Minister of Foreign Relations Mario Canahuati as saying the selection was made from a group of 15 competitive candidates, she quotes Reina Rivera of the Human Rights Platform as saying that

We believe that the selection of the international members was made more on the basis of their nationalities than their competence and abilities. The representatives from Canada and Peru are not well looked upon in some sectors, which is why some reject the Commission, while others view it with reservations.

Among those skeptical others: pro-coup businessman and ANDI president Adolfo Facussé, who reportedly said

this Truth Commission is a demand of the international community and we already know what its findings will be.... [These] will be geared to what the world wants to hear, and not to what really happened in Honduras. I don't have very high expectations regarding this question. It won't contribution to reconciliation; on the contrary, it will create greater division.

Finally, something on which both sides can agree! But surely even if it doesn't heal the wounds, finding out the truth will help? well, not so fast:

As we previously pointed out, the fact that the commission will seal records for ten years suggests the search for truth in Honduras is premature, if the committee thinks the country cannot handle hearing what it expects to discover. The report that Stein suggests will be complete in eight months is hard to imagine, if it has to avoid sensitive topics.

On the positive side, Mejía reports plans for an "Alternative Truth Commission", reportedly with the backing of Amnesty International and other human rights organizations, to "monitor the process and the conduct of those who make up the Truth Commission".

So, while we may share the skepticism of the left, right, and pro-business sectors in Honduras about the official Truth Commission, there is a chance that opposition to the proposed whitewash will keep a focus on the actual events of the coup and its aftermath and give human rights groups a chance to call attention to ongoing repression.

"We'll know the truth in 10 years"

"A truth commission also aims to affect the way the public understands its national history and the conflict or violence of recent years. It is thus important that the conclusions of the report are made widely available throughout the country." -- Rule of law tools for Post-Conflict States -- Truth Commissions, United Nations, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, page 31.

I know that the truth commission was forced on Honduras, and that no one in power there wants it, but we are left just scratching our head at the resultant truth commission that Honduras has come up with. Who does it serve, and to what purpose?

"We'll know the truth in ten years" was the headline in La Tribuna this morning. My jaw dropped; I did a double take, and then I laughed. I've read the UN manual on truth commissions; they literally wrote the book on them. Apparently no one at the State Department, which pushed for the truth commission in Honduras, or in Porfirio Lobo Sosa's government in Honduras, bothered to read the manual on what a truth commission is, or does, or why you have one, because this is a joke.

"We'll know the truth in ten years" according to La Tribuna, is a quote from Eduardo Stein, the Guatemalan to whom Porfirio Lobo Sosa subcontracted the organization and charter of the truth commission. La Tribuna tells us Stein says the final report of the truth commission will be deposited in the National Archives to be released to the public in 10 years.

Stein writes, "Collection of elements that help to clarify the facts are at all times the key to rebuilding and support these issues of national reconciliation" in the preamble of the charter of the truth commission; but what national reconciliation is being aided by hiding the truth for ten years, we are forced to ask? Is the whole exercise a farce? or is it that Honduras is not ready to have a truth commission? Stein assures us that the OAS is in favor of hiding the truth for 10 years.

Originally this commission was supposed to be formally organized on February 25, but that date slipped and next Stein announced it would be formally chartered on April 29, however, today he announced that "there is particular interest by some international organizations in participating," so the formal charter will be delayed again to give them time to be invited to participate.

"The impact of a final report may ultimately depend less on its content than on a variety of surrounding factors, including when and in what circumstances the report is released and publicized, how widely it is distributed, how much coverage it receives in the media, and, perhaps most importantly, how the political authorities treat the report and whether they have any interest in publicizing and implementing its conclusions and recommendations." Rule of law tools for Post-Conflict States -- Truth Commissions, page 31.

May I be the first to be wrong in predicting this report will have no impact, because the political authorities have no interest in knowing, publicizing, or implementing any of its future conclusions. Remind me again why they are going through this exercise? Oh, right, the State Department wanted it? Why again?

Unspeakable Truths

Ramon Custodio, the Human Rights Commissioner, sounded the alarm yesterday that the truth commission being formed by Eduardo Stein might be considering suggesting social and legal reforms as part of its mandate. Stein confirmed yesterday that it was possible the commission would look into suggesting reforms with the idea of preventing future crises.

Custodio's comments, and those of others, come following the announcement late this week that Stein would head a truth commission made up of 3 international representatives and two Honduran representatives, and that one of those Hondurans would be from the Frente de Resistencia with President Lobo selecting the other. Stein suggested the international representatives be ex-foreign ministers or jurists well versed in issues of human rights. While Stein suggested names in his report to Porfirio Lobo Sosa, he made it clear that President Lobo would be making the selection of representatives on the commission.

Maria de Bográn, presidential designate and advisor to President Lobo Sosa, said yesterday that Stein's report to the President

told us about making an analysis of some reforms, not precisely constitutional; it spoke of some reforms of social laws that needed to be made clearer or better.

She stated that the position of the President, and the Government, is that the commission has no mandate to suggest constitutional reforms.

Custodio, however, asked if this wasn't a continuation of the cuarta urna, the fourth ballot box whose proposal triggered this constitutional crisis. He inferred that the truth commission would be suggesting changes to the "written in stone" articles of the Constitution, including the prohibition on re-election of the president:

If what we removed with the cuarta urna they're going to impose on us with a yoke hidden in the truth commission, then Mr. Stein is presiding over and coordinating a constitutional commission.

Custodio went even further, accusing Stein of not being impartial:

Mr. Stein has in his background his bias about the Honduran crisis because he was part of the commission which declared that the Honduran elections were not legitimate and called at the time for the reincorporation of Mr. Zelaya as President of the Republic. So he is a person representing attributions that perhaps are not appropriate for the impartial, ethical carrying out (of the mandate of the truth commission) and could affect the relative stability that we've gained.

I think there is too much indulgence of the OAS. They're the cause of this problem...

Custodio's is not the only voice sounding the alarm. Federico Álvarez, an ex-president of the Central American Bank of Economic Integration (BCIE in Spanish) thinks things are moving much too fast, and that the truth commission needs commissioners who are questioned by no one:

We could have looked for investigators of international reputation, a group of constitutional law professors, who would be happy to be here with no interests and no links to anyone (involved in the crisis), and people would be more calm.

Álvarez suggested that there needs to be a separation between what Hondurans need to do to reform their constitution with the goal of strengthening their democracy, and what the truth commission might want to do with the constitution:

The only thing we know is what Stein said, and he said that it is necessary to revise the process by which a president is removed from office, ignorant of what article 239 of our constitution says.

Álvarez had already come out against Stein before recent reports about the nature of the proposed Truth Commission. In a February 6 editorial in La Tribuna he stated that Stein was disqualified by being a representative of a government (Guatemala) that had passed judgment on what happened in Honduras. This is not precisely true. While the government of Guatemala has expressed an opinion, it was not the government of which Stein was a part, since he was a member of a prior administration. Álvarez seems to be referring to Stein's membership in the Carter Center's mission to Honduras in October, 2009, to know the truth of the human rights violations and decide whether conditions were apt for an election.

So why this manifest anxiety over suggestions of reforms? How did Maria de Bográn's comment about the report suggesting the commission might consider suggesting reforms to social laws transform itself, in the representation of Custodio and Álvarez, into constitutional reforms and the suggestion that the truth commission was the feared "constituyente" that the cuarta urna might have initiated?

One possible cause of anxiety-- not openly alluded to by Federico Álvarez or Ramon Custodio-- could be Stein's proposal that one representative on the commission be from the Frente de Resistencia. That appears to be almost literally unspeakable: to date no Honduran press coverage of this part of Stein's proposal has appeared. On February 7, Juan Barahona, a leader of the Frente de Resistencia, rejected the Truth Commission itself as "pure show". But since the proposal by Stein that a representative of the Frente be included, there has been no further comment, and no official communication. Of course, since that selection is to be made by Porfirio Lobo Sosa, it is hard to imagine that he or she would be a legitimate representative of the popular resistance. The Honduran press and officials-- including Ramon Custodio in an interview with Spanish media-- continue to claim that the inclusion of former UD presidential candidate César Ham in Lobo Sosa's cabinet was equivalent to representation of the resistance, a position explicitly disclaimed by the Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular itself in a communique on January 26.

In this case, it seems, silence is golden. As with all monsters in closets, the fear has to be expressed somehow. So Custodio and others like him pass over in silence the real threat of having a Truth Commission actually hear from opponents of the coup and critics of the pretense that the present government is free of entanglements with it. But their imaginations run directly to where they fear listening to the people might take an independent commission: the absolute need for constitutional reform.