The Resistance Front presents its Executive Committee

[On the road, so without comment, extracts from the recent post announcing the outcome of the National Assembly in Tocoa; please see the official website www.resistenciahonduras.net for more]:

....

This Assembly was composed of 56 delegates, men and women, from all the national territory who were present in the heart of the Valle de Aguan to show the unconditional support to the campesino movements that are confronted with the violence of the army and the businessmen, and at the same time to achieve a historic date in the struggle of the Honduran people.

With this Assembly there was installed the Provisional National Coordination as a first step in the consolidation of the FNRP as a political platform toward the refounding of the country. This space of direction is made up of the representatives elected in the distinct Departmental Assemblies that have been carried out in the last weeks across Honduras, creating in this way a new Democracy that is born and is developed from the base.

The Provisional National Coordination named an Executive Committee that will direct the destinies of this struggle against golpismo, the military regime, barbarity and injustice. The first office selected in a unanimous manner was that of Manuel Zelaya Rosales as Coordinator, recognizing in this way his leadership and putting him at the head of this project that seeks to leave behind the old political practices in which small groups were set above the interests of the impoverished majority.

There will accompany Zelaya in this Executive Committee recognized figures of the popular struggle: Juan Barahona and Carlos H. Reyes (Tegucigalpa), Will Paz (Colón), Leonel Amaya (Olancho), Lucía Granados (San Pedro Sula), Lilí Aguilar (Lempira), María Antonia Martínez (of the movement Feministas en Resistencia), Porfirio Amador (Choluteca), Jaime Rodríguez and Edgardo Casaña (of the Federación de Organizaciones Magistrados de Honduras FOMH), Juan Chinchilla (Juventud Bajo Aguan), Víctor Petit (Comayagua), Teresa Reyes (Organización Fraternal Negra de Honduras Ofraneh), José Luis Baquedano (Confederación Unitaria de Trabajadores de Honduras CUTH). There only remains pending the man or woman representing the indigenous Lenca population.

...

The immediate objectives expressed by the Assembly are the return of Manuel Zelaya to the country together with all the persons obliged to go into exile, the development of the work of organization and political formation in all the country, the strengthening of our means of communication to defeat the lies elaborated by the golpistas and collaborators, and to initiate the collective construction of what will be the National Constituent Assembly that for the first time in our history will be Participatory, Popular, and truly Democratic.

Not quite a reply from the FNRP

But the statement posted on Vos el Soberano today may show some effects of the public positioning of COPINH and the Feministas en Resistencia.

Titled In installation of its first National Assembly the FNRP recognizes its diversity and strengthens unity, the statement starts

Recognizing the diversity of the Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular (FNRP) there was initiated this day in Tocoa, Department of Colón, the act of installation of the First National Assembly of the Honduran Resistance.

That "recognizing the diversity" is, obviously, critical to many constituent parts of the Frente.

Choosing Tocoa as the site of the Assembly is itself symbolic: Tocoa is in the region of the Bajo Aguan, where the confrontation of campesinos and landowners has not yet been concluded, and where tensions continue.

The statement goes on to say that

delegates, militants and sympathizers of the FNRP coming from all Honduras participated actively in the Forum of installation.

This wording raises the question, what constitutes a delegate, versus a sympathizer? The statement goes on to describe the assembly as including

men and women, youths and adults of all the political currents that have expression in the country and that have space in the FNRP.

Near the end of the statement tensions are finally openly acknowledged:

At the end of the act of installation and previous to the mobilization various doubts were clarified that have to do with the character of the Resistance, it was clarified that "the objective that the FNRP has is the National Assembly. What matters now, is not if we will be a political party, the important thing is that we are the principal social and political force of the country and that we have succeeded in reconfiguring the map of power in Honduras".

The "big tent" rhetoric, especially given the specification that it concerns "all the political currents", hints at the tensions between traditional political parties and the more revolutionary groups in the Frente.

So who did attendees hear from to represent the diversity of the Frente?

The three speakers mentioned by name in the article are Marcelino Borjas, Pavel Núñez, and Gloria Oquelí.

Borjas is described in the statement by the Frente as a retired teacher with a Master's degree in sociology and a doctorate in economics. His remarks at the Assembly reaffirmed the anti-imperialist posture of the Frente, and argued that the coup "would not have been possible without the participation and the help of officials of the highest level of the North American government".

Pavel Núñez, a member of the musical group Café Guancasco "spoke in the name of Honduran youth".

But the really interesting choice here is to give a great deal of print to Gloria Oquelí, described as "recognized leader of the Liberal Party, member for Honduras of the Parlamento Centroamericano (PARLACEN), and until recently President of that regional organization".

In March, Oquelí was listed as part of a group called the "encounter of progressive Liberals", one of seven factions within the Liberal Party that El Heraldo claimed would "promote the overthrow of the Liberal Party and even ask for the disappearance of that party". In May, El Heraldo augmented its count of factions of Liberals in Resistance to include what it called three "zelayist" factions, for a total of ten separate movements within the Liberal Party organizing against the dominance of Roberto Micheletti and Elvin Santos.

So, whatever other role she has, when Oquelí speaks, one of the tensions she voices is that between Liberals in the Resistance and those suspicious of the party system itself.

Oquelí is quoted as saying that

the rules of democracy are simple: one of those affirms that the majority rules and a second reaffirms that the majority can change any rule that might be established in a democratic system, except for the first.

Sounds uncontroversial, right? Majority rule = democracy.

But in fact, COPINH and the Feminists in Resistance each have articulated different rules of democracy, which stem from a minority position that understands that majority rule may actually end up being majority command. COPINH builds on a tradition of indigenous organizing in which consensus is the goal. A consensus is a majority; but it is a majority without significant dissent. To arrive at consensus, you have to take time to thrash things out, and you may well need to abandon some things that are objectionable to a determined minority.

Feminist organizations often strive for consensus as well. They also may advocate, as the Feministas en Resistencia did in their statement, for parity between men and women in governance.

Minority groups, including traditional parties that have strong agendas but are not popular enough to win a majority (such as the Liberal Democrats in the recent UK elections), often advocate an alternative to majority rule: proportional representation. Unlike the more familiar winner-takes-all approach, in proportional representation, minority positions can emerge with representation equal to that of their supporters. In pluralistic societies, proportional representation is probably more truly democratic.

So, the rules of democracy are not so simple after all.

But back to Gloria Oquelí. The report on the Assembly says she argued that "it is important to consolidate the political project known as Resistance". Again, not all participating segments of the Frente would agree that the Resistance is a "political project", and if they did, they would disagree on what kind of "political project" it is; and they may well continue to politely disagree with the claim that it has to be "consolidated".

Oquelí is a good politician, a progressive one, and she clearly feels the Resistance has a once in a lifetime opportunity. According to the report,

Recognizing the wide character of the Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular and the traps of empire she declared that "if they push us, if they corner us, so that we will be an institution of a homogeneous ideology, we could fall into error. In the FNRP we all fit, therefore it is not true what Hugo Llorens says, that we are a small group of the extreme left and of the extreme right facing off. It is the ideas, the ideals and all our dreams, not the ideologies that mark our way".

While it isn't entirely clear here who "they" are who want to corner the Frente into a homogeneous ideology, the juxtaposition with US Ambassador Llorens' regrettable dismissal of the Frente as an "extreme left" group tends to suggest Oquelí is concerned about the Frente being pushed to remain ideologically pure by the left. While it is hard to reduce feminist or indigenous activism to right/left terms, if you have to choose one position, it would indeed be left.

So, perhaps "they" who are trying to corner the Frente into an "ideology" in place of simply "ideas" and "ideals" includes those who recently expressed their uncertainties about the goals of this weekend's assembly. Since no one from indigenous or feminist networks is quoted in this first report, it is hard to say what they thought of how the event was opened.

Feminists in Resistance also caution about FRNP elections

In response to the public position statement about proposed selection of difectors of the Frente de Resistencia this week issued by COPINH, the Feminists in Resistance have come out in solidarity with that statement, calling it a "wake-up call" [literally, sound of knocking at a door] "so that the errors that have been committed can be corrected if we are actually committed, men and women, to the Refounding of Honduras".

In the second point of their ten point statement, the Feminists in Resistance say that

our diversity of expressions confronts us with different forms of oppression, for reasons of class, race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, land tenure and damages to the environment, among others. The FNRP cannot ignore this situation, at the moment of forming its organic structures, because otherwise it will be over-valuing some movements and organized groups with participation and representation that is majority masculine, above others in which we women participate under a different philosophy as is feminism.

They argue that

in all the organisms of direction of the Frente, women in resistance should participate in a joint form together with the men, in this way it will be putting into practice the exercise of a full citizenship, to which all women aspire, that is to say, to participate in the taking of decisions.

As with the statement by COPINH, the Feministas en Resistencia reiterate their stance against neoliberalism, patriarchy, neocolonialism, and related tendencies. They go to state firmly that

we consider that our actions within the FNRP should be totally divorced from old exlusionary practices, set-up and opportunistic, proper to the oligarchic parties that lamentably have permeated some of the social and political organizations that make up the Frente, which obligates us to be permanently vigilant and in particular, in this moment in which processes of election are being carried out of our structures and national conduct, in which we hope will exist parity between men and women and that the principles of equality, liberty and autonomy will be put into effect, understanding this as the possibility to take collective and individual internal decisions without interference, nor external pressures of any nature.

The group Feministas en Resistencia has published regular blog posts since August of 2009 with a focus on the impact of the coup and de facto regime on women's issues, and on actions taken in resistance. Like COPINH, it has participated in all the forums of the FNRP.

According to a description of its birth, Feministas en Resistencia was formed by "a collection of Honduran organizations and activists against the coup". With their tagline of Ni golpe de Estado, ni golpe a las mujeres! (Neither a coup d'etat nor violence toward women") they conjoin these forms of repression and underline the fact that women, as ever, pay a particular price for speaking up.

As the profile of the organization (written during the de facto regime, and thus referencing what then was a key demand, the return of the constitutional president) pointed out, for the Feministas en Resistencia

resistance signifies a fight for a substantive democracy that will transform existing relationships of power and generate a new and egalitarian social pact. This goes far beyond Manuel Zelaya’s return. From their perspective, struggling for the restitution of the constitutional president to his office is a condition for democracy and a point of departure for the process of re-establishing the Honduran State by recognizing diversity, citizen participation, gender equality, and human rights.

Incorporating explicit statements of women's rights in a new Constitution is as much a motivating force for these activists as incorporating guarantees of indigenous rights is for COPINH.

Like COPINH, this means they are not interested in converting into a traditional party or political organization.

And even more explicitly, they are pointing the finger at traditional party operatives now in the Frente who they suspect would like to convert it into something that will not achieve the revolutionary goals they seek as feminists.

The Institue for Women versus Feminists in Resistance

As readers of this blog know, a week ago, on International Women's Day, there was a call for mobilization by Honduras' Feminists in Resistance. Coverage in the Honduran press of demonstrations on International Women's Day illuminates the challenge Feminists in Resistance present to the Lobo Sosa administration.

Pro-coup El Heraldo reported that there was a protest in Tegucigalpa against femicide, giving the alarming figures: 46 women killed in 2008, climbing to 59 in 2009, which is bad enough: but in January-February 2010, already there have been 60 women murdered. Indeed, as widely reported, Honduras has the second-highest rate of murder of women in Central America.

The article in Heraldo ends with the apparent non-sequitur that "Feminist groups of Honduras don't recognize the authorities of the National Institute of Women [INAM]." According to this account, "activists" from the Center for Women's Rights (CDM) attempted to enter the National Congress and were "repelled" by the police and military security. But it is not clarified who these "activists" were, nor why they or other feminists don't recognize INAM.

La Tribuna, another pro-coup paper, reported that an official ceremony had been planned to take place on International Women's Day in the National Congress building, with First Lady Rosa Elena de Lobo and the Minister of Security, Oscar Álvarez, where a formal agreement would be signed INAM and the Security Minister to reduce violent deaths of women, particularly from domestic violence.

So how did this develop into what El Heraldo called a "zipezape"-- a ruckus?

An account of the protest and its suppression translated and posted at quotha says that the police and military security evicted the women protesting on the orders of Maria Antonieta Botto, head of INAM when

the women were trying to mount several spaces to show how women have been active with the resistance against the coup... In what seemed a boycott of women’s organizations, INAM decided to have an event in the same place even though the Feminists of the Resistance had disseminated widely their peaceful event at that location.
...

“We were having our event on La Merced plaza, when they cut off the power because the INAM was going to have their event at the National Congress. We were able to get the power back on the stand and they shut down the power again. We went over to the INAM minister and told her to give us power but what they did instead was send the police after us with batons and weapons who beat some of the women and took away our signs.”

This report describes the mission of INAM as

to improve [women's] quality of life and promoting respect for human rights, in harmony with other participative and democratic social actors. We are an institution responsible for formulating, developing, promoting, coordinating and following up on the policies that guarantee and protect the rights and gender equity of women, adolescents and girls, to contribute towards the sustainable human development of the country.

The minister in charge of INAM is Maria Antonieta Botto. Immediately prior to taking up this position in the Lobo Sosa administration, Botto was mayor of the small city of Villanueva, Cortés, located south of San Pedro Sula. Villanueva is the site of one of the major concentrations of maquiladoras in northern Honduras, companies that rely on the labor of young women. From 1998 to 2002, and again from 2002 to 2006, Botto was a Nationalist party congress member from the department of Cortés. In the November election, Botto lost to the Liberal party candidate, Walter Perdomo.

The report translated at quotha notes that the order to remove the feminists from proximity to the National Congress on International Women's Day

worsened the distrust that has been generated for Boto, whose abilities to fill the post of minister have been questioned.
...
Sara Tomé, in charge of the Legal Center of Women’s Studies, CEM-H said that “before the coup we had made some important conquests, but after the coup it all came down. We lost INAM, the domestic violence courts and other entities. That work fell through.”

International coverage of the Women's Day protests by Feminists in Resistance connect the dots a bit more. As reported by EFE, these women

denounced the fact that various women that participated in the Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular against the coup d'etat of last June 28 against Manuel Zelaya were assassinated and others sexually abused. The women accused the State security forces of these violations, which number 26, according to the denunciation.
...
In Tegucigalpa, the demonstrators also indicated that they do not recognize the new authorities of the National Institute of Women "because they are a product of the coup d'Etat", Niza Medina, Member of CDM, said to journalists.

As has become a pattern, the most illuminating Honduran press on this topic comes from Tiempo, in the form of an editorial by Anarella Vélez published March 16:

Women, particularly those organized as Feminists in Resistance, struggle for the Honduran State to assume with responsibility our demand to generate a new law that would regulate, place it in use, and follow through on all the social processes that would guarantee the status of women as subjects with rights and that will break the ancestral association of the power of the masculine sex... The political crisis created by the coup d'Etat of 28th June, added to the international economic instability, without any doubt has complicated the reality in which we Honduran women live and has made visible the asymmetry of gender and the consolidation of an increasingly sexist hierarchy as a product of greater political impact of religious fundamentalist sectors in the decisions of State.

The editorial ends with a call for a Constitutional Assembly to draft a new Constitution that would recognize the rights of women guaranteed by the various international conventions to which Honduras is already a signatory, but which are not enshrined in law or practice. Calling for political equity, economic equity, and reproductive control, the agenda of Honduran feminists was definitively rolled back under the de facto regime of Roberto Micheletti, and no steps have been taken in the Lobo Sosa administration to win back the lost advances. Appointing a female politician who has no history of women's activism did not win Porfirio Lobo Sosa any support; fumbling the treatment of women's activists on International Women's Day simply added to the already existing consciousness on the part of women's activists that fundamental change is required for their hopes to be realized.