Heads May Roll....

Juan Orlando Hernandez aspires to be president, and things he controls are changing in Honduras.

With Porfirio Lobo Sosa's help, he has re-instated the "voluntary" contribution every government employee makes to the ruling political party.  Both parties have been accustomed to collecting "voluntary" payments from government employees, with people who decline being marginalized in their positions. What is new here is that a specific level of "contributions" has been set up, to be deducted directly from the workers' salaries and deposited directly into bank accounts controlled by the National Party. In theory an employee could not agree, but what government employee is going to risk that?

Hernandez isn't limiting himself to political jostling for the benefit of his party. Under his leadership, the Congress has been asserting more power over the other branches of government. He now says he will put the judicial branch, the public prosecutor's office, and the police in order by "supporting the good judge, the good prosecutor, the good policeman."

We've written about Congress and the not-so-Supreme Court before. Analyst Raul Pineda Alvarado told the press this morning "now they have a Supreme Court in tune with their plans, and intimidated."  Pineda Alvarado went on to remark on the amount of power now centralized in Hernandez and Lobo Sosa, noting that they will remove anyone who gets in their way.

Hernandez' current target is the executive branch.  He has been holding hearings in Congress where each cabinet-level official has come to give a report on their progress towards providing a secure life for Hondurans.  According to Hernandez, only General Julian Pacheco has performed well.  Pacheco is head of the intelligence service, and is widely rumored to be using the position to listen in on the phone calls of politicians. Not the person you want lined up against you if you are an ambitious Honduran politician.

Hernandez is reportedly going to demand replacement of Eduardo Villanueva, head of the Dirección de Investigación y Evaluación de la Carrera Policial (DIECP). The DIECP was created to manage the police cleanup process. Villanueva volunteered for the post after the original director quit in disgust from waiting for Congress to allocate a budget for the unit.  Instead of managing the police cleanup, Villanueva gave control of the process to the Police command, the very group that should have been the first to undergo the confidence tests.  Of the over 200 police who have failed the confidence exams, several have since been promoted, and only seven have been dismissed by Security Minister Pompeyo Bonilla.

Hernandez has also put in motion mechanisms to remove the Public Prosecutor Luis Rubí and several other top prosecutors.  After Rubí's Congressional testimony last week it was privately suggested Rubí resign. He chose not to, so now Congress is getting ready to formulate a "political trial" using the recently adopted law that gives Congress the power to review, and fire, without the right of appeal, any top government official, including the president, for anything Congress decides is negligent or incompetent or if there is an accusation of a serious crime or the person has worked against the constitution or national interest (Article 5 of the Ley de Juicio Politico).

Lobo Sosa has recently taken pot shots at Ramon Custodio, the Honduran Human Rights Ombudsman, calling him dishonored and unable to serve in international bodies.  Jimmy Dacaret of the right-wing UCD fears that Custodio is one of the people targeted by Lobo Sosa.  Dacaret supports Custodio because of Custodio's unwavering support of the pro-coup forces in Honduras.

German Leitzelar, a PINU party Congressman, is of the opinion that "no heads should roll because all of them would have to roll".  The failure he says, is one of not having a state security policy, and replacing a director here and there will not solve this.

Edmundo Orellana, a Liberal Party member, has said that what Hernandez desires is to place people loyal to him into positions of power. This is an opinion shared by Raul Pineda Alvarado, who said that Hernandez and Lobo Sosa are playing a political game.  Jimmy Dacaret, of the right wing UCD agrees that Lobo Sosa and Hernandez are playing political games in concentrating power in themselves.

This is the new face of the National Party, the candidate for next president of Honduras. Not a pretty picture.

Reactions to the Cartagena Accord, Part 4: The UCD responds

The Union Civica Democratoica (UCD) has spoken, and they don't like the Cartagena Accord.

No surprise there.

Speaking for the UCD, Fernando Anduray said

"What we are not in agreement with is an accord that was signed to aid the initiatives of the government of Venezuela and the president of Colombia without consulting Honduras."

So, Porfirio Lobo Sosa clearly doesn't speak for Honduras in Anduray's universe.

The directorate of the UCD held a press conference on May 26 to denounce the accord. According to Rina Callejas de Guillen

"I regret that President Porfirio Lobo Sosa continues to humiliate and act behind the back of the Honduran people, officiating and sacrificing our dignity to the highest bidder..."

Callejas de Guillen was speaking as the new President of the UCD.

Their "constitutionalist", Irma de Acosta Fortin got right to the point, following the lead of Jimmy Dacaret and Fernando Anduray of a few days earlier.

"the pretense of the Cartagena Accord is to make possible the installation of a National Constituent Assembly, which is absolutely unconstitutional."

She sees no reason for constitutional reform anyway; she noted that after all, 98 percent of the constitutional clauses can be modified without resorting to a National Constituent Assembly.

I guess she missed the discussion over the last two years that made it clear there was a significant desire to reconsider all of the clauses of the 1982 constitution, which was crafted largely with US help and with an agenda that had more to do with ensuring governmental rigidity than allowing change.

Also at the press conference was a spokesperson for the Association of Reservists of Honduras, Aversio Navas, who suggested that the US might reject the actions called for in the Cartagena Accord, and cut off economic cooperation with Honduras.

In fact Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State, has already lauded Lobo Sosa for carrying out the negotiations, so Navas's profession of fear of US rejection was already without merit when pronounced.

(You will remember that it was the Association of Reservists who responded when the UCD issued its call for marches in support of Roberto Micheletti Bain, the so called "white shirts".)

So the UCD proves true to form.

They think the fix is in for a National Constituent Assembly. It's not.

The Frente could try to make a call for a National Constituent Assembly by means of a plebiscite or referendum thanks to the new set of laws passed by Congress, but in order for that to get on the ballot, it will require the approval of Congress.

It would surprise me if this conservative, Nationalist party dominated, neoliberal Congress would approve such a referendum.

The UCD is still fighting the ghosts of the 1980s, not "twenty-first century socialism", its professed enemy.

Everyone else has moved on; it's time they did too.

"There's A Hidden Agenda"

"There's a hidden agenda," or so says Fernando Anduray, a UCD Member. Jimmy Dacaret, former had of the UCD, who stepped down a few weeks ago, said the Cartagena Accord quarrels with the Honduran constitution.

Are either of these statements the official policy statement of the UCD?

No.

The UCD itself has formally remained silent, like so many other golpista parts of Honduran civil society,

ANDI and COHEP each said last Sunday that they would make formal statements last Monday, yet, if they've made them, no one has seen fit to cover them. The Catholic Church, through a spokesperson, said last Sunday that it would need a day to analyze the document. It spoke out late Monday in favor of the accord.

Nonetheless, when the UCD does formally speak, if ever, it probably will sound a lot like what Dacaret and Anduray had to say.

Dacaret, speaking to Tiempo on Sunday, said

"The politicians continue to play with the law, with this Accord - although they say its based on the constitution - it disrespects it completely."

Dacaret, however,failed to cite any examples of this disrespect. He predicted that Lobo Sosa and Juan Orlando Hernandez would find themselves in a fight with Manuel Zelaya Rosales.

Fernando Anduray is another often heard voice of the UCD. In Wednesday's La Tribuna, he said the Cartagena Accord has a hidden agenda.

"We are preoccupied by the things that we don't see of the Accord that was signed; on the one hand, we have a call to a National Constituent Assembly, but disguised in the form of constitutionalism and it does not say the time in which these situations will happen."

Anduray goes on to launch an attack on Lobo Sosa:

"There's a hidden agenda; this has been the permanent conduct of President Porfirio Lobo Sosa, who has never told the Honduran people the truth and the things which are behind [this]; here, nonetheless, is behind the participation of Honduras in this famous society of nations the Hugo Chavez wants to form."

Anduray sees all of this as a plot in which Manuel Zelaya Rosales and the FNRP are political instruments for those who seek macroeconomic control for the next twelve years.

The UCD does not like anything that Manuel Zelaya Rosales or Hugo Chavez are part of. Lobo Sosa is being tarred with that brush for having agreed to the Chavez - Santos mediation that resulted in the Cartagena Accord, and for saying that a plebiscite is the way to begin the road to convene a National Constituent Convention.

So from a fair proxy for the extreme right of Honduran society, we would have to say the Cartagena Accord has gotten a pretty thorough rejection, and Porfirio Lobo Sosa along with it.

1.3 Million versus 200

The Unión Cívica Democratica (UCD) held a rally a couple of days ago in Tegucigalpa. Crowd estimates in the press vary between 100 and 200 people. Among the crowd were former members of the golpista regime of Roberto Micheletti, including María Martha Diaz and Martha Lorena Alvarado, and the right wing pundit, Jorge Yllescas. Jimmy Dacaret, their leader, read a statement questioning the intentions of the government in even discussing with various civil groups their view on a constitutional convention, since

"the Hondurans have it clear that the only reason to install a constitutional convention is to make possible presidential reelection and change our democratic system."

Another speaker, Secretary of the National Register of Persons, Fernando Anduray addressed an unveiled threat at Porfirio Lobo Sosa, saying

"we are your friends, the white shirts, who put you in power, but just as there was a constitutional succession, we could do it again."

The UCD group ended their rally with their mantra "No one is above the law."

Hearty bravado, but not the kind of rhetoric that Honduras needs now. Threatening to carry out another coup is hardly pro-constitution speech.

Compare the small size of this crowd with the 1.3 million people who signed the petition for a constitutional convention. They're not threatening to topple the government because they don't like what its doing, but they do want to change it, in a legal fashion. They can see beyond the red herring of "presidential reelection" to find meaningful changes to the constitution that would let them participate in decisions, and to give them a better life.

Let's let Porfirio Lobo Sosa answer the UCD:

"In the discussions there were different positions, some to one side, others that didn't want to talk, and some who didn't understand others. In the middle is the large majority of different organizations that want peace, that want dialogue, that want that there be changes in Honduras, that will bring about a bettering of the conditions of life in our country..... I understand there are some who don't want anything to change, because no doubt they are doing well, but there is a large group of Hondurans, more than 80 percent, who say that there have to be changes, because the majority is not living the life they have a right to."

UCD Condemns Lobo Sosa

The right-wing, coup-supporting Unión Civica Democratica (UCD) has awakened from its deep sleep (tired, no doubt, from all that marching to support Micheletti) only to condemn Porfirio Lobo Sosa for interfering in the Public Prosecutor's office and with the Supreme Court's autonomy.

It seems they don't like Lobo Sosa's announcement that he is willing to go to the Dominican Republic and bring Manuel Zelaya Rosales back, and to guarantee he will not be arrested on the spot once he returns to Honduras. After all, Jimmy Dacaret, the UCD president, reminds us, there are 3, count them 3, separate arrest orders for Zelaya; one for political crimes, and two for corruption.

Lobo's announcement caused an emergency meeting of the UCD governance. Dacaret, a rotary member, member of the administrative council of ANDI, and a bread magnate, complained that Lobo Sosa was interfering in the institutional independence of the Supreme Court and the Public Prosecutor since he was going to guarantee Zelaya would not be arrested.

"It would appear as if there is a pact or arrangement between the people related to the case of Zelaya, to give him freedom without him presenting himself to the corresponding courts."

Dacaret continued

"The statements of the President leave a great preoccupation in the society because the primordial reason for the founding of the UCD is to protect the Constitution of the Republic, the respect for the laws in all senses."

The UCD is funded in part by the US State Department.

The UCD also requested that the Supreme Court hand over its decision on the four judges and one magistrate dismissed for anti-coup activity to the Inspector General of the government so that the international community can see the basis on which the court dismissed those individuals.

"With this we can determine if they proceeded on the basis of law, or if there was some kind of mistake that the Court could rectify, but not with pressure from the Executive branch or interference from foreigners because Honduras needs to proceed on the basis of respect for its laws."

With that, the UCD rolled over and went back to sleep. This was something it could not get excited enough about to put on its white shirts and march in the streets!

Honduran Members of Truth Commission Previewed

Radio America reported this afternoon, as did El Heraldo and La Prensa, that the Lobo Sosa government confirmed today the names of Hondurans who would be members of the truth commission.

Two of the announced members are the current and former rectors of the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH in Spanish), Julietta Castellanos and Jorge Omar Casco. Casco has been working with Stein on setting forth the ground rules for the commission.

The third Honduran member of the commission will be Sergio Membreño, also an academic, who will be the technical secretary of the commission. Membreño was Deputy Chief of the Honduran diplomatic mission in Washington starting in 2003, having previously served the Honduran UN Development Program as an economist. Perhaps more intriguing, in 2007 he was the Executive Director of the Honduran National Anticorruption Council (CNA), and was quoted then as saying

Corruption [in Honduras] is closely related to a system of political favoritism, bi-partisan favoritism, and the way in which the operators of justice are named...There is a shortage of values in Honduras and it makes me sad to admit it, especially in front of the international community, but if we don't acknowledge this, it will be very difficult to find a solution [to corruption in politics]

Porfirio Lobo Sosa has already announced that Eduardo Stein will stay on as one of the three international representatives on the commission, but as yet, has not confirmed who the other two international members will be, only that the commission will be fully formed by the 25th of February. Stein said the process of organizing the commission is taking longer than he anticipated, and that it is no longer sure that the commission will be fully formed by February 25.

In reaction to the announcement of the Honduran members, the Unión Cívica Democrática (UCD), or at least one of its organizers, businessman Jimmy Dacarett, continues to call for a public consensus on who should be truth commission members. Dacarett said Porfirio Lobo

is placing his people how he wants, with people who are not qualified to be part of the truth commission.

Dacarett told La Tribuna that Julietta Castellanos, the rector of the University, has been singled out by businessmen as supporting the resistance. Stein, they allege, published articles in which he referred to events in Honduras as a military coup. In his view, this disqualifies both:

These are people who have deep beliefs about a position in this sense. As people, they are not qualified to be part of the commission. The commission has already failed because no one will accept their report as either true or false because they are not complying with the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord under a national consensus. Just like Manuel Zelaya did in his time, what Pepe Lobo is doing is going against the interests of the majority of Hondurans.

Meanwhile, the rabidly pro-coup El Heraldo spun it that Julieta Castellanos was pro-resistance because she has hired some of Zelaya's former cabinet members to be faculty and administrators at the University, and some of them had even supported the cuarta urna! They stopped short of actually saying that this disqualified her to serve on the commission, but that certainly would have been their position if they were voicing one.

La Prensa adds that Lobo responded to a question from a student later in the day, commenting on more than 3000 reports of human rights abuses in the country since June 28, saying

yes we are going to pay attention to those 3000 cases that you point out because....we want to respect those rights.

So perhaps human rights abuses might actually be on the agenda after all. Stay tuned.

Finally, Proceso Digital noted today that Lobo and Eduardo Stein would meet with the members of the committees that negotiated the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord for Micheletti and Zelaya on Thursday. The meeting is to understand what both parties intended a truth commission to do in including it as part of the Accord.