Ebal Diaz: "We've already contained the corruption"

Large Torchlight Marches (Marchas de las Antorchas) have been going on every night in different cities in Honduras for at least the last three weeks.

Participants have called for three things: an end to impunity, the establishment of an International Commission against Impunity, and the resignation of Juan Orlando Hernández, President of Honduras, due to corruption in his election campaign.

The Partido Nacional has admitted that the election of Hernández was funded in part by resources diverted from the IHSS. Nonetheless, both the party, and the government it controls, are against Honduras calling for an International Commission against Impunity.

That's the word from Ebal Diaz, a Honduran presidential advisor.

These commissions, organized by the UN, have been effective in other countries where they've been formed, such as Guatemala.

Honduras doesn't need one because, according to Diaz, "We've already contained the corruption." 

Diaz goes further, calling the Guatemala commission ineffective. He relates that it has cost $150 million over its seven year life, and successfully brought and prosecuted only four cases of corruption or impunity. 

Diaz said:

"Is this an alternative for the country?  There are the numbers; they're not something we invented.  So the Honduran people need justice...When?  In three years?  In 5 years? or now?  We're looking for solutions now by strengthening our [government] institutions."

Diaz suggests the government might accelerate its pace of cleaning up corruption and implementing training.

These actions, however, do nothing to capture and prosecute those who perpetrated the crimes, something Diaz fails to address.

The recent Congressional Commission which reviewed a series of corruption cases involving the IHSS, INPREMA, and the IP, and the assassinations of notable government officials like Alfredo Landaverde, was relatively useless.

It served only to confirm what everyone already knows: the Public Prosecutor's office is barely investigating these cases of corruption and impunity, some of which have stretched on for more than seven years in the investigative state. While it might eventually bring charges against those immediately responsible, it likely will not pursue those who planned and directed the crimes. From that perspective, then, even with the "numbers" Diaz cites, a commission like that in Guatemala would be an improvement.

The level of corruption and impunity in Honduras is hard to believe. In fact, even as the Congressional report was being released, the lead on the congressional committee, Mario Perez, was being identified in the Honduran press as a drug trafficker, based on Honduran government documents from 2012.

Impunity reigns in Honduras not because the Public Prosecutor's office is incapable of pursing these crimes. It has been endlessly trained under US and European foreign aid programs in investigation and prosecution of organized crime. 

To pursue these crimes is neither politically expedient, nor good for a prosecutor's longevity.  No government program will address either of these risks.

The previous Prosecutor against corruption, Roberto Ramirez Aldana, who had headed the IHSS investigation from the start, recently took an extended leave to assume a government post as Honduras's Ambassador to UNESCO.  He did so because the Honduran Military Intelligence agency informed him of credible death threats against him and suggested he leave the country.

One of the trails of corruption leads directly to the currently ruling Partido Nacional. But the current Public Prosecutor, Oscar Chinchilla, was appointed by that party, while Juan Orlando Hernandez was the President of Congress, during the presidential term of Porfirio Lobo Sosa.  Chinchilla sets the priorities for the office. He's focusing the department on corruption during José Manuel Zelaya's term as president, largely ignoring more recent corruption that can be linked to his own party.

Arturo Corrales, Honduras' Foreign Minister, has said Honduras will not ask for an International Commission against Corruption from the UN.

Rigoberto Chang Castillo, currently Minister of Justice, the Interior, and Decentralization, went further: he made up a criterion for when such a commission is necessary: "Only when there's a high degree of ingovernability". Chang Castillo claims that "Honduras isn't worthy" of such a designation.  These kinds of commissions, he continued,

"uniquely can be asked for by the government of the Republic when the country is in a state of ingovernability and there is no confidence in the institutions of the State....This is requested when the Judicial system has collapsed."

The irony is, Chang Castillo precisely describes the Honduras that the Torchlight Marchers see.

NGO Do-Over

Maybe it's not a good idea to try and purge non-governmental organizations like C-Libre and FIAN after all. 

It just might get you in trouble.

Today Juan Orlando Hernández met with representatives of several unnamed non-governmental organizations and his Minister of Human Rights, Justice, Government, and Decentralization, Rigoberto Chang Castillo. 

Afterward, a communique read by his chief of staff, Reinaldo Sanchez, ordered a review and restructuring of the Unidad de Registro y Seguimiento de Asociaciones Civiles (URSAC), the unit that just a few days ago tried to cancel the registration of 5,429 NGOs claiming deficiencies in their filings. 

The goal of the review and restructuring will be to have better control over the NGOs and to modernize the handling of NGO authorizations and the filing of required reports. 

The government also walked back the cancellation of those 5429 organizations, ordering a new review of each one's files.

Sanchez noted that the government was aware of the importance of the role played by civil society and the NGOs in strengthening Honduras's democracy and diminishing economic inequality.

Clearly, someone wasn't on the same page...

Oops!

NGO Purge

On his way out of the government, Áfrico Madrid, Interior Minister under Porfirio Lobo Sosa, saw the final step in a long-brewing confrontation in which he has been engaged.

That step? abolishing his opponents-- more than 10,000 NGOs.

Friday La Gaceta published a decree revoking the legal status of 5429 NGOs. The Unidad de Registro y Seguimiento de Asociaciones Civiles (URSAC), a part of the Interior Ministry, issued the decree that revokes the permission of these NGOs to operate.

This comes slightly more than a month after Madrid revoked the legal status of another 4800 NGOs in mid January.

Honduras reportedly had about 16,000 NGOs at the start of 2013. So altogether, these two decrees succeeded in abolishing more than half of the NGOs in the country.

That makes it a little harder to figure out who this campaign was really targeting and why.

We would remind readers that back in 2010, the Honduran Congress passed a law to define the characteristics of an evangelical Christian church, declared unconstitutional in 2012, that advanced Madrid's agenda to abolish evangelical churches he felt were "fringe" groups.

According to the decree published this week, the named institutions failed to comply in some way with a previous decree 770-A-2003 regulating NGOs, which gave a 30 day window for every NGO to supply an annual activities report, a financial report, indicate its officers, and so on.

What does the abolishment of these NGOs translate to, in practice?

They can no longer sign contracts or hold bank accounts.

They are ordered to liquidate any property and goods held, and donate the proceeds of that liquidation to a still extant NGO with a similar goal.

All Honduran banks and government agencies were notified of the loss of rights of these 5,429 NGOs.  In 30 days, their bank accounts will be frozen by the government, and any remaining assets seized.

This is not just a matter of eliminating a few small and inconsequential groups that were struggling.

Among the NGOs cancelled was the Asociación Comite por Libre Expresión (C-Libre), the most visible group monitoring press freedom in Honduras, composed of of journalists and others.

Hector Longino Becerra, president of the organization, said that the action against C-Libre was part of an attack on organizations that are critical of the government. Becerra said that all of C-Libre's paperwork with URSAC was complete and up to date, and he possessed the receipts to show the filing was done on time.

In the wake of the Friday publication of La Gaceta, Jorge Montes, head of URSAC, claimed Saturday that the NGOs still had 30 days to make things right and avoid cancellation.

That claim is hard to understand since the published law reportedly cancels the legal right to exist of the named NGOs. Montes claims that each NGO's legal representative will be notified in 30 days of the cancellation if, prior to that, their paperwork is not brought up to date.

He emphasized three kinds of reports that need to be filed: a report on activities; a financial report that indicates what money the group holds, where it came from, and where and how it will be spent, and where the NGO's assets are; and an up-to-date list of officers.

The Civil Society Group that advises the government is disturbed by all this and has requested a meeting with Rigoberto Chang Castillo, current Interior Minister, and thus the head of URSAC.

They stated:

It is the responsibility of the state to create an enabling environment for the functioning of civil society organizations and to keep watch over the unfettered right to free association.

Their point: the Honduran government isn't doing that when 62% of the country's legally established NGOs are disestablished by the government.

We couldn't agree more.

Congress vs. the Supreme Court: The Power Grab

From El Heraldo comes the text of the "report" drafted overnight by Congress on the Constitutional Branch of the Supreme Court:

FIRST. That the Supreme Court was composed by selection processes conducted by the National Congress, under the selection mechanism established in the Constitution of the Republic,  judges and magistrates being invested on January 26, 2009.

SECOND. That the Justices Rosalinda Cruz Sequeira, Jose Francisco Ruiz Gaekel, José Antonio Gutiérrez Navas, Gustavo Enrique Palma and Oscar Fernando Bustillo Chinchilla Banegas were selected for the Constitutional Branch of the court.

THIRD. The Constitutional Branch hears and resolves appeals as provided by law on constitutional justice, one of them being appeals of the constitutionality [of a law].

FOURTH. That this National Congress approved Decree 89-2012 containing the Special Law for Purifying the Police, which ran for a period of six months from the date of its publication in the Official Gazette, which happened on May 25 of 2012 ending its term on 25 November of that year.

FIFTH. Decree 89-2012 containing this special law was challenged on 26 June this year by a group of citizens, the appeal was admitted ordering the corresponding legal proceedings.

SIXTH. That according to the deadlines required by law on constitutional justice, the constitutional challenge is an expedited process because of the high level of interest it has for society to define in legal terms the constitutionality of the provision in question.

SEVENTH. It is widely and publicly known that that constitutional complaint was resolved by the Constitutional Branch on 27 November this year, when the decree 89-2012 was no longer in effect.

EIGHTH. That the complementarity of state powers specified in Article Four of the Constitution be understood or interpreted as the unit of criteria that should exist between the powers about state policies, which must respond to the national interest or common good. Public safety, as state policy, is a responsibility divided between the three powers in the context of their constitutional powers.

We see that things go off the rails here in the eighth paragraph. There is a long standing dispute between Congress and the Supreme Court in Honduras over who has the right to interpret the constitution.  Congress believes it is the sole branch of government that can interpret the constitution, and in 1999 amended article 218, paragraph 9 to give themselves exclusive power to interpret the constitution (also embodied in article 205 paragraph 10).  However, in May, 2003 the Supreme Court ruled that the changes to article 218 were unconstitutional, giving itself the power of judicial review of all interpretations of the Constitution.  Its ruling also invalidated article 205 paragraph 10. 

In response, Congress, at the time headed by Porfirio Lobo Sosa, considered passing legislation permitting them to remove a sitting Supreme Court Justice.  Instead, Congress, in a fit of pique, refuses to permit that decision to be published in the official gazette, a step supposed to be necessary to make the decision legal and final. (There are legal opinions that hold that the decision is legal without being published; Congressional decrees must be published, so Congress is holding the court to its requirements.)

So who has the authority to interpret the constitution remains a point of contention between the Court and Congress, that has resulted in both making claims of being the arbiter. 

In any comparable model of separation of powers, Congress, of course, cannot be the final interpreter of the constitutionality of the laws it proposes itself.

In paragraph eight of the "report" that led to the firing of justices, Congress is asserting a right which the Court says it does not have. 

Presumably Porfirio Lobo Sosa knew in 2003 that Congress did not have the authority to remove a sitting Supreme Court justice; otherwise he would not have thought he needed to introduce legislation to give Congress that power. 

No legislation has been passed in the meantime giving Congress that authority.

Having asserted this contested authority, the congressional report goes on to make what we presume Congress thinks is the review of "administrative" actions they claim guided the firings:

NINTH. In seeking to strengthen the National Police and give the Honduran people higher levels of security, the Executive Branch  and Legislature have made diverse ​​efforts, one of which is the process of implementing a reliable, expeditious and feasible method to purge the National Police as the body responsible in its various branches, to prevent, investigate and combat crime, to whose purpose and aim was oriented decree No. 89-2012.

TENTH. The Constitutional Chamber, in a four to one vote, with the dissenting opinion of Justice Oscar Fernando Chinchilla Banegas, decided to grant the appellants' appeal despite it being full knowledge of the members of that Board that the contested regulation was not in effect when issuing the resolution.

ELEVEN. The [finding of] unconstitutionality requires as a prerequisite that the challenged provision is in effect and the main effect is granted when the action is the repeal of that Act.

Here, Congress complains that the Constitutional Branch of the Supreme Court acted after the law had expired. They assert in paragraph eleven that a law must be in effect to be found unconstitutional. 

But that's not actually the case under Honduran Constitutional law. 

The Ley sobre Justicia Constitucional says that an appeal cannot be brought if there is no remedy possible under the law (Article 46, paragraph 5) or if the effects of the law have ceased (it is expired, paragraph 6).  These criteria apply to the admissibility of the appeal, and at the time the case was admitted, the law was in effect, and there was a legal remedy.

In a case that can be considered comparable in the United States, which has similar rules, the US Supreme Court ruled in 1964 that the 1798 Sedition Act, which expired in 1801, was unconstitutional.

TWELFTH. The decision issued by the Constitutional Branch, in our judgement, is not consistent with the security policy implemented by legislative and executive powers and leads to serious damage to the state because it means a setback in the progress made in the fight against crime and exposes the security of people and their property, leaving the State open to the possibility of expense of lawsuits by members of the National Police who have been separated pursuant to the Decree.

This is where Congress treads into reviewing the judicial behavior of the court, not its administrative actions, acting outside the Constitution and law of Honduras. 

The consistency of a decision with the security policy of a government is not a criterion for review of administration; it is a review of the judicial action.  This is pure politics and is Congress overreaching its powers and ignoring the constitution just as it did in 2009, weakening democracy even further in Honduras. 

This special [Congressional] commission in executing the mandate authorized by the National Congress supported by article 205, numbers 20 and 21 of the constitution of the Republic, recommend to this power of state that it analyze and evaluate the above events in their totality as put forth in the present report and proceed according to the criteria of this august body.

Given in the city of Tegucigalpa, municipality of the Central District, on the 12th day of the month of December of 2012.

Special Commission:
Rigoberto Chang Castillo
José Tomas Zambrano
Mario Alonso Pérez
Armando Calidonio
Marvin Ponce Sauceda
Orle Aníbal Solís

Not signing:
Olman Maldonado
Samuel Martínez

Congress did yesterday what it threatened to do in 2003 with the judiciary, and what it did do in 2009 with the executive branch: it grabbed power, damaging the rule of law and separation of powers in Honduras.

The Four Justices Respond

This afternoon the four justices that Congress voted to dismiss responded with a written statement, which they read.  The four justices, José Antonio Gutiérrez Navas, José Francisco Ruiz Gaekel, Gustavo Enrique Bustillo Palma and Rosalinda Cruz said Congress lacks the authority to remove them from office.  They called the process that Congress used "illegitimate, illegal, and unjust".  The justices said it was clear from the language of the 5 page report submitted by Rigoberto Chang as head of the commission to investigate the justices that the charges were based on their judicial rulings, not their administrative conduct, and that as such, this was a political maneuver.

They defended their rulings, the ones Congress took issue with, as made in accord with legal precepts, the Constitution, treaties and international agreements and the Constitutional Justice Law and that their rulings were made in a reasonable fashion with no pressure from anyone.

They noted that the legal argument that Congress pretended to use to dismiss them had no legal validity.  They point out that in 2011 Congress gave to the Chief Justice the power and right to do all administrative reviews of the court.  Oops.

They said:

Congress violated the principle of separation of powers contained in the Constitution of the Republic and has abruptly burst the jurisdictional function of the Judicial Branch and that has produced a change in the constitutional order because they do no have the authority to do so.

It does no good for our beloved country

They announced that the would resort to the courts for justice because their constitutional rights to due process, to be heard, and to a defense, among other guarantees nationally and internationally recognized, had been violated.

More, More, I'm Still Not Satisfied

General Rene Osorio was hoping that the 2012 budget would include an increase in the size of the military, by 1000 to 2000 soldiers.

He said he'd be happy if they even had to do it in increments, say 1000 this year, and 1000 next year. He also made it clear he wants 40 million lempiras more (slightly more than $2 million) just to support Operation Lightning, the military deployment with the police which Porfirio Lobo Sosa ordered back in October.

Why you ask, does the military need to increase in size?

Osorio cites an increase in the size of the Salvadoran military as justification. We are hoping that doesn't mean he is planning for another Central American war.

Closer to home, he argues that he needs more troops to support Operation Lightning.

Then there's forest protection, part of the mission creep in the military we wrote about here and here. Osorio already got funded in the 2012 budget to add the 2000 new soldiers destined for a special "forest protection" brigade. Congress member Rigoberto Chang Castillo noted that the 100 million lempiras dedicated for the forestry protection brigade are part of the 2012 budget.

Apparently Osorio wants the 2000 soldiers already funded for the "forest protection brigade", and 2000 more soldiers on top of those.

Mainly what he got handed in the 2012 budget was a 25% across the board budget cut.

So he's going to talk to his boss, Porfirio Lobo Sosa:

We are thinking of talking with president Porfirio Lobo to explain to him that the Secretariat of Defense should not have its budget cut, and logically also the Secretariat of Security.

So far, Osorio says, the deployment of troops in Operation Lightning has cost $17 million lempiras (about $900,000):

We cannot stay in the streets with the ordinary budget we have... If the president makes the decision that we need to increase (the soldiers in the streets), he better have more budget.

Osorio clarified to El Heraldo that the extra funds to support Operation Lightning are needed for food and fuel.

Public reaction (in the form of comments on newspaper articles) suggests that Osorio's arguments aren't persuasive to most El Heraldo and La Prensa readers, who oppose any additional funds for the military.

One commenter noted that both the police and the military have the same excuse, "they don't have sufficient budget to do anything" so they just get paid and sit on their ass for the last two years.

Another pointedly noted, "didn't we pass a Security Tax to cover these costs?"

Osorio's boss, Defense Minister Marlon Pascua said he's not that worried about the cuts to the military in the 2012 budget. He noted that there will be funding available shortly from the seized assets program (the proceeds of selling allegedly drug related assets), funding which is split between the Defense Ministry and the Security Ministry.

Rigoberto Chang Castilllo noted that the Finance Minister has set aside a special fund to help pay for Operation Lightning. He argued that the cuts to the military could be easily absorbed by reducing their office equipment and supply budget by 20%, without endangering their military readiness.

Now to wait for Osorio to explain why photocopiers are indispensable to the mission of the armed forces.

(title with apologies to Tom Lehrer)

Contextualizing the Roland Valenzuela interview: Congress and Ambassador Llorens, June 22-28, 2009

What are the facts that Roland Valenzuela claimed, in an interview now circulating in Honduras, were established by a dossier of papers left by mistake in a Tegucigalpa hotel?

• that a group of businessmen in Dubai for a trade fair used the opportunity to conspire together;

• that they enlisted a former military attaché as their go between, and set out to enlist key players in their plot;

• that the plotters hired a lobbying firm to help them defame Zelaya (note that the lobbying firm is not said to have been party to the coup plot per se-- they were a tool, not an author);

• that Marcia Villeda faked Zelaya's signature on the "resignation" letter;

• finally, we get to the explosive allegation about Llorens being sent a draft of a decree removing Zelaya from office, signed by a group of individuals who at the time were congress members.

Reading this, I and others have wondered, why would the conspirators have sent a decree to the US ambassador?

I think we can unravel at least this last point.

The reporting on the interview quotes Valenzuela as saying

that the decree sent to the ambassador carried the signature of the congress members Ricardo Rodriguez, Liberal party member and present Sub Procurador of the Republic, Toribio Aguilera Coello, PINU member presently congress member, Rolando Dubon Buezo, Nacional party member and still congressman, Rigoberto Chan Castillo, Nacional party member now secretary of Congress and Gabo Alfredo Jalil Mejia who served as Minister of Defense in the Micheletti regime.

The list of names jogged my memory. On June 26, 2009, Honduran newspapers published stories about the events of the previous evening, which I watched unfold live on television on the north coast. Several of these people were prominent in the television and newspaper coverage.

Rabidly anti-Zelaya La Prensa titled its story that day "They investigate the actions of president Zelaya".

The lead sentence read

While rumors of a disqualification of president Manuel Zelaya Rosales grow like froth, the National Congress maintained steadfast the motion the actions of the leader should be investigated and his administration should be approved or disapproved with urgency.

[Mientras los rumores de una inhabilitación del presidente Manuel Zelaya Rosales crecían como la espuma, el Congreso Nacional mantenía firme la moción para que fueran investigadas las actuaciones del mandatario y de urgencia aprobar o improbar su administración. ]

The reporter for the newspaper repeated that the confrontation over the June 28 cuarta urna survey had motivated "the benches of Congress to lobby for an initiative that would disqualify Zelaya" [Esto motivó a que las bancadas del Congreso cabildearan una iniciativa para inhabilitar a Zelaya].

"Improbar" and "inhabilitar" refer to legal actions congress considered.

The first (equivalent to censure) it did have authority to do. The second, which was apparently the actual step desired by the congressional leadership, ceased to be a power of Congress when the constitution was reformed to remove impunity from prosecution that high officials had enjoyed. Under the present constitution, any high government official accused of crimes is tried by the Supreme Court, and removal from office is one of the possible punishments after a guilty verdict.

Toribio Aguilera is quoted as saying he had not participated in negotiations or dialogues, presumably from the context, about a removal of Zelaya:

"First there should be decreed a state of emergency and if the dialogue is exhausted, proceed to suspension"

[“Primero debería decretarse un estado de emergencia y si se agota el dialogo proceder a la suspensión”.]

"Suspension", presumably of Zelaya as president, was again actually not a power of Congress. Declaring a state of emergency would, of course, become the primary tool of control of the de facto regime.

Aguilera was one member of a committee appointed by congress that also included Emilio Cabrera and Antonio Rivera (in other places, the membership is given as Ricardo Rodríguez, Rigoberto Chang Castillo, Toribio Aguilera, Enrique Rodríguez y Will Bustillo). Rodriguez, Aguilera, and Chang Castillo are three of those who were named by Valenzuela as authors of the document he saw that was intended for Hugo Llorens.

This committee was charged with producing a report on Zelaya's actions and drafting a resolution for Congress to consider. The committee had been interviewed on live television when Congress went into continuous session the previous day, when they stated that they expected to finish their work within hours. On Friday morning, press reports said

they solicited more time to study other documents on which they would solidly base their decision

[solicitaron más tiempo para estudiar otra documentación en la cual fundamentar sólidamente su decisión]

The overlap between the membership of this Congressional committee and the individuals Valenzuela says signed the decree sent to Llorens for comments makes it almost certain that it is the product of this committee that Valenzuela was describing; a decree that would have had congress censuring Zelaya (which it legally could do) but going beyond its constitutional authority to suspend or disqualify him from office.

The article in La Prensa gives a hint of what the congressional strategy to get around this awkward fact was:

Failing to recognize that the Constitution of the Republic gives power to the Legislature to be able to remove a President if he presents an inability to govern, Zelaya said "the Congreso Nacional cannot disqualify me."

[Desconociendo que la Constitución de la República le da poder al Legislativo para que pueda quitar a un Presidente si presenta incapacidad para gobernar, Zelaya dijo: “el Congreso Nacional no puede inhabilitarme.”]

The apparent reference to a president unable to govern is to the part of the constitution aimed at allowing succession in office when a president was incapacitated (for instance, medically).

Marvin Ponce, congress member of the Unificación Democrática (UD) party said after congress approved censure that this was

"an evident demonstration of the interest of Congress in committing a technical coup d'Etat and overthrowing president Zelaya."

"If the National Congress wants to commit a coup d'Etat, say so clearly. I imagine that the commission named by the Junta Directiva [of Congress], that will investigate the President will present a report declaring him disqualified, to then name Micheletti as President of the Republic."

[“una evidente muestra del interés del Congreso de dar un golpe técnico de Estado y derrocar al presidente Zelaya”.

“Si el Congreso Nacional quiere dar un golpe de Estado, que lo diga claramente. Me imagino que la comisión nombrada por la Junta Directiva, que investigará al Presidente dará un informe que lo declarará inhabilitado, para luego nombrar a Micheletti como Presidente de la República”.]

Rigoberto Chang Castillo was quoted as saying

"we do not have intention to commit a coup d'Etat, we do not have the weapons nor the warlike capacity and the Armed Forces are not for that."

[“no tenemos intención de golpe de Estado, no tenemos armas ni capacidad bélica y las FFAA no están para eso.”]

How did Chang Castillo know the position of the Armed Forces on committing a coup on June 26?

Marvin Ponce, speaking on June 26, 2009, ends up sounding eerily prescient:

"Micheletti does not have the popularity in his party nor among the people and in place of calming the situation, we will be entering a series of convulsions that could cause blood to be spilled."

[“Micheletti no tiene la popularidad de su partido ni la del pueblo y en lugar de calmar la situación, estaríamos entrando a una serie de convulsiones que podrían causar derramamiento de sangre”.]

Unfortunately, the Honduran Congress, having started on its route to remove Zelaya, did not stop when it discovered it could not do so legally. The military coup Chang Castillo said could not happen happened. And the outcomes foreseen by Ponce also happened.

What Roland Valenzuela seems to have told us is that the committee of the National Congress charged with preparing a decree to remove Zelaya from office sent a copy of their draft decree to the US Ambassador for his comments. This does not tell us whether Llorens received this document, if he read it, or if he offered comments on it.

Certainly, the interview Llorens gave El Heraldo on June 27, 2009, shows no hint of possible knowledge of the coup that would take place mere hours later. On June 24, Zelaya cabinet minister Patricia Rodas was quoted as saying that she had spoken with Ambassador Llorens and asked him to abstain from interference in the internal affairs of Honduras.

Ambassador Llorens was definitely speaking with Honduran politicians during this week, and those contacts were clearly not just with the Zelaya administration. On the same day that Rodas was interviewed saying she had asked him to abstain from interfering, La Tribuna published an interview with Llorens in which he is quoted as saying

"as a friend of Honduras, I have urged the leaders of the nation to engage in dialogue and that they find a way to resolve their differences on the basis of discussion and the law.'

[“como amigo de Honduras, he instado a los líderes de la nación para que dialoguen y que busquen una forma de arreglar sus diferencias a base del diálogo y las leyes”.]

The implication of his remarks, in which he singled out the congress and Armed Forces as institutions for positive comment, seemed at the time to be giving them backing against the executive branch. Re-reading these remarks now, one can only find his assurance about the Armed Forces bitterly ironic, and his statement that he would not entertain any stories curious:

"I think that the Armed Forces will do what is correct and this will be resolved by the Honduran vocation of doing things with tolerance and within the law, democracy is not exempt from problems, but the reality is that no one is going to come to me with any story, I entered as an agent of diplomacy in the time of the military dictators and totalitarianism."

[“Creo que las Fuerzas Armadas van hacer lo que es correcto y esto se va a resolver por la vocación hondureña de hacer las cosas con la tolerancia y dentro de la ley, la democracia no está exenta de los problemas, pero la realidad es que a mí nadie me va a venir con ningún cuento, yo entré como agente de la diplomacia en la época de las dictaduras militares y el totalitarismo”.]

On June 26, Patricia Rodas worried openly about the power elite contacting Llorens, commenting that while Ambassador Llorens

"abstained from expressing opinions on the internal affairs of our country, we should not forget that powerful groups continue pressuring him so that together they can articulate plans against our country and our people."

["se abstuvo de opinar de los asuntos internos de nuestro país, no olvidemos que lo grupos de poder siguen presionándolo para que juntos puedan articular planes en contra de nuestro país y de nuestro pueblo".]

The implication that powerful groups in Honduras could succeed in enlisting the US Ambassador in their schemes may seem far-fetched from a position outside Honduras. Yet the existence of a draft copy of the decree through which the Honduran Congress intended to remove President Zelaya from office, intended for Ambassador Llorens, indicates a degree of communication between the authors of the coup and the US representative that is giving those suspicious of the role of the US support for their worst doubts.

Taxes-gate

A new omnibus tax law (decreto 17-2020) was published Monday in La Gaceta, the official organ whose publication makes laws legal. La Tribuna reports that on reading the published law, which they passed just before their Easter break, Congress was astonished to see changes in no fewer than nine articles. La Tribuna tells us that those most amazed were the committee that assembled the final version of the bill after all the changes and amendments were collated. The revision committee ("comisión de estilo") , consisting of German Leitzelar, Oswaldo Ramos Soto, and Rigoberto Chang Castillo, denies it made these changes in the version of the bill it sent to the President.

Earlier today, Secretary of Congress, Rigoberto Chang Castillo, said the only difference is in Article 15, where they left off the exoneration of payment for raw materials imported for the manufacture of medicines. Chang said of the publication of the new law in the Gaceta:

"Any doubts, any error, or omission there is in the publication of this law, the only person responsible is Rigoberto Chang Castillo, and we are willing to clarify the doubts, errors or omissions....There was no ill will nor manipulation, nothing like that, what happened was that a paragraph was left out of Article 15 and that will be rectified."

However, in later stories, La Tribuna quotes Congressman Marco Antonio Andino as finding errors in Articles 15, 16, and 19. Marvin Ponce, fourth Vice President of Congress and a UD party member, said,

"It's deplorable that at least three articles were disrupted...one of them is the revision presented by Congressman Marlon Lara so that supplies to produce medicines by Honduran companies would be exonerated, including, we said here (in chambers), that medicines for animals would be exonerated, but in the publication it's different and the exoneration isn't included."

Also missing was a motion that exonerated those owing back taxes of the fines and surcharges on them, and the tax on rental units was supposed to be five percent, starting with luxury rentals of 15,000 lempiras, but was printed as a 10 percent tax. Ponce indicated that the printed version also left out exoneration of fines and surcharges for those with a debt to the agricultural development bank, BANADESA.

Ponce continued,

"There is no confidence of that approved by the members in open session, the true law has been disrupted by the revision committee or by the people who sent this document to the Executive or in those instances."

German Leitzelar, a member of the revisions committee said

"we are reviewing La Gaceta and saw that the document of ours does not agree, there are errors in copying and changes in the working, and the members of the revision committee need to present a decree to amend by addition and correction things based on what we submitted."

His list of changes needed includes Articles 1, 7, 15, 16, 19, 20, and 21. As the Liberal Party Congressman Jose Simon Azcona said,

"laws should be published as they were approved in the National Congress, if there is a group that is not in agreement with this, they can submit a law to amend the existing law, but no one should change things outside of Congress."

Oswaldo Ramos Soto, another member of the revisions committee, urged people to wait until the committee has fully compared the document they sent to the Executive branch for signature with that published in La Gaceta.

Despite these objections, the new tax law goes into effect as published in 20 days from its April 22, 2009 date of publication. It will be up to Congress to approve revisions and amendments to the version published, to correct any errors in the published version. Supposedly the committee on revisions is working on such a set of amendments now.

These changes to the law aren't minor, if we go by the comments on the scope of changes in the various La Tribuna articles. The revision committee members seem to be trying to calm the waters, portraying the changes as minor copying errors, rather than deliberately introduced changes. Interestingly, only Marvin Ponce of the UD party called for an investigation into how and more importantly, where, the changes were introduced. I doubt he'll get his investigation.

Retaliation Against Honduras' National University

Student correspondents at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Honduras (UNAH) write, alarmed at proposals to close the university "temporarily", which they believe are a pretext to dismiss existing faculty and hire new professors, who our correspondents suspect will be selected on ideological grounds.

The threat to close the university has been widely reported in the Honduran press. While today's coverage in La Tribuna says the proposal has been discarded, it also reports the head of Congress saying that

“there has been talk of distinct options to approach this problem, we're not going to hide it, there are congress members that have advised that if this continues it might be more profitable to give a grant to a student so that he could study in a private university, the amount that a student at the autonoma [UNAH] costs the State so much that it has been said, but no decision has been taken."

Rigoberto Chang Castillo, secretary of the National Congress, reportedly proposed closing UNAH as "ungovernable". News coverage notes that Chang Castillo is a faculty member of the school of law, and cites a precedent (although unsuccessful) when in 2008, then-president of the Junta de Dirección Universitaria, Olvin Rodríguez, called for a two year closure of the university which quite obviously was not implemented.

The most recent news reports say that the heads of the three branches of government, Porfirio Lobo Sosa, Juan Orlando Hernández (on behalf of Congress), and Jorge Rivera Avilés (from the Supreme Court) met with Julieta Castellanos, rector of UNAH, and decided against closing the university.

Yet today, the university has reportedly been closed for a period of ten days, although not apparently by the National Congress: the Ministry of Health says it is closing the campus due to unhealthy conditions created by garbage accumulated when workers went on strike. The Health Ministry claims in particular that dengue (a mosquito born illness) and H1N1 (spread by contact with someone already affected) will be promoted by the trash that has built up on campus and the uncleaned bathrooms. This suggests the ministry of health has a novel view of disease processes, one that we might have hoped was not the understanding of the officials charged with improving health conditions in the country.

The current irritation to the government that is behind the proposal floated this week is the continuing strike by SITRAUNAH, the union that represents labor at UNAH. SITRAUNAH has been on strike since February 23 in a power struggle over reforms at the university. One of the keys to the controversy is the University's unwillingness to continue with the requirement to make payments of over two years of salary upon the death of an employee. As a result, SITRAUNAH has gone on strike and taken over buildings.

The union appears to have some faculty and student support, with recent reports of strikes by some faculty and students, although these also concern proposed financial policies that directly affect students. But SITRAUNAH does not have support from the administration of the university: according to today's report in La Tribuna, Julieta Castellanos requested the congress declare this strike illegal.

The Public Prosecutor, Luis Rubi, would go further: he wants to charge union members with sedition, usurpation, and coercion and has asked a judge in Tegucigalpa to issue arrest orders for the entire leadership of the union.

Sedition? Really? Sedition is an illegal action against lawful authority, directed at a government, tending towards insurrection, but which does not itself amount to treasonous conduct.

What makes the university such a target? Among other things, UNAH is full of intellectuals who have written critical analyses of the conditions that led to the coup d'etat, and of the overall system of government in the country. As we noted in a previous post, UNAH has been criticized for hiring former members of the Zelaya administration, people well-qualified for the jobs they took on.

During the months of open aggression by the Micheletti regime, UNAH students and faculty, even the rector, were subjects of violence. UNAH, and the national teaching university, the Pedagógica, were accused of being sites where bombs/Molotov cocktails were constructed and stored, despite the documented fact that the chemistry lab where the police claimed this was going on had burned years earlier, and not been repaired or replaced.

UNAH is a continuing irritation to government because it is in the nature of a university to encourage free expression of opinions and the development of critical perspectives. The fact that the national congress and public prosecutor are using a labor dispute as a pretext to discuss shutting the whole place down, and even re-directing public funding to private universities, is another indication that Honduras remains far from the ideal of reconciliation and far from conditions that would allow a real pursuit of the truth about the political events of 2009.