"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?

Lobo Sosa Insinuates Bajo Aguan campesinos are armed

In remarks quoted in El Heraldo as of 10:43 pm Monday April 12, Porfirio Lobo Sosa dangerously escalates his rhetoric, drawing connections between the campesino activists of MUCA who are occupying land in the Bajo Aguan, and unnamed foreigners who he insinuates have provided guns to the self-identified peaceful activists.

"No voy a permitir grupos armados de ningún tipo en Honduras y lo quiero repetir: no voy a permitir grupos armados en Honduras."

El Heraldo stated that Lobo Sosa said this in response to questions about why he has sent 2,000 military into the area

where campesinos advised by foreigners have invaded dozens of hectares of already cultivated land.

The claim that the MUCA movement is advised by foreigners is a way to divorce their actions from Honduras, to make these farmers into a dangerous other.

El Heraldo notes that Lobo Sosa

has asserted that behind the land conflict in the Bajo Aguán "there exist political interests"

and goes on to add that

some sectors do not discard the presence of armed groups in the region.

A subsecretary of the Ministry of Security, Roberto Romero, is quoted at length as arguing that this militarization of the Aguan in no way violates the spirit of supposedly ongoing negotiations:

"The negotiations have been respected and at the moment the only thing that the secretary of Security has done, with instructions from the President, is comply with a constitutional mandate, which is to generate spaces of trust and augment the security in this zone, in such a way as to control the flow of arms."

Lobo Sosa himself reinforces this grand lie:

"What they (Army and Police) are going to do is remind people of the Ley de Tenencia y Portación de Armas (Law of ownership and carrying of Arms) that establishes penalities of nine years in prison for anyone who carries arms in an irregular way."

Meanwhile, Sandra Ponce, who has the title of "Human Rights Advocate" (Fiscalía de Derechos Humanos), explained that in response to complaints she had initiated an investigation which has already found that

what official sources say is that the mobilization does not equate with a repressive action against persons of the campesino movement, but rather to operations against drug trafficking.

Univision quotes Ponce more succinctly as saying

The police have no order to dislodge the farmhands and their mission in Tocoa is to lower the arming and the drug trafficking in the region.

But who's arming here? not the campesinos.

In this atmosphere of intimidation, MUCA is reportedly expected to come to a final decision today about the no-longer-negotiable offers from the Lobo Sosa government. But the militarization, we are asked to believe, has no specific relationship to the campesino actions.

And the Honduran news media add fuel to the flames, editorializing that MUCA is following a "hard line" and repeating that the businessmen disputing land rights "have asserted that the occupation of the land is aided by foreigners" and that Lobo Sosa "fears that the actions of the campesinos are politically motivated and that they seek to disparage his government with the theme of human rights", concluding that

the greatest risk that presently exists is to continue giving time for radical groups so that they can totally take control since what they want is a greater confrontation to impose their manicheanism by violence [sangre y fuego].

The solution, according to the editorialist for El Heraldo, is simple; people just have to stop thinking that police actions in the middle of a tense land dispute have anything to do with that dispute, and it is up to the campesinos to see that they don't give anyone the idea that a massacre is about to happen or they will show they are tools of the radical left:

the peasants of MUCA have the opportunity today to give the lie, through deeds, to those that see them as instruments at the service of the radical left. They only have to accept the proposal of the government of Lobo....

So we hope, then, that in the meeting today a definitive agreement will be reached so that the government can dedicate itself to confronting grave national problems such as insecurity, without its actions being misinterpreted like yesterday, that deployed armed forces and police to combat common delinquency and organized crime in Cortés, Atlántida, and Colón [coastal departments], and that stirred up such an ado saying that a "genocide" was being prepared against the campesinos of the Aguan.

"We'll respect human rights" (for now)

After creating total alarm in the Bajo Aguan over the weekend, we learned late this morning that contrary to the official statements made yesterday, the government of Honduras does not intend, at least today, to evict the campesinos who reclaimed african oil palm plantations in the region around Tocoa, Colon.

El Heraldo reported that in a press conference late this morning, which it characterizes as involving, "the three powers of the state" those involved confirmed the presence of large numbers of police and military in the Bajo Aguan, but denied that they were there to evict the campesinos from the African oil palm farms they've claimed.

In this case, the "three powers" were not the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches, but rather Maria Antonieta Bográn, representing the Executive branch, Marlon Pascua, the defense minister, and Roberto Romero Luna, the vice minister for security. El Heraldo goes on to inform us that they assured the press that the police and military would respect human rights.

The sub-director of the National Police, René Maradiaga Panchamé, is quoted as saying that the police and military were "complying with the precise instructions of the President, Porfirio Lobo Sosa, the Security Minister, Oscar Alvarez, and the Director of the National Police, José Luís Muñoz Licona, to maintain public order and preserve the rule of law, bringing security to all in the area." He also denied local reports of a curfew having been imposed over the weekend.

Today the police set up checkpoints around Tocoa, Colon, to check people's papers and confiscate weapons, El Heraldo concluded.

Meanwhile, Tiempo reported this morning that the same Police spokesman, René Maradiaga Panchamé, confirmed to them that the evictions were scheduled for early this morning (Monday), and that's why there was a strong presence of the police and military in the area. Tiempo confirmed with Maradiaga Panchamé that more than 2000 police and 1000 Special Forces (a.k.a. the Cobras) had been dispatched to the Bajo Aguan.

The military commander of these troops, Colonel Florentino Sarmiento, said that the military was simply there to assist the National Police, and it was the police that would have to carry out any evictions.

La Tribuna changed its story this morning, from the earlier headline "Bajo Aguan heavily militarized" to "Start of Disarmament Operation" adopting the messaging of the Lobo government.

Meanwhile, videos posted to YouTube show military transports loaded with troops and towing supply trailers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdL17p_mblM
http://www.youtube.com/user/MUCAtv
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTaIVEIdDQ0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUmbrOdBJoI

The government is deliberately muddying its message. On the one hand, the massive deployment of police and military is, they tell us, meant to reduce tensions in the Bajo Aguan, never mind that it achieved the opposite; but it is also meant to carry out drug interdictions, no doubt using the water canons seen transiting past El Progresso toward the Aguan over the week end.

Anyone concluding the Honduran government is not being honest about the purpose of water canons, troops, and police in the Bajo Aguan would not be mistaken.

Armed Forces vs. campesinos: Militarizing the Bajo Aguan

News reports from Honduras today confirm that, fed up with negotiating with ungrateful campesinos, the Lobo Sosa government is proceeding to escalate the confrontation with unarmed campesinos seeking land rights on the Honduran coast.

El Heraldo reports that more than 30 military transports have arrived to quell what it calls the zozobra there-- literally, anxiety. Whose anxiety?

Even the right wing El Heraldo recognizes what is coming:

While the Honduran governor prepares to receive the president-elect of Costa Rica, Laura Chinchilla, this Monday, the conditions for a massacre are being created.

More than 3000 families are at risk if the Honduran government proceeds with military action. El Heraldo actually quotes a spokesperson for MUCA, the campesino organization, Yony Rivas:

"Today, the Bajo Aguán has been totally militarized and we have detected at least 30 military vehicles with troops that are carrying high caliber arms... A climate of anxiety has been created in the area, because we know that the army in our country defends the interests of the oligarchy. We are living a very difficult moment."

Andrés Pavón, director of the Comité para la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos en Honduras (CODEH) noted that this was unprecedented, because civilian conflicts should be resolved by police, not the armed forces.

"Recognition": grasping at straws in Nicaragua

A news article in El Heraldo today reports that a previously scheduled meeting of the Presidents of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua to be held in Guatemala this Sunday has been canceled.

Explanations were diverse, but all concerned the President of El Salvador, Mauricio Funes. He is either sick, over-scheduled, or had a problem with his agenda. Three participants, three reasons. Raises the question, what really is going on?

Funes and Guatemalan president Alvaro Colom were reportedly to try to convince Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega to support the re-integration of Honduras in the Sistema de la Integración Centroamericana (SICA), the Central American System of Integration.

Reintegration in SICA, the El Heraldo article says (in the kind of editorializing that is typical of the Honduran press)

without a doubt will open the doors for the return of Honduras to the OAS.

Nicaragua, the story notes, is the only Central American government not to recognize what the writers call

the democratic process from which Lobo emerged, because it was carried out under the de facto government of Roberto Micheletti.

Pretty fair factual statement about what Nicaragua sees as the problem with the Lobo Sosa government.

But the story then editorializes that Nicaragua (actually, it says Daniel Ortega, trying to personalize a government action and thus delegitimate it) took this position

despite the fact that [the election] was programmed since before the coup d'Etat that deposed the constitutional president Manuel Zelaya.

Today's story also mentions a meeting that took place between Ortega and Lobo Sosa in Managua on Friday as evidence of progress toward the goal of Honduran legitimation.

Coverage of the Friday meeting in El Heraldo happily headlined the story "Daniel Ortega bestows recognition on Lobo".

So what was the political content of the meeting, how did it come about, and how can El Heraldo claim it represented "recognition"?

Lobo Sosa was en route to Panama, and the meeting took place in the Managua airport during a stopover.

Ortega is quoted as saying

"Hemos coincidido en que no se debe de rehuir la palabra unidad, que es una necesidad vital, la unidad de la región centroamericana".

["We have concurred that the word unity should not be avoided, that it is a vital necessity, the unity of the Central American region."]

Quite an endorsement of the Lobo Sosa government, isn't it? See the clear statement of recognition? Why not? The Latin American Herald Tribune thinks it did.

The actual purpose of the meeting was for the two countries to sign an agreement to reactivate a bilateral commission on disputes about the Gulf of Fonseca, the Pacific coastline shared by Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador. The El Heraldo article resuscitates the claim that Nicaragua and El Salvador are trying to close access to the Pacific by Honduras, by projecting a marine frontier directly between them (leaving Honduras with frontage on the Gulf of Fonseca, but no right to move into the Pacific).

Border disputes also exist on the Caribbean coast, for which, the same article noted, Ortega and Lobo Sosa agreed they should reactivate the commission on national boundaries initiated October 2008.

Lobo Sosa thanked Ortega for releasing a group of Honduran fisherman seized in Pacific waters claimed by Nicaragua. His other quotes were the same kind of vague generalizations about unity as the one quote from Ortega.

So: how is this recognition?

Quoting El Heraldo:

La firma del acuerdo de carácter político, selló el reconocimiento de parte de Ortega al gobierno del presidente Lobo.

[The signing of an agreement of a political character, seals the recognition on the part of Ortega of the government of president Lobo.]

Inter-governmental negotiation of border disputes cannot be entirely set aside, or among other things, Nicaragua would be forced to indefinitely hold Honduran fisherman captive. Vague endorsement of greater integration of Central America is a far cry from recognition, even if it is a relief to Lobo Sosa not to be so completely ostracized.

The problem with this kind of reporting-- other than that it is a complete misrepresentation of facts-- is that it continues to muddy the waters of what precisely is and is not recognition of a government.

It might even disincline a diplomat to participate in other discussions that might be subject to the same kind of egregious spin, spin that recalls the constant drumbeat of disinformation published by the Honduran newspapers throughout the rule of Roberto Micheletti.

Lobo Sosa, the Bajo Aguan, and the OAS

If the title of this post sounds like a bad foreign film, well, hold on because we are about to embark on a very odd ride.

On April 7, the pro-coup Honduran newspaper La Tribuna published an article tying together these three unlikely themes. Headlined There are political interests in the problem of the Bajo Aguan (well, yeah...), the article quoted Porfirio Lobo Sosa appealing to the OAS to send a "commission" to review the government's proposal to settled the tense confrontation in the Bajo Aguan, characterized by La Tribuna as involving claims by 3,000 campesino families for use rights of 4,500 hectares of land currently planted in African oil palms. By my math, that would be about 1.5 hectares per family. Never mind that Honduras is not part of the OAS. Lobo Sosa needs some help, and apparently, the OAS owes it to him.

La Tribuna notes that last Monday, a proposal made by the campesinos, organized in the Movimiento Unificado Campesino del Aguán (MUCA), was "immediately rejected" by the government. The MUCA proposal is described as involving

the total recovery of 28 cooperatives that had been formed with the approval of the Ley de Reforma Agraria or the judgment of five hectares per family.

Lobo Sosa went on record as saying that the government offer looked good to him, not surprisingly:

the proposal, which consists of a hectare cultivated in African palm and another that would permit them to engage in contracts of co-investment with the businessmen, "is very good", since he has had experiences with co-investment with campesino groups and every time that such a transaction has been made, "it has been something that functions well when there is good faith".

Ahem.

Perhaps that "good faith" thing would be a bit more convincing if the article didn't also include Lobo Sosa's thoughts on the broader forces at work in encouraging the campesinos of the Bajo Aguan:

“I perceive that behind this, what there is is a political interest in damaging the government with the theme of human rights", he added, on considering that it makes no sense for someone to oppose the government proposal that consists of the grant of two hectares of land to three thousand families that form the campesino movement.

Funny how accusing peasant cooperatives of being armed militants might raise the broader issues of human rights, isn't it?

In an almost-certainly inadvertent moment of irony, Lobo Sosa encouraged the MUCA group to settle because otherwise, if they don't,

the declaration signed by ex-President Manuel Zelaya on June 12, 2009, will be taken as the point of departure, which consisted in the grant of 30 millon lempiras for the purchase of the land.

That's the spirit. You wouldn't want to have to go back to the way things were under Mel? oh wait, maybe we can rephrase that-- as César Ham, UD party candidate for president in 2009 co-opted by a cabinet post in the Lobo Sosa government, tried:

The director of the Instituto Nacional Agrario (INA), César Ham, recounted that the proposal of the Lobo Sosa government surpassed that proposed by Zelaya, since it went from 30 millon lempiras to 800 millon lempiras.

So we have the spectacle of Lobo Sosa and César Ham proposing more recompense to MUCA than the supposedly socialist Zelaya, albeit with extremely sticky strings attached. Obviously, the only reason to turn down such a great deal must be a desire to make politics with a land dispute to embarrass the government.

In other agricultural institute news, César Ham is looking for 100 missing tractors sent by ALBA in 2009. Or maybe all he needs is the keys; La Tribuna reports that rumor has it the tractors were found but missing the keys. And while he's at it, he can try to find anyone who knows what happened to the other farm equipment from ALBA: 85 heavy earthmovers, 15 fumigators, and 15 planting machines.

As the article helpfully concludes, all this equipment coming to Honduras was

a result of the close relationship that Zelaya maintained with Chávez, which caused discontent, above all among the businessmen and politicians, who criticized Honduras' joining ALBA from the beginning the 25 of August of 2008.

Pretty strong aversion to farm machinery.

For the want of a nail, a shoe was lost... or, updated,

For the sake of a fumigator, a coup was born...

Recognition or Probation?

A recent email asked us which countries have officially recognized the Lobo Sosa government. Our reply to this correspondent, a fellow academic, was disappointing for his purposes, but encouraged us to consider a post; because the answer is, it depends. Depends on what "recognition" means; depends on who's identifying "recognition"; and depends on what is being recognized.

Honduran Secretary of State Mario Canahuati claims that the total is up to 50 countries. He had been previously quoted as saying Honduras had "succeeded in re-establishing relations with 29 countries of the 39 which which we have relations of diplomatic representation". Clearly, even he is using shifting criteria for what "recognition" means.

So let's start with the easy things first. Honduras is still, as of this writing, outside the OAS. Of course, the OAS feels this is a result of their expulsion of Honduras; but wait, remember: Micheletti claimed that Honduras withdrew from OAS before it was expelled.

As US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton explained in her road trip throughout Latin America, the US recognizes the November election as legitimate (despite the lack of any independent international observers) and thus the Lobo Sosa government has US recognition. And she wonders what some Latin American countries are waiting for. Except that as of this writing, the US has not in fact accepted the credentials of a proposed ambassador to Washington. According to La Tribuna on March 21, the current candidate is Jorge Ramón Hernández Alcerro, who some sources say was selected from a short list of five candidates proposed to the US, after Roberto Flores Bermúdez, who notoriously aligned himself with the regime of Roberto Micheletti, was not given US approval. And of course, the US laid down a set of conditions for Lobo Sosa to fulfill for recognition, including the farce of a "reconciliation government" and the (apparently permanently stalled) "truth commission", so even US recognition has been complicated. Most significantly, it has meant letting aid money flow again.

International lending agencies have in fact led the way in "recognizing" the Lobo Sosa administration, opening the purse strings for the kinds of loans that are critical for a government facing a treasury exhausted by the policy of Roberto Micheletti. Among those back in Honduras are the IMF, BID, World Bank, and the BCIE. Some countries that have agreed to restart financial assistance have been counted as "recognizing" Honduras, but not all of these have sent diplomats back to Tegucigalpa, or those diplomats have not tendered their credentials to the Lobo Sosa government.

Here's the crux of the matter: international diplomacy is not an on/off switch. Diplomatic protocol provides an exquisite variety of ways to establish relations, even with what are considered rogue states. On January 26, when Lobo Sosa was inaugurated, only the presidents of Panama, the Dominican Republic, and Taiwan attended, and only the US, Costa Rica, Colombia, Panama, and Peru were counted as fully recognizing Lobo Sosa's government. As of April 5, Honduran Foreign Minister Mario Canahuati reported approval of the Honduran ambassador to Costa Rica, and expected approval this week of those to Panama, Colombia, Spain, Guatemala, and El Salvador, out of a dozen nominations reportedly proposed by March 21.

The spectrum of available diplomatic approaches provides the international community, even the booster-ish US, with options to apply pressure on the Lobo Sosa administration. Some of that pressure can be seen as directed to whitewashing the coup and its aftermath. And some may be less cynical than that-- but the more serious the pressure, the less likely we will see it reflected in news media.

So. Who's recognized the Lobo Sosa government fully, by which I mean, sent a new ambassador, sent back the ambassador they had withdrawn, or either accepted the credentials of the Honduran ambassador or indicated that they will?

Shortly after the November elections, Panama, Colombia, Costa Rica and Peru were the first Latin American nations to indicate they would do so. They were joined in early 2010 by El Salvador, Guatemala, and the Dominican Republic, in an openly reported quid pro quo for safe conduct out of Honduras for former president Zelaya.

Mexico's position appears a little ambiguous, despite my best attempts to confirm reports that they have also recognized Lobo Sosa. Taiwan and Israel never actually clearly withdrew recognition from the Micheletti de facto regime, and both countries are said to be actively supporting the new Honduran government. And while Canada followed the US lead in supporting Lobo Sosa's advocacy for normalization, to the disgust of progressives in our northern neighbor, its official website on relations with Honduras as of March 4 said Canada was just "moving to normalize relations with the new, elected government of President Pepe Lobo".

Adamantly resisting are, as expected, the ALBA nations (most important being Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Venezuela). The largest South American nations-- Brazil and Argentina-- were rather polite but firm in resisting Secretary of State Clinton's coaxing to come on board. Speaking more diplomatically than Clinton, Brazil's Foreign Minister Celso Amorim noted that a coup is hard to forgive and forget.

On February 21, Mario Canahuati counted ten countries that were resisting re-establishing diplomatic missions with Honduras, including Brazil, Uruguay, México, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay and Chile. While Uruguay has been recorded consistently as not recognizing Lobo Sosa's government, Chile was briefly counted by the Honduran press as recognizing Lobo Sosa by virtue of Lobo Sosa's plans to attend the inauguration of its new president, plans he had to cancel after Honduras charge d'affaires in Chile communicated that he was not, in fact, invited to Pinera's inauguration.

France and Spain were noted as returning recalled ambassadors to Honduras in early March, yet coverage on April 2 of Spain's advocacy of including Honduras in EU discussions of an economic agreement with the Central American nations quoted Spanish minister of Foreign Affairs Miguel Ángel Moratinos as saying that Spain "has decided that its ambassador should return to Tegucigalpa" as a first action toward the normalization of diplomatic ties.

On March 24, El Heraldo reported on seven ambassadors presenting credentials to the Lobo Sosa government, from Finland, Germany, Israel, the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Czech Republic, and India. Several will serve at the same time as ambassadors for other Central American countries. Other coverage cites Canahuati as listing Italy among those recognizing the Lobo Sosa government.

Meanwhile, Honduras has yet to confirm its ambassador to the United Nations, although the Zelaya appointee, Jorge Arturo Reina, was happy to announce that he would be staying on (prematurely, and perhaps inaccurately, as he is also reported to be Lobo Sosa's delegate to represent Honduras to the ALBA countries). Honduran press counted the UN as "tacitly" recognizing the Lobo Sosa government as of February 1, by including it in documents.On April 1, Mario Canahuati attended a meeting about aid to Haiti at the UN, credited as having recognized Lobo Sosa as of February 3.

So perhaps the best way to think about all this is that the Lobo Sosa administration is on global probation.

Skepticism about the new administration will not be easily erased as long as it continues to incorporate supporters of the coup d'Etat in prominent posts. The fact remains that Lobo Sosa never has disclaimed the Micheletti regime, or the coup itself. There are countries more scrupulous than the US that, while accepting that electoral politics is never completely clean, balk at affirming an election conducted under transparently repressive conditions.

Instead of thinking of this as a recognition tally, what should concern us more is how the nations skeptical of Honduras will exercise whatever influence they have on the new regime. By so quickly accepting the new government as entirely legitimate, and refusing to even acknowledge the existence of a broad popular movement for constitutional reform, the US has given up the potential to encourage new directions. Worse, it seems committed to policies of co-optation and token representation of other voices that ignore the wider community mobilizing for a new Honduras.