Misrecognition

As we previously noted, supporters of the government of Porfirio Lobo Sosa and the government itself are desperate to find any indication of "recognition" that they can. So pro-coup Honduran news media claimed that Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega had "recognized" Honduras by signing an accord to reauthorize a border dispute commission.

Now, Danilo Valladares writing for IPS notes that Nicaragua officially disclaimed such an interpretation:

In a statement issued by Managua after their meeting, representatives of leftist parties, including the governing Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) headed by Ortega, said they had decided "not to recognise the de facto government of Honduras."

The IPS article also includes comments from Ángel Edmundo Orellana Mercado, who resigned his post in the Zelaya cabinet days before the coup, then refused to participate in the post-coup Congress in protest against its illegal actions on June 28. Orellana was the author of a series of important editorials contesting the innovative attempts by the de facto regime to retroactively cleanse the coup of the stain of illegality.

IPS notes that Orellana argued against too-easy agreement to reintegrate Honduras in regional organizations like SICA and the OAS. Commenting on the Truth Commission set up by the Lobo Sosa government as part of its attempt to gain re-admission into OAS, Orellana said

"A bad precedent could be set if the commitments outlined there are not fulfilled and everything that happened is simply pardoned".

This is, of course, precisely what has been set in motion by the Honduran Congress passing a decree granting amnesty for "political crimes", which has been criticized by legal experts.

The IPS story repeats the claim seen in most recent articles that only 30 countries world-wide have recognized the Honduran government. This is far less than the number of countries claimed by the Lobo Sosa administration.

Among the Central American countries, as it properly points out, only Nicaragua has so far refused to recognize Lobo Sosa's government. The newly elected president of Costa Rica, Laura Chinchilla, has gone even further than Oscar Arias, saying

"We will be advocating, as we have up to now, the full and total reincorporation of our beloved sister republic of Honduras in all of the region's bodies".

Mauricio Funes, president of El Salvador, is reported to have stated that "Honduras will be fully integrated in SICA" by its scheduled July 20 meeting.

Renzo Rosal, described as assistant director of the Central American Institute for Political Studies, is quoted in the IPS article as saying that before Honduras is re-admitted to SICA,

"Issues that should be discussed are the role of the Honduran army in a democratic society; the historical two-party system in Honduras; the reconstruction of the social fabric; and the role that the OAS and SICA should play to help solve conflicts like the one in Honduras".

That would seem a very ambitious agenda to complete before July 20. Notably, it is not within the charge of the Truth Commission, which has been explicitly warned off such fundamental areas of Honduran political life.

The closest approximation to this agenda is, in fact, the manifesto issued by the Frente Popular de Resistencia following the meeting it convened in La Esperanza earlier this spring, which also called for reconsidering the role of the army, the place of the historical two party system, and the reconstruction of the social fabric. Good ideas; maybe someone should invite the authors to the table for real dialogue.

Coup Rewards

Porfirio Lobo Sosa yesterday rewarded two generals who helped carry out the coup with control of two more government agencies. During the coup, Micheletti appointed retired general Nelson Wily Mejía to head Immigration. He recently retired from that post.

Lobo Sosa has appointed another active duty general to replace Mejia, Venancio Cervantes. Cervantes was, last February, widely held to be the likely successor to Romeo Vasquez Velasquez as supreme commander of the armed forces. In March, El Heraldo reported he was unhappy with being passed over for the position, and might be thinking of retiring. In his position, he controls the access of foreigners into Honduras, and the permission of Hondurans to travel outside their country. It was widely speculated in the Honduran press that Lobo Sosa, as a condition of general Mejia's retirement had agreed to appoint another general to the position, and this appointment seems to confirm it.

In addition, yesterday Lobo Sosa appointed general Manuel Enrique Cáceres to head the Honduran equivalent of the FAA. During the coup he was appointed as head of the investigation unit of the high command. An OAS memorandum on Security in the western hemisphere lists his participation in a 2001 basic seminar of the Council of Hemispheric Affairs (COHA) in Washington, D.C. as a military confidence and security building measure.

Unlike general Vasquez Velasquez, appointed by Lobo Sosa to head HONDUTEL, these two generals are still on active duty; they have not retired. This brings to three the number of government institutions back under military control after 27 years of civilian control.

Surreal

Sometimes Honduras is surreal.

In the 1980s the only way you could tell someone was part of the investigative arm of the police (the Dirección Nacional de Investigación or DNI) was that they openly carried guns in public. They didn't wear a uniform, but did openly carry weapons at a time when you needed a permit from the military dictatorship to have a weapon. Thus when men in street clothes carrying guns stopped you on the streets to question you, you were obliged to assume they were police and obey them. There was no way to distinguish them from the criminals, who also had guns and often openly carried them in public.

Fast forward to now. As part of the modernization of the National Police everyone got uniforms. The Dirección General de Investigación (DGIC) or Dirección Nacional de Invesitgación Criminal (DNIC) which replaced the DNI has a simple uniform. Their uniform shirt, as I recall, is either a dark blue or black shirt with the name of the DGIC written on the back. Its simple, modeled after what FBI agents wear in many TV shows when out on a "bust".

Maybe its too simple a uniform, though. Anyone with silkscreening equipment, say a t-shirt shop, can copy it. The DGIC complains that criminals are impersonating them by wearing their uniform shirt. You can't tell the criminals from the real police. Shades of the 1980s.

So, how do they propose to solve this problem? La Tribuna, in its minute by minute column, tells us the solution is simple; they're going to stop wearing uniforms, or at least, the uniform shirt. Its the obvious solution, isn't it?

Lets see, the problem is that the criminals are wearing police uniforms, which the police wear so that citizens can tell they're the police and not criminals. So now, the police will stop wearing the uniforms, so you won't be able to tell them from ordinary citizens or criminals with guns. So once again, we're back to the 1980s, you can't tell the police from the criminals.

The DGIC says this will stop the delinquents from passing as police.

Really?

Without a uniform, once again, there is no way to tell the police from the criminals. This seems like a transparent attempt to reduce the number of human rights abuse claims against the DGIC, by making it harder to ascertain who committed the abuse. Can the COBRAS be far behind?

Alternative truth, official truth, or honest disagreement?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Campesinos and sombreros in Honduras

Honduran press coverage of the national march called by the Frente de Resistencia for April 15 was, not surprisingly, muted.

Pro-coup La Tribuna, for example, framed their story (credited to AFP) around the"success" of the campesinos of the Bajo Aguan in obtaining land grants earlier in the week.

Most interesting is their description of the march as

convened by the Frente de Resistencia Popular de Honduras (FRPH), created after the coup d'Etat against ex-president Manuel Zelaya in June of 2009.

OK. Remember, this is a pro-coup paper. The official line of the Honduran media throughout 2009 was that no coup d'Etat had happened-- just a "constitutional succession". The terminology used repeatedly to describe those continuing to argue for social justice has almost always been "zelayistas", a way to personalize and dismiss the organized Frente. Naming the Frente properly seems like a major shift. Even though the source of the story is Agence France Presse, the printing of a story without editorializing or editing is an unexpected break.

But even when the story lacks overt signs of dismissive rhetoric, it is important to be cautious about the claims made. Take the last paragraph of the AFP story:

La solución de este conflicto alivia en poco el problema de los sin tierra en Honduras. Según las organizaciones del llamado sector reformado, unos 300.000 campesinos carecen de tierra y tienen que trabajar como asalariados o alquilando tierras a latifundistas.

[The solution of this conflict alleviates a little the problem of those without land in Honduras. According to organizations of the so-called reformist sector, some 300,000 campesinos lack land and have to work as salaried workers or renting land from large landowners.]

If we leave aside the use of "llamado sector reformado" here, which could be translated slightly differently ("what is called the reform sector"), this seems to be a very clear acknowledgment of the challenge experienced by Honduran campesinos.

Except that it actually understates the problem. The real extent of the land problem for Honduras' farming sector is better described elsewhere on the web, in activist blogs written by people like Giorgio Trucchi:

300,000 families -- approximately 1.5 million people -- do not have access to land, while another 200,000 possess barely 1 to 3.5 hectares.

That's 300,000 families, not individuals. The additional 200,000 families with up to 3.5 hectares fall below the level of land needed to sustain an agricultural family.

Again, from the same blog,

the rural Honduran population lives on an average of one dollar per person per day, and less than 30% live in homes whose incomes pass this level. Almost half of the rural population lives with income less than half a dollar a day and around 25% have income less than 25 cents a day.... 2.8 million Hondurans in rural areas live with an income under the poverty line. This group represents more than 75% of the rural population and more than 70% of the poor in all the country.

According to a 2005 report by the World Food Programme,

More than 80 percent of farmers, about 400 000 households, own less than 5 hectares each (for a total of about 560 000 hectares, only 15 percent of total agricultural land).

This situation has been brought about, in large part, by a shift in use of land to large plantations, for agricultural exports, leading Honduras today to produce less than half of the basic grains needed by its own population, as summarized by Trucchi:

Each year there is a deficit of more than 10 million quintales of corn, and 200,000 quintales of beans and 500,000 quintales of rice have to be imported.

Where do those imports come from? Among other places, the United States. According to the World Food Programme report, "imported basic grains mainly originate from the United States". Between 1991 to 2005,

Rice imports from the United States flooded [Honduran] markets, with highly negative impact on national price and planted areas.

These economic facts were not solved by the agreement reached in the Bajo Aguan. They provide the motivation for continuing campesino participation in the Frente. As Adrienne Pine notes in her coverage of the march, the adoption of the imagery of the sombrero recovers a symbol of the agrarian countryside, a symbol also used by Manuel Zelaya, that resonates with people of the campo.

While it remains impossible to know how many people took part in the April 15 march due to lack of objective reporting, the photographic testimony tells the story:

men and women wearing sombreros listening to speakers in auditoriums with banners saying

"Honduras Free of Transgenics" and

"We demand comprehensive agrarian reform now"

Marchers on the street carrying signs reading

"Let's stop hoarding land immediately-- Yes to a comprehensive agrarian reform for food sovereignty"

And above all, the presence in the crowds, variously estimated at hundreds or thousands, of entire families and generations of campesinos, each one proudly wearing the formerly despised symbol of rural backwardness, the sombrero, now recovered as a sign of agrarian strength.

Blacklisted

The Interamerican Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) issued its annual black list of countries that do not respect human rights. For the first time since 2006, a new country appears on the list, Honduras. The inclusion of Honduras is based on the report of the IACHR visit to the country last August. Chapter 4 of the report, which can be downloaded here, is an executive summary of the longer IACHR report on Human Rights and the Coup, issued in December, 2009. Compare that report with the rather sparse State Department report on Human Rights in Honduras.

The response in Honduras has been dismissive.Porfirio Lobo Sosa's newly minted Human Rights advisor, Ana Pineda, is quoted on Radio America's website as saying "this is not the time for Honduras to say whether it endorses the report of the Interamerican Commission on Human Rights." She is reported to have said that the report of the IACHR, in general, reflects the problems of the country after the expulsion of Manuel Zelaya Rosales. In other words, she thinks this is old stuff.

"Now, Honduras is trying to take into account the recommendations of the IACHR and investigate specific cases of human rights violations."

Except querida Human Rights advisor, the Human Rights prosecutor, Sandra Ponce, has come forward recently to say that her office cannot investigate and file human rights cases because she has no budget to do so.

Apparently, the naming of Honduras to the list bothered President Lobo Sosa, who came out and said "Its not the policy of the state to violate human rights." He continued:

"The important thing for me is that it is not a state policy, I acknowledge that we have inherited a country with high crime and are doing our best ; there is no State policy of violating human rights."

State policy is not the issue, Mr. President, its are you prepared to stop the abuses that are undeniably being denounced daily. Denial is a step on the road to recovery, I'm told.

But moments ago the AP reported that Lobo Sosa had rejected the IACHR report. The same story quotes Human Rights Ombudsperson Ramón Custodio as calling the report "a form of manipulation with the goal of hurting Honduras. The IACHR has lost its ethics."

The Center for Justice and International Law told the UN that the Honduran government has taken no action to protect the majority 134 people named in IACHR demands for protective orders. It found this lack of action worrying.

At the same time, a motion introduced by the representatives of the UD party in the National Congress to replace Human Rights Ombudsperson Ramón Custodio Lopez because he has not properly carried out his functions was defeated by a 122-6 vote. La Tribuna calls this a "unanimous rejection" bringing new meaning to the word "unanimous". Lobo Sosa said that this is not the time for such a motion, rather that it is the time for reconciliation.

Undemocratic

Nacionalista Congressperson Renán Inestroza has introduced a bill in the National Congress that would, by amending the constitution, reduce the number of representatives from 128 to 80 (or 90, the article uses both numbers). Why, you ask? His argument boils down to the fact that the Congress people cost money, about $50,000 (US) per year in salary per representative, and this would save all that salary.

"We believe that it has been the desire on the part of the citizens to reduce the high bureaucracy that exists in the National Congress with 128 representatives."

His secondary argument is that he claims the current distribution of representatives, by department is not fair, citing the 2005 representation for Comayagua and Santa Barbara as an example. The constitution calls for a proportional distribution of representatives.