New Culture Warriors, New Tactics

The culture war in Honduras is heating up-- and there's a new player involved.

Yesterday the Minister of  Culture, Tulio Mariano González, asked the director of the Casa Morazan (Morazan House) Museum to resign.  Gonzalez wrote:

"If you don't want to work in harmony with the authorities and criticize the government, please resign so that other people who have the will can take you're place."

Carlos Turcios, the Director of the museum, has told the press that his entire budget will be used up on July 31 so the museum will have to fire staff unless the government allocates more funds to pay the staff to keep it open. 

González told the press that the museum was not going to be allowed to close.  He said:

 "NASA also had its budget cut but that doesn't mean that NASA is closing.  What we need to do is improve our offering, improve the initiative, make more work and this is what we're doing in all parts."

Except that NASA would close if you cut its budget so that it could not pay the people it needs to carry out its mission.  A museum cannot stay open without staff to operate it.

According to Turcios, the museum has 8 employees, and enough money to pay half their salaries through July 31. After that, he has 74,000 lempiras ($3700) to pay people for the rest of the year.  He told Conexihon that

"After the 31 of July there is no budget for us but we will not close the Casa Morazan."

Meanwhile, González says the museum is only closing temporarily.  La Prensa says he told radio station HRN that

"The Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History is doing a restoration and decided to close it [the Casa Morazan] for two weeks while doing the work to provide better service."

(The Minister may be referring to the installation of 46 objects that the Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History agreed to loan the Casa Morazan.)

So why did Gonzaléz call for Turcios to resign, when he is apparently volunteering to run the museum, for free?

Turcios thinks that González is operating under a misunderstanding.

The museum rented space for a week long community action seminar by the Confederación Unitaria de Trabajadores de Honduras (CUTH). A group called the Frente Amplio de Trabajadores de la Cultura y el Arte (Broad Coalition of Workers in Culture and Art) was included.

The Frente Amplio is a new player on the scene of culture, organized earlier this summer with an agenda prominently calling for the resignation of the current Minister of Culture. The original announcement of its formation indicted "the total disfunctionality of the Secretaría de Cultura, Artes y Deportes (SCAD) and the head of that same institution, Tulio Mariano Gonzales". Their conclusion was that the leaders of SCAD "are not interested at all in culture" and have put historic patrimony in danger "through governmental indolence".

The initial statements about the formation of the Frente Amplio say that "this is not a closed group, since all artists, intellectuals, and creators of art" are welcome. So unlike the unions of SCAD and other cultural entities like IHAH, which have either gone along with decisions of the ministry and its appointees, or suffered retaliation for efforts to correct mismanagement, the Frente Amplio is not subject to the same kinds of pressures that can be placed on employees.

On Monday the Frente Amplio denounced the virtual abandonment of local Casas de Cultura by the Ministry of Culture, and mismanagement of national museums. They singled out the Casa Morazan, noting that "the budget has been reduced to 800,000 lempiras (some 39,000 dollars), so that it will cease operations this coming [July] 31".

Turcios says some "political activists" in the Secretaria de Cultura, Artes, y Deportes, Minister González's organization, used this statement as a pretext to denounce him for supposedly allowing "political" activities to take place in the museum, resulting in the Minister asking for his resignation.

We think the Minister can't take criticism-- and is unwilling to admit that under his guidance, cultural organizations are falling apart in the country.

Honduran Development Leads to Death of Indigenous Leader

Honduran and international press have reported the murder of Tomás García, a Lenca leader, on July 14.

The immediate cause: a bullet from the gun of a member of the engineering battalion of the Honduran armed forces.

But it would be too simple to stop the story there. This is a story of exploitation of Honduras' natural resources, and of popular opposition to their destructive effects, largely ignored outside activist media outlets.

The bare outline of the facts, relayed from Radio Resistencia host Félix Molina by Adrienne Pine, starts simply:

Allan García, 17 year-old Lenca boy, was checked in to the Santa Barbara hospital this Monday at 1:00pm, injured by the Honduran military in the community of Río Blanco, Intibucá. The medical diagnosis is that a high-caliber bullet went through his thorax and that he requires urgent medical intervention. He was sent via emergency transfer this afternoon to Hospital Mario Rivas in San Pedro Sula. In the same attack, his father —Tomás García Domínguez, Lenca community organizer—was murdered around noon, also by the army which is guarding the DESA Company of the Chinese state firm SYNOHIDRO, which plans to build a dam on the Gualcarque River against the will of the indigenous community.

The Mexican news outlet El Informador reported that "close to 400,000 indigenous people are opposed to the construction of a dam by a Chinese company". That company, SYNOHIDRO, is well known as the contractor for controversial dams proposed on the Patuca River in Olancho, in eastern Honduras, expected to cause major environmental damage in the Rio Platano Biosphere, and protested by indigenous people in eastern Honduras as prejudicial to their livelihoods.

In April, International Cry posted notice of the beginning of protests by Lenca residents against the Agua Zarca dam, located on the opposite side of the country in southwest Honduras, on what some news reports call the Rio Blanco, more accurately, the Rio Gualcarque. They reported that this project was one of "around 360 newly accepted development concessions in Honduras, 30% of which are on indigenous lands".  The post describes actions taken by the protesters in April to disrupt the attempt to initiate dam construction.

SOA Watch reported in April about how the local Lenca community mobilized, both to lobby the Honduran government to rescind the Agua Zarca project, and to actively block construction efforts on the dam, which was made possible by legislation passed in 2009 during the de facto regime of Roberto Micheletti. SOA Watch quotes an unnamed woman from the community eloquently describing what is at stake in this struggle:

“What we’ve decided as the community of Rio Blanco, together in one voice, is that they withdraw those machines… Because we haven’t given permission for dams to be built. As the community of Rio Blanco, when the Mayor came for a town hall meeting, what we said was No and No. All in one voice, we said No. He got mad and he got up and left. He went to make a decision with those who like money under the table. That’s what they did. And today they have us oppressed. On the land where we harvest corn, beans, rice, yucca, coffee, they have buried the harvest with the dirt that they throw from the machines. Because of this, today, as the Rio Blanco community we have decided that the hydroelectric company will not continue working. We will not leave the blockade until they withdraw the machines. Because we are poor campesinos and there are about 300 children. Where will the children go? We have to pass this piece of land onto our children, each one of them, so that they can survive.”

According to Indian Country Media Network, on May 23 "police forcibly removed the indigenous demonstrators from the area with tear gas and arrests". The next day, Berta Caceres, Director of the organization COPINH (Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Populares y Indígenas de Honduras) was arrested on what are widely seen as false charges of possession of firearms, charges suspended but not dismissed by a Honduran judge.

This seemed to be an attempt to intimidate the leadership of COPINH. Taken in this context, the death of Tomás García is an escalation from intimidation to deadly force, against indigenous leaders of protests.

Perhaps predictably, Honduran press reports accused the indigenous protesters of initiating the most recent violence. This is a familiar approach in Honduran reporting, presenting protests as illegitimate interference with the rights of property owners, with "destruction of property" raised as justification for fatal violence.

Coverage by El Heraldo was particularly egregious: the Honduran paper largely quoted a press release from the company. Their story goes that "owing to the violent intervention of the demonstrators of COPINH Tomás García died, and Allan García Domínguez also was injured", leaving a bizarre impression that it was the protesters, not the military, who resorted to firing on the crowd.

While the company press release leaves out the details of just who fired the fatal shots, Berta Cáceres explained that as 300 members of the group were protesting, "members of the armed forces who were accompanied by the police" committed the fatal shooting. In contrast, Vos el Soberano describes the demonstration as peaceful, the latest of 106 days of peaceful protests.

COPINH characterizes the protest as an assertion of Lenca sovereignty, "based on Convenio 169 about Indigenous Peoples, our historic memory, and the right to life and to collective rights as original people" of Honduras. Under ILO Convention 169, indigenous people in Honduras expect to be consulted about development projects that will affect them.

ILO 169 was adopted by Honduras in 1995, and while it would be a stretch to say that previous governments were enthusiastic in implementing it, after the 2009 coup indigenous groups experienced marked reversals in progress in asserting rights of consultation as Honduras rapidly expanded exploitation of natural resources. The post-coup congressional development process ran roughshod over environmental protection. Bad deals for energy generation were common. Increases in gold mining were encouraged, destroying the health and environment of rural communities.

Indigenous activists have fought back-- with little notice from mainstream news media internationally.

Perhaps that will change, now that intimidation has turned deadly. But we aren't counting on it.

ebido a la intervención violenta de los manifestantes del Copinh falleció el señor Tomas García, resultando herido también el señor Alan García Domínguez

Leer más en: http://www.elheraldo.hn/Secciones-Principales/Pais/Dos-muertos-y-un-herido-en-protesta
Síganos en: www.facebook.com/diarioelheraldo y @diarioelheraldo en Twitter

Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Populares e Indígenas de Honduras

Leer más en: http://www.elheraldo.hn/Secciones-Principales/Pais/Dos-muertos-y-un-herido-en-protesta
Síganos en: www.facebook.com/diarioelheraldo y @diarioelheraldo en Twitter

Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Populares e Indígenas de Honduras

Leer más en: http://www.elheraldo.hn/Secciones-Principales/Pais/Dos-muertos-y-un-herido-en-protesta
Síganos en: www.facebook.com/diarioelheraldo y @diarioelheraldo en Twitter

debido a la intervención violenta de los manifestantes del Copinh falleció el señor Tomas García, resultando herido también el señor Alan García Domínguez

Leer más en: http://www.elheraldo.hn/Secciones-Principales/Pais/Dos-muertos-y-un-herido-en-protesta
Síganos en: www.facebook.com/diarioelheraldo y @diarioelheraldo en Twitter

DNIC Back To Work

More than 1400 employees of the Dirección Nacional de Investigación Criminal (DNIC) returned to work on Monday after super-Minister Arturo Corrales reversed himself (he had said their jobs were suspended) and ordered them to return to work.

An unnamed agent told La Tribuna that probably Minister Corrales was being badly advised because you can't suspend the investigative work in a country where there are an average of 20 murders daily, over 7000 a year.  Each of the investigators manages an average of 300 open cases at a time.

Its also likely that Corrales did the math. 

The first 100 DNIC agents will take the confidence tests this week, and they hope that 200 can take the tests next week.  If they can continue on that pace (and they never have) it would take a full 7 weeks to test all the DNIC agents, and if you think about it, you really can't allow all crimes to go uninvestigated for 7 weeks.  That would create more impunity, causing more crime.

Once a sufficient body of DNIC agents have passed the confidence tests, they will be assigned to the new Fuerza de Tarea Policial de Investigaciones (FTPI) along with agents of the Dirección Nacional de Servicios Especiales de Investigación (DNSEI).

Agents of the DNSEI have not undergone the confidence tests and Corrales has not ordered them to be tested before they join the new FTPI.

Anyone else see a problem here?

Visa Impossible

The US Embassy in Tegucigalpa announced today that its United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) office in Tegucigalpa will close effective June 20.  USCIS, formerly known as the INS, a division of Homeland Security, provides visa services to Hondurans who want to travel to the United States.  As of June 21, these services will be available for Hondurans only from the US Embassy USCIS office in San Salvador, El Salvador.

Civilian Policing "Reform" Consolidates Power

Investigation of crimes came to a screeching halt Tuesday in Honduras as Security and Defense Minister Arturo Corrales ordered the suspension of all 2,200 members (approximately 1400 police and 800 employees)  of the Dirección Nacional de Investigación Criminal (DNIC).

Corrales further ordered that organizationally the DNIC should be merged with the Dirección Nacional de Servicios Especiales de Investigación (DNSEI).  Corrales is calling the merged group, the Fuerza de Tarea Policial de Investigacion (FTPI) which loosely translates as "Police Investigation Working Group".

This is basically a take-over of the resources, personnel, and equipment of the DNIC by the DNSEI whose head is now in charge of the merged organization.  It is a further step toward militarization of civilian policing, which began with the centralization of military and police under Corrales.

Yesterday DNSEI personnel examined the offices and equipment of the closed DNIC offices and made plans for their use.

Members of the ordinary police arrived at DNIC facilities across the country and escorted all employees from the building and padlocked them.

Citizens are now supposed to report crimes to this new working group, but Corrales forgot to order the dissemination of that information to the public, or tell them the new locations to do so.

Corrales explained his action as derived from the fact that the DNIC was leaking information to organized crime.  All 2200 employees, country wide, are suspended until they have submitted to, and passed, the police confidence tests.

Not that those tests have been ordered or scheduled. 

The result was that DNIC police and employees staged public rallies Wednesday and Thursday asking to return to work while they wait for their confidence tests to be scheduled.  They issued a public statement applauding the decision to ask them to submit to the confidence tests but asked that their rights be preserved, including the right to an assumption of innocence.  They called the current plan "improvised" and said that criminals currently held will go free because of the lack of investigation.  They further suggested that Corrales should have created a schedule for their testing and allowed them to continue working until the tests can be done rather than suspending all of them, "denying justice to Hondurans."

On Thursday several hundred of the protesters took over the former DNIC offices by force, throwing out the DNSEI officers who were there including the man who nominally is their new boss, Alex Villanueva Meza, the head of the FTPI.

A lawyer for the officers arbitrarily dismissed began legal action to get them reinstated because their suspension violated their rights to due process and presumption of innocence.

A sargent with 26 years of experience in the DNIC said:

Our families feel bad; they [the government] consider us a bunch of criminals; they should give us the confidence tests and those that they have to fire, they should fire....The objective [here] is to mark us as criminals without paying us a lempira of the funds they legally have to and go back to the 1980s, fire the police to put the military in our place.

In Honduras, the reference to the 1980s would resonate: this was the last time that civilian policing was linked to the military.

Culture Update

The Honduran Secretary of Culture, Arts, and Sports (SCAD), Tulio Mariano Gonzalez, has been criticized fiercely for failure to support national cultural institutions, many of which are warning that without funding, they may have to close.

Gonzalez told reporters last week that the administration of Porfirio Lobo Sosa does not intend to close any cultural institutions.  He specifically told reporters it was not their intention to close national schools like the National Academy of Art.  Gonzalez said:

there is no danger of any museum closing...we invite those who lie and manipulate to visit museums.

It was a strange response to the series of press reports on cultural institutions in danger of closing.  It echoes his response to the director of the Casa de Morazan historical house museum, who announced the museum would close on June 30.  At that time Gonzalez said:

"The Morazan House museum should be open".

He offered to meet with employees of the Casa de Morazan, but did not offer more funding. 

What he did do was arrange with the Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History to loan 42 historical objects and paintings to the museum, which still is warning it will close for lack of funding.

It has been two years since the government allocated any budget to the National School of Art. According to faculty member Gabriel Zaldívar:

The school is in a crisis situation, it is acephalic and the post of director was abolished [by the government], there are problems in the building, a lack of equipment and supplies to teach classes.

With the Minister of Culture refusing to respond, the Art School will seek a meeting with the Minister of Education to look for a solution.
Meanwhile, the Casa de Morazan museum began its countdown to closing at the end of June.

SCAD response?  We will not permit any museum to close. But don't ask us for any money.

US Embassy: Police Cleanup Failure

Monday, the United States suspended all aid it was giving the Honduran Dirección de Investigación y Evaluación de la Carrera Policial (DIECP). 

The DIECP is responsible for carrying out the confidence testing of Honduran police, part of a process to weed out those who should not be police.  

A US embassy employee who did not want to be named told El Tiempo:

Hondurans have expressed their frustration with the slow progress of the confidence testing of the police....it's a frustration that we share and as a result, we have suspended the aid from the United States to the DIECP.

The funds, among other things used to pay for foreign lie detector contractors, to assist the DIECP, come from the Central American Regional Security Initiative (CARSI).

It's been apparent for a while that the DIECP wasn't working well. 

Earlier this year Porfirio Lobo Sosa "accepted" (after requesting) the resignations of Eduardo Villanueva, the DIECP director, and his deputy.  However, both continue to serve because Porfirio Lobo Sosa has made no effort to appoint replacements.

As of Tuesday, Villanueva told El Tiempo that he had received no notice from the US Embassy of the funding cuts.