Lawyers Group: DESA executives instigated Berta Cáceres' murder

A group of five international lawyers investigating the murder of Berta Cáceres has concluded that three senior executives of Desarrollos Energeticos (DESA) instigated and ordered the murder of Berta Cáceres in Honduras.  In the report, to be published on Tuesday, the lawyers wrote:

"The existing proof is conclusive regarding the participation of numerous state agents, high-ranking executives and employees of Desa in the planning, execution and cover-up of the assassination."

The evidence that allowed them to reach this conclusion are 40,000 pages of text linked to telephones belonging to two of the accused murderers, plus another phone confiscated from the DESA offices.  One of the phones belonged to Sergio Rodriguez, the Environment director for DESA.  The other phone belonged to Douglas Geovany Bustillo, a retired military officer who reported to the Director of Security for DESA. These text messages were provided by court order by the Public Prosecutor's office in Honduras.  The Public Prosecutor's Office has had the text messages since April and May, 2016, but have taken no apparent action in the case to pursue those who ordered the murder of Cáceres. Those messages show that two of the group accused of her murder, Rodgriguez and Bustillo, remained in frequent contact with three senior DESA executives via text and WhatsApp as they tracked Cáceres and harrassed COPINH members.

The New York Times wrote:

The conversations reveal, the lawyers said, that the orders to threaten Copinh and sabotage its protests came from Desa executives who were exercising control over security forces in the area, issuing instructions and paying for police units’ food, lodging and radio equipment

Miguel Bustillo,  a member of the lawyer's group said:

"What the public ministry has yet to do is indict the people who hired Bustillo to plan the operation."

Honduras has arrested eight men charged with carrying out the murder of Berta Cáceres in 2016. DESA has repeatedly denied any involvement in the harassment or murder of Cáceres. 

Sole Witness To Cáceres Murder Condems Honduran Government Investigation.

The Mexican indigenous rights activist, Gustavo Castro Soto, who was with Berta Cáceres when she was murdered is being held against his will by the Honduran government.  He is the sole eye-witness to her murder and was shot and wounded himself by Cáceres's attackers.

Late Monday afternoon, the following letter allegedly from him began to appear in Honduran social media and was picked up and reported even by the pro-government press in Honduras.  Among its many allegations are that the crime scene has been modified, and that even though he's been subjected to hours of looking at photos, no one has shown him photos of the hit men known to be associated with either of the dam companies, that the sole line of questioning was which member of COPINH did it.  The complete letter is provided below in a hurried translated below:

Dear friends, family, comrades in the struggle,

From the lands that saw the birth and death of our dear friend Berta Cáceres, beloved, supportive, and friend and exceptional woman, I'd like to thank you for all the support that little by little, in the moments that I can receive messages, I see the story of all that is out there moving.  Its not easy, the alarm here, but neither is it easy when one has to make thousands of declarations to the government.

Here the waters are turbulent.  The assassins that murdered Berta and who tried to murder me continue in impunity while the government tries to undermine the memory of Berta, the honor and the magnificent struggle that COPINH has made for so many years in the defense of the lives, the territories and human rights.

I saw Berta die in my arms, but also how her heart planted in every struggle that COPINH has realized in the many people that we knew.

There is no rain that resembles all the tears shed for her death, but there is no force that resembles the Lenca struggle that they face every day, hand in hand, in territorial disputes with the large transnationals.  They maintain an unbreakable struggle with more than 40 hydroelectric projects, dozens of mines, and a struggle to recover their lands in more than 50 locations in their ancestral region.  COPINH marches, walks, protests, recuperates, and extends its hand in solidarity with these movements.

That also was Berta.

The murder of Berta could signify for many companies and interests, the opportunity to advance on their territories.  But COPINH is stronger than ever and will need the support of all to join in the struggle with solidarity and with the memory of Berta in our hands.

The murderers already know that I did not die, and I'm sure they're wanting to finish their work.  Even though the Mexican consulate came immediately to my help and has not left me, in spite of the patrols and police, this does not mean that my life is out of danger, and that's something the Honduran government doesn't want to see.  They tried through today to retain me to control the information of my testimony.  They've denied me copies of my testimony.  They threatened that if I leave Tegucigalpa for my security, they've issued orders for my preventative arrest.  If I leave without their consent there will be no security and will be on our responsibility.  I declare that I committed no crime, and their legal questioning could be answered from my country.

It pains me enormously to be locked up alone in this city while thousands gather on the streets to say goodbye to our beloved Berta.  But I want to tell you that I am with you there, crying a sea of tears for lost Berta, but also thanking her for the life I know that has inspired me so much.  But I know that I have to leave and the government continues to prepare its sophistry to present to the public opinion that the murder of Berta was due to internal conflicts, when there's already complaints filed against those that have threatened to murder her, people associated with the hydroelectric company protected by the government.  They only want to investigate COPINH, to fragment it, and put an end to one of the principal and most emblematic struggles in the last 20 years in Honduras.

And my testimony is an obstacle for them to put who they want in prison.  I didn't hear cars arrive, nor leave, during the murder;  the crime scene has been modified and altered; the blood evidence and others left blank lines that later can be altered.  They've ordered a majority of COPINH to testify and not any of the suspects from earlier times that threatened to murder Berta.

Until today I was under official medical attention for my wounds with a supporting family and a supporting doctor.  It was all day yesterday and well into the night before I could change my bloody clothes; but the government continues to hold my luggage without giving it back to me.  I remained hungry and it was not until the afternoon that they offered me something to eat;  I did not taste food until today, replying to questions, taking tests and the many things that were happening.  It appears that they forgot that I'm a victim and for 48 hours I was not allowed to close my eyes, no rest, attending to their things.  The sweetest thing was having COPINH outside, in the room at whatever moment, accompanying my security, silent, attentive, marvellous.  One senses the human warmth and tremendous support.  One feels more secure with them than with a thousand police.

After leaving the Public Prosecutor's office last night to go to the court to give protected witness testimony, dressed in a black robe to my fingernails, and a black hood, I came back to more tests and questions;  Finally they gave me a chance to change and brought me my suitcase, but later took it away again.  The Counsel found me a hotel as hundreds on hundreds were arriving in the city to say goodbye to Berta.  Finally at dawn we arrived at a room in a hotel and I finally could rest for a few hours because I was supposed to leave Tegucigalpa in a few hours.  But they came to the hotel with photos and videos for me to identify the murderers that I saw face to face, but unfortunately all of the photos and videos were of marches of COPINH, and they wanted me to indicate which of them did it.
But they never showed me the faces of the owners of the companies, or their paid assassins  In place of two hours, it was four hours of questions and photos.

They came when we were about to get into the armored car that the Counsel had to go to Tegucigalpa when the high officials of the Prosecutor's murder office, and the Agencia Tecnica de Investigaciones Criminales arrived and asked me to stay to help them reconstruct the crime.  I consulted and found it convenient to stay with the condition that they let me go to the wake for Berta, with the people.  They agreed.  During the two hours of the reconstruction I drank coffee because I wanted to help reconstruct the murder.

I thought this would be the last that the government asked of me, because when I wasn't, they were tempted to place me in preventative custody because I am the only eye witness. But confusion reigned not only in our crushed hearts because we had to bury Berta before her time, but also reigned in the same Public Prosecutor, and in his offices the same reigned.  Well, I agreed to help them in this difficult test of reconstructing the events.  For Berta, for COPINH, so that some day justice would be done and those who promulgate death and destruction would be expelled from the land.

Thanks to so many people for their support, for the waiting of this valued people.  Thanks, really thanks, I was moved to tears and more, that my friends and so many people, had been so concerned that they condemned this situation.

Gustavo Castro Soto.

Indigenous Rights Activist Berta Cáceres murdered

Indigenous rights activist Berta Cáceres was murdered in her home in La Esperanza, Intibuca, this morning.  Preliminary accounts suggest someone broke into the house about 1 am this morning and killed her.  Caceres, who is also known for her environmental rights work, was most recently working on protecting the rights of the Lenca people being displaced without due process by the Chinese construction company, SinoHydro, building the Agua Zarca dam in her home department of Intibuca for the Honduran company Desarrollos Energéticos, SA (DESA).

"They follow me; they threaten me with death, with kidnapping.  They threaten my family.  This is what we face" Caceres said.

She was one of the co-founders of the Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Populares e Indígenas de Honduras (COPINH), the primary Indigenous rights group in Honduras.  In 2015 she won the Goldman Environmental Prize given to people for " for sustained and significant efforts to protect and enhance the natural environment, often at great personal risk."  Her biography on the Goldman prize website says of her:  "Berta Cáceres rallied the indigenous Lenca people of Honduras and waged a grassroots campaign that successfully pressured the world’s largest dam builder to pull out of the Agua Zarca Dam."

The dam project was owned by Desarrollos Energéticos, a Honduran company, and being constructed by SinoHydro, the state-owned Chinese construction company, and the German company Voith Hydro.  Funding came from the Central American Bank for Economic Integration and the Development Finance Company of the Netherlands, and the Central American Mezzanine Infrastructure Fund of EMP Global, a total of $24.4 million.

In 2006 she began her work representing the Lenca community of Rio Blanco, who were being forcibly displaced as part of the dam construction in violation of their ILO 169 rights.  Honduras is a signatory of ILO 169 but has largely ignored its obligations under the treaty.  Rio Blanco should have been consulted, and its permission requested, to authorize the dam project under ILO 169, but that never happened.

The current Honduran government militarized the dam project region in an attempt to break the Lenca blockade of the dam site, shot and killed peaceful protesters, and even went so far as to arrest Berta Cáceres on trumped up weapons charges, threatening her with imprisonment.  The charges were later dismissed.

Her body was flown to the capital, Tegucigalpa, by the Honduran Air Force where it was transferred to the morgue of the Forensic Medicine unit of the Police.  Outside the morgue, Lenca people have been building a "mural" with flowers and colored sawdust (like the murals done for Holy Week), this one depicting the Rio Gualcarque region she had defended from the hydroelectric project.

Cáceres is survived by her four children, and her mother.

Indigenous Leader Berta Caceres Ordered Jailed

"I will keep myself with my head held high and will all dignity: I say to them that those businessmen are mistaken if they think that the Lenca people will stop their historic fight in defense of the common property.... My crime is to carry blankets with the name of COPINH, to yell slogans and to create poems in defense of the Río Blanco..."

Honduras' progressive online news source, El Libertador reported these statements, made on Radio Globo by Berta Cáceres, Lenca activist and leader of the Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Populares e Indígenas de Honduras (Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras: COPINH).

They came in response to a judge in Intibucá, Alicia Lizeth Naigh Reyes, ordering what El Libertador called "prisión preventiva" (preventive detention) for Cáceres. Preventive detention precedes trial.

In fact, as the notice posted by La Prensa late Friday made clear, this was the final sentencing for Cáceres' participation in Lenca mobilization against the Agua Zarca hydroelectric project in Río Blanco, Intibucá, by a Honduran-Chinese collaboration, DESA-SINOHYDRO

The lawyer for the three indigenous activists, Victor Fernández, said that the two other Lenca activists accused, Aureliano Molina and Tomás Membreño, were released under his parole, required to check in every 15 days.

Berta Cáceres was given a more severe sentence, to be served in the Centro Penal of La Esperanza, in the Department of Intibucá.

What Honduran media did not report is the full militarization of the scene, described by the Mexican news site Vanguardia:

The sentence was delivered... surrounded by some 700 police and military, including some inside the place, among them anti-riot police, who carried metal shields, tear gas bombs, and batons....in front of the court house, some 2000 Lenca supporting Cáceres with signs were present, while inside were Nora Cortina, one of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo of Argentina; Carlos H Reyes, Honduran labor leader; and Berta Oliva, director of the Comité de Familiares de Detenidos y Desaparecidos (COFADEH).

Not present at the sentencing was Berta Cáceres herself, who was represented by her legal counsel.

Proceso Digital published a story about the protest at the courthouse, claiming the indigenous protestors took over the building, but this detail does not appear in other coverage. They described the charges against the three Lenca leaders as

inciting the population of the western area of the country to cause damage to a business that is developing a hydroelectric project in the area.

It is apparently on these grounds, of inciting others, that Berta Cáceres was deemed a "subversive" and sentenced to jail.

The coverage of the sentencing, and the mass protest outside the courthouse, should call into question news reports that purported to show that the Lenca were in favor of the dam. El Heraldo, for example, headlined its September 7 story Lencas de acuerdo con construcción de represa, and wrote that

More than 100 residents, representing ten Lenca community organizations [patronatos] on the Río Blanco, north of Intibucá and south of Santa Barbará, signed an agreement of cooperation and mutual understanding with President Porfirio Lobo Sosa with the company Desarrollos Energéticos Sociedad Anónima (DESA) [the Honduran partner in this Chinese-Honduran project], accepting the construction of the hydroelectric dam “Agua Zarca”.

The event publicized in these stories notably lacked any participation from COPINH, although representatives from two other Lenca organizations were involved. According to these press reports, the signatories of the agreement stated that they were satisfied with the consultation of their communities-- a legal requirement for the project to proceed-- and in return, the company developing the project promised financial compensation of various kinds.

Of course, what the carefully orchestrated event held in Tegucigalpa did not address were the concerns of the protestors at the site of the Agua Zarca dam. There, in July, protests were met by the wounding of one protestor, and the death of another, through gunshot from army engineering division. In May, the same army unit was busy evicting protestors from the area of the dam.

In June, Radio Progreso posted video and an article in which the protestors specifically stated that the government had not consulted appropriately with the communities affected, as called for:

free, previous, and informed consultation, under ILO Convention 169, ancient land titles, historic rights and agreements signed between the Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones y Pueblos Indígenas de Honduras, COPINH, and the Estado de Honduras.

In this case, as in others, at issue is whether what the government did meets the standard of "free, previous, and informed" consultation.

The government stresses obtaining signatures from representatives of some groups, but does not address the wider question of whether these signatories are representing the actual position of the people.

The signing, taking place while three Lenca leaders were under trial for protesting, and after others had been wounded, killed, or kidnapped, arguably doesn't meet the criterion of being "free".

And getting signatures on documents on September 7, months after construction efforts and protests against them began, clearly does not qualify as "prior" consultation.

Miskito Land Councils Receive Land titles

English language news sources reported this week that five Miskito federations received collective land titles through the Instituto Nacional Agrario.

The titles cover 970,000 hectares (approx. 1.6 million acres) of land in the eastern part of Honduras, along the Caribbean coast and the border with Nicaragua.  This constitutes almost 7% of the land area of Honduras.  The latest land titles add to titles for other lands allocated in 2012 and May, 2013.

The recipients of these titles are territorial councils. Twelve Miskito and Pech Federations are organized in territorial councils:

Rayaka - located in Belen,
Diunat - Brus Laguna,
Finzmos - Morocon - Segovia
Katainasta - Laguna Caratasca
Auhya Yari - Puerto Lempira
Lainasta - Laka
Wamakliscinasta - Auka
Watiasta - Eastern Mosquitia, along the Caribbean coast adjacent to Nicaragua
Bamiasta - Ahuas, Rio Patuca, Biosfera Río Plátano
Bakinasta - Wampusirpi, Río Patuca, Reserva TawakaAsagni
Batiasta - Barra Patuca
Truksinasta - Tipi

The councils and their territories are contiguous zones in far northeast Honduras:

 (Click to enlarge.  Map taken from page 16 of this source.)

Honduras acquired title to the land that has now been titled from Great Britain through the Cruz-Wyke treaty of 1859.  This treaty ceded British control of the Bay Islands of Utila, Guanaja, Roatan, Morat, Elena, and Barbarete to Honduras. It required Honduras to recognize existing land titles on those islands, and for Honduras to observe freedom of religion and worship for their residents.

Article II of the treaty recognized ownership by Honduras of  the land occupied by the Miskito, except for land that might be claimed by the government of Nicaragua. Otherwise, the treaty was non-specific about the boundaries involved.

Article III of the treaty is what underlies the new land titles. It reads:

The Misquito Indians in the district recognized by Article II of this Treaty as belonging to and under the sovereignty of the Republic of Honduras shall be at liberty to remove, with their property, from the territory of the Republic, and to proceed withersoever they may desire; and such of the Mosquito Indians who remain within the said district shall not be disturbed in the possession on any lands or other property which they may hold or occupy, and shall enjoy, as natives of the Republic of Honduras, all rights and privileges enjoyed generally by the natives of the Republic.

Article III went on to called for an annual fund to be established for educating the Miskito over a ten year period, the fund to be guaranteed by income from the logging rights to any state-owned land in the Bay Islands and Miskito territory.  That means the Treaty recognized that not all the land in the ceded territory was privately held.

Only some of the present-day territorial councils have received title to the lands they occupy, as prescribed by the treaty.  On August 30, 2012, the council of Katainaska received title to the lands around Laguna Caratasca, where the US is building a military base for the Honduran Navy.

In May, 2013, the council of Auhya Yari received title to lands around Puerto Lempira.

Five councils received land grants together totaling 970,000 hectares in the latest phase of complying with the treaty.  The council of Finzamos (26 communities, 1340 families) received title to lands around Morocon - Segovia.  The council of Truksinasta (26 communities, 840 families) received title to lands round Tipi.  The council of Wamakliscinasta (19 communities, 790 families) received title to lands around Auka.  The council of Lainasta (39 communities, 1800 families) received title to lands around Laka.   The council of Waitasta (18 communities, 1200 families) received title to lands along Honduras's eastern border with Nicaragua.

These titles are corporate, indivisible, and non-transferable.

Sounds great, right?

The Consejo Coordinador de Organizaciones Populares e Indígenas de Honduras (COPINH) suggests, through its spokesperson, Bertha Caceres, that the Lobo Sosa government has an ulterior motive in granting these land titles at this particular time.  She said:

"What a coincidence.  They authorize land titles just as they are to begin asking the Misquito people to approve oil and gas exploration by the English company British Gas Group."

In May this year, at the same time as the second set of Miskito land titles were being issued, the Lobo Sosa government announced it had granted British Gas Group a license to explore for off-shore oil and gas all along the coast of Honduras, from Tela east to Nicaragua.

Honduras has had at least one test well yield oil in the sea off the Moskito lands, and the area around Tela contains suspected gas reserves.

The grant to British Gas Group will bring in a substantial sum for the government, whether or not the company finds gas or oil.  However, to get their environmental license, they must get the consent of the Miskito peoples, through a series of public meetings that are just about to take place.

So maybe the timing on these land titles is coincidental. Or maybe it is meant to influence local attitude toward the environmental license for British Gas Group, in the hope of avoiding the kind of conflict that is happening everywhere else the Lobo Sosa government has authorized exploitation of natural resources near indigenous communities.

Either way, titling this land is long over due, a treaty right, not a gesture the government should be credited with taking out of the goodness of its heart.

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
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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
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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

Legal Challenges to Model Cities Law Proliferate

The law in Honduras that enables the Regiones Especiales de Desarrollo (RED), better known in English as model cities, is facing increasing opposition from Honduran citizens. 

The constitutionality of the law was first challenged in October, 2011 by the Asociación de Juristas para la Defensa del Estado de Derecho (Association of Jurists for the Defense of the Rule of Law).

Fourteen challenges against the model cities enabling law were filed on September 18, 2012. These fourteen challenges were filed on behalf of 14 separate individuals, including Miriam Miranda Chamorro, head of Organización Fraternal Negra Hondureña  (OFRANEH), a Garifuna organization.

On September 18, the Public Defender of the Constitution, a prosecutor with the Public Prosecutor's office, filed a brief with the Supreme Court on an October 2011 case challenging the constitutionality of the law. The Honduran Supreme Court solicits the opinion of the Defender of the Constitution whenever there is a constitutional challenge present in a case before the Supreme Court.  A legal countdown clock has now started, that by law gives the Supreme Court's Constitutional group of five judges just 20 days to render an opinion in that first legal challenge from October, 2011.

Nine more challenges to the constitutionality of the law were filed with the Honduran Supreme Court on September 21, 2012.  Eight of these were filed by the Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Populares e Indígenas de Honduras (COPINH, the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations) and the nineth by Father Fausto Milla, a Catholic priest in the Lenca region of Honduras.

On September 25, the LGBT community filed 30 more challenges to the constitutionality of the Regiones Especiales de Desarrollo law.

On September 26, a further 22 challenges against the law were filed.  One of these was by the Colectivo de Mujeres Hondureñas (Collective of Honduran Women), and the rest by individuals challenging the legislation.

For those of you keeping score, that's 76 separate challenges to the constitutionality of the RED legislation.

And that's not the only bad news. The Honduran Congress apparently agrees that the law, as written, is unconstitutional.

Oswaldo Ramos Soto, who drafted the existing RED law and is  Juan Orlando Hernandez's go-to guy for writing legislation, is preparing to introduce an amendment which will "fix" the unconstitutional parts of the law.

Ramos Soto wants to change Article 1 of the RED law to make it clear that the judicial system in the RED is still answerable to the Supreme Court, which is the court of last resort in Honduras.

Ramos Soto also wants to strip away the treaty-making power granted the model city in the existing law.  He proposes changing Article 18 to remove any mention of treaties, and to give to Congress the power to appoint judges in the model city. 

Ramos Soto also proposes changing Article 19 to make the legal system in a RED part of the Honduran judicial system, under the authority of the Supreme Court.

The net effect of Ramos Soto's proposed changes would be to gut one of the key features of Paul Romer's model cities: their judicial independence from the host country.

Both Romer and Michael Strong have argued that it is the legal systems in the host countries that are in part responsible for the poverty in them and the lack of economic development.

The experiment seems to be on the way to being over before it even began.

The State Department and Human Rights

The United States State Department released its world wide human rights reports on Thursday with much fanfare.  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a series of remarks.  After lauding her teams work on "advancing human rights in a twenty-first century landscape" she noted:

Now, every year that we issue this, we take stock of ourselves. We say: What more can we do? Where have we succeeded or are succeeding? Where are we falling short? And we know we have to recommit to the work of advancing universal rights, building the partnerships that will move us forward, helping every man, woman, and child live up to their God-given potential. And we know we have to be able to speak out and speak up for those unable to use their own voices.

It's that taking stock at the State Department that interests us. There's been a blind eye to certain kinds of human rights abuses in Honduras that happen, but don't seem to warrant action by the Secretary or her employees, including the Ambassador. So, we turned with some trepidation to the country report on Honduras

It emphasizes corruption within the national police force, an institutionally weak judiciary, and discrimination and violence against vulnerable populations as the greatest challenges to human rights in Honduras in 2011.

In the executive summary, which is all many people will read, it states:

Police and government agents committed unlawful killings. Vigilantes and former members of the security forces carried out arbitrary and summary killings. There continued to be reports of killings of agricultural workers, private security guards, and security forces related to a land dispute in the Bajo Aguan region. Other human rights problems included harsh prison conditions, violence against detainees, lengthy pretrial detentions and failure to provide legal due process, child prostitution and abuse, trafficking in persons, ineffective enforcement of labor laws, and child labor.

The government took important steps to strengthen respect for human rights and promote national reconciliation, as well as to prosecute and punish officials who committed abuses. However, corruption and impunity were serious problems that impeded the effectiveness of the National Police.

So that's the State Department's conclusion.  There are very few human rights triumphs recorded in the Honduran report, but they state "there were no acts of anti-semitism" in 2011.

Obviously, we would take issue with their statement that in 2011 the government took important steps to strengthen respect for human rights.

They didn't.

What Honduras did do was create a cabinet level position for a Minister of Justice and Human Rights, and appoint Ana Pineda to the post.  But it is at best a symbolic nod to human rights, without effect in the real world, and at worst-- as here-- serves as a kind of blind to serious assessment of the government's abysmal human rights record.  When Pineda has criticized Congress for proposing laws that tread on human rights, or criticized the police for their handling of protests, she's been ignored.  Congress extended the period in which an arrested person may be held without charges from 24 to 48 hours despite Pineda's criticism of the change, as they have ignored her every time she protests their actions.  Her position lacks any kind of authority to actually compel observance of human rights.

Pineda did manage to get a government statement that Ricky Martin should be admitted to the country and allowed to perform his show, after immigration authorities and the government censorship committee threatened to ban him.  The State Department report also credits her as instrumental in getting an LGBT crimes investigation squad created, though its actual accomplishments are small: according to the State Department, they have filed a couple of cases, although nothing about these has appeared in the Honduran media, and none have come to trial. So we think we can reserve judgment: neither of these are significant antidotes to the wave of killings of LGBT activists, the most recent, the murder of journalist Erick Martinez. 

We won't dwell in detail on the many human rights violations the State Department country report describes because as a reader of this blog, you're familiar with many of them, but we would like to linger on the mention of police harassment through arrests, especially in light of events that happened on Thursday, the same day that the State Department released its human rights reports.

The State Department report on Honduras gives a good summary of Honduras's arrest laws, what police can and cannot do:

The law provides that police can arrest a person only with a court order, unless the arrest is by order of a prosecutor or is made during the commission of a crime, when there is strong suspicion that a person has committed a crime and may try to evade criminal prosecution, or when the person is caught with evidence related to a crime. 

 They add, "but authorities at times failed to observe these prohibitions (against arbitrary arrest)."

That's what happened to yet another group of campesinos involved in the dispute over land in the Bajo Aguan yesterday.

The government still has not paid Miguel Facussé for the land it agreed to compensate him for in the Bajo Aguan. Facussé issued an ultimatum this last week, saying that he would go to court and get the campesinos thrown off the land if he was not paid by June 1.

Thursday, more than eighteen campesinos, both directors and rank-and-file members of Movimiento Unificado Campesino del Aguan (MUCA), were arrested in the Bajo Aguan and El Progreso, Yoro.  Their only apparent crime, being members of MUCA.

In the Department of La Paz, sixteen or more members of Consejo Civico de Organizaciones Populares e Indígenas de Honduras (COPINH) were arrested while out working on their communal lands. Children who were part of this group were forced to perform yard work and clean out the latrines of the police post before being freed.

So, yeah, "authorities at times failed to observe the prohibition" against arbitrary arrest.

And that's just some of the evidence that Honduras has a long way to go, and why it will be interesting to see what changes in US policy towards Honduras come out of the State Department's process of "taking stock" of what's in their own country report on human rights in Honduras.

"The ancestral force of Lempira": COPINH responds

A pattern is emerging in responses from the more revolutionary forces within the FNRP: greet Mel, while making it clear his importance is due to his symbolic place as a most visible, but not unique, victim of the coup and institutionalized power; don't mention the Cartagena Accord by name; do denounce the government of Porfirio Lobo Sosa and repudiate any claim that "reconciliation" has happened.

Again courtesy of Adrienne Pine at quotha, we have a translation of one of the responses that we have been anticipating most anxiously: that of the Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Populares e Indígenas de Honduras (COPINH).

The original statement in Spanish was issued May 27, in La Esperanza, Intibuca, the heart of the territory of the contemporary Lenca, and the core of the area where in the early sixteenth century Lempira led resistance to Spanish colonization.

COPINH, like the Artists in Resistance, addresses its statement to Mel, calling for "a warm welcome to you, who symbolize the struggle of the Honduran people to create a participatory and human democracy".

That is immediately followed by a call to

deepen all our efforts at denouncing the criminal dictatorship led by Porfirio Lobo Sosa, peon of the oligarchy and of North American imperialism.

COPINH then turns to address the OAS directly:

if you think you will wipe the board clean and start over, you are mistaken; you are mistaken in your cold economic calculations, in your political pragmatism, in your urgent desire to serve imperialism in its project of rearranging the continent; you are mistaken in your hypocrisy of recognizing a murderous regime that is the inheritor of a coup d'état and that has not complied with the conditions for return imposed by the OAS itself, for which it was expelled in the first place.

Indeed, the hypocrisy about human rights issues is glaring; to simply accept yet another assurance from Lobo Sosa, who has, after all, consistently assured the OAS and other international bodies that he is respecting human rights (while his Minister of Security tightens the noose, and journalists and activists continue to die in incidents that go uninvestigated), might be a pretty good definition of heartless pragmatism.

COPINH raises another troubling issue that is side-stepped by taking the Cartagena Accord as sufficient ground to reintegrate Honduras in the OAS: the authors of the coup have not been sanctioned.

The amnesty law passed by a complicit Honduran congress continues to block resolution of the political crisis because it represents impunity, as the COPINH statement recognizes, affirming the group's

conviction to fight, alongside the nation, against impunity, and to do everything possible to ensure that there will be punishment for the authors and actors of the criminal coup.

COPINH particularly underlines the project for which it has been a leading advocate within the Frente, "refounding" Honduras, vowing to continue efforts toward

the creation of a new society, refounded from below, capable of achieving decolonization, emancipation, and a dignified life

In that same passage, COPINH reaffirms its commitment to struggles that began before the coup, and that are motivated as much by inequities in the fundamental governmental and economic system of the country as at those introduced or exacerbated by the disruption in constitutionality brought on by the coup, committing to

continuing with the historic struggle that we have been undertaking in our communities defending our natural resources, our sovereignty, our self-determination.

It is worth reminding readers that one of the reasons that COPINH is committed to a new constitution is that the current constitution lacks protections for indigenous sovereignty, and treats natural resources as national resources, denying these same communities mechanisms to defend themselves against the damages caused, for example, by mining projects. Tinkering at the edges of the current constitution cannot bring the protections these advocates want and need to protect their continuity as communities.

Lest anyone labor under the illusion that a process of "truth and reconciliation" has been begun, let alone been completed, COPINH ends with an exhortation calling on "the ancestral force of Lempira, Mota and Etempica", sixteenth century indigenous leaders:

We will not forget, We will not forgive, and WE WILL NOT reconcile!!

So the tally continues to run against the Cartagena Accord...

Reactions to the Cartagena Accord, Part one: the FNRP

Signing agreements is easy; anyone out there forgotten the San Jose/Tegucigalpa Accords, and how they ended the coup d'etat in 2009 and restored constitutional order?

So, as we previously said, we think that there will need to be close scrutiny of the reactions of differently positioned parties to the Cartagena Accord.

Porfirio Lobo Sosa was strongly motivated to do whatever he could to allow Honduras back into OAS. Other hemispheric governments had the same motivation. José Manuel Zelaya Rosales could not be seen to stand in the way of some sort of step forward and retain any international credibility.

But neither Lobo Sosa, nor Zelaya, nor the governments of Colombia, Venezuela, the US or other OAS member states can compel the people of Honduras, far from reconciled, to follow through. The question then will be: how is this playing at home?

After surprising silences, responses are beginning to trickle in. We want to give each serious consideration, so this post treats just one: the official statement of the Comité Político of the Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular.

In this statement, the Political Committee of the Frente recognizes the advances made

With respect to the agenda proposed by the ex-President of the Republic of Honduras (2006-2010) and General Coordinator of the Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular Jose Manuel Zelaya Rosales.

Nuance matters in statements like these. The Political Committee is not disavowing Zelaya, but they are pointing out that the Cartagena Accord follows his agenda, not one outlined by the Frente.

To characterize what follows as supportive to the Cartagena Accord would be to miss more nuances. The Political Committee takes a point by point reaction to the four agenda items it recognizes in the new accord.

On the return from exile of Zelaya and others, such as Padre Tamayo, the Frente endorses the agreement but notes it will actually be fulfilled when they are back in the country. Caution may seem overdone, but remember the Tegucigalpa Accord: I guarantee you everyone in the Frente does, and the bitter disappointment.

That the Frente does not trust Lobo Sosa becomes clear in their reaction to the second agenda item, general human rights issues:

In the sphere of human rights there are no advances, because the regime of Lobo Sosa did not commit to, nor guarantee the application of justice to the violators of human rights, nor the guardianship of the human rights of the people in resistence, this is a challenge to achieve for the Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular.

In other words: we see your lips moving but what don't see you doing anything.

The third agenda item, as described by the Political Committee of the Frente, reads

The recognition of the Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular as a political and belligerent force ("fuerza política y beligerante")

We are now at the heart of a question debated within the Frente: should it become (or give rise to) a political party? or should it remain a social movement with political aims? "Beligerante" in this context could be glossed as "militant", as in "a militant political movement". "Fuerza", literally force, is not to simply be reduced to "party" (partido).

So it is interesting that in analyzing this third agenda item and what was achieved in the Cartagena Accord, the Political Committee of the Frente does not use the word "partido" at all:

En cuanto al reconocimiento del Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular como una fuerza política y beligerante, se logra un avance en el sentido que el régimen se compromete, a cumplir las garantías para la inscripción del F.N.R.P. ante el Tribunal Supremo Electoral a la luz de las leyes para la participación democrática en los procesos políticos electorales de Honduras y para que pueda integrar los organismos oficiales de carácter político electoral en igualdad de condiciones.

[In regard to the recognition of the Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular as a political and militant force, an advance was achieved in the sense that the regime committed itself to comply with guarantees for the registration of the FNRP before the Tribunal Supremo Electoral in light of the laws for democratic participation in the electoral political processes of Honduras and so that it can be integrated in the official organizations of a political electoral character in equality of conditions.]

What the laws alluded to here govern is not just political parties, but broader advocacy groups. Returning to the language of the Accord, we note that the rapid translation we posted here interpolated the words "political party" because that is how this part of the agreement was parsed by those negotiating it. But it does not seem to us that the response by the Political Committee of the Frente endorses a full conversion to a political party.

Finally, the Political Committee pronounces on the fourth of Zelaya's agenda items in negotiating the Cartagena Accord and again, comes down in a more mixed way than simple outright endorsement of the language of the accord itself:

En el tema de la constituyente que es uno de los grandes objetivos del Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular, se logra el derecho a la consulta para la Asamblea Nacional Constituyente; de esta forma se ratifica que con la fuerza de los principios y las ideas del soberano se vence a los intereses mezquinos de los grupos de poder que le han negado el derecho a la democracia participativa.

[In regard to the constituyente which is one of the major objectives of the Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular, there was achieved the right to a consulta (poll or referendum) for the Asamblea Nacional Constituyente; in this form was ratified that with the force of principles and the ideas of sovereignty the avaricious interests of groups in power that have denied the right to participatory democracy are defeated.]

In other words: we showed that if you document broad public desire for constitutional change and more direct political participation, the other side eventually has to give in. But notice: no ringing endorsement of the mechanism, characterized with such self-congratulation in the Cartagena Agreement itself, by which the kind of popular consultation that Zelaya wanted to undertake is now possible.

So we would score this as 1 overt endorsement (of return from exile); 2 muted recuperation of their own agenda from that embodied in the Cartagena Accord, with a pause to remind people that these achievements came from the Frente's actions; and 1 outright rejection, of the human rights items, based on lack of trust for Lobo Sosa.

In a related post, political scientist Greg Weeks makes an interesting set of comments about the potential role of the Frente. He notes that the literature on how resistance movements become political parties probably does not apply here, as the Frente never was a guerrilla movement, and thus has none of the obstacles to overcome when a militarized opposition becomes a political one.

He then adds that there is a literature on how ethnic movements become political parties, suggesting this also does not apply here.

We agree, although for slightly different reasons than he gives: there is a pan-ethnic movement at the heart of the Frente, represented among other things by the prominence of Bertha Oliva, and the symbolic location of Frente assemblies in the heart of traditional Lenca territory.

But the Frente does not speak solely or uniformly with this voice; we pay attention to when COPINH issues statements in order to understand how at least the indigenous faction within the Frente understands things. But there are other voices, including those that represent reform tendencies within the Liberal Party, and those that are mobilized primarily out of belief in Zelaya himself.

Where we think Greg may slightly miss a nuance is when he suggests that the challenge for the Frente is moving from taking positions against the government to taking positions for certain policies.

The Frente has a robust and clear agenda. It is just an agenda that is either not reported in mainstream media, especially in the US, or not taken seriously by them. It starts with constitutional reform. Constitutional reform, through the direct convocation of a popular assembly, is a position for a policy: it is a position for changing a political system that has demonstrated its incapacity to protect the weak from the powerful.

So, we will be interested to hear what broader segments of the Frente say, especially about the modest steps toward popular consultation in the Accord; and we await some specific statement from COPINH or its leadership on this point in particular.

Lobo Sosa and Honduras' Garifuna: CNN swallows propaganda

CNN headlined its story on the marking of 214 years of Honduran Garifuna history Hondurans honor African heritage.

But their story qualifies as propaganda for the Lobo Sosa government. It even includes, as if it were news or even a fact, this line:

Lobo predicted that he would be recognized as a defender of the rights of Afro-Hondurans by the end of his term.

Well, how likely is that to actually happen? What would be the basis of such a claim?

The Garifuna are an African-descendant group formally recognized as one of the multiple groups making up Honduran society under the International Labor Organization's Convention on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries (ILO 169), which was ratified by Honuras in 1994.

So if there is any credit to be claimed by Honduran governments-- which is debatable, as it was indigenous activists who pushed for recognition-- it would be earlier Honduran governments that deserve credit for recognizing the Garifuna.

In fact, since the 2009 coup, existing independent Garifuna activities have been under constant attack.

In 2009, in a statement on the Dia de la Raza, indigenous organizations noted attacks on the independent Garifuna community health center that had been staffed by Cuban doctors, and was Garifuna run and managed. Dr. Luther Castillo, the director of that clinic, was specifically targeted. The UNHCR noted that the project was supported by funding from Honduras' ALBA initiative, and that "Garífuna students who have traditionally had difficulty gaining entry into the medical faculty of the Honduran National University" were as a result "able to obtain their medical training at the Escuela Latinoamericana de Medicina (ELAM) in Cuba". The clinic was credited with treating over 140,000 cases prior to the coup. After the coup, the Micheletti government moved to take over the clinic.

Reports in 2009 also mention the reversal by the Micheletti government of Zelaya administration "authorization to teach in the Garifuna language in school and to teach the language itself". Santiago Jaime Ruíz Alvarez, in a study of Garifuna language transmission, noted that the production of text books in the language during the Zelaya administration was

the first time that the Ministry of Education of Honduras, at the very official level, has produced culturally and linguistically appropriate textbooks, teaching and support materials for school children in indigenous and Afro-descended communities.

So it is beyond ironic for Porfirio Lobo Sosa to be given credit for promising that, maybe in six months he will "sign an agreement to give indigenous people and Honduran blacks a preferential right to choose teachers and doctors from their own villages". These are things they have and have had, that the coup and its aftermath removed.

And there is plenty of evidence of continuing threats to Garifuna existence that are hardly being countered by the pro-business Lobo Sosa government.

Garifuna community radio, like that of other local groups, is threatened by new policies of the Lobo Sosa government, policies that drew statements of concern from UN officials. Garifuna station Faluma Bimetu has been repeatedly threatened. In 2010, during the transition to the Lobo Sosa administration, their station was vandalized and they were taken off the air by government forces. Now, through new licensing procedures, the Lobo Sosa government itself can clamp down on this and other independent voices.

Coverage of the Garifuna anniversary from resistance sources was, shall we say, somewhat different.

First of all, they called it a protest, not a celebration. These reports noted that Garifuna protestors who marched in Tegucigalpa were accompanied by other representatives of COPINH, the Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Populares e Indígena de Honduras (Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras), and that the demonstrators "demanded a halt to the dispossession of the lands of the Lenca and Garifuna peoples". COPINH is, of course, a core part of the Frente de Resistencia, something not evident in CNN's story.

Prominent in this account is Miriam Miranda, coordinator of the Organización Fraternal Negra de Honduras (OFRANEH) who was recently rescued from illegal detention due to international pressure on the Lobo Sosa government. OFRANEH, again, was one of the organizations that denounced the coup d'etat of 2009 and continues to engage in activism against the repressive actions of the Lobo Sosa government.

In a statement released after her detention, Miranda said

In Honduras the chaos by which the country was subsumed due to the 2009 coup d'etat perpetrated by the judicial and legislative powers and the armed forces, under the instructions of the U.S. right wing and of course the Pentagon, continues.

Despite the plastic smiles of state functionaries and their eagerness to achieve international recognition, the criminalization of social protest has sharpened with the regime of Porfirio Lobo, who with his sinister ways discredits his administration in the eyes of human rights organizations.

Repudiating the Lobo Sosa administration's official event that was all too closely covered by CNN, Miranda is quoted as saying

“we did not come to the Presidential Palace to ask to be received by a person who has not been able to resolve, through dialogue, a conflict with the teachers, we do not want to celebrate, nor do we even have reason to do so”.

She reportedly added that more than a toast in the Casa Presidencial, what the Garifuna people need is the respect for their human rights and access to the lands of their people.

CNN, it would appear, hasn't heard that Garifuna voice. It is too easily taken in by the kind of meaningless symbolic gestures that count as "recognition" of minorities in US politics.

The real political story, the one about land rights, rights of self determination, and resistance to economic exploitation that is displacing the Garifuna from their traditional communities in the name of development-- the actual legacy of the Lobo Sosa government in Garifuna territory-- CNN cannot be bothered to cover.

"How Democractic Should Democracy Be?": Oscar Estrada

Note: The original in Spanish was posted today on Quotha, with the first half translated there in a comment by Charles II and the second half in a comment by me. In the following translation, I make slight changes to the original translation of the first half.

For those of us who didn’t go to the national assembly of the FNRP in Tocoa because we weren’t elected as delegates by our organizations or simply because we weren’t active in any organization other than the Frente, the accomplishments of this week still seem unclear. In the afternoon, the assembly will have ended and we hope that everything will be more broadly known. Meanwhile, various ideas occurred to me which I think are important to explore to better understand the “conflict” which we live internally.

The Liberal Party, which historically had a moderately progressive origin, has been controlled by the right for at least the last 60 years. I previously wrote on the 17th of June, about the role which the Liberal Party played in the most key stages of Honduran history, such as the ‘54 strike, the coup d’état of ’63, the different military governments of the ‘70s, the dirty war of the ‘80s, the neoliberalism of the ‘90s, and about how always, with rare individual exceptions, it bent itself to the interests of the national oligarchy and transnational capital. And while the labor code, voluntary military service, and certain legal changes were given in Liberal administrations, it would be remote from history to try to say now, that the changes that have been achieved in social matters correspond to the political will of the Party alone, making invisible the social and popular movements which drove those changes. One should understand that in Honduras, nothing is ever done except through pressure.

The crisis which the Honduran people lives in actuality originates in essence in a struggle of classes [class war]. It is the product of the erosion of an economic and political model which favors the most wealthy, displacing from wealth a broad sector of the population which lacks representation within the power structures.

The Liberal Party as a an institution never, through its individual leaders, owners, and caudillos, will be able to understand the urgencies of the dispossessed classes of the country, simply because they belong to another class, and therefore to another Honduras. This is not to say that there aren’t Liberals who belong to the popular classes. It’s clear that there are such and that they understand very well what it is to be poor in Honduras. But those who take decisions, those who today urge the rescue of the party, because without it they are nothing politically, those are NOT of the same class which filled the streets in repudiation of the coup d’état.

This is the basic contradiction of the Liberal Party in Resistance. To form a part of the FNRP and to propose to “rescue” the Liberal Party which amounts to rescuing the bipartisanship reigning for more than 100 years. To rescue the Liberal Party, the same Liberal Party would have to seize the Party. [To rescue the Liberal Party they will have to seize the Party, the Liberal Party itself.]

It has not been clear up till now what would be the strategy for the Liberals in Resistance to rescue their party. At times they can be seen seated in the gringo embassy, then in the office of Rosenthal and their goal seems remarkably similar to that of Elvin Santos or Micheletti: to return to power in the next elections.

They, the Liberals in Resistance, now accuse a faction of the left of the Frente of not being “inclusive” on blocking them from “storming the assembly,” placing 29 delegates more than those which by agreement they had obtained in the previous assembly in Siguatepeque. This strategy reminds me a great deal of the assemblies of the 90s in the UNAH, when it was a common practice to bring 100 delegates from another campus, normally from the north of the country, to flip the results and to impose a directive according to the interests of the caudillo of the student front and it was naive to think, that with all those years of experience, we would not have learned.

The ideological separation within the Frente has been evidenced basically among what the Liberals call "los bloqueros", in reference to the bloque popular, but that is composed as well by the parties of the left (PSOCA, TR, MND, OPLN, CNRP, BP, unions, guilds and social movements) on one side and on the other the Liberals, who independently of the name that they use continue being a party of the right with all the practices and vices of traditional politics.

We have all always said that the FNRP is a diverse and pluralistic organization. And although pluralism as a concept can seem sound to us, what is certain is that this has pushed us to accept, on some occasions, actions contrary to the will of the base, both by political organizations as well as by individuals, that far from unifying in their political pragmatism have weakened us.

I would put as an example the decision of the UD to participate in the elections of last November, legitimating the same and their inflated results, and later to participate in the Government of National Unity of Lobo Sosa, permitting him to say internationally that his government is of Reconciliation since he counts among his ministers one that is "of the resistance". This action, accepted by that mistaken sense of plurality, has brought a great political cost for the Frente and will continue doing so.

On the other side, and as a prelude to the assembly, the COPINH launched a communique that has had a certain replication, both by the Feminists in Resistance, as well as by some independent authors. The basic propositions of the public communique of COPINH, far from representing differences in the objectives of FNRP, show a discussion that sooner or later it will be necessary to have.

What those communiques demand, more than representation in the leadership of the Frente, is a different vision of power. It is a call to attention to the traditional left that continues thinking about democratic centralism, the political bureau or the negotiations of realpolitik distant from the will of the base. It is a questioning about the concept of popular representation and democracy as an expression of the will of the majority (denying voice to minorities). It is a demand, to the entire FNRP, that it see power as something that is constructed from the base, from below, because the history of the peoples has demonstrated to us that in the end, a revolutionary government without popular power is nothing more than a reactionary government with a populist discourse.

While all this happens, the machinery of terror does not stop. Lobo journeyed to Miami on a lightning visit to meet with Insulza in relation to the return (in August, according to CODEH) of the expresident Manuel Zelaya, as a prior requisite for there to be total recognition of Lobo Sosa in the extraordinary Assembly of the OAS at the end of July.

"We are near a solution, but I don't believe that it is possible to speak of a solution still nor to be overly optimistic", said Insulza.

And that's something the un-government understands very well, because its master Colombia has demonstrated it, that international recognition is one thing and internal legitimacy is another very distinct thing.

In Tocoa, the same municipio where the Assembly was carried out, "various police and military commandoes advanced toward the land where more than 190 families in the Bajo Aguan are found" according to a report of COFADEH, violating in this form the accord signed by the president with MUCA the past month of April, throwing fire on the powder keg of the national agrarian conflict.

And the repression continues and while this week in Tegucigalpa we say goodbye to two known fighters of the Bloque Popular (dead of natural causes), Luis Morel and Oscar Padilla, on the north coast they assassinated in front of his house Julio Fúnez Benítez (57), union member of SANAA and member of the frente, and Jorge Alberto Castro Ramírez, of 41 years, horchata vendor in the numerous marches of 2009.

Oscar Estrada
11 de Julio de 2010

Not quite a reply from the FNRP

But the statement posted on Vos el Soberano today may show some effects of the public positioning of COPINH and the Feministas en Resistencia.

Titled In installation of its first National Assembly the FNRP recognizes its diversity and strengthens unity, the statement starts

Recognizing the diversity of the Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular (FNRP) there was initiated this day in Tocoa, Department of Colón, the act of installation of the First National Assembly of the Honduran Resistance.

That "recognizing the diversity" is, obviously, critical to many constituent parts of the Frente.

Choosing Tocoa as the site of the Assembly is itself symbolic: Tocoa is in the region of the Bajo Aguan, where the confrontation of campesinos and landowners has not yet been concluded, and where tensions continue.

The statement goes on to say that

delegates, militants and sympathizers of the FNRP coming from all Honduras participated actively in the Forum of installation.

This wording raises the question, what constitutes a delegate, versus a sympathizer? The statement goes on to describe the assembly as including

men and women, youths and adults of all the political currents that have expression in the country and that have space in the FNRP.

Near the end of the statement tensions are finally openly acknowledged:

At the end of the act of installation and previous to the mobilization various doubts were clarified that have to do with the character of the Resistance, it was clarified that "the objective that the FNRP has is the National Assembly. What matters now, is not if we will be a political party, the important thing is that we are the principal social and political force of the country and that we have succeeded in reconfiguring the map of power in Honduras".

The "big tent" rhetoric, especially given the specification that it concerns "all the political currents", hints at the tensions between traditional political parties and the more revolutionary groups in the Frente.

So who did attendees hear from to represent the diversity of the Frente?

The three speakers mentioned by name in the article are Marcelino Borjas, Pavel Núñez, and Gloria Oquelí.

Borjas is described in the statement by the Frente as a retired teacher with a Master's degree in sociology and a doctorate in economics. His remarks at the Assembly reaffirmed the anti-imperialist posture of the Frente, and argued that the coup "would not have been possible without the participation and the help of officials of the highest level of the North American government".

Pavel Núñez, a member of the musical group Café Guancasco "spoke in the name of Honduran youth".

But the really interesting choice here is to give a great deal of print to Gloria Oquelí, described as "recognized leader of the Liberal Party, member for Honduras of the Parlamento Centroamericano (PARLACEN), and until recently President of that regional organization".

In March, Oquelí was listed as part of a group called the "encounter of progressive Liberals", one of seven factions within the Liberal Party that El Heraldo claimed would "promote the overthrow of the Liberal Party and even ask for the disappearance of that party". In May, El Heraldo augmented its count of factions of Liberals in Resistance to include what it called three "zelayist" factions, for a total of ten separate movements within the Liberal Party organizing against the dominance of Roberto Micheletti and Elvin Santos.

So, whatever other role she has, when Oquelí speaks, one of the tensions she voices is that between Liberals in the Resistance and those suspicious of the party system itself.

Oquelí is quoted as saying that

the rules of democracy are simple: one of those affirms that the majority rules and a second reaffirms that the majority can change any rule that might be established in a democratic system, except for the first.

Sounds uncontroversial, right? Majority rule = democracy.

But in fact, COPINH and the Feminists in Resistance each have articulated different rules of democracy, which stem from a minority position that understands that majority rule may actually end up being majority command. COPINH builds on a tradition of indigenous organizing in which consensus is the goal. A consensus is a majority; but it is a majority without significant dissent. To arrive at consensus, you have to take time to thrash things out, and you may well need to abandon some things that are objectionable to a determined minority.

Feminist organizations often strive for consensus as well. They also may advocate, as the Feministas en Resistencia did in their statement, for parity between men and women in governance.

Minority groups, including traditional parties that have strong agendas but are not popular enough to win a majority (such as the Liberal Democrats in the recent UK elections), often advocate an alternative to majority rule: proportional representation. Unlike the more familiar winner-takes-all approach, in proportional representation, minority positions can emerge with representation equal to that of their supporters. In pluralistic societies, proportional representation is probably more truly democratic.

So, the rules of democracy are not so simple after all.

But back to Gloria Oquelí. The report on the Assembly says she argued that "it is important to consolidate the political project known as Resistance". Again, not all participating segments of the Frente would agree that the Resistance is a "political project", and if they did, they would disagree on what kind of "political project" it is; and they may well continue to politely disagree with the claim that it has to be "consolidated".

Oquelí is a good politician, a progressive one, and she clearly feels the Resistance has a once in a lifetime opportunity. According to the report,

Recognizing the wide character of the Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular and the traps of empire she declared that "if they push us, if they corner us, so that we will be an institution of a homogeneous ideology, we could fall into error. In the FNRP we all fit, therefore it is not true what Hugo Llorens says, that we are a small group of the extreme left and of the extreme right facing off. It is the ideas, the ideals and all our dreams, not the ideologies that mark our way".

While it isn't entirely clear here who "they" are who want to corner the Frente into a homogeneous ideology, the juxtaposition with US Ambassador Llorens' regrettable dismissal of the Frente as an "extreme left" group tends to suggest Oquelí is concerned about the Frente being pushed to remain ideologically pure by the left. While it is hard to reduce feminist or indigenous activism to right/left terms, if you have to choose one position, it would indeed be left.

So, perhaps "they" who are trying to corner the Frente into an "ideology" in place of simply "ideas" and "ideals" includes those who recently expressed their uncertainties about the goals of this weekend's assembly. Since no one from indigenous or feminist networks is quoted in this first report, it is hard to say what they thought of how the event was opened.

Feminists in Resistance also caution about FRNP elections

In response to the public position statement about proposed selection of difectors of the Frente de Resistencia this week issued by COPINH, the Feminists in Resistance have come out in solidarity with that statement, calling it a "wake-up call" [literally, sound of knocking at a door] "so that the errors that have been committed can be corrected if we are actually committed, men and women, to the Refounding of Honduras".

In the second point of their ten point statement, the Feminists in Resistance say that

our diversity of expressions confronts us with different forms of oppression, for reasons of class, race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, land tenure and damages to the environment, among others. The FNRP cannot ignore this situation, at the moment of forming its organic structures, because otherwise it will be over-valuing some movements and organized groups with participation and representation that is majority masculine, above others in which we women participate under a different philosophy as is feminism.

They argue that

in all the organisms of direction of the Frente, women in resistance should participate in a joint form together with the men, in this way it will be putting into practice the exercise of a full citizenship, to which all women aspire, that is to say, to participate in the taking of decisions.

As with the statement by COPINH, the Feministas en Resistencia reiterate their stance against neoliberalism, patriarchy, neocolonialism, and related tendencies. They go to state firmly that

we consider that our actions within the FNRP should be totally divorced from old exlusionary practices, set-up and opportunistic, proper to the oligarchic parties that lamentably have permeated some of the social and political organizations that make up the Frente, which obligates us to be permanently vigilant and in particular, in this moment in which processes of election are being carried out of our structures and national conduct, in which we hope will exist parity between men and women and that the principles of equality, liberty and autonomy will be put into effect, understanding this as the possibility to take collective and individual internal decisions without interference, nor external pressures of any nature.

The group Feministas en Resistencia has published regular blog posts since August of 2009 with a focus on the impact of the coup and de facto regime on women's issues, and on actions taken in resistance. Like COPINH, it has participated in all the forums of the FNRP.

According to a description of its birth, Feministas en Resistencia was formed by "a collection of Honduran organizations and activists against the coup". With their tagline of Ni golpe de Estado, ni golpe a las mujeres! (Neither a coup d'etat nor violence toward women") they conjoin these forms of repression and underline the fact that women, as ever, pay a particular price for speaking up.

As the profile of the organization (written during the de facto regime, and thus referencing what then was a key demand, the return of the constitutional president) pointed out, for the Feministas en Resistencia

resistance signifies a fight for a substantive democracy that will transform existing relationships of power and generate a new and egalitarian social pact. This goes far beyond Manuel Zelaya’s return. From their perspective, struggling for the restitution of the constitutional president to his office is a condition for democracy and a point of departure for the process of re-establishing the Honduran State by recognizing diversity, citizen participation, gender equality, and human rights.

Incorporating explicit statements of women's rights in a new Constitution is as much a motivating force for these activists as incorporating guarantees of indigenous rights is for COPINH.

Like COPINH, this means they are not interested in converting into a traditional party or political organization.

And even more explicitly, they are pointing the finger at traditional party operatives now in the Frente who they suspect would like to convert it into something that will not achieve the revolutionary goals they seek as feminists.

Representation, Resistance, and Indigenous Organizations

This weekend, the Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular is reportedly holding elections for regional and national directors.

Not everyone is enthusiastic about the proposed election of representatives in an organization dedicated to advocating for participatory democracy.

One of the participating movements, COPINH, has gone so far as to publish a public position paper on the topic, declaring their intention to abstain from the interim organization of FNRP leadership, and asking that the Frente publish a description of the mechanisms for selecting directors.

Writing on Vos el Soberano, sociologist and activist in the Frente Ricardo Arturo Salgado voices his support for the statement by COPINH, and outlines his own concerns about the planned elections. He urges that the FNRP not forget that its "vertebral column" is in

the popular movement, whether that is feminists, writers, intellectuals, union organizers, LGBT groups, artists, politicians (not parties, individuals), professionals, campesinos, all the Honduran men and women; this should be the base of its construction of power as well.

At issue, as it has been continuously as the Frente evolves, is the relationship of the Frente to traditional forms of party politics in Honduras. Salgado asks that the Frente

demonstrate why we are different. We should stop conspiring, we should not permit an assembly in the style of a "united front" this weekend. Please publish the methodology adopted so that we militants can see clearly the process.

The Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Populares e Indígenas (COPINH) is a major partner in the FNRP, serving as the sponsor for the II Encuentro Nacional por la Refundacion de Honduras held in La Esperanza in March, which advocated a strongly participatory dialogic process to arrive at proposals for a new constitution.

The existence of COPINH as an activist group long predated the coup of June 2009.

On their official website, COPINH records their formation in March of 1993 to bring together "the popular movement in the Department of Intibucá, the battle in defense of the environment, the rescue of the Lenca culture, and to raise the conditions of life of the population in the region" of southwestern Honduras, and with a national visibility on these issues. Their statements of history, policies, and programs culminates in this description:

We are an indigenous and popular organization, anti-patriarchal, anti-imperialist, anti-neoliberal, sensitive in the face of the problems, needs, and rights of the indigenous, campesino, and urban communities of the Honduran people and the world.

As early as spring of 2009, COPINH spoke out in favor of a consulta of public opinion about a new Constituent Assembly to write a new Constitution. Salvador Zuñiga of COPINH wrote

The new constituyente should not be a personalized project around a caudillo, the new constituyente should be a project of the Honduran people for the construction of a true democratic institutionality that will end the disorder of manipulation, of lies, of social inequalities, of discrimination, of violence, of impunity and of corruption in which the powerful laugh everyday at our people who each time lose more of their hopes in all men and women.

The statement enumerated that the new constitution should be a document

in which the country is declared a multilingual country and the indigenous languages, Tol, Pech, Garifuna and others, are recognized as official, in which the equitable distribution of natural resources is declared, in which therapeutic abortion or abortion in case of rape is declared legal, in which the exercise of direct democracy is expedited, in which national sovereignty is rescued by ordering the dismantling of foreign military bases, in which gender equality remains clearly established and it puts and end to discrimination and violence against women, in which the wealth of the corrupt who for years have been enjoying impunity is expropriated, a new constitutional assembly that will leave clear the functioning of the organizations that should impart justice with the aim of guaranteeing a true administration of justice, a constitution that guarantees liberty of expression through communication media that will be independent and not supernumeraries of the powerful groups that do enormous business selling publicity and their role of manipulators of consciousness.

In other words, COPINH has long-standing, consistently articulated and substantive positions on the central issue of "refounding" Honduras via a new Constitution.

In their public position statement on the planned elections of this weekend, COPINH reiterates their dedication to forming part of the Frente, but insists that the principles they espouse be honored:

it is necessary to make clear that the struggle of COPINH transcends the conjuncture of the oppressor golpismo, to project itself in a permanent manner against all forms of domination that repress the people. The communities of COPINH will continue resisting the capacity of the colonialist system that wants to put an end to the peoples and leave them without their water, their forests and their territories. Therefore the struggle will continue in the path of our martyrs of the colonialist invasion: Lempira, Mota, Iselaca, Etempica.

We are convinced, men and women, of the role that we should play in this historical crisis, in this form, we hold ourselves to reason to command obedience and to the construction of socio-political power from below, from the base itself. Power and reason should emanate from the people from below and on the left. We are inspired, in that sense, by:

• Political practices that will be democratized and not concentrating of decision-making power.
• Political practices that make decisions, resources, actions and discussions transparent.
• Political practices that include, diverge, and multiply both reasoning as well as responses to the historical urgencies of our people.
• Political practices that spring from the collective and not individualities. Principles and not slogans, actions and ideas and not pamphlets pre-designed as epitaphs. Practices that will be congruent with collective discourse and organizational reasoning.

Against these principles, COPINH warns that

Groups, persons, parties and phantom organizations, with no social base, pretend today to get shares of power and of decision within the FNRP, behind the back of the people, and that will throw away the liberatory struggles by the social organizations before, during, and after the coup d'Etat.

COPINH reiterates that they

maintain ourselves in resistance against the oligarchic oppressor's boot, but as well against all those behaviors that would lead the FNRP to positions that attempt against the interests of the people and popular dignity and against all those decisions that pretend to bargain the blood of our martyrs.

This is a strong challenge to the would-be leadership of the Frente.

As it moves from a stage of opposition to the coup and the de facto regime, to a campaign of mobilization, there will be pressure on the Frente to follow a conventional course to gain recognition and a modicum of political power.

From the point of view of COPINH, though, the stakes are higher than merely being admitted into Honduran politics: their position requires them to demand new forms of political organization, or risk being swamped as a minority in a majority-rules democratic system yet again.