Honduran resistance vows to keep struggling

This report was written before the announcement of a possible agreement restoring Honduran President Manuel Zelaya. A new report on this and other developments will appear in the next issue of Workers World.

Oct. 26—After several weeks of talks brokered by the Organization of American States, democratically elected Honduran President Manuel Zelaya has withdrawn from negotiations with the illegal, right-wing coup regime of Roberto Micheletti.

In the course of the negotiations, Zelaya had conceded to several points in an agreement proposed by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, including the dropping of Zelaya’s referendum to support a Constituent Assembly. The referendum had been largely supported, and even demanded, by the many people participating in the resistance to the coup.

The Micheletti regime, however, had employed a number of tactics to stall the negotiations and avoid a resolution—particularly one involving the president’s reinstatement. Zelaya told reporters, “It’s an insult to keep wasting time. There is not even the slightest will to fix the problem.” (Reuters, Oct. 23)

In a statement Zelaya’s representatives stressed: “Our delegation gives undeniable evidences of its political will to reach an agreement and solve the crisis. Micheletti is implementing dilatory maneuvers, formal statements and inadmissible proposals, which in some cases are insulting and provocative.”

The right-wing golpistas (coup backers) are now intensifying their efforts to legitimize the Nov. 29 elections, even as the European Union and participating countries of the Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas (ALBA) have said they will not recognize elections held under the coup government.

The U.S. government, however, appears to be supporting the effort of the golpistas. An Oct. 16 article in Time magazine reports: “A number of well-placed sources in Honduras and the U.S. tell Time that officials in the State Department and the U.S.’s OAS delegation have informed them that the Obama Administration is mulling ways to legitimize the election should talks fail to restore Zelaya in time. ‘We’re suddenly hearing from them that the one may no longer be a [precondition] for the other,’ says a Western diplomat.” A U.S. State Department official told Time, “The elections are going to take place either way, and the international community needs to come to terms with that fact.”

In ominous news the Honduran newspaper El Tiempo notes in a recent editorial that the de facto government has approved spending more than $21 million to pay for military reservists to control the electoral process. A highly militarized electoral process would undoubtedly lead to further repression against the people of Honduras.

Several left-wing, independent candidates have said they will not participate in the electoral process without the reinstatement of President Zelaya. Such elections would only legitimize the coup d’etat, according to Carlos H. Reyes, an independent candidate who met with the U.S. Delegation of Labor, Community and Clergy on Oct. 10.

Zelaya representative Mayra Mejia told the Latin American Herald Tribune that the concept of elections without Zelaya’s reinstatement was not only unacceptable but set a dangerous precedent. “If the coup d’etat can’t be reversed,” she explained, “no democracy in Central America and Latin America can be at ease, because [putschists] will find an ideal, simple path: stage a coup and whitewash it later with an election.” (Oct. 26)

Repression, resistance increases

Meanwhile, the repression against the people of Honduras and their democratically elected president increases. At the Brazilian Embassy, where Zelaya has sought refuge since returning to Honduras on Sept. 21, the military has increased its tactics of physical and psychological torture. Huge floodlights shine into the windows at all hours of the night. This is accompanied by blaring music, horns and the sounds of screaming animals, preventing anyone inside the embassy from sleeping. Snipers continue to be trained on the building. Ruy de Lima Casaes e Silva, the Brazilian government’s ambassador to the OAS, recently condemned the use of torture against those inside the embassy.

Members of Honduras’ lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities marched in Tegucigalpa on Oct. 23 to denounce an increase in murders of and assaults on LGBT people, and particularly transgender people. José Bonilla, coordinator of the Asociación Colectivo Violeta, reported that the Honduran police have been involved in the mistreatment of LGBT peoples, including harassment and beatings. (La Tribuna, Oct. 24) Nine transgender people have been killed in Honduras in the four months since the June 28 coup d’etat. (Universo Gay, Oct. 26)

A victory was won by the resistance movement on Oct. 19 when the two main media opponents of the coup were allowed to resume broadcasting. On Sept. 28, under a decree that suspended civil liberties for the Honduran population, the military had entered the stations of Radio Globo and Canal 36, shut them down and confiscated their equipment. Radio Globo continued transmitting via the Internet. A decree is still in effect that allows the monitoring and control of broadcasts that “attack national security”—meaning broadcasts that are against the coup.

Resistance responds to negotiations failure

The revolutionary youth group Los Necios responded to the breakdown of negotiations on their blog: “The dialogue failed because it was born dead. The clear intention of the oligarchy has been to earn time in order to move closer to their aim: the elections of Nov. 29. ... The problem of legitimacy of the electoral process does not lie in the possibility of going forth with the elections. ... The true problem for the oligarchy consists of the ascendancy of the Resistencia, whose structuring in all of the country and whose real possibility of toppling whichever government arises from the military coup through social manifestations forces them to justify the electoral results from all fraudulent, illegal and illegitimate points of view.” (www.losnecios.net)

The blog entry of Oct. 24 concludes: “The pueblo knows that it does not have until November to overcome the crisis; that after Jan. 27 [the presidential inauguration] the struggle could continue; but these dates do not worry the Resistencia. Transforming Honduras could take much more time and sacrifice. Before this challenge the popular determination grows beyond all expectations.”

In a six-point communiqué issued Oct. 20 to the Honduran population and the international community, the National Front of Resistance Against the Coup d’Etat in Honduras stated:

“1. We denounce the manipulative acts and delay tactics with which the de facto regime tries to buy time and get to the electoral farce of Nov. 29 without having re-established the institutional order and without having returned to his post the legitimate President Manuel Zelaya Rosales.

“2. We reiterate that the Honduran people will not recognize the campaign and the results of the electoral process ... while the dictatorial regime that the oligarchy sustains through armed force continues.

“3. We condemn the disinformation campaign carried out by the media in service of the oligarchy through which they attempt to present the National Front of Resistance Against the Coup d’Etat as a violent organization. ...

“4. We denounce the economic crisis through which the de facto regime is taking us and which is provoking an increase in the levels of poverty of the population.

“5. We express our indignation at the continuation of the repression by the police and military bodies of the State, which is expressed in assassinations of militants of the Resistance, actions of intimidation and surrounding the marches and rallies, the illegal and immoral juridical processes which persecute and jail our sisters and brothers and, more recently, the actions of harassment and intimidation against teachers throughout the country.

“6. We reiterate our unbreakable will to install a democratic and popular National Constitutional Assembly with which we will refound the country and rescue it from a minority economic class that exploits the working class.”

Dowell is a leader in the revolutionary youth group FIST—Fight Imperialism, Stand Together—and was a member of the solidarity delegation that visited Honduras Oct. 8-12.