Triumphal return of Honduran ex-leader Zelaya May 28, 2011
Posted by rogerhollander in Honduras, Latin America.Tags: fnrp, Honduras, honduras coup, honduras resistance, Latin America, manuel zelaya, porfirio lobo, roger hollander, zelaya returns
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According to reports, he was greeted by enthusiastic thousands at the Tegucigalpa airport. The single US journalist who accompanied his return was DemocracyNow!’s Amy Goodman.
Honduran former President Manuel Zelaya speaks before he boards his plane to return to Honduras at the international airport in Managua May 28, 2011. REUTERS/Oswaldo Rivas<br/>
Supporters of Manuel Zelaya (C,R, with hat) surround him upon his arrival
(AFP, Rodrigo Arangua)
Manuel Zelaya speaks upon his arrival in Tegucigalpa (AFP, Rodrigo
Arangua)
A supporter holds a statue of Honduras’ ousted President Manuel Zelaya in a crowd gathered to wait for his arrival in Tegucigalpa, Saturday May 28, 2011. The return of the former president from exile Saturday brings Honduras’ nearly two-year political crisis to an end. Zelaya’s comeback will also pave the way for Honduras to re-enter the international community, which near-unanimously rejected the June 2009 military-backed coup that forced him from office. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)
upporters wait for the arrival of Honduras’ ousted President Manuel Zelaya at the airport in Tegucigalpa, Saturday May 28, 2011. The return of the former president from exile Saturday brings Honduras’ nearly two-year political crisis to an end. Zelaya’s comeback will also pave the way for Honduras to re-enter the international community, which near-unanimously rejected the June 2009 military-backed coup that forced him from office. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)
By Francisco Jara (AFP) – 3 hours
ago
TEGUCIGALPA — Former president Manuel Zelaya made a triumphal return to
Honduras Saturday as tens of thousands of people cheered and waved banners to
welcome him home nearly two years after his ouster from power in a coup.
Zelaya, wearing his trademark white cowboy hat, landed in Tegucigalpa with
his wife and aides aboard a Venezuelan plane on a flight from Managua, and
immediately went to a nearby plaza to rally his supporters.
“We arrive full of optimism and hope to search for an exit to this crisis. At
one moment we had almost lost it all, but they never defeated us,” he told his
supporters.
Zelaya, 58, thanked his supporters and paid homage to those “who spilled
their blood in this plaza,” including an 18 year-old shot dead during a protest
a week after the coup.
“Their blood was not spilled in vain because we are here still engaged in the
struggle,” he told the enthusiastic crowd.
Several people fainted in the heat waiting for the former president, who was
several hours behind schedule.
The end of the former cattle rancher’s 16-month exile was part of a deal
brokered by several Latin American governments that will end Honduras diplomatic
isolation and give the government of President Porfirio Lobo access to foreign
investment and aid.
The ousted former president is returning to lead the National Popular
Resistance Front (FNRP), a movement formed after the June 2009 coup to challenge
a two party system that has dominated Honduran politics since the early 20th
century.
“He was the only president that remembered us, the poor,” said Maria Elisa
Ferrufino, a 75 year-old farmer who got up at dawn Friday to catch a bus to
Tegucigalpa for the rally.
Zelaya “helped the poor people — no president had done that before,” said
Arnulfo Mendez, 62, who traveled from a town 100 kilometers (62 miles) north of
the capital for the rally. “There is hope that with his leadership we can do
something with the Resistance Front.”
Zelaya’s return will allow Honduras to rejoin the Organization of American
States (OAS) and gain access to international aid, vital in a country where 70
percent of a population of nearly eight million live on four dollars or less a
day.
The deal included a promise that all legal action against Zelaya would be
dropped.
The ex-president arrived in the Nicaraguan capital on Friday from the
Dominican Republic, where he had spent most of his time in exile.
Lobo and Zelaya signed a reconciliation agreement in Colombia last week, and
the two will meet at the presidential palace along with the head of the OAS,
Jose Miguel Insulza, and Colombian Foreign Minister Maria Angela Holguin.
Zelaya was a conservative rancher when he was elected in January 2006, but
took a political turn to the left once in office.
He was ousted in a military coup sanctioned by the Honduran legislature and
the supreme court after calling for a referendum to rewrite the constitution.
His opponents feared he would use it to extend his term in office as his ally
Hugo Chavez had done in Venezuela.
Zelaya secretly returned to Honduras before the de facto regime could hold
elections, holing up at the Brazilian embassy surrounded by regime police in an
impasse that lasted four months.
Meanwhile, the interim regime that ousted Zelaya held elections and Lobo took
office in January 2010.
Despite his broad popular support Zelaya cannot run in the 2013 presidential
elections because the constitution limits presidents to a single term in office.
Supporters want his wife to run instead.
In an interview just before departing Managua broadcast on Telesur television
network, Zelaya said his return from exile was “the result of an effort of all
the countries of Latin America.”
“Today we begin the true reconciliation in Honduras,” Zelaya’s wife Xiomara
Castro said, adding that they were committed “to continue the struggle to
transform” the country.
Ousted President’s Return to Honduras Doesn’t Mean Repression is Over May 27, 2011
Posted by rogerhollander in Honduras, Human Rights, Latin America.Tags: dana frank, hillary clinton, Honduras, honduras coup, honduras killing, honduras military, honduras oppression, honduras paramilitary, honduras resistance, human rights, Latin America, manuel zelaya, oas, porfirio lobo, School of the Americas, soa, soa watch
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The return of deposed President Manuel Zelaya to Honduras doesn’t mean democracy, civil liberties and the basic rule of law are returning to that country any time soon. Far from it.
The very same oligarchs who launched the coup remain in power, and in the past two months the government’s repression has accelerated. That’s why more than 70 members of Congress are calling for a suspension of U.S. military and police aid to Honduras.
On May 22, Zelaya and the current president of Honduras, Porfirio Lobo Sosa, signed a pact permitting Zelaya to return free of the trumped-up charges the coup makers leveled against him when the Honduran military packed him onto a plane to Costa Rica on June 28, 2009. Lobo also promised to allow plebiscites and to recognize the National Front of Popular Resistance, the broad coalition uniting labor, women’s groups, peasant organizations, gay alliances and Afro-indigenous movements.
But both of these “concessions” are already legally on the books, and grant nothing concrete to the opposition.
Zelaya’s return itself does have enormous popular significance. For hundreds of thousands of Hondurans, including those who are quite critical of him, he is the grand symbol of resistance to the ongoing military coup. He represents constitutional order, the rule of law and a hope for a different Honduran future based on social justice.
But neither Zelaya’s return nor the pact address the horrific human rights situation in the country. Lobo appointed the same officers who ran the coup to control the armed forces, the state-owned telephone company, the airports and the immigration service. And the government’s authoritarianism in the past two months now exceeds the period right after the coup.
Police and the military now routinely shoot tear gas canisters directly at peaceful demonstrators at close range. Paramilitary gangs have killed more than 40 peasant activists since Lobo took office, including four in the last three weeks. Since Lobo came to power in the coup, more than 300 opposition members have been killed, according to human rights groups. Impunity reigns. You can drive by and shoot a teacher, an indigenous activist or a trade unionist, and nothing – nothing — will happen to you.
Lobo, in the accord, promised to create a new ministry overseeing human rights. But his promise means nothing. Indeed, three days after the accord, his police launched live bullets and tear gas against a group of high school students protesting the suspension of their math teachers.
Despite growing congressional recognition of the crisis, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton keeps insisting that “democracy has been restored” and that Honduras should be readmitted to the Organization of American States at its June 5-7 meeting.
Rather than join Clinton in whitewashing a repressive regime, we should unite with members of Congress in demanding an immediate suspension of U.S. military aid to Honduras — and an end to support for the ongoing coup government of Porfirio Lobo.
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Dana Frank is professor of history at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and the author of “Bananeras: Women Transforming the Banana Unions of Latin America,” which focuses on Honduras, and Buy American: The Untold Story of Economic Nationalism. She is currently writing a book about the AFL-CIO’s Cold War intervention in the Honduran labor movement.
| Agreement signed for democratic rights in Honduras |
| Written by Felipe Stuart Cournoyer and John Riddell SOA Watch |
| On May 22, Honduran president Porfirio Lobo Sosa and former president José Manuel Zelaya Rosales signed an agreement ‘For National Reconciliation and the Consolidation of the Democratic System in the Republic of Honduras.’ Lobo was elected in November 2009 in a rigged vote organized by the regime The present agreement, finalized in Cartagena, Colombia, also bears the This agreement opens the door to significant changes in the Central American An earlier article, “Freedom for Joaquín Pérez Becerra!” discussed the context that The Resistance welcomes the agreement In The FNRP also expressed “thanks for the process of international mediation” Terms of the accord By the terms of the
U.S. disruption attempt Notably absent from discussions leading to the Cartagena Agreement was the Alexander Main, an analyst for the Center for Economic and Policy Research, “For good measure,” Main says, “the [U.S.] statement noted that ‘since his In fact, according to the Committee of Family Members of Disappeared Showdown at the OAS The U.S. canvassed energetically among Central and South American countries In Main’s opinion, “the U.S. is not prepared to accept a political mediation The OAS Secretary General, José Miguel Insulza, called a meeting of the OAS The failure of this U.S.-inspired maneuver opened the road for the signing of Regional sovereignty The Cartagena agreement, and the process that facilitated it, marks an The Cartagena accord’s impact in Central America was immediate and far In a joint Need for continued solidarity Whether the Honduran government will fully carry out the Cartagena agreement The establishment of the Colombia-Venezuela monitoring commission will be Further reading: Toni Solo, “Varieties of Ida Garberi, “El
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Zelaya Returns! May 27, 2011
Posted by rogerhollander in Honduras, Human Rights, Latin America.Tags: Honduras, honduras coup, honduras democracy, honduras disappeared, honduras resistance, human rights, lisa sullivan, manuel zelaya, porfirio lobo, roger hollander, roy borgeois, soa, soa watch, zelaya
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Tomorrow, on Saturday, May 28, almost two years after having been ousted as
president in an SOA graduate-led military coup and flown out of the country in
his pajamas, Manuel Zelaya will return to Honduras.
SOA Watch has been
invited to join President Zelaya on his plane flight back into his home
country. Father Roy Bourgeois and I will join other human rights advocates
and political leaders in accompanying Manuel Zelaya on his flight back to
Honduras. We are deeply humbled and grateful for the invitation to represent the
SOA Watch movement at this historic moment in this struggle for
justice.
The Honduran National Resistance Front against the Coup (FNRP)
is planning a massive mobilization to celebrate Manuel Zelaya’s return and will
meet our plane at the international airport of Toncontin in Tegucigalpa. After
the landing, we will converge on the Plaza Isy Obed Murillo, south of the
airport, where we will honor the martyrs who fell after the military coup.
Zelaya’s return was made possible after the governments of Venezuela and
Colombia brokered an agreement
between Porfirio Lobo, the head of the current regime in Honduras and President
Manuel Zelaya.
It is a privilege to accompany the people of Honduras in
this moment. Their brave commitment to return their nation to democracy has come
at a terribly high price: that of dozens of lives lost. The return of President
Zelaya is an enormous first step, but we are mindful that much remains to be
done to guarantee the protection of human rights for the people of Honduras. SOA
Watch supports the tireless work of Honduran human rights defenders such as
those of COFADEH, the Committee of Families of Detained and Disappeared of
Honduras.
We join in the joy of the people of Honduras and reaffirm our
commitment to continue to support and accompany
the Honduran social movements in their struggle for justice.
Un
abrazo,
Lisa
Sullivan
Latin America Coordinator
SOA
Watch
What Now for a Post-Coup Honduras? May 19, 2011
Posted by rogerhollander in Colombia, Foreign Policy, Honduras, Latin America, Venezuela.Tags: alexander main, hondruas resistance, Honduras, honduras coup, honduras democracy, Hugo Chavez, human rights, imperialism, insulza, jose manuel santos, Latin America, latin america diplomacy, latin america politics, monroe doctrine, oas, porfirio lobo, roger hollander, U.S. imperialism, Venezuela, zelaya
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Many Latin America watchers were thrown for a loop last month when a bilateral meeting in Cartagena, Colombia between Presidents Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia suddenly metamorphosed into a trilateral encounter that included Porfirio Lobo, the controversial president of Honduras. It was hard enough grappling with the image of Chavez and Santos, considered to be arch-enemies only a year ago, slapping one another on the back and heralding warm relations between their countries. Now it appeared that Chavez had also warmed up to Lobo, the leader of a government that Venezuela and many other South American countries had refused to recognize since the coup of June 28, 2009 that toppled democratically-elected president Manuel Zelaya.
Various media outlets were quick to suggest that, as a result of the friendly meeting, Chavez was prepared to back the return of Honduras to the Organization of American States (OAS). Since Venezuela had been the most outspoken critic of Honduras’ post-coup governments, it seemed conceivable that in no time the country would recover the seat that it had lost by unanimous decision of the OAS’ thirty-three members following the 2009 coup.
But soon more details emerged from the meeting that suggested that there were still significant hurdles ahead for Lobo. Chávez had not in fact agreed to support Honduras’ immediate return to the OAS. Instead the three leaders had drawn up a road map for Honduras’ possible return with the direct input of exiled former president Mel Zelaya, who was reached by phone during the meeting. As had occurred in previous negotiations, a series of conditions were put forward with the understanding that their fulfillment would open the door to OAS re-entry.
According to the Venezuelan government, four basic conditions, formulated primarily by Zelaya, were discussed during the closed-door meeting: the secure return of Zelaya and other officials exiled during and after the 2009 coup; an end to the persecution of members of the anti-coup National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP, by its Spanish initials); human rights guarantees and the investigation of human rights violations since the coup; guarantees for the holding of a future constituent assembly; and the recognition of the FNRP as a political organization. This set of conditions went further politically than the recommendations made in a July 2010 report by a High-Level OAS Commission in which Venezuela was notably absent and the U.S. and a number of right-wing Latin American countries played a dominant role. The report’s recommendations were meant to pave the way for Honduras’ return to the OAS, but appeared to be unacceptable to both Zelaya and the Lobo regime (see “Will new report pave the way for Honduras’ reincorporation into the OAS”.)
Though the trilateral meeting caused surprise and consternation – indeed, some groups in the FNRP expressed deep suspicions regarding the negotiations – it seems that it had been in the works for weeks and that President Zelaya had been consulted early on by representatives of the Colombian government. The fact that the sponsors of this new round of negotiations were the pro-Lobo government of Colombia and pro-Zelaya government of Venezuela generated optimism throughout the region. On April 27th, the foreign ministers of Latin America and the Caribbean, convened in Caracas for a preparatory meeting of the new CELAC regional group, issued a statement of support for the Cartagena mediation process.
No such statement was made by the U.S., however. Although the Obama administration has been heavily invested in a regional lobbying effort to try to secure Honduras’ return to the OAS before the organization’s June 5th General Assembly in El Salvador, it has refrained from showing any public support for the Cartagena process.
Soon after Lobo’s return from Cartagena the media began reporting on his efforts to have various criminal charges against Zelaya lifted by the Honduran judiciary. Charges of corruption had been filed against Zelaya and other exiled government officials following the coup and were considered by many to be politically motivated and designed to keep the former president and his closest allies out of the nation’s politics and out of the country period.
On May 2nd, Honduran officals triumphantly announced that an appeals court had dismissed all of the remaining criminal charges against Zelaya. Honduran law experts, however, including the widely respected former Attorney General Edmundo Orellana, were quick to point out that, as Zelaya had not been exonerated of the crimes for which he stood accused, nothing prevented the charges from being reintroduced at a later date. Zelaya himself made the same point and was subsequently accused of being a victim of “mental persecution” by Lobo.
These legal nuances failed to dampen the enthusiasm of either the U.S. administration or OAS Secretary General Jozasé Miulguel Insulza. In fact, on the very day that the charges were dropped, Insulza announced that the “principal condition for Honduras’ return to the OAS has been met” and that he would proceed with consultations of member states to see whether to hold an extraordinary session of the OAS General Assembly in which to deliberate on the issue of Honduras’ return. Though none of the four conditions outlined in Cartagena had actually been met by the Honduran government, the Secretary General seemed confident that the situation was ripe for Honduras’ re-entry.
The State Department concurred with an exuberant statement issued the following day: “the United States believes the suspension of Honduras should be immediately lifted and supports OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza’s intention to initiate consultations with member states on this issue.” For good measure, the statement noted that “since his inauguration, President Lobo has moved swiftly to pursue national reconciliation, strengthen governance, stabilize the economy, and improve human rights conditions.” Human rights groups and the FNRP have argued that, on the contrary, Lobo has made little concrete effort to advance these objectives and that the human rights situation remains as bad as ever. As Santa Cruz professor Dana Frank points out in the Nation: “to this day no one has been prosecuted or convicted for any of the politically-motivated killings of 34 members of the opposition and 10 journalists since Lobo took office, let alone for the over 300 killings by state security forces since the coup, according to COFADEH (Comité de Familiares de Detenidos Desaparecidos en Honduras), the leading independent human rights group.”
While Insulza, the U.S. administration and some Central American countries like Panama and El Salvador have insisted that there are no more obstacles to Honduras’ OAS reincorporation, the tone has been much more cautious in South America. Venezuelan foreign minister Nicolás Maduro has continued to declare that “there are four points” that are at the center of the negociation, and that “more work is needed on each of these points.” His Brazilian colleague, Antonio Patriota echoed the Venezuelan position, stating that “there should be no rush” and that it was important “to take the necessary time to reach a firm agreement.”
It is clear that regional divisions that have emerged around the Honduras question remain deep. On the one hand, the U.S., right-wing Latin American governments and smaller countries more dependent on the U.S. are strongly backing Honduras’ immediate return to the OAS. Meanwhile, most governments of South America – a continent that has grown much more politically independent over the past decade – continue to consider that more needs to be done to restore democracy and protect the rights of opposition activists.
In mid-May these divisions came to a head when a diplomatic tussle took place at the OAS. Early on May 13th, the media reported that Insulza had convened a private meeting of the OAS Permanent Council (where representatives of all member countries participate) in which Honduras would be discussed. El Salvador, with backing from the U.S. and Central American countries, intended to use the meeting to press for the holding of an extraordinary session of the General Assembly which would vote on lifting Honduras’ OAS suspension. Within hours, however, the media announced that the meeting convened by Insulza had been unexpectedly canceled.
According to a reliable source at the OAS, several Latin American countries had asked for the Permanent Council meeting to be called off on the grounds that it was “premature.” These countries – which apparently included Colombia – felt that it was necessary to give more time to the mediation effort being led by Colombia and Venezuela.
As this diplomatic wrangling was unfolding, Zelaya issued a communiqué that appeared to echo the sentiment of many South American nations. The United States, he said, had made “diplomatic statements that undermined the possibilities of success of the [Cartagena] process…” He called on the U.S. to revise its position and acknowledge and support the mediation process, in order “to achieve a real and viable solution to the Honduran political situation.”
Indeed, why has the U.S. administration refused to back or even acknowledge the Santos-Chavez mediation process? And why does it seem to be intent on bypassing the process altogether in favor of deliberations carried out strictly within the framework of the OAS, a venue that has so far shown itself incapable of resolving Honduras’ political crisis?
One of the primary reasons, no doubt, is the fact that the Chavez government has a starring role in the mediation effort. Ever since George W. Bush’s administration, one of the U.S. government’s key priorities in the region has been to try to isolate and undermine Venezuela’s international influence at every opportunity. This re-baked containment strategy has backfired and, if anything, generated solidarity for Venezuela in the region; yet, there is no sign that the administration is prepared to reassess its policy.
Perhaps more than anything, the U.S. is not prepared to accept a political mediation in Honduras in which it doesn’t play a leading role. The U.S. has traditionally been deeply involved in the internal affairs of Honduras, a country once dubbed the USS Honduras because of the important US military presence there and because the tiny nation served as a springboard for U.S intervention in other Central American countries. As the recent bilateral agreements to expand the U.S. military presence in Honduras show, the country continues to be of great strategic importance to the U.S.
It’s interesting to note that, back in July of 2009, it was the Obama administration which took the key discussions on Honduras out of the OAS by initiating its own mediation process together with then Costa Rican president Oscar Arias. The outcome of the process – known as the San Jose-Tegucigalpa agreement – satisfied the U.S. despite the fact that it failed to restore democracy in Honduras. It didn’t, however, satisfy the majority of the hemisphere’s governments, who refused to recognize the elections which brought Lobo to power; and it failed to satisfy Zelaya and the FNRP, who remained politically marginalized and were confronted with constant intimidation and attacks.
This is not to suggest that the Colombia/Venezuela mediation is necessarily destined to bring a just, peaceful solution to Honduras’ political and social crisis. There are fears that if Zelaya does return soon to Honduras, as has been announced, the other prerequisites involving human rights and a possible revision of the country’s profoundly conservative and non-inclusive political system will be swept aside.
As a response to these fears, a joint Colombian/Venezuelan verification commission has been proposed as a mechanism of enforcement to ensure that the Lobo government would follow through on the conditions outlined in Cartagena. But given the short shrift that popular demands have received in Honduras in the past, there is understandable skepticism regarding the likelihood of real follow-up from Lobo once Honduras is back in the OAS.
Both human rights groups and Honduran social movements argue that once the suspension of Honduras’ OAS membership is lifted, there will be little to no incentive for the Lobo government – already under enormous pressure from ultra rightwing sectors – to address the grave human rights situation or work to bring the country back on the path of democracy and the rule of law. Unfortunately, though dozens of members of Congress and international human rights organizations have sought to bring this issue to the attention of the Obama administration, the U.S. and an increasing number of other governments in the region continue to disregard the dire situation in Honduras and push for the country’s immediate reincorporation into the OAS.
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Alexander Main is a policy analyst at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (www.cepr.net).
Report Back from the SOA Watch Honduras Delegation: Honduras is Open for Plunder May 12, 2011
Posted by rogerhollander in Honduras, Human Rights, Latin America.Tags: extrajudicial executions, Honduras, honduras coup, honduras government, honduras military, honduras repression, human rights, porfirio lobo, roger hollander, School of the Americas, soa, soa watch, violent repression
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This photo says it all. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pledging US taxpayer dollars and support for the illegal and repressive regime of Porfirio Lobo in Honduras. The American taxpayer is financing the repression you will read about below. SHAME
Honduras is Open for Business Plunder
A delegation of ten SOA Watch activists, accompanied by Fr. Roy Bourgeois, has just returned from Honduras, a country devastated by a 2009 coup led by SOA graduates. Over nine days the delegation met with with a broad spectrum of society in the capital, as well as in towns and farms on both the Pacific and Atlantic coasts.
From start to finish the days were marked by testimonies of extrajudicial executions, violent repression, death threat and harassment aimed at individuals and sectors of society opposing the coup and current illegal regime of Porfirio Lobo.
From our first morning – when a body was dumped at the headquarters of the striking teacher´s union – to just hours before our departure flight, when we learned of a campesino deaths in a community we visited, the days unfolded with a litany of tragedy. There were, quite simply, not enough hours in the day to meet with the numbers of people and organizations that wanted to share with us their concerns and fears.
As we prepare to leave, we find ourselves profoundly concerned by this increase in human rights violations, the involvement of government security forces, and the total impunity that reigns in the country. The severity and extent of repression of the Lobo regime in recent months exceeds that of the 
first weeks under the initial coup regime of Micheletti.
We are especially concerned about the clear complicity between government security forces and the private security guards that protect large landowners and corporations. The country´s wealthiest citizens are literally locked in a battle with the poorest ones, using Honduran security forces to do their dirty work. All this is made possible because of guns, tear gas, tanks and ammunition purchased with US aid to the country´s military and police.
Finally, we return in awe of the extraordinarily brave and profoundly committed community of human rights activists in Honduras. We feel a renewed commitment as an SOA Watch movement to accompany the Honduran people in their struggle for dignity and for life.
Please read more about the delegation in Lisa Sullivan’s report , “Honduras is Open for Business Plunder”
For more information about upcoming delegations to Costa Rica, Colombia and Haiti, email Lisa Sullivan at LSullivan@soaw.org
Urge your Representative to also pressure President Obama to shut down the School of the Americas (SOA/ WHINSEC) by executive order and to also sign on to the Congressional sign-on letter to Secretary of State Clinton regarding the situation in Honduras.
Community Radio Stations: The Voice of Honduran Resistance May 12, 2011
Posted by rogerhollander in Honduras, Latin America, Media.Tags: community media, community radio, emma volonte, honduran government, honduran resistance, Honduras, honduras coup, honduras repression, honduras resistance, Media, roger hollander
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| Written by Emma Volonté, Translation by Alex Cachinero-Gorman |
| Monday, 02 May 2011 14:12 |
 Controlling the media is a fundamental part of reproducing and holding on to power. Known as the “manufacture of consent”, it has been a crucial principle upon which the Nazi/fascist dictatorships of the past century were based—not unlike the current Honduran government, which by consolidating control over the media into its own hands has turned democracy into a farce. All of this is not lost on grassroots broadcasters, who have managed to create independent spaces for democracy and discussion, even in countries where such things have all but been extinguished.
In Honduras, where sensationalizing and manipulating the truth is a common practice among journalists, community radio stations have emerged as a critical part of the anti-coup movement: they can project and expand the many voices of resistance while at the same time they are able to reach and educate listeners who may not have been in the streets in the days following the coup. Community radio is not just a social and political commitment to ‘give voice to the voiceless’—rather it is the shared property of a community, which articulates itself as a whole through the mics. And while there might be a coordinator or supervisor of some kind, all decisions are made collectively by volunteers. Brendaly Rivas, of Radio Durugubuty, San Juan Tela, explains that “as soon as you introduce money into the equation, you start to have problems: everyone wants to stick their hand in it, while on the other hand, when there’s no money involved, everyone works in a more relaxed environment.” Community radio is not-for-profit, supported only by solidarity efforts, profits from broadcasting advertisements from sister organizations, or from community-wide raffles. In a country like Honduras, where the ruling oligarchy is constantly trying to stamp out indigenous and Afro-Latino culture, community radio becomes an indispensable instrument in anti-assimilationist cultural resistance: announcers are free to talk in the language of their people and denounce the pillaging of their ancestral lands. According to Salvador Zuñig of COPINH (the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations in Honduras), “community radio programs have managed to become a thorn in the side of the oligarchy.” Consequently—to prevent themselves from being ‘pricked’ too sharply—the Honduran oligarchy does its best to eliminate them in every way possible. In January 2010, Radio Faluma Bimetu (Triunfo de la Cruz), which for 14 years has been denouncing the construction of mega-tourist attractions on the beautiful Caribbean coastline of Honduras, was burned down and their equipment was robbed.
“A colleague and I came up with the idea of having a radio program to inform people about what was happening each day in Zacate Grande and other places when we went to the Hemispheric Forum Against the Militarization in La Esperanza [a municipality in western Honduras]. This way, we could let people know about our struggle, and open their eyes to what Miguel Facussé is doing,” Elba Yolibeth Rubio, a correspondent with La Voz de Zacate Grande, told me. Elba and other youth from Zacate Grande, all around the same age as her, participated in COMMPA’s Popular Communication School: they learned how to write up news items, use equipment, and become confident as announcers. “At any rate, before creating radio personalities we created a kind of consciousness: you cannot communicate the people’s struggle if you haven’t been formed politically,” one of the youth from Zacate Grande told me. On April 13, 2010, the night before the program’s inaugural broadcast, a hail of warning bullets thundered over the community. Rubio recounts that “the following day, after the inauguration was over, Miguel Facussé ordered one of his men to beat one of our colleagues. But we were ready for anything by then, and so we spread our denunciation of the attack across community radios and on the Internet. A month passed, and then suddenly over 300 police arrived (in a place with a population of about 50, mind you), placing cautionary tape around the station that said “crime scene, do not cross”—as if someone had been assassinated—and they told us that if we kept broadcasting, those of our colleagues with warrants already out for their arrest would be the ones who would have to answer for the rest of us. We remained steadfast and stayed on air, though. But now, our kids are traumatized; when they see a policeman they come running and crying, because they’re afraid of what they might do.” On December 15, 2010, while they were working on coverage of a community being evicted, two correspondents from La Voz de Zacate Grande were detained and assaulted. On March 13, the President of La Voz de Zacate Grande’s Administrative Board was threatened and later beaten with a gun, injuring one of his legs. After the attack, the police called the desk asking to “not make a scandal” out of it. COPINH, as well, has been the victim of intimidation tactics. Tomás Gómez Lembreño, a correspondent for Radio Guarajambala, alleges that “they have been systematically sending electrical shocks to our transmitters to damage our equipment. This is in addition to the fact that on January 5th, one of Arturo Corrales Álvarez’s companies, SEMEH [Electrical Surveying Service of Honduras], sent people from Tegucigalpa to cut off our lighting without the requisite eight days warning. They cut it off just like that, and then they threatened us saying that they never wanted to hear anything from us again, or they’d come back to cut the lights again, or take away our radio equipment. They said that we were instigators and ‘misinforming’ people.” Before leaving, Álvarez’s coup-sympathizing men tried to rough up some COPINH members that they came across outside of the building.
The regime’s attacks on community radio stations has been taken up on this legislative front as well, which if anything demonstrates the significant role community stations have played in the struggle. With the excuse that the radio industry is overly saturated with operators, the National Commission of Telecommunications (CONATEL) is threatening to suspend the granting of permits and licenses for frequencies for low-power stations. In other words—community radio stations. In this respect, Tomas Gómez Lembreño comments, “This is a clear threat to free expression and the people’s media, alterantive media. They are trying to find a way to shut us down and restrict free expression, even though ILO’s Convention 169 guarantees the right for community radios to exist wherever vital information and news about our communities is being ignored, and the right to defend our natural resources. We believe that this measure is tantamount to annihilating media in our country, because it will affect not only Radio Guarajambala or La Voz Lenca, but all community radio stations. It is also a threat to indigenous movements—they are trying stop them from building a better Honduras.” |
On the pacific coast, where ADEPZA (Association for the Development of the Zacate Grande Peninsula) is fighting an ongoing battle against Miguel Facussé’s personal oligarchy—which is trying to appropriate over 5,000 acres of land from peasants—the situation is equally tense.
“In the face of increasingly repressive tactics meant to silence our voices, our alliance of radio stations and other media outlets has strengthened, coming out with unequivocal responses to these violations of our right to free expression,” reads the statement written by Honduran community radio stations following the birth of the Honduran Community Radio Network. On February 6, 2010, one month after the fire, Radio Faluma Bimetu went on air once more with even greater energy. Its re-opening was also used as an opportunity to host a forum called “The right to broadcast our voices”, in which various community radio stations came together and formed the network. Some of the common needs that led to the creation of the Honduran Community Radio Network included strategizing reactions to repressive measures (more and more frequent due to the coup), the possibility of sharing material and training, and the need to forge common legislative proposals addressing media laws.SOA Watch in Honduras May 3, 2011
Posted by rogerhollander in Honduras, Human Rights, Imperialism, Latin America.Tags: Honduras, honduras coup, honduras military, honduras repression, human rights, Latin America, lisa sullivan, roger hollander, roy bourgeois, School of the Americas, soa, soa watch, zelaya
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Click Here to Send a Message to Your Representative
An SOA Watch delegation, including SOA Watch Latin America Coordinator Lisa Sullivan and SOA Watch founder Father Roy Bourgeois, is currently in Honduras to see firsthand the numerous and serious human rights abuses carried out against the people of Honduras. The human rights activists are meeting with members of the resistance, human rights groups, teachers, union leaders, religious leaders, and members of the administration of deposed President Manuel Zelaya.
They are currently visiting the Bajo Aguán where horrendous human rights violations have been occurring since the School of the Americas graduate-led coup d’état in June of 2009. Less than a month ago, the bodies of two campesino leaders were found decapitated in Bajo Aguán. The delegation will also visit the U.S military base in Palmerola, involved in the military coup.
The two men orchestrating the military coup in Honduras in June of 2009, the former Chief of the Armed Forces, Romeo Vasquez Velasquez, and the Chief of the Air Force, General Luis Prince Suazo are both graduates of the School of the Americas.
The violence and human rights violations that are currently happening in Honduras are being funded with Honduran money as well US tax dollars. Including US aid to Honduras are gas bombs priced from $160 to $220 used by Honduran security personnel to terrorize and even kill people. Teacher and co-founder of a leading human rights organization, Ilse Ivania Velásquez was killed after a tear gas canister fired at her head. A two-month old is in critical condition after Honduran security personnel fired a gas bomb inside a family’s home, informed Bertha Oliva, a leading Honduran activist. Live bullets and toxic chemicals are also being used against unarmed demonstrator.
Visit www.SOAW.org to stay tuned for updates from the SOA Watch Honduras delegation and take action now: Ask your representative to join Reps. McGovern, Schakowsky and Farr and sign on to the Congressional sign-on letter to Secretary Clinton calling for the U.S. to pressure the Honduran government “to end abuses by official security forces by suspending, investigating and prosecuting those implicated in human rights violations.” The letter also calls for a suspension of all military and police aid among other proposals.
Urge your Representative to also pressure President Obama to shut down the School of the Americas (SOA/ WHINSEC) by executive order.
An Inconvenient Truth in Honduras April 11, 2011
Posted by rogerhollander in Honduras, Human Rights, Latin America.Tags: hillary clinton, hondruas coup, honduran repression, Honduras, honduras government, human rights, julissa reynoso, Latin America, porfirio lobo, rodolfo pastor campos, roger hollander, zelaya
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Published on Sunday, April 10, 2011 by Foreign Policy in Focus
At the same time that the police and the Honduran army were brutally repressing popular protests of teachers, students, and resistance members for the sixth day in a row, Julissa Reynoso was greeting Honduran President Porfirio Lobo at the presidential palace. According to the press release issued by the U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Reynoso was there to recognize President Lobo’s achievements regarding national reconciliation, human rights, and the return to democracy in Honduras.
That same day, in Washington DC, the Inter-American Human Rights Commission of the Organization of American States held a series of three hearings regarding the ongoing crisis in Honduras. National and international human rights organizations, renowned human rights activists, and the direct victims of the repression and political persecution presented the cases one after the other. Representatives of the Honduran government were also present to receive the reports and answer the accusations.
Documents, pictures, videos, and statistics of the beaten, the arbitrarily detained, the tortured, and the executed were all presented to the commission. The commissioners then listened to the Honduran government’s presentation before reaching their initial conclusions. By the end of each of the three sessions, the commission clearly and severely condemned the government’s violent abuse of human rights activists, peasants, teachers, students, journalists, and other members and supporters of the popular resistance movement.
President Lobo’s representatives provided no credible response or convincing argument backed up by facts for any of the evidence presented to the commissioners. As they scrambled to justify a state policy of repression and persecution, the government representatives ended up contradicting themselves. When the commissioners inquired about the total number of police officers charged with human rights abuses since the coup, the Honduran government representatives could not provide one. When the commission asked about the number of public prosecutors appointed to defend human rights, the government claimed “around 18,” but the commission subsequently determined on a visit to the country that only two had been appointed. The commissioners contrasted the explanations given by the Honduran government’s officials with the results of the commission’s own recent findings while in Honduras, making it obvious that the official presentation was at best deceiving if not outright fictitious.
Furthermore, the commissioners also observed that although one member of the Honduran government delegation was an army officer, no one represented the police. This troubled Commissioner Felipe Gonzalez, as an indication of the nature of the regime and the ensuing militarization of Honduras. The commissioners also noted their concern that the Honduran government increased funding for both the police and the army while significantly decreasing funds for health and education.
The Supreme Court’s dismissal of a number of judges for having publicly criticized and denounced the 2009 coup underscored the serious corruption of the judicial system, its lack of independence, and the resulting absence of the rule of law in Honduras. The Commission encouraged a profound and extensive reform of the justice system and demanded, at the end of the sessions, that the Honduran government immediately halt the repression and political persecution, show restraint in its use of force, and commit to the promotion and respect of human rights.
Repression Continues
Throughout that day and all through Deputy Assistant Secretary Reynoso’s three-day visit, violent repression continued in Honduras. The police and the army once again beat the teachers and the students, as the Autonomous National University came under tear-gas attack with canisters made in the USA along with water cannons, rubber bullets and repeated blows of the batons.
A few days earlier, Ilse Velasquez, a teacher and one of the founders of the Committee of the Families of the Detained and the Disappeared in Honduras (COFADEH), died when a tear gas canister hit her head during a protest. At the hearings, COFADEH representatives documented over 120 murders of members of the Honduran resistance, including union leaders and members of the LGBT community.
And then, just last week, the police burned and beat Miriam Miranda of the National Fraternal Black Organization of Honduras before detaining her on charges of sedition for participating in a popular resistance protest in solidarity with the teachers.
As Marcia Aguiluz from the Center for Justice and International Law in Washington, who has testified before the U.S. Congress and the IHRC about the crisis in Honduras pointed out, “President Lobo and his government have continued a state policy of repression against human rights activists and any kind of political dissent, a policy inherited directly from the de facto regime that came to power through the 2009 coup.” Attorney Anjana Samant from the Center for Constitutional Rights, also said at the hearings that “this crisis is far from over. Many have died and more lives are still at risk given the worsening human rights situation in Honduras. To pretend that all is well and that the country is on the road to reconciliation after controversial elections that were neither free nor fair is to enable the continuation of repressive tactics and human rights violations.”
A Broken System
Impunity still abounds in Honduras, and the perpetrators of the abuse are not only free but also thoroughly empowered to continue their activities. In Honduras human rights and justice are nonexistent. Democracy is no more than a disguise for a regime that, lacking any kind of legitimacy or the minimum consent necessary to govern, has relied on the selective and systematic use of violence to crush popular dissent and resistance to its abuse.
Despite this inconvenient truth of continued repression, the Honduran government and its U.S. backers claim that the “free and fair” election of Lobo reestablished the constitutional order – political repression and censorship during the elections notwithstanding – as they praise him for his “democratic achievements” and advocate for the country’s prompt readmission to the Organization of American States (OAS).
“Honduras has taken important and necessary steps that deserve the recognition and the normalization of relations,” said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the OAS annual meeting in Peru last June. “We saw the free and fair election of President Lobo, and we have watched President Lobo fulfill his obligations… including forming a government of national reconciliation and a truth commission. This has demonstrated a strong and consistent commitment to democratic governance and constitutional order.”
President Obama has been standing up for human rights and democracy in the Middle East and other parts of the world, supporting popular revolutions against tyrants. “Born, as we are, out of a revolution by those who longed to be free, we welcome the fact that history is on the move,” said President Obama in his recent address to the nation regarding the bombing of Libya, “because wherever people long to be free, they will find a friend in the United States.” Yet, over the same period, the United States has significantly increased the funding of the same police and army that executed the coup d’etat in Honduras in 2009.
The repression will likely continue as long as the United States turns a blind eye to the crisis and keeps funding the regime. President Obama should act promptly and in accordance with the principles he publicly stands for. The U.S. should immediately stop funding the police and the army of Honduras and demand that President Lobo halt the repression. Any genuine reconciliation and normalization in Honduras will demand profound reforms, a full commitment to human rights and an inclusive and transparent process that brings real justice and true democracy to the people.
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Rodolfo Pastor Campos served as chargé d’affaires of the embassy of Honduras in Washington DC during the coup. He is a founding member of Hondurans for Democracy, a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus, and currently a student at the Center for Latin American Studies at Georgetown University.
Obama in El Salvador March 29, 2011
Posted by rogerhollander in Barack Obama, El Salvador, Honduras, Latin America.Tags: archbishop romero, belen fernandez, death squad, El Salvador, Honduras, honduras coup, Latin America, monsignor romero, Obama, oscar romero, Roberto D’Aubuisson, roger hollander, School of the Americas, soa, soa watch, zelaya
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(Roger’s note: The role that Obama and his hawkish Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, have played to legitimize the coup inspired regime of Porfirio Lobo in Honduras, renders his visit to the tomb of Archbishop Romero an act of sublime hypocrisy. Be it a Democrat or Republican in the White House, the Pentagon and the military-industrial complex dictate policy in Latin America; a new and improved Monroe Doctrine whereby the only consideration for support or non-support of a government is the degree of its friendliness toward corporate and militarized imperial America).
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| Written by Belén Fernández |
| Wednesday, 23 March 2011 12:18 |
Source: PULSE As part of his visit to El Salvador yesterday, the last stop on a Latin American excursion occurring despite events in Japan and Libya, Barack Obama visited the tomb of Salvadoran Archbishop Óscar Arnulfo Romero, assassinated on March 24, 1980. Observers have noted that the current bombing of Libya began on the same date as the start of the Iraq war eight years ago. Coincidentally, Obama’s appearance in El Salvador occurs exactly nine years after George W. Bush’s. As the BBC’s Tom Gibb wrote at the time:
Regarding yesterday’s visit by Obama, SOA Watch writes:
Honduras, which also boasts a concentration of SOA alumni—including General Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, perpetrator of the 2009 coup against President Mel Zelaya—just last week witnessed the killing of 59-year-old assistant principal Ilse Velásquez, who was run over after being hit by a tear gas canister fired by the police at a peaceful protest in Tegucigalpa. Her brother Manfredo Velásquez was disappeared in the 1980s during Honduras’ service as preferred U.S. military base. As Stephen Kinzer writes in The New York Review of Books:
Kinzer goes on to note the thoughts of Honduran SOA trainee General Gustavo Álvarez Martínez on how to properly deal with Marxist subversives, “their sympathizers, and outspoken leaders of labor, peasant, and student organizations”:
Especially given the resurgence of right-wing death squads and paramilitaries in Honduras in the aftermath of the 2009 coup, Central American citizens may be forgiven for being less than enthused by Obama’s promise yesterday to provide more training for security forces in the region. *“The 316th MI Battalion,” secret CIA cable dated February 18, 1995, declassified October 22, 1998, as Document H4-4, approved for release September 1998. |
Exclusive Interview with Manuel Zelaya on the U.S. Role in Honduran Coup, WikiLeaks and Why He Was Ousted May 31, 2011
Posted by rogerhollander in Democracy, Honduras, Human Rights, Latin America.Tags: alba, amy goodman, cia, democracynow, honduran military, Honduras, honduras coup, human rights, manuel zelaya, porfirio lobo, posada carriles, roger hollander, southern command, zelaya return
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Roger’s note: I have posted below only the DemocracyNow! interview with Maneul Zelaya. For related stories on DemocracyNow! you can go to the following links:
Also, on the DemocracyNow! web site (www.democracynow.org) you will find a blog with Amy Goodman accompanying the Zelaya return flight, with fascinating photos and interviews.
DemocracyNow! May 31, 2011
Shortly after Manuel Zelaya returned to his home this weekend for the first time since the 2009 military coup d’état, he sat down with Democracy Now! for an exclusive interview. He talks about why he believes the United States was behind the coup, and what exactly happened on June 28, 2009, when hooded Honduran soldiers kidnapped him at gunpoint and put him on a plane to Costa Rica, stopping to refuel at Palmerola, the U.S. military base in Honduras. “This coup d’état was made by the right wing of the United States,” Zelaya says. “The U.S. State Department has always denied, and they continue to deny, any ties with the coup d’état. Nevertheless, all of the proof incriminates the U.S. government. And all of the actions that were taken by the de facto regime, or the golpista regime, which are those who carried out the coup, favor the industrial policies and the military policies and the financial policies of the United States in Honduras.”
AMY GOODMAN: Manuel Zelaya, the former president of Honduras, returned home on Saturday after 23 months in exile. At a news conference Sunday in his living room, Zelaya said the coup was the work of an international conspiracy that should be investigated. It was the first coup in Central America in a quarter of a century. The military kidnapped Zelaya from his home at gunpoint, put him on a plane to Costa Rica, stopping to refuel at Palmerola, the U.S. military base in Honduras—this after he tried to organize a non-binding referendum asking voters if they wanted to rewrite the constitution. Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos brokered the agreement between ousted President Zelaya and the current Honduran President Porfirio Lobo. It was called the Cartagena Accord, paving the way for Zelaya’s return.
Democracy Now! flew with President Zelaya from Managua, the Nicaraguan capital, to Honduras. On Sunday, we sat down with him at his home in Tegucigalpa. I asked President Zelaya to talk about what happened the day of the coup, June 28th, 2009.
AMY GOODMAN: Ousted President Manuel Zelaya, sitting in his home in his living room in Tegucigalpa for the first time in 23 months, kidnapped at gunpoint by Honduran soldiers as his daughter Pichu hid under her bed upstairs. He was then flown to Palmerola, the U.S. military base in Honduras, supposedly to refuel, and then on to Costa Rica. It was the first military coup in Latin America in more than a quarter of a century.
We leave you today with Zelaya’s address to tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of Hondurans upon his arrival home on Saturday.
AMY GOODMAN: Tomorrow, in part two of our interview, President Zelaya will talk about his plans for the future. We’ll also speak with his wife, former First Lady of Honduras Xiomara Castro de Zelaya. We ask her if she plans to run for president next. Special thanks to Democracy Now!’s Hany Massoud for his remarkable camera work and Andrés Tomas Conteris for translating, and to both for making this broadcast possible. Also thanks to Channel 11 in Tegucigalpa.