Honduras: Repression, Resistance and Hope

[Judi Lynn]

Honduras: Repression, Resistance and Hope
Saturday 2 July 2011
by: John Lamperti, Truthout | News Analysis

In Honduras, the repression of human rights, and peoples' resistance to it, are as old as the Spanish conquest. The current outbreak of both began with the June 28, 2009, military coup that deposed elected President Manuel Zelaya. Street protests against the coup were met with severe military and police violence, and opponents have created a new mass organization called the National Front for Popular Resistance (FNRP) with the goal of restoring and improving democracy in Honduras.

Although "Mel" Zelaya is himself a wealthy man, his term as president had offered hope for the workers, the campesinos and the poor of Honduras, where some 40 percent of the people live in extreme poverty on less that $2 per day. "Over the last year, Zelaya's positions moved to the left. He pushed social programs and more attention for the poor who have no work," said Giuseppe Magno, the outgoing Italian ambassador. A former cabinet minister explained, "Zelaya wanted to help the country's poor, not nationalize industries or create a socialist economy." President Zelaya ordered a large increase in the minimum wage, moved to convert some military facilities to civilian use, supported peasant cooperatives in land ownership disputes and planed a nonbinding popular vote on whether to revise the country's Constitution. His "new deal" involved reforms, not revolution, but it offended powerful interests in Honduras and in the US. The coup, led by two generals, both School of the Americas (SOA) graduates, came on the very day when the referendum on the Constitution was to take place and it put a sudden end to hopes that conditions of life for the majority of Hondurans might improve.

The Honduran coup was condemned throughout the hemisphere including, it seemed initially, by the United States. President Barack Obama called the coup "not legal" and warned that it could set a "terrible precedent." But the United States rapidly dropped such criticism and never severed its close ties with the Honduran military - as US law required. More than that, this country recognized and currently supports the government of Porfirio Lobo, who was installed as president of Honduras after a highly dubious election in November 2009 that was managed by the coup plotters themselves. US backing for Lobo ignored a wave of popular protests against the coup within Honduras, protests answered by lethal violence from military and police that left dozens dead or disappeared and many hundreds beaten or arrested by the end of 2009. Few other nations joined the US in recognizing Lobo's "election," and Honduras remained suspended from the Organization of American States (OAS) - until this June.

I visited Honduras in May with a delegation* led by Father Roy Bourgeois, the founder of SOA Watch, an organization working to close the SOA and change US policy toward Latin America. During our visit, President Lobo was welcoming foreign industrialists to a convention called "Honduras is Open for Business." Foreign companies, especially United Fruit and its successors, have long dominated the Honduran economy, making it the original so-called "banana republic." Today African palm oil groves have replaced many of the banana plantations, but the pattern of exploitation of the country's people and resources continues. "Open for Business" portrayed Honduras as a stable democracy and a good place to invest, but the people our delegation visited told us a different story.

More:
http://www.truth-out.org/honduras-repression-resistance-and-hope/1309461383

Editorials:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x611193

[Judi Lynn]

1. You may recall Zelaya had planned to ask the US to pull out of their airport

Palmerola, (Soto Cano) and return it to exclusive Honduran use, considering how hampered they have been having to use only the world's 2nd most dangerous airport, Toncontin, in Tegucigalpa, as their main airport all these years.

This followed the successful attempt by Ecuador in asking the US to leave their airport at Manta, and hand it back to Ecuador for Ecuador's use, after years and years of protest by the Ecuadorean people.

By allowing this illegal coup to proceed, the US gained more control over Palmerola in Honduras. Everything to gain, clearly. This comes from the article linked in the orignal post:

Far from cutting military ties, the US has opened two new bases in Honduras and is about to add permanent facilities at its main location, the Palmerola Airport.

In fact, US control EXPANDED, as you can see, by the actions taken against the elected Presidet of Honduras.