Resistance Leaders Speak Out Against Recent Coup d'Etat in Honduras - Park St. Support Picket Called for Tuesday

Somerville MA - Over 60 people filled a lecture hall at the Fletcher School of Diplomacy at Tufts University on Thursday to hear a panel of Honduran social movement leaders speak about the growing resistance movement against the recent coup d'etat in their country. On June 28 2009 Manuel "Mel" Zelaya the elected President of Honduras was detained and beaten by elements of the Honduran military under Gen. Romeo Vásquez and forcibly flown to Costa Rica. The president of the National Congress of Honduras Roberto Micheletti was then illegally voted in as President of the current de facto government of Honduras by a simply show of hands in the Honduran Congress. The U.S. has thus far refused to act to help reinstate President Zelaya and the State Department led by Sec. of State Hillary Clinton has been accused in the world press of working to delay efforts by the Organization of American States the European Union and the United Nations towards that goal. In response to these events two Boston area immigrant organizations with ties to Honduras and nearby Central American nations - Proyecto Hondureno and Centro Presente - brought a group of Honduran social movement leaders to Somerville to give their perspectives on the recent coup. The panelists were in order of appearance internationally known medical doctor and human rights activist Dr. Juan Almendares Oscar Chacón of the Chicago-based National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities Abencio Fernandez Pineda of the Center for the Investigation and Defense of Human Rights in Honduras former police officer and Democratic Union Party candidate for the Honduran Congress Maria Luisa Jimenez Dr. Luther Castillo of the Luaga Hatuadi Waduhenu Foundation and journalist Gerardo Torres of the National Front Against the Coup d'Etat in Honduras. Through a translator Castillo located the genesis of the coup in President Zelaya's move to start buying more oil from Venezuela - which he says resulted in a strong negative reaction from multinational oil companies with longstanding ties to the highest levels of the U.S. government "It was precisely the many protests that people like me organized in the early years of the Zelaya administration that eventually led to a change in direction - and for that government to begin to be more responsive to the demands being brought to them by the popular sectors. So from the point of view of the oligarchy of Honduras that is when Zelaya began to commit capital sins. When Zelaya decided that - beyond just going north for help - decided to go south of our country for help that's also when the problems began. Everybody buys oil from Venezuela. But when the Honduran government decides to buy more oil from Venezuela then they get to be condemned. Forgetting the fact that the United States of America on a monthly basis purchases billions of dollars in oil from Venezuela. So clearly when that decision gets to be made the people who historically made money by bringing the gasoline to Honduras begin to be very upset. Because Texaco Shell and other large transnational oil companies were no longer go to be necessarily in the middle that's when they begin to get upset." However according to Castillo the oil deal with Venezuela emboldened popular democratic movements to try to change the much-criticized 1982 Honduran Constitution written on behalf of the country's elites at the height of the U.S.'s "dirty war" against popular left-wing insurgencies in Central America "But not only did the Honduran people begin to get a better deal in terms of gas coming from the south but we also get 100 tractors to support the small farmers to be able to improve their productive capacity. But then the idea came up that maybe it would be wise to ask every Honduran what kind of government they would want to have. So 600 000 of us Hondurans with name last name and national ID number decided to sign letters we sent them to the President asking the President to indeed come out with a consultation to ask Hondurans if we were interested in having - next November - a fourth ballot where we would ask Hondurans if they would be interested in the possibility of putting together a Constitutional Assembly of the people." The campaign for placing a non-binding resolution on the November 2009 election ballot came to be hinged on the results of a poll that Zelaya agreed to hold - over the protests of the national political establishment - on June 28 - the same day he was ultimately forced out of the country. Torres explained "When Zelaya got into power of course as Luther said we had many struggles against the politics in Honduras he made many mistakes we can say that a President in Honduras can't ever do. He raised the minimum salary and gave participation to other sectors. When we were about to go into this survey on June 28th there were many sectors that had been closed out of the political process. Because in Honduras people believed that there was a real chance to change all this that I'm talking about. There was a chance to change the ways our politicans are elected. And there was a chance to change the way our country is taken by these people. Well we all know what happened. Military forces entered forcibly Zelaya's house. Took him away pointing at him with guns. Pushing him away. Pushing his daughter away. And hitting him. And taking him to Costa Rica. This is a coup d'etat. This is not a constitutional succession. We don't make a constitutional succession with the military forces pointing their guns in the face of the President that was elected - even though by 12 percent in the democratic process that they believe in and they up until that day were defending. At the same time 2 hours later that Zelaya was in San Jose he was saying about what had happened in Honduras and the Congress of Honduras was showing to the Honduran people a letter that they said Zelaya was resigning as President of Honduras. And they even made a point to sign this letter and show it as if Zelaya had signed himself. This is a crime in any part of the world - this falsification of signing for someone it's a basic crime. And when the coup took place they turned out the lights throughout the country. The people in the de facto government live in their heads in another era. They are not activists. Because they didn't know how people were getting to the Presidential house by the hundreds when there was no light and there was no TV and there was no radio. I believe that we unfortunately can say that they don't know about cell phones and messages and blogs and internet pages." Torres then illustrated the leading role allegedly played by former Bush Deputy Secretary of State - and former Ambassador to Honduras throughout most of the 80s "dirty war" - John Negroponte in the orchestration of the coup "So in that same week [the week of June 9th - Ed.] John Dimitri Negroponte had meetings with the President of the Congress - the President of the Congress that is now the President of the de facto government. He had meetings with the political candidates of the National and the Liberal Party. He had a meeting with Cardinal Rodriguez of the Catholic Church. He had a meeting with one of the most important evangelic leaders. And there are photographs of John Negroponte sitting with them in this first week of June. What John Negroponte was doing in Honduras was clear on that morning. He was making already a plan. There's a letter in which the President of the Congress on June 26th reminds Romeo Oscar Vásquez the general of the military forces that he has a mission on June 28th. That's a letter. And he says remember they have a mission to keep the Constitution that's how it is in Honduras. And you have a patriotic mission to do so. You have to take out the people that want to change this Constitution. That's the letter. And the same day June 26th there was a letter to the Chamber of Commerce in which they ask for their support. In three categories - the first category $1000; the second category $2000 and the third category $3000. Because with this money they were going to take over. The plan that they have to keep democracy in Honduras. And that this support was going to be deducted from taxes later on. So in an indirect way the people of Honduras that are not fighting in the streets were the ones that paid for the coup d'etat that has taken place." Chacón followed up on Torres' remarks "For us in NALACC it is absolutely imperative to be next to our brothers and sisters in Honduras - not because we support Mel Zelaya let me make that very clear. I mean Mel Zelaya could be Juan Sanchez or he could be Maria Rodriguez. You know it doesn't really matter. What really matters first and foremost is that the people of Honduras elected that person to serve a specific term. Democratically. According to their own laws. So until somebody shows me either an international piece of law or a national piece of law in Honduras that says that the military has the prerogative to go in the middle of the night and take away the elected President of Honduras and forcefully put him on a plane to Costa Rica and then make somebody else President then we may back off. But before that moment happens we believe that the Honduran people have the right to indeed demand respect for democracy and respect for their own Constitution. And that's really how we see the struggle. And we are pressing the U.S. Congress to come to grips with the fact that this is indeed a coup d'etat. I mean I couldn't believe that not only Republicans I mean who actually defend the coup openly but Democrats are still debating whether this is a coup. You know what else do you call something that quacks other than a duck." At the start of the question and answer portion of the program given Negroponte's role as a top level advisor to Sec. of State Hillary Clinton Open Media Boston asked the panel if any of them wanted to address Clinton's role in the coup. Torres responded "Well about Hillary Clinton. The first reaction of Barack Obama when the coup d'etat took place was that he was against it because he didn't approve it. And even though Zelaya and these were his words was not his friend he couldn't back up an illegal procedure like a coup d'etat. Later Hillary Clinton had a statement in which she said that it wasn't clear if it was a coup d'etat or not. And then we knew that there was a policy in the United States to make this process even longer than what it was. They have the Organization of American States in order to take out the case of Honduras and this organization had already said that there was a coup and that they only recognize Zelaya. The United States is part of this organization and what they did was a political maneuver in which they put up Oscar Arias - a single man - to resolve a political conflict with as much an interest as this. Arias of course failed. And failed because when his resolution was the first point that said Zelaya had to return and another six points. The de facto government didn't accept this and when Arias failed we were expecting a new announcement from Hillary Clinton. And what she said is that it wasn't prudent that our President was trying to get back to the country. She never said that it wasn't prudent that the military forces and the private enterprise sector had done a coup d'etat but she said it wasn't prudent a legal President was trying to go back into the country. So there's a clear position in which the United States is making time in order to back up this coup. And we believe that there is at least in Clinton's administration a very dangerous policy toward the de facto government." Torres concluded by stating that Clinton has played a role in keeping U.S. diplomats considered to be to friendly to Zelaya out of key posts in the Obama administration - pointing specifically to the delay in the nomination of Arturo Valenzuela to be assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs "There is an example of Valenzuela that Sen. Lugar sent letters to Clinton in order for her to put Valenzuela in the office that he was already named to. And Valenzuela hasn't been put in office because of his position against the coup d'etat in Honduras. So there is a clear line of action from Sec. Clinton that we believe is very dangerous for the Honduran people. That every day that passes under the de facto government is a very dangerous day for the people of Honduras." There were no representatives or supporters of the de facto Honduran government at the event. The panelists are currently traveling the U.S. looking for grassroots and government support for the democratic Honduran resistance. Local immigrant labor religious and human rights organizations have called a Informational Picket in Solidarity with the Honduran Resistance for Tuesday 8/11 from 4:30- 6 p.m. at the Park Street T entrance on the corner of Tremont and Park Sts. in downtown Boston. Check out http://www.hondurasresists.org for more information. Photos by Elise Filo. Copyright Elise Filo 2009. Full audio recording of the event is forthcoming. Bookmark/Search this post with: Delicious Digg StumbleUpon Reddit Newsvine Facebook Google Yahoo Technorati