Posts Tagged ‘resistencia’

The revolutionary movement in Honduras

Thursday, March 18th, 2010

Since president Zelaya was ousted last year his supporters have never given up the political idea, for the pursuit of which in violation of the laws he was deposed: To overthrow the form of government in Honduras.

Last weekend a group calling itself the popular resistance movement held their second national meeting to discuss their agenda. The statement issued from the meeting is reproduced in its entirety below (from COPINH).

The title of the document clearly states that they are aiming for a “re-founding” of Honduras. They are thus openly confessing to wishing to overthrow the form of government, since re-founding refers to throwing out the old constitution and replacing it with a new one.

The present constitution bans even arguing for changing certain paragraphs, why arguing for changing all paragraphs of the constitution clearly runs afoul of the law. Among the consequences mentioned is the loss of citizenship-rights for 10 years. So what argument are these groups using for why it would be legal for them to promote this plan?

Their  justification is explicitly provided in the statement: “[We proclaim...] 4. That we are continuing to use our legitimate and sovereign right to exercise the popular power. This power of the people surpasses the representative kind and therefore it is assumed to have the power for delegating as well as for revoking such representation.”

In other words, they consider themselves to speak for all the people of Honduras, even though they are little more than a collection of special interest groups, with a very small number of members compared to the number of people who voted in the last elections (Nov 29, 2009). In fact, not even all factions of the farmer groups themselves support the agenda of their leader, Rafael Alegria.

Ex-president Manuel Zelaya is also promoting a Constituting Constitutional Assembly, by denouncing the present popularly elected president as illegitimate, and by denouncing the state of Honduras before the Inter-American Human Rights Court, requesting that the court convicts Honduras and orders the country to hold a Constituting Constitutional Assembly.

However, although some websites claim that the meeting developed a document with a proposed outline of a new constitution, and a plan for how to implement it, I have still not seen any links to the actual documents. (If you know where to find that info, please write a comment with a URL!)

If this group has a plan that includes an open debate with full right to participation by all citizens of Honduras, then I would applaud that initiative, and encourage the government to support the grassroots initiative. Of course, a condition must be that the activity is carried out within the law, which means that any proposed changes to the constitution must be adopted by Congress.

If, on the other hand, their proposal is not made public, and if input from the majority is neither sought nor welcomed, then their plan is nothing more than a partisan special-interest agenda that has almost no chance of succeeding without the use of force. Nor does it have any democratic legitimacy in that case. It is up to this self-labeled “resistencia” to put their cards on the table now, and reveal in action if they intend to become an armed revolutionary movement, or a peaceful grassroots initiative for constitutional reform.

In words they have already selected the former. If they follow up those words with action, they will become entirely marginalized as a terrorist group. My advice is that they change foot and form a movement for democratic reform, not an unconstitutional revolution. If they don’t, they will be irrelevant, but if they do, they may have a profound positive impact on their native country. May God open their eyes in time.

Manifiesto del II Encuentro Nacional por la Refundación de Honduras

II Encuentro Nacional por la Refundación de Honduras
Instalación de la Primera Asamblea Nacional Constituyente, Popular y Democrática

Manifiesto

Reunidos y reunidas, en la ciudad de La Esperanza, con el auspicio del signo de la esperanza, mujeres y hombres de 17 departamentos del país, hemos cumplido con otra cita con Honduras, para mirarnos, debatir y fortalecer, mediante el diálogo, nuestros saberes, experiencias y sueños con el afán de refundar nuestra patria.

Este II Encuentro por la Refundación de Honduras estuvo caracterizado por la espiritualidad ancestral, la creatividad, el intercambio profundo en la diversidad y el ejercicio largo y arduo de instalación de una Asamblea Nacional Constituyente Popular y Democrática que expresara las propuestas que son pilares de nuestro proceso de Refundación del país.

Ante el pueblo de Honduras, manifestamos:

1. Que continuamos en resistencia contra los golpistas y sus aliados nacionales e internacionales, por lo tanto no reconocemos el gobierno fraudulento de Porfirio Lobo.

2. Que continuamos en la construcción de las propuestas históricas del movimiento social hondureño, que se enfilan a erradicar el sistema de dominio neoliberal, patriarcal y racista.

3. Que insistimos en construir, desde diversidad de sectores, voces, y experiencias, un modo de vida justo, digno y feliz para todos y todas los hondureños que ya se ha expresado en las luchas por la tierra, por la justicia, por la defensa de la riqueza natural y por el respeto a los derechos humanos

4. Que seguimos haciendo uso de nuestro derecho legítimo y soberano de ejercer el poder popular. Este poder del pueblo rebasa el carácter representativo y por lo tanto se asume legítimo para delegar así como para revocar esa representación.

5. Que no renunciaremos al propósito de la instalación de la Asamblea Nacional Constituyente Popular y Democrática en donde se reconozca e integre la diversidad de pensamientos y de luchas del pueblo de Honduras.

Manifestamos nuestra solidaridad, en este momento, con las luchas que libran las organizaciones del magisterio nacional, del sindicato de la universidad nacional (SITRAUNAH), los pueblos de San Francisco de Opalaca y Nacaome en contra de la construcción de las represas y la lucha por la tierra por parte del Movimiento Unificado Campesino del Aguán; nos solidarizamos con Manuel Zelaya Rosales y el padre Andrés Tamayo, y otros hondureños y hondureñas exiliados, producto de la persecución política así como exigimos que se respete su derecho a ingresar al territorio nacional. De igual manera nos solidarizamos activamente con los presos y perseguidos/as políticos y exigimos la liberación inmediata de 10 campesinos presos a razón de la defensa de la tierra.

El II Encuentro por la Refundación de Honduras es una acción más en este proceso refundacional y de resistencia, que no se agota aquí, sino que se abre y convoca a las múltiples y diversas acciones populares para cumplir la tarea de construir una nueva Honduras.

Desde este territorio ancestral de resistencia lenca, con el espíritu de rebeldía de Lempira, a 14 días del mes de marzo del 2010.

Fecha: 16/03/2010

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When will Zelaya’s supporters denounce violence?

Saturday, February 6th, 2010

Over and over again, media supportive of the self-labeled “resistencia” in Honduras are reporting that they openly confess to being a militant group. For instance, yesterday a Canadian site reported one of the leaders, Rafael Alegria, as saying that their intention is “to convert ourselves into a militant political force which will work toward taking political power in our country” [my emphasis].

When will these Zelaya-supporters stop advocating militant solutions and start denouncing violence?

When will the international community stop supporting this terrorist organization?

It surely is a strange new world we are living in. The UN and OAS support a coupster – Zelaya – against the democratic government of Honduras. The U.S. demands amnesty for terrorists in Honduras (who caused millions of damages and even bodily injuries), while at the same time holding alleged terrorists without due process on the flimsiest of grounds in an illegally occupied naval base on Cuba.

Too many people dismiss the truth with the argument that they “know” it was a military coup, with no other argument than that it is “self-evident”. Well, it once was equally self-evident that the sun rotated around the Earth…

Footnote: Rafael Alegria was implicated last year in handing out large amounts of cash to rioters, in the form of US dollars that apparently came from Hugo Chavez. The total amounts of hard currency that showed up in the economy on the days of riots was so large that it could be counted in the banking system, in the tens of millions of dollars, it has been reported. (Ironically, this inflow of currency partly offset the negative effects of the sanctions imposed on Honduras, by providing an alternative source of dollars for paying foreign debts.)

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Propaganda-video about Honduras

Sunday, January 31st, 2010

A propaganda-video against the democratic government of Honduras has been uploaded to the Internet today. Here it is:

I am the first to criticize the police when they use unnecessary force, which some of them clearly did, e.g. outside the stadium after the football (soccer) game in July. Those acts must be investigated and prosecuted to the maximum extent possible, to establish an example.

However, the raw footage often shows the police and – especially – the military exercising admirable restraint in the face of violent demonstrators, who are using potentially deadly weapons by throwing heavy rocks at them. They should get credit for that, and the demonstrators – or rather, rioters – should be criticized for their violence, too. But the video is completely biased in that respect. Not a critical word against those who disturbed the public order.

The voice also makes a number of factually incorrect statements. First of all that it was a coup; the removal of Zelaya from office was in response to him attempting a coup, as I have shown in this blog, e.g. here. Also the number of people who showed up at the airport is exaggerated, by a factor 100 or so (5,000 was mentioned as recently as 3 days ago in international pro-Zelaya media, but the video says 500,000). The images shown seem to be from another occasion.

Towards the end the voice falsely accuses the police and military of having taken the universities. In reality, rioters gathered outside the university, and ran into it when the police came, while wantonly destroying private property, such as a car and a fast food restaurant. The video is practicing Orwellian newspeak.

A lot of the footage doesn’t tell much of a story at all, but there is one interesting part early on: From the airport, when Zelaya and Chávez tried to create a martyr. A man who is interviewed in the video says that the soldiers had blanks (the military say they had rubber bullets), and that only the officers had live ammunition. He therefore concludes that the young man who was killed by a bullet in his neck was shot by an officer.

However, it is interesting to listen to the sound from the video, where they were throwing stones (7 minutes in). There are many explosive sounds that appear to be from somewhat distant gunfire, judging from the suppression of the high frequency part of the spectrum. However, at about 7:50, 7:59, 8:02 etc there are explosions with the high frequency part of the spectrum preserved, indicating an origin quite close to the microphone. Moreover, the 7:50 explosion clearly has an echo. An acoustic analysis might be able to indicate where the presumed shooter was standing.

Just for the heck of it, I analyzed the sound in a computer program. The delay of the audible echo is 0.19 to 0.20 seconds. The air temperature on that afternoon was about 25ºC, so the sound velocity would have been ca 346 m/s. This translates to a distance of 66 to 69 meters. This is the distance by which the path gun – echo-object – microphone is longer than the path gun – microphone. Since we can see from the image where the cameraman is standing (at 7:30 he is in the median outside the Popeye restaurant, moving south), we can guess that the echo is from the buildings on that side of the street.

However, when looking at the sound waveform it turns out that there is also a strong echo after only 0.059 seconds, corresponding to 20 m. Taking that into consideration, my guess is that the shooter was in front of the camera in the picture below, some ten meters off the wall, among the rioters marked with a yellow oval.

Screen shot from 2 seconds before a shot is heard nearby, with a double echo.

Screenshot from 2 seconds before a shot is heard nearby in the video.

Of course, one would have to do a test shot and record the sound at that location, to determine with certainty where the shooter was standing. But, it seems highly unlikely that those three shots were fired by the military inside the airfield. This of course opens for the possibility that the young man who was shot dead died from a bullet fired outside the airport, by a rioter. If so, Chávez got what he wanted.

PS. Also the Amnesty International report is very thin on facts, the shooting mentioned in this video (just after the incident above, and allegedly with the producer of the video carrying the victim) being one of about 4. Actually, AI fails to mention any case that has already been solved. That, and the fact that they call it a coup without any attempt at justification, shows that it is a biased report. Much of the text is irrelevant since it does not relate to the political reality on the ground in Honduras. AI would be well advised to focus on how best to contribute to a better human rights situation, rather than to play politics and alienate those they are trying to influence. The report seems written to appease donors rather than to actually contribute to human rights.

Later posts on this subject: I accuse Hugo Chávez of Conspiracy to Murder, Did the Propaganda Director Witness Murder?, Zelaya’s propaganda director has blood on his hands.

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Möte med “resistencian”

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

Igår mötte jag för första gången personer som höll på den så kallade resistencian i Honduras. Hade diskussion i enrum med två av dem. Den ene höll med om att Mel Zelaya inte var någon sympatisk person, minst sagt (hustrumisshandel, otrohet, mm). En del av de “fakta” hon grundade sin åsikt på var felaktiga, till exempel att häktningsordern skulle vara en efterkonstruktion. Hon vacklade i sin syn, men just då kom mannen in och vi kunde aldrig fortsätta diskussionen. Smög till henne adressen till denna blogg, så kanske dyker någon kommentar upp här?

Den andre var mera bestämd i sin inställning, men han medgav att jag hade en poäng när jag sa att endast högsta domstolen kan ha sista ordet i hur lagen skall tolkas, och de har inte sagt att det var en statskupp. Samtidigt höll jag med honom att det var olagligt att avlägsna Zelaya ur landet, och, la jag till, det var mycket dumt gjort att göra häktningsordern hemlig. Alla, även jag, som inte kände till häktningsorderns existens, trodde ju att det var en militärkupp. Endast ett fåtal, inklusive hustrun, visste att militären bara agerade på domstolens order.

Härom dagen fick jag höra av en källa nära arméchefen att USA-militärerna på Palmerolabasen hade gett sitt godkännande till planen att arrestera Zelaya. Idag fick jag information från en välinsatt källa att den ursprungliga planen var att arrestera honom den 26:e, men att senator John Kerry, ordförande för senatens utrikesutskott, hade stoppat det. Budet hade gått till USAs ambassadör i Honduras, Hugo Llorens, varvid planen avblåstes. När den senare genomfördes natten mellan den 27 och 28 juni så informerades inte USA, för att förhindra ytterligare inblandning. Den verkliga problemmakaren enligt denna källa är vare sig Barack Obama eller Hillary Clinton, utan John Kerry.

Nu bär det av hemåt igen. Mitt intryck av Honduras är att det är i stort sett lugnt, och det skulle förvåna mig mycket om “resistencian” skulle lyckas sabotera mer än en promille av vallokalerna, eller påverka valdeltagandet med mer än någon enstaka procent.

PS. Här är en analys av de olika grupperna i “resistencian”, på engelska.

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