Honduras: Two Years After Military Coup, U.S.-Backed Repression Continues

By Riahl O'Malley
International Team
Witness for Peace

Two years ago today, Manuel Zelaya, then the democratically-elected president of Honduras, was forcibly ousted by the Honduran National Guard. The Obama Administration initially denounced the illegal coup as a threat to democracy in the region. Three months later Porifio Lobo was voted president in elections many considered illegitimate. Lobo demonstrated himself to be a friend to the business elite, many of whom had played a key role in instigating and financially maintaining the coup. His administration rolled back Zelaya’s minimum wage hike and moved towards privatizing public resources. Though the new administration was not recognized by the United Nations, the Organization of American States (OAS) or a number of Latin American nations, the United States quickly resumed the funding to military and police forces that had been halted since the coup took place.

Since the coup, a wave of human rights violations has taken place across the country. Many of these violations have not been investigated or prosecuted, including crimes associated with the coup itself. The impunity rate is 90%. Violence perpetrated by the U.S.-funded military and police forces has disproportionately impacted women, indigenous groups, and members of the LGBTQI community, as well as journalists and those who speak in opposition to the current government.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has taken the lead in pressuring the international community to recognize the Lobo administration. Earlier this month Honduras was accepted back into the OAS. Manuel Zelaya’s return to Honduras just a few days earlier was painted as a symbol of a political return to normal. However, many people have been reluctant to celebrate due to ongoing death threats, attacks and assassinations.

Earlier this month 87 members of Congress, pressured by Witness for Peace and our allies, signed a Dear Colleague Letter asking Hillary Clinton to halt military funding going to Honduras and to speak out against the abuse. Instead, just last week Secretary of State Clinton met with Central American leaders – including Porfirio Lobo – and pledged a 13% increase in spending to the region through the Central American Regional Security Initiative (CARSI).

Today, thousands of Hondurans are expected to gather to mark the ongoing repression.

Meanwhile, Witness for Peace, which has been bringing delegations of U.S. citizens to Honduras since the weeks immediately following the coup, is preparing for two additional fall delegations to the country. To learn more, click here.

Today: International Day of Action in Solidarity with Honduras

By Brooke Denmark, Christine Goffredo and Riahl O'Malley
International Team - Nicaragua
Witness for Peace

In Tegucigalpa teachers, students, parents and concerned citizens are protesting a proposed law that would pave the way for the privatization of education. Honduran military and police have responded to the peaceful protests with a brutal crackdown. Many protesters have been injured and one teacher has been killed.

On Sunday two teachers, María Auxiliadora Espinoza and Wendy Méndez, were detained at a gas station after the protest had concluded. And yesterday authorities arrested Miriam Miranda, the Garifuna leader of the Fraternal Black Organization of Honduras. Miranda was subsequently released, but in the meantime President Porfirio Lobo has threatened to suspend teachers continuing to protest for up to a year.

As concerns mount, Witness for Peace and other advocacy organizations have declared today an International Day of Action in Solidarity with Honduras. You can take action by writing to your congressional representatives to demand the U.S. stop funding the military and police violence against peaceful protesters.

Currently, the Honduras military receives funding from the United States through the Central American Regional Security Initiative (CARSI), which has a budget of more than $200 million. In February, the United States government granted $1.75 million to Honduras. Tell your congressional representatives that U.S. taxpayer money must not go to a military violently repressing its citizens and abusing human rights!

"Don't Close Your Eyes": Honduran Journalist César Silva Speaks Out

by Galen Cohee Baynes, Nicaragua International Team

César Omar Silva Rosales - a journalist, filmmaker and member of the Honduran resistance movement - was arrested and tortured by Honduran authorities last December after compiling and distributing a video that demonstrated the repressive tactics used by the police and military against protestors in the wake of the June 28, 2009 coup. Three of his colleagues, including film editor Rénan Fajardo and gay right’s activist and film distributor Walter Tróchez, were assassinated in the weeks after the documentary’s release. Reports of targeted kidnappings and assassinations by Honduran security forces have been frequent since the controversial, U.S.-supported November elections that brought Porfirio Lobo to power.

César Silva was able to flee Honduras and go into hiding in Nicaragua after his kidnapping and torture. In the following excerpts from an interview conducted by WFP with César he discusses his exile, his documentary, and his expectations for Mr. Lobo’s government.

WFP: You are currently living here in Nicaragua in exile. Why did you flee Honduras?

César Silva: I had to leave Honduras after I was kidnapped on the 29th of December. I was held almost thirty hours,and subjected to interrogations, to beatings. I was tortured. Then they let me go – maybe accidentally, maybe because there weren’t orders to hold me…This was after they had killed many of my friends and colleagues, so I did not think that I was going to survive. But they let me go around noon on the 30th of December. I spent that night and the following night in Honduras, and then I escaped to Nicaragua on January 1.

I feel that I escaped within twenty-four hours of when I was going to be assassinated. They let me go, but they were still planning to kill me. They were going to make it look as if it had been a common crime, as if I had been assaulted and then murdered. That was their plan...so I had to leave Honduras immediately.

You leave your country and abandon absolutely everything - your family, everything that you have done. These are difficult conditions. Even when you arrive in a country where people speak the same language and have the same customs, you arrive without a cent, without anything…But I have the benefit of being alive, and with [my wife and child] also alive. There is no price you can put on that. So, I am happy to be alive, even in these difficult conditions.

WFP: You made a documentary capturing some of the repression that took place in the wake of the coup. Why did you make the video?

C.S.: I think that I achieved my goals in making the video, and it is because I achieved those goals that I had to leave Honduras. What happens after the coup? Most of the Honduran media outlets are controlled by the same owner, who was behind the coup d’etat…There was a period of time where we were completely muted and left without means of communication. It was only what they [the coup perpetrators] were saying that one could hear or read…

So, what did we do? We began from day one to film videos and produce short news alerts - about five minutes long, made in a very rudimentary style. We had a computer and an editing program. We spliced the audio and video and that was it. But we had to get the information out to people. Some of the organizers said, “Let’s make DVDs so that more people can see these videos.” So we burned discs, reproduced and distributed them…I decided that I was going to make a documentary, compiling the footage that we had taken. I call the documentary, “Honduras Repressed.” The documentary shows beatings and repression, so that people could get an idea of what the reality in Honduras was.

WFP: How was the video received within Honduras?

C.S.: Well, the police got word of the video and got their hands on a copy. In the end they wound up arresting me. They murdered my editor, they murdered a young man who helped to collect some of the footage, and they executed a young man who helped to distribute the DVDs…

The existence of the video made the authorities nervous because the leaders of the resistance would get people together in the neighborhoods - sometimes over one hundred people - and would show the video… People took in the video with a lot of enthusiasm because they had been lacking information…And this is what scared the authorities.

WFP: Now that Porfirio Lobo has taken over the presidency, do you think there is any chance that you will see justice in the cases of your colleagues?

C.S.: To start, the government of Porfirio Lobo Soza is a continuation of the coup d’etat…He never spoke out to say that any of this [the coup] was wrong. He is just another supporter of the coup. He has been in agreement all along. But he kept his mouth shut because he knew that he was going to win the presidency.

In terms of the cases of the young men that were killed…[and] as to whether or not the people that are responsible for these crimes, who work within Pepe Lobo’s government, will be punished – I don’t think so. The Minister of Security under Lobo is Oscar Álvarez…During the campaign period he said that, if it had been up to him, he would have “dragged that criminal [Manuel Zelaya] out of the Brazilian embassy by his hair.” Since the day that he (Álvarez) came into office…he (has sent) out patrols to the different neighborhoods and they arrest people without warrants. Or they get a warrant and then enter into all of the houses in a neighborhood. And, apart from arresting criminals, they also arrest people that are not linked at all to crime…What does that mean?... The repression will continue, and the population is well aware of this.

WFP: What actions can concerned U.S. citizens continue to take to stand in solidarity with the people of Honduras in the midst of this repression?

C.S.: The way that people abroad can continue to support us is, first, by not closing their eyes. This is of utmost importance. Do not believe that [the crisis] is now over. Do not believe that, now that there is a new government, our problems have ended. No. The problems continue …Look for ways to continue publishing – in every blog where Honduras is mentioned – information about what is really happening. That, for us, would be a victory. Because we have relied on that press - the independent press…If you all close your eyes, that will be like a huge wall collapsing on us, and we will lose everything.

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As the repression continues in Honduras, we must not close our eyes! Watch César Silva’s documentary, courtesy of the Quixote Center, and forward it to your friends and family. Check out the Witness for Peace video, Shot in the Back, filmed the weekend of the November elections and spread the word. Contact the U.S. State Department to express your concern about the horrific human rights situation in Honduras.

Empty Streets on Election Day

by Galen Cohee Baynes, Nicaragua International Team

Tegucigalpa woke on ‘election’ day to eerily quiet streets. The few taxis working this morning cruised easily through roads normally congested with traffic. The great majority of stores and business (excluding the fast food chains) kept their metal shutters tightly secured. Driving through this sudden ghost city, the few areas that showed some signs of human activity were the capital’s high schools as they transformed themselves into polling stations to host the activity so important to representative democracies: voting.

The number of Honduran citizens that went to the polls today is certain to be a hotly disputed issue. The National Resistance Front estimated this afternoon that 30-35% of the populace placed a vote. Porfirio Lobo of the National Party, proclaimed the winner of the elections, announced during his victory speech that 80% of Hondurans filled in ballots. A quick examination of recent electoral trends (in 2005 56% of Hondurans voted) makes this number sound incredulous.

A woman places her vote at a polling station in Tegucigalpa

Visiting polling stations throughout Tegucigalpa today, the number of people in attendance seemed scant. Police and soldiers manned the entrances to the schools and occasionally strolled through the voting stations themselves.

Soldiers at a polling station on Sunday

But voter turnout will probably not be the deciding factor as the United States makes a final determination about recognition of today’s event. The reports of the approximately three hundred election observers in the country over the weekend (including representatives chosen by the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute) will weigh more heavily in that decision.

Interactions with these electoral observers today left little doubt what their final say would be. Bosco Daniel Mayorga, an observer representing the Conservative Party in Nicaragua, noted that “Honduras has the strongest democracy in all of Central America. For those of us in Nicaragua, Honduras is an inspiration…we will recognize these elections.” These statements were made at 2:30PM, a full two and a half hours before the polls officially closed.

International election observers flirt with two young women at a polling station in the capital

An observer from the United States commented this evening that the head of the de facto regime, Roberto Micheletti, is one of her “personal heroes” and that he showed great courage in pushing forward when the “entire world was against him.” With this sort of observation impartiality, the final judgment isn’t hard to imagine.

Election details aside, the question at the heart of the matter is whether or not elections overseen by a coup regime should be recognized as legitimate by other governments. On the morning of the elections, the human rights group COFADEH reported approximately 30 cases of illegal detention from the previous day. When that coup government maintains itself through violence and intimidation during the campaigning period, the fairness, freedom and transparency that are foundational to democratic elections are called into deep question.

When a coup regime presides over elections, do those elections mark the end of a coup? Depending on the recognition they receive, they could mark its victory.