Is the Honduras Agreement a Breakthrough?

by Galen Cohee Baynes, Nicaragua International Team

Out of Honduras today come reports that ousted President Manuel Zelaya and representatives of the de facto government headed by Roberto Micheletti have signed a deal that could lead to the restoration of Zelaya to office. The deal stipulates the formation of a “unity government,” the establishment of a “verification commission” composed of two international representatives chosen by the Organization of American States and two national representatives to ensure that the deal’s guidelines are upheld, and a final vote by the National Congress on whether or not to restore Zelaya to power.

Response to the news of the deal has so far been mixed. A communiqué released earlier today by the National Resistance Front, which has organized daily protestsagainst the coup regime over the last four months, celebrated the “people’s victory” represented by the deal, the expected “restoration of President Manuel Zelaya,” and the symbolism of the deal as an “explicit recognition that in Honduras there was a coup d’etat that should be dismantled in order to return to constitutional order.” However, for many that have been involved in the struggle for the return of democracy in Honduras, questions abound surrounding the true intent of the deal and what its results will ultimately be.

Betty Matamoros of the National Resistance Front expressed concern today that the last-minute deal will serve first and foremost to legitimize the November 29 elections. The ability of the Honduran people to vote freely and fairly in the wake of four months of repression and violence on the part of the de facto government is highly questionable. She also noted that the deal’s signing does not mean an immediate return of Zelaya to the presidency. “First a verification commission needs to be composed, then the Congress has to sign off on the deal, which could be a slow process, and the Supreme Court of Justice might even be involved. We don’t know how long this might take.” The coup regime’s strategy thus far has been reliant on delay-tactics to block Zelaya’s return. If Congress is slow to sign off on the deal, it could mean that the de facto regime retains power in these crucial days and weeks leading up to the elections.

Nectali Rodezno of the Association of Lawyers Against the Coup expresses similar unease with the deal. “This deal will legitimize the elections, but that doesn’t mean it will restore democracy in Honduras.” He also questioned the role of the U.S. government in formulating the agreement. Assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs Thomas Shannon and two other government representatives have been in Tegucigalpa in recent days and were influential in brokering the agreement. After four months in which ambiguity on the part of the U.S. allowed the coup regime to maintain power, Mr. Rodezno is wary of a deal that makes the U.S. negotiators out to be “saviors.” The coming days will reveal how serious a push for the restoration of democratic and constitutional order in Honduras this agreement truly constitutes.

Meanwhile, the violent repression of protests in Tegucigalpa continues, with military and police firing tear gas on demonstrators in the capital yesterday.

Colombia: Mass Graves and Military Aid

by Jess Hunter-Bowman, WFP Associate Director

Sooner or later the truth has a way of showing its face. Recently, an important sliver of truth came out of Colombia.

In 1999 and 2000, the Clinton Administration and key congressional offices were wringing their hands over how to convince skeptical figures on Capitol Hill and across the U.S. that funding the Colombian Army—the army with the worst human rights record in the hemisphere—was a good idea, or even legal. Since every single Colombian army brigade was too dirty to fund, the Pentagon’s brilliant solution to the impasse was to create an entirely new brigade—a counternarcotics brigade with only “clean” soldiers hand picked out of dirty units.

$1.3 billion dollars soon began to flow from Washington to Putumayo, ground zero for Plan Colombia.

Soon thereafter, Witness for Peace staff in Colombia took a delegation to Putumayo to assess the situation and stand with the conflict’s victims. During our time there, the group visited the Santana military base and spoke with a Colombian Army Colonel—the commander of a battalion in the counternarcotics brigade. The delegation had been told of countless people killed at the hands of paramilitaries and guerrillas in the area. The paramilitaries were particularly vicious as they moved into the area, brutal massacres being their calling card. Thousands were killed.

On our way to the military base—just a few miles outside of town—we passed Villa Sandra. This farm, we were told time and time again, was the operating base for the paramilitaries in the area.

This paramilitary headquarters was just minutes down the road from the Santana military base—now home to the U.S.-funded counternarcotics battalion.

When the WFP delegation asked the Army Colonel about the paramilitaries in Putumayo, he downplayed their presence in the area and denied the military had any relationship with them. That was before he told the group about his training at the School of the Americas.

WFP took what it had seen and heard to the U.S. Embassy in Bogota and was told the billions in U.S. military aid was only flowing to vetted units—army battalions with no relationship with the paramilitaries, much less involved in human rights abuses.

We took what we’d learned to Washington and were told that the Colombian military was an important ally in the drug war and couldn’t be involved with death squads.

Now, years later, the truth told to us by brave farmers, priests and community organizers in Putumayo has been confirmed by the paramilitaries themselves.

Thanks to our colleague Adam Isacson at the Center for International Policy, we recently learned that John Jairo Rentería Zúñiga, alias “Betún,” a demobilized member of the paramilitaries Southern Front of Putumayo has begun to talk.

“At that farm (Villa Sandra) we had a permanent group, and that is where (paramilitaries) from town brought the people they were going to kill, they handed them over, they executed them and they buried them over there. There are a lot of people in graves, I believe some 800 people,” said alias “Betún”.

He indicated the decision to stop killing people in town was due to a request from the police force. “They asked us not to kill any more people in town, because it created problems for them, so (the police) gave the order that anyone they wanted to kill should be brought to the farm and buried there.”

He testified that the police, the army and the navy worked closely with the paramilitaries.

“We decided to coordinate with (the army). Initially, they told us to stay on the edge of town, later they told us that we could stay in the town, and we came in uniform. Also, they came to our base and rode in our vehicles, and we rode in their vehicles too.”

"When we needed some support, they were there, and when they needed support they’d ask it of us. Meetings were held with their commanders and our commanders, and we had our radio frequencies coordinated.”

To date, no one knows exactly how many people were killed in Putumayo in Plan Colombia’s early years. By 2002 the homicide rate in this part of Putumayo was 123 times the rate in the U.S. during the same year. The Attorney General’s office estimates at least 3,000 people killed by the paramilitaries in Putumayo were buried in mass graves such as the one estimated to have 800 bodies, buried right under the nose of the U.S.-backed Colombian military.

International Fast in Honduras

The International Fast for Honduras began its water-only phase on October 6th, 2009. One core faster, Andrés Thomas Conteris, is fasting inside the besieged Brazilian embassy with the elected President of Honduras.

We are calling for a peaceful resolution to the crisis in Honduras, the cessation of human rights violations by the de facto regime, and the immediate return to Constitutional order. More information about the fast can be found at http://www.ayunoporhonduras.net./

The sign in one of the first photographs in this video says in Spanish, "So there haven't been murders, murderers?" It is followed by the graphic photos (sorry) of three of those already confirmed dead at the hands of the coup regime by the time of my visit, September 5-12th. I took all of the photos in this video during that period, while in Honduras as part of a rapid response delegation with the human rights group Witness for Peace.

I intend now to fast a day for each of those confirmed dead at the hands of the coup regime thus far. Though a difficult number to pin down, I am using the figures of trusted authorities whom I had the honor to meet in Tegucigalpa, such as Bertha Oliva of COFADEH (The Committee of Families of the Disappeared in Honduras). Today is already my eighth day without food, and I plan to go at least a few days longer, and possibly more. Sadly the death toll keeps rising as more politically motivated deaths are confirmed.

If you are in the United States, please call the State Department (202-647-4000) and demand a more coherent US policy toward Honduras. Tell them to stand firmly against the illegal coup regime and their planned elections (which will be far from free or fair). Tell them to freeze bank accounts, impose sanctions, and encourage much-needed investigations in The Hague. Tell our government not to be afraid to stand clearly and openly with the strictly nonviolent resistance movement which has sprung up since the coup (the worst violence they can be accused of is vandalism), and which seeks the same stated goal as the United States government: the return to power of democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya and thus the return to Constitutional order in Honduras.

We cannot let this coup stand. It sets too ugly a precedent for the hemisphere and for the world. The era of coups and military dictatorships must not begin again in Latin America.

In solidarity (and hunger),

Nate Kleinman