“Vote? Me? No way? For what?” said the young man, almost spitting out the words. “What is there to vote for in this election?”
All over Honduras, youth “in resistance,” women in resistance, artists
in resistance, lawyers in resistance, well-dressed and blackberried
political party leaders in resistance, campesinos in resistance, are
saying no to these November 29th elections. While the word
“resistance” may conjure up images of masked guerrillas, this image is
totally misleading. As I could see in a trip this week to Tegucigalpa,
it is, so far, in general an extraordinarily peaceful, civic
resistance.
by Suzette Diaz and Vanessa Kritzeron November 04, 2009
After months of a virtual standstill in Honduras between democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya and regime leader Roberto Micheletti, we might be seeing the end of what one writer called, “The Little Coup That Couldn’t.” On October 29th, Honduras’ defacto leader Roberto Micheletti agreed to step down, allowing the Honduran Congress to decide whether President Zelaya would be returned to power. But, the fate of democracy in Honduras still remains to be seen.
As international and domestic concern mounts over the suspension of
constitutional rights declared by de facto Honduran President Roberto
Micheletti on September 26th, the government promises to restore
rights, but does not yet act to do so, and human rights violations
continue.
“If that kind of barbarity can be directed against the highest-ranking
person in the country, what will happen to the rest of us?” asked the
activists at COFADEH, the Committee of Families of Detained and
Disappeared in Honduras, right after the June 28th coup that sent
President Manuel Zelaya into exile. Now the answer to that question
can be seen in COFADEH’s hard-hitting October 22nd report, “Statistics
and Faces of Repression.”
On September 21st, President Manuel Zelaya returned clandestinely to
Honduras and took refuge in the Brazilian embassy in the capital city
of Tegucigalpa. Honduran police fired tear gas to disperse Zelaya’s supporters gathered around the embassy. They alsolaunched tear gas at the human rights group COFADEH,
where men, women and children had taken refuge after the attack at the
embassy. People detained for violating a newly established curfew are
being held at the football stadium, where observers saw people who had
been severely beaten. The situation in the capital and elsewhere is
extremely tense.
Despite the Micheletti government’s announced intention following
international and national pressure to lift the state of siege, the
notice has not yet been published in the official gazette, and rights
violations continue. The de facto government issued a new decree
allowing the government’s telecommunications agency to revoke licenses
for radio and television stations that transmit messages that promote
“social anarchy,” ensuring that censorship can continue. Police
continued excessive use of force against protestors, and some
protestors remain in detention. Meanwhile, hopes for dialogue increased
as the Organization of American States negotiators arrived, but no end
to the crisis is yet in sight.
We know that you are anxious for a resolution of the situation in Honduras and are wondering what is going on. Where is President Zelaya? Will he return? What is the U.S. doing to move the negotiations forward?
Action Center
