As I advocate for a U.S. policy towards the region based on justice and
human rights, I’ve had easier years during the Bush Administration. For
an administration that promised hope and change, both are in short
supply.
Elections took place Sunday, November 29th in Honduras with National Party leader Porfirio Lobo declared the winner.
But
elections carried out under a state of emergency, with visible military
and police presence, by a government installed by coup, with a
significant movement opposed to the coup calling for abstention, and
with the deposed President still holed up in the center of the capital
city in the Brazilian Embassy, are no cause for celebration. As we wrote to the State Department
on November 24th, “a cloud of intimidation and restrictions on assembly
and free speech affect the climate in which these elections take place…
basic conditions do not exist for free, fair and transparent elections
in Honduras.”
I have just returned from Honduras, and I can tell you, there is no
possible way that there are the basic conditions for free and fair
elections on November 29th.
“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.
The international community initially celebrated an agreement
negotiated in Honduras, on October 28th, between coup regime leader
Roberto Micheletti and deposed President Manuel Zelaya, which could
have put an end to the crisis. But, less than a week later, the accord
started crumbling apart.
On November 5th, 2009, Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) sponsored a briefing of
civil society leaders and activists on Capitol Hill to talk about the
human rights violations that have been occurring in Honduras since the
coup and give their vision for the future. The leaders’ visits were
coordinated by the Quixote Center and Just Associates, and LAWGEF
pitched in to help. The following quotes were taken from that briefing.
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.
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