Honduras: "normalization" ...of political violence?

[Judi Lynn]

Honduras: "normalization" ...of political violence?

Submitted by WW4 Report on Tue, 05/24/2011 - 02:07. Former Honduran president Manuel Zelaya, ousted by a coup d'etat nearly two years ago, met May 22 with the Central American republic's current sitting president, Porfirio Lobo, and signed a pact that will allow him to return to the country. The accord also opens the way for Honduras to re-join the Organization of American States (OAS), from which it was suspended after the coup. The meeting took place in Cartagena, Colombia, and the pact was brokered by the governments of Colombia and Venezuela. "This agreement is great news to Latin Americans because it normalizes the situation in the inter-American system," Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said in a statement after the signing. (BBC News, CNN, May 22)

The following day, at a summit of the regional Grupo CA-4, the leaders of Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador met in Managua, where Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega announced that his government will re-establish ties with Honduras, also broken off after the 2009 coup. The four governments pledged their support for the Cartagena pact, formally known as the Accord for National Reconciliation and Consolidation of the Democratic System in the Republic of Honduras. (Prensa Latina, May 23)

Political violence and repression continue in Honduras, however, The same day as the Managua meeting, gunmen opened fire on Manuel Acosta, 70, manager of La Tribuna newspaper, as he was driving home in Tegucigalpa. Acosta was shot six times and his car had more than 30 bullet holes, police said. Acosta nonetheless survived; he was able to drive home and his family took him to a hospital, where he is said to be in stable condition. Last week, Luis Mendoza, owner of TV station Channel 24 in Tegucigalpa, was shot to death in his car by four gunmen in the town of Danli—the seventeenth media worker slain in Honduras since the start of 2009. (AP, International Press Institute, May 23)

http://ww4report.com/node/9914

[Peace Patriot]

1. While I think it is entirely appropriate to highlight the on-going RW death squad murders

of anti-coup leaders, political leftists, trade unionists and journalists in Honduras--hundreds of murders that have been committed with complete impunity--this is not a good argument against the Cartagena Accord. These murders and other oppression cannot be addressed until Honduran democracy is restored and the Cartagena Accord is the best hope yet of that restoration.

The current situation is a stalemate, with the RW in illegitimate control of the Honduran government backed by the U.S., and adamant opposition among the majority leftist leaders of Latin America, most notably Brazil and Venezuelan, who threw Honduras out of the OAS.

As a very isolated U.S. client state, with the U.S. military, the U.S. trained and funded Honduran military and Honduras' "ten families" in autocratic control of the country, the death squads will most certainly continue to act with impunity in Honduras. The Cartagena Accord, however, provides a strong opening for the restoration of democracy and accountability. It may be a difficult road--and there are of course no guarantees--but it seems to me to be the ONLY road back to an open society.

There are many things that can go wrong. One of them is gross U.S. interference in future Honduran elections--including, from the Haiti situation, the U.S. assembling its own fraudulent election monitoring group, using the OAS name. They had to rig up something even worse to get Lobo (the RW) installed in Honduras (an 'election monitoring group' that included John McCain's "International Republican Institute"--bad enough in the past, now infested with Tea Party "born again's"). In Haiti, they rigged up this "OAS" thing (6 of 7 members from the U.S., France and Canada, using the OAS name) to fix the election. This is one of many hazards ahead if the Cartegena Accord results in Honduras' readmission to the OAS.

The specific provisions of the Cartagena Accord are a good start on restoring Honduran democracy. But how will they be enforced? Venezuela has some economic clout. They have continued to provide Honduras with cheap oil, even though the junta withdrew Honduras from ALBA. Brazil, which provided its embassy in Honduras as a refuge to Zelaya in the aftermath of the coup, will no doubt exert considerable pressure to see all of the provisions of the Accord honestly implemented.

Here is an excellent article on this entire situation, especially its recent history, with discussion of the hazards ahead for success of the Cartagena Accord:

What Now for a Post-Coup Honduras?
Will the Cartagena mediation process help resolve the crisis in Honduras?
by Alexander Main (5/19/11)
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/05/19

The author lays out the provisions of the Cartagena Accord as follows:

---the secure return of Zelaya and other officials exiled during and after the 2009 coup (note: all the fake legal charges against him have already been dropped);

---an end to the persecution of members of the anti-coup National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP, by its Spanish initials);

---human rights guarantees and the investigation of human rights violations since the coup;

---guarantees for the holding of a future constituent assembly (note: constitutional reform); and

---the recognition of the FNRP as a political organization.

These do, indeed, lay the groundwork for restoring democracy and accountability in Honduras. I wish they had included the requirement of OBJECTIVE international certification of Honduras' election system and monitoring of future elections (say, by the Carter Center, or by the reputable OAS group--not a U.S. rigged one).

I also wish they had clarified Zelaya's status re running for president in the next election. His term was abruptly and brutally truncated. The current constitution permits the president only ONE term of office (written by Reagan's henchmen to enhance the power of the U.S. funded Honduran military and its corporate-friendly rich oligarchy). The constituent assembly, which will be rewriting the constitution, probably won't be ready with new rules by the next election. Will the RW get away with having robbed him of a year of his only term, or not?

It's only fair that he should be able to run again. The most fair thing would be to restore him to office NOW to finish his term. But that wasn't included in the Accord either. This is rather an important question, it seems to me, and I don't know who will have the say so on it. Possibly Zelaya doesn't want to be president any more, or run again, and so the question was moot. Zelaya had active in-put in this Accord (most of the provisions are direct from him, apparently) and he either didn't ask for clarification on this or lost that point in the negotiation. I don't know what his position is on this matter (redress re his lost year; or running/not running in the next election).

The non-personal questions--election monitoring (very important, in my opinion), and the provisions of the Accord--end of persecution of the anti-coup activists, legitimization of their political party, the constituent assembly (constitutional reform), and human rights investigations/guarantees, are all more important than Zelaya's political future, as they lay the foundation for democracy and all future improvement and progress. Zelaya can help lead from the sidelines or try to run again, it doesn't much matter (although his safety matters to the re-foundation of democracy--if he cannot safely speak out, lead and even run for office again, if that turns out to be possible, then democracy doesn't exist for anyone else either).

What is most important are the OTHER leaders in Honduras, who have kept the hope for democracy alive, within the country, after he was exiled--those extraordinarily courageous and far-seeing people who kept the anti-coup opposition well-organized, and kept the protests peaceful, against such great odds and in the face of brutal, murderous oppression. How THEY are able to use this Accord to restore democracy is the most important matter at hand. I'm sure Zelaya has been in touch with them and these are THEIR provisions, in the Cartagena Accord. This is what THEY needed to start with. THEY will complete the process--with Zelaya's help, and with the help of other leaders in Latin America.

Manuel Santos' key role in this Accord is another important--even fascinating--topic. Apparently he is the one who phoned Zelaya, when Lobo showed up, unannounced, at the Santos/Chavez meeting (--from the Common Dreams article I referred to, above). His relationship with the U.S. is worth a book, I'm sure, at this point--if not a library shelf full of books. Is he on his own? If so, how did that happen? Is he in accord with Obama/Clinton/Panetta on a more peaceful policy in Latin America, in a "war" with the far right Pukes and militarists of the Diebold Congress? WHAT is going on, to put the CIA vetted leader of the prime U.S. client state in LatAm--where thousands of trade unionists and others have been murdered (mostly under mafioso Uribe, the prior 'president,' but some still occurring, and impunity still the rule for these horrible crimes) --on the side of peaceful solutions? And is there a devious downside that we can't see? I sense a master strategist behind it. Is it Panetta? And what are his aims? Is it a "wolf in sheep's clothing" thing? Or merely a recognition of what is realistic and possible in the current leftist political landscape of LatAm? (The Bush Junta's blundering, brutal asshole-ism was driving the region yet further to the left.) ???

Lots of questions. And it will be interesting to see how Colombia behaves re the provisions of the Accord on Honduras ("wolf in sheep's clothing?)--especially the provision for human rights investigations/guarantees in Honduras, an issue on which Colombia has been especially bad, and on which the U.S. has actively undermined the Colombian justice system (mainly, it seems, to protect Uribe, a Bush Jr pal).