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Blog entries by Tyler Shipley

posted by Tyler Shipley
Riot Police in Toronto, primed to protect the G20 by beating up protestors, June 26, 2010.

I wrote some of this originally in response to yet another "debate" about "violence" by "anarchists" in the G20 demonstrations. None of these thoughts are original; they are parsed together from the mingling of my own experiences with the myriad conversations I've had or read in response to the public outcry about burning cruisers and smashed windows on Saturday. In particular, I am adding my voice to those who have already expressed frustration with those individuals and institutions on the Left who have felt it necessary to use the limited airtime they have on joining the chorus of condemnation of window-smashing. The line we now hear, from Mayor David Miller, from police chief Bill Blair, from OFL President Sid Ryan, is that "a few violent idiots ruined an otherwise peaceful protest on Saturday." This, we are told, is the reason that police had to crackdown on protestors, even the peaceful ones.

It shocks me to think that institutions of the Left - long the victims of police intimidation and violence - would so quickly and happily take up the very rhetoric of the police themselves. It is as if time stopped in the middle of the afternoon on Saturday; all that was past was forgotten, the story begins now. Protestors are breaking windows. This is where the rest of the narrative starts.

But there was police violence long before any windows were smashed. About two months ago, 18-year old Junior Alexander Manon was murdered by police on the York University campus. He was not charged with any crime - he was in a car that was stopped by police and, like so many youths in the Jane-Finch community, his first instinct in a community terrorized by police was to run. Eyewitnesses described his being chased down by the uniformed officers and beaten to his death; first emergency response teams described finding him in a pool of his own blood. They were quickly told to shut up and the police claimed Manon had died of cardiac arrest. Despite the family's insistence that his case be publicly investigated, police have refused to allow the public to see the autopsy report, which would have so easily cleared everything up is he had, indeed, simply died of a heart attack.

Why has there has not been any discussion or outcry - complete with dramatic full colour photos - about violence by police in the past two months, coming out of the killing of Manon? Police...

posted by Tyler Shipley
Nov. 25, 2009 - "No the the coup regime elections!  Free men and women of Honduras, they want to use your vote to legalize the coup.  Each vote is a blow to your freedom."
Nov. 25, 2009 - Outside the Brazilian embassy, demonstrators demand the release of democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya.
Nov. 25, 2009 - A police officer stamps out the embers of a fire lit in vigil for imprisoned President Zelaya.
Nov. 25, 2009 - Juan Aguilar, a student at the Autonomous University of Honduras, is not fooled by the pretty words of Barack Obama.  Few Hondurans failed to recognize the presence of John Negroponte in their country just prior to the coup; he is the infamous former U.S. ambassador to Honduras who, during the early 80s, converted Honduras into a virtual U.S. colony and orchestrated the buildup of the Honduran military and the contra wars against Nicaragua.
Nov. 26, 2009 - Students at UNAH, the Autonomous University of Honduras, staged a one-day occupation of the campus in defiance of the regime's establishing a polling station at the university's gates.  A student organizer with the Resistance explains that, the night before, another student involved in the Resistance disappeared from this same spot after a brief confrontation with police and had not been heard from since.
Nov. 26, 2009 - Students demonstrate their attitude towards the coup in graffiti art the covers the entire campus, like much of the rest of Tegucigalpa.
Nov. 26, 2009 - On the locked gates of the Autonomous University, students have taped a suggestion to passersby: instead of voting ("votar") they suggest that people throw away their ballots ("botar.")  In Spanish, the words sound the same.
Nov. 26, 2009 - Todos a 'Botar.'
Nov. 26, 2009 - Months earlier, a peaceful demonstration of hundreds of thousands of people was interrupted by individuals who were later identified as infiltrators.  The provocatuers provoked a violent action against a Popeye's Chicken store and a few hundred people joined in - the fast food chains in Tegucigalpa are understandably resented for the fact that they are exempt from all taxes.  No one was hurt when the empty store was firebombed but the event justified major repression the next day
Nov. 26, 2009 - Bertha Oliva, founder and director of the Committee of Families of the Disappeared and Detained in Honduras (COFADEH) speaks at the human rights organizations main office.  She founded the organization 27 years ago when her husband was disappeared, and COFADEH has been crucial in documenting the variety of human rights abuses since the coup.  Behind her are the faces of four of the people killed in political violence since the coup.
Nov. 26, 2009 - Tegucigalpa, indeed all of the country, is covered in political graffiti.  It doesn't take long to recognize that the state is in a moment of intense political struggle and repression, despite the international media's insistence that 'everything is fine.'
Nov. 26, 2009 - A tribute to the courage and determination of the Resistance.
Nov. 26, 2009 - At the Autonomous University of Honduras.
Nov. 26, 2009 - The people's voice is on the walls.
Nov. 26, 2009 - Coca-cola's voice is carved into a hill overlooking Tegucigalpa.
Nov. 27, 2009 - Early in the morning, COFADEH gets a call reporting that a leader of the feminist movement in Honduras, which has been among the strongest currents in the Resistance, has been detained and is being held.  Outside the police station, dozens of women wear their groups' shirts and demand her release.  Women as young as 13 years old stand tall in the face of military and police.
Nov. 27, 2009 - As a group of 30-40 women stand firm demanding their companeras release from police detention.  The state's coercive apparatus sends reinforcements, armed with automatic weaponry, to contain the demonstrators.
Nov. 27, 2009 - Outside the police station: refractions of women in resistance, police in repression, a photographer, and a photograph of a woman disappeared and missing since the coup.
Nov. 27, 2009 - In the central square, the daily demonstrations build - for the 155th consecutive day.
Nov. 27, 2009 - A protestor holds a sign that asks, "what democracy?"
Nov. 27, 2009 - A few feet away, a military officer holds a riot shield that answers the question.
Nov. 27, 2009 - A demonstrator holds a sign that has been held at every demonstration for nearly four months.
Nov. 27, 2009 - Soldiers wait behind the police line, in case the decision to supress the demonstrations is taken again.
Nov. 27, 2009 - Demonstrations go ahead as planned, and hundreds fill the square in front of Congress, where the coup-leaders are safely protected by police and military.  The demonstration is smaller than normal, as people are worried about the consequences of actively opposing the elections in light of radio announcements threatening all Hondurans with arrest and incarceration if they demonstrate against the elections.Nov.
 27, 2009 - Many still find the courage to openly reject the elections, demanding the reinstatement of constitutional order.
Nov. 27, 2009 - At the headquarters of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) a soldier watches a delegation of the five largest human rights organizations in the country arrive to deliver a formal demand that the election be cancelled on account of the obvious lack of appropriate conditions (freedom of expression, assembly, opinion, etc) necessary for free and fair elections.  They provide details on the violations of human rights since the coup, including 33 people killed in political violence.
Nov. 27, 2009 - Inside the TSE, the human rights groups' scheduled 2:00 meeting is delayed on account of the arrival of elections observers sent by the United States to legitimate the process.  As they walk away from the gathered crowd into a private office, they can be overheard making derisive comments about the human rights observers and about Honduras in general.  Later, I interviewed one of the observers, J. Edward Fox, who denied knowing anything about human rights violations in Honduras.
Nov. 28, 2009 - Outside Tegucigalpa, the situation is the same.
Nov. 28, 2009 - While driving to Comayagua to meet with people under threat of arrest for working with the Resistance, we pass U.S. military base Palmarola from which the Contra Wars against Nicaragua were launched.  The presence of one of the largest U.S. bases in Central America, just a few miles outside of Tegucigalpa, makes their denial of any knowledge of the coup (which involved flying President Zelaya out of the country in a helicopter) patently absurd.
Nov. 28, 2009 - In the afternoon, COFADEH got a call from staff at Red Comal, a campesino organization that does educational work for small producers and helps them market their products.  We arrived to find military and police completely surrounding and occupying the remote mountain school.
Nov. 28, 2009 - The eyes of a soldier stationed outside the Red Comal school.
Nov. 28, 2009 - Inside the Red Comal school, police interrogate Julio, the day watchmen, who was beaten by the military when they arrived.
Nov. 28, 2009 - When the operation finally ends, it is clear that there were some 20-30 soldiers involved in the assault on the small campesino school.
Nov. 28, 2009 - Once the military had left, the director of the school showed us the office, where soldiers had kicked in the door, ransacked the closets and paperwork, taken three laptop computers filled with critical information and actually stole 4000 lempiras from the strongbox.
Nov. 28, 2009 - A broken window outside one of the classrooms of the Red Comal campesino school.  The police claimed that they were investigating the school on suspicion that they were amassing weapons.  The director of the school explained, "we teach people why they are poor - for that, we are a threat."
Nov. 29, 2009 - "Election" day in Honduras.  The El Libertador newspaper, published from a secret location after its equipment and staff were harassed, attacked and even assassinated, encourages people to boycott the election.
Nov. 29, 2009 - In the early morning hours of "election" day, the streets are quiet and the tension is palpable.
Nov. 29, 2009 - The streets are quiet, but the military and police are out in force.  Their numbers are bolstered by 14,000 private security guards hired by the state (and given full military fatigues) to lockdown the country for the "elections."
Nov. 29, 2009.  This is the scene in central Tegucigalpa as Hondurans go to the polls.  According to U.S. elections observers, this does not constitute a climate of intimidation.
Nov. 29, 2009 - In a small town in Danli, residents explain that this main street is normally crowded and boisterous on election day.  As in every other town we visited, there is no 'fiesta democratica' to be seen.
Nov. 29, 2009 - "Jutiapa is in Mel Territory!  No to the vote!  Yes to the constitutional assembly!"
Nov. 29, 2009 - In the southern town of Jutiapa, the community has refused to be intimidated by the military and police.  Despite kidnappings and detentions, beating and death threats, and a ceaseless campaign of terror, they hang a banner on the main road through town declaring themselves against the coup and the elections.  They pose for a photo, cheering beneath their banner, knowing that police are stationed just a few blocks away.
Nov. 29, 2009 - At a community meeting in Jutiapa, people give detailed accounts of the repression they have faced to members of FIAN human rights workers.  One man holds up a jar containing a piece of the skull of a local who was shot in the head by police a few months earlier.
Nov. 29, 2009 - Just blocks away from the banner rejecting the elections and the coup, military and police guard a polling station.  Ballot boxes have been set up at this local school, which looks more like a military facility, as troops with M-16s surround anyone who enters the school grounds.
Nov. 29, 2009 - The view from the polling station at Jutiapa looks like this.
Nov. 29, 2009 - The polling station has more soldiers than civilians, and those civilians who are around are patently aware of the military presence.  Representatives of human rights group FIAN and a reporter from Radio Globo confront the military about their overwhelming show of force in what is supposed to be a free and open process.  Things get tense and the FIAN representatives decide that it is best to leave - many of them have been targeted with beatings and death threats already.
Nov. 29, 2009 - "When the media goes silent, the walls speak."
Nov. 30, 2009 - The morning after the 'elections,' the TSE has reported a 60% turnout and a victory for the National Party's coup-supporter Pepe Lobo.  The international media picks up the number and reports it far and wide, despite the fact that even by the TSE's own figures (claiming 1.7 million votes out of 8 million people and 4.6 million eligible voters) such a figure is impossible.  The figure is later confirmed to have been fabricated.  The walls announce 'Pepe Robo' - Pepe the Robber.
Nov. 30, 2009 - It is evident, the morning after the election, that the boycott was widely followed.  My first taxi driver of the day proudly shows off his un-inked fingers - demonstrating that he did not vote - and tells me he wishes he could attend the assembly called by the Resistence but cannot because he has to work.
Nov. 30, 2009 - The resistance continues, even as the coup regime and its international allies declare the political crisis to be solved.  The Resistance calls an assembly at the STIBYS union hall to speak to the press (no major international media showed up, despite the press conference being widely publicized) and to discuss the next steps for the movement against the coup and for constitutional reform.
Nov. 30, 2009 - Carlos H. Reyes, former independant Presidential candidate, speaks to the press and the crowd at the STIBYS union hall.  Reyes was confirmed as a candidate before the coup, and remained a candidate into October in the hopes that the coup regime would recognize its illegitimacy and restore constitutional order.  They didn't and, after he himself was hospitalized from a police blow to the head at a peaceful rally, Reyes and dozens of candidates at all levels withdrew in protest.
Nov. 30, 2009 - Hundreds of people fill the union hall to demand that the 'elections' be rejected and to insist that the TSE tell the truth about the record high levels of absenteeism.
Nov. 30, 2009 - In what quickly became a symbol of the movement, people raised their un-inked pinky fingers to demonstrate that they had not voted.
Nov. 30, 2009 - Two prominent members of the Resistance prepare to lead the crowd of hundreds on a caravan through Tegucigalpa to celebrate the successful boycott of the 'elections' and demand the re-instatement of the President that they chose - Manuel Zelaya - and a restoration of the project for constitutional reform.
Nov. 30, 2009 - The day after millions of Hondurans refused to participate in sham elections, hundreds took to the streets in a caravan that snaked through the colonias and barrios of the capital city.  The caravan stretched further than the eye could see, horns were honking, people were cheering and flags were flying.
Nov. 30, 2009 - As the Resistance caravan wove its way through the capital city, people streamed out of their homes and shops and parks to cheer on the caravan and to show that they, too, had not voted by raising their un-inked fingers to the sky.
Nov. 30, 2009 - Honduran democracy peeks out from behind a pole as the people parade past in a caravan celebrating the successful boycott of the sham elections.
Nov. 30, 2009 - The Resistance caravan steams towards its destination - the Brazilian embassy in which their President is held.  As the people get closer, the military becomes more and more present.  They watch the caravan, automatic weapons at the ready, from side streets and from parks, but people refuse to be intimidated.
Nov. 30, 2009 - As the sun sets, the caravan arrives at the Brazilian embassy where the demonstration builds slowly as each car or truck full of people arrive.  They are met with a sight they are, by now, used to: a row of police in riot gear with tear gas and water cannons and automatic weapons.
Nov. 30, 2009 - The confrontation at the Brazilian embassy builds as Hondurans demonstrate their commitment to restoration of constitutional order and police hold their line in front of the embassy.  The presence of a Burger King right on the square that has been the site of so much struggle in the past four months is a painful and poignant irony.
Nov. 30, 2009 - Demonstrators demand to see President Zelaya, in the shadow of the police.
Nov. 30, 2009 - Though their structural role in the coup is clear, the people who are drawn into police and military often come out of poor backgrounds themselves; presumably even they must sometimes wonder why they are being told to turn their guns on their own.
Nov. 30, 2009 - Demonstrations outside the Brazilian embassy reach a peaceful but powerful crescendo as more and more people arrive to bolster their numbers.
Nov. 30, 2009 - With more people on the scene demanding President Zelaya's release, the police respond by adding to their numbers - by this point, there are police lines on three sides of the demonstration, with the Burger King on the other.
Nov. 30, 2009 - After an emotional interview in which he begs the international community to see what is happening in Honduras, Pedro Joaquin Amador returns to the demonstration to find the guns aimed directly at the crowd and urges people to back away and prepare themselves for tear gas, water cannons or bullets.
Nov. 30, 2009 - On the other side of the police line.
Nov. 30, 2009 - With so many international press people still present, the police decided not to attack the crowd and so the demonstration ended without bloodshed.  But it also ended without any change - no restoration of the democratically elected President, no end to the coup regime, no end to police impunity, no justice for the hundreds of people beaten raped or killed by the regime, and no justice for the millions more who have been terrorized by it.  The struggle continues.
Dec. 1, 2009 - The final insult: the airport in Tegucigalpa sells t-shirts commemorating this historic moment for Honduran democracy.

 The coup continues in Honduras, even as the so-called international community rushes to whitewash it by endorsing elections that, rather than solving the crisis, have deepened it.More people have been killed, raped, tortured and terrorized since the sham elections took place and the fraudelent results were accepted.  This photo essay documents moments in the week surrounding the 'elections' and is best viewed by clicking on the first photo and scrolling through as a slide show.  If you would like to use one of these photos, please contact me directly at tyshipley@hotmail.com. There is also still time to sign the petition against recognition of the coup regime.

posted by Tyler Shipley
Hondurans demonstrate outside of the Brazilian embassy where President Manuel Zelaya remains exiled within his own country
peeking out from behind this post: democracy in Honduras

**PLEASE FORWARD FAR AND WIDE**

As many of you know, I spent the last week in Honduras, with a human rights observation delegation. It was an emotional and intense experience, to say the least - I documented my time there in daily reports here at the Toronto media co-op and elsewhere.

The democratically elected President of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, was overthrown in a military coup on June 28th, interrupting a process towards constitutional reform that gained momentum on the strength of a social movement that was placing enormous pressure on Zelaya. Zelaya was slowly responding to that pressure, but since the coup he has been replaced by a de facto regime that transparently represents the interests of the Honduran oligarchy, primarily comprised of ten-fifteen families, and its North American business partners.

Since that time, Honduras has been converted into what amounts to a police state. 32 people have been killed or disappeared, and hundreds more have been victims of detentions, kidnappings, beatings, rape and the threat of assassination. I sat in kitchens and living rooms while people told me stories about being afraid that the police would break into their home at night and take someone away. I met with people just released from detention with fresh bruises and cuts.

In that context, the regime held 'elections' on Nov. 29th. Any media sources that have been critical of the coup since June 28th have been essentially shut down or made silent. All independent candidates withdrew from the process. The peaceful popular resistance encouraged people to stay home and not legitimate the process. And, indeed, people stayed home - only 1.7 million people voted in a country of nearly 8 million.

Still, our government is rushing to give the 'election' legitimacy, so that the coup and repression can be whitewashed and the post-coup government can go back to ruling Honduras the way it is normally run: by the rich, for the rich. Recognizing these elections 1) is an insult to any legitimate conception of what democracy looks like, 2) justifies and gives impunity to the massive and ruthless campaign of state terror in Honduras, and 3) places the enormous weight of the Canadian state, deeply invested in exploitative mining concessions on that country, up against the popular struggle for reform, again.

Please take a moment to sign this petition calling for the immediate withdrawl of Canada's support for the de facto...

posted by Tyler Shipley
the morning after sham elections, a taxi drives proudly shows me that he did not vote
later in the afternoon, the Resistencia drove a caravan of over 300 cars, trucks and vans through the streets of Tegucigalpa - as we passed, people showed us their un-inked fingers, a sign that they hadn't voted

It is perhaps fitting that my time in Honduras should end right where it began – facing a lineup of police in riot gear in front of the Brazilian embassy where the elected President of the country remains in exile. There is much that can be said about what Honduras was like under Zelaya – it certainly was no paradise for the millions of people who struggle to survive from day to day – but it was not a police state.

Honduras today is like an Orwellian nightmare. A façade of calm as soldiers patrol the streets with automatic weapons; a theatrical production of democracy in a state that no longer has a functioning code of law; a discourse of peace that so completely fails to convince, it almost seems like it is intended to mock its victims. Indeed, one placard yesterday read, “2 + 2 = 5? Do not insult us, golpistas.”

And Canada is already falling all over itself to recognize the ‘elections’ as fair, free and legitimate.

No doubt the United States will follow suit – it appears the North American strategy on Honduras is to have Canada jump in first and take whatever heat comes from it. We don’t care, evidently, that our already souring international reputation (as a result of the occupation of Afghanistan, our participation in the 2004 coup in Haiti, the brutality of our mining operations in Central America, etc) will be even further damaged by playing along with a lie that is painfully obvious to most of Latin America. Then when the road has been cleared, Prince Obama will give his blessing and everyone will go home and forget that any of this ever happened.

But Hondurans cannot go home – their home has been stolen. In a literal sense, their homes are not safe. Police raids on private residences are a daily occurrence; warrants rarely provided or obviously faked, protocols on human rights of people who have been proven guilty of nothing patently and brutally ignored, people involved in the peaceful resistance targeted and terrorized ruthlessly. It is the heliotype of a totalitarian state, everything we are led to believe our governments oppose and, indeed, everything we are said to be fighting against in Afghanistan and Iraq.

And in the larger sense, the country they call home has been taken from them. Even according to the official numbers, barely 10% of Hondurans voted for Porfirio Lobo (Pepe Robo - Pepe the Robber - as the walls call him) on Sunday. There are nearly 8 million Hondurans, and only 1.7...

posted by Tyler Shipley
voters in jutiapa cast their ballots under the gaze of an M-16, as about 40 police and military patrol the escuela jose antonio domingo
people in jutiapa risk more repression but refuse to participate in the sham elections, cheering underneath a banner that says "no the the elections, yes to the constitutional reform!"

Bravery. Strength. Honour. Courage. I’ve spent most of my life developing an autonomic response – stomach sickness - whenever I hear these words. This is because they are almost exclusively reserved in Canada and the United States for the most repressive institutions in our society, most prominently the armies that are waging wars of occupation overseas as we speak.

So it is much to my own surprise that I find myself unable to resist the urge to use those words in trying to describe the people I have met in the past couple of days. In community after community, I sit in kitchens, living rooms, courtyards and staircases where people tell me about the times they’ve been arrested. The times their homes have been invaded. That they are interrogated, that they are beaten, that they are never told why, that the police refuse to explain themselves, that their families are being terrorized. And that it is only hardening their resolve to resist.

Victor Corrales Mejia was arrested last night and beaten in his home. His landlady told the authorities that he and his son were in the Frente Nacional de Resistencia, so they came to his home, hit him in the head and spine with batons and threatened to kill him. But Victor will not be moved. “They kicked in my door, they threw me out like I was a sack of corn, they want to intimidate us. But our desire for democracy is stronger than they are.”

His son, Victor Corrales Albarado, was even more resolute. After showing us the bruises and cuts he had received only hours before, he said, “how long should we live like this? I have been a student in Italy, in Spain, in the United States, and I felt like I was respected, like my rights were respected. I can’t believe they treat me and my father like this, in our own country. We cannot let ourselves be treated this way anymore.”

(For more stories of repression, see http://canadiandimension.com/blog/2606 )

And I believe that they will not. By now, the ‘results’ of the farce elections are starting to come through, and even the golpistas are admitting that the numbers are low, the official results just announced claimed that 1.6 million people voted - less than 30%. Networks of human rights observers and resistance members were on the phones all day sharing information about the various...

posted by Tyler Shipley
military watch us from the rooftops of the TSE building as human rights groups arrive to denounce the elections as an illegal sham

It was a relatively quiet day in Tegucigalpa. Terror will do that.

Oh, there were people in the streets – protestors filled the square in front of the Congreso, for the 103rd consecutive day. Organizers in the Frente Popular de Resistencia met to determine what they would do about the pending pantomime elections. Leaders of the five main human rights groups in Honduras delivered an official denunciation of the coup elections to the Tribunal Supremo Electoral (TSE). The Movimiento de Mujares Visitacion Padilla, a feminist organization associated with the Resistance, amassed a crowd of many dozens of courageous women to demonstrate outside a police station where one of their leaders had been detained overnight.

Merlin Equiqure, one of the founders of a feminist movement that has been on the front lines of the coup resistance in spite of a powerfully patriarchal social structure, remains under arrest tonight without the possibility of bail - why? Because she was caught with a can of spray paint. The paint was used – as photo evidence has clearly demonstrated – to decorate placards and props for a piece of street theatre the group put together for the international day against violence against women. Her organization, in collaboration with the growing feminist movement in Honduras, has been tirelessly denouncing the fact that women have been particularly victimized under the coup regime – a pamphlet from a related organization wrote, “we are victims of sexual abuse, they beat our breasts, hips, buttocks and vulva; they put batons in our crotch, they threaten us with rape and other types of sexual aggression in a clear demonstration of contempt of this society towards the body and the integrity of women.” Merlin’s group, named after a famous woman who struggled for women’s rights in the 1920s, is made up of over 6000 predominantly young women – some of the women I spoke to this morning were teenagers - demonstrating courage I could never dream of exhibiting myself. In a piece of tragic absurdity that brought me to tears, one of their community leaders is now facing a trumped up prison sentence where she will likely face the very same sexualized violence that she has been so tirelessly fought to expose and denounce.

But women’s bodies are not only being used by the golpistas as objects for desecration and humiliation in prison cells; they are simultaneously being used...

posted by Tyler Shipley
una farsa, una pantomima

Yesterday, when my plane landed in Tegucigalpa, the announcement telling us to keep our seat belts on until the plane had stopped moving was concluded with, “welcome to Honduras: a country of peace and democracy.” Several people laughed derisively. A day later, I can certainly see why.

The city is simmering; every wall, fence, building, statue, errant piece of siding, abandoned machine, and even the ground we walk on is covered in graffiti. The debates and discussions are playing out before our very eyes, in a quick taxi ride across the city.

“URGE MEL”

“NO A LA REFORMA, SI A LA REVOLUCION”

“NARCO MICHELETTI”

“GORILETTI ASESINO”

This morning, university students at Universidad Nacionale Autonoma de Honduras (UNAH) occupied the campus, blocked the gates and forced all classes to be cancelled – a daring statement against the placement of a polling station in the farce at their gates. The scene was peaceful by mid-afternoon, but the students were told that if they tried to stop the election station from going up, the military would be called in. A student at one of the gates made it clear that they were not going anywhere.

Last night, one of their companeros was ‘disappeared,’ last seen leaving a rally at about 8:00 pm. His situation is not unique. We spoke with Bertha Oliva, founder and director of the Committee of the Families of the Disappeared and Detained in Honduras (COFADEH) whose rundown of the daily atrocities in golpista Honduras was devastating. Three people, two of them children, were detained last night in a raid on a warehouse where Resistance organizers were storing water and other materials for the marches. Yesterday, the body of a retired teacher who was kidnapped by police a day earlier, was found in the very neighbourhood where armed forces Gen. Romeo Vasquez Velasquez lives. The man had been receiving death threats for his involvement in the Resistance and his assassination sends a clear message to the many other Resistance leaders who receive daily threats on their lives.

Any notion that there is rule of law (outside of martial law) in Honduras has long been put to rest. When Maritza Arita Herrera, a judge in Tegucigalpa, ruled in favour of three students who were being tried for ‘crimes’ connected to the Resistance, she was relieved of her post and publicly shamed – all of the major...

posted by Tyler Shipley
Luis Aguilar, a student at UNAH, sends a message to Obama that made it to CNN Espagnol, outside the Brazilian Embassy, Tegucigalpa, Nov 25 2009

As I sit facing a wall of blue-uniformed TSA officers wearing ominous blue latex gloves, I can’t help wondering if it was a coincidence that the most militarized departure gate at Miami International Airport was the one shipping people to the most militarized elections in Central America.

Perhaps most striking about the five-hour delay that held me in Miami on my way to Tegucigalpa was the extent to which Hondurans going home were not fazed by the police dogs, machine guns and full-body searches that punctuated our wait.  What seems so intimidating to the handful of international visitors on our flight is old hat for people who have been living under an oppressive military coup for over four months. 

But despite their desensitization to dramatic demonstrations of coercive force, the Hondurans I am flying with are by no means at peace.  “Tegucigalpa is not very safe right now and I worry for my family,” said a young man waiting with me.  “We need all of this to end.”  And it did not appear to him or his friend that the elections were going to be the end of anything.  According to the second man, “the international presence is so important, because (the coup regime) will do anything if they can get away with it.”  Both individuals asked to remain anonymous and expressed uncertainty about their own approach to the election; they were flying home for the specific purpose of participating in their democratic process, but doubted the legitimacy of any election held under the auspices of the coup.

Indeed, now that I have arrived in Tegucigalpa and begun speaking to people here, I’m struck by how complicated their experiences of the coup and their approaches to the elections truly are.  The organized resistance has called for a boycott of the elections, but people in Honduras are aware that they could face serious, perhaps even violent, consequences if they do not vote.  Some workplaces will punish employees that do not vote; other people fear that they will be subject to police violence if they do not have a finger dipped in ink on election day. 

Despite that fear, there seems to be little doubt in the minds of people here that whenever the state is shutting down the press, there is something they are trying to hide.  The people I spoke to in the airport were deeply troubled by the consistent and continued repression of free...

posted by Tyler Shipley

Posted by Tyler Shipley on November 24th 2009 at 8:51pm

It is with excitement and apprehension that I prepare for my arrival in Tegucigalpa, from where I will be posting reports this week in the lead-up to the boycott of the Nov. 29th elections. I am excited by the prospect of meeting people like Berta Caceres, an indigenous leader of the resistance whose incendiary speeches in the streets of the capital have stirred me with admiration for the bravery of the Honduran people facing daily repression and violence but refusing to back down from the project of building a new country. I am apprehensive at the prospect of meeting any one of the 2000 soldiers, 15,000 police and 5000 reservists that have been mobilized by the Micheletti regime to ensure “free and fair elections.”

As Honduras lurches towards confrontation between the perpetrators of electoral farce and the people who are demanding that their voices be heard, it seems instructive to revisit the moment that, in many respects, set the scene for the current crisis. Indeed, what is perhaps most striking about the struggle for constitutional reform in 2009 is the similarity it bears to the context that led to the signing of the 1982 constitution that the resistance is seeking to reform.

The 1980s were not a pleasant time in Central America. The revolutionary social movements that had achieved some success in the 60s and 70s were in the process of being ‘rolled back’ by the United States and its local allies in what amounted to a low-intensity war; a truly terrorist campaign that left thousands of bodies in its wake. The political Left in Honduras, perhaps best represented by the National Federation of Honduras Peasants (FENACH), had not been able to achieve the kind of military and political success that characterized the guerillas in Guatemala or the Sandanistas in Nicaragua. As a result, Honduras became a primary base from which the United States launched its campaigns of terror against those neighbouring countries. In addition to the 18 military bases it established and the 10,000 American troops stationed there, the U.S. also provided the Honduran armed forces with over $100 million between 1980-84.

This infusion of money and technical support to the military and business elite reinforced the strength of the oligarchy in Tegucigalpa and led to dramatic increases in poverty,...

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