honduras - where are the people?

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 million voted. By a manipulation of how many people are considered ‘eligible’ to vote, the golpistas have claimed that there was a 60% turnout (Fox News in the United States, in a comical display of disregard for anything resembling truth, is reporting 70%. Not even the golpistas in Honduras have claimed anything so stupid.) Pepe is to be sworn into ‘office’ on January 27th, but even the notion that he is being sworn into something is absurd – the coup on June 28th marked the end of constitutional order and rule of law in this country.

But no matter how the golpistas and their North American allies spin this, Nov. 29th was a small victory for the Resistencia, in that the massive rejection of the election spoke eloquently to the support behind the movement. I was back in the capital on Nov. 30th, and I attended an assembly at the STIBYS union hall in Tegucigalpa, where members of the Frente gave a press conference responding to the pantomime elections, followed by a massive rally and a caravan through the city. After five months of almost-daily protest, people still found the energy to take to the streets; thousands of Hondurans cheering, singing, waving flags, honking horns and - in what may yet become the most poignant symbol of the movement – waving their un-inked pinky fingers high to show that they had not voted.

Manuel Zelaya spoke to the assembly as Juan Barona held a microphone up to his cell phone. But Zelaya is overshadowed by what he represents. Zelaya, himself a junior member of the oligarchy gone rogue, is only a figure who has opened the floodgates of popular resistance in Honduras. “Where are the people?” asks Rafeal Alegria. “The people are in the streets, demanding their freedom!” comes the reply. When it comes from thousands of enthusiastic people, in a crowded union hall, in direct defiance of the state, the sound is truly electrifying.

As we paraded through the streets of Tegucigalpa, it became clear that this was not, as the coup regime keeps saying, a movement of a few thousand Melistas. In nieghbourhood after neighbourhood, people streamed into the streets to greet the caravan, cheering and waving their un-inked fingers. Riding on the back of a falling apart pickup truck through the barrios and colinias, I felt like I was bringing home the Stanley Cup. In a way, I was; riding shotgun in our truck was Bertha Oliva, the founder and director of COFADEH, a human rights group that has been at the center of the struggle against oppression for the last 27 years.

When we finally arrive at our destination, the Brazilian embassy, the police line has already formed. Over the next couple of hours, thousands of Hondurans filled the spaces between the banks and the Burger King, while more and more police and soldiers arrive on the scene. The protest is peaceful, as usual. The police didn’t fire tear gas at this gathering, the way they did in San Pedro Sula the day before, but they made a point of loading up the cannons and aiming them at the crowd. Even with my ‘international observer’ badge displayed prominently, I found my video camera staring into the barrel of a water cannon that had been adjusted to set its sight on me, and felt my heart start racing at the idea that they might actually fire. And that was only a water cannon.

I didn’t get hammered with water, no one was hurt, the protest was slowly disbanded on its own initiative. But the scene was both intimidating and inspiring, and it made me wonder what would have happened if there hadn’t been such a huge presence of international press, with cameras and notebooks at the ready. That presence is leaving, to most people, the story is over. I worry about what will happen now, when the world turns its back on Honduras and the golpistas are given a free hand to terrorize their opponents – the people – as they see fit.

“We will keep fighting for the constituyente,” announces Carlos H. Reyes, an independent candidate who has withdrawn from the elections in protest weeks earlier. “People keep saying the election in the solution to our crisis, that there is no alternative to move forward in Honduras. Of course there is an alternative, there has always been an alternative. We want the constituyente, like we’ve been saying for years. We want to write our own laws. We don’t want the golpe laws, we don’t want Facusse’s laws, we want the people’s laws.” The crowd erupts, un-inked fingers point to the sky, a ‘no vote’ chant builds up, and a small man in a crisp white shirt idles up beside me. “I’m Donzalo Rosales, I teach at the autonomous university. I see you are taking notes, so you must be a writer. I’m a writer too. Someday, I will write a book about our struggle, you see, it is not over. You see that, don’t you? I think you see that. This is only the beginning. I will write the book and it will have a great ending, where the people will finally have the power in our state. I hope you will read it when it is finished.”

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Tyler Shipley (Tyler Shipley)
Toronto
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