and it confirms my suspicions that one of the objects both of these four months of repression, and of holding elections, as scheduled, four weeks from now (with Zelaya not even assured of restoration yet), has been to prevent leftist organizing and campaign in the election.
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Despite the Agreement’s prohibition on calls for a National Constituent Assembly, the Resistance Front continues to move forward educating their base about what constitutional reform would look like. On Sunday, a large training was organized titled: “Paths of Latin American Peoples on the roads to Constituent Assemblies.” There is a firm commitment to the need for this path, as the only real vehicle for meaningful change.
The major outstanding question is that of elections. Many ask if the true will of the people of Honduras can be expressed by conducting elections in less than four weeks, in a context where civil liberties are virtually non-existent and widespread repression by the military and the police continues unabated. The question regarding the viability of elections was not addressed in the communication issued by the National Front on Friday. It remains unclear what their position will be.
What is clear is that the U.S. decided it was imperative that the upcoming elections be legitimated. Until Friday’s Agreement, the nearly unanimous international consensus was that elections conducted by an illegitimate government should be rejected.
To avoid this scenario, the U.S. exerted major muscle against the recalcitrant Micheletti, to produce an agreement which ostensibly opens the way for Zelaya’s return to the Presidency, albeit in the context of a ‘National Unity and Reconciliation Government”. If after consulting with the Supreme Court, the Honduran Congress does, reinstate Zelaya as President, it will be an admission that their previous actions were illegal and will constitute a reversal of the coup which they had previously endorsed. This is a small triumph for democracy. But this is where the positive aspects of the Agreement end.
The U.S. is now involved in a ‘full court press’ to assure international recognition of upcoming elections, despite of a total lack of conditions in Honduras for holding elections. Due to the un-clarity of the Agreement, it is difficult to predict when Zelaya might actually be reinstated and Constitutional order restored. There are two alternative candidates for President, both of whom have been subjected to extensive persecution due to their pro-active resistance to the coup. The independent candidate, Carlos H. Reyes, has spent part of the last four months in hiding, due to death threats. He was viciously attacked at a protest three months ago requiring along hospitalization and is still undergoing therapy for his mutilated wrist.
If the alternative candidates were able to put forward a unity ticket, they could mount a substantial challenge to the two traditional parties. However, neither of these candidates has spent the last months campaigning due to targeted political persecution and restrictions on individual rights that have made campaigning essentially illegal. An estimated 26,000 poll workers are needed in order (to) minimally guarantee fraud free counting and tabulation at each polling place. It seems unlikely that a structure like this can be put into place on such a short time frame, in a context where widespread repression of opposition continues.
On the very day that the Agreement for National Reconciliation was reached, there were three massive attacks by police and army against unarmed protesters in different locations in Tegucigalpa. A march to the Marriott Hotel, where negotiations were taking place, was brutally attacked despite the fact that organizers had a permit. The third attack was staged at night, after the Agreement had been announced, in one of the barrios where ‘pot banging’ protests continue in defiance of the repression. The Agreement puts the same army, which has exhibited persistent brutality during the coup regime “at the disposition of the Supreme Electoral Council.” The question is, will the army be used to protect the right to vote for everyone, or to repress the resistance movement?
As the resistance movement in Honduras celebrates the victory of turning around the coup, they are also grappling with the complex implications this new context brings. The obvious danger is that elections under these circumstances could enshrine the current power structure and repressive apparatus with a sheen of legitimacy that would never had been possible with Micheletti.Tom Loudon
http://www.quixote.org/triumph-democracy-honduras-------
A most undemocratic--one could even say anti-democratic--election is about to take place. This is the perfection of the "two-party system" in which both parties represent the moneyed class, and anyone else does not just have difficulty competing--for lack of money, lack of media exposure, etc.--but are completely repressed and denied all civil rights. It is difficult enough to call our stifling system democratic, but this thing that is about to happen in Honduras is even worse: it is an all-out farce.
It should have been postponed for four months, while Zelaya got his full term restored (the four months they robbed him of). The process should have been restarted at the candidate nomination stage. And HUMAN RIGHTS monitors should have been put in place, all over Honduras, during that four-month period, to insure full restoration of civil rights and the fully restored functioning of all broadcast media.
Without human and civil rights, without a free press, and after four months of brutal repression, how can anyone say that whoever wins this election was freely chosen by the people?
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