In An Atmosphere of Repression... "What Elections?"

[Judi Lynn]

In An Atmosphere of Repression... "What Elections?"
Sun, 11/22/2009 - 3:19pm | sydneyf
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Day 148

Today at the Popular Resistance Front assembly, community leaders from around Tegucigalpa reiterated that they will not participate in next Sunday’s elections, leading rallying cries against the election, and in favor of a constitutional assembly: “elecciones no; constituyente si.”

As electoral propaganda touting Liberal and National party candidates litters Tegucigalpa, members of the resistance continue to articulate that to participate in these elections would only legitimate the coup d’état that took place in Honduras nearly five months ago. They continue to assert that any elections held by the illegitimate de facto regime are null and void, and that they will neither participate in them nor recognize the results. And they continue to state unequivocally that resisting false gestures of democracy made by a repressive and illegal government is, for them, a matter of dignity. “Dignidad, dignidad,” chanted those gathered at the assembly; and a handful cried out “What elections??”

The atmosphere in Tegucigalpa is growing increasingly tense, as people expect heavy police and military repression next weekend. At the resistance assembly today, resistance leader Juan Barahona reiterated the movement’s peaceful nature: “No one here is struggling to die,” he said, “but struggling to live. This struggle is peaceful; we don’t want confrontation with anyone.” Referring to rumors that the military is planning large-scale violence, he said “the plan of a massacre is their plan, not ours.”

Barahona advised members of the resistance to stay home next Sunday, election day, for their own safety. “We won’t make it easy for them,” he said. “If they want to kill us, they’ll have to do it in our own homes.”

These expectations of large-scale repression and warnings to stay safe at home are symptoms of just how un-democratic this electoral process is. In what democratic country does election time require a health-care-provider alert, with all medical personnel on call? Yet the United States has affirmed that it will recognize this political charade as a legitimate electoral process, despite the utter lack of “free and fair” conditions.

http://www.quixote.org/blog/atmosphere-repression-what-elections-0

[Judi Lynn]

1. HONDURAS – COFADEH: “De Facto Government Preparing Repression in Run-up to Elections”

DE FACTO GOVERNMENT PREPARES REPRESSION IN ELECTION BUILD UP

The Committee of Family Members of the Detained and Disappeared in Honduras (COFADEH), to the national and international community expresses its worry about the deterioration of the human rights situation in Honduras that deepens day by day and takes on new forms.

The new wave of death threats, political persecution, illegal detention, torture, militarization of some areas of the main cities and incursion of cars without license plates with tinted windows driven by heavily armed people with their faces covered by masks into neighborhoods identified with the Resistance Against the Coup that have been declared free of political propaganda, adds to it the obtaining of information about leaders of the resistance ordered by the military and politicians.

The environment of repression and uncertainty, which is re-enforced with the order given the 16th of November, 2009 by the Sub-secretary of Service Networks of the Ministry of Public Health which orders the preparation of a CONTINGENCY PLAN to cover health services 24 hours a day from the 19th of November to the 4th of December, 2009. Along with order No. 1055-09-SSRDS, the Plan should include a halt on anticipated appointments without putting the health of patients at risk, reprogramming of selective surgeries scheduled for those dates and dealing with the shortage of medicines and medical supplies for the plan.

These measures appear to be related to the carrying out of the illegitimate electoral process on November 29th, structured abnormally reflected in the militarization and para-militarization expressed in the incorporation of the military reserves to support the Armed Forces in watching over the electoral sites which already included 16,000 military troops and 14,000 police agents.

In the western departments of the country the army reservists are distributing fliers to intimidate the population in resistance, in which they call members of the resistance irrational criminals and calling marches and sit-ins inhuman and not appropriate for civilized people, like what the communists did in the eighties.

Military control progresses and consolidates, despite and while the jester face of the coup powers announces a strategic break from the 25th of November to the 2nd of December. The security forces are equipping themselves with new repressive tools, a completely armored vehicle has been incorporated into the Secretary of Security to disperse protests, the riot police unit is equipped with video cameras and a high capacity water cannon, in addition to a mechanism to leave whoever gets hit by the water marked for 48 hours. While the Armed Forces have initiated selective registration of people in highways around the country, at the same time we are seeing the incursion of airships in the departments of the Atlantic zone of Honduras.

COFADEH expresses to the structures of Protection of Human Rights and to the international community its worry for the security of the social activists who struggle for the re-establishment of the democratic order.

COFADEH asks the International Community to stay alert about the human rights and demand that the Honduran State guarantee the life and integrity of the Honduran population and foreign residents of the country.

We don’t forget the Acts or the Actors. Neither Forget nor Forgive.

Committee of Family Members of the Detained and Disappeared in Honduras (COFADEH)
Tegucigalpa, Honduras November 21st, 2009.

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