Photo by Nevena Deligineva.
This summer, in the first military coup in Central America in a quarter of a century, Honduras abruptly changed leadership— literally overnight.
On the morning of Sunday, June 28, 2009, elected president Manuel Zelaya was removed from his home by members of the Honduran army. Zelaya was not served with any impeaching documents or evidence, and was not given time to change out of his pajamas before being deported to Costa Rica, guest speakers at the college reported.
The Common Hour on Friday October 2, entitled “Militarization and Resistance: the Amazing Struggle for Democracy in Honduras and Why We Should Care,” featured two former Connecticut residents who now work for a non-government organization in Honduras.
Sydney Frey and Patty Adams, working with the Quixote Center and the Hemispheric Social Alliance, spoke about life under the Honduran coup regime, the goals of the grassroots social movements, and what U.S. citizens and other internationals can do to support Hondurans’ struggle for democracy.
The new government has stated that Zelaya intended to violate the constitution by extending the term limit for presidents. President Obama and other leaders in the hemisphere have insisted that Zelaya be returned to office. The United States, the European Union, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have all suspended aid to Honduras in protest.
Over ninety days have gone by since the coup, and Honduras has experienced riots on a daily basis. Frey and Adams’ work has kept them mainly in the capitol city of Tegucigalpa, where the largest resistance to the coup government has been organized. Nationwide demonstrations have also taken place, the women said.
They showed pictures of the marches, which are nonviolent, as well as images of protestors who have received heavy beatings by riot police. Several deaths have also occurred from the use of tear gas by military police on crowds.
Adams and Frey discussed the challenges to democracy through state control of the media: after Zelaya returned to Honduras, taking refuge in the Brazilian Embassy in the capitol, the majority of radio stations reported that it was not Zelaya who was in Tegucigalpa, but in fact, a famous actor impersonating him. At that time, footage of Zelaya speaking to audiences was already circulating among the international press.
Roberto Micheletti is the leader of the current government, considered by some to be implementers of an elitist coup, and as an interim constitutional body by others. The international community, Adams said, has already stated its stance on elections that Micheletti says will be held soon: they will not consider results valid without non-Honduran participation in vote collection and counting.
Many of the military officials keeping the Micheletti government in place were trained at the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia. The mercenary facility has since changed its name to the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.
The women speculated that June 28 was chosen as the takeover date because a nonbinding survey of Hondurans regarding making changes to the constitution was to take place that day. “There had been a lot of excitement among the grassroots groups,” said Frey, over the potential for adopting new standards for the state.
“No one is saying Zelaya was an ideal president- in fact, many of the lawyers, teachers and other groups now advocating for him were protesting Zelaya before the coup- but the point is, he was democratically elected.”
The organization for which the speakers work, the Quixote Center, can provide more information.
