Consortiumnews
What's at Stake in Honduran Election
December 14, 2017
Protests continue over the disputed Honduran presidential election after a
solid lead by a progressive was wiped out amid gross irregularities and the
right-wing incumbent was declared the winner, reports Rick Sterling.
By Rick Sterling
For seven months in 1969, I hitch-hiked around the U.S., Mexico and Central
America with my best friend from high school. Some class-mates from our
school in Vancouver Canada saved their money then travelled to Europe or
Australia but Ollie and I headed south. It was an eye-opening experience for
two middle-class Canadians.
We had a lot of learning experiences in the U.S., but today I want to talk
about Honduras because it is in crisis as I write this: the Honduran
election took place on Nov. 26 yet the results are still in contention. Will
the current right-wing government manage to retain power?
When we visited the capital Tegucigalpa in 1969 we went to the university
campus to meet and hang out with young Hondurans. They told us about the
recent visit of President Richard Nixon who had taken office a few months
before and then travelled to Latin America. The Vietnam War was still raging
in 1969 and people protested against the war and Nixon wherever he went.
The young Hondurans told us that when Nixon visited Tegucigalpa there had
been a big protest. Several students who had been protesting from the top of
a university building had been shot dead. It made an impression as did the
warm and friendly people we met, some living in shacks along the banks of
the Choluteca River running through the capital.
In Nicaragua, we heard more eye-opening stories from the youth there. They
told us about the Somoza family dictatorship, how corrupt it was, and how
they came to power through U.S. Marines. They also told us about the death
of Cesar Sandino who fought for Nicaraguan independence but was killed by
Somoza's National Guard in 1934. The Nicaraguan youth told us that when the
U.S. asked for proof of Sandino's death, Somoza shipped Sandino's head in a
box to Washington.
Those and many other experiences changed my life. Over the coming decades I
kept an interest in Central America.
In 1979, when Nicaraguans overthrew the Somoza dictatorship, it seemed like
a good thing. But President Ronald Reagan did not like an independent
Nicaragua. Violating international law, the U.S. organized a mercenary army
called the "Contras" to destabilize and upend the Sandinista government. The
mercenaries were trained in Honduras with U.S. funding, supplies and
weapons.
The U.S. Ambassador to Honduras, John Negroponte, oversaw the mercenary army
attacking Nicaragua and the emergence of death squads in El Salvador. Tens
of thousands of peasants and opposition activists were killed with impunity.
In Honduras itself, there was widespread repression and murder of those
challenging the status quo.
In 1998, Honduras was hit by Hurricane Mitch. The second worst Atlantic
hurricane ever recorded caused huge destruction and death, especially in
poor communities with weak infrastructure. The shacks and modest dwellings
along the river bank in Tegucigalpa were all ripped and washed away. Over
7,000 Hondurans died, including people we had met three decades before.
Six years later, in 2004, I was again reminded of the U.S. role in Honduras
when the same John Negroponte who had overseen the Contra operations went to
Baghdad to take over management of the Iraq occupation. Newsweek magazine
said he was coming with a new strategy, which they dubbed the "Salvador
option."
Over the next year, sectarian death squads emerged to provoke sectarian
bloodshed. Negroponte's right-hand man in Iraq, Robert S. Ford, was later
appointed as U.S. Ambassador to Syria in 2010 where he helped fuel the
uprisings in that country. Thus there is direct connection between U.S.
interference and aggression in Central America and the Middle East.
Honduran Control
For decades Honduras was alternately ruled by two political parties
representing different branches of the country's oligarchy. They traded
power back and forth, effectively preventing alternative perspectives.
Former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya.
But things began to change in Honduras in 2006. President Manuel Zelaya came
from the oligarchy but started to initiate changes benefiting the poor. He
called for real land reform, raising the minimum wage and he questioned the
need for US military bases. That was too much. In June 2009, President
Zelaya was kidnapped in the middle of the night and flown from the capital
to the U.S. military air base called Soto Cano, only 48 miles away.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had been in Honduras just weeks before.
She disapproved of Zelaya and his policies. The coup went ahead.
After the 2009 coup, conditions in Honduras deteriorated rapidly.
Tegucigalpa became the homicide capital of the world. Tens of thousands of
youth have fled the country as it has been wracked by drug wars, corruption,
and police or paramilitary repression. Alongside this, there has been
widespread popular resistance.
In 2011, I returned to Honduras to see the conditions first hand. With a
delegation organized by Alliance for Global Justice and Task Force on the
Americas, I visited peasants in the fertile Aguan Valley, indigenous
communities in the mountains and workers and church activists in Tegucigalpa
and San Pedro Sula.
We talked with a hard-working activist named Berta Caceres (who was
assassinated five years later) and others in her indigenous organization
COPINH. We learned that these communities were still actively resisting the
coup and forming a new political party to challenge the right-wing coup
government not with guns but with votes.
Slain Honduran environmental activist Berta Caceres.
In 2013, I returned again to Honduras, this time as an election observer. In
the contest, the new LIBRE party surpassed the traditional Liberal Party and
made a strong challenge to the right-wing National Party. There were many
examples of election malfeasance but Juan Orlando Hernandez of the
right-wing National Party was anointed as the new President.
Since then social and economic conditions have not changed. The Hernandez
regime governs to the benefit of rich Hondurans and international
corporations. He has a strong military alliance with the U.S. military and
is very friendly with President Trump's Chief of Staff, retired Marine Gen.
John Kelly.
Wiping Out a Lead
That has set the stage for the most recent events. Days before the election.
The Economist ran an article describing a National Party training session in
cheating techniques. The election was held on Sunday, Nov. 26. On election
night, with 57 percent of the votes counted, the opposition challenger was
ahead by over 5 percentage points.
Then strange things began to happen. The election commission stopped
updating the vote tally for 36 hours. The head of the Supreme Electoral
Tribunal said on Monday they were still missing 6,000 tally sheets from
different polling places. A few hours later, he said they were missing 7500
tally sheets. When the vote count resumed on Tuesday, the existing President
Hernandez was gaining votes, cutting the opposition lead and then winning.
It all looked very fishy, even to the OAS monitors.
The situation is rapidly coming to a head. Initially, the opposition
demanded a full and complete review of all the 18,000 tally sheets. Now they
are calling for the annulment of the election and a new election under
international supervision.
The Honduran government is either stonewalling or is paralyzed. Hundreds of
thousands of Hondurans have protested in the streets, with at least 12
protesters killed. However in a dramatic change, the elite paramilitary
COBRA security forces have started to refuse orders, saying their job is not
to repress their own communities.
The repercussions of what happens in Honduras could also reach across Latin
America. Just as the 2009 coup in Honduras was a setback for the entire
region, the outcome of the current crisis will have wide-reaching
consequences, too. As reported in Foreign Policy magazine, "The US has a lot
riding on the Honduran election"; the U.S. foreign policy establishment
wants the continuation of the government of Juan Orlando Hernandez.
Despite all the indications of electoral malfeasance and human rights
abuses, the Trump Administration has praised the conservative government.
Meanwhile, some North American reporters, analysts and activists are doing
what they can to support Honduran popular forces and to stop the theft of
the Honduran election.
The coming days may be momentous. I have explained why it personally matters
to me. But this is more important than one person's connection to a country.
It should matter to anyone concerned with progress, justice, respect and
international law. .
Rick Sterling is an investigative journalist and currently president of the
board of Task Force on the Americas. He can be reached at
rsterling1@xxxxxxxxx.