[HNA] updates from QC delegation in Honduras

Sun Nov 29 06:30:25 PST 2009

  For ongoing updates- go to- http://quixote.org/

    QC Delegation - Emergency Alert for Community of Guadalupe Carney

<http://quixote.org/qc-delegation-emergency-alert-community-guadalupe-carney> 
<http://quixote.org/node/6527/devel/render>
  Sat, 11/28/2009 - 10:48pm |
We just received a call from members of the Popular Resistance Front in 
Tocoa, in the department of Colon who are reporting mass millitary and 
police presence in a community called GUADALUPE CARNEY. This is a 
community that experienced repression in August, an organized campesino, 
peasant community that have been threatened since the police arrived to 
have their homes raided. This is just one of several raids that have 
occured today, among the homes of youth and students and a campesino 
organization that were raided, all earlier tody, on the eve of the 
so-called Honduran elections.

    Police and Military Raid COMAL -- alternative marketing network of
    peasant, women's organizations.

<http://quixote.org/police-and-military-raid-comal-%E2%80%93-alternative-marketing-network-peasant-women%E2%80%99s-organizations> 
<http://quixote.org/node/6524/devel/render>
  Sat, 11/28/2009 - 10:32pm |
At 1:40pm today heavily armed members of the national police and 
military raided COMAL (Alternative Community Marketing Network) in 
Siguatepeque, in Comayagua. COMAL is a newtork of 42 small-scale peasant 
and women's organizations from throughout Honduras.  /QC delegation 
members arrived at COMAL while the raid was still underway -- PHOTOS 
coming soon. /

Security forces broke down the doors of COMAL with their guns and 
ransacked the main office in Siguatepeque. The military seized 4 
computers, digital cameras, banners, documents, files, human rights 
reports that COMAL presented to the Inter American Human Rights 
Commission, accounting records and literature about the current 
political crisis and the non-violent resistance movement.

Military and police also raided COMAL's training center, the School for 
Economic Solidarity, breaking down doors and handcuffing the guard who 
was threatened with 10 years in jail if he did not confirm that 
seditious acts were being committed on site.  Computers, the internet 
system and furniture was destroyed in the search for "subversive 
material." The raid continued until after 5:30 pm.

According to Miguel Alonzo de Red Comal, a Public Ministry official 
arrived two hours after the raid to present a warrant, stating that the 
electoral law prohibited the dissemination of the materials that had 
been seized from the offices of COMAL. 

 Quixote Center delegation members arrived at COMAL with human rights 
defenders from COFADEH while the raid was still in progress. Photos will 
be posted asap. COMAL is preparing a full report on the raid for human 
rights organizations,

*
**Quioxte Center Delegation of Honduras Human Rights Observers*
Day 3--November 27
By Larry Kuehn

We arrived in Tocoa after a 10-hour bus trip from Tegucigalpa.  Tocoa is 
the end of the bus line.  Beyond here is the Mosquito Coast, an area of 
the country without road connections to the rest of Honduras.

We were met at the bus station by Amelia Castro.  She had arranged our 
hotel and a ride with a taxi driver who is a supporter of the 
resistance.  The daily radio show from the resistance was playing as he 
drove us to the hotel.

When we gathered after checking in, Amelia said she would like to know 
more about us.  She had been called at the last minute by a friend who 
was supposed to meet with us.  However, the woman had left town, going 
to ground because of fears of what was going to happen to her.  This 
became a theme for everyone from the resistance we talked with after that.

After we told her about ourselves, Amelia seemed much more comfortable 
with us.  She told us that this area is the least peaceful place in 
Honduras and that it was necessary to be cautious.

This region is far from the media and things can happen without them 
every being reported.  It is important to have the word of the situation 
spread both to the national and international media and she hoped that 
we would be able to do that.

She told us that security is a problem all the time.  It is a drug 
traffic corridor because of the sea being close. It is a transfer place 
from Colombia and has also made drugs very available to create users 
here.  Some of the politicians are financed by drug dealers, she is 
convinced.

The focus of the resistance here has been on the "fourth ballot."  This 
is shorthand for wanting a constituent assembly to produce a new 
constitution.  It is the fourth ballot because currently the system has 
three ballots--for president, for deputy and for the city mayor. 
 Ballots go in the appropriate box for that office.  This demand would 
have another ballot that would be, in essence, a referendum on whether 
there should be a new constitution.

The resistance in this area is very strong in seeing that this the 
objective, and that it will continue as the key objective whatever the 
outcome of the election or what happens with President Zelaya.  

The mayors in this region had been outspoken in support of the 
resistance. However, when a decision was made that candidates supporting 
the resistance should drop out, that did not happen.  Elsewhere in the 
country, candidates from many parties are withdrawing, but the mayor of 
Tocoa decided to stay in the race.

Mayor Adam Fundes has been one of the national coordinators of the 
resistance.  Now he has gone to the Liberal party asking to be taken 
back and apologized for supporting the resistance. Amelia said this was 
big news, being reported in the national press and CCN Espanol, claiming 
that this was a significant break of the resistance.

She told us that this has not discouraged the resistance, but has ruined 
his reputation.  He had political influence beyond the region and a 
possible national position.  The only good thing to come from this, she 
said, was taking the blinders off to see where people really stand.

Amelia described the local area as diverse both in population and 
organizations.  A portion of the population are African-Hondurans, 
descended from Africans being brought over to be slaves on the Caribbean 
islands, but whose ships were destroyed and they landed on the east 
coast of Central America.  A significant black population lives on the 
coast of Nicaragua and Costa Rica, as well as Honduras.  Several 
indigenous groups live here, as well as those from Spanish background. 
 The campesinos in the rural areas are particularly well organized and 
that is the most likely place for violent repression.

A climate of fear has been created.  The military are showing up at the 
homes of activists in the resistance and sometimes searching the house. 
 They believe that there are undercover people infiltrating.  Across 
from the bus station where we arrived, she pointed out satellite 
equipment that had not been there before.

Amelia said that people had been watching her house and that a number of 
vehicles have shown up in town without license plates. The speculation 
is they may be paramilitary mercenaries who have been brought in from 
Colombia--people with experience in killing and disappearances.

In addition to possible repression of resistance supporters, the 
partisan competition between the National Party and the Liberal Party, 
the largest political parties, could set off conflict as well.

Amelia herself was planning to find someplace to be away from her home 
on Sunday, as will many of the activists in the resistance.

When we asked her why she was involved in the resistance, she told us 
that she was acting as a citizen who believes in a better Honduras.

Before leaving us, she made arrangements for two resistance leaders to 
talk to us the next day and to make decisions about what we would be 
doing on Sunday.  And she told us where to find places to eat where the 
 people running the restaurants are sympathetic to the resistance.

    Reflections from QC Delegation - by Lisa Sullivan/SOAW

<http://quixote.org/reflections-qc-delegation-lisa-sullivansoa> 
<http://quixote.org/node/6519/devel/render>
  Fri, 11/27/2009 - 11:26pm 

I´m here with the Quixote Center delegation that has gathered 19 
fabulous folks from around the US and Canada. Yesterday we met with many 
key leaders of the resistance movement - their leader Carlos H Reyes, 
lawyers, teachers, feminists and journalists. It was a crash course in 
what life and resistance for 5 months under a repressive regime looks 
like. We squeezed in back-to-back meetings from morning to night, before 
the leaders set off for their places of hiding for the upcoming ¨"event" 
on Sunday, refusing to use the word "elections".

The face and body of Carlos H. spoke as clearly as his words. The last 
time I saw him, just days after the coup, we were marching on the 
streets of Tegucigalpa, in the company of thousands. He was vibrant, 
energetic, robust and hopeful. Yesterday his face was drawn and his 
right hand limp, broken in an encounter with police. But his words were 
intact. In spite of the repression, the loss of lives, the months on the 
street, the threats, the dismal position of the U.S., he was clear that 
this journey  that the Honduran people have embarked upon - towards a 
Constitutional Assembly,  is unstoppable.

This morning I awoke to a call from Bertha Oliva, who seems to never 
sleep. A leader of one of the feminist resistance groups had been 
detained last night, and could I please try to find a way to visit her. 
A few hours later a sympathetic jail worker whisked me in while the 
obstinant police took a break. I made to the back of a crumbing city 
jail, past through stench and cold cement walls to the cell that held 
Merly Eguigure. She reached out through the bars with a smile that 
contrasted with her red eyes. Without knowing me, she held on tightly, 
and kept holding on as I told her that the streets were filled with 
women from her group who were refusing to budge. Her crime: a can of 
spray paint in her car, her charge: damage against government property, 
even though the spray paint was yet untouched.

It seems to be an effort to silence the only space left for the Honduran 
people. The walls. Among the hundreds of graffiti that cover every bare 
wall in town, yesterday I read this one: "las paredes son los medios del 
pueblo". The walls are the media of the people.  Given that the only tv 
and radio stations who have publically opposed the coup have been 
constantly shut down and damaged, a can of spray paint is a powerful 
form of expression.

Yesterday, we gathered with Bertha at the office of COFADEH. The many 
meetings I have previously had with Bertha took place upstairs, 
surrounded by photos of those who disappeared during the military 
dictatorships of the 1980´s. This time we were downstairs, surrounded by 
large posters of some of those who had been recently murdered by the 
coup regime.  Someone in the delegation asked Bertha to describe one of 
the victims, what had happened. She told us about Isis Obed Murillo, 19 
years old. He was killed when hundreds of thousands of Honduras gathered 
at the airport to receive President Zelaya,and the army turned their 
guns on the crowd.  But Bertha couldn´t stop at the story of Isis, and 
went from photo to photo, and story to story, as though it were a 
gallery of family photos. She suddenly stopped, and said, almost to 
herself:. "You know what´s strange", she said. " We need a whole new 
room just to display these photos".

As she ended her conversation, she turned a moment to the group and 
said, "if you really want to help, you can do something. There are 
hundreds of resistance leaders who fear for their lives. If each group 
took some of their names and made them public and shared their concern 
for their lives, maybe, it might prevent another tragedy.

Less than a week ago I processed with Bertha at the gates of Ft. 
Benning. When the name of her disappeared husband Tomás was called out, 
she almost crumpled. But just for a moment, and then she continued 
forward. I thought about the energy we put into remembering these lost 
lives, and wondered for a minute how we could put that energy into 
preventing more names to be read out. It´s not an easy question. I don´t 
really have the answer.

Best to all, abrazos, Lisa

    QC Delegation Report from Tocoa, Nov. 27, 2009

<http://quixote.org/qc-delegation-report-tocoa-nov-27-2009> 
<http://quixote.org/node/6528/devel/render>
  Fri, 11/27/2009 - 11:26pm |
We arrived in Tocoa after a 10-hour bus trip from Tegucigalpa.  Tocoa is 
the end of the bus line.  Beyond here is the Mosquito Coast, an area of 
the country without road connections to the rest of Honduras.