Out of the Past, a New Honduran Culture of Resistance

NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS update Out of the Past, a New Honduran Culture of Resistance On February 27, activists from the Honduran resistance unveiled a plaque reasserting the original name of a street in San Pedro Sula that had been renamed for coup leader Roberto Micheletti. A quote from Marx reminds us to remember history as we struggle in the present to make a new future. By Dana Frank Dana Frank OUR DAYS AFTER ROBERTO MICHELETTI TOOK unveiled a new, entirely official-looking metal teaches history at over Honduras in the June 28, 2009, mili- plaque. Mounted in concrete in a big monument the University of tary coup, he appointed his own nephew on the boulevard, the plaque acknowledges Agui- California, Santa F mayor of the country’s second-largest city, San luz’s labor as a teacher and inscribes a quote from Cruz, and is the Pedro Sula. His nephew in turn dedicated one of “Carlos Marx” reminding us to remember history author, among other books, of Bananeras: the city’s major boulevards to Micheletti as a little as we struggle in the present to make a new fu- Women Transform- gift. Since the 1970s the road had been popularly ture. At the bottom, just as on a proper plaque, ing the Banana named after Rodolfo Aguiluz Berlioz, a university curves the name of deposed president Manuel Unions of Latin professor who identified with progressive causes. Zelaya; below it, “Presidente Constitutional de America (South End OSELSOBERANO.COM In mid-February, the plaque naming Bulevar Honduras, 2006–2010,” as if he’d never been V Press, 2005). She is writing a book on Micheletti was mysteriously destroyed. On Feb- deposed and finished his entire term. “FNRP” ap- the AFL-CIO’s Cold ruary 27, activists from the National Front for pears in the bottom right corner.1 War intervention in Popular Resistance (FNRP), popularly known as With its in-your-face defiance and wonderful OBERANO / S the Honduran labor the Frente, held a formal ceremony replete with creativity, the plaque epitomizes today’s daring movement. red and black flags, speeches, and music, and culture of the Honduran resistance. A new Hon- EL VOS 6 MAY/JUNE 2010 update duras has been born since the coup, indeed, there’s a strong internal com- cision to remain nonviolent a week af- full of pride, determination, and hope, mitment to avoiding overt sectarian ter the coup, it has been more an act of surprising observers both inside and politics. Perhaps most importantly, collective will, enacted from below— outside the country. As the Frente’s women are front and center, not just part conscious eschewal of armed careful attention to the plaque under- as office workers and cooks and the struggle, part sense that the resistance scores, activists in the resistance have majority of demonstrators, but as an is outnumbered, and part strategic use a clear sense of the importance of his- organized constituency with its own of the Gandhian tactic of exposing the torical memory to their struggle in the demands. Many of the top resistance regime’s brutality, thus raising their present. At the same time, they also leaders are women, like Berta Cáceres own moral stature before the public. set the plaque in concrete very con- of the Civic Council of Popular and In understanding the Honduran re- sciously for the future, so that genera- Indigenous Organizations of Hon- sistance, it’s important to distinguish tions to come will know exactly who duras (COPINH), Berta Oliva of the between the Frente, the institutional built their country. The resistance it- Committee of Family Members of the coordinating body, and the much self, moreover, for all its startling new- Disappeared and Detained in Hondu- larger category of all the people who ness, didn’t spring out of nowhere. ras (COFADEH), and Miriam Miranda opposed the coup and want to refor- of the Black Fraternal Organization mulate Honduran society from below. HAT IS THIS NEW CREATURE , of Honduras (OFRANEH). In con- This broader umbrella includes several the Honduran resistance? trast to the patronizing, “women are key constituencies: first, the tens of W The resistance unites a militant and can hold a gun just like thousands of members of the Liberal great array of constituencies in what a man” rhetoric in Nicaragua and El Party loyal to Zelaya and horrified at they refer to as their “broad move- Salvador during the 1980s, women what Micheletti, Zelaya’s Liberal rival, ment” (movimiento amplio). The Frente themselves, of all classes, ethnic back- wrought with the coup. Recipients of emerged in Tegucigalpa during the first grounds, and occupations, are defin- patronage jobs, rank-and-file loyalists, week after the coup. It is distinctive in ing the collective terms on which they and recently deposed office holders, being a representative body to which join the movement.2 Zelayistas are enthusiastic members of discrete organizations send delegates. Most astonishing is the real inclu- the resistance, but in some cases edgy Its institutional backbone is the labor sion of gay and lesbian representatives about joining the more left-allied Fr- movement— especially the teachers, at the very top of the Frente. Walter ente. Their default setting for the fu- public-sector workers, banana work- Trochez, a top GLBT leader who was ture, moreover, could be a revitalized ers, and bottling-plant workers—but killed on December 13, has been em- patronage machine that delivers little equally important are social move- braced as one of the most prominent to the mass of Honduran people. ments from a range of sectors: the martyrs of the resistance, for example. The second of these constituencies women’s movement; gay, lesbian, bi- Land rights are also central to the de- is the leftist UD. Its electoral base is sexual, and transgender (GLBT) peo- mands of the resistance, uniting the overwhelmingly loyal to the Frente, ple; indigenous and Afro-indigenous concerns of campesinos, coordinated but the party’s two top leaders, Carlos peoples; human rights groups; and nationally through Vía Campesina Ham and Marvin Ponce, sold out to the campesino movement, which is and other networks; indigenous peo- the new government of Porfirio Lobo closely intertwined with environ- ples like the Lenca and the Pech; and to serve as director of the National mental activism. The Frente has also the Afro-indigenous Garifuna people, Agrarian Institute and vice president divided the country up into regions, whose traditional fishing villages along of Congress, respectively. The third each of which sends delegates to the the Atlantic coast are threatened by and largest of these constituencies, national coordinating committee. land developers from the oligarchy. and more amorphous, is the mass of From a Latin American perspective, The other innovation has been the individuals, especially the very poor the Honduran resistance is historical- movement’s remarkable nonviolence. in the urban barrios, who opposed the ly new on many fronts. It’s not, for ex- Although the pro-coup media have coup but who can lack a stable, orga- ample, the product of a center-left or managed to find one or two rocks nized relationship to the Frente. left electoral party, although members thrown through windows, the resis- The most surprising aspect of the of the small Democratic Unification tance has defined itself as amovimiento resistance, of course, is that all this (UD) party are part of it. Nor is it or- pacífico. While the Frente’s coordinat- came together in Honduras—which ganized by a Marxist-Leninist party— ing committee officially ratified the de- has had the unfortunate reputation 7 NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS update of being one of the least politicized The country’s alternative media are the coup in its first week, but many countries in Latin America. During central to this new culture, especially Jesuits and other progressive Catho- the 1970s and 1980s, Honduras didn’t the radio. People enthusiastically lis- lics have been in the forefront of the produce large guerrilla movements on ten to and call into local opposition resistance. Attendance at mass in the the left as did its neighbors El Salvador, radio stations throughout the country; capital is down, suggesting defections Guatemala, and Nicaragua. Instead, it they learn new songs, hear and report at the base by critics of the cardinal’s served as the “USS Honduras,” the base breaking news from all over; and de- position. The top evangelical Prot- for the Reagan administration’s Contra velop their critical thinking about the estant leadership also supported the war against the Nicaraguan mainstream media’s lies. coup, with a few exceptions; its base, Sandinistas, although it The resistance The landscape of daily life though, is of many views. did produce a small armed came together is full of aural and visual The ethnic dynamics of the “we” left. But the country’s im- clues: not just the radio sta- are also complex. Many Hondurans poverished general popu- in Honduras, tion a given store owner, on the left are quick to underscore lation of almost 8 million which has had cab driver, or street vendor that the oligarchs who perpetrated has remained largely in the the reputation of is listening to, but stick- the coup and who control most of ideological thrall of a few ers people have over their the country’s wealth are of Palestin- oligarchic families, locked being one of the front doors that read, for ian descent, known popularly as los into a two-party patronage least politicized example, “We Listen to Ra- turcos, and not, in their view, Hon- system without a viable left dio Progreso Here,” or the duran; hence the widely seen graffiti or center-left electoral party.

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