Understanding Honduras

* Manuel Zelaya, marching for his referendum, via Reflector.

What's going on in Honduras? Is the situation merely another living chapter in the eternal melodrama that is Latin American politics, as people like Francisco Goldman, Alvaro Mutis, Roberto Bolaño, and Gabriel García Marquez have all so eloquently captured? On the one hand you have a military coup and crackdowns on civil liberties, on the other you have an ousted president who wanted to re-do the Honduran constitution so he could stay in power longer -- and we all know how that can turn out.

Is this struggle any more urgent because it is playing out in Central America, a region that remains deeply traumatized by a history of U.S.-backed interventions? Nefertiti Altan, currently with the School of the Americas Watch in Caracas, writes me:

The school is directly linked to the current coup in Honduras, as the head commander of the Army, Romeo Vasquez, and Air Force commander Luis Javier Prince Suazo were both graduates of the school. They are currently ordering their troops to forcefully recruit young men into the army, attack peaceful protesters, kidnap and detain social movement leaders and to protect pro-coup media corporations.

You can email her for more info. In the New York Times on Tuesday, a newspaper columnist writes about the indifferent attitude to the conflict among most Hondurans:

And Mr. Zelaya, in many ways, is a typical Honduran politician. He began his four-year term in January 2006, and by mid-2008, the idea of a second term was already in the air, even though it is forbidden by the Constitution. Since its independence from Spain in 1821, Honduras has had 16 constitutions, as these documents were vulnerable to leaders' desire to extend their stay in office. The current constitution, which came into effect in 1982 after many years of military rule, was written to forever protect the country against presidents' overstaying their welcome.

The two sides have agreed to at least hold talks, and they're doing so in Costa Rica at this very moment. Here, Will Grant for the BBC delves into the relationship between Zelaya and Hugo Chavez. I've also gone to Roberto Lovato's Of America, BBC Mundo, El Heraldo in Honduras, and from Venezuela, Aporrea and Telesur.

The best analysis on the Honduras story I've seen so far, though, is by Kevin Coleman at GMU's History News Network, via a friend's Facebook feed:

In the magical realism of Honduran politics, the past comes back to repeat itself as farce. On Monday June 29, in a replay of the military raids on the Jesuit radio station El Progreso of the 1960s and 1970s (the Jesuits committed the grave error of walking with the poor rather than serving as mere instruments of the rich), the Jesuits' progressive radio broadcasts were abruptly pulled off the air at four in the morning. On Sunday evening at 6 PM, just an hour after the coup government's curfew began, a military contingent broke into Radio Progreso's headquarters. With fury and guns pointed, they shouted, "We've come to close down this piece of shit!" One broadcaster had locked himself in to keep broadcasting throughout the night. Shortly after, another military convoy stopped outside Radio Progreso. A group of soldiers approached the radio station’s guard and asked him if there were any people still working inside. When the guard said no, the soldier in charge told him, "If we find someone inside, you will regret it."

Read the whole thing. Zelaya sounds like a perfectly erratic anti-hero.

In closing, let's honor the citizen victims. At least one child was killed during the unrest at Sunday's dramatic airport aborted landing move. Lovato has the chilling "Our Neda" photo.

Comments

[!anon]

i dont know what i think the golpe, but i cant stand his country. even though honduras was the first spot i ever really visited on my own in latin america. there is something more horribly depressing about the feeling in the air and the way people look at their lives and how they treat you, more than anywhere else in the region, at least thats how it felt to me in the 14-plus months i lived there. every time id have to cut through honduras to get to san salvador or managua, id kind of cringe the whole way and hope people werent too mean to me or that i wouldnt get robbed.

[Daniel Hernandez]

... Ouch.

[Daniel Hernandez]

Let me add this powerful post from El blogging continua:

http://ajtun.wordpress.com/2009/07/07/feminist-voices-from-honduras/

"Military dictatorships and violence just doesnt rub off well on me. Mainly because it is women who have to carry the burden of violence when we are raped, our partners disappear, and our children are tortured and thrown in ditches."