What does "culture" mean to the de facto regime?

Having rid herself of the burden of having internationally renowned scholars and writers as directors of the institutions that make up the core of the Ministry of Culture, Mirna Castro is now at liberty to show her critics what she thinks the mission of the Ministry of Culture, Arts, and Sports should be.

Selected by the regime of Roberto Micheletti to try to fill the shoes of Honduran historian and Minister of Culture Rodolfo Pastor Fasquelle, Castro has been roundly criticized by Honduran artists and intellectuals for her denunciation of book distribution to the indigenous, african-descendant, and rural people of the country, who she described as "vulnerable" to dangerous ideas. She has been the subject of parody, including a campaign to donate books for her education-- a solicitation specifying children's books as appropriate for her assumed ignorance.

It may be that the cutting treatment she has received from the writers and artists of Honduras is unfair. Perhaps she is secretly an intellectual. But her own words make clear that she misunderstands the mission of the ministry over which she currently holds sway; and her recent actions surpass any parody that the most creative Honduran writers could invent.

In an article published in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Ms. Castro argued that her internationally condemned dismissal of Honduran historian, Dr. Darío Euraque, was justified:

He was indifferent [to Copan], and due to the economic crisis, tourism started to decline... It was his job to manage, and he wasn't fulfilling his job. [emphasis added]

Dr. Euraque is the legally appointed Director of the Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History. That is a scholarly institute whose mission, defined in its original founding law in 1952, was "the exploration, restoration, conservation and vigilance of archaeological monuments, the improvement of the organization and administration of museums, the study of history, etc." [Founding decree of IHAH, Acuerdo 245, July 22, 1952].

The mission of the IHAH was further defined in the Ley Organica del IHAH, Decreto 118 of 1968:

Article 5: The Institute has as its goal the defense, exploration, conservation, restoration, repair, recovery, growth, and scientific investigation of the archaeological, anthropological, historic and artistic treasures of the nation, as well as places of natural beauty and typical places.

In 1997, Decreto 220-97 restated the same mission of defense, rescue, restoration, protection, investigation, sharing of information, growth and transmission to future generations of what now is officially the Cultural Patrimony of the Nation.

The development of tourism, not mentioned in the 1997 Law, is the work of the aptly named Honduran Institute of Tourism (IHT), part of an entirely different ministry.

IHAH's job was and is to encourage the development of knowledge about the Cultural Patrimony, and its preservation.

Which brings us to Ms. Castro's current program of cultural activities, using the museums administered by IHAH and the budget of which she has systematically deprived existing programs of research, publication, and development of museums, to creatively expand the legal definition of culture to activities with which she is more comfortable.

It's Fashion Week in Honduras! and the Ministry of Culture is one of the patrons, to the tune of 100,000 lempiras, as reported in the social pages of pro-coup newspapers and the website Vos el Soberano.

Ms. Castro has been quoted as saying of her funding, offered so that Honduran designers would exploit designs from the cultural patrimony

This initiative was to recover national identity, and not only history, archaeology, Copan were culture, but also fashion.

Chapter IV, Article 23 of the Law of the IHAH is actually concerned with the use of cultural patrimony for the purpose of making a profit, not to mention the active debates world-wide about the appropriation of cultural heritage in trivial ways and the issues it raises about the intellectual property rights in such things.

An article published in El Heraldo documenting a cocktail reception held at the museum of the history of the republic housed in the historic presidential mansion, Villa Roy, to celebrate the signing of the agreement to sponsor Fashion Week, quotes Castro as reiterating her innovative claim that fashion is one of the key forms of cultural patrimony:

It is to open spaces for those young people that are beginning to enter design. Fashion is an industry but it is also part of the culture of the people and for that reason it is important to support this type of events.

As a participant in this form of authentic Honduran culture, Exhibit A: Mirna Castro (right)

"The White Frog in a Negligee": Rodolfo Pastor discusses Roberto Micheletti

I will confess to a bias against dwelling in serious terms on any of the golpistas individually. These are not great politicians, subtle thinkers, or even particularly effective power-seekers. The executive appointments they made have brought to international attention a racist clown and a rabid anti-intellectual, and those are just the people whose actions have been visible enough that we know about them.

The maximum leader of the coup faction himself seems to have no plan for getting out of the mess he created, and is given to false claims of recognition of his government by countries that then have to disclaim him. His rhetoric of defiance ("Honduras does not need the world community") would be laughable if it were not clear he actually means it.

But: there remains the opportunity for those with exceptional political knowledge to create clarity even in contemplating such unlikely subjects. Rodolfo Pastor Fasquelle, on Vos el Soberano, has accomplished this unexpected feat, in an editorial called White Frog in a Negligee: Or, Why Roberto Micheletti Doesn't need God, the People, Nor the World.

"White Frog", Pastor Fasquelle explains, is a name given Micheletti in his hometown (El Progreso, Yoro, better known to most people interested in the resistance to the coup for the Jesuit-run Radio Progreso). Dr. Pastor writes that "He has been trying to run away, by means of the unexpected resignation and they say, and I don't know this for certain, that a few days ago he tried to escape without saying adios, and that Romeo [Vasquez Velasquez] was sent to detain him." Definitely not a heroic figure.

And yet, Pastor Fasquelle notes, citing "an anonymous cybernaut", that Micheletti has inadvertently accomplished a very great deal, most of it against his own interests:

1) He got to be President, even though it is "de facto"


2) He took a crap in the Cuarta Urna and now it is not necessary


3) He guaranteed that there will be the Constituent Assembly he sought to avoid.

4) He woke up and made increase the left in Honduras


5) He augmented the leadership of Mel and created that of Xiomara de Zelaya

6) He crapped on Elvin, revenging himself for his defeat in the primary.

7) He unmasked all Honduras, for having tolerated him all his life.

8) He united the whole world on one objective.


9) He crapped on the prestige that had cost the military so much to recover.

10) He gave political options to Carlos H. Reyes.


11) He crapped on the economy of the country.

12) He managed to un-visa a bunch of people.


13) He has shown us as a country of savages and fakes.

14) He succeeded in making scandals finally last more than 8 days, and


15) He created new martyrs in Honduras.

Quite a lot to get done in just over two months.

On a more somber note, Pastor Fasquelle writes:

The Hondurans of my generation treasured the idea that, for the past thirty years we were building a democratic institutionality and we lived painfully with its defects and limitations. Today, nothing remains of that fiction.

Democracy-building of the last thirty years was a fiction. This is a bitter pill to swallow.

But there are those unintended consequences Micheletti put in action: a renewed left, accomplishing the popular participation that the cuarta urna campaign envisaged, and ensuring that there is more support for constitutional reform, not less; so maybe what this harsh episode will be seen as accomplishing from the perspective of history is unmasking the reality of the unsatisfactory "democracy" of the past thirty years, and promoting the emergence of something more real in its place.

"I am until the end a soldier of the resistance": Rodolfo Pastor Fasquelle

The invaluable Honduran blog mimalapalabra brings us an account of a new interview with Rodolfo Pastor Fasquelle. Their commentary on the interview, by Mario Casasús on Telesur, is preceded by the following note:

Note, dear reader, where the balance of intelligence leans. To the right, or to the left? (Today everything has to do with the division of these two ideological tendencies). Toward Harvard or to the Mall? Who has more brains in their head, who goes every day to the beauty salon or who offers conferences in prestigious universities? What do you prefer, faithful reader of mimalapalabra, a good mirror that will decorate your office or a personal library to read? You can answer the questions asked above in the intimacy of your house, confide them to your family and friends or, in the best of cases, shout them out. (The allusions are obvious for those who know the interiority of our country.)

The allusions should be equally obvious to readers of this blog, if you have been paying attention to the contrast between the scholar, intellectual, and committed advocate of social justice, Rodolfo Pastor Fasquelle, and the de facto regime's appointee to run his ministry. The interview with historian Pastor Fasquelle, currently visiting faculty at Harvard in anthropology and history, should be required reading for all students of this crisis.

In the course of this long interview, Pastor Fasquelle expresses his belief that the mobilization of popular resistance will produce lasting political change in the long run.

Apropos of discussion fomented by the previous post of an editorial of his in El Tiempo, it is interesting to note that he says here that

We have to increase the pressure to take away the social base from the coup and we have to assure the Interamerican promise to disown the whitewashing of the coup by means of an election controlled by the golpistas.

One of the extended answers he gives, sparked by a question about his editorial, "Yo acuso", is an analysis of the similarities and differences between the coup against Allende in Chile in 1973 and the present coup in Honduras, from his viewpoint as both an historian and a politician.

Pastor Fasquelle's discussion of the role of Honduran media in the coup is trenchant. He clarifies that the editorial openness of El Tiempo newspaper, is due to the position of the owner, Jaime Rosenthal, against the coup, a position shared by his son, Yani Rosenthal.

Dr. Pastor Fasquelle reports an even more pessimistic economic outlook for the marginalized de facto regime than contained in other reports noted here and elsewhere:

I understand that they have serious fiscal difficulties and perhaps the resources to maintain the current State apparatus for less than one month.

Asked to comment on the situation of cultural properties in Honduras under the de facto regime, he credits the Instituto Hondureño de Antropología e Historia with managing to stave off the misuse of the Antigua Casa Presidencial, a conflict reported here. But he says he puts his greatest "trust in the new civic consciousness of the value of patrimony" that was fostered under his leadership of the Ministry of Culture.

In response to a later question about the firing of Nathalie Roque, by the de facto regime's delegate to run his ministry, he says

That poor woman is a public calamity of the coup, a comic cause célèbre, the laughing stock of the community, for her irredentist ignorance, her administrative inability and her profound confusion. She fired all the technical cadres of the Ministry because she wanted to employ political activists from her campaign. Now the organic intellectuals of the coup itself are beginning to ask for her head. But since she has always been surrounded by delinquents she goes around trying to seek the fly in the ointment, trying to find crimes. The witch dedicated to the witchhunt. Not necessary to do anything against her. She has already done all that could be done against herself, with absolute efficiency.

A full translation follows:

[Q] The 22nd of June, in an interview with Proceso, you said "I have lived through three coups d'Etat in my country. In the two previous, the population did not provide any opposition at all. The following day, normalcy was absolute". Two months after the de facto regime is being cornered by the multitudinous demonstrations; how do you see the emergence of an organized civil society? is this the result of Citizen Power?

[A] For the majority of the intelligent people that I know this transformation of the collective consciousness is the most important. It is manifested in the conjuncture but reveals a structural break with the past. Honduras has been very conservative, a society fearful of change, but change is there. It has been, for example, bipartisan, where only the traditional parties have the capacity for national mobilization and the option of power. But now the political parties have not organized these demonstrations, they have formally opposed them and have tried instead to support the demonstrations of the white shirts, that have now vanished; it has been the social organizations, the UD, and a party faction with its own identity that have organized the effective resistance in the streets and highways. The Frente, supposes in effect not only the real potential to push back the coup, but also a sustainable base for the future social and political modernization of our society, as another type of organization.

Citizen Power could have contributed, at least as a framework or rhetoric. But it was more the option of President Zelaya to govern with the social organizations that was strategic as a trigger. And the cause is the deepest and most ancient, it is an evolution of social organization itself, which goes on incorporating new social actors: after the unions and the cooperatives, it has assimilated the indigenous organizations, and the independent professionals.

[Q] In the same interview with Homero Campa, you cautioned against the danger of an imminent civil war in Honduras; a month after that statement, has your perception changed? Does the de facto regime have its days numbered?

[A] I don't know how to count the days of the regime. The logic of brute power is an elemental logic. It does not need much. This regime has no interest in investment, nor in continuing the programs that have been implemented. I understand that they have serious fiscal difficulties and perhaps the resources to maintain the current State apparatus for less than one month. But they have the option of a radical cut, with excuses. The Interamerican right is moving with energy to obtain oxygen for them, at least even space to manoeuvre. The business people will continue firm as long as the freeze doesn't affect their commerce and their earnings. Meanwhile, they continue to have more to lose with a return.

What I do not see is that the people will be scared. The truth is they are not afraid. Although the levels of repression have risen as a strategy to intimidate, through the selective elimination and criminal prosecution of the demonstrators, despite all the movement of resistance continues growing. And in point of fact, the repression is provoking the middle class sectors that originally wanted to be neutral to sympathize with the resistance and oppose the coup. This puts in question the capacity of the regime for control. Now no one believes in the coup media and information continues to circulate by the Internet. As polarized and set as the conflict is, I continue to see the possibility of violence as a direct result of frustration. I don't like it, but I am a realist.

[Q] The Micheletti regime broke off diplomatic relations with Argentina, the ambassadors that backed the coup d'Etat were discontinued and expelled by their host countries; how was it living during the crisis and attempt to assault the Embassy in Mexico? Did you expect a unanimous reaction of international solidarity?

[A] The break with Argentina is one more foolishness of the coup. The ambassadors that took the side of Micheletti pertained to an old oligarchic tradition in the Foreign Ministry, redoubt of aged dinosaurs that pretend professionalism and register cynicism. The President had yielded to the pressures of this "tradition" and that of the capital Curia in the matter of appointments. Significantly, the present Foreign Minister of the coup, López Contreras, had previously been Foreign Minister for the military dictatorships, he is the husband of an ex-Vice President of the conservative party, relative and protégé of the ex-dictator López Arellano and of the Embassy, and the present Vice-minister is the messenger of the Cardinal and of Opus Dei in the Congress.

The recovery of the Embassy in Mexico-- whose heroine was Rosalinda Bueso-- was as if you will a minor incident that, nonetheless, was linked to a break and a clarification of the Mexican position in the conflict. It was a moment in which the directive seemed to vacillate in the face of the coup propaganda that attributed to the government of President Zelaya a radical "chavismo" and there was no lack of those who thought that they could play both sides, taking advantage of an interpretation that has been called the Estrada Doctrine. Institutionality prevailed. Mexico is serious. It has signed the OAS Declaration and subscribed to that of the UN, and of the Río Group; including having participated from the first moments in the meetings of the Central American Integration System that condemned the coup.

I never expected anything but the international reaction did not surprise me. The coup in effect is an atavism that puts institutionality at risk in all Latin America and threatens its attempts to seek a more independent definition. And Barack Obama has proclaimed a multilateral international policy.

[Q] We know that you completed a doctorate in the Colegio de México, and at one point three Cabinet Ministers coincided in the DF [Mexico's capital district]: the Finance minister, the Education minister, and you, representing the portfolio of Culture, Arts, and Sports, not to mention as well President Zelaya and Foreign Minister Rodas made an official state visit; to what do you attribute the presence of the ministers of Honduras and President Zelaya in Mexico? To the presidency pro tem of the Río Group?

[A] There is an old history of geographic and cultural proximity, of shared history and diffusion. Mexico has been a refuge for all Ibero-american dissidents, but more than any, the Central American. In regard to the trip of President Zelaya, it is clear that the battle is won on two fronts, the internal and the external. It is by means of this itinerant diplomacy of the President that the external front can be assured against the conspiracy of the right that moreover now has become familiar. We have to increase the pressure to take away the social base from the coup and we have to assure the Interamerican promise to disown the whitewashing of the coup by means of an election controlled by the golpistas. Mexico is an especially key partner because of its proximity to the US, so that it was a logical first stop in the President's pilgrimage that nonetheless has its limits.

[Q] Will you carry out diplomatic and cultural negotiations from your professorship at Harvard? Are you thinking of writing in the North American press about Honduran reality?

[A] I am already doing that when I replied to your interview and this is one of my commitments here. I have promised my President that I am at his disposal for diplomatic negotiations here. I am until the end a soldier of the resistance. I will continue publishing in Honduras some texts that escape censure. And to the extent that the US press is interested, I will be disposed to take the time to meet them. But I hope to bring prestige to my government and my country by completing my obligations and respecting my commitments in teaching at Harvard, which I take equally seriously, to teach social and cultural history of Latin America to young students that soon will be cadres, and that perhaps is an indispensable labor to seek lucidity over the long term. (I thank the David Rockefeller Center for Latin America and the Departments of History and Anthropology at Harvard that have given me such a pleasant refuge and are in agreement.) I have the shield of Honduras over my desk. Honduras is always here, in my wakefulness and in my sleep. I will miss it later.

[Q] In an interview with Telesur, the art critic Helen Umaña told me: "The prospect is bleak because cultural depredation could happen inadvertently… only the intervention of institutions of international prestige such as UNESCO can contain the predatory action"; has there been any recourse for the preservation of Honduran cultural heritage?

[A] I have requested this management from the Instituto Hondureño de Antropología e Historia that miraculously has survived the coup. But more than UNESCO, I trust in the new civic consciousness of the value of patrimony, fruit as well of a lucid administration, which was, for example, what prevented the [de facto] Minister of the coup from being able to carry out her announced intention of consigning the restored Old Presidential Palace-- in which we established a Center of Investigation-- to the reservists of the Armed Forces as a barracks, in preparation for the "Venezuelan invasion".

[Q] It was overwhelming to write "Yo acuso"; the then-Senator Neruda had written a discourse with that title during the first persecution of the communists in 1947 and the person in charge of the Pisagua Concentration Camp was Pinochet; years later he acted as loyal to President Allende; you said, "I accuse Romeo Vásquez Velásquez-- who impersonated a friend of the President and a disciplined soldier until the final hours of his legitimate mandate"; is history repeating itself? Why do we not remember the names and trajectories of the golpistas of yesterday?

[A] I am a historian. History does not repeat itself. It has names of its own and precise dates, unrrepeatable. But there are sociohistorical processes that are analogues, phenomena that can be catalogued. Fascism, for example, repeats, it is an almost predictable reaction to democratic modernization in the face of crisis. And is is always paranoid and repressive. The analogy with the Pinochet coup against Allende is therefore valid. There is a series of common denominators: a president with a will to transformation, with a wide social base, a private industry disposed to support the coup to preserve its privilege, a collaborationist political class and an interposed military caste.

There is also a different element: Obama. It could be a determinant difference so that Honduras will not have to suffer so much. And another, a Honduras that continues being rural and dispersed, and a much weaker military apparatus. And a third: the history of Chile also awoke an internationalism of human rights that had no equal force in 1973. And a fourth; my President did not die in La Moneda. He travels all over the continent in a small plane that has been loaned him, raising a stir, and communicates with his people. In regard to the title of "Yo acuso", it is classic, nineteenth century. France. Balzac. Significantly, no one published "Yo acuso" in Honduras. They didn't dare.

[Q] The de facto bureaucrat that usurped the Ministry of Culture, fired Nathalie Roque, then the director of the National Newspaper Archive who denounced the past delinquency of Romeo Vásquez Velásquez and the other golpistas; is remembering history a crime? What relief will you have in your capacity as Cabinet Minister when democracy returns?

[A] That poor woman is a public calamity of the coup, a comic cause célèbre, the laughing stock of the community, for her irredentist ignorance, her administrative inability and her profound confusion. She fired all the technical cadres of the Ministry because she wanted to employ political activists from her campaign. Now the organic intellectuals of the coup itself are beginning to ask for her head. But since she has always been surrounded by delinquents she goes around trying to seek the fly in the ointment, trying to find crimes. The witch dedicated to the witchhunt. Not necessary to do anything against her. She has already done all that could be done against herself, with absolute efficiency.

[Q] In August of 2001, you analyzed: "The Honduran case, press, citizen, and power", the variables were different, above all the bad management of the economy and the "83% 'popularity' of Sr. Flores", thanks to "the full and close collaboration of the media…minimizing possible objections"; what index of popularity will the golpistas have in the press and in history? The question because El Heraldo is a coup pillar, and the Tribune is property of the same Sr. Flores…

[A] Mario, you are an enlightened interviewer. The Honduran press manipulated by the Association of Owners of Communication Media, "all five of them"*, and all or almost all golpistas, is a problem of fundamental importance for Honduras of our time and the immediate future. The coup would have been impossible without the media manipulation and is sustained in part because this manipulation continues obscuring and supplanting the national reality with propaganda. And this press is the link par excellence between the coup businessmen and the regime. As in everything, there are exceptions. Although not all his relatives, the newspaper and television owner Jaime Rosenthal rebelled against the golpistas and his son, the youth leader Yani [Rosenthal], despite the costs that it represents for his businesses because of the reprisals of the government and the other businessmen, has declared himself against the coup. Nonetheless, Carlos Flores continues in command of the illicit association of the manipulators, together with J. Canahuati, and dominate almost all the important media.

But history has never submitted to what the media of communication say. What do you think the German media said about Hitler during the Third Reich? Modern and critical history (unlike medieval chronicle) precisely is designed as a discipline to dismantle and strip propaganda. Today even the middle class that is a natural clientele of the manipulated media has started to doubt its press, because they go farm they exaggerate without modesty. The people in the street shout in the demonstrations "Out with the coup press!" and another, which I like a lot, in these multitudinous marches "We are not four, we are not one hundred, sold-out press, count us well!" I have no doubt what history is going to say about the coup. Do you?

[Q] Finally, what message would you like to send to all the poets, writers, artists, actors and intellectuals who next Sunday will perform a Concert from the resistance in Tegucigalpa?

[A] I am proud of the brotherhood and the community of the thinking men and women and creators of my country. Like others of Latin America in the recent past they have reacted with heroism, with imagination, with sensitivity and with professionalism. They go to the marches and they make art to display. It is not only this coming Sunday, but since hours after the coup, and in a continued fashion, in Honduran cities, they sing against the coup in the street, they dance and they write poetry and theater and sociological and political essays against the coup, they convey the chronicle of the infamies of the coup, they paint against the coup, on the walls and on paper. This speaks of a new and unified civic maturity of the citizenry, although always diverse, of the guilds of artists and academics. The mealy-mouthed and the traitors are so few that it isn't worth the trouble to make a list. Hopefully I can contribute something like leavening. This lucid conscience is at the base the only proof that the work of the last thirty years has not been in vain, that there is no such backlash as those others want, and the clearest signal that we are going to prevail.

*phrase reported in English

"Between them they've buried the bipartisan system": Rodolfo Pastor Fasquelle

In an editorial today in El Tiempo, the Minister of Culture continues his commentary on the spectacle that is the post-coup reality in Honduran politics, endorsing an emerging coalition of progressives:

Pepe and Elvin: The Gravedigger Clowns of the Film

It comes to pass that now, no one took part in the coup, except the no-counts that don't know where to hide. Many businessmen say that they did not, as if their words haven't remained in print and their voices recorded and their handiwork and external lobbying betrayed.

The political leaders of the coup say that neither were they. Carlos Flores says that he was not, that "it was Teté". Pepe goes crazy and Elvin declares 35 days after that "he is not a golpista" and that he condemns "the form" although he condones the basis. A sector of PINU finally repudiates their golpista congress members. But it is obvious that formally speaking the Congress, which is also called "Congre-Zoo", carried out the coup and the congress members responded to their political leaders. That's why the people shout in the street, "golpista congresspeople, trash, out" and when they can they kick them in the street. Without a consensus of the political leaders there would be no coup, since Micheletti, who they are now leaving solo, neither invented the coup nor would have arrived at first base when sent to bat without them.

Paraphrasing Swift I once commented to President Reina that I raised horses because they seemed more noble and rational than politicians. He didn't contradict me and he didn't disagree with me. They should be better than us. And they are the worst breed. I mentioned previously (in "J'accuse") the principal political actors of the coup, and among the witches and alchemists, those generally known, Rafael Callejas and Carlos Flores Facussé, now old politicians, that have once sworn the Constitution that now they are smashing and, exercising their criterion of excellence, the presidency of the Republic that lies here, prostrate, but confronting the repressives with gallantry 45 days later.

Although he competes with Arturo Corrales, Flores is the most cynical. As he says he is writing a memoir I want to assist him. He got in as a congressmember with the blessing of rodismo[*] and intervened many times in the drafting of the constitution that now he broke saying that it was to preserve it. He achieved renown because he wanted to launch himself as a candidate when he was a cabinet minister in the presidency of Rosuco [Roberto Suazo Cordova], on whose orders he also went to the Congress, accompanying Mich [Micheletti] with a proposed law for the Congress to declare itself a constitutional assembly and reform the stony articles, that now he passionately defends.

So many things one could say about Carlos Flores, dangerous and irritable, who many people fear. And that he believes himself loved. Son of a golpista, father of a golpista. Godfather of the usurper and of the judges, attorneys, prosecutor and head of the coup bench.

Carlos has been trying to put this behind him since the day of the coup, when he saw what was coming, saying to anyone who would listen "it wasn't like that man and I told you, but you didn't heed me". Since the week now past he began to publish in his press the adverse opinion of the coup of my teacher Gautama B. Fonseca. But surely you conspired, Ingeniero. We all know what you said to the rest and your role of sponsor. The golpistas that you visited, the media barons, but also the joint command, the "capos" and their deputies, was public.

Your newspaper fabricated the golpista propaganda that prepared the work and set the stage. Your editorials and your little pills always have been golpista even when they wanted to seem unaware in their cynicism. You are a villain, Sir, there is no way to evade the infamy of history. Your father was more cautious. Your own writings condemn you. History will not pardon you, it takes apart propaganda.

The other politicians who conspired will have an identical destiny, although they also try to distance themselves from the coup, Elvin Santos and Pepe Lobo, no one is going to vote for you, Sirs. You are going to have to invent the votes when polls give each one of you one-third favorable in your own parties, versus negative opinions from half. It is now very late to go around repenting. And no one is going to pardon you. You were at the negotiating tables and we all know that you, as candidates of your parties, could have put the brakes on Congress. Pepe wants to pass as ready and lost his second opportunity, Santos lost the only one that he is going to have. Between the two they have buried the hundred-year-old bipartisan system.

No well-born liberal should vote for Elvin Santos, the gravedigger of the greatest party of the isthmus. I have known various bad candidates, but none so fatuous and so destructive as this incontinent Cantinflas, this wet clown.[**] No one should receive him in an honorable house, on pain of being marked. No one should listen to his pleas. No one should speak with him nor turn to see him nor buy a white t-shirt in his malls.

But we don't have to cry for this system that seems that it is going to endure forever, and that we are never going to have parties that will propose ideas, different proposals, real commitments to the people. It could be that there remains, in sight, above the mud with which they cover it, a tight fist, calcined and cracked from the sun, extended saluting those names. The golpistas opened the system so that this new alliance can be established of social organizations and the UD and the varicolored red-and-white progressives, committed to the people, that will win the next elections strikingly and will write glorious pages of our history and a new constituent.

*rodismo: A reference to the conservative movement in the liberal party named after Modesto Rodas Alvarado.


**"payaso mojado": I was tempted to translate this "crying clown", but chose the literal "wet clown" both because of its pairing with "incontinent Cantinflas" and in reference to a story by Daniel Alarcón, "City of Clowns", in which the image refers to a clown literally pelted with water balloons. The image is not uncommon in Spanish as that of a pathetic figure of ridicule.

Honduran Skepticism About Democratic Institutions: Some Data and Opinions

Greg Weeks at Two Weeks Notice continues to provide some of the best actual data from studies of Honduran civil society that can be found. His post today, pointing to a soon-to-be-more-widely available study by Mitchell Seligson and John Booth of Vanderbilt University, is especially important to understanding both the circumstances of broader Honduran politics, and some of the motivation among Zelaya government officials for pushing for participatory democracy. But even though I understood the issues, the dramatic quantitative, comparative measures provided in the new Vanderbilt study still shocked me.

Greg notes that the study asks respondents about their satisfaction/dissatisfaction with

three key aspects of political legitimacy: support for democracy, support for national institutions, and evaluation of the government's economic performance.

The results are codified in a ratio of "triply dissatisfied to triply satisfied". In other words, how many people are dissatisfied with all three key aspects, compared to the number satisfied with all key aspects? Pardon me for being professorial here (occupational hazard) but as I deal with statistical data all the time, and find my students even in the doctoral program not prepared to really understand such measures, I want to break this out before reviewing the actual, horrifying numbers.

Say we asked 100 people in the average American city the same questions. Maybe 75 would have mixed reactions; another 10 might be extremely pessimistic and say "dissatisfied" to all three questions; and the remaining 15 might be among those lucky folks who think everything is wonderful. The ratio of triply dissatisfied to triply satisfied in our example would then be 10/15, or 0.66. This is a measure that tells us how large the extreme sentiments are in a society.

Honduras had the highest ratio of people dissatisfied in all three areas to those satisfied in all three areas among the Latin American societies studied. Its 6.17 score was almost twice as high as the next most pessimistic society in the sample (Guatemala, at 3.23).

To over-simplify, the Honduran score suggests that for every optimistic person who is satisfied with democracy, national institutions, and government progress on economic issues, there are more than six pessimistic people.

We want there to be more optimism than pessimism in democracies. When pessimism starts becoming the norm, people lose their motivation to participate, to support the institutions that ensure the survival of civil society.

Here is where the opinion part of this post starts. My friends in the Honduran government who support President Zelaya's attempt to raise the Constitutional reform issue have talked about this pessimism, the disenchantment of civil society with government, as threatening the survival of the Honduran democracy. These are people who lived under, or whose parents lived during, the long period of military rule in the 1960s and 1970s. They and their family members remember and talk about the history of 20th century oppression by dictators marked by violence and imprisonment that, while little known in North America, is a history that Hondurans have worked faithfully to ensure never can be repeated.

The failure of successive democratically elected governments since the 1980s to solve the structural problems of the Honduran economy has, in the opinions of many of these informed participants, eroded public trust in government. My colleagues did not need numbers like those we now have to understand that. So they have worked assiduously in the current administration to support policies intended to alleviate the economic burdens of the poorest members of Honduran society. Miguel Cáceres Rivera puts the case for how the Zelaya administration proceeded to try to address this civic weakness more clearly than any other scholar I know.

While economic justice is powerful, and fundamental, it alone would not be enough to ensure the survival of a democratic Honduras. The disillusion with the nature of democracy itself also needs to be addressed, the dissatisfaction with government institutions. Here, the fact is that the current form of government was constructed in such a way that it almost inevitably would produce such disillusion. Congress, the courts, and the executive branch, as well as state and local governance, institutionalized politics that privilege party operatives, as noted by Rodolfo Pastor Fasquelle. The theory of the Honduran Constitution of 1982 is representative democracy; but the few who persistently are elected are not perceived by a large proportion of Hondurans as representing the interests of the people. The decline in voter participation is one reflection of this. But so is the emergence of activism by social segments that seek a more visible presence, a voice, to participate.

Zelaya government policies not only acknowledged such segments-- women's groups, indigenous groups, african-descendant groups-- but worked on many levels to engage them in a common project of creation of a new vision of the Honduran nation as multi-ethnic and pluri-racial. This is clear in both statements by Zelaya government officials and the flyer the Fuerzas Armadas claims to have seized during their raid on President Zelaya. It is clear as well in statements by segments of society that have never before had an opening to participate fully in Honduran democracy, such as indigenous peoples.

What advocates of Constitutional reform in the Zelaya government are committed to is a project nothing short of countering the spread of pessimism in Honduran society by shifting from a basis of sterile and stylized "representation" to a vigorous level of citizen participation in governance. This is why a non-binding poll was worth risking legal action. Anyone who doubts the necessity for such activism to preserve democratic society in Honduras needs to read the numbers reported by Seligson and Booth and think about what it would mean to live in a society where six times as many people were thoroughly disillusioned as believed in government.

Why Promote Constitutional Reform? A Zelaya Government Text

The Honduran Armed Forces posted a 156 page long document including everything from a timeline to an FAQ that reached almost unequalled levels of the absurd: in response to the question, Was this novel in political history?, the Armed Forces replied with the to-them obvious parallel: the Supreme Court decision in the US Presidential election in 2000 designating George W. Bush as winner over Al Gore (p. 10).

You all remember when the Chief of Staff at the time kidnapped Gore and took him off to Costa Rica, right?

Nestled in this treasure trove, which overall reinforces my sense that the Armed Forces are very defensive, is a document (p. 7) described as

Propaganda material distributed by the Executive Power, called "Cuarta Urna, Peaceful Route to the Citizen's Revolution, a New Constitution!" A document that now establishes some aspects that were intended to be eliminated from the Constitution of the Republic.

The actual handout itself appears almost at the end of the 156 pages of reproduced legal cases and orders sent to the military, the basis on which they acted.

But this document is different: it is the one, actual, solid piece of evidence the military can offer showing what the Zelaya government was intending to promote, in the event that the public opinion poll on June 28 produced a majority in favor of a fourth ballot box in November.

Here's what it promotes; notice the entire absence of any discussion of term limits, continuing in office longer than his elected term, dissolving Congress, the Supreme Court, or the command of the Armed Forces, which elsewhere (p. 15) in the Armed Forces document they claim was the real goal of the exercise; instead, what the Zelaya government proposed was ensuring the rights of women, of the multiple ethnic groups now recognized in Honduras, and the expansion of human rights to include "third and fourth generation" rights-- in other words, bringing the Honduran constitution into conformity with international treaties, just as Minister of Culture Rodolfo Pastor Fasquelle previously noted:

Cuarta Urna
Peaceful Route to the Citizen's Revolution!
A New Constitution

The fourth ballot box is the democratic road to make it legally possible to convene a Constitutional Assembly that could write a new Constitution, to give Honduras a superior democracy, in which the people will not only freely elect their rulers and representatives at all levels of Government, but as well will participate actively in the fundamental decisions that affect their lives and exercise actual control over those who are in power in their name.

Among the momentous topics that should be included in the new Constitution we single out the following:

a) Social Control: establishment of recall referenda, so that the people will have the possibility of denying their confidence in the middle of their term, to those that have been elected and have betrayed them-- and of the Death Crusade! Censure and veto, for mayors, representatives, and the President.

b) Actual freedom of the press, which means equitable access to the media for all the social and political organizations and all the citizens, and that will impede the use of the ownership of the means of communication as an instrument of accumulation of economic and political power.

c) Economic liberty with social responsibility, that will guarantee private property with a social use and the social economy of the market, placing the human being at the center of the economy and rescuing public services for the people.

d) Authentic political liberty that will impede the monopoly of representation on the part of the current party members, who slow the actual participation of the citizens, whether party activists or not, in national politics. Election of representatives by electoral districts and separation of the dates of elections for Presidents, Representatives, and Mayors.

e) Renewal of confidence in those officials who have dignified their office, fulfilling it adequately for the citizens.

f) Popular consultation to guarantee that no ruler could snatch from the People their economic and social takings, because any decisions that menaced these takings only could be legalized by means of a Popular Consultation.

g) Constitutional obligation to aid the progress of Woman as central actor in the development of the country.

h) To grant priority to the individual rights, social, economic, and the rest that will be established, as well as the guarantees of a multicultural and pluri-ethnic society.

i) To incorporate the rights known constitutionally as "third and fourth generation rights" as constitutional rights.

j) To institute the Constitutional Tribunal.

"An Authentic Cultural Inquisition": A statement by Helen Umaña

Helen Umaña wrote and circulated the Spanish original of the following translated statement decrying ideological attacks on the employees of the constituent parts of the Secretariat of Culture in Honduras, on July 23. An internationally prominent author, she calls public attention to the notorious failure to understand the Secretariat of Culture by the de facto regime's appointed placeholder there, Mirna Castro.

Castro is equally indicted by her own words in a YouTube video-- denouncing the distribution of books throughout the country to populations she describes as "vulnerable", a disturbingly patronizing word to use to describe the afro-caribbean Garifuna and indigenous peoples. Especially ironic when one of the first changes the coup regime brought to the Secretariat of Culture was the dismissal of the first Garifuna Vice Minister of that Secretariat, Salvador Suazo, who is in the process of producing a unique dictionary of the Garifuna language.

The same person is responsible for the widely reported threat to violate international conventions on the protection of cultural property in times of military conflict, as well as Honduran law, by approving the use of a Honduran National Monument for a cadre of military reservists.

The facts, and others Helen Umaña comments on-- including many previously noted here-- should produce international outrage.

Crimes against Culture

Helen Umaña

From an anthropological point of view, the term "culture" refers to all manifestations of material life (planting maize, for example) and spiritual life (writing a poem, devising a scientific theory, or frawing a protest graffiti) of a specified community. We live and we breathe, then, within a specific and singular culture that marks our way of proceeding: taste for specific foods; parameters to evaluate a film or a song; manner of dressing; preference for specific sports, etc. It provides us, then, a kind of seal or badge that identifies us or individualizes us in the face of others. In the case of Honduras, as well, we have to speak of a multicultural reality.


But speaking in general terms, culture is linked unfailingly to the concept of national identity. That is, not as a closed or finished condition, but as a process: something that always is enriched or is renewed. Including, that is deteriorated or destroyed (the Spanish conquest annihilated, mutilated or changed the culture of the indigenous peoples: the Lenca, for example, lost their language and with it, vital aspects of their world view).


It is self-evident, then, the importance that the Ministry of Culture has in the life of a nation. The formulation and putting into practice of programs destined to conserve and enrich the spiritual wealth of the country depends precisely on its policies. Only clumsy politicians disparage the function of the intellectual and affective mortar that artistic, literary, and other works represent for the people. For this reason, when a government cabinet is named, persons are chosen to “direct” it who must fulfill some political or personal commitment but who, in cultural phenomena, ignore the most basic elements.


The de facto regime, in addition to the great blunder with the naming of its first Chancellor (he of the celebrated phrases, pearls of Honduran diplomacy, like the racist phrase directed at Obama), is giving another example of the intellectual level of its functionaries. In a recent appearance, Mirna Castro, brand-new minister of “culture” – of unknown resume in scientific, artistic, or literary subject matter – in front of television cameras of the world, showed that never in her life has she opened a book: she condemned as subversive fundamental works in the literary heritage of the country.


Probably, as Juan de Zumárraga and Diego de Landa did when they burned invaluable indigenous codices, she will soon organize a great pyre with the works of "indoctrination", such as the following: Memorias y apuntes de viaje, Todos los cuentos and Anecdotario hondureño by Froylán Turcios; Soy extranjero y ando de paso by José Roy Castro; Estampas de Honduras by Doris Stone (daughter of Samuel Zemurray, banana magnate); Honduras by Luis Mariñas Otero; La inconformidad del hombre by Alfonso Guillén Zelaya; La heredad by Marcos Carías Reyes (nephew and secretary of General Tiburcio Carías Andino); Mundo de cubos by Nelson Merren; Obra poética escogida de sus manuscritos by José Antonio Domínguez; Panorama de la poesía hondureña by Óscar Castañeda Batres; Soñaba el abad de San Pedro soñaba y yo también sé soñar by José Cecilio del Valle; Sueños de Merce by Mercedes Agurcia Membreño, and many other titles of similar lineage and of recent publication. Perhaps the dictionary of Honduran authors by José González can explain to her who those “dangerous” authors were, that undoubtedly delighted many of our fathers and grandfathers.

The preceding is, truly, laughable and equivalent to the celebrated phrases of Dr. Enrique Ortez Colindres. If these books are destroyed or confiscated, they can all be replaced in future editions. The most serious issue lies in other decisions that directly affect the historical patrimony of the country. So, she contemplates assigning the Honduran Documentary Center for Historical Research (where the newspapers and documents fundamental to scientific investigators and the general public interested in the theme are kept) to the Military Reservists so that they can set up a center of military operations. If action is not taken rapidly (and a call to UNESCO is imperative), soon, the Hemeroteca and the National Archive could be victims of a looting and destruction without precedents. For members (visible or invisible) of the de facto government it is urgent to "erase" irrefutable proofs of a not-very-clean recent past. It isn't an accident that one of the first actions of Sra. Castro was the firing of the historian Natalie Roque Sandoval, zealous guardian of this cultural patrimony.


Also, within this ominous policy of razing Honduran culture, is inscribed the recent firing of the Director of The Book and the Document, Lic. Rebeca Becerra, one of the poets with the greatest expressive force in present-day Latin American poetry. She carried out a distinguished editorial labor and is responsible for the publication of books like those mentioned. The “Death to the intelligentsia!” war cry of all the Fascists that there have been in the world, begins to resonate in the halls of government.


Black clouds are hanging, as well, around the Cultural Houses, accused, by the uninformed minister, of being centers that damage the country because the unholy shadow of Hugo Chavez is cast over them. Fortunately, they are located in cities of the interior of the country and each community knows what acts have been carried out under its protective eaves (presentation of books; painting workshops; film showings; reading clubs…). In other words, they know how to detect the magnitude of the official lie.


With grief, we observe that Honduras has entered an obscurantist stage whose precedents go back to the notorious decade of the 1980s. The de facto government, in cultural matters, has thrown overboard the progress achieved during the two terms of Dr. Rodolfo Pastor Fasquelle at the head of the Ministry of Culture. In this respect, it is enough to cite the praiseworthy work, applauded internationally, of the Institute of Anthropology and History, directed by Dr. Darío Euraque. Let's not deceive ourselves. Unholy signs like those noted indicate that we are in the shadows of an authentic cultural inquisition.


San Pedro Sula, Honduras 23 July, 2009

Who Really Rejected the Arias Plan

Here in the real world of Costa Rica, I watched, live, as the Micheletti negotiating team in Tegucigalpa obfuscated what the final proposed "San Jose Accord" was, and misrepresented what parts of it meant.

How do I know they were lying? because earlier, I had watched the Zelaya team's statement as well as that of Arias.

What I heard the Micheletti team say was that President Zelaya could not return to office under any proposal, clearly a rejection of a non-negotiable element of the plan.

So why does the LA Times headline their article "Zelaya rejects mediator's new Honduras proposal"?

This is the position the Micheletti team wanted to place President Zelaya in. It is what their press conference claimed had happened, and the LA Times article is datelined Tegucigalpa. So, effectively, the LA Times is doing propaganda work for the de facto regime.

In a discussion among a group of Central American scholars, the consensus was that the Arias mediation was flawed from the outset. First, they note that Arias was compromised by being tapped by Hillary Clinton, thus was not an independent agent. Second, as also noted in editorials by Rodolfo Pastor Fasquelle, treating Micheletti as if he had an equal right to bargain gave him a degree of legitimacy he did not merit. Tonight, in the press conference by the Micheletti group, that decision came home to roost as they cited various proposed points in Arias' plan, and argued that these points proved that Oscar Arias agreed with their views of Zelaya's actions before the coup.

Meanwhile, the Micheletti negotiators at the last moment stated that they had no authority to agree to anything, and while not giving a clear yes or no, stated they would go back to Honduras and consult virtually every branch of the de facto government about individual points. This is a transparent delaying tactic, especially since they simultaneously reiterated that there was no way they could agree to Zelaya's returning as president, because, they claim, he left the country already as a private citizen. So to let him return as president would, the Micheletti crowd argued, be installing a president who was not elected.

These are not the positions of anyone who actually was negotiating anything. What these negotiations have been about, transparently, is holding on in the belief that eventually the world community would lose interest and perhaps, if the de facto regime makes it to election day, they can pass off a president elected in a country where basic civil liberties have been suspended as legitimate.

The scholars I spent the evening with noted that Arias also made the mistake of getting involved in "negotiating" issues that are strictly internal-- such as including a requirement that the budget passed by the de facto regime would be left stand for the remainder of Zelaya's presidency. This was a red herring thrown in by the Micheletti crowd, and adding it to the plan simply showed them that Arias would include anything they wanted. And then they held a press conference and used him rhetorically as a prop.

As Rixi Moncada, spokesperson for the Zelaya government, actually said: the Arias mediation has failed. It was, she said, a fracaso-- which can politely be translated as failure.

But I prefer the more colorful "flop".

And so was the LA Times coverage.

"To investigate and disseminate history is not a crime": Nathalie Roque

The following email was circulated Friday July 17 by Nathalie Roque, Director of the Hemeroteca Nacional of Honduras (the archive of newspapers), described by the Minister of Culture, Rodolfo Pastor Fasquelle as "a brilliant young historian who has played a great role there, digitizing the institution and bringing out digitized reports".

She identifies herself as the source of critical historical information about Roberto Micheletti's participation in 1985 in an actual attempt to violate the constitution by extending the term of the then-sitting president. Her email is testimony to the persecution of Hondurans for exercising not only their rights of free speech, but of academic freedom, as well as reinforcing troubling reports of the fomenting of repression based on national origin, strictly forbidden by the Honduran Constitution:

Re: MICHELIN REPRESSION AGAINST NATHALIE ROQUE FOR HER HISTORICAL-INFORMATIONAL WORK

Thanks, friends, for your solidarity!

Those that I know, say that I have carried out my work at the Hemeroteca Nacional with great care, and that thanks to the determined support of Rebeca Becerra (unjustly fired and persecuted) and the Minister Pastor Fasquelle (now in exile in Mexico), we have succeeded in carrying out a total process of modernization, restoration, training of personnel, as well as the implementation of new projects tending to protect the documentary patrimony of the nation and generate historical consciousness/memory in the population through electronic bulletins, exhibitions, conversations and cultural events, and publication of books, among many others.

Today I was informed that inquiries are being performed against me and that it was likely that they would summon me to the Public Prosecutor for my offenses: during my free time I decided to investigate the past of the participants in the coup, and because this is public information from newspapers, I decided to share with friends and people of the resistance; in addition, I did not fold for the coup authority and demonstrated personally my position of repudiating the coup d'etat that they have carried out on taking over the Secretariat of Culture, Arts, and Sports.

Apparently, they have weighty evidence against me:

--I have removed and brought to light the past (they forget that I am an historian and that I have been trained in that way)

--I have entered the Hemeroteca outside work hours (I've never had hours, I work Saturdays and Sundays, until midnight, etc.)

--I have published confidential information of the Ministry (newspapers and public orders, of high levels of circulation nationally)

--I have participated in anti-coup demonstrations (it was with work permits and my weekends are my own!!)

--I am of the left (I have never denied it)

--I was born in Russia and was raised in Nicaragua (What a crime!!! To have been politically persecuted from before birth)

I am an honest person and I have not committed any misdeed; to investigate and disseminate history is not a crime and as far as I know to think differently isn't EITHER!

Best wishes from the resistance!

Natalie Roque
Citizen in Resistance

"Indignation Must be Cultivated": Rodolfo Pastor Fasquelle

Another blog today published an English translation of the latest editorial by Rodolfo Pastor Fasquelle, Honduran historian and legitimate Minister of Culture. This saved me completing the task of translating the original myself.

Pastor Fasquelle argues that President Zelaya's attempts to directly address the "structural contradictions" of Honduran society, that he traces back fifty years

revealed the fault lines between the segments of the population who have benefited and been alienated by such a process (the various shades of the bourgeoisie) and, on the other hand, the increasingly frustrated marginalized majority, along with socially and ethically committed professionals and organized workers who are able to envision a more just order of things.

This is a critical point: support for the moves toward social justice comes not just from the poor, or the less-educated; it is also the hallmark of a wide group of well educated professionals, who are now suffering repression.

Pastor Fasquelle reflects on the danger that the real struggle, being papered over in Honduran media and misrepresented in the US in particular, will lose momentum, noting that it must continue:

The impotence, the frustration and the confusion must be recognized, but not for the sake of giving up. Indignation must be cultivated and above all, organized, in order to be turned into an effective instrument of the struggle. The demonstrations in the street remain urgent and will continue for many more days, although they need to be better organized. And the banner of the struggle remains; the immediate restitution of the legitimate government. Congress can give amnesty to whomever it likes. Mel must return however, from wherever, to do whatever.

On a day when the news about the Honduran crisis features a firm reiteration by Oscar Arias that only the restitution of President Zelaya will be acceptable, even in the face of new and equally unacceptable proposals from the authoritarian regime, Pastor Fasquelle's final point is of equal significance:

There’s nothing personal about it, but Mel personifies this longing. No-one but he can restore the conditions under which we can return to being a civilized country, debating our differences without the prefabricated foolishness of ideology and fundamentalism; turning to the polls rather than weapons, to resolve contradictions.

Translation: Machetera, with editing by Manuel Talens

Machetera and Manuel Talens are members of Tlaxcala, the network of translators for linguistic diversity. This translation may be reprinted as long as the content remains unaltered, and the source, author, translator and editor are cited.

As we watch and wait, revisiting the constitutionality of the opinion poll

One of the most persistent claims made in support of the Honduran coup d'etat has been that the opinion poll scheduled for June 28 was inherently unconstitutional, and that President Zelaya, by refusing to follow a court order to suspend it, showed his lack of respect for law and the separation of powers and justified his removal. I have alluded several times to the fact that one would have to be deeply immersed in the specific back-and-forth of the development of the poll to understand how over-simplified these arguments are.

Francisco Palacios Romeo, Professor of Constitutional Law at the Universidad de Zaragoza, Spain, has offered one of the best analyses I have seen. First, in a document dated July 3, he makes six points about the legal issues involved:

(1) the poll "was a question about the possibility to ask another question. Therefore it was an absolutely innocuous question in the short and medium term. A question that would need to be validated by a second question."

(2) the legal findings about the poll were vague and lacked clear basis, with the Supreme Court ruling simply upholding a lower court ruling lacking any clear legal grounding:

The poll was prohibited by a simple Administrative Trial Court, which is a court of first appeal....its only argument was “the implementation [of the poll] would redound in damages of an economic, political, and social character that would be impossible to repair for the State of Honduras” ...The sentence of this Court was supported by a decision of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal which refused to collaborate in the organization [of the poll]. The Supreme Court, finally, issued a short communication full, as well, of generalities and falacious commonplaces. The Supreme Court says:

"...the confiscation [of polling materials] being the execution of a solid legal action ratified by the Administrative Trial Court where the survey sponsored by the Executive, who never paid attention to the orders emanating from the Constitution and the Law, was declared illegal, the Judicial Branch considers that such action is accomplished within a legal framework, based on a legal requirement issued by a competent judge... "

In other words, the Supreme Court upheld the ruling because another court had made the ruling, and hence it was considered legal; and the original Trial Court that made the ruling based its decision on unspecified damages that it predicted would come to pass. Neither of these are arguments rooted in the law or the constitution; Palacios calls them simple-minded and false.

(3) Palacios completely rejects the claim that the poll was unconstitutional. He notes there is no article in the Honduran Constitution prohibiting polls. No article of the Constitution reserves polling to the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (which was the main claim made before the coup). There is no Constitutional bar against either asking about, or even convening, a Constitutional Assembly.

(Indeed, news comes tonight that in 1985, Roberto Micheletti proposed to convene Congress as a Constitutional Assembly, reportedly to alter the articles about presidential term limits to allow then-President Suazo Cordova to remain in office, which would explain why he assumed that had to be President Zelaya's plan; it was what he wanted to do in convening a Constitutional Convention.)

Palacios characterizes President Zelaya as very careful to set up the maximum guarantee of clarity through a two step process of consultation about the opinion of the people on whether to convene a Constitutional Assembly. Palacios questions the very idea of the untouchability of articles of the Honduran Constitution, noting that except for those core articles required to guarantee basic rights, untouchable articles "convert a Constitution into a Bible" and "are an attack against the sacred principle of sovereign Constituent power". He finds that President Zelaya was actually opening a wide-ranging debate on constitutional reform and a wide means of popular participation.

(4) Palacios rejects the claim that the Supreme Electoral Tribunal legally had authority over all direct political participation by the people. While elections are indeed their purview, he notes it is important not to confuse "electoral" with direct popular participation by means of a poll or referendum. The law governing elections passed in 2004, he notes, speaks only of elections in which there is a competition for an elected position. Nowhere in the law does it mention polls or referenda.

Palacios notes that since there clearly is no legal impediment to the President conducting a poll, Congress

tried to create a law at full speed. With that motive, the National Congress tried to approve a new law of Referenda to legitimate their actions, trying to make to it be valid as in force. But the law approved against the clock (in three days) is not a valid law, since it lacked the entire later process of presidential approval or, in this case, a long process of possible presidential veto.

This law was passed by Congress on June 24-- the Wednesday before the scheduled vote. It defined polls as requiring 51% of registered voters to participate-- a level not achieved even in elections in Honduras-- and limited the practice of polls within six months of any election, thus making a previously scheduled poll suddenly illegal. It was this law that defined polls as a matter for the Supreme Electoral Tribunal. The new law also defined as not subject to polling not only the so-called stone articles of the Constitution, but also "social polls", themes having to do with taxation, public credit, or currency, and international treaties. The breadth of what was ruled as not open to public input is critical to note. Palacios notes that as long as polls do not distort established legal proceedings, they "should be legal by definition and by democratic principles, since the opinion/participation of the sovereign people should always be the first premise of every democracy".

(5) Palacios takes on the post-facto rationalization the Supreme Court offered for the raid and expatriation of President Zelaya as well. He notes that a disagreement between branches of government cannot legitimate removing the President from office. This he notes is a normal conflict in many democratic political conjunctures. There exist mechanisms and general Constitutional theory to resolve such conflicts. He notes that around the world, courts rule against executive branches of government constantly, without taking these extreme steps.

(6) Finally, Palacios takes on the claim that the Army was carrying out a constitutional role in its use of force. This assertion by the Supreme Court, that the "the Armed Forces acted in defense of the State of Law as defenders of the dominion of the Constitution", raises precisely the specter of militarization of government that Rodolfo Pastor Fasquelle has been pointing out is one of the legacies of the coup.

Instead, as Palacios demonstrates, the Honduran Constitution affirms the role of the President as Commander in Chief; the Armed Forces are thus not an independent branch of government; the constitution explicitly denies them a deliberative role.

Second text: Lessons of Participatory Democracy about Article 5

Responding to reactions to his original article, Palacios gave an interview to Telesur. In it, he considers the question of when the people can express their opinion about the possibility of a Constitutional Assembly, or when any such possibility is prohibited?

In this long article, this constitutional law scholar points out that the Honduran Constitution, which does make statements about "plebiscites" and referenda, does not make any statements about polls. He points out that Article 5 of the constitution defines very restricted means for constitutional reform, which if they are interpreted as making it impossible to reform the constitution would violate the presumption that the mandate of the constitution flows from the will of the people.

He then shows that Articles 5 and 45 of the Constitution actually call for unimpeded democratic participation. This is followed by a detailed discussion of the Law of Civic Participation of 2006, which he characterizes at length as filling in the omissions and silences in the Constitution concerning participatory democracy.

Article 2 of this law, he notes, defines core principles of "a very advanced and extensive model of participation and direct consultation of the people": Participatory Democracy; Stewardship; Solidarity; Legality; and Respect are each defined as fundamental to democratic participation.

Given the lack in the constitutional of a defined way to undertake reform; the "dogmaticism" of the claim that some parts of the constitution cannot be revised, which breaks "the sacred principle of Constituent Power"; the inviability of plebiscites and referenda for specific questions like that to be set June 28; the participatory call of Article 5, and the implications of Article 45 of the Constitution; and the content of the Law of Civic Participation, he finds the proposed poll entirely legitimate and in keeping with the Constitution and established law.

A Primer on Honduran Politics, by Rodolfo Pastor Fasquelle

A second text written by the Minister of Culture, made available through the work of Adrienne Pine

[Note: this excellent and brief summary of the context of the coup should be read in conjunction with the previous post, my hurried and thus somewhat choppy translation of Pastor Fasquelle's passionate open letter to those responsible for the coup, titled after Émile Zola's famous J'accuse]

For the recent coup in Honduras to begin to make sense to an American public, readers require knowledge of a broader context, of political and historic circumstances surrounding the situation. Even with such background information, it is difficult to trace the multiple links that pull these events into a coherent picture.

Some of the players are evident, for example, the interamerican rightist coalition that connects CIA diehards with Cuban exile fanatics and rightist politicians in Latin American countries has been tremendously worried over the last couple of years with the advance of socially progressive politics in the region. Right wingers have attempted to put widely differing experiences and models in the same sack, making no distinction between Chile’s socialist President Bachelet and Venezuela’s Chavez, between Argentinian President Kirchner and Bolivia’s indigenous coca defender Evo Morales, Correa of Ecuador and, on the other hand Brazil’s Lula with whom the former is fighting, or between the left leaning presidents of Central American countries, as if there were none, for example, between President Zelaya, a rich landowner from the traditionalist Liberal Party --who has simply insisted on the need to address inequalities and respond to severe poverty-- and, on the other hand, Daniel Ortega, an avowed Marxist Leninist.

There are other common threads or denominators, such as the increasing pressure of fundamentalist christians (both Catholic and Protestant) in politics and on the state. (Clearly The Assault on Reason of former Vice President Al Gore analyses a similar thread in American politics). So that when President Zelaya vetoed a law which intended to prohibit the use of birth control pills, the clergy reacted with a vengeance. Americans should also be familiar with the lobbying of corporate interests in Congress and executive offices, especially by oil and pharmaceutical conglomerates, the communications industry and seekers of tax havens and exemptions. I know a couple of New York republicans who hate the democrats who tax them in order to finance public health services.

Yet, Honduran politics must be difficult to understand for an American reader. How, for example, can one explain to this public that in what Hondurans call “democracy” today, seven party bosses determine the totality of the electoral options (from President of the country to local officers) and no one can participate without their patronage. Or how to explain that our congressmen have no geographically determined constituency, as American congressmen from a given district, and therefore are not really answerable to anyone but the bosses who put them on the ballot. Or how can one explain that until three months ago there was no way one could ask the Honduran electorate if it agreed with legal reforms of different sorts. Because ours is only a “representative democracy” according to the constitution! A reglamentary constitution, with almost four hundred articles that regulate rigidly every aspect of national life, make no provision for change and which have, therefore, had to be reformed in more than one third of their contents, yet lacks guarantees. So Indian groups and African descendants have no rights over their lands, which belong to the nation. And no one can personally accuse any other party for any wrong suffered, but has to rely on public attorneys and their disposition to process! Really. I am serious.

And when we have obtained, through public opinion pressure profound reforms, passed with all votes in favor, applauded by international organizations, for example prohibiting the President of Congress (which gets a disproportionate part of the budget for its political activity) from aspiring immediately to the Presidency of the Republic, in order to limit his advantage with public funding, the incumbent has gone to the Supreme Court, which Congress also elects every seven years (and had to elect this year) and gets a sentence saying the said provision violates his constitutional right to be elected to office!! It’s for real.

So that when, based on the new Law of Citizen’s Participation passed on the first day of his term, President M. Zelaya proposed consulting the electorate through a nationwide poll on the need to convene a new constituent assembly to reform this perverse system, its beneficiaries began a prolonged war to stop him, accusing him wanting to become a dictator.

Or how do you explain to the American electorate that in Honduras where we have had in the last two centuries hundreds of revolutions and coups d’etat, military commanders really can invoke a judicial sentence ruling that poll to be unconstitutional (because it is a direct consultation) in order to disobey an executive order, an order of their Commander-in-Chief to transport the materials for the poll, to rebel, and can, after being discharged from their posts, attack the President’s home with machine guns at five o’clock in the morning of last Sunday and kidnap him pointblank and fly him out of the country, and convene Congress, a couple of hours later that day, and proclaim there has been no coup and that the legal successor is the President of Congress. I am not sure I understand that myself and I was born and bred in Honduras.

More Pastor Fasquelle's commentary on the role of the military in the coup d'etat, and his argument that the role played by the military will constitute a difficulty for the negotiations underway mediated by Oscar Arias, is featured in an interview today with Telesur. On July 5, Pastor Fasquelle spoke with the BBC about the politics of the coup, expressing the same views and voicing his concern that the situation could erupt in civil war.

[Adrienne Pine, an anthropologist who blogs at http://quotha.net/, translated and published this statement by this prominent Honduran intellectual. Her work is used here under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License, the terms of which govern any other use of this work.]

J'accuse, by Rodolfo Pastor Fasquelle

[Adrienne Pine, an anthropologist who blogs at http://quotha.net/, translated a Spanish-language statement by this prominent Honduran intellectual, published online July 7 at Rebanadas de Realidad. Her work is used here under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License, the terms of which govern any other use of this work.]

I Accuse

Rodolfo Pastor Fasquelle, Honduran Minister of Culture (Translation by Adrienne Pine)
Tegucigalpa, 07/07/09

Before the High Court--that of history--I accuse those who, in different ways, have participated in the coup that has been perpetrated against José M. Zelaya, who Honduras elected to hold office for four years and who is unanimously backed by the community of nations- of treason.

I accuse Romeo Vásquez Velásquez--who positioned himself, up to the final hours of his legitimate post, as the friend of the President and a disciplined soldier--of having planned and carried out this treasonous and violent act, together with the generals of the State, controlling a puppet Congress along with the institutions that depend on it, motived by vanity, his pride wounded by his dismissal, invoking the supposed "illegality" of the poll, according to the rigged verdict, to carry out the unforgivable crime of kidnapping his Commander in Chief, for which he later pretended to have an "arrest warrant," something the judge denies. And I accuse you, General, of ordering a repression that is getting worse; the illegal arrests, the violent soldiers; the injuries and deaths that may occur are on your shoulders, Sir.

I accuse his accomplice Carlos Flores Facusse of having planned the coup and having conspired with and urged on the coup forces just like his father before him, of having schemed for months--together with José R. Ferrari and his acolytes and Jorge Canahuati, cut of the same cloth--planning the publicity campaign aimed at influencing a broad swath of the public, hiring experts on psychological warfare in Miami to bombard the population with obfuscatory messages, lies and fabrications repeated a thousand times, taking advantage of the ignorance and naïvete generated by the system in a smear campaign against the government and a campaign of intimidation against those who planned to participate in the poll, campaigns that were carried out without scruples in preparation for the coup. And I accuse Carlos Flores of hiding now and feigning innocence when his puppets have played strategic roles in the coup.

To Flores' acolytes: Elvin Santos and Roberto Micheleti B, presidential candidates--both unconstitutional--on the inside and the shameless members of Congress, who lent themselves to the maneuvers of the military, in whose hands they have remained perfectly useless, and to the candidates for Congress and local governments who followed the order to sabotage the poll and who will receive the implacable condemnation by our thinking companions for their great betrayal of the Party, and the same goes for the madman E. Ortez Colindres. I accuse them of having destroyed the Party of my forefathers, of having buried it alive, though admittedly injured.

I accuse Pepe Lobo, Rafael L. Callejas and Rodolfo Irías Navas who hatched the opportunistic and irresponsible plan of the National Party facing crisis, under the supposition that, with the enemy fractured, they were the beneficiaries and winners, without giving thought to the discredit that would be brought by the unanimous vote of the National Party in favor of accepting first an assault, then a false resignation and then the illegal dismissal of the President. As such, if one day the National Party were to end up being judged by the Supreme Court of the country, it would be subject to the same treatment and would have the obligation to please the darkest circles of power to remain "in power."

I accuse, before the higher court of posterity and history, these turn-coat judges, who followed the instructions of their bosses and political patrons to produce unjust verdicts, who betray the State, who make up sentences to cover their own crimes and a new type of crime which could be hypothetically committed in the future, who try to ban freedom of expression and intervene in the Executive Branch. [I accuse] the businessmen of the employers' organizations COHEP [The Honduran National Business Council], CCIC [The Cortes Chamber of Commerce], ANDI [National Industrial Association of Honduras], FENAGH [National Federation of Agricultural and Livestock Producers], who, despite that fact that part of their membership (myself included) dissents, want to give a false legitimacy to the coup, and who invoke democracy and legality and peace while at the same time promoting a coup that destroys any chance of providing the conditions necessary to defend those flags. Who manipulate public opinion, forcing their employees to march for Micheletti and who have confessed (I can attest to this) having financed mercenaries, provocateurs, to infiltrate and create chaos in protests defending the only legitimate government, thereby justifying their repression. And [I accuse] their followers who shamelessly congratulate themselves for defending their petty interests. Prepare to pay the price, now that no one else has the means.

I accuse the journalists who have become accomplices in crimes against the nation, finally demonstrating their shamelessness, not when they take a position (which they would have the right to do) but when they -systematically- manipulate the facts which they have an obligation to transmit with objectivity, when they hide them or make them up and when they slant their reporting to gloss over the vilest actions of the coup leaders and denigrate even the most noble of intentions of the popular movement, inciting irrationality and the coup itself, as many of the most notable journalists have done. I accuse you Rodrigo, you Renato, Edgardo, Alfredo, you, my namesake [Rodolfo]. Shame! You are responsible for the coup. [I accuse] the ideologues and spokespeople of the coup, Leitzelar, Valladares. And the intellectuals who wielded their supposedly neutral academic positions, an immoral stance in this context because it had to do with choosing between right and wrong, as is the case here.

I accuse these self-appointed "apostles", false prophets and backstabbers who call themselves pastors, invoking the name of God in vain against a civic proposal for social reform, democratization and betterment of Honduran society, who have tried to politicize sacred symbols and aided and blessed the darkest and most corrupt forces; who manipulated their congregations and followers and then justified the coup and subsequent repression and who now ask us to prevent a "bloodbath," as if the armed groups were not their own troops. For these hypocrites who are fed in order to extol their own virtues, fanatical followers of false religion with their vile business of buying and selling the heaven and earth (at whatever price they name, given that their empty words cost nothing), manipulating their congregations with fear, may they rot in hell! Because, as Father Milla says, the marriage of money and religion is the worst form of sacrilege.

I also accuse of treason those empty-headed people in our middle class, who gave free reign to these lies and who placed their petit-bourgeois comfort above the principles that their elders taught them, those of justice and decency and empathy for the suffering of the poorest. And in the end what good will the media dogma, the drugs and the incense do for he who is responsible for the coup, the usurper? No one will forget your infamy (that of a whitewashed tomb), the fact that you are an apocalyptic beast in sheep's clothing or how, in your wickedness, you feign innocence. We will not even forgive you nor your successors for three generations, so that the memory of your evil deeds be a lesson for all.