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Published on Monday, July 6, 2009 by CommonDreams.org
Hondurans Pour into the Streets Demanding Zelaya’s Return
The day started out full of joy, as thousands of Hondurans converged in front of the National Institute of Pedagogy, intent on marching about three miles to the airport to greet the plane that was supposed to bring deposed President Zelaya back to Honduras.
"Our president's coming home today, this is going to be a great day," said Jose Rodriguez, a campesino who came from Santa Barbara with his farmer's group to join the anti-coup movement. The military tried to stop them from getting to the capital, so they had to divide up and take local buses from town to town. "It took us two days to get here, and we slept outside in the forest last night, but we had to be here," said Rodriguez.
A group of young girls came with their church from Olancho. They were determined to greet Zelaya, who they said was sent by God to be president. "The Cardinal is against our president, but he doesn't represent many of us in the religious community. Our pastor is against the coup and so are we," said Alejandra Fernandez, a 23-year-old university student.
I asked why she supported Manuel Zelaya, or "Mel", as his supporters call him. "The government said he broke the law and is guilty of 18 crimes," she said. "Do you know what they are?" She pulled out her cell phone and started to read from a list: He raised the minimum wage, gave out free school lunches, provided milk for the babies and pensions for the elderly, distributed energy-saving lightbulbs, decreased the price of public transportation, made more scholarships available for students." Suddenly a crowd gathered around us and started chiming in. "He fixed the roads," said one. "He put schools in remote rural areas, like my little village, that never had them before," added another. "He let anyone go into the Presidential Palace and converted it from an elite residence to the people's house," said another.
"You see?," Alejandra smiled. "He is guilty of even more then 18 crimes. That's why the elite classes can't stand him and why we want him back. This is really a class struggle."
The march wound its way through the streets of Tegucigalpa, gathering more and more people along the way. The massive crowd sang and chanted slogans like "No somos cinco, no somos cien. Prensa vendida, cuentenos bien" (We're not five, we're not 100, you sold-out press, count us well")-referring to the fact that the mainstream press has been ignoring or grossly undercounting the movement that had been holding street demonstrations every day since the June 28 coup.
"I've never had anything like this in my lifetime," said an ecstatic Miriam Nunez, a 46-year-old teacher from Tegucigalpa. "Look around you-you can't even see the beginning or the end of this march! It's full of teachers, students, campesinos, union workers, indigenous people. One thing the coup succeeded in doing is bringing together the social movements in a way that never exited before in this country."
What made the march particularly exciting is that as it approached the airport, there were rows and rows of soldiers and police in riot gear blocking their path. Each time the security forces tried to stop the crowd, there would be negotiations with the police, who would finally back down and allow the protesters to get closer and closer to the airport.
Luis Sosa, a university professor and anti-coup leader, was one of those negotiating with Police Commissioner Mendosa. "Mendosa and I went to school together 20 years ago and we play soccer together every Sunday. So he knows that if his men get rough with us, there will be hell to pay next Sunday," laughed Sosa. "But seriously, we're trying hard to maintain discipline among our ranks-taking sticks and rocks away from people who want to provoke violence-and the police say that as long as we are peaceful, they'll let us go all the way to the airport."
Sure enough, the crowd made it to the airport peacefully and waited patiently for Zelaya's plane to arrive. Suddenly, a plane flew in low and circled around the airport. The crowd went wild, cheering and jumping up and down, but became angry when they saw that the plane was not able to land. Military vehicles and soldiers were on the runway, making it impossible for the pilot to maneuver safely.
On the far end of the airport, a group of mostly young people tried to get through the fence to make their way to the tarmac. According to Al Jazeera cameramen Alfredo Delara, some of them started throwing stones and bottles at security forces. The troops responded by lobbying tear gas and then firing their weapons in the air. Suddenly, at least one soldier pointed his weapon directly at the crowd.
"A young boy was hit right in the head, his brains gushing out. He was killed instantly," said Delara. "His mother came running, screaming hysterically ‘My son, my son, they've killed my son.'" Others in the crowd were wounded and it was reported that another person was killed.
Between the violence and the fact that President Zelaya was forced to fly on to El Salvador, the crowd became despondent. The organizers tried to keep up their hopes. "Perhaps the United Nations will send peacekeepers," one of the leaders shouted through the sound system. The crowd cheered and yelled, "We want the blue helmuts, we want the blue helmuts."
"Can you believe this?," asked indigenous leader Berta Caceres, her eyes welling up with tears. "Now they are killing our people. Where will this end? We need the international community to step in and stop the crazy people who have stolen our country."
Meanwhile, another piece of news circulated-that the government had just moved up the curfew from 10pm to 6:30pm. The crowd rushed to disperse, fearing they could be arrested for violating the curfew. But they vowed to keep up the fight. "We will be marching again tomorrow, come join us," the leaders announced. "This struggle is not over."
"If they think that were are going to give up, they are badly mistaken," said Caceres. "The events of today make us more determined than ever to overthrow this terrible coup."
"Our president's coming home today, this is going to be a great day," said Jose Rodriguez, a campesino who came from Santa Barbara with his farmer's group to join the anti-coup movement. The military tried to stop them from getting to the capital, so they had to divide up and take local buses from town to town. "It took us two days to get here, and we slept outside in the forest last night, but we had to be here," said Rodriguez.
A group of young girls came with their church from Olancho. They were determined to greet Zelaya, who they said was sent by God to be president. "The Cardinal is against our president, but he doesn't represent many of us in the religious community. Our pastor is against the coup and so are we," said Alejandra Fernandez, a 23-year-old university student.
I asked why she supported Manuel Zelaya, or "Mel", as his supporters call him. "The government said he broke the law and is guilty of 18 crimes," she said. "Do you know what they are?" She pulled out her cell phone and started to read from a list: He raised the minimum wage, gave out free school lunches, provided milk for the babies and pensions for the elderly, distributed energy-saving lightbulbs, decreased the price of public transportation, made more scholarships available for students." Suddenly a crowd gathered around us and started chiming in. "He fixed the roads," said one. "He put schools in remote rural areas, like my little village, that never had them before," added another. "He let anyone go into the Presidential Palace and converted it from an elite residence to the people's house," said another.
"You see?," Alejandra smiled. "He is guilty of even more then 18 crimes. That's why the elite classes can't stand him and why we want him back. This is really a class struggle."
The march wound its way through the streets of Tegucigalpa, gathering more and more people along the way. The massive crowd sang and chanted slogans like "No somos cinco, no somos cien. Prensa vendida, cuentenos bien" (We're not five, we're not 100, you sold-out press, count us well")-referring to the fact that the mainstream press has been ignoring or grossly undercounting the movement that had been holding street demonstrations every day since the June 28 coup.
"I've never had anything like this in my lifetime," said an ecstatic Miriam Nunez, a 46-year-old teacher from Tegucigalpa. "Look around you-you can't even see the beginning or the end of this march! It's full of teachers, students, campesinos, union workers, indigenous people. One thing the coup succeeded in doing is bringing together the social movements in a way that never exited before in this country."
What made the march particularly exciting is that as it approached the airport, there were rows and rows of soldiers and police in riot gear blocking their path. Each time the security forces tried to stop the crowd, there would be negotiations with the police, who would finally back down and allow the protesters to get closer and closer to the airport.
Luis Sosa, a university professor and anti-coup leader, was one of those negotiating with Police Commissioner Mendosa. "Mendosa and I went to school together 20 years ago and we play soccer together every Sunday. So he knows that if his men get rough with us, there will be hell to pay next Sunday," laughed Sosa. "But seriously, we're trying hard to maintain discipline among our ranks-taking sticks and rocks away from people who want to provoke violence-and the police say that as long as we are peaceful, they'll let us go all the way to the airport."
Sure enough, the crowd made it to the airport peacefully and waited patiently for Zelaya's plane to arrive. Suddenly, a plane flew in low and circled around the airport. The crowd went wild, cheering and jumping up and down, but became angry when they saw that the plane was not able to land. Military vehicles and soldiers were on the runway, making it impossible for the pilot to maneuver safely.
On the far end of the airport, a group of mostly young people tried to get through the fence to make their way to the tarmac. According to Al Jazeera cameramen Alfredo Delara, some of them started throwing stones and bottles at security forces. The troops responded by lobbying tear gas and then firing their weapons in the air. Suddenly, at least one soldier pointed his weapon directly at the crowd.
"A young boy was hit right in the head, his brains gushing out. He was killed instantly," said Delara. "His mother came running, screaming hysterically ‘My son, my son, they've killed my son.'" Others in the crowd were wounded and it was reported that another person was killed.
Between the violence and the fact that President Zelaya was forced to fly on to El Salvador, the crowd became despondent. The organizers tried to keep up their hopes. "Perhaps the United Nations will send peacekeepers," one of the leaders shouted through the sound system. The crowd cheered and yelled, "We want the blue helmuts, we want the blue helmuts."
"Can you believe this?," asked indigenous leader Berta Caceres, her eyes welling up with tears. "Now they are killing our people. Where will this end? We need the international community to step in and stop the crazy people who have stolen our country."
Meanwhile, another piece of news circulated-that the government had just moved up the curfew from 10pm to 6:30pm. The crowd rushed to disperse, fearing they could be arrested for violating the curfew. But they vowed to keep up the fight. "We will be marching again tomorrow, come join us," the leaders announced. "This struggle is not over."
"If they think that were are going to give up, they are badly mistaken," said Caceres. "The events of today make us more determined than ever to overthrow this terrible coup."
Posted in honduras
28 Comments so far
Show AllHonduras Revelation -- Two hundred years in the making
Once upon a time in 1821 a small group of rich nobility hired a militia, declared Honduras independence and established a capitalist dictatorship, complete with a make believe constitution.
Comes now the rich ruling class in Honduras to be only 23 wealthy families, their military a small 9,000 and no way could they control the 46% of people that oppose the coup.
For even if only 7% of Hondurans decided to take over the government and disarm the dictators, that would be 500,000 throwing rocks and demanding justice.
So cheer up, surely things are never as hopeless as they always seem to be.
President Zelaya is supposed to go to Washington to talk to Hillary Clinton about some sort of compromise to get him back into the presidency. Amnesty for the coup instigators and limited powers for Zelaya. Sounds like the Obama Administration is negotiating on behalf of coup instigators. Did someone's coup plan backfire?
why is it that people always automatically assume bad intentions on the part of the US? Sure there might be elements in Washington that supported this coup, but I get no indication that the Obama administration had anything to do with it, knowingly. Sometimes you guys here on CD are almost as bad as Fox News when it comes to throwing out unsubstantiated fear mongering comments.
Tanguero, I think you are a lot smarter than the question you posed. Given the US's track record of meddling throughout the decades would make one suspicious of US intentions. That's not rocket science. I could be very wrong, but I don't think Obama had anything to do with it either. However, I wouldn't be surprised if there were elements of the CIA that have gone rogue. Just a wild guess on my part. I understand your anger about some of the knee jerk posts on CD, but I think your question about "always blaming the US" is very dismissive of the US's abominable record of intervention. Finally the US could do it's part and close down The School of The Americas. It's not the US's responsibility to train foreign soldiers.
UN peacekeepers?
Our only hope in the US is that the people in South and Central America will be able to show us the way...we have certainly lost ours.
Veteran '66-68
As Patrick Henry said centuries ago, "Give me liberty or give me death." He also said he "smelled a rat in Philadelphia" during the constitutional convention. You know, the one that was so high and mighty about rights and responsibilities while giving the Southern states a 2/3 count for every negro even though negroes were slaves not allowed to vote. Well, the rat is our whole, dictatorial, financial, war loving government now.
It's all FUBAR.
I wish it could be fixed but I don't see how. I just live frugally and don't cooperate with the "get in debt by consuming" mindset.
Slaves were designated 3/5 of a person, not 2/3, but your point is well taken.
"She pulled out her cell phone"
Honduran elites want cell phone towers in every village to extract a phone tax but they don't want the people to be politically empowered, same as in the USA.
"This is really a class struggle."
Every struggle is a class struggle, elites being the aggressors, most sponsored by the USA. This is the most relevant truth to the fate of the planet in the early 21st Century. Choose your exchange/association accordingly.
"Perhaps the United Nations will send peacekeepers"
Not at the risk of US funding cuts. US elites want everyone to go back to fondling your 2010 Lexus brochures now.
And yet Americans, faced with the appointment of a Republican fascist by the supreme court in 2000, lay back in their Barcaloungers and took it. Iran, Honduras--where people value freedom and democratic institutions. United States--home of the flaccid and submissive.
I have yet to hear the other side of the story of why the Pres was deposed, have heard fifteenth hand that he was doing things illegally the latest count was extending his term of office, the old pres for life ploy. The military seem to be secondary. All I have heard on the news and in print is about a military coup and how the OAS promptly reacted and numerous countries have sided with it practically before the ejected President's feet touched foreign soil. All seemed too lobsided, over reaction. Of course the Pres and his bravado were headlines.
Sorry but I am waiting to hear both sides which will be difficult because the media seem to have the decided what is good for us to hear and read. He can't be another Chavez or the media would be all over him like a dirty shirt.
The main reason you haven't heard the argument from other side is because the coup is legally, politically, and socially indefensible.
They have made their argument by force.
The count would NOT have extended his current term. It would already be too late for that. Something the coup apologists want to ignore.
"seemed too lopsided?" In what way? President Obama is flown out of the country by a group of generals in the pentagon. What "reaction" from the UN would you consider too lopsided?
Read Counterpunch for the FULL story (both sides) of Zelaya. It doesn't start with the coup. It starts after Zelaya was elected and met with Bush.
For your information, there are perfectly good runways at the US base in Honduras. Why didn't the plane land there? Our military is looking away from this thing so hard, they are going to need neck braces for a month!
Counterpunch is NOT into sound bites. If you want to know the skinny on what's going on, brace yourself and read. The articles are long and full of names, places and verifiable data instead of inflamatory fluff and bullshit like our tv entertainers at the CIA (CNN), alphabet and beaver (I mean Fox) channels dwell in.
"Sorry but I am waiting to hear both sides which will be difficult because the media seem to have the decided what is good for us to hear and read." Maybe they don't provide the two sides on Mars where your living, but here on Earth, both sides, particular the coup justifications have been presented in the media ad nauseum.
Not that this ever would justify a coup and complete repression of press freedom, but this kind of calls into question that oft quoted 25% popularity rating Zelaya had before the coup. How was the poll conducted? By phone? What percentage of Hondurans have a phone at home? The 10 percent who own all of the Honduran wealth?
Gallup did the poll (and they're always politically suspect) and yes, it was by phone. The "evidence" used to indicate decreasing popularity is that there was a 57% approval rating I think 7 months prior to the coup, and it dropped to 30%.
They parade this as proof of an overall drop in popularity, but knowing what i do about polling--as you apparently do too--is that this drop probably represents a drop in support from teh middle/upper classes, who did like Zelaya when they theought he was more of a neo-liberal.
It's likely his support among the lower classes and even a solid chunk of the middle classes who would benefit from a more egalitarian society has gone up over that time frame. Phone polls are increasingly classist, evenhere in the US, since they don't use cell numbers as a rule.
Considering that cell phone service is somewhat more expensive than land line phone service, I find it odd that not including cell phone numbers in polls would bias the results toward the upper class.
I know, poorer people tend to not be reachable on land line phones because they work long hours, and in the US, I certainly see a lot of less-well-off working people on the buses to poor neighborhoods with cell phones (particulary women).
Mostly, I think the phone polling bias in the US is tward older poeple, since young people nowadays are always off in cell-phone text/blackberry-borg land and don't answer a land line phone even if they have one.
But at any rate, I assume most poor landless rural Guatamalans have neither land lines nor cell phones and rely on public phone-centers in the villages for phone calls. At least that is how it worked in rural Venezuela, but that was 25 years ago.
In Latin America, land phones are MUCH more expensive than cell phones, and coverage is spotty. One can wait up to two years in Mexico, for example, AFTER paying the installation fee to the planet's third richest man, Carlos Slim Helu.
The problematic and costly land phone service explains why cell phones have caught on like wildfire all over Latin America--even in the lower social classes.
Actually, the scientific "proof" that polling accurately represents public opinion, even if done with "answer manipulation", is very suspect. The proof came about from some 1940s statistical studies. The glaring fact that polling is incredibly cheap compared with asking everyone the question instead of a "representative sample" is conveniently ommitted. Today we have the simple and cheap possibility of total referendums because of the internet. Public libraries and bank atms could collect the data from those without home computers. Gallop, Rasmussen, etc. have a PR con going on. Don't fall for it. The elites do NOT want direct democracy. They want you to believe in their "polls" for the purpose of controlling your opinion, not seeking it. The only "direct" communication they want is to be able to observe what you do 24/7. They're not "polling" on that, you see. If their phony baloney polling is so scientific, why don't they monitor a "representative sample" of the public instead of trying to monitor everyone who isn't rich and connected? Because it's all bullshit PR. You are being gamed if you believe in "representative samples". Their ain't no such animal in human behavior. What works with bacterial cultures doesn't work with public opinion, capish?
"Today we have the simple and cheap possibility of total referendums because of the internet. Public libraries and bank atms could collect the data from those without home computers."
That would still give an unfair advantage to those with home computers and fast internet connections. Those with home computers and fast connections can vote anytime. Whereas those who who do not, like, oh the poor, would have to go out of their way, would have to take time out, would have to queue to vote.
Not to mention that there is still the problem with voting fraud, voting identity, and privacy.
So no, internet voting is NOT a simple easy solution. Capiche?
Thank you Medea!
And our Obamanation dare not call it a coup or they can't send guns to the gangster elete.
this class conflict is coming to a head everywhere all over the globe. people want a say in their lives... not the same old entrenched have-mores running it all from their insulated lives within their fortified palaces, both literal and figurative. the question is whether there is enough social and environmental conscience among the insular elite to wake up some of them to their/our common humanity and shift the commodification of life paradigm while there's still time to curb the excessive consumption and its violent militarism in so many corners of the world? can the disconnect get reconnected through peaceful means? can reconciliation and trust be forged creatively? we don't need one leader now, we need (and have) millions. millions of gandhis, kings, barlows, days, schmeisers, honkalas, benjamins, goodmans, moyers, kellys, kuciniches, lees, days, naders, ladukes, ortizes, stewarts, colberts, mckinneys, maries, parkses, frantis, mcguires, dalai lamas, tutus, williamses, sanchezes, matthais, "prophets" and healers and peacemakers... the list goes on and on and on......you don't have to achieve sainthood before you act.... the cumulative impact of caring and decency is what's made so many things possible... there is more than enough creativity and heart in this world to overcome this stupefying trance of mammon-powered imperialism/fascism..... did you hear about that town in italy where the mafia had everyone cowed and paying for 'protection' and the people rose up and broke their stranglehold?.... where oscar oliveras the shoemaker in bolivia and his hordes of HUMAN BEINGS rose up and ousted bechtel's water privatizers?... there is bravery and compassion enough in humanity to stand up to this madness. do what you can, and in the process learn how to do more.... love it and each other... SEE each other beyond the crazy neurotic delusions and bring out the best in one another... live simply that others may simply LIVE.
"live simply that others may simply LIVE."
YES! Frugality is Freedom!
you'll pretty much have to make them give it up. it doesn't encessarily have to be through the use of violence (see Zinn's piece), although I think to take that off the table is movement suicide.
It is a global reaction to the new capitalism/neo-colonialism. And in the US, we've so far been the last to get the memo. Fortunately the rest of the world isn't in the same cognitive shape we're in.
There is hope for the world, certainly, In the US specifically, our prospects are far dimmer.
Matangacita: Thanks so much for this moving call to all of us to respond to the better angels of our own natures. Combined with the scene in Tegucigalpa described so graphically by Benjamin---and the related news that one of those unsainted saints Cynthia McKinney is headed home from her Israeli incarceration--this gloomy world looks a little brighter today. Love you man (or woman). Jerry
YES!