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between a bank and a burger king: election farce in honduras
As I sit facing a wall of blue-uniformed TSA officers wearing ominous blue latex gloves, I can’t help wondering if it was a coincidence that the most militarized departure gate at Miami International Airport was the one shipping people to the most militarized elections in Central America.
Perhaps most striking about the five-hour delay that held me in Miami on my way to Tegucigalpa was the extent to which Hondurans going home were not fazed by the police dogs, machine guns and full-body searches that punctuated our wait. What seems so intimidating to the handful of international visitors on our flight is old hat for people who have been living under an oppressive military coup for over four months.
But despite their desensitization to dramatic demonstrations of coercive force, the Hondurans I am flying with are by no means at peace. “Tegucigalpa is not very safe right now and I worry for my family,” said a young man waiting with me. “We need all of this to end.” And it did not appear to him or his friend that the elections were going to be the end of anything. According to the second man, “the international presence is so important, because (the coup regime) will do anything if they can get away with it.” Both individuals asked to remain anonymous and expressed uncertainty about their own approach to the election; they were flying home for the specific purpose of participating in their democratic process, but doubted the legitimacy of any election held under the auspices of the coup.
Indeed, now that I have arrived in Tegucigalpa and begun speaking to people here, I’m struck by how complicated their experiences of the coup and their approaches to the elections truly are. The organized resistance has called for a boycott of the elections, but people in Honduras are aware that they could face serious, perhaps even violent, consequences if they do not vote. Some workplaces will punish employees that do not vote; other people fear that they will be subject to police violence if they do not have a finger dipped in ink on election day.
Despite that fear, there seems to be little doubt in the minds of people here that whenever the state is shutting down the press, there is something they are trying to hide. The people I spoke to in the airport were deeply troubled by the consistent and continued repression of free speech, as exhibited most dramatically by the regime’s shutting-down of Radio Globo and Canal 36. I asked another passenger, a member of the National Democratic Institution (NDI) election-observation team heading down from Washington, what he thought of the prospects for free and fair elections in a climate of repression and fear.
“I haven’t actually heard about the media being shut down,” said Phil Robbins of the NDI. “Truthfully, there has been very little preliminary work done.” Normally, explains Robbins, election-observers would spend many weeks on the ground before an election, ensuring that all candidates are being given appropriate opportunities for campaigning and that people are not being intimidated into, or out of, supporting a particular slate of candidates. But this has not happened – Mr. Robbins was arriving in Honduras for the first time, reading up on Honduran culture in his Lonely Planet guide while we waited for our flight.
NDI is one of the only two organizations that have agreed to monitor the elections – both have affiliations with the two primary political parties in the US. The second, the International Republican Institution (IRI), has already earned a worrisome reputation for its legitimation – and perhaps participation - in the coup that overthrew Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Haiti and for its immediate acceptance and recognition of the leaders of a failed coup in Venezuela in 2002. The Carter Center and other international groups have refused to be involved in a process that ultimately legitimates the coup itself, by legitimating its successor. NDI, affiliated with the Democratic Party in the United States, has sometimes distanced itself from IRI, but they will be working together to give the ‘ok’ to elections under Micheletti’s regime. When pressed about the political climate in Honduras, Robbins simply said that he “would have to see things for himself before coming to any conclusions.”
Fair enough – but is three and a half days enough time to gain any meaningful picture of what is happening here? For the people who have been on the ground for many months, risking their lives reporting on the coup since June 28th, there is very little question that the process cannot be free or fair. The withdrawal of many dozens of candidates from the elections in protest should be further indication that this cannot possibly live up to the standards of even the flawed and problematic democracies that exist elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere.
Outside the Brazilian Embassy where Manual Zelaya is penned in, people gathered in vigil, wedged between a Burger King parking lot and a wrought-iron fence, surrounded by military and police that could barely be differentiated from one another. The city is, for all intents and purposes, under martial law. And if the graffiti that screams out from almost every wall – with the notable exception of the banks and fast food chains - is any indication, the confrontation is far from over in Honduras.
Tyler Shipley is a graduate student and activist from Toronto, Canada. He is in Tegucigalpa with a delegation organized by Rights Action reporting on the resistance to the coup and the Nov. 29 elections. Read more by Tyler Shipley.
It is quite clear from your article that you have a bias and also that you lack a true sense of life in Honduras and Tegucigalpa. I have lived here for 9 months and have experienced first hand much of what has taken place here on the streets. I have seen many fast food chains take repeated direct attacks from the Zelaya supporters. I have seen graffiti sprayed repeatedly on the walls of the restruants and windows broken repeatedly. I have seen the Zelaya supporters totally torch a Popeye’s, burn public busses in the streets, etc. I have seen banks which were attacked as well.
The military pressence has been welcome and preserved a sense of normality in many areas of the city.
This has been a frustrating time for people of Honduras on all sides of this issue. It is even more frustrating when people tell half the stroy to promote the agenda they have.
Is there such a thing any more as fair and unbiased reporting of a situation?
#1. Posted by Andy in Tegucigalpa Honduras on November 29th 2009 at 7:41pm
Andy, I don’t claim to be unbiased - I am here with a human rights group documenting stories and accompanying people who are in danger, and I am wholeheartedly in support of people rejecting a regime that violates their rights, including their right to a legitimate democracy.
That said, I know about the incidents you are describing. You describe them as if they happen regularly, but if you indeed are as close to things are you purport then you will know that they were exceptional situations. However, I will take this opportunity to share what I have learned about these events.
First, it is important that folks have some background about the ‘normalcy’ you describe. The American fast food chains in Tegucigalpa are among the most visible signs of North American domination here, even if they are not in fact the very worst offenders. Along with all of the usual ills that come with the McDonaldization of the world, they are given added sting in Tegucigalpa because they do not pay any taxes to the state. So, their appearance here pushes out smaller businesses (eliminating more sustainable and dignified work and replacing it with fewer and poorer paying jobs) and very little of the money that they make stays in Honduras (since the local franchisees send a lot of money to the US in order to keep their outlets.) Furthermore, the owners of those restaurants are, like everything here, predominantly owned by same the ten to fifteen families, indeed, the very same oligarchy that engineered the coup itself.
As a result, there is most certainly a lot of animosity towards those businesses, and they have been graffitied as often as possible. Of course, you wouldn’t usually know it, because they have the money to ensure that the graffiti is painted over almost immediately - in some cases, they were graffitied and re-painted multiple times in the same day. In a place where people have had their voice in the media taken away, the walls are speaking - the fast food chains are only part of a city that is absolutely covered in political graffiti.
The incident of the burning of a Popeye’s store is one that the golpistas have used as often as possible to try to paint the Resistencia as a violent band of anarchists. Even with the media hammering away on this point every day, there are still few who believe it. This is partly because so many people are connected to the Resistencia and know that it is a profoundly (frustratingly, to some) peaceful movement. At each march, including the one that saw Popeye’s get burnt, the Resistencia organizers have marshals keeping the crowd under control and stopping people from throwing stones. Occasionally, stones are thrown and people inside the marches often say afterward that they didn’t recognize the people who got it started.
Cont…
#2. Posted by Tyler Shipley in Tegucigalpa on November 30th 2009 at 8:46am
Cont…
For anyone who has ever been involved in any kind of political activism, there are some telltale signs that provocateurs in the group trying to create violence in order to justify a repressive response. This march was massive and had people from all over the country – literally hundreds of thousands of people in the streets. What is notable is that while the violence against Popeye was carried out, the army had an entire battalion one block away, watching. Experience in Honduras right now suggests that they do not normally sit back and watch. Why wait until Popeye was burning before intervening? What is more, most of the other violent events you describe happened on the same day, as the smaller crowd at Popeye’s moved onto other businesses in the same neighbourhood. Again, the military just watched. This is not typical behaviour, and it certainly fits the description of state provocation perfectly. The next day, they justified a massive and bloody campaign of repression on the basis of those precise incidents you have described.
Obviously, I don’t have the means to prove that this is the case. However, given the evidence that I do have (all of which has been corroborated by several eyewitness accounts and some video as well) I feel fairly confident in saying that there was some degree of provocation, which probably stoked genuine anger among people who have a legitimate reason to be angry. It is absolutely true that there are people in the Honduras who would probably be willing to see the movement shift towards armed uprising, and I can’t say I blame them, but the Resistencia has thus far been completely and unequivocally peaceful.
“Normality” in Honduras was never very equitable, but even that normality ceased to exist on June 28th. Since then, people here have struggled against a repressive regime that has killed 30 people and kipnapped, beaten, raped, terrorized hundreds more. Thanks to the tireless work of people at COFADEH, CODEH, FIAN and other human rights groups here, these stories are all documented, though it is safe to assume that there are hundreds of cases that have yet gone undocumented. The Resistencia has not killed anyone. So, no, I am certainly not ‘unbiased.’ As Howard Zinn said, “you can’t be neutral on a moving train.”
#3. Posted by Tyler Shipley in Tegucigalpa on November 30th 2009 at 8:55am
Awesome work Tyler, keep it up brother!
#4. Posted by Ali Mustafa in Toronto, Canada on December 1st 2009 at 12:57am