Honduran "elections" threaten democracy

[clear eye]

Dateline: Monday, November 30, 2009

by Rick Arnold

Just after dawn on June 28 of this year, Manuel Zelaya, the democratically-elected President of Honduras, was awakened at gunpoint by soldiers and flown out of the country. Behind this putsch lay a tiny minority of wealthy land owners, textile tycoons and media barons who opposed Zelaya's efforts to change the face of one of the poorest countries in the Americas.

Zelaya's so-called "crimes" included raising the minimum wage by 60 percent (to nine dollars a day), setting up financial aid for students, building a Honduran social security net, and legislating controls over rampant and exploitative mining and logging practices. In the five months since the military-backed coup thousands of Hondurans opposed to the de facto regime have been arrested and many have been beaten and tortured. Well over a hundred opposition figures have been assassinated, and the independent media muzzled or shut down completely.

...In late September, after diplomatic efforts by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias to resolve the conflict were stone-walled by the de facto regime, President Zelaya slipped back into Honduras and took refuge in the Brazilian Embassy. More than 400 hundred soldiers and riot police then surrounded the Embassy compound and have virtually imprisoned Zelaya and dozens of his supporters. The UN has documented the use of chemical and sonic weapons against those inside.

Amidst this brutal repression, the dictatorship holds an "election". Should other countries recognize the results of such an election, held on November 29?

Latin America says absolutely not. On November 5, the 25 nations of the Rio Group, which includes virtually all of Latin America, declared that they would not recognize the results of the Nov. 29 election if President Zelaya was not first restored to office.

Rick Arnold is Executive Director of Common Frontiers — a multi-sectoral working group which confronts, and proposes an alternative to, the social, environmental and economic effects of economic integration in the Americas.

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