Honduras: Coup D'etat Murder, Mayhem and Lost Civil Liberties

Honduran news today reports a mystery that surrounds the murder of the nephew of the interim Honduran President, Roberto Micheletti. The president’s nephew, Enzo Micheletti, was found with his hands tied behind his back and bullet holes in the head and chest, in the woods outside the Honduran town of Choloma. No suspect in the killing has been named yet. Since the June 28 military coup d’état overtook President Zelaya, and his administration in Honduras, conditions have become much more restricted and much worse for most of those living in Honduras.

Honduras is known to have the highest homicide rate per capita in Central America. Most of this violence is a result of illegal drug trafficking inside and outside the country. In the past year the murder rate has risen 25% to a whopping 7,200, out of a populace of 7.7 million, killed in 2008. Danger, violence and corruption have been an ongoing part of the status quo for many years in Honduras.

Over 59 percent of Hondurans now remain below the poverty line. Women make up a larger percentage of this number. For almost 37 percent, life in Honduras is suffered in a severe daily crisis as women live far below the extreme poverty line. Food and housing are part of a daily ongoing necessity for many women, their children and families.

Due to the current military state of affairs since June, the World Bank has now completely “paused its lending” to the country. This means that numerous humanitarian programs aimed at helping women and children have been completely stopped. One of the discontinued programs is the “education for all” program, which guaranteed $50 million for the first 3 years of the campaign, along with an additional $30 million to enable Honduran schools to hire more teachers, build more schools and provide more books for children and adults learning to read and write.

In 2005, The World Bank approved $97 million for these programs that aimed for progress with a target to help improve the quality of life for the poorest of Honduran society. This included help with nutrition and family health care for women that set an additional goal of lowering the infant and birth mortality rates inside the country.

In the US, President Obama’s office has also put the brakes on as a block has been placed on a US $30 million distribution for aide to Honduras. $200 US million may also be blocked if the Honduran government does not put President Zelaya back in office.

Unfortunately the poorest of the country, not the wealthy, will suffer the most from these sanctions.

According to a recent Oct 15 AP report made after the coup, “A woman caring for six grandchildren can no longer afford milk. A bricklayer who used to work six days a week now is lucky to get two. A shop manager has seen his earnings evaporate…”

Now, four months after the June 28 military take-over, the women of Honduras are still waiting and hoping to regain even the tiniest bit of civil rights traction they were beginning to have under President Zelaya’s administration. In an effort to block the outcome for the upcoming 2009 November elections, Zelaya, who had changed Honduran law on rape to keep rapists in jail for life, was ousted from his post just as he was attempting to push through a change in the Honduran constitution that would enable him to run for another term.

Zelaya was also pushing public policy that did not sit pretty with many right-wing Honduran business leaders, along with evangelical and Honduran societal elites. Zelaya and his administration were working on rewriting the constitution to include, for the first time, a mention of women in the country's code, which also was set to include some basic civil rights for women. Previous disagreements with right-wing politics followed as Zelaya approved a 60 percent increase for workers under a new Honduran minimum wage law, along with giving higher government subsidies to farmers.

On the aftermath of coup violence and internal stuggle, Zelaya has now become a strong symbol for the progressive anti-coup discontents in Honduras. This movement has also worked to further galvanize an already strong women’s feminist movement inside the country.

The fallout from the recent coup conflict left some women protesters in shambles as they were harshly beaten, raped and left for dead. Some women are still awaiting trial under charges of sedition. “Women were especially subject to acts of violence and humiliation because of their gender,” said an IACHR -- The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights report published on August 21 following the conflict.

This searing video on Women News Network Video collection shows the deplorable treatment of women "resisters" during, and after, the June 28, 2009 Honduras coup d’état.

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Humanitarian journalist, Lys Anzia, is a 2006 Pushcart Prize nominee, radio producer and award winning American historical playwright. She is also Founder/Editor-At-Large for Women News Network – WNN, an award winning news network that brings hard featured, in-depth women’s global news to the public as well as to over 480 UN agencies and NGO affiliates worldwide.

 

Follow Lys Anzia on Twitter: www.twitter.com/womenadvocates

Comments

[shekissesfrogs]

Last Sunday, Oct 25, police found the remains of Enzo Micheletti, a nephew of the acting president, near Choloma, some 250 kilometers (155 miles) north of the capital along with those of another youth.
The 25-year-old, who was the son of the de facto leader's brother, had vanished on Friday.

Sunday Oct 25,
Army Colonel Concepcion Jimenez was shot and killed outside his house.

Tuesday, Oct 27, the father of acting deputy defense minister Gabo Jalil was
kidnapped - Alfredo Jalil, a wealthy businessman who manages a company that supplies uniforms to the Honduran army,

Looks like things are going to get ugly for the junta.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jKCvSaa95d98McapIhva8WGtaYaQ

[Billy Hell]

Excellent news just came in from Reuters:

Honduras’ de facto government buckled under international pressure and agreed to allow the return to power of President Manuel Zelaya, who was toppled in a military coup four months ago.

“It is a triumph for Honduran democracy,” Zelaya said after the rival sides agreed to a deal that should see him restored to office in the coming days.

“We are satisfied. We are optimistic that my reinstatement is imminent,” Zelaya said.

Take that golpistas!

[Ira7]

Hey--you're allowed to rewrite history a few years later, but you can't rewrite it while it's going on!

1) There was no coup d'etat. The military doesn't rule, and elections are going to be held.

2) The women you claim to be abused were probably paid Zelayists, breaking the law.

3) If you think that Mel as a leftist was going to improve the lot of women, you're dreaming. This is a Latin American country, where machismo generally rules. Politicing is one thing; actiion is another.

4) Zelaya's increase in the minimum wage was absurd and totally unsustainable. Not only did scores of small businesses shut their doors, but the large businesses simply hired less workers, further contributing to employment.

If you want to support women's rights in Honduras, that's an admirable thing to do. But to say that Mel was going to make this happen--and to question the validity of his removal--are different matters altogether.

[n4m]

1. It is the very definition of a coup.The Honduran doesn't forbid polling the electorate to determine the amount of support for calling a constitutional convention to amend the constitution.in fact, it is the very mechanism for amending the constitution in the Honduran Constitution, itself.
You can say his intention was to illegally extend his term, but the fact remains he would have been out of office before the convention to amend the constitution would've been held.

2.I wasn't aware that rape, as punishment for being a Zelaya supporter, or anything else, was in the Honduran legal code, or Constitution.
Your willingness to overlook violations of the law when it suits you, and of all things, to dismiss the raping of women because of what they probably were i.e. Zelaya supporters,, is beyond comprehension.

3. Since you have already condoned the rape of women because they might not have supported your political position, you have no standing from which to accuse someone else of not caring about women.

4. Again, you justify Zelaya's illegal removal from office,because he raised the minimum wage?
And you call him a tyrant!

[sticksnstones]

" The women you claim to be abused were probably paid Zelayists, breaking the law. "

I find that comment devoid of legal and moral content as any I've read to date. The implication is that R A P E is perfectly justified in the event of opposing ideology. What a small, small man you are.

[n4m]

How someone could even post that, much less believe it, well, when I first read it, I gasped and my jaw literally dropped.
And, after the "dirty thirty" voted against the "Franken Amendment", maybe it shouldn't have shocked me as much as it did.
I'm not at all naive, I realize people are capable of great evil, but for so many, in such a short period of time, to throw that out there like it was no big deal?
It disheartens and sickens me.

[alysheba 3]

There was no Coup D'Etat. The military removed a President who was acting against the Constitution, as ordered by the Supreme Court. The only thing making life harder for the innocents are people who refuse to acknowledge the truth, like you.

[Lys Anzia - Huffpost Blogger]

See the video link at the bottom of this op-ed ( go to: http://vodpod.com/watch/2401926-targeted-for-resistance-honduras-women?pod=womennewsnetwork ). You might change your mind about the situation in Honduras.....

[sdiaz]

according to your logic, Colombia's President Uribe is also acting against the Colombian constitution by seeking to change it so he can extended his term........nobody is jumping on that issue

[JTHC75]

That depends on whether there's a provision in the Colombian constitution that says it's treason to try to extend term limits. There is one in the Honduran constitution, IIRC.

Frankly, I'm opposed to any of these leaders trying to extend term limits. Central and South America have too much of a history with dictatorships, and strict term limits are an attempt to put an end to that. Look at what just happened in Nicaragua: Daniel Ortega is at it again, using anti-democratic tricks to extend his term. Seeing what just happened there, I can't fault the Hondurans for kicking out Zelaya.

[lightningbolt]

The dictatorship in Honduras cannot last very long. Nobody supports them except for the Honduran oligarchy and a few brainwashed right wing nuts.

[n4m]

Your report makes what already was a sad story, sadder still.
Even so, I wish to thank you for your work and hope you continue to do it.
I feel ashamed to be the only person to comment on this story even though it's been posted for more than two hours.
Maybe, there are more people out there, who, like me, don't know what to say.
It took me more than an hour, first typing, and then deleting, to even come up with this much.