Democra-Phobia: Fear of Citizen Power in Honduras
By Al Giordano
Strip away all the sensationalism, distortion, simulation, ideological axe-grinding, flotsam and jetsam of media coverage of events in Honduras over the past month and it still boils down to one central conflict:
The coup regime fears, and was imposed as a last line of defense against, “Citizen Power.”
Citizen Power – “Poder Ciudadano,” in Spanish, which was the credo on the posters and ads of Manuel Zelaya’s victorious 2005 presidential campaign – manifested itself this year in popular demands for a referendum on whether to write a new Honduran Constitution via democratically elected representatives to a constitutional convention.
It’s that simple, and the coup regime’s fear of authentic democracy is exactly why the failed “talks” in Costa Rica between the two sides have now ended without agreement on anything at all, as foreseen here and elsewhere.
That’s why the violent kidnapping of the president - accompanied by the military occupation of TV, radio and other independent media - took place on the dawn of an election day, Sunday, June 28, when the people of Honduras were going to vote in a nonbinding referendum on whether to have a vote in November over said constitutional convention, known as a constituent assembly in Honduras.
The hasty timing of the coup was intended to prevent the people from voting, and it speaks volumes of what the coupmongers believed the results of that referendum would have been, had the vote been allowed to happen. Their informed belief was that the referendum would have been approved and, even though it would be non-binding, that would have put to rest, once and for all, their claims to somehow speak for a majority of Honduran citizens.
After all, a much less risky strategy would have been to go out, the democratic way, and defeat the referendum at the polls. Lord knows they had the money to mount such a campaign. That the coup plotters did not even attempt to defeat it at the polls reveals the weak hand they are playing.
The question that was to be poised to voters – it bears repeating - was this one:
"Do you think that the November 2009 general elections should include a fourth ballot box in order to make a decision about the creation of a National Constitutional Assembly that would approve a new Constitution?"
And the coup plotters’ justification for the military putsch included the repeated claims that can be summed up as, “we had to do it this way because the constitution didn’t give us a clear enough path to remove the president legally.”
Got that? It translates as: “Yes, our Constitution is flawed, so flawed that we had to burn it, but any attempt to change it by democratic means is a threat that requires us to violate it in order to save it.”
The subsequent debates over the interpretation of many of the Honduran Constitution’s 375 articles and how they may or not may not apply to the situation – a loud discussion that has not, after 23 days, convinced a single nation of the world to recognize the coup regime as a somehow legitimate government, because the pro-coup arguments are that specious – have been intended to obscure the central point: that the entire reason for the timing of the coup was to prevent the Honduran people from speaking as a nation.
The popular demand for a new constitution has not gone away. Indeed, it remains a central requirement from the highly informed and increasingly politicized working and poor majority in Honduras.
Twenty-four-year-old Hortensia “Pichu” Zelaya, daughter of the legitimate President Manuel Zelaya, repeated that demand on Saturday at this anti-coup demonstration in Tegucigalpa:
She reminded that Zelaya’s 2005 presidential campaign revolved around the theme of a “fourth branch” of government it called “Poder Ciudadano,” or “Citizen Power.” In that campaign, contrary to much that has been written, the very thing the oligarchy fears – grassroots citizen participation in Honduras’ government, which throughout history has been controlled by the manipulations of the upper classes – was the central campaign promise, ratified by the voters at the polls.
“They are afraid of the people,” the presidential daughter said to the multitude. “A people without weapons. A people that comes in peace… A people that struggles… A people that no longer wants to be repressed… This people is tired of it, which is what we have demonstrated….”
Noting that social programs of the kind that her father instituted “are not enough,” Hortensia recounted: “President Zelaya discovered that if it is not enough, it will be enough to work with the people. That’s why we defend the non-binding poll of the public opinion, the Fourth Ballot Box, and why we want the National Constituent Assembly.”
The seven-point proposal last weekend by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias included the concept that a restored Zelaya presidency would somehow have to ignore the will of an organized citizenry to rewrite the nation’s constitution. The proposal was dead in the water because the grassroots bases in Honduras would never agree to that or abide by it.
And it’s a sign of the density and dishonesty of so many international media correspondents that they repeatedly boil down a concept as sweeping as a Constitutional Convention for Honduras and all it would entail – the democratic reformation of a government in each of its branches – to the sideshow possibility that it might or might not include an end to the single-term limit on the country’s presidents, depending on what the elected citizens decide and whether voters then ratify it.
They’ve tried to make it seem like the conflict is about whether Zelaya himself could run for reelection, even though the proposed Constitutional Convention – if approved on November 29 to happen sometime after that date, the same day a new president w ould be elected, and if it permitted reelection of presidents – would nonetheless happen too late to allow Zelaya himself to pursue it. See how badly they’ve mangled the real story out of Honduras?
The real story began and continues to be one of poder ciudadano: Citizen Power.
Which is why the inordinate focus on the circus up above – not only in the corporate media, but also among some colleagues of the left – so badly misses the point of what is occurring on the ground in Honduras.
It’s as if, for some, the past dozen years of struggle, sacrifice and multiple victories by Latin American social movements never happened, or as if they were merely symbolic, lacking in hard substance. But we have reported the real story, time and time again, here: Citizen Power in Latin America has considerably strengthened the role of Latin American peoples as their own subjects and no longer the objects of impermeable imperial rule from afar.
The analyses that assign all the responsibility for the coup’s success or failure to Washington are, in reality, quite dismissive of – and insulting to the people who organized - those victories from below and their consequences.
Immanuel Wallerstein, however, hits the nail on the head with this point:
“What about the United States? When the coup occurred, some of the raucous left commentators in the blogosphere called it ‘Obama's coup.’ That misses the point of what happened. Neither Zelaya nor his supporters on the street, nor indeed Chavez or Fidel Castro, have such a simplistic view. They all note the difference between Obama and the U.S. right (political leaders or military figures) and have expressed repeatedly a far more nuanced analysis.
“It seems quite clear that the last thing the Obama administration wanted was this coup. The coup has been an attempt to force Obama's hand.”
That’s not to say that efforts to unforce that hand in Washington aren’t worthy. We’ve done plenty of that, too. But to obsess upon a weakened empire that no longer has the absolute power to determine history in Latin American lands while also largely ignoring the struggle from below inside Honduras – a faux pas that most of the Washington-centric leftish analysis has committed – is to dismiss and disrespect the strides already made by organized peoples throughout this hemisphere.
As Narco News copublisher George Salzman noted in our comments section this weekend:
“If, as now appears not impossible, the Honduran Coup can be defeated by the large majority of ordinary people largely independently of the actions of the governments, that would be a greater victory for popular struggles than any other sequence of events.”
That is the authentic story from Honduras: the story written by its own people, from below.
And that’s why the “talks” in Costa Rica were a circus sideshow.
From here on out, it’s all about “Citizen Power,” the immediate history of the steps the people of Honduras take to organize their own freedom and a more authentic democracy. That’s been our focus here for the past month. And it will continue to be the central thrust of our reporting.
Update: Here's an important development in international solidarity with the popular movements of Honduras:
The International Transport Workers Federation has called upon its four-and-a-half million members in 656 labor unions worldwide (it includes Longshoremen, Teamsters and Seafarers among other union sectors in the US and throughout the world) to refuse to load or unload products from the 650 merchant ships that are registered under the Honduran flag for as long as the coup regime is in place.
Update II: A national coalition of social organizations in have set Friday, July 24, as the date of President Zelaya's return to Honduras and have called upon the citizenry to "organize itself" to receive him. The call is signed by the CUTH federation of labor unions, the Popular Bloc against the coup plus prominent Liberal Party members Carlos Eduardo Reina and Rasel Tomé, "at a place and time that will soon be announced."
Update III: More international solidarity:
(United Students Against Sweatshops hung this banner today on the building across the street from coup regime lobbyist Lanny Davis' office in Washington.)
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Comments
Our own Constitutional Congress
Submitted July 20, 2009 - 10:11 am by Tien Le (not verified)Makes me wonder how our own struggles several generations ago to create a Constitution by the people (men) would have been covered by the current media. The would have sided with the Brits, no doubt about it.
@Tien Le
Submitted July 20, 2009 - 11:50 am by Erin RosaAnd then the real Minutemen would have kicked their asses!
The word referendum
Submitted July 20, 2009 - 12:27 pm by David Sketchley (not verified)Al,
You write "That’s wh y the violent kidnapping of the president - accompanied by the military occupation of TV, radio and other independent media - took place on the dawn of an election day, Sunday, June 28, when the people of Honduras were going to vote in a nonbinding referendum".
By getting your terms wrong you are playing into the hands of the golpistas. Even the US State Dept didn't refer to it either as an 'election' nor as a 'referendum'. They referred to it so: "But I think what’s important to remember about the survey is that it was just that. It wasn’t even a formal vote. It was a nonbinding survey."
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2009/06a/125453.htm
This is further backed by Francisco Palacios Romeo, Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Zaragoza, who stated in the second of his important pieces, ignored by everyone in the mainstream (and out of it, including yourself) that the tem to use in Spanish is 'consulta'.
"1. A modo de introducción: la consulta no es inconstitucional, la consulta no tiene por qué transitar por los mecanismos del artículo 5. Más bien al contrario. El artículo 5 introduce mecánicas restrictivas y aprobaciones institucionales de rigidez extrema. Canalizar cualquier tipo de consulta por el artículo 5 supondría una antinomia radical y excluyente del principio de participación y, por ende, del principio democrático. En primer lugar, porque el Presidente no está haciendo ni un referéndum ni un plebiscito sino una consulta genérica. Y, en segundo lugar porque nada impide en el texto constitucional que se haga una Consulta, más bien las iniciativas de participación vienen avaladas por el principio participativo que reconocen los artículo 5 y 45 y, sobre todo, la muy amplia Ley de Participación Política (3-2006).
El fútil argumento de la sinrazón golpista acaso podría valer para los modelos concretos de participación del artículo 5, que son el referéndum y el plebiscito. Pero no es el caso, porque estas dos modalidades están supeditadas a temas concretos, ya que incluso en el caso del referéndum debe ser una consecuencia directa sobre una propuesta de Ley. Es decir, el término CONSULTA es un genérico amplio y los términos referéndum o plebiscito son mecanismos concretos de consulta con características y consecuencias muy concretas.
El caso actual no entraba en la lógica del referéndum o del plebiscito. El presidente Zelaya pretendía hacer una consulta, pero no lo hacía bajo la modalidad de referéndum o plebiscito del artículo 5, ni lo hacía sobre los temas propios de los mismos, ni pretendía convertir nada en ley posterior, ni la cosa versaba sobre una ratificación de reforma constitucional. Sólo hacía una consulta sobre si se hacía otra consulta/pregunta (en noviembre).
El plebiscito podría utilizarse para hacer preguntas sobre aspectos concretos del texto constitucional pero NO para aspectos relativos a su posible reforma total porque es algo que elude mencionar la Constitución, y que incluso prohíbe, respecto a la modificación de determinados artículos.
El artículo 5 es muy restrictivo respecto a temas y condiciones en el caso de las modalidades de referéndum y plebiscito. Primero porque limita el tipo de temas a preguntar pero segundo, y mucho más grave, por las mayorías necesarias en el Congreso para la realización de los mismos (2/3 partes de todos los congresistas), ya que es un porcentaje que supone una mayoría cualificada casi de bloqueo estructural.
De hecho el propio artículo 5 prohíbe que se haga un referéndum y plebiscito sobre el artículo 374. Por lo tanto, al plantear una posible asamblea constituyente se puede estar afectando a una hipotética reforma del artículo y, en consecuencia, el mecanismo de consulta nunca será bajo las modalidades de referéndum o plebiscito (lo prohíbe el propio texto constitucional) sino bajo modalidad de consulta genérica. Con toda la legitimación, porque es democrática y constitucionalmente inadmisible que un texto constitucional albergue cláusulas de intangibilidad (artículos que el pueblo soberano nunca podrá reformar) sobre simples aspectos orgánicos.
¿Por lo tanto, por qué el Presidente opta por un método de consulta general como la Consulta o la Encuesta popular? Porque la propia Constitución no prevé los mecanismos de reforma total del texto constitucional. Incluso prohíbe que se reformen determinados artículos. ¿Cómo va a someter a un plebiscito de procedimiento reglado del artículo 5 -a aprobar por el Congreso- cuando se está preguntando sobre la posibilidad de preguntar sobre un aspecto que elude, e incluso prohíbe el propio texto constitucional para esas modalidades de referéndum o plebiscito?
Conclusión: de todos los 6 puntos anteriores se deduce que el Presidente no tenía ninguna obligación de preguntar al Congreso sobre la Consulta porque las consultas no están sometidas a la aprobación del Congreso Nacional, sino solamente las figuras de plebiscito y referéndum." http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=88431
His first article is here and should also be well digested:
http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=87999
Best wishes
EU suspends Honduras budgetary support payments
Submitted July 20, 2009 - 1:01 pm by barbs (not verified)The European Commission said on Monday it was suspending all budgetary support payments to Honduras after the failure of efforts to resolve a crisis following a military overthrow of President Manuel Zelaya.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LK223534.htm
Thank you Al for all the updates.
@ David Sketchley
Submitted July 20, 2009 - 1:06 pm by Al GiordanoDavid - Just what I love: someone lecturing us about stories that we have already read and reported on quite accurately, in order to have a semantic debate about terms.
What I love even more: when it is done condescendingly as if we don't understand the matter already.
If you peruse the more than 50 stories we have published here since foreseeing the coup three days before it happened (no other publication in English can say that, by the way), we have explained, again and again, the nuance of terms in Honduras, and that this was an "encuesta" or "consulta" not a binding "referendum."
However, we write for an international audience for whom, in most English-speaking countries, the words "survey" ("encuesta") or "consultation" ("consulta") have very different meanings than how they are defined under Honduran law. A "survey" is what companies like Gallup take. A "consultation" is what you go to the doctor's or lawyer's office to receive.
People in many of the states of the United States understand better the term "non binding referendum" which exactly fits the process proposed for June 28 in Honduras, regardless of what the Spanish language term for it is.
Translation from language to language has to be more than Babel-fished if events are to be explained in the ways that those reading in a different language can understand them.
By using terms like "survey" or "consultation" in English, you only confuse the situation.
We will continue using the term "non binding referendum" - our reasons for doing so are very well thought out. Should our work be translated into Spanish we will use the term "encuesta" or "consulta." For the readers in English, "non binding referendum" is the more accurate term.
So don't accuse me or us of "playing into the hands of the golpistas" because you have some semantic tic. Incoherence is what plays into their hands far more than accurate translation does!
NY Times
Submitted July 20, 2009 - 3:00 pm by Anne CrumptonAs of 4:02 today the Times is reporting the US is putting pressure on the coup leaders.
"The United States is turning up pressure on the Honduran government installed by a coup -- and the businessmen who support it -- warning that they will face severe sanctions if ousted President Manuel Zelaya is not restored to power.
"U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called interim President Roberto Micheletti to say there would be serious consequences if his government ignores international mediation for Zelaya's return."
brilliant posting
Submitted July 20, 2009 - 4:59 pm by lauren (not verified)that banner from the students against sweatshops made my day.
thank you for your fearless and spectacular reporting.
my hat is off to you, sir.
Coercive violence or democratic order?
Submitted July 20, 2009 - 8:58 pm by Tribunus Plebis (not verified)It all comes down to this: When armed soldiers physically seize a president in the middle of the night and he is flown out of the country, that's a coup, and those who did it cannot later claim that they have served democracy. Think about what it will mean if this coup is reversed because both the Honduran people and the world have rejected it: The use of military force, which is to say violent force, to interfere with elected civilian office-holders becomes undoable, by the left or the right, in this hemisphere.
Now think about how antithetical to that standard is the present rhetoric being used by many right-wing opponents of President Obama, with a Republican legislative candidate in Virginia going so far as to say that if the "ballot box" doesn't work against him, the "bullet box" should be used. And also think about how antithetical to that standard are the excuses and explanations for the coup offered by former Bush Administration officials. It puts them in the same position as that Republican legislative candidate: They're excusing the use of violent force.
Here's a larger reality that these events illustrate: The loudest voices among Republicans today, and those they support in countries like Honduras, don't really stand for freedom or democracy, however much pious lip sevice they pay to those ideals. They represent coercing and subjecting people to their interests and are willing to consider any means necessary to impose their will.
Thanks for the clarification on Poder Ciudadano
Submitted July 20, 2009 - 9:20 pm by Magda (not verified)Some in the 'left' at least initially and certainly all the coup apologists sought to say that Zelaya really did not have a mandate to do what he was trying to do as when he was elected everyone thought he was just like all the other polititians and would govern like them. The underlying assumption being that he changed the rules on his own and therefore what happened to him was justified or justifiable enough. Your article puts that to rest as it was clear he was elected to make these changes. The ruling classes everywhere have always been in deathly fear of the people they rule over. The Honduran oligarchy do not want to share their privileges and power and this is a desperate attempt to turn back the clock.
Eva Golinger blasts Obama and Clinton
Submitted July 20, 2009 - 9:32 pm by palo (not verified)Al, I enjoyed your interview on Flash Points last monday, kpfa. Today on the same program, Eva Golinger puts the coup directly on Obama. http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/52568
@ Palo
Submitted July 20, 2009 - 10:02 pm by Al GiordanoPalo - So what else is new? That's been that party's obsession since the coup began. Nothing new - or that is news - there.
It's all Honduras all the
Submitted July 21, 2009 - 7:26 am by Pat (not verified)It's all Honduras all the time, not a word about Iran. What about the home front? The big battle here at home is health care reform. Not a word on that either. Just sayin'.
@ Pat
Submitted July 21, 2009 - 9:27 am by Al GiordanoPat - It's all Honduras all the time... and it will continue to be so from this corner.
There are a thousand bloggers writing about health care daily, and at least 100 writing in English in the situation in Iran (a subject that, before Honduras blew up on our beat, which is this hemisphere, I wrote extensively about).
But how many sources of authentic news do you have for this very important story that continues to develop out of Honduras? It is a story whose outcome will decide whether other democratically elected governments are attacked by military coups in the near future. And a country called América is my beat and where my first responsibilities lie.
If you don't want to read about Honduras, there are a million websites that either ignore it or diminish its importance. Feel free to go read about health care somewhere else. This is the most important story in this hemisphere right now, and if we weren't giving it this level of full coverage a great many people would be very poorly informed on it.
@Pat and Al
Submitted July 21, 2009 - 10:14 am by Sophie Amrain (not verified)I have to say, I fully agree with Al on this one. In the mainstream press I saw near to zero real information on Honduras, and the left seems preoccupied with conspiracy theories about 'Obamas coup'. I highly appreciate your reporting on Honduras, Al, and, incidentally, I trust you much more to get the complexity of the Honduran situation right than that of Iran:-) although you did an excellent job there, too, as far as I could judge it.
For Iran there ist still Nico Pitney from Huffington Post, who does an excellent job in compiling information
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tag/iran-liveblogging
and many others, e.g.
http://ord-per.blogspot.com/2009/07/account-on-this-week-friday-prayers....
where there is a good analysis of Rafsandschanis prayer sermon from last Friday or
http://tehranbureau.com/category/press-roundup/
where there is an eye witness acount from the same event.
Yeah, plus
Submitted July 21, 2009 - 1:31 pm by Jeff Simpsonhow come no Michael Jackson coverage? The King of Pop is DEAD, man! Don't you get it?
/troll food
does Jim DeMint have any redeeming value at all?
Submitted July 21, 2009 - 3:57 pm by Laura M. PoyneerAmong his many other errors, he is apparently blocking the confirmation of Obama's nominees over Honduras because he supports the coup.
Right-wing rhetoric
Submitted July 22, 2009 - 2:23 am by Kevin (not verified)The U.S. right wing is seizing on this, and it's scary stuff.
Here in my home state of Washington, Republican State Senator Pam Roach was given space in the Seattle Times to right this:
LATE last month, the freedom-loving people of Honduras did what they were proud to do. They constitutionally removed from office their elected president and Marxist despot-in-the-making, Manuel Zelaya.
(link to full op-ed)
Although the right is focused on killing health care reform, it's clear that the coup has attracted its handful of cheerleaders, too.
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