June 24 - July 1, 2010
Bi-national Delegation to Honduras reports
A bi-national delegation of Canadian and US representatives from labour, human rights, and faith-based organizations will be in Honduras from June 24 to July 1, to conduct human rights accompaniment and observation around the one-year anniversary of the coup d’état on June 28. The delegation’s members hope that their presence will mitigate human rights violations by the Honduran military and police, and that they will be able to document any violations that occur.
“By providing witness in Honduras, by being there in the presence of people peacefully demonstrating for human rights and a return to democracy, we hope we can dissuade further repression and violence,” said Tom Loudon, Co-Director of the US based Quixote Center, who will be helping to lead the delegation.
The team will post regular reports which appear below, with the most recent report on the top. The members of the delegation are listed in the left column.
Daily Report #2 - Caitlin Power Hancey
Witnessing Resistance in Honduras
Quixote Centre Honduras Delegation update July 1st, 2010
Caitlin Power Hancey, Atlantic Regional Solidarity Network (ARSN)
The Honduran resistance movement is real—it is also strong, diverse, and decidedly non-violent.
This is the last day of our international accompaniment and observation delegation to Honduras. For the past week our delegation has been busy accompanying a range of events leading up to the anniversary of the coup on June 28th, or “the anniversary active of popular resistance in Honduras.” We also continued meetings with representatives from various sectors active in the resistance movement—including women’s rights organizations, LGBTI coalitions, youth groups, academics, teacher’s unions, and peace-building organizations.
Over the weekend, we accompanied members of the National Front of Popular Resistance (FNRP) as they collected signatures—actually “sovereign declarations”—calling for a National Constituent Assembly in the Tegucigalpa neighbourhood of La Esperanza. Nationally over 800,000 signatures have been collected, and the Front expects to have 1.2 million by September 15th, which is Independence Day in Central America. These signatures will give them the moral authority and political sway, as a coalition of social movements, to convoke the National Assembly and begin the process of creating a constitution representative of the diversity of peoples, regions, sectors and experiences that make up Honduras. The current constitution, for example, does not recognize the existence of any indigenous peoples in Honduras, while it is generally considered that there are nine indigenous groups within its borders. The largest groups are the Lenca in the west and Garífuna along the northern coast.
Daily Report #1 - Caitlin Power Hancey
Which “Truth” will the world support in Honduras?
Honduras delegation update – June 25, 2010
by Caitlin Power Hancey,
Atlantic Regional Solidarity Network and Breaking the Silence Network
Today was the second day of our international human rights accompaniment and observation delegation in Honduras. Initial meetings were held yesterday with representatives from the International Committee of the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP), the leadership of the FNRP, and Honduran Platform for Human Rights. They gave a general overview of the events leading up to the coup on June 28 of last year, the human rights situation in Honduras since the coup, and their continued work to reconstruct democracy in Honduras under increasing repression. This violent repression has continued under the government Porfirio Lobo, who was named president following a campaign and election process held under the auspices of the de facto coup government in the last half of 2009.
Today we had further sessions with the Lawyers Front and Lawyers in Resistance, legal experts who meticulously outlined for us the judicial framework under which the coup occurred and explained the legal processes by which popular movements in Honduras are petitioning to eventually rewrite their constitution. The lawyers also clearly established the legality of ousted president Mel Zelaya’s proposed referendum on a National Constituent Assembly, and that in no possible way could this referendum or any steps following it have lead to his reelection. This is important, because those who carried out the coup in Honduras, as well as some of the foreign governments who initially condemned it, such as Canada and the US, still state the reason for the coup as Zelaya’s renegade referendum that allegedly violated the constitution.