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UN Delegations Seek to Boost Reconciliation in Honduras

Thelma Mejía

TEGUCIGALPA, Oct 4 2010 (IPS) - The cause of dialogue and reconciliation in Honduras has received a boost from visits by two United Nations delegations, here to test the waters in preparation for talks to resolve political and social conflicts triggered by the coup that ousted former president Manuel Zelaya in June 2009.

One mission, headed by experts in dialogue, conflict prevention and crisis management Philip Thomas and Gastón Ain Bilbao, will meet with members of the National Popular Resistance Front, human rights organisations, civil society, business, government and the media.

“They will hold talks with all the groups involved, both for and against, in the political events of last year,” a U.N. official who requested anonymity told IPS about the experts who arrived in the country Tuesday Sept. 28.

The two-week mission is in response to a request made by rightwing President Porfirio Lobo when he visited U.N. headquarters in New York in late September. “The delegation will not make any statements to the press,” said the U.N. source.

At a meeting of heads of state and government to review the fulfilment of the U.N. Millennium Development Goals (MDGs, including targets for reducing poverty, hunger, illiteracy, gender inequality and disease by 2015, agreed by the U.N. member states in 2000), Lobo, who took office Jan. 27, asked for a U.N. mission to allay fears about the International Commission Against Impunity he wants to instal in Honduras.

The body would be similar to the commission currently operating under U.N. auspices in the neighbouring Central American country of Guatemala, and is one of the measures Lobo is promoting to try to overcome the partial isolation to which Honduras has been consigned by the international community, especially Latin America.

“During its time here, the delegation hopes to take the pulse of the nation as to the capacity for dialogue between opposing groups, with a view to moving ahead, now or in the near future, to inviting the parties in conflict to meet and negotiate change and reconciliation,” added the official from the U.N. offices in Tegucigalpa.

The FNRP, originally formed as a protest movement against the coup and now seeking recognition as a political party, sent a communiqué Thursday Sep 29 to Thomas and Bilbao stating that the only route to reconciliation in the country is to convene “a national constituent assembly (to re-write the constitution), which must guarantee the fundamental collective and individual rights of Hondurans.”

At the same time, another group of U.N. human rights experts is in the country, working with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (CVR) as it collects evidence and testimonies about human rights violations committed before, during and after the Jun. 28, 2009 coup.

The coup began with soldiers forcing then president Zelaya from his home at gunpoint in the early hours of the morning. They put him on a plane to Costa Rica, still in his pyjamas.

Eduardo Stein, the Guatemalan coordinator of the CVR, told IPS that dialogue “is neither doomed to failure nor dead in Honduras; reconciliation among Hondurans is indeed possible, and I am encouraged by what I see happening.”

In Stein’s view, four months after its creation criticisms of the CVR “are receding. So far we have had complete openness, all the information and documentation we have asked for has been provided, and we have not ruled out knocking on the door of the U.S. embassy in Tegucigalpa.”

The reference to Washington’s diplomatic post in Honduras is because “the plane that took former president Zelaya out of the country apparently made a ‘technical’ stopover” at the U.S. military base of Palmerola, in the central Honduran valley of Comayagua, Stein said.

Zelaya has said that the plane that transported him to San José against his will stopped at the base “to re-fuel.”

The former president, now in exile in the Dominican Republic, urged officials of his former administration not to provide information to the CVR. But according to Stein, Zelaya’s request “has not been heeded, and many former civil servants have come forward, because they want their perceptions of the facts and events to be made known.”

The FNRP has also told the U.N. repeatedly that a key element for reconciliation is “ending judicial persecution of Zelaya,” so that he can return to Honduras.

Before the coup, the Supreme Court ruled that a non-binding referendum Zelaya wanted to organise, on electing a constituent assembly, was illegal, and he is threatened with prosecution for the alleged crime.

The CVR is due to publish its report in early 2011, and this month it plans to interview the leading figures involved in the coup: Zelaya, his de facto successor Roberto Micheletti, and the former head of the armed forces, Romeo Vásquez, whom Lobo appointed manager of the state telephone company, Hondutel, in March.

In their travels around the country to collect testimonies, the members of the CVR have formed the distinct impression that, outside Tegucigalpa, there is a willingness to enter into dialogue that contrasts with the poisoned political atmosphere that persists in the capital.

But it will not be easy. Anti-coup groups are demanding structural reform and the replacement of the upper echelons of the Supreme Court and the Attorney General’s Office.

The Committee of Relatives of the Detained-Disappeared (COFADEH), which belongs to the FNRP, issued a communiqué Sept. 25 questioning the proposal to create an International Commission Against Impunity and criticising the CVR.

In it, they complain that persons involved in perpetrating the coup are exercising influence on the CVR, and allege that there are coup-mongers among its official members.

Stein’s attitude to their position is one of understanding because, in his view, “such prejudice is quite normal, but we are going to deliver an objective report on the facts, and we are perfectly agreeable to sharing experiences and information with these organisations.”

COFADEH, the Honduran Platform for Human Rights and the FNRP have jointly formed their own Comisión de Verdad (Truth Commission) — not to be confused with the CVR. This is another sign of the legacy of polarisation and distrust left by the breakdown of democratic institutions in this country.