In Honduran debate over coup, lines between rich and poor never so stark
By Frances Robles
From The Miami Herald
On one side of town near the presidential palace, a river of people wearing neatly pressed jeans and new white T-shirts waved kerchiefs as they “defended democracy and peace.”
Across town, throngs of scrappy, shouting pickets — some with kerchiefs around their faces — hurled insults at the military that ousted their beloved president, Manuel ”Mel” Zelaya.
“The coup-plotters were responsible for dividing our people,” said Daisy Chávez, a middle-school teacher who was among thousands who turned out this weekend to demand Zelaya’s return. “Just look at them, with their nice little shirts and neatly styled hair. Us? Mel supporters? We come to the protests looking just like we did when we rolled out of bed.
“You can see how divided Hondurans are by just looking at us.”
Last week’s overthrow of Honduras’ democratically elected president threw this Central American nation of 7.5 million people into chaos and underscored deep divisions in a polarized society. Never before have the lines between rich and poor been so stark. Never before have unions, peasants and teachers been so visible, their voices so loud.
These days in Honduras, there is no middle ground.
”We’re not having confrontations with anybody,” said Mayra Urquia, a professional event planner who attended a rally Friday denouncing the ousted president. “The people who defend democracy are united.”
Zelaya, a 56-year-old wealthy rancher, was elected with a slim margin four years ago. His populist rhetoric drew the ire of Honduras’ business elite, who deeply resented a hike in the minimum wage they said they could not afford to pay. But while Zelaya alienated himself from the other powers of state and the business elite, he gained loyalty among the poor.
Zelaya handed out cash and sandwiches, higher salaries, and the kind of anti-establishment rhetoricthe masses liked to hear.
”He’s the only one who looked out for the farmers, the ranchers, the ones who lived on the outskirts of the big cities,” said Juan López, a tool and metal-parts salesman who closed shop this week to publicly demand Zelaya’s return. “Now the elite with all their money want to keep him out because they want to protect what they have. Well, my opinion is not for sale.”
When the court and attorney general ruled that Zelaya could not legally conduct a public opinion survey that could have paved the way for a new constitution, Zeyala called on his loyal followers. Hundreds of rowdy fans accompanied the president on a brazen offensive to the Air Force hangar where ballot materials were being held.
The crowd simply took the ballots away, storing them at the presidential palace. The attorney general filed criminal charges against the president, and the Supreme Court ordered his arrest. The military carried out the warrant in a predawn raid last Sunday but sent the president into forced exile instead of taking him to court.
The nation has been paralyzed by dueling protests around the nation, as thousands of union workers, students and teachers protest a coup while masses of middle-class business people applaud his ouster — and demonstrate in support of what they insist was not a coup.
”This has been very polarizing. In the past, we had elections; whoever won, won, and that was it,” said congressman José Rodolfo Zelaya, who shares a surname with the ousted president but is not related.
“The president behaved really well with the unions and the teachers, and they are loyal. How does he mobilize them like that? That’s the $60 million question.”
The congressman and his family were active in the 1980s helping neighboring Nicaragua’s contras, who took refuge in Honduras while fighting the leftist Sandinistas.
Hondurans take pride in the fact that while civil war raged in Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador — three border nations — their country escaped widespread bloodshed. The military here quashed leftist insurgencies with forced disappearances, but without open combat.
Honduras managed to evade the even deeper schisms of its neighbors. El Salvador was controlled by 14 wealthy families, and Nicaragua by just one. In Guatemala, an indigenous majority that doesn’t speak Spanish was shut out by the ruling class and hunted by death squads.
”We would be fooling ourselves to say we are not divided,” said Andre Ancheta, a student who attended an anti-Zelaya protest Friday. “But that’s something we are seeing now. I, for one, call on Mel Zelaya to stop provoking this division.”
Honduras emerged from military rule in the early 1980s, and a new power structure was born.
The media, owned by wealthy businessmen, largely function as politically motivated mouthpieces. Newspapers and TV stations here openly favor newly installed President Roberto Micheletti, while those considered loyal to Zelaya were taken off the air.
Zelaya’s supporters are vocal, but he is widely despised by the middle class, who accuse his followers of taking payoffs with money supplied by Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez.
”These people do not have the education level or the intellectual capacity to understand what is going on,” said Osman Chávez, a business administrator who also attended the march Micheletti presided over. “Zelaya was elected not because people supported him, but because of very high voter absenteeism. The majority did not elect him.”
”We are divided,” he said. “But the majority are in agreement.”
According to the U.N Human Development index, Honduras ranks 117th out of 179 in a survey that evaluates factors such as health and literacy. Two years ago, 69 percent of its people lived in poverty, but the food crisis increased that to 73 percent a year later, according to a report by the InterAmerican Dialogue, a Washington-based think tank.
Crime is so high that a person is murdered here every two hours, the report said.
A full million Hondurans live abroad, mostly in places like Miami and Louisiana, where they keep their nation afloat by sending cash home.
Zelaya supporters say figures like those underscore popular support for their president, widely considered an advocate for the poor.
Those who support Zelaya’s ouster say he took advantage of the poor to bolster his own power. ”The sociopolitical phenomenon here is very difficult,” said Roberto Flores, the Honduran ambassador to Washington, who was called home for consultation. “What I can say is that the promises Zelaya made are very difficult to keep. He increased salaries without consulting the productive sector which had to pay, and that did not help.
“Society is polarized in part because Zelaya generated expectations that could not be met.”
Miami Herald staff writer Laura Figueroa contributed to this report.
