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Its national children's day in Peru, and what better way to celebrate than to get the little tykes out parading the streets and waving placards with numerous messages about respecting children's rights and such. Heartening indeed that a spirit of voicing political opinion in a very public way is fostered in Peruvians from a young age, much better than the training to sit in a corner and grumble quietly that we Brits seem to have cultivated.
Arriving with a sore post-virus head in Leon, deposited at a petrol station on the outskirts, Lou and I wasted no time in installing ourselves in a central hostel and trundling around the centre of town, eager for new sights and sounds.
Seeking quieter experiences, we committed ourselves to the Sandinista Revolution Museum, housed understandably rather proudly in a grand and steadily decaying building that formed the last stronghold of the National Guard in Leon before it was toppled in 1979. Of the grand rooms leading from the sweeping central atrium beyond the front door populated with latent Nicaraguan men, only one was in active use as the museum. The walls of the room were covered with a selection of newspaper cuttings, shoddy photo-copies, pages ripped from books and dog eared maps affixed by sellotape, forming the most haphazard historical display that I can recall within recent memory.
We were led around the selection by an ex-guerrilla, an amiable but serious fellow who gestured at everything with a trusty pointing stick, giving us a high speed tour of the modern history of Nicaragua from the assassination of General Sandino, who had waged relentless guerrilla war against US military forces since their occupation in 1912 and finally driven them out of Nicaragua in 1933, by the US military trained Nicaraguan National Guard to the relentless war waged against the Sandinista government post-revolution by the (yes, you’ve guessed it) US financed contra-revolutionaries in the years of the hard-line Regan administration. The whole bloody and brutal history lasted for about 60 years, and had much credit to give the foreign policy of our favourite international superpower. It was almost as if I was listening to an echo of El Salvadorian fortunes, the fortunes of an entire country retarded by the best part of a century for the gains of …what, exactly?
Our tour progressing beyond the high ceilings of the room containing grainy photo after grainy photo of young, serious faces that never saw an end to their conflict, and we climbed the stairs up to the roof. Clanking gingerly over a worryingly thin layer of corrugated tin riveted to beams beneath by our confidently striding guide, were led around a selection of fine views of Leon. We stared from the rooftop in the warmth of the late afternoon sun over towards the distant volcanoes that spiked out of the horizon like the cardiogram of a heart murmur patient. I asked our guide how he felt about giving the tours. After a brief pause he replied,
Soft spoken and rather unassuming, you wouldn’t really think much of Ron Brennenman. Until, that is, you find out one of the countless facts that seem to nonchalantly crop up, like when the FMLN guerrillas organised a major offensive on his kitchen table during the civil war. Ron (seen here modelling a very fashionable cowboy hat and the even more fashionable Whitaker Sisters) has seen El Salvador go to pieces during the 80s, and then try and pull itself back together again, with fairly lacklustre results.
This has, in a nutshell, prompted him to start Amun Shea, an educational project run out of Perquin up in the remote wooded hills of the North East. The project is an inspiring attempt to provide a heavily subsidised private education for the local children which is not subject to the fairly unsatisfactory rigours of the public school system. The short term aim, which is to generate significant academic success in comparison to national results and thus force education reform, is well underway. The much harder long term goal of building and retaining desperately needed community leaders to stop the incessant traffic of talented individuals out of the country (who mostly head to the US illegally looking for a better life) is proving much more elusive; results, if any, won’t be seen for years.
It is incredible to hear Ron describe what is happening in El Salvador, and to see quite clearly how the country is a shell, hollowed out by war, leaving the resulting wasteland of possibility for the population. With the option of living hand to mouth indefinitely in a country that stalls its progress of international development or leaving for faraway lands of golden opportunity, which would you choose?
Being in El Salvador right now, it would take a level of nearly blind ignorance not to be aware of what is going on in Honduras;International Accompaniment and Observation Delegation
Quixote Center
19-26 September 2009
September 23, 2009
Patty Adams
POLITICAL PERSECUTIONS AND DETENTION * EXCESSIVE USE OF FORCE BY POLICE AND MILITARY * STATE OF EMERGENCY: PEOPLE LACKING FOOD AND WATER AFTER 42 HOUR CURFEW * POLICE STATE
Democratically-elected Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, deposed by a military coup on June 28, returned clandestinely to Tegucigalpa, appearing at the Brazilian Embassy around mid-day on Monday, September 21. As word of his arrival spread, thousands of Hondurans who’ve been calling for his return began to assemble outside the Embassy to celebrate, catch a glimpse, and show their support.
Our delegation was there for a few hours in the early afternoon and saw the enormous excitement, relief, pride, and possibility in the faces of the thousands of people both young and old, campesinos and school teachers, students and mothers, indigenous people and workers, all full of hope. The return of Zelaya means the possibility for free and fair elections, a constituent assembly for the creation of a more inclusive constitution, and an end to the repressive practices of the de facto regime. Such practices have left dozens dead, thousands detained illegally, hundreds wounded, and several “disappeared” in the wake of persistent and violent persecution of the peaceful resistance movement which has taken to the streets daily since the coup.
By mid-afternoon on Monday, the de facto government had called an obligatory, nationwide curfew from 4pm until 7am. Our delegation made the quick and difficult decision to return to our guesthouse, even as hundreds of people continued arriving to the area around the Brazilian Embassy, just a short block from the US Embassy and the United Nations building.
At 5am on Tuesday the 22nd, tanks and military personnel on foot passed the police barricades around the Brazilian Embassy and began firing tear gas and live ammunition into the crowd of about 500 people who had stayed all night holding peaceful vigil outside. Many people didn’t have enough time to gather their belongings and left behind shoes and purses as they fled; many family members were split up in the process of trying to escape the blows of military clubs and tear gas. Some people were offered shelter in nearby homes. When they had finished rounding up, detaining, or dispersing those assembled, the armed state actors then proceeded to break the windows and slash the tires of cars left behind by protestors before impounding them.
Despite the extension of the curfew from 7am to 6pm, members of our delegation were able to visit the hospital and interview some of those treated, many of whom were from outside Tegucigalpa and were still trying to track down all the members of the groups with which they had travelled to the city when they heard of Zelaya’s return. At least 18 people received attention at the Hospital Escuela, the main public hospital, including stitches in the head and treatment for fractured bones (see http://hondurasaccompaniment.
Other delegation members visited the Chochi Sosa baseball stadium, which had been converted into a mass detention center for people who had violated the mandatory curfew as well as those who had been gathered outside the Brazilian Embassy. Some of those detained had been seriously wounded; some had sustained multiple traumas to the head. They all stood in the blazing mid-day sun in the stadium. The delegation accompanied the most seriously injured to a clinic, where treatment cost USD $80 -- a week’s salary, if you have a job.
That afternoon, people from all over Tegucigalpa called into one of the few non-coup television stations, Chanel 36 Cholusat Sur, which also transmits on the radio. They announced to the media that they were running out of food and water, and feeling desperate under the curfew. One woman said that her diabetic mother had not had insulin for three days.
Despite the desperation and lack of food and water, that night we heard residents in the neighborhood organizing in the streets, chanting and singing and occasionally shouting “alerta”—alert—the sign that the police or military have been spotted. The National Resistance Front had called upon people to take to the streets in their own small neighborhoods, and while the people did so all over the country, they were met with live ammunition, tear gas, and beatings by police. Though we smelled pepper gas through our guesthouse windows, for the remainder of the night we heard the mostly jubilant sounds and songs of the people’s resistance in the streets.
Once the curfew was provisionally lifted from 10am-4pm on Wednesday, people were able to move freely for a while, and some came to COFADEH, a well-respected non-governmental human rights organization, to formally denounce their treatment at the hands of the military in front of the Brazilian Embassy and in the neighborhoods the previous night. One woman had multiple deep bruises from being beaten over 20 times by the military, after she was found alone, vomiting and nearly unconscious from the effects of the tear gas. (See here: http://hondurasaccompaniment.
We also took the testimony of a 24-year old young man who was beaten up by police while in a street celebration, then beaten during his two hour period of detention. He was thrown down to the ground and forced to place his hands on a chair to be beaten with clubs. He heard the police talking about killing him, but because he happened to know one of the officers he was eventually released, along with a 19 year-old who was detained with him. He has serious injuries to his head, neck, hands, knees, and back including a serious wound on his left lower back. (See here: http://hondurasaccompaniment.
We have heard reports that there is a high frequency sound blasting the area around the Brazilian Embassy, where Manuel Zelaya remains, along with members of his cabinet and some leaders of the anti-coup resistance. This is part of the military’s offensive on the Embassy, constituting a form of both physical and psychological torture, since it can cause permanent hearing damage as well as prohibit sleep and clear thinking.
We spoke with some of the over 500 lawyers nationwide who comprise the Lawyers Front against the Coup, who have been offering pro-bono legal support and defense work for those whose rights have been violated since the coup. They located the roots of this current struggle in colonization: there has never been real democracy in Honduras because the families who have always owned and controlled the resources in the country continue to enjoy political and economic power. The lawyers said that the economic elite, descended from these few families, have been able to orchestrate this coup in part thanks to their ownership of most of the media outlets in the country.
Despite all the repression, there was a march on Wednesday, as there has been a demonstration every day since the coup. Despite having many of their routes blocked off by police and military blockades, thousands of marchers cheering and chanting made it past the COFADEH office and to downtown. Upon arriving to the central square, they were met by military and police squads masked and armed, who began to pursue the demonstrators.
At this point, we’ve seen and heard reports on radio and TV of detentions but are no longer downtown so haven’t heard further confirmation.
The city is basically a police state. It is common to see a line of police and military blocking a street. There is always some important power base – like the presidential house -- behind that line, though sometimes it’s so far behind that line it’s hard to see.
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After an extensive, and no doubt expensive, campaign on television by the key political parties, the national ballots opened on the 5th July. Due to concern by the higher powers that the availability of alcohol would somehow inhibit the process of democracy, no booze was made available for 48 hours prior to The Big Day.
Somewhat punch drunk from the end of the teaching semester, I arrived with my good friend Lou Whitaker into the familar clutches of San Cristobal de Las Casas. Utterly bereft of energy and enthusiasm for progress, the majority of the weekend was spent completely sedentary, occasionally breaking into a slow shuffle; respect due to Lou, who no doubt in a state of recent escape from the UK was keener for a somewhat more dynamic approach. Apart from a booze free weekend thanks to the proximity of the Mexican elections and partaking of food and coffee at various establishments, we paid a visit to one of my favoured spots in San Cris, the Kinoki Theatre. A small independent cinema combined with a tea house that makes for a very pleasant evening sitting in tiny screenings of up to about 15 people watching alternative films from the comfort of a sofa. 
For better or worse, their local presence in recent history has been a valuable drawcard for the tourist industry, with Zapatista dolls available on every street corner and licence given any wannabe revolutionary to spout their idealogical leanings over their drinks in the numerous coffee houses and bars about town.
San Cristobal de Las Casas
