Ricardo Arturo Salgado Bonilla
It is extremely difficult for the Honduran coup regime to conceal the enormous social conflict that exists in the country, or to control several fronts that are approaching a crisis point. The effects of neoliberalism imposed after the coup d’état, plus the Colombianization of the country, has been eroding the possibility of control that they enjoyed for ten years, due to the brazen support of the United States, which maintains Honduras within the “vicious circle ” of its “henchmen countries”, alongside Israel and Colombia.
Let us remember that the Colombian-Zionist “invasion” occurred in Honduras, on a grand scale, starting in 2009, just after the coup, under the dictatorship of Micheletti. From there, paramilitary activity commenced mixed with organized crime, where drug trafficking, human trafficking and, of course, arms trafficking converged. As early as 2012, unexplained events occurred such as the loss of RPG rocket launchers from a military installation, a fact that was condemned by Manuel Zelaya but hidden in the tangle of scandals that occur on a daily basis.
It is no coincidence that there is a similarity between the repressive methods used against the Honduran demonstrators and the Zionist violence against the Palestinian people. The United States not only turned Honduras into a Pariah state, but also uses it as an experimental laboratory for large-scale social control techniques. In them we find, besides the classic paramilitarism, the massive manipulation of the population through sophisticated technological methods, such as Big Data. Recently, the BBC revealed the role of disinformation played by an Israeli company in the manipulation of Honduran public opinion, against the FREE Party and former president José Manuel Zelaya.
In this ideological and repressive environment of terror and disinformation, the Honduran social movement suffered harsh blows that managed to disrupt the struggle of different sectors for a considerable time. This allowed the regime to concentrate a campaign of distortion of the truth that proposed a single enemy; the FREE Party. Its objective has been to isolate it from its bases for the last ten years. The smear campaign against Zelaya has not paused for a minute in this decade, and now the phrase “it’s Mel’s fault” emerges as a joke.
Today, the social movements are strengthened, in part due to the accelerated weakening of the regime as a result of internal contradictions. It turns out that after many years, all those charged with corruption crimes, absolutely all of them, belong to the ruling Party, and those who are going down are pointing the finger at others, and the rats, incapable of analyzing the situation, are leaving the boat.
But the social struggle takes on new momentum because of the pressure that comes from the unbearable burden of neoliberal measures, and submission to the dictates of the IMF. Today the struggle is against the privatization of health and education, although the privatization of both began long ago, and now the struggle is focused on the defense of labour rights in both sectors. The explosion is happening belatedly, now, to defend everything involves necessarily fighting for everything, not just for the labour sector, accepting concessions from the regime is clearly naïve and suicidal. The struggle is now either national, or it will suffer a resounding defeat.
An important point comes here; ideologically, the rank and file and the leadership of the teachers’ and doctors’ unions are privileged classes in society. The neoliberal impact has come to threaten spheres of society that do not see in the system itself the root of the problems. The action of the regime against them is political, but they believe that their struggle should not be political.
Now is not the time to turn to the negotiating table with the rotten regime, but to look at the whole of society and expand the sources of support, to incorporate other demands: for land, access to electricity, for the recovery of the lands of native peoples, against patriarchy, against all forms of discrimination. It is a question of incorporating new demands, and with it, increase the critical mass in struggle.
Fundamentally, it is a question of moving from the sectoral struggle to an organized struggle against the system; and that implies a political confrontation that seeks to dismantle the Colombianization, and that destroys the chains that maintain Honduras as the “thug” of the empire. We have reached a point at which concessions are unfeasible for the regime, but, above all, unacceptable to all Hondurans.
The incorporation of high school and university students brings an extraordinary additional strength, which brings organization, and also political awareness. It is no coincidence that the most brutal repression in recent years has been against students. Now, the struggle can no longer be just about doctors and teachers. The union leaders are overtaken every day by their bases, so it is conceivable that a light will emerge to raise the profile of this singular battle. Today, all forms of struggle are decisive; it is not the time for elections, nor is it the time to fall into the temptation to accept crumbs.
At this moment, even the unemployed can go on strike. The bases of the LIBRE Party must be incorporated into protest actions all over the country, increasing the “purifying fire”. In short, the struggle today must advance towards the entirety, and the only objective: to demolish the coup that today maintains the dictatorship.
Social processes cannot be determined by deadlines, but there are unique moments that open doors and windows to gigantic changes, now we are facing one of those moments. After all, we live in a country with 70 percent poverty, with one of the greatest inequalities in the world, and that has the “luxury” of having ten thousand unemployed doctors, thousands more teachers, engineers, and thousands more, this is neoliberalism that we must eradicate.
A few days ago, speaking with former President Zelaya, we paused for a moment to consider the laws of dialectics, the transition from quantitative to qualitative change demands our attention, and since today we are in a process between possibility and reality, it is evident that today we are on the threshold of a moment of collective heroism; we will have to do everything to cross it.
Finally, Comandante Fidel Castro wrote it almost ten years ago, referring to Honduras, “that is where a revolution is taking place”.
