An article by Socialismo o Barbarie‘s Honduran section on the peace accord signed by centre-left president Manuel “Mel” Zelaya with the régime established by Roberto Micheletti after a military coup against Zelaya four months ago.
Unfortunately, what we predicted has played out: Mel Zelaya, the bourgeois politician, has proven his remarkable cowardice. Kneeling down at the feet of his US masters, he has signed a deal which not only abandons each and every one of the demands of the people’s struggle (first and foremost, a Constituent Assembly) but it even appears that he has obtained not even a purely formal re-instatement of his powers.
The meaning of this is that Zelaya has given everything in exchange for nothing, in an act of utter subordination to the demands of his masters: licking the boots of imperialism. Both sides – pro-Micheletti and Zelayista – have given Congress the task of deciding whether “it makes sense or not to return Zelaya to government”.
But now those in charge of Congress are saying – to those who want to listen – that “reinstating Zelaya would mean recognising that everything that went before was illegal”. Obviously, what this parliamentary “high authority” means is that reinstating Zelaya would be “impracticable” and that “the Courts would surely recommend that reinstatement is inappropriate”.
In these conditions we are faced with a blatant national and international political tricks campaign designed to save the fraudulent 29th November elections. This is a real scandal when, in fact, the Obama government did not lift a finger except to ensure that Zelaya would shamefully capitulate down the line, supporting the elections of 29th November, even if Zelaya does not manage to secure reinstatement…
In any case, Zelaya could be reinstated for a few hours after the elections themselves take place, and that only to then hand over the presidential band to he who seems like the real winner out of this whole hypocritical game: Porfirio Pepe Lobo, presidential candidate of the right-wing Partido Nacional.
Lobo is a bosses’ representative complicit in the coup who has demanded Zelaya’s reinstatement for some short while purely so that he can hand over his presidential band and thus guarantee him legitimacy for his mandate. The truth is that there has been organised an international political-media show to smokescreen what is really happening, meaning the complete and utter validation of the coup.
Simply put, what we are seeing is the use of the whole political weight of Obama’s imperial hegemony to ensure the elections represent the end of the crisis and avoiding any overflowing of the situation in Honduras, as well as validating the coup d’état.
That is why his envoy Tom Shannon lauded Obama’s “pragmatism” in finding a political solution… Pragmatism which really means that Zelaya will not be reinstated for even five minutes… leaving by the wayside his political chief’s so-called “attachment to the principles of democracy…”
We repeat, it must be clear that the Obama government acted only to rescue the 29th November elections, when the time came and it looked possible that they might be sidetracked and de-legitimised by the popular resistance and mobilisation. The accords found the resistance at a clear low-point, given that its sell-out Zelayista leadership, with Zelaya’s return, consciously and repeatedly worked to demobilise it with the rhetoric of “reconciliation”. The movement was subordinated to passive hopes in a deal-from-above to “resolve” the situation.
For over a month the resistance did not manage to lead anything worthy of its name, given that what had gone before was a process of heroic struggle without precedent in reaction to a military coup. But now the shameful cowardice of Zelaya, threatens to throw overboard a movement which really represented an advance in the political tradition of the country, making waves in Latin America and across the world.
However, the exploited and oppressed are no fools: already voices are emerging questioning the “betrayal” that “Micheletti continues and Zelaya is not coming back” and demanding explanation.
The immediate task for the comrades of the Honduran Socialist Workers’ Party is to go out and denounce with all our forces this scandalous fraud, which does not even appear to secure a formal reinstatement of Zelaya, at the same time as calling for the building of a political pole independent of Zelaya, the Democratic Unification Party and other collaborationist forces.
Similarly our tasks relate to the independent candidacy of trade unionist Carlos H. Reyes, who has just reiterated his promise that with the continuation-in-power of the coup régime and without a formal reinstatement of Mel Zelaya before the elections on the 29th, he will not stand and will call for an active boycott and formal refusal to recognise them.
the commune 
On 9th November at a drinks’ workers union meeting Carlos H. Reyes announced that he was pulling out of the presidential election. He rejected an election he considered “illegitimate, spurious and with a strong stench of fraud on the part of the de facto regime, which continues in power unwilling to restore a constitutional order in Honduras”.
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