The Triumph of Abstentionism in Honduras, by Walter Tróchez

Thu, 12/17/2009 - 08:11 — AP

[The following preface to Walter's last article comes from my dear friend Camille Collins Lovell, who translated it]

I don’t honestly know how many members of the Honduran resistance movement have died as a result of state sponsored violence since June 28th, several dozen at least. A few are particularly upsetting to me. There was young Isis shot at the airport, only 19, with his family looking on. There was Osiris, a woman my age with four children, who suffered respiratory collapse from excessive use of tear gas. There was Wendy, a young energetic law student, a classmate of my husband’s, tear gas again.

But this is the first time someone I know personally has been taken, and so it is much more real, much more horrific. I was not close friends with Walter, but had the good luck to know him professionally, and to observe his commitment and close up. I met Walter several years ago when working on a sexual health project with (pick your preferred label) disadvantaged/underprivileged/marginalized young adults in Valle de Amarateca, in housing projects built outside Tegucigalpa to relocate families who had lost everything in Hurricane Mitch. We had been doing HIV education and wanted to invite a person living with HIV to talk about his experience and Walter agreed to do this. I remember the candor and honesty with which Walter described the discrimination and isolation he experienced in his early days of battling HIV. I remember his willingness to stay on after the planned 2 hours to answer the kids’ barrage of questions about sexuality, about being openly Gay in a place where “marica” is still one of the most common insults for men. I remember the calm strength and patience he brought to his work and the conviction with which he faced adversity.

I do not understand why, after surviving abduction by state sanctioned kidnappers (his statement described how police at check-points did not stop the plate-less vehicle they were in), he was not sent out of the country for his safety. I fear that the people who now control the state have, in addition to their economic and political motivations, a fundamentalist moral agenda which includes the eradication of sexual and reproductive rights. We have lost a dedicated educator, activist and defender of human rights. CCL 16/12/09

The Triumph of Abstentionism in Honduras
By: Walter Orlando Trochez

While in other countries after a hundred and forty four hours following the closure of voting, there would be reliable results available regarding the winner of the race. In Honduras 144 hours have passed and the scrutiny is still unresolved, exposing the electoral farce put on by the Honduran bourgeoisie and foreign interests.

The illegitimate magistrates of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE), before beginning the spurious electoral process, boasted of the advanced technology they would use to quickly provide information about the results. In practice they have appeared ridiculous because they are still, at this writing, unable to provide evidence supporting they data they irresponsibly provided at 10:30 pm this past Sunday, November 29th.

This institution was required to provide ample information about the presidential, congressional, mayoral and other representative candidacies by 7 p.m. at the latest, but strangely its representatives did not present results until 10:30, claiming that there had been technical problems with the computer system.

With blatant cynicism, after more than 6 hours had passed, Saúl Escobar President of the TSE, announced that there were still 8662 electoral tables that had not yet been counted but that two million five hundred thousand (2,500,000.00) people had exercised their suffrage. How did he know that figure if 39% of the tables was as yet uncounted?

Who does the Electoral Tribunal want to fool? The answer is obvious. The high abstentionism of over 65% was the reason why they had to inflate their numbers in order to convince themselves and others.

Each ballot box had an average of 340 ballots, however in the neighborhoods the number of actual voters was miniscule with barely 100 people voting, about 29%, with an abstentionism of over 70%.

In other electoral processes, when technology was not as advanced as it is now, they would begin to announce the results around 9 p.m. for each department indicating the number of votes for each participating party.

But in this most recent electoral circus they insolently indicated only percentages for each department. Why didn’t they provide the actual numbers of votes by party? In that detail resides the electoral fraud. They want it to appear to the world that there was high voter participation.

That the streets were deserted on the day of the much publicized elections, and that voting places were empty or had very few voters has been confirmed by the national media Radio Globo, Channel 36 and El Libertador, by international organizations, and by activists and human rights defenders from organizations like CIPRODEH, COFADEH, CPTRT, CODEH, Mesoamericana Human Rights Initiative, Organizations of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transexual, Transvestite communities (LGBTT), Kukulcan Association, “Ser Humano” Movement, Association LGTTB Arcoíris, APUVIMEH, Cattrachas Lesbian Network, Collective Violeta, Casa Renacer, AJEM, Women’s Movement, Feminists in Resistence, Popular Political Organizations, and Youth Organizations.

The sociologist Julio Navarro explained in great detail that in Central America no politician has had an increase in votes as large as they are trying to attribute to the Nationalist coup supporting candidate Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo, winner of the spurious elections, considering that he is not a charismatic leader, nor has he presented a plan for his government that impressed the voting public.

In his analysis this sociologist has said that in its first report the TSE established that it had registered 892 thousand votes, representing 97 percent of the electorate obtained by the National Party in the 2005 elections.
Based on this, these elections are fraudulent from head to foot, and at most 1,500,000 people cast their votes, and 3 million voters did not exercise their right to vote, about 67 percent.

Another trick of the golpistas, the hosts of these fraudulent elections, in the absence of the transparency required by real international observers (from the OAS, EU, or UN), is to affirm that it is not necessary to count the million and a half Hondurans who are in the United States, but there in that Northern country they did distribute ballots boxes in the principal cities where our compatriots are concentrated.

And so the National Resistance Front Against the Coup has defeated the principal golpista dictator assassins Elvin Ernesto Santos, preferred presidential candidate of the oligarchy, and the usurper of the Presidency of the Republic, Roberto Michelleti Bain. The power of the call to abstentionism was massive and effective, just as the National Resistance Front called on the citizens to not participate in the electoral fraud.

With what has occurred, the government headed by Pepe Lobo will be weak and will be rejected by the majority of the Honduran people, and this situation will generate ungovernability from the very start of his de facto mandate.

Furthermore it will be an internationally isolated de facto regime, having only the recognition of Costa Rica, Perú, United States, Panamá, Israel and Colombia, these last two countries of fascist tendency, the first involved in massacring neighboring peoples and the second responsible for displacing more than 4 million people because of crimes committed by paramilitaries in their respective communities.

After the month of December, in early 2010, the National Resistance Front Against the Coup must begin a campaign to raise political awareness and to incorporate more of the population in the struggle to establish a National Constitutional Assembly. The order of the day is now or never against the Honduran oligarchy, the religious elite and their vassals.

Our abstentionism was a triumph. What comes now is to kick those frauds out of the electoral masquerade they imposed this past Sunday November 29 in order to whitewash the coup d’état of the past June 28.

“Know this: neither the corrupt, nor the impure, nor the exploitors, that serve the god of money, will take part in the kingdom of Christ and of God”.

“As a revolutionary, I will be today, tomorrow, and always in the front lines of my people, even being aware that we could lose our lives”.

Walter Orlando Trochez
Activist and Human Rights Defender in Honduras and Latino America, Sector: HIV/AIDS, LGTTB, Youth, Adolescence, Childhood)
Móvil: + 504 – 88542680
Email: walterhnte@yahoo.com
walterhnte_activista@hotmail.com
movimientoserhumano@yahoo.es

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