Militarism in Honduras

DOMINGO 08 DE AGOSTO DE 2010 22:30 COFADEH

Committee of Relatives of Detained and Disappeared in Honduras.
Sanare, Venezuela June 21, 2010

Honduras obtained electoral democracy in 1982, but that did not mean that the country was democratized, on the contrary, as it was during constitutional governments when the country became the aircraft carrier of the United States, bringing with this the already well-known consequences for the human rights of Honduras and the region of Central America. Honduras did not have a guerrilla movement of its own but was a refuge for the politically displaced and experienced the severe consequences of political solidarity with countries in civil wars and the consequences of severe economic crisis. 

Electoral democracy is understood by the ruling class as the true democracy and they do not concern themselves with improving the living conditions of the population. The most recent complicity of Honduras with the U.S. Army, Guatemala and El Salvador leaves a very strong distrust of politics. Bipartisdism has lost force and social unrest and political disenchantment take the helm of participatory democracy as the population pressurizes toward this democratic path. Zelaya did not count with the full backing of the hidden powers or the bourgeoisie, and relied upon the support of the social movement and established agreements that offended the national bourgeoisie and the big transnationals, such as signing with Petrocaribe, the inclusion of Honduras into the Alba (Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas), the change in fuel formula and a 40% increase in minimum wage. These actions initiated a process of confrontation with the established powers and on June 28, 2009, businessmen, politicians and the military undertook the coup de etat. 

But what are the consequences of the coup: 

• Latin American and the global right wing has repositioned itself.
• Ideological polarization has deepened.
• Society has been divided.
• Right wing politicians of the United States have repositioned themselves at the forefront of Central American countries.
• The weakness of the Democratic Charter and the lack of effective mechanisms to restore and defend democracy was demonstrated with the military coup in Honduras.
• The Latin America countries of the Organization of American States demonstrated its belief in democracy and its rejection of dictatorships.
• The military has re-emerged with greater force and has positioned itself in key parts of the government and society.

Some theorists define militarism as an ideology in which military force is the source of all security. This definition had never been truer than in Honduras. In the third week of June 2009, the various forces of the hidden and established powers, not necessarily democratic, visited on a daily basis the Joint Chiefs of the Armed Forces and publicly asked them to fulfill their duty to guarantee their safety and accomplish in the shortest time possible a military coup that was not bloody, allowing them to present this act it in front of friends and strangers as a presidential succession. 

Today we witness a process of growth and deepening of militarism, which is manifested in several ways: the frequent undertaking of military police operations and urban health care activities by the military, which hide other objectives; the establishment and strengthening of military patrols in the interior of the country; police and military repression suffered by campesinos (landworkers) organizations and the Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular; the increasing U.S. military presence through military bases, military exercises and implementation of treaties(1). (This week the U.S. military aid totaled $ 812,000(2)).

A militarism whose characteristics are dominance and forcing submission, a militarism represented in a government that criminalizes social struggles, a militarism that seeks increasing budget to create phantom power as reflected on 26 June 2009, when 12,000 troops were placed on the streets under the pretext of combating foreign mobs and 5,000 reservists were also called to defend its constitutionality.
THE MILITARIZATION OF STATE INSTITUTIONS 
Following the coup, key public institutions in the functioning of the state were militarized including the media opposing the coup; and into the streets and avenues of major cities poured tanks and circulating Bell 412 helicopters were the daily landscape of Honduras. Entities such as Hondutel, the Public Ministry, Supreme Court, Presidential House, National Electric Energy Company, airports and streets adjacent to the buildings of the Joint Chiefs of Armed Forces were closed to public access. 16 of 18 departments in the country were subjected to 68 military checkpoints strategically installed in the control and transmission towers as such as Merendón and Canto Gallo. Retired military personal took over the leadership and management of state institutions such as the Immigration Department, National Port Authority, Direction of Civil Aviation, Honduran Telecommunications Company, Merchant Marine, and Information and Press. Institutions still remain under the direction of retired military officers such as the recent appointment of General Romeo Orlando Vasquez Velasquez, who led the coup, as manager of the national telecommunications company (HONDUTEL). 

The suspension of fundamental guarantees resulted in entire departments living under curfew, a situation which caused serious human rights violations, food shortages and a health emergency in the main communication routes which were under the command of the Army. 

On June 11, 2010, the Honduran legislature approved a decree ordering the army to assist the police to "reduce the violence with which the country lives," The new legislative decree is equal to the Executive Decree PCM-014-2010 published in La Gaceta on May 14, 2010 that militarized the Lower Aguan. 

THE U.S. MILITARY PRESENCE:
If we were to summarize the U.S. military presence in Honduras, we would summarize in the following phrases: 

- Constant and permanent presence of its troops
- Creation of intervention forces
- Political-military invasions in the internal affairs 

The U.S. military presence in Honduras is remembered for the iconic Soto Cano(3) Military Base, better known as Palmerola. However this is not the only base, recently on 13 April 2010, Lobo Sosa who exercises as President of the government since January 28, 2010, inaugurated with the U.S. Ambassador in Honduras, Hugo Llorens, the naval military base in Caratasca Lagoon, in the department of Gracias a Dios. This military unit's primary mission will be to strengthen the fight against drug trafficking in the region of Honduras. The facility was built by members of the U.S. Army and U.S. Southern Command, at a cost of two million lempiras (US$100,000). The base consists of a multifunctional building and operations center, contributing to increased capacity to accommodate more staff and a new dock for anchoring the interceptor and patrol boats(4). In 2009 the United States delivered in Puerto Castilla four intercepting boats worth US$ 2.6million.

The new United States security doctrine in the Latin American hemisphere advances silently but very securely in Honduras, the new discourse increases its presence and it seems normal or the presence of the Chief of Southern Command appears as protocol without much significance, the issue of drug trafficking, terrorism and collaboration on democratic security is promoted and consolidated in these new forms of militarism. Our governments form part of a model action plan against organized crime under a strategic factor to building a regional framework for prevention and control of terrorism. But the truth is to allow control of popular unrest and protests against economic policies promoted by the United States including the electrical inter-connection, the exploitation of biodiversity and hydroelectric projects envisaged by Plan Puebla Panama. In this framework actions such as the Petition of August 13, 2003, by the then President Ricardo Maduro, to the Southern Command Chief Richard Myers to be provided with equipment and assistance to Honduras to fight drug trade should be noted. This was in return for joining the Iraq reconstruction effort alongside the armies of El Salvador and Nicaragua. 

Under the shadow of terrorism, which the State of Honduras continued throughout this century and the second half of last century, military agreements were signed with the United States in 2003. The Honduran Legislature under pressure from U.S. Ambassador in Tegucigalpa Larry Palmer and Collin Powell, Secretary of State signed an agreement known as Article 98 to ratify the agreement of 2002 in Washington D.C, that U.S. officials are not to be prosecuted for any crimes against humanity in the International Criminal Court. The United States pressured playing with a sensitive theme for the Honduran authorities: immigration in the framework of new strategic policies of hemispheric security. 

On June 1, 2005, it was officially recognized that in the area of the Honduran Mosquita, radars under control of Naval, Army and Air forces had been installed to detect drug trafficking and that this elite force would be monitored by the United States from the Key West Base in Florida, this agreement was driven by General Cradot, Chief of the Southern Command. Ironically, four years later on June 9, 2009, Hugo Llorens U.S. Ambassador in Tegucigalpa said they had requested the installation of a radar network to monitor the Central American region as part of Plan Merida, but this was not important news (in the media), instead this was the opinion of the public consultation called the Cuarta Urna (Fourth Ballot Box), in which the Ambassador claimed "the U.S. will support the new administration in the same way that has strengthened the current, United States will continue to work in a constructive and positive manner with the current government of Manuel Zelaya, which is the democratically elected government by the people. " Likewise, "we will continue working with the future government." 

In April 2008, some 350 U.S. soldiers conducted a military exercise called "Beyond the Horizon" allegedly to provide humanitarian assistance for three departments in the form of three classrooms and medical clinics. The first was undertaken in the municipality of Marcala, Department of La Paz. The military exercises were launched by U.S. Ambassador Charles Ford and Honduras Defense Minister Aristides Mejia. In 2008, the United States military presence in Honduras amounted to US$30 million. 

On June 4, 2008, President Zelaya signed a new agreement with the United States during the visit of the Assistant Secretary of State of the United States John Dimitri Negroponte(5), for US$1, 320,000 to improve the security system of Honduras, train police, road widening and gang prevention. Upon the completion of this review it has emerged that the U.S. government has decided to support security in Honduras with US$ 20million, the same US$20 million frozen in September 2009 to oblige the defacto government of Mitcheletti to accept the San Jose agreement. 

MILITARISM DURING THE EIGHTIES 
Honduras was used by the United States as a logistics base for the "dirty war" against Nicaragua and the rest of the guerrilla movement in Central America. 

As a remnant of that presence, today under the pretext of combating drug trafficking, the U.S. maintains in a permanent form the Joint Task Force "Bravo", which "coordinates military operations and civil actions with the Armed Forces of Honduras." 

This unit, composed of about 650 troops who rotate regularly and dozens of helicopters, is located in the Palmerola Air Base, Department of Comayagua, 75 kilometers north of Tegucigalpa. 

Palmerola Base was designed to be the air component headquarters participated in the joint exercise "Big Pine II" in August 1983. 

Later that same year, it served as Headquarters to the joint forces participating in the exercise "Granadero I". 

At a cost of US$ 19million, the facility was built attached to the "Robert Baker" School of Aviation where, to this date, U.S. advisers train the future pilots of the Honduran Air Force. 

The first action undertaken was to extend the old runway, giving it the capacity to receive the most modern aircrafts, both cargo and fighter aircrafts of the U.S inventory. 

Thus Palmerola joined the group of 13 military airfields that were available in Honduras to the United States Armed Forces, ensuring the transfer of its troops in the shortest time to the theatre of Centro American operations. 

Thus Honduras was assigned the sad privilege of being the Latin American nation with the largest military airports in terms of density per square kilometer in area. 

From mid 1983, missions were undertaken from the base directly to Salvadoran territory in order to equip the army of that country with information on the location of the camps and the main activities of the guerrillas. 

The same mission was completed from Palmerola by means of the OV-1 type "Mohawks" on the border with Nicaragua, but in this case to deliver to the Nicaraguan "Contras" information on the operations of the Sandinista Popular Army. 

During the eighties other military bases and operating centers of the United States were installed, such as the Regional Military Training Center CREM, which was established in 1983 in the city of Trujillo to the north of Tegucigalpa, under the reactivation of the 1954 military agreements. The CREM was well known as it was home to four armies trained by U.S. anti-subversion operations: El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and the United States. It also ran the base El Avocado where the Nicaraguan Contras trained. In the same way they organized the Territorial Forces and the Mountain School, all financed and commanded by the U.S. 

The Territorial Forces were stationed in border areas and in the 90s still maintained a high level of operation, one of the most emblematic cases attributed to the territorial forces constitutes the Disappearance followed by Death of Juan Humberto Sánchez for which case the State Honduras was found guilty by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. 

Throughout our history a series of agreements have been signed or acceded as annexes to accommodate and support the U.S. strategic interest, among these we can note:

- Agreement No. 3 of the Executive, on 1 December 1954, ratified on 15 April 1955. (La Gaceta, May 11, 1955).
- Annex to the military agreement between Honduras and the United States of America May 7, 1982.
- Annext of November 14, 1988
THE PROTAGANISM OF THE NATIONAL MILITARY IN THE EIGHTIES 
Between 1980 and 1992 the Armed Forces were a de facto power in Honduras. They took political and administrative decisions in several key state institutions. However, that influence reached outside of the battalions, above civilians, and had different expressions and no less varied oppositions. The movement for the defense and promotion of human rights was a very strong and decisive counter-force, enough to stop the degeneration of the military role in Honduran society. 

The first president of that transitional period, Roberto Suazo Cordova, accepted when far from power that "I was only a figurehead." 

The Commanders in Chief and the Supreme Council were the real power. 

Power was exercised with high budgets, abuse of authority, illegal detention, disappearances of political opponents, forced recruitment, control of communications, forced recruitment, pacts of silence, complicity or blackmail with the political parties, controlling the media and managing key institutions, such as the following: 

- Honduran Telecommunications Company.
- The National Police.
- Transport Police.
- Finance Police.
- The Directorate of Population and Migration Policy.
- The National Port Company.
- Land, air and sea customs.
- The Directorate of Civil Aeronautics.
- The Armory
- The National Cartographic Institute. Among others. 

In this period the military leaders opinioned about foreign policy, economics, social sciences, natural sciences, business and investment, and resolved "peacefully" social and political conflict in the country. Everybody who was not a soldier were civilians, a derogatory term to refer to the population.



1-The sub-chief of the South Command Ken Keen also met with the Ambassador of the United States in Honduras, who analized the support that Washington “could provide Honduras” in their efforts “to surpass the recent political crisis in a peaceful and constitutional manner”.

2- Handed over by the sub-chief of the South Command Ken Keen to the Minister of Defense, Marlon Pascua, in the presence of the chief of the Armed Forces, General Carlos Cuellar.

3- The base of Soto Cano is the headquarters of the Combined Armed Task “Bravo” of the United States and is made up of officers of the army, air force, security forces and the first battalion Number 228 of the U.S aviation. There are 600 people in total and 18 combat airplanes, including UH-60 Blackhawk and CH-47 Chinook. Soto Cano is also the head of the Honduran Aviation Academy. More than 650 Honduran and U.S citizens live in the installations of the base.

4- Lobo Soso thanked the President of the United States, Barrack Obama “for the fantastic help, which is one big step towards the fight against the drugs trade and organized crime.

5- Negroponte was named U.S Ambassador for Honduras between 1981-85, from which he supported with logistics to the Contra guerillas, a death squad guilty of hundreds of deaths and disappearances of political opposition in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. From the embassy in Tegucigalpa and the military base of Palmerola, paramilitaries were trained the Contras and the Army of Honduras, who committed illegal ejecutions.

Negroponte supervised the creation of the military base El Aguacate, in Honduras, from where the U.S military trained the Contras during the late 1980´s. This base was the clandestine centre for detention, torture and assassination.


Translated by Organización Política Los Necios

Source: http://www.resistenciahonduras.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=789:militarism-in-honduras-&catid=98:opinions&Itemid=347