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[Translation of an article by Agence France Presse as published in Diario Tiempo of San Pedro Sula on May 8. See original here.]

Tegucigalpa – The assassination in Honduras of journalist Erick Martínez, who was a spokesman for homosexual groups and a congressional candidate for the Left, has reawakened anger in the most violent country in the world, where 18 other murders of journalists remain unpunished.

The body of the 32-year-old journalist, an activist with the Libertad y Refundación party (Libre, the leftist party of former President Manual Zelaya [and the electoral arm of the Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular]), was found on a highway outside the capital on Monday night with indications he had been strangled.

“The results of the criminal investigations are blank pages; there is no interest in investigating, there is an institutional weakness and a lack of responsibility in the exercise of public duty,” government Human Rights Commissioner Ramón Custodio told AFP. (more…)

Divisions and questions about process persist

[Translation of an article from Revistazo of Tegucigalpa for June 26. See original here and related articles here. An excellent interview with Bertha Cáceres of the Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Populares e Indígenas de Honduras is here. Father and son Jaime and Yany Rosenthal, mentioned in the article, are members of a prominent Honduran family with ties to the Partido Liberal. Both opposed the coup. Yany Rosenthal, at one time editor of the newspaper Diario Tiempo of San Pedro Sula, was minister of the presidency in the Zelaya administration.]

Amid questioning, doubts, divergent opinions and the possible withdrawal of some of the groups making it up, an assembly of the Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular has created the Frente Amplio [Broad Front] as the political arm of the movement, through which it intends to participate in the elections of 2013.

With delegates from the 18 departments of the country attending the assembly, after little deliberation and participation, including speeches by union leaders and others, the coordinator of the FNRP, Manuel Zelaya Rosales, and the sub-coordinator, Juan Barahona, offered a proposal which, in the opinions of many, was conceived beforehand and lacked consultation with the bases of the movement. (more…)

Back in his country, the former president talks about the challenges of building unity on the left and about the disputes within his base

[Translation of an interview from Brasil de Fato of São Paulo, Brazil, for June 24. See original here and related articles here.]

by Sílvia Álvarez

Tegucigalpa – At 59 years of age, Manuel “Mel” Zelaya is a man in search of his identity. “I still feel like a stranger; it is not easy to live outside your country, you lose your origins,” he declares when we ask how he has spent his first days back in Honduras after 17 months in exile in the Dominican Republic. The former president is back in his home, from which he was taken, still in his pyjamas, on the morning of June 28, 2009, in a civilian-military coup d’état. The gate is better guarded now, but the house has the same rustic furniture as before, together with framed photographs of his family. (more…)

[Translation of an artricle from TeleSur of Venezuela for May 31. See original here and related article here.]

The Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular (FNRP) of Honduras announced on Monday that it opposes the immediate readmission of the country into the Organization of American States (OAS) because, although the return of Manuel Zelaya is an advance toward the restoration of democracy, it does not demonstrate compliance with all the guarantees in the national conciliation accord signed in Cartagena, Colombia.

This was confirmed on Monday by Juan Barahona, spokesman for the FNRP, who, in an exclusive interview with TeleSur stated, “Honduras should not return to the OAS yet” because not all of the conditions agreed to have been met. (more…)

[Translation of an article from Diario Tiempo of San Pedro Sula for May 18. See original here and related article here, here and here.]

Tegucigalpa – President Porfirio Lobo Sosa and Colombian Foreign Minister María Angela Holguín met yesterday to fine-tune details of the accord permitting the reintegration of Honduras into the Organization of American States (OAS) and the return to the country of former President Manuel Zelaya.

The Colombian diplomat arrived in the country by surprise to meet for some six hours with President Lobo, members of the Truth Commission, Foreign Minister Mario Canahuati and other state officials to deal with reintegration into the OAS and Zelaya’s return. (more…)

[Translation of an article from the website Nicaragua y Más for May 7. See original here.]

by Giorgio Trucchi

Yesterday, May 6, marked the end of the business event “Honduras Is Open for Business,” in which some 1,500 businessmen from 55 countries met in the northern city of San Pedro Sula to examine 147 projects proposed by the Honduan regime. An investment surpassing 14 billion dollars is foreseen, too appetizing a dish to be distracted by the blood running in the streets and the plantations of the country.

During the two days of the entrepeneurial mega-event, which returned Honduras to the eyes of the world, the country experienced schizophrenia.

On one side, thousands of domestic and international entrepeneurs enclosed in an invisible bubble, working eagerly to divide up the country, listening attentively to the discourses of skilled communicators, and on the other, the people in resistance. (more…)

[Translation of an article from Diario Tiempo of San Pedro Sula for May 3. See original here and related articles here, here and here.]

Tegucigalpa – The ruling by the appeals court on charges against former President Manuel Zelaya yesterday provoked varying opinions in different sectors of society, some considering it disappointing and contradictory, others seeing it as a means of smoothing the way for the return of the former president, who was ousted in a coup d’état.

Groups that supported the overthrow of Zelaya on June 28, 2009, like the Unión Cívica Democrática (UCD), declared they never expected the court to “disappoint them so much” and claimed that the ruling favors impunity.
(more…)

[Translations of two articles, both from April 16, the first from the web site of the Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular, based on a news conference carried by Venezolana de Televisión, the second from Diario Tiempo of San Pedro Sula, based on an Agence France Press dispatch. See first article here and second here, a related article from Honduras Weekly here and go here for link to video news conference.]

Frente de Resistencia has confidence in President Chávez as mediator in Honduran crisis

“We are very happy to be able to contribute to the reestablishment of peace and democracy in Honduras. We are here struggling to consolidate, not only in Venezuela, but throughout this land, Latin America, in Central America, in South America, a grand area of peace,” the head of state declared on Saturday. (more…)

[Translation of an article from Revistazo of Tegucigalpa for April 12. See original here and "First Part" here.]

by Tomás Andino Mancía

Second part

As for President Hugo Chávez, we can reject the hypothesis that he was taken by surprise, like a naïve dove, by the cold and calculating Colombian president, since Chávez has confirmed in his statements that he has been making efforts for some time, and that he will continue making them, to advocate Honduras’ return to the OAS. (more…)

[Translation of an article from Revistazo of Tegucigalpa for April 11. See original here,  "Second Part" here and related article here.]

by Tomás Andino Mencía

First Part

The Honduran population in resistance has still not gotten over its surprise at the unexpected turn in international politics concerning the coup d’état in our country, not so much because of the well known cynicism of the Honduran oligarchy in blessing today whom it demonized yesterday as the worst monster in the world, but because of the political recognition and support the regime of President Hugo Chávez offered to the coup’s successor regime, as much for the sake of its return to the OAS as to enable it to receive the benefits of PetroCaribe. (more…)

“The president of my country controls absolutely nothing.”

[Translation of an article from La Jornada of Mexico City for March 22. See original here.]

By Arturo Cano

Without his hat, Zelaya doesn’t even look like Zelaya. But seeing his demeanor, that of a president without a presidency, will tell you this is the same man who in June, 2009, went from being an obscure Central American president to being an international figure, thanks to, and to the disgrace of, a coup d’état. This is Manuel Zelaya, and one sentence sums him up: “I arrived with the Right and governed with the Left.”

In Honduras, that statement would spark loud protests, but Zelaya is involved now in a leftist event – he came to Mexico at the invitation of the Partido del Trabajo [PT – Labor Party] – and he adapts to the setting: “I am a pro-socialist liberal.”

Ever since the new Honduran administration allowed him to leave the Brazilian embassy, Zelaya has lived in the Dominican Republic as a “distinguished guest.” The Dominicans, he himself states, take care of his expenses: a house, transportation and schooling for his children and grandchildren. “Chávez gave me a stipend but so far they haven’t paid me anything,” he says, without making it sound like a complaint. (more…)

[Translation of an article from Revistazo of Tegucigalpa for February 28. See original here.]

By Germán Reyes

Non participation in the electoral process until there are acceptable conditions for doing so and a declaration that the Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular (FNRP – National Front for Popular Resistance) is a broad movement for political struggle seeking the transformation of the social structures are some of the agreements reached in the First National Assembly of this social movement, held last weekend in Tegucigalpa. (more…)