The Hope of Honduras

“The good thing is – I feel like Honduras is starting to wake up,” Ruth Saravia tells me across the kitchen table, over a bowl of yellow nance fruit. “You know, experiencing the coup d'état was like going through labor – very painful and arduous – but it’s given birth to something positive for the country.”

If anyone knows what positive change looks like in Honduras, Ruth does. As coordinator of the Social Pastoral program at the San Ignatius of Loyola Parish in El Progreso Honduras, she organizes neighborhood committees called COSODEs to build power and take on important local issues. In the past year alone, the program has borne significant fruit – dialogue has begun with local authorities, new bridges have been built in poor neighborhoods, and scores more of Hondurans have learned how to stand up for their rights.

Ruth Saravia, Social Pastoral coordinator in El Progreso, Honduras

While this type of community organizing might be new to some of the COSODE members, it’s certainly not new to Honduras. The country has a strong history of activism, particularly concentrated in the labor sector and in land rights. The famous General Strike of 1954, which achieved important gains for workers at the time, involved over 40,000 banana plantation workers and factory workers as well. In the 1970s, the first “campesino” civil disobedience actions to reclaim land for cultivation from exploitative landowners were organized. These actions have resulted in the recoupment of many lands for poor farmers and indigenous peoples of in Honduras and still continue to this day.

Unfortunately, many of the gains made by grassroots activists throughout Honduran history have been countered by strong repression on the part of the country’s elite. Attacks on land-occupying campesinos have left many dead. “Disappearances” of labor union activists and reformers became commonplace in the 80s. Even today, indigenous groups such as the Garifuna people on the Atlantic coast are being attacked for their efforts to take back their native lands from rich, non-Garifuna landowners. The headquarters of the Garifuna community radio station, which serves as the voice of their movement, has been ransacked and set on fire multiple times. One of their announcers, Secundino Torres, was just recently attacked by a masked man wielding a machete. And of course, the massive street protests against the 2009 coup d'état in the country were plagued with instances of police brutality and human rights abuses.

The offices of Radio Coco Dulce, Garifuna Community Radio in Triunfo de la Cruz, Honduras

While repression of social movements is clearly still occurring in Honduras, there are many reasons to share the hope that Ruth has for positive change in the country. For one, as the case of the COSODEs in Progreso shows us, when the inherent energy, commitment, and creativity of the Honduran people is tapped, Honduran communities can be organized and moved to collective action in relatively short periods of time. Another reason for hope is the remarkable courage and persistence that people involved in the country’s social movements have demonstrated. As Secundino, the Garifuna radio announcer, told me when I met him last week between broadcasts, “Every time they’ve destroyed our radio equipment we’ve just gone out and looked for funds to replace them. We’re not about to stop the fight.“

Student protests this August in Tegucigalpa

The third reason for hope – and perhaps the reason Ruth refers to “new birth” after the coup – are the novel actions some government officials are taking to support the rights of poor and indigenous people in Honduras. The federal government just approved a nearly $1 million packet of additional support for health and education programs in indigenous communities. The mayor of El Progreso has been collaborating with the COSODEs and implementing public works projects that the committee recommends. Unfortunately, this type of responsiveness is definitely not present in all aspects of government. Recent student protests against the privatization of secondary education have been met with stubborn inaction on the part of the federal government and the imprisonment of a number of activists. Nevertheless, Ruth is hopeful that the initial successes we are seeing today will amplify and lead to lasting social change down the road.

I hope against hope that Ruth’s predictions are fulfilled. With the grueling poverty and insecurity that is widespread across Honduras today, Hondurans are more than deserving of some positive change. The ingredients for change are there – within the strength of the Honduran people, the history of their struggle, and their continuing efforts to defend their rights. Now what is needed is action and yielding, on the part of the government and business interests, to allow the people room to stand up straight and make their voices heard.