TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras, July 6 (UPI) -- Destabilization on the part of the Honduran left? A government ruse to divert the attention from the serious problems that it is facing? Bad interpretations of a just cause? All these doubts have emerged after the government's assertion that a campaign is underway to discredit President Ricardo Maduro's administration, as a first step to force him to resign.
Social unrest caused by striking teachers, medical interns and employees of the state telephone company, demonstrations on the highways by secondary school students, and a recently announced march for life organized by several environmentalist associations are blending into massive demonstrations. Several societal sectors -- among them the Church, the pro-government party and the Maduro administration itself -- have concluded that a preconceived plan exists to create an atmosphere of instability which aims to end a freely elected government.
Maduro announced in a press conference, "We have intelligence information that there are groups who want to create an atmosphere of civil unrest during the march promoted by Father Andres Tamayo, who is fighting to stop the depredation of the forests in the east of the country, to engage in conflict with the government's humanist objectives and infrastructure, as well as exposing participants of the march to violence in order to create martyrs."
At a time at which the teachers' struggle with the government is nearing its climax, other civil organizations have begun to demand the fulfillment of different wage commitments assumed by past administrations, creating a situation in the country that some analysts consider as a ticking "time bomb" that needs only a small incident to explode.
Maduro added, "I have seen with deep concern how other institutions, apart from the military intelligence, like the Church, or Bishop Luis Alfonso Santos, also believe that social elements unconnected to the environmentalists can take advantage of this unrest to initiate violent acts with the objective of destabilizing my government."
In spite of the fact that the environmentalist protest is headed by a priest, Father Andres Tamayo, one of the most influential clergymen in the country, and a constant critic of the government, Bishop Luis Alfonso Santos surprised all by stating that he would not attend the event because of intelligence he received that revealed that one of the objectives of the march is to discredit the Maduro's government.
The atmosphere is tense. During the presentation of a special prize to the industrialist Miguel Facusse, attended by important government officials and prominent Central American notables, everyone, including the president, had to be evacuated because of a bomb threat.
And yet Facusse, "the wealthiest man in Honduras" and the uncle of former President Carlos Flores, in many ways epitomizes what the disaffected are struggling against. An American Jesuit priest, Father Peter Marchetti, in the northern coastal Catholic Diocese of Trujillo has become the target of wealthy landowners because of his defense of peasant land rights in the area. The landowners are reportedly collecting funds to kill the priest.
Adding to the misery of the peasantry, many of them were left homeless by Hurricane Mitch in 1998. Marchetti has stoutly defended the landless peasantry and supported their efforts to establish a community at the site and battle corruption of the wealthy. Marchetti charged that an airstrip on an estate belonging to Facusse was used for transporting drugs and that he was responsible for the murder of Carlos Escaleras in 1997.
In May 2000, 700 landless peasants invaded a former U.S. military base, demanding that the government give them the site. Local ranchers had purchased the land well below market prices in 1991. Escaleras led regional efforts to oppose Facusse's intention to develop an African palm oil processing plant on the disputed former military base, land that the peasantry wanted turned over to them. Variants of the Facusse story exist across Honduras.
According to Mario Rivera Lopez, the former president of the National Congress, everything indicates that the Honduran left is conspiring against the government to create an atmosphere in which the government will be unable to function.
"These groups, who feel they could not win elections, attempt to rise to power through force," he said. Rivera Lopez, considered one of the most influential political figures in the last 30 years, added that although the demonstrators have the constitutional guarantee of being able to freely express their opinions in their favor, what is not constitutional is to try to overthrow a legitimately elected government.
Maduro defiantly proclaimed, "My government is not weak. I rule out the possibility of a coup d'etat, but not of an attempt to debilitate the democratic system that has cost the people so much to maintain during the last 22 years."
(Julio Medina Murillo is a writer with Tiempos del Mundo)
