The insurrectional process in Honduras is alive. The fragility of the regime is evident after the new Police rank and file rupture. Before this, imperialism went public supporting the official candidate and the electoral fraud. If the situation remains stable, it is only because of the opportunistic role of the bourgeois opposition, focused only on recounting the votes. If the masses are aware of its strength, they can take the government down through an Insurrectional National Strike.
By PST-Honduras.
Two insurrectional waves shook the bases of JOH’s regime. The first one avoided for the SEC –Supreme Electoral Court- to make the fraud official on November 26. The second one defeated the self-coup attempt closing the way to an illegal reelection and defeating the state of siege, dividing the armed forces and dragging a new segment of the population to the battlefield. A third wave is necessary to take down the nationalist ruler through an indefinite, insurrectional national strike.
The strike has to be organized by neighborhoods’ struggle bodies and the working class’ and popular movements’ organizations, without the leadership of the opportunistic ALLIANCE, which wants to control the process to use it to negotiate with the SEC and the US Embassy.
The deepness of the political crisis made Heide B. Fulton, responsible for dealing with the US Embassy, to gain protagonism by leading the negotiations directly with the SEC, private business’ representatives, and Nasralla himself (the candidate who won the election).
Imperialism is moving all its pieces because the development of the situation is exceeding its control. Trump’s first choice is JOH, and so he has the same responsibility for the fraud as the National Party (PN) and the SEC, which never questioned his illegal candidature (for reelection). They were permissive regarding the anti-democratic nature of the electoral process.
Almagro (Secretary General of the OAS) sent the biggest observers delegation in the history of Honduran elections. The European Union, which initially questioned the lack of electoral reforms, ended up sending a delegation, too – one month before the election.
These imperialist bodies are the main defenders of the fraud. They do not denounce it, and they became the bases of this corrupt, unpopular government. They never denounced the state of siege or the self-coup attempt that left 14 deaths by the police and the army, hundreds of injured, and more than 1655 people detained. This is why the call to “stay calmed” and to dialogue by Almagro and Antonio Guterres, OAS and UN representatives, are public statements of support to the fraud and to the coup candidate.
The leadership role of the Alliance is nefarious before the huge sacrifice and heroism of the resisting masses. The bourgeois opposition’s strategy is to negotiate with the SEC and the US Embassy the counting of votes and more votes. To it, it uses the mobilization as exchange currency. This opportunistic leadership is shamefully claudicating to imperialism.
Manuel Zelaya wrote a letter in which he separates from the opposition candidate to make the US “realize” that he is willing to concede, so the US acknowledge Nasralla as the elected president. Behind appearances, he is covering up for himself before the possibility of the US choosing JOH, as to avoid sinking with Nasralla.
On his side, Nasralla shows his pro-imperialist face whenever he can. Not only he expressed that he will rule for the businessmen, who will make much more money with him and whose businesses will improve, as he also stated he is a friend of the US, and his government will make more concessions to the US than JOH’s.
In clear Spanish, this means that his administration will be more open to the IMF and the World Bank, which impose neo-liberal plans that jeopardize workers’ rights and wages and starve and cause misery to 60% of the Honduran population. It means that multinationals in the country can sack even more the natural resources and displace the indigenous peoples from their territories, as well as black people and peasants.
But this is not it: at the Press Conference to declare the National Strike on D15, he said he will not take the lands of the Palmerola military base, the most important military enclave of the US in Latin America. And he continued: “I will extend the Palmerola track if possible, and will move it to wherever they say.”
From the PST, we have always called not to trust the Alliance at all, which cries together with the COHEP -Honduran National Business Council- the $7,000 million lempiras lost since the beginning of the crisis, and which are afraid that the independent mobilization goes against the interests of the national bourgeoisie.
The strategic task of the mass movement is to take JOH down, who is the main obstacle for a real democratic transformation in the country. And they can only do so through an indefinite, insurrectional national strike that surpasses the opportunistic, pro-imperialist leadership of the bourgeois opposition; to take the government down and impose a Workers’, Peasants’, and popular organizations’ government; to trial and punish JOH, his cabinet, and the SEC officials; to implement a general wage raise, an integral agrarian reform, and equal, democratic rights to everyone. And also to impose the end of US military bases in Honduras, to break the agreements with the IMF, and to stop paying the foreign debt.
Executive Committee of the Socialist Workers’ Party – PST, national section of the International Workers’ League, Fourth International.
Tegucigalpa, DC. December 15, 2017.
