Honduras Returns to “Normal”

On January 26, the day before taking office as the newly elected president of Honduras, Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo was counting on the restoration of normal relations with the United States.

“Starting tomorrow,” he told reporters inquiring about his country’s rift with the United States, “everything will be normal.”

You can’t blame Lobo for being confident. That day, the top U.S. diplomat for Latin America, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere affairs, Arturo Valenzuela, had arrived, dispatched by President Obama as head of the delegation attending Lobo’s inauguration.

Also, months earlier, the United States, unlike countries such as Brazil and Venezuela, had given up the quixotic belief that the reinstatement of President Manuel Zelaya would be the only solution to the Honduran political crisis. Instead, Washington supported the presidential elections as the way out.

The U.S. bet wisely. The November 29 elections effectively ended Roberto Micheletti’s de facto government and soundly defeated the coup leaders’ party. Lobo’s National Party now has a commanding majority in Congress and mayorships across the country.

In his inaugural speech, Lobo made it clear that any return to normal won’t mean a return to business as usual for Honduras. He affirmed his commitment to the formation of a truth commission to detail the events that led to the coup and the human rights violations that took place afterward. He also pledged to improve the lot of the poor and narrow the increasing gap between rich and poor.

At one point he interrupted his speech to sign a decree approving political amnesty for Zelaya and for all those involved in his ouster. “The Honduran family is beginning [the process] of reconciliation," Lobo said.

Yet if his presidency is to survive and his party to succeed, Lobo will have to do more than pay lip service to that reconciliation agenda.

Honduras is a changed country and the thousands that went to the streets to oppose the coup in recent months weren’t simply there because they were Zelaya’s supporters. They are part of a broad coalition of Hondurans fed up with a government that serves largely the interests of a few. Their leaders say they won’t stop pressing the government until the constitution is changed to make Honduras more inclusive.

On the other side, Lobo faces an entrenched elite and powerful economic interests accustomed to having their way. As recent proof of their power, wealthy Honduran oil barons in December reclaimed their price fixing privileges on fuel imports, effectively killing a six-year effort by Juliette Handal and other local activists to introduce international competition.

In light of Lobo’s unprecedented balancing act, U.S. observers believe that the United States has an opportunity to use its economic leverage to keep reconciliation efforts alive.
The United States is Honduras’s key economic partner. It accounts for 90 percent of trade, up to 75 percent of direct investment, not to mention a large portion of aid. Remittances, which are about equal to 18 percent of the Honduran gross domestic product, come mostly from Honduran immigrants living in the United States.

Vicki Gass, senior associate with the Washington Office on Latin America, said the U.S. needs to insist on urgently needed reforms as conditions to restore assistance and engagement. Honduras must amend its tax laws that protect rich multinational companies and stem corruption, which costs Honduras 10 percent of its national budget each year, she said.

Gass and other observers aren’t holding their breath and don’t believe the United States will stick its neck out for reform just because of some enlightened ideal. “Honduran elites have shown how determined they can be to stand up, ” as Jennifer McCoy, director of the Carter Center's Americas Program said.
McCoy predicts the U.S. will only press for incremental changes.

What is going to keep the U.S. more engaged is an active opposition, which ironically the coup helped create. The opposition – or resistance as it is now known in Honduras -- will struggle to make its voice heard however. As in several Latin American countries, it is up against media that rest largely in the hands of a few -- the few who have a vested interest in the status quo.

But Handal thinks that the media and other traditional powers have not fully grasped what is coming down the road. “This doesn’t end here,” she said in an interview from Honduras. Those who dismiss recent marches as the work of a few rabble-rousers risk deluding themselves. As Handal put it, “they don’t want to see the reality” that Honduras has become.