Powered by RedCircle
Summary:
We take a trip to the Alemania neighbourhood in El Progreso, Yoro to speak with a community in resistance.
In the midst of a land struggle, the women in the Alemania protest and pressure Honduran authorities for food assistance during the Covid-19 pandemic. When they were repressed, they take matters into their own hands. 6 months later, they are still going strong.
This is what resistance and solidarity looks like during a pandemic in Honduras.
Transcript:
Karen Spring: Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. Thank you so much for joining me.
For this episode, today, I want to give an update about the COVID-19 situation in the country and talk a bit about some of my experiences since returning a month ago. Then we’re going to hear about some really cool food programs that are being organised in northern Honduras, that have received international support from at least two Canadian solidarity organizations, the Simcoe County Honduras Rights Monitor, and the US and Canadian based organization Rights Action.
Update on Covid-19 Situation in Honduras
The number of Covid-19 cases in Honduras has reached 76,000. The total number of deaths as reported by the government, is now 2300. I discussed the Covid-19 situation in Honduras in much more depth in Episode three. So I only want to give a quick update today.
The trends I discussed in Episode three related to Covid-19 are still relevant. Two months later, more corruption cases have been reported and exposed. There are still no public officials that have been arrested for mismanagement of funds that were designated to the Covid-19 response. That’s public funds. And the five mobile hospitals that were purchased for $48 million from Turkey to receive Covid-19 patients and to be set up in cities where there was a significant demand for medical treatment are still not set up. Even though the pandemic hit Honduras six months ago.
The only difference between now and the time that I recorded episode three is that the case numbers are higher, and they continue to increase. But the country continues to open up and there are less restrictions on circulating around the country as well as around the city. Most businesses are no longer even enforcing entrance restrictions that were previously based on the last number of your ID card that the government still requires, but that are obviously not being implemented.
Bizarre Entrance-way Covid Prevention Measures
But I want to share some of my own experiences living here during Covid-19. The whole idea of entrance-way Covid prevention in Honduras has kind of been really bizarre to me.
At the entrance of the neighborhood where I live, guards spray the tires of my car with disinfectant almost every time I enter the neighborhood, and every single place you enter here, businesses whether it’s a grocery store, a bank or a gas station, almost everywhere, you have to step on a mat with disinfectant on it.
In smaller towns because Edwin [my partner] and I ventured out briefly to a smaller town right outside of the capital city last week. Some places have even set up large, disinfected drive-thrus. They’re kind of like contraptions at the entrance of the town. So while you drive through, your entire car is sprayed with what I think is disinfectant by the sprayers that line the entire area of the contraption that they’ve set up.
This has been totally bizarre to me. I don’t fully understand it. I don’t even know what is in these, what kind of disinfectant they’re using. But it seems to be something that everybody’s decided that is effective against COVID-19. But I think the weirdest entranceway prevention measure that I’ve seen so far, was when Edwin [my partner] and I went the other day to a store that sells lights, fans and other electronic home supplies. At the entrance of this store, a guard took my temperature, as usual, then asked me to raise my arms. I did what he said. And then he literally sprayed my entire body up to my neck with some sort of liquid that he had in a disinfectant sprayer. And I think what he was spraying was disinfected. And then he asked me to turn around and he did the same with my back. So I literally walked into the store, sort of wet with this disinfectant on all my clothes and I was kind of shocked by the whole thing. I thought it was so odd, but I didn’t protest because I wasn’t really sure what it would achieve if I did. But there you have it. Those are some stories about COVID-19 entranceway prevention bizarreness in Honduras.
Taking A Trip to the Alemania Neighbourhood
For this episode, I want to take you on a trip. Let me take you to the city of El Progreso in northern Honduras. It is located approximately 20 minutes from the international airport in [San Pedro Sula] in northern Honduras.
If you’ve ever arrived to the airport, you would likely have to pass through El Progreso to move to other parts of the country. As you drive from the airport to El Progreso, you pass large extensions of banana plantations on either side of the road, and they go on and on and on. Once entering this medium sized city, scattered all along the highway once you enter the city are big signs for the US fast food restaurants, Pizza Hut, KFC, Popeye’s, Burger King and others. Now, once you drive by those restaurants, you make a left at one of the few main stoplights in the city, and you continue along the main road. That takes you to the Caribbean coast of Honduras.
But for this episode, we’re not going to continue all the way up to the Caribbean coast. Instead, we’re just going to drive approximately 10 minutes outside of this booming, medium sized city, and we’re going to visit a small neighborhood called the Alemania neighborhood. Just down the road from this neighborhood is a sweatshop complex where lots of US and Canadian factories are operating. From the road you can tell the Alemania neighborhood is a poor neighborhood. Some houses are made of mud bricks, and you can see tarps and or slabs of metal securing the infrastructure of some houses.
So we’re going to stop here in this neighborhood in the Alemania today to hear about some of their struggles, a land struggle, but also some of the cool programs that they’ve organized as a community with help from international solidarity organizations to get their community through these hard pandemic times.
To start we’re going to speak with a community leader named Raquel, she’s going to explain the situation to us. I started interviewing Raquel by asking her to introduce herself, explain what her position in the community is and also how they’re responding to the challenges that the pandemic has brought them.
Land Struggles and Food Programs
Raquel Lopez: My name is Raquel Lopez. I’m the president of the community council [patronato] in the Alemania community. We are involved in a land recovery project and we have been fighting to maintain the kids’ food kitchens because many people have lost their jobs since the start of the pandemic.
The Alemania neighborhood was founded in 2011. Since then, we have been in a land reclamation where we are trying to gain full rights to the land. The mayor of El Progreso said that the land would be titled to favor the most in need. But he hasn’t and instead put the land in his name. And that’s how we got into this land conflict. We have tried to fight for the right to the land legally. But the lawyers take our money and do nothing. So we all the women and the families got together and they’re fighting. We have had internal problems, but we have overcome them.
It’s the women here that are organized. The men are very apathetic. But there are some that support and help us now we are planting crops and some men are helping. But it took a while for us to break the stereotype that women can’t lead. Just because I’m a woman, I was told I could not be president of the elected community council. So it has meant struggling through that and also our process of recovery land.
Before the pandemic started. There were 197 residents in this neighborhood that were being criminalized, the day that the state of siege was ordered because of COVID-19. We had a trial but it was suspended and the date was changed.
Covid Exacerbates Existing Conditions
Karen Spring: So I just want to explain something here. The Alemania neighborhood has been in a vicious land struggle for several years. Like Raquel mentioned, they’re confronting the mayor of El Progreso who uses his authority to title land as he pleases. In many places in Honduras, the abuse of power or the unwillingness of mayors to use municipal lands for landless Hondurans is an ongoing problem. Many mayors think they can simply put the land in their name and then sell it to private land investors. Giving land to communities like Raquel’s isn’t profitable for local governments. Raquel mentioned that almost 200 residents of the Alemania neighborhood are being charged with usurpation or illegal possession of land and also damages.
Pre-covid, there are a lot of communities like Raquel’s in the country, they’re already living in extremely precarious conditions. And the pandemic has only worsen the situation for many. I asked Raquel, how the pandemic has affected the community and what the Alemania neighborhood has done to respond to challenges brought about by COVID-19.
Raquel Lopez: Since we went into quarantine, money and resources have been tight. So seeing all the need and poverty in our community. The women here decided to open a kids’s food kitchen to provide food to children and the elderly. The government forced us into quarantine, we were forced to stay in our houses and without food. So we decided to go to the municipality to look for help. But we were rejected just because we are a poor community. We are in the middle of a land reclamation project and because of our fight to recover land, the municipality would rather that we didn’t exist. We knew that the government wouldn’t help us. So seeing that we were going to be excluded and seen the hunger we were forced to protest.
Protesting to Demand Food
Raquel Lopez (Continue): One day we blocked the main road in front of our community, the major highway that takes you to the north coast. After the first protest, the municipality did a Facebook Live saying they were giving us food. But it was all a lie. We didn’t get anything. We continued to petition for help and nothing. Instead, the municipal police made fun of us.
So we did another protest and blocked the road again. But this time, what they gave us in response was tear gas. They launched something like 30 tear gas canisters at us. So in response and to denounce this to the media, we made a soup to show everyone that we asked for food and what the TIGRE police gave us was tear gas.
US-Supported Police Force Repress Hungry Honduras
Karen Spring: Just a quick note here, the TIGRE police force that tear gassed the Alemania community when they took the street is a US-trained, vetted and funded police force. The TIGRES were created to allegedly combat organized crime. But what we have seen over several years since their creation is how they’re used to evict and arrest protesters and also protect private investments like hydroelectric dams. After the US supported TIGRE force tear gassed the Alemania neighborhood did something really cool. Here’s Raquel explaining what they did to put pressure on the government.
Tear Gas Canister Soup
Raquel Lopez: Right in the entrance of the neighborhood, right down the road from the sweatshop we made a symbolic soup. We were right at the gate of the community next to Sandra’s house. Sandra is a neighbor and she let us borrow some big pots to make soup. We were tired from being in the son and smelled of tear gas. But we told the kids to go pick up the empty discarded tear gas canisters. We got a big pot, a few cement blocks with firewood underneath, we lit a fire, got a big stirring spoon and we started to make the symbolic soup. Radio Progreso aired a video of us doing this.
[Audio from video]
The women and children stand around the pot one by one they throw the tear gas canisters into the boiling water in the pot. Another woman stirs: “One pound of chicken, rice, green bananas, salsa …. look what they gave us today.”
WATCH THE FULL VIDEO BY CLICKING HERE
Raquel Lopez: As a result of our protests and speaking to the media, showing them the soup we made with the tear gas canisters, the municipality sent 50 bags of food for 50 families. But the rest of the families remained in limbo.
Still to this this day, we haven’t received more support. There are some young women in the community that work in a sweatshop down the road but they got COVID and were sent home to quarantine. There was another factory where someone also worked but it was closed down.
So we got together and decided to organize the food programs. We give food to the most vulnerable children and the elderly.
International Support for Food Programs
Karen Spring: When local women’s groups in El Progreso heard about what the Alemania neighborhood was doing, they got in touch and through the solidarity networks that exist, contacted Canadian based organizations. The Simcoe County Honduras Rights Monitor (SCHRM) and Rights Action began sending money to this food program and to others located in other poor neighborhoods in El Progreso, Tegucigalpa and other communities around Honduras.
Raquel, how did you get this program together? Can you describe a little bit about how it works and how you got started?
Getting the Food Kitchens Set up
Raquel Lopez: We located a small piece of land, we found a place under a tree, we got a few pieces of stripped metal and made a little roof. We began to build the artisanal cooking pits, because we don’t have stoves. We made the cooking pits out of dirt, and the kids and men brought the firewood, we started to cook.
We thought it was important to do this because we have 60 to 70 kids that come to the kitchen to eat their breakfast and lunch will continue offering this program as long as we’re able to get food donations. But thank goodness we continue and since March, we haven’t stopped giving breakfast and lunch. Thank you so much to the organizations that have supported our community and the children of the Alemania say thank you. And well, this project won’t be ending anytime soon because there’s still a lot of need.
Karen Spring: Raquel, this seems like a silly question because hunger is obviously way more of a priority. But does the community implement biosecurity measures to protect the kids coming to eat at the food kitchen?
Raquel Lopez: In the beginning, kids would come and eat here but when the virus started to spread more, we asked them to come with them to take the food to their houses so that they don’t stay here in the kitchen while they eat. Even though they say that kids don’t have many problems if they get the virus, we don’t want to risk it because there has been a COVID case in our neighborhood. One person has died. But thank goodness no one else has passed away.
Karen Spring: So that was an interview with Raquel Lopez, the president of the Alemania neighborhood, Raquel Lopez.
The Alemania neighborhood has been going strong now for five or six months. Every day the women are cooking in the community kitchens to feed the children and the elderly in their community.
Honduran Media Cover the Women-Led Food Programs
Recently, the local radio station in El Progreso called Radio Progreso did a short editorial about the solidarity of the women inside the Alemania neighborhood and all the support they receive.Here is Radio Progreso’s broadcast talking about their efforts and what needs to happen in post-pandemic Honduras:
“At 5 am in the morning, Raquel, together with a group of women from the Alemania neighbourhood in the city of El Progreso in the department of Yoro, start their day. The wood stove is lit and they inspect what is left over from the food donations.
Then they divide up the work: mix the corn mill, boil the beans, strain the coffee, fry the eggs, and with luck, if they have some, prepare milk for the boys and girls in the community. Each day, this is how it is in the community kitchen – in many kitchens that have been put together in northern Honduras.
The economic crisis exacerbated by the pandemic has left many families without income, without employment, and without the possibility of eating three times a day. The generosity of these women is made possible through the growing number of bread and tortillas.
Just in El Progreso alone, there are at least 5 community kitchens, all formed and directed by women. This is a strategic way of ensuring food for boys, girls, and the elderly and promoting the value of solidarity. These food kitchens have been possible during the pandemic thanks to the generosity of people and organizations that recognize the needs that many families are confronting during this time.
The Honduran government announced that more than 750,000 families, some 3.6 million citizens, would benefit from the government-run Honduras Solidarity program, through the delivery of food for the most impoverished.
Since March, millions of lempiras have been approved for this purpose, but there have been complaints of politicization, over-valuing food purchasing contracts, and precarious delivery of small food bags.
The government management of the Honduras Solidarity program is just the beginning of all the signs of corrupt acts committed by the illegitimate government of Juan Orlando Hernandez. The management of the emergency with more than 100 billion lempiras, or more than 3 billion dollars, has been inefficient, negligent, and corrupt. This has provoked deaths and hunger in the population as denounced by the Honduran Medical College, the Anti-Corruption Council, and others.
The country’s economic projections and above all, of Honduran families, is not encouraging. The organization called The Honduran Social Forum for External Debt and Development (FOSDEH by its Spanish acronym) warns that by the end of 2020, the poverty rate will reach 70%. 7 of every 10 people will be without work or with precarious jobs that are poorly paid and that will not guarantee access to their basic needs.
With this hard reality, comes an urgent obligation to refocus public growth policies, make changes to the productive sectors, and end corruption in order to make way for a “new social order.” To not do this following the coronavirus pandemic, will continue policies that condemn Honduran citizens to survive in misery.
The proposals of solidarity and the efforts of women are the most beautiful expressions during this time. We must join in designing a regrowth from within. This will guarantee a new order, a new redistribution of income that will end the creation of groups that are more privileged than others.
After the pandemic, we must open ourselves to opportunity, to not return to “normality”, but instead the bid to reconstruct a socially-focused state, that isn’t authoritarian and that isn’t corrupt.
One that allows us a future with employment, with rights for men and women. This is without doubt, what Hondurans are looking for.”/END
Karen Spring: What Radio Progreso is saying is particularly important. Another migrant caravan with over 1000s of Hondurans gathered at the northern San Pedro Sula bus terminal and left on foot on September 30. While the US Presidential debate was live on television, a caravan of Hondurans from the southern city of Choluteca began a trip to Northern Honduras, to gather with the rest in San Pedro Sula, and then depart the following evening as a large migrant caravan.
And for all of you that wonder and ask are Hondurans doing this to impact US policy? Are these migrant caravans a coordinated effort to influence the US elections? My answer to this has been the same since the caravans started. Think about how bad your situation would have to be in order to leave everything behind and make that dangerous trip through Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico? And then have to deal with all of the outrageous violations happening at the US border.
If statistics help check out my fact sheet called “Why Hondurans are forced to flee“, which I will post at hondurasnow.org. This month, I hope to delve more into what Trump and Biden’s foreign policy has meant for Honduras, and US policy towards Central America. So stay tuned. There is some exciting content to come.
Thank you so much for listening today. Check out our show notes at hondurasnow.org. Consider donating to the podcast or leaving a review on Apple podcasts. Thanks so much y’all. Take care and hasta pronto!