Episode 29: A New President Kicks Off A New Moment for Honduras

Summary

On January 27, President Xiomara Castro was inaugurated in the presence of thousands of Honduras and several international invitees in the national stadium in Tegucigalpa. It was an exciting celebration that marks the start of a new era for Honduras, despite the existence of a Congressional crisis that could have put President Xiomara’s progressive agenda in jeopardy.

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Transcript

Karen Spring:

On January 27, President Xiomara Castro was inaugurated as the new president of Honduras. It’s the first time a woman has been in this role in Honduras’s history. It was a huge and really exciting celebration. Thousands of people filled the stadium in Tegucigalpa and waited in long lines to get a seat in the bleachers under the hot sun. There were several international attendees, including US Vice President Kamala Harris, Spanish King Phillip VI, and former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff.

But as the new government took power, Honduras was in the midst of yet another political crisis. This time, the crisis was centered around the election of the new Congressional leadership. And now, just over a few weeks since President Xiomara has taken power, a solution seems to be in the works.

Welcome to the Honduras Now podcast. This podcast shares human rights stories from Honduras and connects them with global issues and North American policy. I’m your host, Karen Spring, a longtime human rights activist that has lived in Honduras for over a decade. Thanks so much for listening.

Late in the evening on January 26, the day before the inauguration, crowds of people gathered. Walking around the stadium, you could see and talk to people from all over the country. They wanted to gather early to get in line so they wouldn’t miss a chance to get into the stadium when the doors opened at 4:30 a.m. Outside the stadium, large banners had been draped from the top of the stadium. The banners had large pictures of well-known Honduran women, Berta Cáceres, Jeanette Kawas, Margarita Murillo, and Clementina Suárez.

Once inside the stadium, you could see large murals hung at the back of the bleachers facing the huge stage where resistance bands would perform in the morning, while everyone waited for the arrival of the international guests. And of course, for the arrival of President Xiomara.

The murals were painted by young Honduran artists to honor important people and events that had characterized the coup and post-coup Honduras. There were murals of the four prosecutors that went on hunger strike in 2008 to denounce the widespread corruption inside the public prosecutor’s office. And there were paintings of some of the martyrs, or people that were killed in protests following the 2009 coup d’etat.

After several hours of waiting in the hot sun, President Xiomara was announced to the crowd and she walked into the stadium, accompanied by former President Manuel Zelaya and her family.

Announcer:

Recibimos a la presidenta electa de Honduras, Iris Xiomara Castro Sarmiento. [We welcome the President-Elect of Honduras, Iris Xiomara Castro Sarmiento.]

Karen Spring:

In her first address as President in the National Stadium, President Xiomara talked about the dire economic and social situation of the country.

Xiomara Castro (interpreted):

The economic catastrophe that I am receiving doesn’t have a comparable situation in the history of the country. Its impact, and the 700% increase in the country’s debt, is reflected in the lives of the people. Poverty has increased to 74%, which makes Honduras the poorest country in Latin America. These statistics explain the caravans of thousands of people of all ages that flee to the north, to Mexico, to the United States, looking for a place and a way to survive without caring about the risk to their lives.

The level of indebtedness is so large that the interest and capital payments right now total 50% of the income in the country’s national budget. After 12 years of dictatorship, the internal debt increased by 700% from 20 billion to 179 billion lempiras. The external debt increased by 319% from 37 billion to 157 billion.

Karen Spring:

After laying out the serious challenges she faces, President Xiomara talked about change. She laid out her promises and she made commitments. Here are some clips that I put together from her speech. She lists off her promises and her government’s agenda. These are the points and promises that the Honduras social movement will most watch and have demanded from the new government. I’ll link to the entire speech for those that are interested in the show notes.

Xiomara Castro (interpreted):

The re-foundation of Honduras starts with the restoration of respect for human beings, the inviolability of life, and security for all citizens.

No more death squads.

No more silence about femicides.

No more contract killing.

No more drug trafficking or organized crime.

We want Honduran women and men to feel the presence of the state, a guarantor of their rights, so they can live in peace.

We are going to concentrate our best efforts in four sectors that are consistently mentioned by citizens: education, health, security, and employment.

Refounding the country is more than just a verb.

More than 1 million families that live in poverty and consume less than 150 kilowatts of electricity a month, as of today, will not have to pay their electric bill. Electricity will be free in their homes.

The Ministry of Education must assign a budget to begin the school year with in-person classes for our children, youth, and ensure that school registration is free, that children are given a snack at school, vaccines and masks.

My entire government must concentrate in developing agriculture and food sovereignty.

We are going to renegotiate the clauses in the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA).

No more licenses for open pit mining for the exploitation of our minerals. No more concessions that exploit our rivers, watersheds, our national parks, and cloud forests.

Freedom for the political prisoners.

Justice for Berta Cáceres.

An amnesty law for political prisoners and prisoners of conscience and the return of Hondurans in exile.

The creation and establishment of a national and international commission to combat corruption and impunity in Honduras, with the support from the United Nations.

We will implement a foreign policy for the people, sovereign, based on solidarity, and Central America- and Latin America-focused.

This is a moment that will go down in our history as a day that marks a generation that has decided to be free, that generates the possibility for future generations to grow and believe that a better world is possible.

Karen Spring:

Throughout the inauguration, there was lots of chanting from the bleachers. When the emcee introduced and welcomed Vice President Kamala Harris, everyone started chanting, “¡Lléveselo!” or “Take him with you! Take him with you!”, referring to Juan Orlando Hernández and the drug charges he likely faces in the United States.

And on that note, I’m sure there are lots of questions about what Juan Orlando Hernández is up to since leaving office. Almost immediately after he walked out of the presidential palace, he was sworn in as a lawmaker for the Central American Parliament known as PARLACEN. It’s still unclear if this position actually gives him any sort of diplomatic immunity if you were to face charges in New York courts.

But within less than two weeks since he left office, Senator Bob Menendez sent a letter to US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and the Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. The letter reads:

“It is long past time for the US government to pursue accountability measures against Juan Orlando Hernández, beginning with a public revocation of his visa and designation under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act. It is imperative the Biden administration take a firm stand on behalf of the rule of law in Honduras by holding the country’s leaders accountable. Accountability is a bedrock of democracy and the rule of law.”

Shortly after Senator Menendez sent that letter, on February 7, US Secretary of State Blinken declassified and published the news that Juan Orlando Hernández had been listed on the United States Corruption and Undemocratic Actors List. Apparently JOH was put on the list on July 1, 2021, but it had remained a secret, I imagine because he was still in office. Now being included on this list means that JOH isn’t eligible for visas and admission into the United States. But since leaving office, JOH has been aggressively tweeting at anyone that writes or mentions his involvement in drug trafficking. He’s been responding with long threads to international media outlets on Twitter that mentioned his drug ties, desperately attempting to so-called correct the record and clear his name. But I feel like the clock is ticking for Juan Orlando Hernández.

Now as exciting as the inauguration of the new government was, it was dampened by a pretty intense political crisis in the Honduran National Congress. A week before President Xiomara was supposed to take power, Congress had to elect a provisional leadership consisting of a President, a Vice President and a Secretary of Congress. The leadership would then oversee the election of the permanent congressional leadership a few days later, and normally, although not always, the provisional leadership ends up being elected as the permanent leadership.

So some of you might remember from the previous episodes, that President Xiomara made an agreement with Salvador Nasralla and the PSH party when they formed the presidential coalition to run in the elections. President Xiomara said that PSH could choose the president of Congress if they were successful in the elections. PSH subsequently chose Congress Representative Luis Redondo to assume that role as President. It was thought that the entire LIBRE Party and PSH would respect this agreement, but this did not turn out as planned.

On Friday, January 21, the day that the provisional leadership was supposed to be elected, a fight broke out in Congress. Yes, a literal fight, a fist fight. When the session opened, LIBRE Congress Representative Beatriz Valle asked for the floor and quickly nominated LIBRE Congressman Jorge Cálix as President [of the Congress]. Since the National Party Minister of Government was controlling the session, without allowing any further nominations or voting process, he quickly began to swear in Jorge Cálix as President. This was a pretty clear sign of the National Party’s efforts to impede Castro’s agenda and generating massive splits inside the LIBRE Party.

Right as Cálix was being sworn in, many LIBRE Party representatives stood up and started yelling, “Traitors! Traitors!” One LIBRE Congressman, acting to defend President Xiomara’s agreement with the PSH Party, jumped onto and over the Congressional podium to try and stop the swearing in. A fight broke out kicking the alleged traitors off the stage. And then Luis Redondo was quickly nominated and sworn in as President of Congress. Let’s just say it was quite the scene. And it was a scene that was repeated over and over again on national TV.

The following day, President Xiomara convened a protest gathering under the National Congress to safeguard the building from the traitors, or the Cálix leadership, from entering the following day for the permanent leadership vote. Thousands of people gathered.

Here’s a short audio report I did from that gathering:

So right now I’m standing in a crowd of people and we’re right underneath the National Congress. It’s in the evening at 8:20, on Saturday, January 22, and the President-Elect Xiomara Castro has just arrived. You can hear all around me that people are cheering and she’s just gotten onto the stage, and it seems like there’s a mic problem, and people are waiting around, waiting to see if she’s going to talk.

Xiomara convened this protest tonight, or this gathering underneath Congress, because tomorrow is the vote to install the permanent directive of the Congress. There was supposed to be a vote to install a provisional government, but there was divisions in the party, and the part of the party that is aligned with the interests of the oligarchs and of the National Party and the Liberal Party and the traditional parties in the country, and basically illegally elected the provisional government, which includes people in the LIBRE Party, but people that have betrayed Xiomara’s agreement with Salvador Nasralla.

The night of the gathering after I recorded that, hundreds of people slept all night on the street and under Congress protecting the building from the Cálix leadership. The following morning, two simultaneous Congressional sessions were held: The Luis Redondo leadership in the actual Congressional building and the other, led by Cálix, in a remote location, roughly 20 minutes outside of Tegucigalpa. So for a couple of weeks after the inauguration, there were still two parallel congressional leaderships. At one point, there were two Congresses, passing two sets of laws. The Luis Redondo side of the conflict said that the agreement between LIBRE and PSH, made by President Xiomara, must be respected. According to this faction, the LIBRE Representatives that split from Xiomara’s wishes are traitors. Most people that make up the base of the LIBRE Party support the Redondo side. They call the Redondo leadership the Congress of the People.

Now alternatively, the Jorge Cálix leadership claimed that the executive branch or President Xiomara had no right to intervene in the legislative branch and demanded the separation of powers. The problem with this argument is that the National Party is hypocritically making it alongside the LIBRE Representatives that broke from their party. The National Party rarely respected the separation of powers during Juan Orlando Hernández’s government.

But this side also says that the Redondo leadership doesn’t have enough votes. And to a certain degree, this is true. It’s kind of confusing, but the Cálix leadership has over 70 votes, and the Redondo leadership had approximately 50.

I think the biggest concern about this conflict, for me, is that I see it, or I saw it at least, as various economic powers trying to hold on to power. The Jorge Cálix leadership is supported by the National Party, which has interest in making sure that key legislation to investigate corruption and drug trafficking doesn’t happen or isn’t passed by the Congress. But it’s not as simple as that. There are also strong economic interests tied to several wealthy families that have traditionally dominated Honduras’s political scene, have a lot of interest in keeping things status quo.

So, for example, Jorge Cálix has strong ties to the wealthy Atala family, and at one point, and this still may be the case, Cálix was the Ficohsa Bank’s and the Atala family’s legal attorney. Now some of you may recognize the name of Atala in relation to Berta Cáceres’s case.

After a few weeks of uncertainty, a negotiation took place in the presidential palace. On February 7, an agreement was reached. At the time this episode is being recorded, it’s still unclear what the actual agreement is. A few things are known, though. Jorge Cálix has agreed to return to just being a regular Congressional Representative, and will not aspire to be President of Congress. I assume, although I’m not sure, this means that Luis Redondo will remain President of Congress. I’m sure the negotiations involve giving high level government positions to some of the LIBRE Congress Representatives that sided with Cálix, but we have yet to see what will happen.

Follow Honduras Now on Twitter and Facebook, and also Instagram, if you want to stay up-to-date about how the details of the Congressional situation plays out. At least for now, another political crisis in Honduras has been resolved. President Xiomara definitely doesn’t need any more challenges in her way as she starts her four years in office.

That is the episode for the day. I’m a little delayed getting it out, because, sometime in all the gatherings I’ve been in during this exciting new time for Honduras, I managed to get Covid. The Omicron wave has viciously hit Honduras.

Thank you to the people that continue to support this podcast. If you’re a listener and want to support the shows and the work that I do, not only in producing this podcast, but also in supporting the Honduran social movement, please go to HondurasNow.org and make a donation. You can also find the show notes for this episode and all past episodes there as well.

Thank you so much for listening. I’m your host, Karen Spring, signing off for the day. Until next time, hasta pronto.