Golpe de estado – day seventeen

I’ve learned a new word in Spanish - relajo. More than once I’ve found various Honduras talking about the relajo we’re facing here. Relajo means a “mess” but one dictionary said it can also mean “depravity,” a “rude joke,” a “disorder,” “derision,” or even a “lewd act.” I wonder if it isn’t really all of these.

Deposed president Mel Zelaya issued an ultimatum that the Honduras de facto government does not let him return to his office. He is also saying that he could return at any time. Costa Rican president Oscar Arias announced that the negotiations will resume on Saturday. Why so much delay?

But what do people think?

Today I had two extended discussions of the “mess” with two Hondurans I know.

One woman was surprisingly vocal against the coup. I didn’t expect her to be so passionately opposed. The other was a Catholic university student who I expected to be opposed to the coup. He insisted that many Hondurans were opposed to the coup. When I said that many think the majority are for it, he spoke about his perception that the press and other media are slanted – and controlled by those with economic power. And thus people are confused.

I know of people who are in favor of the coup, though not necessarily in favor of Micheletti. They were tired of Zelaya’s shenanigans and the corruption. However, there are others who see the coup as an action of the economic elite to prevent some changes that would benefit the poor and allow the poor participation in society. Some of them thought that Zelaya was at least offering some openness to the poors’ concerns. There are others who were fed up with Zelaya’s corruption but consider Micheletti as corrupt and representative of those interests that keep the poor down. a coup d’état was for them not the way to deal with all these problems. I have also read of real concern about the two party monopoly on politics that keeps these political parties and their interests in power, but leave little room for the poor majority of the country to have a say in the way this country is governed.

Honduras is a very polarized society. A July 10 article in the New York Times reported, “And a new CID-Gallup poll showed the extent of the polarization there. According to a face-to-face survey of some 1,200 people, 46 percent of Hondurans disagreed with Mr. Zelaya’s ouster and 41 percent said they approved of it. Those surveyed were also evenly divided on Mr. Zelaya himself, with 31 percent saying they had a positive image of him and 32 percent a negative one.”

Meanwhile I came across this prayer from the blog Iglesia Descalza to our Lady of Suyapa, patroness of Honduras:

Virgin of Suyapa, bless all Hondurans, pour out your blessings on every one of their homes.

Good Lord Jesus, we ask you through Your Holy Blood, through Your Wounds, and with the intercession of Your most beautiful Mother, our Mother, the Virgin Mary, that peace may soon be reestablished, with stability and hope for the beloved inhabitants and natives of the Republic of Honduras. Amen