Caribbean & Central America - September 2015 (ISSN 1741-4458)

As Guatemala makes history by obliging its elected president to resign under the weight of corruption allegations, pressure is intensifying in neighbouring Honduras and El Salvador for international commissions against impunity similar to the United Nations(UN)-backed Cicig that has proven itself to the citizens of Guatemala.

The campaign for an international commission against impunity in Honduras (Cicih) continues to be led by the ousted former president, Manuel Zelaya (2006-2009), who now leads up the main opposition bench in congress at the helm of his new party, Libertad y Refundación (Libre). Zelaya has been a prominent supporter of ‘Los Indignados’ (roughly, ‘The Outraged’), a sizeable civic street protest movement that has peacefully staged nightly torchlit marches across the country for the best part of five months now demanding a Cicih and, in an echo of its fellow movement in Guatemala, calling for the resignation of the president, Juan Orlando Hernández, over a US$300m embezzlement scandal in the Honduran social security institute (IHSS) implicating the ruling Partido Nacional (PN).

Hernández has insisted that Honduras does not need such international agency, arguing that Honduran institutions are robust enough and should be allowed to get on with their work against corruption. In late June, in the face of rising tensions, he went on national TV to announce a new internal anti-corruption system, Sistema Integral Hondureño de Lucha Contra la Corrupción e Impunidad (SIHCIC).

As part of this new system, Hernández proposed five concrete measures: the creation of a unit of supervision and support against corruption and impunity for the public ministry; a similar unit for the council of the judiciary and the courts inspectorate; a special new unit for the security of judges, prosecutors, their families and judicial installations; a new observatory for the justice system; and finally, a new system of business integrity.

The president said the SIHCIC would be accompanied by an “unconditional” national dialogue. He urged all of civil society and the private sector to “join our fight for dignity and transparency and the equal application of justice...the changes that we've been making are deep and irreversibly transform our nation. I assure you that we will not back away from these changes".

Hernández then also moved to invite facilitators and mediators from the Organization of American States and the UN to oversee this dialogue. On 28 July a Chilean diplomat, John Biehl Del Río, was designated by the OAS Secretary General, Luis Almagro, as his special representative in Honduras to serve as a facilitator in the national dialogue.

The Hernández proposal instantly met with scepticism, with critics suggesting that it was a cynical effort by the president to deflect from the IHSS scandal. The protest movement refused to trust, moreover, that the dialogue would be open and free of government-imposed conditions. Presidential Advisor Ebal Diaz’s dismissive comments about the protestors “they don’t believe in God, they don’t respect anyone and they are inclined to sow chaos”, didn’t help. Likewise, while the government’s general coordinator, Ramón Hernández Alcerro, stressed that the dialogue parameters were not “set in stone” and made clear that the president wanted to hear ideas and proposals from across the country, he too rejected the calls for a Cicih, stressing that Hondurans should resolve their problems themselves. He poured scorn on the achievements of the Cicig in Guatemala, “the Cicig has not resolved the problems of corruption and impunity in Guatemala, otherwise it wouldn’t have the problems it has today”, he stated. President Hernández’s proposal, he said, aimed “to open up a space, to lend a hand to a social dialogue, without any type of conditions as to what is needed, because there have been repeated calls for dialogue, but no-one says what they want to talk about… what is on the streets is more of a sentiment against corruption and impunity”.

Unsurprisingly, this did not wash with the Indignados, who continued with their protests. Zelaya, meanwhile, proposed a national plebiscite to petition citizens as to whether the Hernández government should invite the UN to set up a Cicih. On 3 August, congress rejected that by 66 votes to 56. The PN congress president, Mauricio Oliva, urged Libre to join the dialogue process instead. Oliva said the Cicih proposal was “weak, unsubstantial and very superficial”; he also rejected “foreign intervention”.

With tensions continuing to simmer, representatives of the Indignados and civil society organisations finally agreed to meet Luis Almagro of the OAS, who along with Biehl visited Honduras on 7 August to broker talks. Hernández received Almagro, who promised to “knock on all doors and enter those that are opened” and said that the OAS would later form an agenda for talks with specific goals and a timeframe.

The Indigados staged what was meant to be a national strike on 26 August. While it did not succeed in bringing the country to a halt, the Indigados’ leadership later met with the Consejo Hondureño de Empresa Privada (COHEP), the country’s main business lobby. The COHEP to date has stuck fast by the Hernández government. However, of the country’s political parties, only the PN and its small ally, Unificación Democrática (UD), remain against the Cicih. The other traditional national party, Partido Liberal (PL), Zelaya’s old party, riven still between pro- and anti-Zelaya factions, has now reversed its objections, following a ‘unification’ meeting at which party members agreed to vote in favour of a Cicih if it ever comes before the house again. That prospect, however, seems unlikely.

Zelaya remains undeterred. Following the momentous events in Guatemala, he has resumed his public calls for a Cicih. Following a meeting with Biehl in Tegucigalpa on 8 September, Zelaya issued a statement circulated by Libre in which he said that “the existence of a international commission of investigation against impunity and corruption is a state emergency, and is a guarantee for the investigation and penal prosecution of acts of corruption that are impune”. A Cicih, the statement continued, “is a necessity in Honduras in the face of the failure of the institutions of justice [which are] implicated in the rupture of the constitutional order, fraud and violations of the Constitution, and the laws of the Republic”. “The majority of Hondurans no longer have confidence in the protection of our rights”, the statement continued, accusing the president of leading “an authoritarian government that concentrates by extortion all the state powers; persecutes and represses the political opposition and systematically violates human rights”. President Hernandez, it went on, “controls the three state power, executive, legislative and judicial…and uses them for his sole two objectives: [to] maintain his impunity and guarantee his continuity [in power]”.

Meanwhile, upon his latest arrival in Honduras on 7 September, Biehl said that “the saddest thing would be the rupture of Honduran democracy”. He said he was “optimistic” and noted that he was accompanied by an “expert in dialogue” designated by the UN and other senior OAS officials. He said he hoped that all parties, including the country’s seven registered political parties, would shortly agree on a working agenda. “What is feasible is that you [Hondurans] can agree between yourselves, you don’t need to be told when it is the moment to think first about Honduras”, he noted.

• Libre contests re-election ruling

Libre on 7 September submitted an appeal to the supreme court (CSJ) asking for the nullification of the historic April ruling by the court’s constitutional chamber allowing for indefinite presidential re-election.

• CSJ up for renewal

All 15 supreme court magistrates will be replaced by congress in January 2016. The support of 86 of the 128 deputies is required. Some 45 candidates, initially, will be considered by a nominating committee comprising various local organisations. An observer mission from the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) visited Honduras in early September for talks with various parties.