Hundreds of thousands of Hondurans took to the streets on January 27 to protest the inauguration of Porfirio "Pepe" Lobo, who was the victor in fraudulent elections held last November. Jeffery R. Webber spoke during the march with Rafael Alegria, a key leader in the National Resistance Front Against the Coup (FNRG) and a Honduran leader of the international peasant movement, Via Campesina. This is reprinted from MRZine.
What are the principal demands of the resistance in this march today?
The resistance has two principal pillars. There is a social pillar for people's rights, in which the resistance accompanies people in their daily struggle for agrarian reform, just salaries, and opposition to the privatisation of social services. This is the pillar of social mobilisation.
The other pillar is the political arm — to convert ourselves into a militant political force which will work towards taking political power.
What are the objectives of the constituent assembly that the resistance is demanding?
The power of the people is going to result in massive transformations in this country. We are demanding a constituent assembly to transform this country into a participatory democracy. It will be a new Honduras — a country with social justice, equality, a new model of development in which everyone is included, and, as the Bolivians say, in which our entire country can live well.
It will be very different from the current situation, in which there is a privileged oligarchy that owns and controls everything, while on the other hand there is an immense mass of impoverished people. This can't continue.
There are a huge number of people in this march. And this is the message we are sending to the entire oligarchic power groups and to the rest of the people.
In the next few months, what will the strategy of the resistance be?
We are in a process of national organisation and articulation. We are establishing schools of political education. Our mobilisations are also going to continue. We have an immediate agenda of mobilisation.
Beyond that, we're preparing ourselves to participate in the elections in three years so that we can take definitive control.