Honduras Reacts as Thousands Occupy Land

Honduras’ former President Manuel Zelaya marched Thursday through the country’s capital, joined by supporters and members of his political party, Libre, expressing solidarity for the recent nationwide land seizure. Wednesday morning, some 3,000 families occupied over 12,000 hectares of arable land in as many as seven different departments (see map). Police were deployed to evict some of the occupiers, particularly in the northern Cortes department. But as of Thursday, at least 7,000 hectares of land remained occupied by 1,500 families, reports the AFP.

Zelaya expressed support for the land occupation and stated that this was primarily the campaign of land rights organizations like Via Campesina, and that Libre was supporting rather than coordinating the movement. Via Campesina leader Rafael Alegria told AFP that they expect to meet with President Porfirio Lobo on Friday.

Other protests associated with the Libre party were reported in cities across the country, reports El Heraldo. But some of the protests appear to have involved labour unions and other activist groups, who were demonstrating against Honduras’ increased cost of living, as well as a range of other issues.

Honduras’ government and business sector is already speaking out against the “land invasions.” The former director of the government’s agrarian agency said that the primary goal of the movement was political, and has more to do with disrupting President Porfirio’s government rather than seeking rural reform. “The end is to make the government uncomfortable, coerce them and show the government’s weaknesses,” the official told El Heraldo. “This means it’s not an agrarian problem, it’s a political problem...”

Critics who say that the land movement is primarily an anti-Porfirio initiative state that the most prominent leaders involved, including Via Campesina’s Rafael Alegria and labour activist Juan Barahona, are members of the Libre party and known Zelaya supporters (as one El Heraldo headline put it, “Anarchist and political interests behind invasions in northern Honduras.”)

Labor leader Juan Barahona countered these critiques, stating that there is no political objective to the land occupations, and that it is fundamentally an issue about land rights.

President Lobo’s position is unclear. The head of one prominent business association, the ANDI, said Thursday that Lobo supported the land “robberies” if he planned to meet with the peasant organizations (the ANDI director is a known critic of President Lobo). His allegations prompted a quick rebuttal from a presidential spokesperson and the current head of agrarian agency the INA, but the rebuttal did not clarify Lobo’s position before this latest wave of land conflict.

So far, even as police has evicted the land squatters, there has been few reports of violence between the protestors and the government. Violence is a typical by-product of Honduras’ tense land conflicts: the AP reports that 55 people (including farmers and members of the security forces) have been killed in land disputes in the past two years.



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