Honduras: Back in crisis, civil war is once again an option

Already many days I did not write of this topic, but the events that happened last week and the consultations of good friends that appear in this window have insinuated me, that if I have something to say after the international media have made new leaks.

So I take advantage of the delicious "Café de Colinas" of my last trip to distract somewhat the theme of AutoCAD 2012 that has me anxious, as long as I do not see what Bentley intends with his strange silence and that will surely end with a big smoke for 2011 of which I barely have any assumptions in tactile format.

The cold war, very little has changed in 40 years.

I came to Honduras because of a civil war, which lasted 12 years and cost more than 75,000 deaths, including a couple of dozen of my close relatives. I have been on the isthmus for thirty years and what I have seen in the last two has brought back stark memories of what I experienced when I was just completing my first cycles of school. Those were times when the orange eraser smelled like perfumed candy, when a bag made by my mother's Singer machine was loaded, with my name written in indelible down -the same one that was used to mark the date that the chompipe eggs were to be opened- of green raincoat crossed in the back and that warmed the right shoulder blade to the contact with the still hot new corn tortillas inflated to the comal.

The cold war in these contexts is quite similar, it has not innovated its development characteristics at all, with the variant that now instead of staining the walls in red and mounting a clandestine radio on the peaks of a forest, it is dispersed by the photos tagged on social media and has clearly identified radio and television channels. The right continues to maintain an attachment to its personal interests and the government relies on palliatives that do not pay for the modernization of the state, the reduction of political patronage, and the attack on historical problems through inspiration of creative and visionary ideas.

It continues to be a dual phenomenon, in which there are only two extremes: one bad and one evil. The tactics of deception and exaggeration are maintained, at a time when people (many) have access to media easily, and where it can be shown that the lies of the right are as obvious as those of the left; What happens is that media marketing now manages to work at a high level for the masses, led by strategists who understand the cascade phenomenon of buying consciousness from a weak point of each family, group or social class; no matter what trick you can use.

The logistical conditions of thirty years ago are somewhat different, but they are still relative: at that time, any amount of weapons could come from western Europe. Those lights that at night descended the mountain from the Honduran border, one night I learned that they were beasts laden with weapons poorly covered with grass for pasture. Once the Russian machine guns were brought to light, the hunting rifles, daggers and farm implements that had been confiscated from the peasants were not so necessary anymore, consequently they were melted down to make bombs of hunting manufacture. Three years were enough for the entire north of El Salvador to arm itself and support the mountainous areas for twelve years in conditions of “recovered territories”.

Today, there are not that number of weapons under a Left seal, Cuba can no longer bet on such a cause and Venezuela has limitations in doing so openly without showing the poverty of thought of its leader. But drug trafficking and organized crime have weapons capabilities greater than what the army could do, increasingly decimated by its poor role and discrediting of its actions. Reason for mentioning long ago that the role of organized crime and drug trafficking are preponderant for a civil war, they would do so if there was an incentive to their only temporary interests: power and money. The role that the United States can play is also very different, which at that time could put together a counter-revolution in the light of day, which it cannot do today in the face of both political and economic international fragility, this reduces the army's response capabilities to a war YOU to YOU, in a country where the dominant topography resembles the areas where the guerrillas won the battle in El Salvador, after being forced into hiding and retreat after the so-called Final Offensive of 1981.

The consciousness buying strategy is also quite similar, it hardly differs in the external influence and role played by the thinking class. In my years, Cuban advisers were late; Unnecessary hatred had been sown among the best allies (the population); People with their patrimonies built because of their effort were affected, people saw badly that my father's cows were killed with a rifle and slaughtered in public in exchange for their lives, that their crops were confiscated just because of the order of the revolution. These actions in small hamlets, where everyone knows each other, are disastrously negative, more than affecting a heritage built in many years, they made humble people lose the privilege they had enjoyed for years, bringing milk, serum, corn and medicines for free. These and other more terrible things caused that the coal people, to the degree that those towns are listed on the statistical map for historical purposes only, the people never returned.

By the time the Cuban advisers arrived, and they were told that they were doing wrong to provoke the flight and rejection of the neutral population, it was too late. 

It is a common tactic in peoples not used to organizing. Sowing hatred works, but it is not sustainable. The problem must be attacked, not the people. Inequality, corruption, the lack of participation structures are felt problems, but to achieve them, strategies not based on hatred must be worked on, because not everyone who has a vehicle, a house, a farm or a company is corrupt or oligarchs.

The cold war is much like a man without creativity, both in his left hand and on the right.

Civil war is almost inevitable.
It took almost 10 years for the Salvadoran left to unify efforts and form a single front that would represent the collective interests. The Farabundo Martí was built on wounds, betrayals, childhood mistakes and international support. In the case of Honduras, just two years have been enough for the coup to lead a strategy towards the unification of left-wing forces, international influence now has greater weight at the ideological level and in logistical aspects many things are almost unnecessary .

Its strategy can work, based on the real needs of a population that in general is dissatisfied with the customs of the political class and its association with the economic power, until reaching levels of rejection that, no matter how good an initiative may be, we find it hard to believe that it is not being done behind a bad move. When those levels of disrepute and pessimism are reached, the way for conflict is paved. Although the Resistance still has a long way to go, in the purification of its leadership, making mistakes and suffering betrayals to solidify its guidelines so far somewhat more folkloric than strategic.

But eventually, it will be able to hold. As long as it is not submitted to the vote of the people prematurely and structures ideas born in the local context, which do not seem like longings for other times (which no longer are) and other countries (which no longer exist). That it is based on the construction of new leadership, with social integration and professional contribution (which exists) in the face of problems that in practice are possible to solve in the medium term. Forgetting non-functional ideas, such as taking advantage of the situation of blind hatred, childish lies, and exaggerations that are not required to convince your best ally (the population)

Doing so can take 6 years of suffering on the plain. But by then, it may have reached strategic points of the governmental, military and social gear; without the need to vote at the presidential level. So promoting a new constituency or bringing a screen candidate to the presidency can win the battle.

Meanwhile, to achieve that scenario, avoid it or counterattack ... Civil war is an option.

Worth it?
No. I do not enjoy remembering at all, that day that in a Honduran newspaper I could see the stacked bodies of more than 30 people, in a corridor that in my memories I remembered having drawn with chalk and making innocent bubbles of saliva with the same mouth on the fine of cement. Much less to have arrived twelve years later, and to see trees of a foot in diameter in the patio where I learned to dance spinning top, plug with cashew seeds and pole vault, while at the other end my cousins ​​sang in a wheel a game that me terrified ... Dona Ana is not here, she is in her garden...

But when social debt and malpractice in government management heat up the pressure cooker, civil war can be a necessary evil. Conflicts are productive at all levels of family, political, and economic life, to level imbalances and solidify agreements. Wars are not, but it seems that Honduras, the time has come. No matter how many efforts are made, the short-term makeup will not change the outcome that (for now) those of us on the neutral side cannot avoid, not because we lack clear criteria, but because we prefer to enjoy those things that satisfy our needs. lives every morning and for whom we work all day and part of the night. Due to unnecessary conflicts we have lost good moments, for that reason we are dedicated to the effort based on our discipline, happy with what we achieved, without dreaming in fantasy scenarios, if one day we have to take a weapon, we will, if the pen, much better, both take care. 

Also a good part of the neutrals think that a new leadership is occupied, that takes up great ideas that are there - in the left or the right - to be implemented with open mentality, the majority based on good practices that can be adopted in a participatory way without the necessity of a war, adapted to the context; the funny thing is that maybe to get to the latter if you deal with a good war.

We are optimistic, what we least expect is that we spend the next 7 years in this process, and in the end the leadership of both forces make agreements that leave things equal ... or worse.

 
P.S. Despite the melancholy of the post and the ironic simplicity of my rhetoric, I'm fine. Thank you for your good wishes.