Written by Juan Ramón Durán
(IPS) – The National Resistance Front Against the Coup d’Etat (FRN) in Honduras is carrying out a nationwide consultation among its members to establish its position with respect to the expected talks between ousted President Manuel Zelaya and the de facto government, the movement’s leaders said.
Although face to face talks between Zelaya and de facto President Roberto Micheletti have been ruled out for now, a dialogue to come up with a solution to the political crisis will begin next week, John Biehl, an adviser to Organisation of American States (OAS) secretary general José Miguel Insulza, said Friday.
Marvín Ponce, a lawmaker of the left-wing Democratic Unification (UD) party, said the FNR is “firmly united,” despite the diversity of social, labour and political sectors represented by the movement that began to take shape and hold protests immediately after Zelaya was removed from his house at gunpoint by the military and put on a plane to Costa Rica on Jun. 28.
“We are carrying out a consultation process to decide how and with what position we will participate, with regard to the different proposals to solve the conflict,” Ponce told IPS Thursday, under the close watch of a squad of policemen who just a few minutes earlier had violently broken up a protest by some 300 members of the FNR outside the U.S. embassy.
Demonstrations have also been held outside the Brazilian embassy since Zelaya slipped back into the country and took refuge there on Sept. 21.
Ponce said the FNR is made up of the UD, the Movement of Liberals (members of the Liberal Party) against the Coup, a faction of the Social Democratic Innovation and Unity Party (PINU), the country’s three central trade unions, the federation of teachers’ unions, a group of cooperatives, a coalition of trade unions of public employees known as the Popular Bloc, and the Coordinator of Popular Resistance, an umbrella group of grassroots and popular organisations.
This broad range of organisations, with a total combined membership of around 100,000 people, have come together in the FNR around two basic demands: the reinstatement of Zelaya to finish out his presidential term, which ends in January; and the election of a constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution, in order to bring about significant social changes in Honduras, said Ponce.
Koritza Díaz, a former president of the powerful union of high school teachers, said it is only logical that sometimes contradictory views would emerge from within such a large social movement as the FNR, after so many months of continuous action.
“The FNR has short, medium and long-term aims,” said Díaz. “The popular pressure exerted by means of daily protest marches in the streets of Tegucigalpa has kept the usurper government from consolidating its hold on power.