Honduran Coup

While there is a growing literature on the phenomenon of land seizure by agribusiness and extractive industries, and their disastrous social and ecological effects around the world, there is often a shroud of vagueness and mystification about the concrete practices by which extractive companies come to gain access to the land itself. This is especially true since these companies increasingly veil their activities in plausible claims of “social responsibility.” This article documents the strategies by which foreign and especially Canadian capital has been grabbing and maintaining its control over land for mega-developments in Honduras, with an eye to the ways in which different tactics are adapted to each particular context in which they are applied. The purpose is to demonstrate the flexibility and complexity of these strategies and to lay the groundwork for future studies of these concrete practices in order to supplement the existing literature on land seizure.

Canada’s key role in supporting the 2009 coup d’etat in Honduras is emblematic of a new Canadian imperialist positioning in world affairs.  A close reading of Canadian state responses to the coup and the repression that followed points to the apparent contradiction in its being an outspoken supporter of a violent and anti-democratic regime despite rhetorical commitments to peace and security.  The contradiction can be explained in terms of the extent of Canadian economic investment in Honduras and an understanding of Canada as a secondary imperial power committed to imposing and maintaining conditions in Honduras that will protect that investment.  The promotion of hyper-neoliberalism in Honduras, then, is representative of Canada’s larger projects for the Global South in a context where Canadian capital is aggressively expanding its reach in the world.

This CMI Working Paper draws from several years of research in Honduras, including a series of interviews in February 2015, to assess the relationship between civilian and military authority in Honduras today. It highlights the military coup of June 2009 as a turning point wherein the trend towards increased democratic civilian governance was reversed, setting into motion a chain of events that have re-asserted the primacy of the military. It concludes with an evaluation of the current mobilizations of civil society, manifest in major ongoing public demonstrations, and the prospects for reversing the slip into authoritarian rule under Juan Orlando Hernández.

This article considers the emergence of the social movement in
resistance to the military coup in Honduras as a logical continuation
of a movement that had been gaining momentum throughout
the 2000s. Contrary to much mainstream analysis, this paper
insists that it was the strength of the social movement that actually
pushed former President Manuel Zelaya towards a project of
reform in the first place, which eventually prompted the Rightwing
coup in response. Instead of a spontaneous rising of people
in support of a deposed president in 2009, then, the resistance is
here understood as a continuous struggle against neoliberalism in
various forms. Drawing heavily from interviews and research in
Honduras, this is one of the first systematic English-language
analyses of the roots of the current Honduran social movement.

Este artículo considera el surgimiento del movimiento social en
resistencia al golpe de estado en Honduras como una
continuación lógica de un movimiento que había ido ganando
impulso en toda la década del año 2000. Al contrario de muchos
análisis convencionales, este artículo insiste en que era la fuerza
del movimiento social presionó al ex presidente Manuel Zelaya
hacia un proyecto de reforma, y que fue principalmente este
aspecto lo que finalmente llevó al golpe como respuesta. En
lugar de una espontánea creciente de personas en apoyo a un
presidente depuesto en 2009, la resistencia se entiende aquí como
una lucha continua contra el neoliberalismo en diversas formas.
Utilizando en gran medida de las entrevistas y la investigación en
Honduras, este es uno de los primeros análisis sistemáticos en
inglés sobre las raíces del movimiento social hondureño.

While there is a growing literature on the phenomenon of land seizure by agribusiness and extractive industries, and their disastrous social and ecological effects around the world, there is often a shroud of vagueness and mystification about the concrete practices by which extractive companies come to gain access to the land itself. This is especially true since these companies increasingly veil their activities in plausible claims of “social responsibility.” This article documents the strategies by which foreign and especially Canadian capital has been grabbing and maintaining its control over land for mega-developments in Honduras, with an eye to the ways in which different tactics are adapted to each particular context in which they are applied. The purpose is to demonstrate the flexibility and complexity of these strategies and to lay the groundwork for future studies of these concrete practices in order to supplement the existing literature on land seizure.