Declaration Project

Editor’s Note: Galvanized by social media-savvy young people fed up with the pervasive culture of political corruption in Honduras, tens of thousands of protesters have converged at the presidential palace in the capital of Tegucigalpa and are demanding an investigation into suspected massive fraud of  social security funds. The largest protests take place over weekends, but some of the ‘indignados’ –  outraged citizens — have staked out encampments by the palace, with some staging hunger strikes. The number of protesters continues to grow as more Hondurans across the political spectrum join in. Calls for sweeping reforms have gained international notice, even as the ruling powers (as of this writing) remain intransigent and resist calls for the genuine ‘citizen sovereignty’ demanded in this declaration.

Declaration of the Outraged:

Citizen Sovereignty:

Our Outrage Is The New Political Power in Honduras”

 

We, the “Indignados e Indignadas” of Honduras from all communities on national soil, have gathered our criterion to shape the Declaration of Principles below.

June 28, 2015

WHO ARE WE?

1. We are the “Indignados e Indignadas,” the “Outraged People” of Honduras.

2. We are the people to whom Article II of our Constitution refers when it states that “Sovereignty rests with the people, from whom issue all such powers of the State as are carried out by representation.”

3. We are, therefore, the Sovereign, and our powers cannot be replaced by any government when that government has ceased to represent our true interests.

4. We are men and women who truly carry Honduras in our hearts, not as a mean-spirited marketing campaign paid for by our taxes, but as a clamor for justice, a yearning for abundance and a dream of liberty.

5. We are honest, worthy patriot citizens from all the cities, towns and villages of Honduras, as well as those who have emigrated the world over in search of better life horizons but always bearing our Honduranness in our hearts, as the most cherished treasure of our lives.

6. We are businesspeople, workers and entrepreneurs from every social class in Honduras and from every profession, occupation, trade and level of schooling who have worked together to create the greater Honduras of our dreams.

7. We are mothers, fathers, sons and daughters from all families and all social strata of Honduras, a family made up of thousands of families, all in kinship with each other, sharing the hope as one that Honduras will one day be the nation that we all truly deserve.

8. We are the illustrious perseverance of our ancestors made a gift to us by today, where with that selfsame perseverance we plant the dreams for our future: Our sons and daughters, to whom we would bequeath a blue sky and a land of plenty on which they may remember with honor our sacrifices for that new Honduras with wellbeing and social justice for all.

9. We are the believers who send up a prayer from every religious denomination which, while differing in matters of creed, also find brethrenship in a single truth: Our voices have reached the high places, where we are sure our clamor for justice and liberty will not fall upon deaf ears, the place from which we know the blessings will pour forth that are granted to the just, and from which the righteous ire of those eyes that no act can escape falls on the corrupt.

10. We are the outraged of Honduras who organize today as a citizen force resolved to defeat all the empty words, excuses, schemes, policies and gibberish of those among us directly responsible for the life of misery and horror we lead today.

11. We are the ones who have seen how the political generation founded in 1982 has failed roundly at the primary goal of eradicating misery, a consequence of the lack of human development among the overwhelming majority of our Honduran citizenry.

12. We are the ones who have concluded that the deviant, shameful, wretched and unjust state of misery and violence in which our country Honduras finds itself submerged comes as the direct consequence of a state of law hijacked by the political generation of 1982 and its political heirs, a caste of barbarian, genocidal individuals who have never had any qualms about planning and carrying out a series of economic, social and political policies aiming at none other than the eventual destruction and disappearance of the people of Honduras from this territory named Honduras, presumably with the aim of bequeating exclusively to their offspring the possibilities of enjoying the fruits of its vast wealth, a right that has been denied to our ancestors, to us and to our offspring without consulting us, using furtive means comparable only to those employed by the most destructive of criminal syndicates throughout history.

13. We are the ones who have looked around us for 33 years and learned to distinguish between that which is true and that which is false, consequently we have seen falsehood employed to impose political structures designed for self-perpetuation upon the administration of the State so as to guarantee they have a permanent hold on the nation’s treasury to exploit its monetary wealth, and impose totalitarianism upon all political, social and economic decisions that affect our collective life, decisions which by any baseline standards of democracy should have been made common knowledge, voted on by consensus, debated and acted upon by the Honduran citizenry as a whole, not only by a political cell engaged in criminal activities which, through cabals and the counterweight of personal interests, has snatched for itself the power to decide what is in the best interest and what is in the best interest of all Hondurans.

14. We are the ones who have realized that they have been lying to us about everything, and today we say: it is false to call this is a conflict between the “wealthy” and the “poor” when it is a conflict between the honest and the corrupt. It is false to call this is a battle between “right” and “left” when it is a battle between truth and lies. It is false to say that the enemy is the current constitutional State when the enemy is a group of government officials who have committed crimes while holding public office and whose responsibility we will determine pursuant to the Nation’s codes of justice. It is false to call a new constitution indispensable: a new political class made of honest people with an awareness of their clear importance to the historic development of the people of Honduras is indispensable. A new constitution may be desirable, but in the hands of the same criminals as always it is not a new constitution, rather merely a renewed mandate to continue committing the same crimes against the people of Honduras.

15. We are the ones who realized that we have also been lied to about corruption: the State that has been hijacked by corrupt politicians has spent millions to make us believe that corruption is inevitable, that the problem lies in the very structures of public office, that the solution consists of creating more bureaucratic oversight structures which once created solve nothing, in fact they aggravate the problem and make it difficult to solve because the truth is consistently withheld from us. Corruption is not a structural problem. It is a problem of corrupt public servants. It is not solved by creating more oversight bureaucracy, rather by removing the corrupt from public office.

16. We are the ones who seeing this have risen up for once and for all, resolved to learn from the mistakes of the past, resolved to take back control of our present and resolved to set in motion a new vision of the future.

17. We are the outraged of Honduras who clamor today in a loud, clear, crisp voice: “We see what you have done and will no longer allow you to do it. We have stood up and we will put a stop to this wretched, miserable life to which you have subjected us. To that end we will find you, name you, expel you and charge you so that justice touches you and apportions your guilt. We shall then become the new political power in Honduras — as it should have been from the beginning — with a commitment to our people’s wellbeing.

18. We are the citizens who rise up today to prevent the total collapse of this nation, to impose a new, genuine moral order from which will issue a State of social, political and economic wellbeing capable of raising the living standard for every Honduran, which is the ultimate aim of all human life on the planet Earth.

19. We are the rebirth of citizen sovereignty, which exists, indivisible and indissoluble in our historic path, to safeguard the wellbeing of all Hondurans.

20. We are the new political power in Honduras.

What do we demand?

1. Citizen Sovereignty: The capacity for each Honduran to create collective public policies and chart a course for the State that serves the wellbeing of the entire nation, not one that merely serves at the behest of certain groups or private circles.

2. Social, political and economic well-being for all Hondurans from all of the country’s geographic and cultural sectors.

3. Unrestricted access for every Honduran to all functions of the State oriented to the human development of the Honduran family.

4. The implementation of public policies that guarantee access to higher standards of living for all Hondurans, in affirmation that we have not come to this life to eke out a living like backward beasts, rather to learn to coexist like social beings beckoned to a higher calling in the universe, meaning we wish for advancement as individuals on our path through life, not to merely press ahead in through existential darkness with no relief in sight.

5. To safeguard the property and stake the state holds, in representation of citizen sovereignty, over all public services that constitute elements indispensable to the lives of our citizens such as water, public health, information, justice, a home, nutrition and culture, among others, which inasmuch as they are the heritage of humanity may not be auctioned off or operated for profit, rather they must remain under permanent control of citizen sovereignty by way of our government.

6. Public health care of the highest caliber, with all worldwide advances in medicine accessible to all Hondurans, funded by the taxes that we have always paid to the government, without any kind of income-based discrimination, granting urgent priority to medical care for Honduran children, and instituting on an immediate basis a national state of emergency tasked with attacking the root causes of child mortality and malnutrition.

7. Real justice systems at the service of justice to reinforce our people’s sovereignty, instead of a rotten-to-the-core, compromised, corrupt system of justice that sells aberrant judicial pardons to those who can pay for them, the operation of which can only visit tragedy and violence upon our society, [a system] incapable of establishing the universal standards for the administration of justice indispensable to the development of human civilization.

8. Public education funded by the State at all levels and employing the technological tools that civilization has placed at our disposal as a way for every Honduran to find a worthy, professional, honest means of achieving his or her individual purpose in life, thus contributing to Honduras’s development and its enhanced standing in the community of the world’s civilized nations.

9. Culture in all its facets as the duty of a State that cultivates communication, respect, coexistence and the study of human civilization, knowing that where no shadows exist, discrimination, hatred and violence cannot survive the bright sunrays of culture.

10. A decent, affordable home for all Hondurans at every income level, the resulf of public policies designed to encourage coexistence and reduce the precarious lifestyle of the least fortunate Hondurans, so they don’t fall prey to the desperation that soils and casts a pall on the wellbeing of the more fortunate.

11. Security as a result of the spirit of brotherhood between all Hondurans, not as a result of the repressive, backward, totalitarian policies of a radicalized State on a permanent warpath against the least fortunate Hondurans, [a state] that criminalizes a state of poverty that it should in fact work to reduce and solve, [a state] that creates imaginary enemies in all quarters so as to impose a Hegelian dialectic of extremes in which those of us who stand with neither one side nor the other are destroyed with no chance to assist in the county’s development or contribute to brotherhood among the Honduran family.

12. Transparency as a direct result of unimpeachable honesty and the professionalism of public office holders, not as a result of a corrupt State that always wastes taxpayer monies by creating bureaucratic oversight structures designed to conceal the manner in which corrupt public servants siphon resources from the national treasury, instead of exposing them.

13. Sanitize the civil service of all manner of patronage and partisanry, relaunching civil service as an apostolate that must be carried out solely by honorable persons elected through an open, selective, merit-based process, which will guarantee entry to civil service of individuals with all the ethical and professional capacities to contribute to improving the State’s efficiency and our nation’s standing in the community of civilized nations.

14. To construct an efficient, vigorous, transparent electoral system to safeguard citizen sovereignty and replace the current electoral farce that violates our electoral decisions, as according to information from several friendly embassies more than 6 million identity cards circulate currently in Honduras, to wit, twice the number of citizens. These have been issued by a National Registry of Persons that has been completely hijacked to serve crime syndicates and which is used to rob the citizenry of their sovereign choices. This has also taken place in the last two elections in which the most nefarious candidates for the country seized control of it by manipulating the electoral system, bringing on criminal governments as a result.

15. To decentralize the State by returning citizen sovereignty at the local level, so that boards, “patronatos,” county governments and departmental governors are vested with the sovereign power that has currently been hijacked by the central government, leading to the abuse of power that the Executive Branch submits our citizenry to at all times and displacing the citizen sovereignty that belongs to all Honduran communities at the local level.

16. Restructure economic policy at the State level so as to orient it toward a collaborative economy of solidarity in which the State paves the way — currently mined with fiscal booby traps that hinder the development of a true free-market economy operating in a healthy manner according to natural economic laws — beyond the absolute control of destructive monopolies to benefit the social sector of the economy represented by micro, small- and mid-size enterprises, inasmuch as this sector creates 80% of jobs and produces 50% of the country’s GNP.

17. Abundance for all Hondurans as a product of persistent hard work, national solidarity and the joint efforts of companies and workers, instead of wealth obtained under unjust conditions by the corrupt political operatives and thieving businesspeople who have staged a two-pronged assault on the country’s resources to seize control of them and keep them from fulfilling the important social function they must play in the human development of the Honduran family.

18. Dignity for each and every Honduran, both at the individual and the national level, with equal respect for individual and nation and the understanding that the prestige of Honduras as a nation is the heritage of each and every Honduran who fervently desires to live proud of his or her Honduranness in circumstances of independence and national sovereignty. This affirms Honduras’s friendship with all peoples of the world without submitting to rulings foreign to our history, which impose artificial enmities between us and other peoples, it being understood that Honduras enjoys an indissoluble bond of brotherhood with all nations of America bar none, and by way of the same, with all other nations of the earth, as the nation of peace and harmony that it is called upon to be.

 

How will we achieve this?

1. We will develop the Indignados movement and orient it to reclaming citizen sovereignty, by which we, the sovereign people of Honduras, will take back the original function of government, that of an institution that serves the entire nation as a sovereign body, instead of what we have today, an institution in the clutches of the personal interests of a very small group of political criminals who have deformed and destroyed the nation’s governability and all avenues for our Honduran people’s advancement and human development.

2. To that end we will develop a competent citizen organizational structure with a broad array of alternatives by which to return and firmly root citizen sovereignty at the local level. There our citizenry will build a new political force which will take control of the government and chart its course for our nation’s social, political and economic wellbeing: boards, “patronatos,” committees and citizen groups will all be educated and placed in official capacities under this Declaration of Principles of Honduras’s “Indignados e Indignadas.”

3. We will identify, place in official capacites and promote the most qualified Honduran professionals in all fields related to national civil service and in all environments, instruct them in our principles and move them to take hold of political power nationally for our people’s benefit, spurring sanitization of the civil service through the replacement of clients and kowtowing partisans — foremost among the structures of corruption that have destroyed Honduras’s development – with a new generation of honorable, capable competent civil servants absolutely free of partisan leanings.

4. All our official structures throughout the country, as well as those created by Honduran emigrés in other countries, will become part of the Citizen Assemblies, pursuant to Articles 88, 89 and 90 of our Constitution, through which we, the sovereignty, will make statements, transmit and share information with the society as a whole, which in turn will take responsibility for ensuring compliance with these among all public servants belonging to our movement’s structures at every level of government. Our Citizen Assemblies will neither absorb nor duplicate the functions of any State branch, rather they will be established so as to provide structures and raise the political profile of our outraged citizens, regardless of the partisan structure of the traditional political institutions, which we today consider failures that have become hubs for megathievery, embezzlement and criminality, as well as a source of shame for the nation.

5. We will build a media platform with a national and international presence capable of conveying to our citizenry and to the world our vision of what Honduras can and must become. We will do this to remain independent from the corporate media, which are incapable of informing the people of Honduras accurately and objectively beyond their own business interests, and which long ago lost their bearings on the route of patriotism, honorability and journalistic honor.

6. We will become a belligerent sociopolitical force with outreach capacities far beyond the traditional borders of current political parties, which have always shown themselves to be subject to the personal interests of their “caudillo” strongmen and icons as well as the financial interests of private groups. We will achieve this by building sovereign citizen structures completely open to citizen scrutiny, governed by standards of excellence and citizen oversight and capable of expelling immediately all who violate our principles, placing them at the disposition of justice or the morality of Honduran citizenry.

7. We will lead the reconstruction of the Honduran nation from a platform of patriotism, honorability, loyalty and solidarity with the sovereign people of Honduras, and we will not cease until we have liberated Honduras from the current infestation of political criminals who hold powers of state illegitimately while sucking the marrow out of the nation in a war of attrition against their own people, leading it to misery and an absolute prostration aimed at exerting absolute control over its destiny so as to subject it to the machinations of private interests.

8. We will stop the corrupt individuals who have currently hijacked the state of law and will determine their responsibility at every level. We will not allow these corrupt individuals to continue destroying Honduras. We stand by the flag. We are willing and able to expel them from government and bring about the process of determining the criminal responsibility they clearly bear.

9. We will continue to shape this Declaration until it becomes the vehicle for a new code of governabililty and coexistence of the people of Honduras.

Issued in Tegucigalpa, San Pedro Sula, Choloma, La Ceiba, Santa Rosa de Copán, Santa Bárbara, Gracias, Choluteca, Talanga, El Progreso, and all other counties of the Indignado movement of Honduras.

June 28, 2015.

Source of text and image: http://www.hondurasindignada.org/declaration-of-principles/

 

Original Spanish:

Declaración Indignada:

“Soberanía Ciudadana: Nuestra indignación es el nuevo poder político en Honduras”

Nosotros, los indignados e indignadas de Honduras, desde todas las comunidades del territorio nacional, hemos reunido nuestros criterios para dar forma a la siguiente Declaración de Principios.

28 de Junio, 2015

¿Quiénes Somos?

1. Somos los indignados e indignadas de Honduras.

2. Somos el pueblo al que se refiere el Artículo 2 de nuestra Constitución, el cual dice que ‘la soberanía corresponde al pueblo del cual emanan todos los poderes del Estado que se ejercen por representación.’

3. Somos, por tanto, el soberano, y nuestros poderes no pueden ser suplantados por ningún gobierno, cuando ese gobierno ha dejado de representar nuestros intereses verdaderos.

4. Somos hombres y mujeres que llevan a Honduras verdaderamente en el corazón, no como una pusilánime campaña de mercadeo pagada con nuestras contribuciones fiscales, sino como un grito de justicia, un anhelo de abundancia y un sueño de libertad.

5. Somos ciudadanos patriotas, honestos y dignos, de todas las ciudades, pueblos y aldeas de Honduras, así como los que hemos inmigrado alrededor del mundo buscando un horizonte de vida, pero siempre cargando nuestra hondureñidad como el tesoro más preciado de nuestras vidas.

6. Somos empresarios, trabajadores y emprendedores, de todos los sectores económicos de ingreso monetario de Honduras, de todas sus profesiones, ocupaciones, oficios y niveles de estudio, quienes juntos hemos trabajado para crear esa Honduras grande con la que todos hemos soñado.

7. Somos madres, padres, hijos e hijas, de todas las familias y de todos los sectores sociales de Honduras, una familia compuesta por miles de familias, todas relacionadas entre sí, todas compartiendo la esperanza de que Honduras sea algún día esa nación que todos nosotros en verdad merecemos.

8. Somos la perseverancia ilustre de nuestros ancestros que nos regaló el presente, donde con esa misma perseverancia ilustre ahora estamos sembrando los sueños de nuestro futuro: Nuestros hijos e hijas, para quienes queremos dejar un cielo azul y una tierra de abundancia, donde ellos puedan recordarnos dignamente por nuestros sacrificios en la construcción de esa nueva Honduras con bienestar y justicia social para todos.

9. Somos los creyentes que elevamos plegarias al cielo desde todas las denominaciones religiosas que, aunque diferentes en aspectos de credo, también se encuentran hermanadas por una verdad: Nuestras voces están llegando a lo alto, adonde estamos seguros que nuestro clamor de justicia y libertad no caerá en oídos sordos, de donde sabemos ha de proceder la bendición que se otorga a los justos y la cólera que se impone a los corruptos desde aquellos ojos a los que ninguna acción puede escapar.

10. Somos los indignados e indignadas de Honduras, quienes hoy nos estamos constituyendo como una fuerza ciudadana dispuesta a derrotar todas las palabras, excusas, maquinaciones, políticas y desvaríos de aquellos entre nosotros que son responsables directos de la indecente miseria y horror en que estamos viviendo.

11. Somos los que hemos visto cómo la generación política constituida en 1982 ha fracasado rotundamente en el objetivo primordial de solucionar la miseria, consecuencia de la falta de desarrollo humano, de la inmensa mayoría de nuestra ciudadanía hondureña.

12. Somos los que hemos llegado a la conclusión de que el aberrante, vergonzoso, mísero e injusto estado de miseria y violencia en que se encuentra sumergida nuestra Honduras hoy es la consecuencia directa de un estado constitucional secuestrado por parte de la generación política de 1982 y de sus herederos políticos, una casta barbárica y genocida que no ha tenido ningún escrúpulo a la hora de planificar y ejecutar una serie de políticas económicas, sociales y políticas cuyo fin no puede ser otro que la eventual destrucción y desaparición del pueblo hondureño de este territorio llamado Honduras, presumiblemente con el fin de dejarle únicamente a sus descendientes la posibilidad de usufructo de las inmensas riquezas del mismo, derecho que a nuestros ancestros, a nosotros y a nuestros descendientes les ha sido negado sin siquiera consultarles al respecto, sino que de una forma furtiva que sólo puede compararse a las utilizadas por las más destructivas organizaciones criminales de la historia.

13. Somos los que hemos observado a nuestro alrededor durante 33 años, y hemos aprendido a distinguir entre lo verdadero y lo falso, consecuencia de lo cual hemos visto como se ha utilizado la falsedad como medio de imposición de estructuras políticas dedicadas a perpetuarse en la administración del estado con el fin de eternizar su captura del erario nacional para explotación monetaria del mismo así como la imposición del totalitarismo sobre todas las decisiones políticas, sociales y económicas que afectan nuestra vida colectiva, decisiones que bajo conceptos mínimos de democracia han debido ser sociabilizadas, consensuadas, argumentadas y tomadas por toda la ciudadanía hondureña, y no simplemente por un grupúsculo político de accionar criminal que mediante misas negras y la contraposición de intereses personales se han arrogado el poder de decidir lo que les conviene a ellos, en vez de a todos los hondureños y hondureñas.

14. Somos los que nos dimos cuenta que nos han estado mintiendo acerca de todo, y hoy decimos: No es cierto que este sea un conflicto entre ‘ricos’ y ‘pobres’: es un conflicto entre honestos y corruptos. No es cierto que esta sea una batalla entre ‘derecha’ e ‘izquierda’: es una batalla entre la verdad y la mentira. No es cierto que el enemigo sea el presente estado constitucional: el enemigo es un grupo de funcionarios que han cometido crímenes en la administración pública y a los que nosotros vamos a deducir responsabilidades de acuerdo con los códigos de justicia de la nación. No es cierto que sea indispensable una nueva constitución: lo indispensable es una nueva clase política honesta y consciente de su importancia manifiesta en el devenir histórico del pueblo hondureño. Una nueva constitución puede ser deseable pero en manos de los mismos criminales de siempre no es una nueva constitución, sino simplemente un nuevo mandato para continuar cometiendo crímenes contra el pueblo hondureño.

15. Somos los que nos dimos cuenta que también se nos ha estado mintiendo acerca de la corrupción: el estado secuestrado por políticos corruptos ha gastado miles de millones en hacernos creer que la corrupción es inevitable y que el problema está en las estructuras de la administración pública, y que la solución consiste en la creación de más estructuras burocráticas contraloras, que una vez constituidas no solucionan nada, sino que sólo empeoran el problema y dificultan la solución del mismo, porque se nos oculta persistentemente la verdad: La corrupción no es un problema estructural, es un problema de funcionarios corruptos, y no se soluciona creando más burocracia contralora, sino que se soluciona solamente removiendo a los corruptos de la administración pública.

16. Somos los que, viendo todo esto, nos hemos levantado de una vez por todas, decididos a aprender de los errores del pasado, decididos a retomar el control de nuestro presente y decididos a lanzar una nueva visión del futuro.

17. Somos los indignados e indignadas de Honduras, que hoy estamos diciendo con voz fuerte, clara y precisa: ‘Hemos visto lo que han estado haciendo y no vamos a permitírselos. Nosotros estamos de pie y vamos a detener esta indecente miseria en que ustedes nos tienen viviendo. Para eso los vamos a encontrar a ustedes, los vamos a identificar, los vamos a sacar y los vamos a acusar, para que la justicia los alcance y les deduzca sus responsabilidades. Luego nosotros mismos vamos a constituirnos en el nuevo poder político de Honduras, como siempre debió haber sido, comprometidos con el bienestar de todo nuestro pueblo.’

18. Somos los ciudadanos que hoy se levantan para prevenir el colapso total de esta nación, para imponer un nuevo orden moral verdadero, del cual emane un estado de bienestar social, político y económico capaz de elevar el nivel de existencia de los hondureños y hondureñas, lo cual es el fin último de toda existencia humana sobre el planeta tierra.

19. Somos el renacer de la soberanía ciudadana que existe para velar por el bienestar de la hondureñidad entera, indivisible e indisoluble en el devenir de la historia. 20.Somos el nuevo poder político de Honduras.

Source:

http://www.hondurasindignada.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/IndiMan1.pdf

Further Reading:

Outraged in Honduras: The Paradigm of a New Social Movement

http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/07/young-hondurans-head-unprecedented-anti-corruption-movement/

Politics Latin America, Gavin O’Toole, New York: Routledge, 2013