 |
| Graffiti covers the buildings in the capital city,
Tegucigalpa. Messages about the coup, corruption and violence silently
communicate citizen resistance to Honduras’ status quo. This phrase says, “I
come to sing for those who have fallen.”
|
Honduran LGBTQ Activists Confront Oppression, Make Historic Gains
Danielle Marie Mackey
Tegucigalpa, Honduras.
The Honduran LGBTQ community
is a relatively young movement that faces overwhelming discrimination and
violence in a post-coup nation. In the early years, the community was nominally
tolerated; gay male hairdressers of the Air Force wives, for instance, competed
as comedy acts in annual Air Force beauty pageants. It was until the year 2000
that the first legally-constituted LGBTQ organizations appeared. Activists say
that advances in human rights protections have historically been followed by waves
of repression, but that the most recent wave—that which has followed the 2009
coup—is the most severe. The Diversity Resistance Movement (MDR for its name in
Spanish) is an LGBTQ group that formed in the tumultuous wake of the coup. In
June 2012, I sat down with three of its members—Roberto Canizales, a history
professor at the National University; and Ever Guillen Castro and Jose Palacios,
both advocacy officers with European cooperation agencies based in Honduras. The three long-time activists discussed
everything from who’s behind the repression, to the recent murder of their
friend Erick
Martinez, to the hope they have for the future of their community. Visit MDR on Facebook or at their blog-news site.
Interview also published on the Latin American Working Group's blog.
Interview also published on the Latin American Working Group's blog.
How did the coup affect
repression against the community?
RC: The Honduran context since the coup is conservative and
reactionary. This was one of the two biggest political crises in our history. Before,
sexual diversity didn’t even appear in the national agenda. But suddenly, LGBTQ
activists were leading the post-coup marches, and the political resistance
movement began to pay attention to us. You’d see the typical leftists next to
folks from our community. But this also generated selective police repression
against us—after all, we are both resistance members and gay. That’s where the seemingly-impossible statistical increase
in violations began.
EGC: Between 1995 and
2008, there were 17 hate crimes registered against our community. From the June
2009 coup until January 2010, there were 17 more. Then, from President Lobo’s
inauguration in January 2010 until now, there have been 58 assassinations – a
total of 75 since the coup. We’re vulnerable because we show our faces in the
marches. Then, you have murders of transgender sex workers for instance, which
the authorities easily blame on her work, or they try to link her to drug
trafficking. The point is: the more visible we’ve been, the more repression we
face.
RC: We have no doubt:
there is a clear policy of social cleansing on the part of the government
against people from vulnerable social sectors, like youth, farm workers, sexual
diversity—anyone who thinks differently than the current regime.
 |
| Roberto Canizales, history professor and activist. |
Have you been
denouncing these abuses?
JP: We’re frustrated; besides the fact that the police are
behind many of the murders, the state is not investigating and they are not
putting those responsible through the justice system. Nor are they doing
anything to prevent future crimes. In fact, we feel that only two cases have
received adequate investigation and judgment. And something to emphasize is
that in both of these favorable findings, the real investigation was done
because of international pressure on the Honduran government.
EGC: For instance, a police officer attempted to assassinate
a transgender sex worker in 2009. Apparently, what happened is that the police
officer hired her for sexual services, and then refused to pay. They fought; he
stabbed her 17 times, thought she was dead, and dumped her body in an abandoned
place. She regained consciousness and went to the hospital, and then denounced the
police officer, who was jailed temporarily. Suddenly the victim began receiving
threats saying that she must withdraw the case or die. To protect her, someone
started the rumor that she was leaving the country… and one day before she was
supposed to leave, two trans(gender) friends of hers were gunned down, probably
because the killer thought that one of the two was her. We let everyone believe
she was indeed killed. She was evacuated from the country and now lives in
exile…. Even the attorney general who had taken the case began receiving death
threats during the trial, which she (the attorney general) told us must have
come from different people, because of the different spelling mistakes the text
message threats had…. In the end, it turns out that the president of the
Supreme Court at that time had been involved in the coup, and he was trying to
clean up his public image, so he was responsive to the international pressure
that poured in about the case. There was plenty of evidence pointing to the
police officer, and lo and behold, the police officer was found guilty and
given a 10 year sentence.
 |
| Ever Guillen Castro, advocacy officer and activist. |
What happened to your
friend Erick Martinez on May 8, 2012?
EGC: Erick was on his way to a meeting with LIBRE.
(Martinez was running as a candidate for the party.) We don’t know exactly what
happened, because he spoke with the last person at 10 am. The coroner says that
he was killed sometime between 2-4p.m. He was kidnapped, taken outside the city
and strangled to death, left beside the highway.
JP: We’re all really impacted by his death…. I think he was
killed not only because he was a Resistance candidate, but also he was someone
who represented sexual diversity in a way that vetoed the decades-old arguments
about homosexuality as evil. If he arrived to the legislature as one of us, they could no longer deny (the
sexual diversity community) fundamental rights…. Erick was a journalist, a
human rights activist, openly gay…. he had a lot of friends and was well-known.
He was a threat. …We don’t know exactly who did it. We have submitted the case
to the special prosecutor, but we don’t have high hopes for a full
investigation or answers.
.jpg) |
| Erick Martinez |
What advances do you
feel that your community has made?
RC: Transitioning from a self-vindicating movement to one
that is expressly political is a success. The Honduran public is more aware of
sexual diversity with each passing day, as well. The Pride March of 2011 had
great turn-out.
JP: And this isn’t the case only in Honduras—there is a wave
throughout Latin America of a new political left that is open to our community,
at least in putting forth legislation in our favor. But of course, these
advances also worry the traditional power forces, and bring repression in
response.
EGC: Over the years, our LGBT organizations have really
matured…. There are now 14 groups in the whole country, 5 or 6 which have legal
standing.
JP: In LIBRE, there are 11 commissions within the party core
which represent marginalized groups, and the LGBT community is one. We have
youth from the community running as political candidates. They are our future.
EGC: We’ve also made moves internationally. In 2010, two Honduran
LGBTQ groups made a formal denouncement to the Interamerican Commission of
Human Rights denouncing the Honduran state as a human rights violator…. We
started to form a relationship with the Honduran Secretariat for Justice and
Human Rights to demand justice in the cases of assassination against the community,
and met with the national police, who promised to solicit the FBI for support
in assassination investigations. The UN
has also pressured the government to investigate.
Why do you continue
in this work?
JP: Because we’re stubborn. (Laughter.) Maybe it would have
been better to never have gotten involved, but now that I have, there is no
turning back now. They can kill half the world, but … this is a historic moment
for the community, and we have a responsibility. To turn back now for me is not
a valid option.
RC: It’s a matter of commitment to yourself, first, and then
to our community. In our choice to be visibly active, we have met other people
in the social movement who also want to build a better country. It has been my
involvement in the MDR that I lost my fear, that I was able to say, ‘I am gay,’
and to struggle for my rights, despite it all.
 |
| Jose Palacios, advocacy officer and activist. |
*All activists gave permission to use full names and photographs. All photos credited to author except Erick Martinez's image, credited to El Heraldo newspaper of Honduras.
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario en la entrada