Establishment of the First Popular and Democratic National Constituent Assembly
Manifesto
Gathered in the city of La Esperanza, under the auspice of the sign of hope, women and men of 17 departments of the country met, coming face to face with Honduras again, to look at each other, debate, and reinforce through dialogue our knowledge, experience, and dreams with the aim of re-founding our patria.
This Second Summit for the Re-foundation of Honduras was characterized by the spirit of our ancestors, creativity, the profound exchange of diverse ideas, and the long and arduous exercise to establish a Popular and Democratic National Constituent Assembly which will give expression to the proposals that are the pillars of our process of re-foundation of this country.
Before the people of Honduras, we pledge:
- To continue to resist the coup perpetrators and their national and international allies, and thus not to recognize the fraudulent government of Porfirio Lobo.
- To continue to build the historic proposals of the Honduran social movement, which aim to eradicate the system of racist, patriarchal, and neoliberal domination.
- To insist on building, based on diverse sectors, voices, and experiences, a way of life in justice, dignity, and happiness for all Honduran men and women who have already made their voices heard in the struggles for land, justice, defense of natural resources, and respect for human rights.
- To continue to make use of our legitimate and sovereign right to exercise popular power. This power of the people surpasses representative democracy; therefore it is legitimate not only to delegate it but also to revoke its representatives.
- Not to renounce the intention to establish the Popular and Democratic National Constituent Assembly where diverse thoughts and struggles of the people of Honduras will be recognized and integrated.
We express our solidarity, on this occasion, with the struggles being waged by the organizations of teachers of the nation, by the trade union of the national university (SITRAUNAH), by the peoples of San Francisco de Opalaca and Nacaome against the construction of dams, and with the struggle for land being waged by the United Peasant Movement of Aguán; we stand in solidarity with Manuel Zelaya Rosales and Father Andrés Tamayo, and other Honduran men and women in exile as a result of political persecution, and we demand that their right to return to Honduras be respected. Likewise, we take actions in solidarity with political prisoners and the politically persecuted.
The Second Summit for the Re-foundation of Honduras is another action in this process of re-foundation and resistance, which does not end here, but rather begins and brings forth multiple and diverse popular actions to accomplish the task of building a new Honduras.
From this ancestral territory of Lenca resistance, with the spirit of Lempira‘s rebellion, on the 14th of March, 2010.
The original manifesto “Manifiesto del II Encuentro Nacional por la Refundación de Honduras” was published on the Web site of the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) among other sites on 16 March 2010. Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com).
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