For a long time now, NXS has preached about the computer programmer demographic in Latin America. Our experience is that Latin America is filled with the “dream candidate” that companies are looking for in the US: someone who is a free software geek, has a passion for code, uses free software in their everyday life (meaning that their skill set is constantly being improved as part of day-to-day activities) and keeps up with all the latest trends and developments in the free software world.

A recent webinar by Evans Data has confirmed through research what we have known through experience. In a presentation entitled “Contrasting Software Development Trends Between the Emerging Markets and the Rest of the World,” Evans Data CEO John Andrews released their findings that 74% of developers in emerging markets use free software, where “use” is defined as “personal use or corporate use, and could include both developer tools and desktop or server applications.” That’s 11% higher than the rest of the world — and it’s a meaningful 11%. While software development jobs are growing worldwide, they are growing three times faster in emerging markets such as Latin America. The presentation is further analyzed in this post on IT World.

President Lula da Silva continues his insightful support for free software. Translation by NXS: “In the middle of a world dominated by competitiveness […] the free software community demonstrates that there is still space for the democratization of knowledge.” Lula made the remarks at CONSEGI 2009.

Lula spoke about the broader goals of free software to break down barriers in an increasingly information-based society. These goals are being pursued by using both the programs and values of free software. He continued: “We are discussing access to development. Our meeting is important for us to strengthen the necessary collaboration to become a factor in social inclusion. I feared that the social relationship would remain prejudiced but what I saw was children sitting around, talking amongst themselves, working on the computer, researching and teaching each other. A total interaction.”

How can these values be imported into the United States?

President Lula of Brazil is about to open the 2nd Annual CONSEGI Conference in Brazil — the International Free Software and Electronic Government Conference. For more information about CONSEGI, see NorthxSouth’s archives (NXS attended the historic first conference).

On June 28th,this website sadly reported that a military coup d’etat had deposed the democratically-elected head of state for Honduras, President Manuel Zelaya. This action sent shock waves through Latin America, which has been fighting for decades (and, arguably, centuries) against foreign-supported dictatorships. By the 1990s, most of these dictatorships had come to an end and were replaced by some of the most exciting and vibrant experiments in participatory democracy anywhere in the world.

Today, President Zelaya returned to Honduras, crossing the border with Nicaragua, surrounded by Honduran people and international journalists. This marked a historic blow against the de facto government in Honduras, who has claimed that they are actively seeking the arrest of President Zelaya but have twice denied him entry into the country, which would have given them their chance to arrest him.

Unfortunately, if you only read the mainstream media, you may be left with the impression that this coup d’etat is not so clear-cut … and in some cases, mainstream media has denied that it was a coup at all.

This is no accident. The coup plotters represent that wealthy elite of Honduras who have historically dominated Honduran politics. Honduras is literally a “banana republic,” with enormous influence wielded by companies such as Dole and Chiquita. The coup plotters have retained a number of high-power lobbyists, led by infamous Washington lobbyist Lanny Davis, who previously worked for Hillary Clinton.

For this reason, we have assembled a number of articles which provide context and under-reported information to anyone who is interested in understanding the situation in Honduras in greater depth.

1. The coup plotters have repeatedly asserted that President Zelaya was illegally pursuing a mad power grab that went outside the law. This is one of many articles which exposes this logic as pure spin: Why President Zelaya’s Actions Where Legal
2. The Miami Herald punched a big hole through the coup plotter’s claims that they are acting within the law and, therefore, are representing the constitutional government. The Herald exposed the criminal mentality of the coup plotters with their incredible interview of coup plotter and top Honduran Army attorney, Col. Herberth Bayardo Inestroza, who openly admitted that the military took the law into their own hands by kidnapping President Zelaya and literally dumping him in Costa Rica. Furthermore, Col. Inestroza amazingly admitted that because of the training the top Honduran military brass received in the 80’s during their support of the contras, they would never support a left-oriented government. In other words, no matter who the people elected, the military would only take orders from governments that they ideologically supported. “It would be difficult for us, with our training, to have a relationship with a leftist government. That’s impossible,” explains Col. Inestroza, seemingly oblivious that in republican democracies, the military is supposed to take orders from elected representatives.
3. Then, Honduran Supreme Court President Jorge Rivera also acknowledged that the military’s actions were not legal. To date, the coup plotters claim that they represent constitutional law and order and, yet, none of those responsible for the illegal actions described by Justice Rivera and Col. Inestroza have been held responsible for their treasonous crimes; on the contrary, these traitors are now in charge of Honduras.
4. What is very clear is that the Honduran Constitution stipulates that every Honduran citizen has the right to wage insurrection against any usurper regime which gained power through “force of weapons” and that such a regime has absolutely no legal standing: “No one owes obedience to an usurper government nor to those who through force of weapons assume public functions or positions…. The acts of such authorities have no legal standing, and the people have the right to resort to insurrection in defense of the Constitutional order.”
5. The people have exercised this right from the moment the illegal coup took place. A broad coalition of unions, human rights groups, social service providers, community organizations and political groups have come together to protest the illegitimate coup regime every single day since President Zelaya was kidnapped. The coup regime has responded with even more illegal violence and repression: they’ve officially suspended specific constitutional rights, imposed a curfew (resulting in at least 800 arrests), systematically detained and harassed journalists, attacked peaceful protests with tear gas and beatings and live ammunition. A disturbing photograph shows an innocent protester who was shot in the head and killed. Perversely, the regime later arrested the father of the young protester who they murdered, as he was grieving.
6. The coup plotters are not a clandestine conspiracy. In fact, a courageous Honduran newspaper has named exactly who they are. In an article entitled “These are the Coup Leaders, They Will Be Judged!”, the daily newspaper El Libertador has named 48 members of the Honduran elite class who are directly involved in this illegal coup. It’s not a secret and the international community has the opportunity to hold these individuals responsible for attacking democracy head-on.
7. There is a very real and very organized group of far right-wing elites who have been behind the savage brutalities committed against the people of Latin America in contemporary history. And, these same people are responding to the participatory democratic revolution that has been taking place throughout the region. The coup in Honduras is particularly dangerous because it offers this elite class the chance to show that they can still pull off military coups, the overthrow or assassination of reform-minded leaders and the subversion of democracy to the will of large corporations, banks and wealthy families. It is up to everyone who believes in representative and/or participatory democracy to take a stand here and now.

In many ways, the FISL Week represents the great achievements in Latin America over the last decade: countries that had spent decades under the repressive control of military dictatorships are now experiencing a historically unprecedented re-birth and the culture of information freedom that we write about on this news website is representative of what could be called the new “open source societies” all over Latin America. Since the end of the Cold War, only one military coup was attempted in Latin America — in Venezuela in 2002 — and that coup was defeated as millions of Venezuelans poured into the streets demanding that their democratically-elected president be returned to power.

Unfortunately, one day after the closing ceremonies at FISL, on a day when Honduran people were expecting to participate in a non-binding election regarding constitutional reforms, a small group of soldiers from the Honduran military kidnapped the democratically-elected President Manuel Zelaya, declared martial law and installed a new, unelected president in his place. All flights in and out of Honduras have been canceled by order of the military and normal television and radio news outlets have been shut down at gunpoint. However, there are some things that are known:

• The mayor of San Pedro Sula has been kidnapped at gunpoint by masked members of the military. His whereabouts are unknown but his wife was visiting family at the time in another city and is deeply concerned about her children, who were with their father.
• Martial law is in full effect in Honduras, at this hour: Many other members of the government are being “arrested” by the military. The national media is off the air and the state-run TV station has been shut down. Radio stations have been raided and shut down. The national telephone system has been shut down and electricity has been cut off to many parts of the country. The military has set up checkpoints throughout the country to restrict travel. Many citizens who had volunteered to help the constitutional reform effort have either been detained or they are in hiding.
• The installed president has announced that a nation-wide curfew is in effect, requiring all Hondurans to be in their homes between the hours of 9PM and 6AM.
• One by one, the countries who are members of the Organization of the American States have condemned the illegal military coup, refused to recognize the military-installed regime and insisted that President Zelaya be returned to power. Globally, nations and international organizations have rushed to condemn the military coup that is taking place, including the United States, Brazil, Venezuela, Ecuador, Antigua, Bolivia, Peru, Haiti, Belize, Barbados, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Spain, El Salvador, the European Union, the UN General Assembly, as well as the entire 35-country membership of the Organization of American States, who held an emergency session once news of the coup came out.

Currently, the world is demanding that the democratically-elected president be returned to power, martial law be ended and democracy be restored in Honduras. People in the United States and elsewhere are being asked to contact the Department of State, Honduran embassies and their congressperson to insist that democracy be restored in Honduras. While it may seem like the world is lining up to condemn the situation in Honduras, if they feel like no one cares, they may not apply the pressure needed to change things. To allow this type of military coup to succeed in Honduras would be rolling back the advances made in the Americas by 30 years. At NXS, we work with Latin America on a daily basis and we could not, in good conscience, allow this military coup to proceed without saying something.

1. State Department: 202-647-4000 or 1-800-877-8339
2. White House: Comments: 202-456-1111, Switchboard: 202-456-1414
3. Contact your elected representative!
4. Honduran embassies around the world