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Honduras Popular Organizations
A plethora of special interest organizations and
associations
were active during the 1980s and early 1990s. Some of
these
organizations, like student groups and women's groups, had
been
active long before the 1980s, but others, such as human
rights
organization and environmental groups, only formed in the
1980s.
Still other groups were just beginning to organize. In
1993, for
example, a newly formed homosexual rights association
petitioned
the government for legal recognition. Beginning in 1984, a
number
of leftist popular organizations were linked with the FUTH
in the
CCOP. Some observers maintain that the number and power of
popular
organizations grew in the 1980s because of the inertia and
manipulation associated with the traditional political
process.
Others contend that the proliferation of popular
organizations
demonstrates the free and open nature of Honduran society
and the
belief of the citizens that they can influence the
political
process by organizing.
The student movement in Honduras, which dates back to
1910, is
concentrated at the country's largest institution of
higherlearning , UNAH, which had an enrollment of around 30,000
students
in the early 1990s. Ideological divisions among the
student
population and student organizations have often led to
violence,
including the assassination of student leaders. Leftist
students,
organized into the Reformist University Front (Frente de
Reforma
Universitaria--FRU), largely dominated student
organizations until
the early 1980s, but ideological schisms within the group
and an
anti-leftist campaign orchestrated by General Gustavo
Álvarez broke
leftist control of official university student bodies.
Since the
early 1980s, the rightwing Democratic University United
Front
(Frente Unido Universitario Democrático--FUUD), which
reportedly
has ties to the PNH and to the military, has become the
more
powerful student organization, with close ties to the
conservative
university administration. Osvaldo Ramos Soto, the PNH
1993
presidential candidate, served as FUUD coordinator while
he was
UNAH's rector in the mid-1980s. In the early 1990s,
political
violence in the student sector escalated. FRU leader Ramón
Antonio
Bricero was brutally tortured and murdered in 1990, and
four FUUD
activists were assassinated in the 1990-92 period.
Organized women's groups in Honduras date back to the
1920s with
the formation of the Women's Cultural Society that
struggled for
women's economic and political rights. Visitación Padilla,
who also
actively opposed the intervention of the United States
Marines in
Honduras in 1924, and Graciela García were major figures
in the
women's movement. Women were also active in the formation
of the
Honduran labor movement and took part in the great banana
strike of
1954. In the early 1950s, women's associations fought for
women's
suffrage, which finally was achieved in 1954, making
Honduras the
last Latin American country to extend voting rights to
women. In
the late 1970s, a national peasant organization, the
Honduras
Federation of Peasant Women (Federación Hondureña de
Mujeres
Campesinas--Fehmuca), was formed; by the 1980s, it
represented
almost 300 organizations nationwide. As a more
leftist-oriented
women's peasant organization, the Council for Integrated
Development of Peasant Women (Consejo de Desarrollo
Integrado de
Mujeres Campesinos--Codeimuca) was established in the late
1980s
and represented more than 100 women's groups. Another
leftist
women's organization, the Visitación Padilla Committee,
was active
in the 1980s, opposing the presence of the United States
military
and the Contras in Honduras.
Numerous other women's groups were active in the late
1980s and
early 1990s, including a research organization known as
the
Honduran Center for Women's Studies (Centro de Estudios de
la
Mujer-Honduras--CEM-H). Another organization, the Honduran
Federation of Women's Associations (Federación Hondureña
de
Asociaciones Femininas--Fehaf), represented about
twenty-five
women's groups and was involved in such activities as
providing
legal assistance to women and lobbying the government on
women's
issues.
Although women were represented at all levels of
government in
the late 1980s and early 1990s, their numbers were few.
According
to CEM-H, following the 1989 national elections, women
held 9.4
percent of congressional seats and 6.2 percent of
mayorships
nationwide, including the mayorship of Tegucigalpa. In the
Callejas
government, women held several positions, including one
seat on the
Supreme Court, three out of thirty-two ambassadorships,
and two out
of fifty-four high-level executive branch positions. For
the 1993
presidential elections, the Monarca faction of the PNH
originally
supported the nomination of a woman as the PNH candidate,
and the
PLH nominated a woman as one of its three presidential
designate
candidates.
Data as of December 1993
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