Spirit in Action
Standing As Witness In Honduras
Babette Grunow is headed to spend a week in Honduras, standing as an international witness to prevent violence. She's been active in Latin America for decades, in the USA and on the ground there. Introduced to Latin America by her Franciscan uncle, Babette has a passion for justice & freedom for our neighbors.
- Broadcast on:
- 22 Jan 2011
- Audio Format:
- other
(upbeat music) ♪ Let us sing this song for the healing of the world ♪ ♪ That we may hear as one ♪ ♪ With every voice, with every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ ♪ And our lives will feel the echo of our healing ♪ - Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark helps me. Each week, I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives of fruitful service, of peace, community, compassion, creative action, and progressive efforts. I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them in their service, hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred fruit in your own life. ♪ Let us sing this song for the dreaming of the world ♪ ♪ That we may dream as one ♪ ♪ With every voice, with every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ - Today for Spirit in Action, we'll be speaking with Babette Gruno. Babette is active in Milwaukee, Wisconsin as a representative of the Latin American Solidarity Committee, known as L-A-S-C or LASK. What specifically caught my eye was news that Babette would be heading down shortly to stand as a witness in Honduras, acting as part of an international presence to help prevent violence in that region. Such accompaniment work carries with it significant risks, including being caught in the crossfire, too often originating from right-wing paramilitary forces or even from the official military of the nation. We'll talk to Babette Gruno about the 2009 Honduran coup that has brought massive pushback and protests from the people of Honduras. We'll talk about the history and politics of the area and the U.S.'s role in that conflict. Finally, we'll talk about Babette's place in the middle of this work, investing her passion and risking her life in Latin America, something that just doesn't seem completely obvious from the non-Hispanic heritage of someone with a name like Babette Gruno. Stay tuned and you'll also be rewarded with a few songs from Honduras to sweeten up the journey. Babette will join us from Milwaukee, Wisconsin just after we listen to the first song. I was told that it's called "Avensa El Camino Avensa." The path moves forward, the road goes ahead, but that's not what I could make out of the words of the song. Post a comment on northernspiritradio.org to let me know what the real name of this song is. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (upbeat music) (singing in foreign language) (upbeat music) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) - By that, welcome to Spirit In Action. - Oh, thank you. - You've got some exciting traveling coming up, heading down to Central America. Tell us about your travels coming up in just a week. - Well, I'll be going with levels below Stévajo. It's a group of Chicago with the Illinois Justice Foundation. They will be going to the Aguan area of Honduras. It is in the northeast area. It is a river valley. There's been a good deal of militarization in that area following the coup that happened in 209. It has been a very tense situation now. Mainly over the issue of who owns the land, who's going to control it. It's a tense situation and they feel that having outside is there. Having people from the Honduras accompaniment project, the friendship of the Americas, they used to be with Quixote Center and other religious organizations and ourselves from levels. It helps to have people down there from the outside, but there will be less likelihood that the military or the paramilitary private armies sponsored by the landowners in the area, the large landowners in the area, that they would attack the peasant families who are living there. So we'll be basically observing during their testimony. Hopefully everything will be peaceful. - You say hopefully everything will be peaceful, but that is a hope. There has been a fair amount of violence going on down there. Did you just think that it was feeling too safe and secure living in Milwaukee that you had to get down there? - No, but I work with the Latin America Solidarity Committee in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We are part of the Honduras Solidarity Network. We've been hearing for maybe a year and a half now since the coup about the tensions that have been growing in the area. Around Christmas, just before Christmas, there was attacks by paramilitary groups, basically, and some reports of attacks by the Honduran military on a couple of communities in the equine valley. One of them was Guadalupe Carne, who will be visiting that community. Guadalupe Carne is a small village of subsistence landowners whose land is desired by a large oligo, the landowner, who wants to produce African palm oil on it. He wants to turn it into an area for unit crop production. Instead of having everyone have a small plot with their rice, their beans, their bananas, little things for themselves, it would be just everything planted in one big crop. He has been having his thugs, basically, trying to move people off their land, legally taking it over. Just before Christmas, the entire area was militarized. I think for our listeners, we're going to have to take a couple steps back to understand where the coup comes from, where the violence is. When the coup happened 2009, Honduras had a democratically elected leader, and all of a sudden they stepped forward and removed him. Freedom of speech, all those kinds of things have been endangered. Give us some of the highlights of what's transpired since that coup. There was a democratically elected president, Mel Zilaya. He had actually been a large landowner oligo himself at one point. He had been with the Liberal Party, had been totally in the middle of the road. He had been hearing a lot from the people. His one really good asset was that he listened a lot. He had listening sessions, families would tell him about their problems, and women's organizations told him about their problems. He decided to do something about it and started making little changes allowing some land reform, looking at doing some changes in the Constitution. Anyways, he alienated a lot of the other landowners. And in June of 2009, there was a military coup sponsored by the landowners, possibly sponsored by some people from outside. He was whisked out of his bed, still in his pajamas. The night of June 28th dumped off in Costa Rica. It was a coup that was then justified by, at first, numbers of Congress tried to say that he had resigned. He hadn't. They then said, "Oh, well, you know, we declared that he's out of power." And they signed a macheletti. He was a member of Congress as the next quasi-president. The Supreme Court ruled it legal. The justices who did not agree with it were basically dumped out. And did the people take the sitting down? Did they say, "Okay, I guess that's what the Supreme Court says. That's what Congress says. I guess it's fine." No, there were almost immediately there were protests. The oligarchy expected and the military expected it to be okay. Maybe there'll be a few protests and that'll be it. But the protest didn't end. They really did find their voice. When I was down there in September 2009, it was very impressive because people were still protesting. And they said, "This had all happened in June." And the protest were getting more and more organized. They would last for hours and hours every day. People would come from some of the outlying communities marching in to take Uskalpa. And the same thing was happening in San Pedro Sula in the north and in various other places around the country. It was happening that they were having these protests. In Tegu, Uskalpa, the capital, they were having daily protests. And they would march just all around the capital, coming in on various spokes and then meeting in the center right in front of the cathedral, in front of some of the government buildings. And would have big protests. Sometimes they'd go visit the American Embassy because they did think that the American Embassy had, at least, if not taken apart in the coup and that unknown whether they did or did not, but even if they didn't, they certainly were not speaking out against it. And so they'd have large protests. Often the military would react against them. They would bring out basically tanks of teogas, huge tankers full of teogas, and other poison gas type stuff. They would spray the people, and it would not only be something that would hold your eyes and make you cough or something, but it would actually burn your skin. I saw women who had just huge patches of their skin, burnt by their stuff. I ended up getting a little bit on me, just on my ankles, and yeah, it did burn a bit, left with little discolored patches. It was nasty stuff, but the people kept protesting. They marched for months. It wasn't until the military didn't even larger clamp down, where they had co-fuse on constantly, where they surveyed more than four people to be together at once, that it really stopped the protests. And even then, they would have, you know, not daily protests, but maybe twice a month. Of course, I had Father Mello on my show, and you helped hook me up with the Padre. He's part of a democracy movement down there, and he's helping produce alternative news and broadcasting down there. How is that effort going? Are the non-government people still able to get their message out to the public? They are. It's often threatened. His station has been broken into twice. He has received numerous threats and has at times had to go into hiding. Other radio stations have been broken into, but they all know on the north. In September, they had their station broken into, right around the time of the Independence Day. There were big marches and things then, and the government decided to clamp down, and not only on the marches, but on the radio station, and they just totally trashed it. But they always rebuilt, and the stations keep coming back. Well, let's talk about what you're going to be doing down there. I guess, basically, you're going to be a observer. Sometimes it's called accompaniment. Is there any kind of reasonable threat that damage might be done to you? I mean, would the government maybe come in and imprison you? That kind of thing? Are those perhaps dangers of what you're going to be doing? All of it is possible. We don't really know what could be done. In September of 2009, I went with Witness for Peace, and we were basically observers, and we marched between the protesters and police and military. When the police charged at the protesters, we were right in the middle. We ran the risk of getting knocked down, getting tear gas, getting potentially hit. They didn't actually hit us. We did get kind of knocked down by everyone just kind of running. We did end up with a little tear gas. In this situation, we'll be in actually a tensor area because the iguan area is militarized. We don't really know what we're walking into. So far, no international observees have been harmed. There is a group down there now from the Friends of the Americas. Like I mentioned, they were with the Kiyo Desuen at one point. There's that group, and there's Honduras, the accompaniment project. I think they have five or six people down there who are on long-term accompaniment, so that they're going around with the groups like Kofab at taking people's testimonies and such writing reports, sending urgent action alerts back to organizations here in the States. I mean, it depends. If you walk into a situation and highly militarized, if people are being shot, show you run a risk. We don't anticipate that there would be anyone really gunning out for us, but there's always at least some risk. You sign a waiver saying that you take the responsibility on your shelf. Let's talk a little bit about that region. Central America, maybe all of Latin America, is Honduras, the worst spot that's going on right now where there's really contention about government and perhaps foreign intervention where the rights of the people are particularly threatened. Is it better or worse in other countries at this point? At this point, I'd probably say it was worse. During the '80s, it was one of the areas that was involved. There were civil wars in El Salvador, in Guatemala. There had been a war in Nicaragua, and Honduras was used as a base for the countries against the Nicaraguan government. There were desk guards that had been trained by the United States at the OAS. They were called Battalion 316. They operated desk guards and basically torture. That was during the '80s. Things have improved somewhat since then. It is, at this point, getting waste again. Most of the areas around there, and for a while, Honduras had all been democratically elected governments who were, I'd say, becoming fairly progressive. Unfortunately, I don't know if you want to say that Honduras was like low-hanging fruit, but they were easy to pull off a coup. And maybe show the area that things could change back to how they had been. But that certainly is what happened. There was a coup. And since then, we've gone back to seeing terrible human rights situation. Over 200 people killed since the coup. Often, they have been tortured. They've been kidnapped. Some have just vanished. Others have been held in very serious conditions, not even in regular jails, but just out in the countryside. And then their bodies will be found tortured a few days later. In addition to the attacks that were against Radio Progressive and Radio Ono, there have been a number of attacks on individual members of the media. There have been 10 assassinations of members of the media, mainly people in the print press. There have also been some kidnappings, such as the recent fellow I sent out an urgent action on one member who was with Muka, one Ramon Trancia. He also was with independent media. He ended up being kidnapped while riding on his motorbike coming back from a meeting. He was tortured by paramilitaries. They were debating whether he was going to be killed or not. He heard them talking that they had been watching media, had been looking at the internet. It had been made cruel to them. They would not, at that point, kill him, that there had been a good deal of outside people looking at his case. And so he thought that it was very important that people do pay attention when there are things like urgent actions, that they actually make calls and such, and that they pay attention to what's going on, because those in Honduras are paying attention, even the paramilitaries, even the military, and it does help. There's been a lot of threats against the press, but sometimes we can have an effect on what happens. It is certainly, he knows a bad example by the other countries around there. Most of the countries within the OAF do not recognize the current government in Honduras, have not since the coup. Unfortunately, the U.S. does recognize the government of the local sources. There was something in one of the mailings that you just did to Honduras presente, and now that the Republicans have leadership in House of Representatives, the leaders on the committees with respect to that, have said that Obama has been too close to the left, that he did not enthusiastically embrace the new illegal government, that we should be helpful in prosecuting the former president. You want to talk a little bit about that? What role the government has had? Was Obama reluctant to recognize the coup government? Was he middle of the road? Was he right, leaning? What did you see? I thought he was rather middle of the road. He did criticize it the first day that it happened, the coup. He didn't exactly call it a coup. He sort of backed away from criticizing it afterwards. The State Department has always been more in line with the coup, I'd say. Secretary of State Clinton has kind of admonished former President Solaya. When he tried to return to the country, she has been quite critical of government supporting him. It's been a very strange thing kind of watching the administration, like they almost do not have one voice. Lanny Davis, who had been special counsel with the Clinton administration, is now in practice for himself and is acting as kind of a lobbyist. And he signed on to represent the Mitch Letty government that came in the coup government in 2009. We were concerned about the fact that he may still have contacts within the Democratic Party, within Congress, and with the Clintons. He has since signed on as a representative for the new government of Global Sosa. We saw the same concerns. You know, does he have undue influence on Mrs. Clinton? We're more concerned at this point that the Republicans will be pushing even how to from the right and that he'll have to take more steps towards the right representative, Connie Mack, and Ilana Voslett-Metman, both from Florida, so that they wish to hold hearings during this coming Congress. That they are concerned that the administration hasn't been harsh enough towards the opposition in Honduras. That they have been too harsh in trying to tell the Honduran government to moderate its stance, to drop charges against former President Solaya. And that they, you know, are concerned about that and really want to see things turning the situation more towards the right. I'm not really sure what's going to come up in Congress. Ambassador Yorance has made some statements in cables to Washington that have now come out in WikiLeaks. He describes it as a coup, as a military coup, and is quite critical. The way you're talking about it by that, it sounds like Obama may have been equivocal in his support of the pro-coup government. But the people I've heard about in Congress have all been pro-coup. Is that a situation or is that just the rising Republican contingent? It is the rising Republican contingent. There have been a section of Congress, mainly with the people I've mentioned, who've been pro-coup. But there's also not others, I'd say a good 20-something. A couple of months ago there was 27 members who got together a position in Congress that was definitely expressing concern about the coup. And expressing concern about now that there is a new government that has been quasi-elected, that they are not looking into the human rights situation. So 27 members of Congress, the House of Representatives, did sign on to that. So it isn't all pro-coup. I'd say most of the Congress members really don't pay much attention to it, unfortunately. But there have been quite a number who have been supportive. I mean, just in Wisconsin, Senator Feingold was looking into it. As far as House of Representatives, members Tammy Baldwin signed on. And one more signed on to the letters asking that it be looked into, what the human rights situation be looked into. Now we unfortunately don't have Senator Feingold and we were hoping that there'd be a letter and there's some talk that Senator McGovern and some of the other senators, maybe Sanders, in, well, he and Vermont might bring something up, Senator Kerry might. There's been discussion among some of their staff about putting out some kind of letter condemning the human rights situation there and expressing concern. But we don't in Wisconsin have Senator Feingold to support that anymore. So we'll have to talk to Senator Cole and maybe reach out to the new Republican, try to educate him a bit. What role has the church had, pro or counter the coup? What has the religious response been within that country? That depends which part of the religion you're talking about. Irish bishops, Rodriguez, Catholic Archbishop was very supportive of the coup. He came out almost immediately afterwards in supportive coup. It was very distressing because he was always thought of as fairly middle of the road. Maybe even progressive at least on environmental issues and such and had been seen as a rising star in the church. So people on the ground in Honduras were very dismayed that the Irish bishop was coming out standing with the coup leaders. He was not listening to them, he was not listening to the poor who were crying out and saying that they felt they were threatened by what was happening with the coup. The committees for the defense of the families of the disappeared and some of the women's organizations brought up to the authorities. This was actually before the coup, the fact that he had been receiving government funds under a previous government. It was brought up for investigation. He didn't let that the church had received 100,000 Latin theaters, at least one. It would have been an ongoing monthly thing that he had at least received one pay off. The government, at least doing the coup, did not have kind of pushed it to the back burner and never called people to testify who had brought the issue up. It was eventually dropped. They didn't even know it was dropped until this past week. The cardinal file defamation charges against them, so they were rather surprised that this has just been dropped and that now they are the ones being prosecuted. In addition, various members of the church would have had to go into hiding. When I was down there in September of 2009, we met with Pablo Melo, who at that time, he showed us around the body of progresso. They had been taking testimonies from people who had been tortured in search. They received various threats. The radio station had been broken into one and then repaired. Since then, it has happened again. He has had to go into hiding. He has been up here a few times to the state, talking about it, and has had to spend basically some time away. It's always doubtful whether, you know, will he go back? Will he not? So far he always has gone back, but people are always afraid when he does. Because we're afraid something happened to him, like happened with Archbishop Romero in El Salvador. Well, he's very fearful for him. Other priests have had to go into hiding. There is a priest who has worked on the environmental issues and has worked on various issues as well. And he did have to go into hiding. It's very difficult for the church. At the grassroots, those at the top, I guess I was doing well. I guess that's an issue that comes up regularly. The hierarchy and the lower hierarchy, whatever it's called, have different points of view on this. Maybe we should talk a little bit about your background, Babette. And before I do that, I might remind our listeners who are speaking with us. This is Babette Grinno. She's in Milwaukee. She's representative to Latin American Solidarity Committee. They're working with the Honduras Solidarity Network. Headed within the week off to Honduras to do accompaniment, to sit there as a witness to try and prevent violence in a highly militarized situation. Babette is my guest today for Spirit in Action. This is a Northern Spirit Radio production. Our website is northernspiritradio.org. Come to my site to find our programs the last five and a half years. You can find a link to the committees that Babette Grinno is connected with. And you can find a lot more information, leave comments, all that good stuff. Now, back to you, Babette. I want to hear a little bit about your background, where you come from. I'm just talking about religion. So why don't we start there? Do you have a religious connection or an anti-religious connection? Are you being paid off like the hierarchy down in Honduras? No paying off. My connection is through the Catholic Church. I had been involved with the Franciscan Order at one point. I'm no longer connected with them, but that's where my ideas, I guess, come from. That's where a lot of the spiritual base for what I do comes from. I've been throughout the deal of Latin America, sometimes working with church organizations, sometimes with very solidarity movements in support of that base for people. Right on the ground who are often in Christian-based communities, who are often just, you know, the common everyday people trying to make a living, trying to follow Christ's word as they see fit, often with a parish priest who sometimes ends up being threatened. The people in the parish are often threatened, and so that is kind of where I'm looking for inspiration. Time for some more Honduran music. Some people get their inspiration from courage and some from fear, so it seems appropriate to listen to "Nostienen miedo porque no tenemos miedo." They fear us because we are not afraid. Nostienen miedo porque no tenemos miedo. Nostienen miedo porque no tenemos miedo. Nostienen miedo porque no tenemos miedo. Nostienen miedo porque no tenemos miedo. Nostienen miedo porque no tenemos miedo. Nostienen miedo porque no tenemos miedo. Nostienen miedo porque no tenemos miedo porque no twenty-two hundred years ago. Nostien rei, Nostien lucha, Nostien amare, Nostien cougar, Nostien de tros de sualma dura milidar. Nostienen miedo porque no tenemos miedo. Nostienen miedo porque no tenemos miedo. Nostienen miedo porque no tenemos miedo. Nostienen miedo porque no tenemos miedo. Nostienen miedo porque no tenemos miedo. Nostienen miedo porque no tenemos miedo. Nostien a tros, vampar a tros, bien san a tros, sonel a tros, estan de tros de sualma dura milidar. Nostien rei, Nostien lucha, Nostien amare, Nostien cougar, Nostien de tros de sualma dura milidar. Nostienen miedo porque no tenemos miedo. Nostienen miedo porque no tenemos miedo. Nostienen miedo porque no tenemos miedo. Nostienen miedo porque no tenemos miedo. Nostienen miedo porque no tenemos miedo. Nostienen miedo porque no tenemos miedo. Nostienen miedo porque no tenemos miedo. They fear us because we're not afraid. Music from Honduras. We're speaking with Babette Grino, active in L-A-S-C. That last is the Latin American Solidarity Committee. She sat down to Honduras to do accompaniment, stand as a witness to prevent violence and to help move justice forward. So, Babette, your roots include your exposure to the Franciscans and their devoted spiritual work. How did you get connected with Central America or Latin America? Babette Grino does not strike me as a very Hispanic name. It was through my uncle who was a Franciscan priest. We followed a lot of what he did. I was involved with one of those things that he was in 1976. There was a horrific earthquake in Guatemala. I joined him in his work in Guatemala and in helping afterwards to gather supplies with the churches down there and for the things that they were doing in support to rebuild some of the communities and also just seeing what terrible destruction there was. And started to basically question what was going on and realize in talking to people that the government was not helping the people through their difficulty, that the government in Guatemala at the time was repressing people. If they were doing protests and saying that they hadn't been helped enough or something. And I started just questioning more than hearing from other people in the church, other sisters I had talked to in college and high school and college, just trying to understand what was going on and realizing that, "Okay, we were not hearing the whole story and that really needed to be looked into." You've learned, I mean, you had the early Catholic exposure. Do you still consider yourself a Catholic and do you see the Catholic Church as part of the solution or part of the problem or is it a mixed bag? And I asked that question in part because so often in left-leaning circles in the United States, people kind of uniformly think of religion as part of the problem. I say it's a mixed bag. I say the church hierarchy has been maybe more of a problem. That would be both here and there and in the Vatican. I still consider myself a Catholic. I was heading towards going into the Franciscan order and I long ago ceased doing that. I got out of a Catholic school, I was attending Cardinal Stritch College, I left and went off to work on things outside. Went to UW-Milwaukee and got involved with BLAST, Latin Health Solidarity Committee, and kind of saw things from a more political, not as much of a religious point of view, but certainly still working with a lot of people who were doing that. Still work with folks involved with the sanctuary movement in the 1980s, and that certainly was a church bass booth right now. Alaska's also working with some of the sister city parishes that are working on mining issues. That's more to do with El Salvador than Honduras, but certainly we still work with groups like that. I'm still maybe on the fringe of the Catholic Church and still interested in what goes on and looking at those situations. Well, maybe this discrepancy between the hierarchy and the common folks in the Catholic Church can help explain some of the difference that we see. I mean, theoretically, the United States supports democracies. We're pouring billions and billions of dollars into Afghanistan and Iraq to help them become democracies. So why is it not simply a no-brainer to say no, they deposed the rightfully elected Democratic leader of Honduras, we stand with them? Why isn't that just a no-brainer? Why is there any internal conflict within our government about supporting the Democratic government of Honduras? Oh, I wish there wasn't, but the Catholic seems to start from way back. During the 1950s, the US government was overthrowing governments in Honduras and Guatemala in support of things like the United Food Company who were looking to control the area so that they could have profits. It comes down to money in the 1980s, we were supporting the oligogues still. A government was supporting the oligogues, I should say. They were hoping that the Salvadoran and Guatemalan peoples would not follow the Nicaragans in overthrowing their dictatorships. And in bringing about a government that the people ran, we have not had a very good history in Latin America. The United States have, we have supported the various dictatorships by providing military aid, trained their militaries, their police forces with the schools of the Americas. Some of the top military people in Honduras have been trained up for the Americas. That is still a problem we have, our military has sent down trainers to train their police forces as well. Just this past year, we've reopened the base at Pomeroa. It was used during the '80s for the contrast. It has been reopened as a military base and we've added two more. I think it's a hard sell for some Americans to believe that our government, our support of democracy, is flexible based on how much money we can hope to make off of it. What kind of evidence do we have of that? Was there specific evidence that came out, for instance, in WikiLeaks or otherwise, that said, "Yeah, I guess we're just going for the highest dollar?" We haven't seen that type of thing come out in WikiLeaks quite yet. We have seen that the ambassador clearly knew what was going on, that he knew that this coup was coming about. There were people from the U.S. going down whether they were from the government or just from business sectors here is uncertain, but there were people down there in the weeks prior to the coup. There were a lot of reports coming out beforehand that human rights groups were hearing about and we were very concerned and just kind of hoping against what wasn't going to happen. I'm not sure what to say other than there's been members of Congress right after the coup plus Lebanon and Connie Mack and a few others from the Florida area and from the far right of the Republicans who tried to get other members of Congress to go down little junkets to check out the coup government and be supportive of them. Now they are thinking of holding hearings again in Congress to say that the Obama administration, even though they did support the coup, wasn't supportive enough. It's very disturbing for those of us who are watching the situation who are seeing our tax dollars going to support the military there who are just horrified at the effect that it has on the people there. Of course there's a number of aspects of what you've been talking about that I've covered on previous programs. I had Father Roy Bourgeois who organizes the School of America's Watch. I had an interview with him and he gave a lot of the information about why we have to be opposing this organization which has been training essentially the governmental terrorists in Latin America. I understand also it's done some good work, so I'm not trying to paint it all in one direction but you can listen to past guests on this show and you can find out some details that you need to make a fair judgment. So you're going to be going down Babette within a week. You've got just a week down there. I understand originally it was going to be about two weeks but it got shortened. What was that about? Well for two things we are a bit short on money. So there's difficulty having it quite that long and there hasn't been quite as many people involved and so we hope to have more people going down there. There's also just a series of groups that will be coming through so we don't feel that it's absolutely necessary that we lengthen it out because there's other groups that will be going down one group after another so that once we leave some other group will come and be looking at the situation. There's also groups that are there for several months on end. They're there watching keeping an eye on the situation so it isn't quite as critical that we are there as long as we might have liked. Let's talk a little bit about what the Latin American Solidarity Committee, which your representative of or the Honduras Solidarity Network, what their membership is and what their goals are. Can you give us an overview of the two of those groups? Sure. Latin American Solidarity Committee is a campus that grew up from student-based organization at UW-Milwaukee. Since then we've kind of broadened out there still is the campus organization but we've joined with piece action to include members of their organization and people from other campuses and other groups who might want to get involved even after they are off of that campus. As soon as there was the crew last decided to, we had heard that there was a group forming the Honduras Solidarity Network. I think it was a petition that was one of the first things we signed and we just got more and more involved and decided to join as a group. The Honduras Solidarity Network is nationwide. It has groups such as the Chicago Religious Leadership Network and other groups that are in all various places, Boston, Chicago, LA, up in Washington, some are more political, some have immigrants from Honduras who are the major force behind it. Other people are, like I said, more political from maybe they were involved in Central American issues during the 80s. I couldn't actually, I can tell you how many groups, I'd say maybe 20 or 30, organizations nationwide. I know, Bebet, that you've got lots of preparations due to get ready to head down to Honduras and you've already given us a lot of background on the events of that country but I wonder if there's any more resources you want to point out to us. I can suggest that my listeners go to my northern spirit radio.org site and hear what Father Moreno, also known as Father Mello, has to say, listen to Father Roy Bourgeois of the School of America's Watch and for a different perspective on the SOA, tune into my interview with Lauren Cobb. But Bebet, anything else you think that we should read or check out? I know you've got a lot of connections and sources. I'll just mention what some of those would be. Dana Frank has two excellent articles. She writes for the nation. There's peace in this current nation of January 13 edition, so I would recommend that. And she has peace on commondreams.org in Honduras. The holiday season brings repression. It's dated January 11th. She kind of looks back at what happened during the holidays. She gives a much better account than I just did of some of the repression that happened over the holidays from November on. So, now, that may be something people want to look at. The other thing is just a link to present the Honduras for more information and a link to maybe, maybe, levels. And when you say "lavos," I guess we better amplify what you're referring to. The organization is "lavos de los de abajo." My translation of that is "The Voice of Those From Below." Our listeners will find links to them on Nordenspiritradio.org. And maybe they'll be interested in their work or one of the programs they sponsor. It's a great way to get connected with a rich source of knowledge and of culture. Well, thank you so much for the update on what's happening there. It is unfortunate that so many Americans know so little about our neighbors. Given that a lot of us do want to support strong democracies around the world, our time would be well invested to help out the people in Honduras, Central America, all of Latin America, to have the human rights freedoms that make democracy possible. So, thank you for going, and just within the week, down to Honduras, to serve as a witness, to help keep the process honest. And thank you for all the work you've done for decades now, Latin American Solidarity Committee, and elsewhere in Central America. So, thanks again for joining me for Spirit and Action, Babette. Well, thank you. I'm glad to have the chance to discuss what's going on there. And I'd be glad to do talks for any of the listeners who wanted to have maybe some gathering for a social booth that they had. I'd be glad to do that. And maybe we can put a link on that for that. So, do come to the site, Nordenspiritradio.org. You'll find a link that will connect you up with Babette. Thanks again. Thank you. That was Babette Gruno. Today's Spirit and Action guest. You can contact her through my northernspiritradio.org site. Should you want her to present to a group you're part of, I'll send you out for today's Spirit and Action with some walking music from Honduras. El Zapatazzo and Honduras, the shoe in Honduras. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] The theme music for this program is Turning of the World, performed by Sarah Thompson. This Spirit and Action program is an effort of Northern Spirit Radio. You can listen to our programs and find links and information about us and our guests on our website, northernspiritradio.org. Thank you for listening. I am your host, Mark Helpsmeet, and I welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit. May you find deep roots to support you and grow steadily toward the light. This is Spirit and Action. [Music]