The violent eviction on May 12 of three thousand indigenous protesters

from in front of the Presidential Palace in Tegucigalpa was "a barbarity" that

demonstrates "a great lack of intelligence" on the part of Honduran politicians,

according to a priest who was detained during the disturbance.

Carlos Solano, a Spanish Jesuit who works with indigenous communities in

the northern Honduran province of Yoro, had been present with the indigenous

demonstration since it began May 5. The 3,000 Honduran indigenous were camped

out in front of the office of President Carlos Roberto Reina, demanding that

Reina give them 20,000 hectares of land they claim has been stolen from them by

large landowners.

The group, which included representatives of Lenca, Pech, Chorti, and

Tolupan indigenous communities, also demanded an end to violence against their

leaders. On April 12, Chorti leader Candido Amador, a leader in the struggle to

recuperate lands that once belonged to the indigenous, was assassinated near

Copan. Indigenous leaders blame large landowners for the killing.

The demonstration in Tegucigalpa, which included several dozen people on

a hunger strike, had convinced the government to sit down and negotiate

indigenous demands. According to Solano, the negotiations were close to

concluding when the government sent as many as 2,000 soldiers and police to

evict the demonstrators at 4 am, an hour when few witnesses or journalists were

present.

"They just started hitting, hitting children, hitting women," said Berta

Caceres, a Lenca activist from the province of Intibuca. Caceres was injured in

the melee.

Solano said one of the officials directing the eviction sent soldiers to

drag him off to a nearby police car, where he was kept prisoner until the

initial violence subsided.

"A majority of the soldiers were peaceful," said Solano, "but some just

grabbed the people and hit them. It was totally unacceptable. The demonstration

had been totally peaceful, there had been no violence nor aggressiveness toward

the police."

Solano claimed the violence "demonstrates the weakness of the

government, its incapacity to resolve these problems."

Following the eviction, the demonstrators were pushed down a highway for

two kilometers, where they were allowed to reestablish their protest in the

middle of a highway interchange.

Lenca activist Salvador Zuniga of the Confederation of Aboriginal

Peoples of Honduras claimed following the violence that the eviction had been

ordered by Reina, who was once a human rights lawyer. "It's never been so clear

that when President Reina talked like a humanist it was a mask he was wearing.

Today that mask has fallen off," said Zuniga.

"There's supposedly a democratic opening in Honduras, where people can

civilly and peacefully demonstrate their point of view," said Zuniga. "But they

responded to us with a gross and savage attitude."

"The reason they attacked us is that the people in the government are

representatives of the landowners," said Caceres. She said that Col. Rodolfo

Interiano, the army official who commanded the operation, is himself owner of

large land tracts near Copan.

In the hours following the eviction, negotiations between government

officials and indigenous leaders got underway again. Zuniga said the group

wouldn't leave Tegucigalpa until their demands had been met.

Solano, who has served in Honduras for 18 years, said he would remain

with the demonstration. "I came here with them and I'll leave with them," he

said.

"The church wants to be with the poor," said Solano, "and we've been

accompanying them for some time. We do it with gusto, because our Lord lived

among the poor."

(Written by Paul Jeffries for Latin American Press)