"A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free."So said Abraham Lincoln on this day in his famous speech in 1858. The same applies to so many governments today. Of course, slavery is more or less abolished, but forced inequalities brought on by oppressive or complacent regimes is a form of slavery for those who have not got a hope in hell to rise out of their misery. Take Honduras for example. Despite having been elected by the conservative vote in January 2006, President Manuel Zelaya had veered to the left when he comprehended that his country was "a house divided", but this only led to his removal by a military coup d'etat before he could do much about it. The gap between the haves and have nots in Honduras is so great, that left wing revolutionaries have resorted to forcefully seizing land and protecting it with guns and militias while the "dispossessed" are allowed to cultivate it to make a living. The Unified Farmworkers Movement has become increasingly organised at this and is in a dangerous tug of war with the government of President Porfirio Lobo Sosa. Honduras has the highest homicide rate in the world and journalists who speak out are often eliminated. Last week Bueso Gutierrez, who was a journalist for a Christian radio station, became the 21st journalist to be killed in Honduras in the last three years.
Village in Copán, HondurasOn May 28, 2011 Zelaya was allowed to return to Honduras from his exile: what better man to engender reconciliation? President Porfirio Lobo Sosa would do well to use him before things crumble altogether.
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