Reporting from Tegucigalpa, Honduras — When Bertha Oliva's husband was kidnapped by a death squad during the darkest chapter of Honduran history, she was three months pregnant. She never saw him again. Coming to her defense during that time 28 years ago was Ramon Custodio, a champion of leftists and militants persecuted by a brutal army.
The two worked together for years, founding one of the first independent human rights organizations in a country that has slowly shed military rule and attempted to move toward democracy.
Today, after a military coup that toppled the president, they find themselves bitter enemies on opposite sides of a very polarized Honduras.
Custodio, who is the national human rights ombudsman, came out in favor of the ouster of President Manuel Zelaya. Oliva supported many of Zelaya's policies and has condemned the coup.
"I am afraid of authoritarianism," Custodio, 79, said.
"This was not just a coup, but a blow to Honduran history and memory," said Oliva, who is 53.
That people who shared goals could have diametrical opposite viewpoints now illustrates how many Hondurans seem to be living in parallel universes. The two camps cannot even agree to call the coup a coup.
The politicians now sitting in the presidential palace argue that the soldiers who rousted Zelaya from his bedroom before dawn Sunday and deported him to Costa Rica were acting to save democracy, after, they allege, Zelaya's many abuses of power.
Honduran newspapers and television, most of which are controlled by a few big businessmen, give lavish coverage to demonstrations against Zelaya and in favor of the man Congress named to replace him, Roberto Micheletti.
Pro-Zelaya rallies get scant mention and the accounts usually focus on "vandalism" -- the painting of slogans.
The polarization raises the specter that Honduras will plunge back into violence and repression.
Despite some progress, Honduras has remained a country run largely by a small elite, where 70% of the population lives in poverty. (Zelaya, known for populist rhetoric and leftist alliances that made him a polarizing figure, is a wealthy rancher and timber tycoon.) Congress is controlled by two old-fashioned political parties, based more on tradition and family than ideology.
