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Syndicate
Escalating Sexual Aggression Against Feminist And Women Protesters Against Military Coup In Honduras Ignored By Global & National Media
"The media (in Honduras) are manipulating our minds, because we see (in the streets) what is really happening" and they are not reporting the reality of the violent repression by the military and police, declared Xiomara Castro de Zelaya, the first lady of Honduras and wife of Pres. Zelaya, who spoke to a Forum by Feminists in Resistance of Honduras today. Most of the mainstream media are owned by supporters of the military coup, so their reports reflect efforts by the de facto regime to create an image of "normality," that all is well, that there was in fact no military coup, they merely ousted an ex-president who violated the constitution, according to Castro de Zelaya.
The first lady spoke to an audience of about 120 mainly women, including an international delegation from Central America, Mexico, Canada, Spain and the United States participating in a Feminist Transgressional Watch. The group is visiting Honduras for Women's Human Rights Week, and conducting a feminist observatory of violations of women's human rights, and feminist strategies of resistance to the military coup.
As popular resistance to the military coup continues with massive daily street marches, military and police officials are becoming more aggressive with both female and male demonstrators, beating them with clubs, shooting into crowds with (rubber or real) bullets, conducting large scale arrests or detentions, torture, and assassinations, little of which is covered in many media reports, said Indira Mendoza of Catrachas. Mendoza has videotaped some of these incidents directly or has testimony of witnesses. Hospitals and clinics are filled with young people in particular, with broken arm or leg bones, head injuries, and (rubber) bullet wounds.
Women's and human rights groups are receiving reports of escalating sexual aggression against women both in the demonstrations and in detentions, ranging from verbal obscenities and threats, to women being grabbed or beaten with batons on their buttocks, to torture and rape in detentions, noted Adela Coria of the Center for Women's Studies (CEM). In today's Forum in Tegucigalpa, Yadida Minero reported that she had just taken a young woman to a radio station to denounce her torture and rape with a rifle while in detention at a police station.
Likewise, in the United States, the diminishing number of media reports on Honduras reflect how Pres. Obama led by Secretary State Hillary Clinton is backing away from his originally strong condemnation of the coup which ousted the legally elected President Zelaya, according to Breny Mendoza, a Honduran living in the US, and professor at California State University in Northridge. The intensive US news coverage and outrage in the US mainstream media about the controversial presidential elections in Iran is a stark contrast to the minimal coverage of the military coup in Honduras which ousted a democratically elected president. And the front and center role of women including feminists in the massive demonstrations, and the increasingly aggressive reaction of military and police to the women are also absent in media reports....
John Perkins: Honduras: Military Coup Engineered By Two US Companies?
The links to the Oblahma Administration in the USA are extensive.
DemocracyNow! broke the news that Chiquita was represented by a powerful Washington law firm, Covington & Burling LLP, and its consultant, McLarty Associates (2). President Obama's Attorney General Eric Holder had been a Covington partner and a defender of Chiquita when the company was accused of hiring "assassination squads" in Colombia (Chiquita was found guilty, admitting that it had paid organizations listed by the US government as terrorist groups "for protection" and agreeing in 2004 to a $25 million fine).
Honduras Newslinks 26 August
http://www.williambowles.info/americas/2009/0809/hond260809.html
The Truth About Honduras:
http://yayacanada.blogspot.com/2009/08/truth-about-honduras.html
"The Toronto Honduras Resistance website is a good place for English speakers to get updates.."
The Militarization of Latin America
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14935
"The UNASUR summit in Bariloche, Argentina will have to face two grave problems weighing heavily on Latin America: The military coup in Honduras and the militarization of the region as a result of the installation of not one but seven US military bases in Columbia..."
A Canadian delegation in solidarity with the resistance to the coup has arrived in Honduras:
"The objective of the delegation is to have a Canadian presence on the ground in Honduras to engage with various sectors of civil society that is in resistance to the de facto military regime. Upon returning to Canada, LASN will build links across Canada in support of the resistance movement in Honduras. LASN will continue its pressure on the Canadian government to end its wait-and-see attitude toward the de facto military regime and to take concrete steps to pressure the de facto regime of Roberto Micheletti to restore President Zelaya..."
Human Rights Watch breaks its six-week silence on Honduras
U.S. involvement in the coup
A Canadian in Honduras: Eyewitness to the coup resistance
by Ashley Holly (rabble.ca)
Seven facts on the coup:
1. The U.S. government is implicated. That's the Obama government that all you stinking liberals still support. The US State Department admitted that they knew of the coup, in advance; the Generals that led the coup were trained in the notorious "School of the Americas"; and the links to actual members of the Obama regime are extensive. Military exchanges are still going on, as is economic aid ... and such support of the coup includes Canada as well.
2. ALBA is under siege. ALBA is the economic alliance challenging Yanqui dictat that includes Venezuela AND Honduras, among others. The US announced, even as their clients were overthrowing the democratically-elected President of Honduras, that they would be opening SEVEN new military bases in the Israel of Latin America (Colombia). Four days before the US-sponsored coup d'etat three additional governments joined ALBA.
3. The Non-binding Plebiscite was stopped. There have been quite a few lies about this plebiscite from right wing propagandists and the MSM, which would have given the citizenry a chance to express their views on the current constitution which was imposed during the oligarchy when it was the key client state of the USA in Central America.
4. The Honduran oligarchy is the big winner in the coup d'etat. As in Canada, the losses of the rich in the recent economic crisis are being socialized, ie, passed on to the rest of the population, and this needed to be continued, or even expanded, in order for Yanqui military and other aid to continue.
5. The Honduran population is resisting. Mass protest is taking place which, of course, gets scant attention from the bourgeois media which lavished gigantic attention on the disputed elections and aftermath in Iran.
6. The US media backed the coup d'etat. The despicable and repulsive lie that President Zelaya was trying to prolong his presidency was spread by the Yanqui media, and regurgitated here on babble of course by the usual suspects, along with cold war justifications and lots of constitutional double-talk justifying the coup.
7. The Obama regime in Washington promotes "negotiations" with the coup plotters, and supports them, giving them time to consolidate their atrocity.
SEVEN FACTS.
USA! USA! How many kids did you kill today??
1. The U.S. government is implicated.
Yesterday they came clean on the fact that they helped the golpistas fly Zelaya out of Honduras:
SOUTHCOM Commander, General Douglas Fraser, confirmed today what many of us suspected from day one of the coup, that the airplane that forced President Zelaya into exile after kidnapping him violently on June 28th from his residence, actually took off for Costa Rica from the Soto Cano (Palmerola) military base, which has been occupied and run by the Pentagon since 1954 (actively since the early 1980s).... Strangely, not much English-language press is reporting this most important detail regarding the Honduran coup, which clearly shows US involvement and lying. Up until now the Pentagon had denied the Honduran president's airplane had landed at the Soto Cano (Palmerola) base...
Guardian
The cure for what ails their hunger for democracy seems to be more neoliberal medicine. Saddle them with more debt while US backed elites run the country into the ground further. And our own stooges and bankster CEO's play electoral shananigans here while running up a tab on the backs of future Canadians. Crooks and liars and crooked liars everywhere.
Honduran resistance goes it alone Real News video
Is a FAKE ELECTION in the works in Honduras? The National Front against the coup d'etat thinks so, and condemns the militarization of Honduran society, and is appealing to other anti-coup political trends to make their positions known and to work together for the restoration of the constitutional order.
Honduras Resists blogspot
Statement by the Frente Nacional Contra El Golpe de Estado
More about IMF support of military-sponsored regime change, and not just the current one in Honduras, over here.
Pre and Post Coup Honduras
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15104
"The Frente Nacional de Resistenza is leading the courageous struggle of the Honduran people. For 70 consecutive days the people of Honduras, from all walks of life, are confronting violent repression by the military and the police. They are peacefully, with a very coherent political and increasingly sophisticated organization, putting forward their demands. These include the restoration of the constitutional order in Honduras and the return of President Zelaya. As the situation is evolving the people are more and more pressing for a constitutional assembly to refound the constitution and the nation. They are saying that whether Zelaya returns or not, this has become the objective of the on going resistance.."
Zelaya returns to Honduras
----
And the latest news is that the UN Security Council may get involved:
The United States currently chairs the 15-member council. Deposed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, ousted from power in a June coup, took refuge in Brazil's embassy in the capital Tegucigalpa after returning to his country on Monday.
- Reuters
Zelaya's return to Honduras met with force
-----
Insurrection in Honduras
Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, overthrown in a military coup on June 28 and currently in the Brazilian embassy in the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa, has told Telesur TV that the coup regime is planning to take over the Brazilian embassy at 11pm Honduran-time. He says they plan to assassinate him.
Ricardo Arturo Salgado, a social investigator and activist in the Honduran anti-coup resistance based in Tegucigalpa, told Green Left Weekly over the phone from the capital that, "the decision we have all taken is to fight with everything we have".
He reiterated the information revealed by Zelaya, insisting there is "a plan to cause blackouts at 11 tonight", which will be the pretext to take over the embassy and possibly kill Zelaya.
The mass resistance to the coup has continued for three months, with daily protests, strikes and road blockades. With Zelaya's return the Honduras, a desperate coup regime has significantly increased repression. The people are increasingly in open rebellion.
Arturo Salgado said there was an "intense reaction on the part of the resistance in many zones across Tegucigalpa, in what we call barrios and colonias [poor neighbourhoods]. I would say that there are some 15-20 highly populated barrios that frankly find themselves in a situation of total insurrection, fighting against the police, against the army and even against paramilitaries.
"We have evidence that paramilitaries are participating in the street battles in some of the colonias. The police are trying to retake positions but the people's insurrection is occurring in places that geographically are very far apart from one another. In general, we can say that there is a situation of insurrection, with the advantage that in these moments the police helicopter that today was being used to fire against the people cannot be used during the night."
On the critical situation in Tegucigalpa, he said: "All the shops are closed and there is a shortage of food, of medicine. At any moment we could see the looting of shops, because the people are entering into desperation mode. Moreover, it seems that, although there is not as much news regarding this, that in the interior of the country there are strong insurrectional mobilisations in very small zones. This has to do with the tactic of protesting close to home. The people are spontaneously taking the decision to resist and the line coming from the [National Reistance Front Against the Coup] was, for today, to resist close to one's home."
"But tomorrow [Wednesday] we are calling on everyone to march [in Tegucigalpa]."
Arturo Salgado confirmed to GreenLeft Weekly that the national front has called a march for tomorrow (September 23) that will start at 8am outside the Pedagogical University Francisco Morazon.
Finally, Aturo Salgado called on all alternative media outlets to join the campaign of informing the world about the truth of what is occurring in Honduras - and in denouncing the murderous plans of the coup regime.
I call bullshit to the premise of this headline. Lula rules down here in South America Things ain't what they used to be. Perhaps the most important event that took place recently in SA is that Brazil defeated Argentina in a soccer match. So there.
Brazil's risky role in Honduras crisis may backfirehttp://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE58M4UG20090923
For some reason, another thread has been started on this topic.
One important actor, the only major country to maintain an ambassador in Honduras throughout the dictatorship has maintained a deafening silence about this repression: that is the United States government. The Obama administration has not uttered one word about the massive human rights violations in Honduras. This silence by itself tells you all that you need to know about what this administration has really been trying to accomplish in the 87 days since the Honduran military squelched democracy....
In fact, President Zelaya has been to Washington six times since he was overthrown, but not once did he get a meeting with President Obama. Why is that? Most likely because Obama does not want to send the "wrong" signal to the dictatorship, i.e. that the lip service that he has paid to Zelaya's restoration should be taken seriously.
These signals are important because the Honduran dictatorship is digging in its heels on the bet that they don't have to take any pressure from Washington seriously. They have billions of dollars of assets in the United States, which could be frozen or seized. But the dictatorship, for now, trusts that the Obama team is not going to do anything to hurt their allies....
On August 11, sixteen members of the U.S. Congress sent a letter to President Obama urging him to "publicly denounce the use of violence and repression of peaceful protestors, the murder of peaceful political organizers and all forms of censorship and intimidation directed at media outlets."
They are still waiting for an answer.
Source
What Some US Reporters Don't Get About Brazil and the Honduras Crisis
Source
I read the article "What Some US Reporters Don't Get About Brazil and the Honduras Crisis", and I found it interesting that Giordano mentions the tear gas canisters being used by the National Police as being stamped the property of the government of Peru.
In another thread, here http://www.rabble.ca/babble/environmental-justice/peruvian-rainforest-massacre, there is remind's post #11, which refers to "And that Obama's government just gave the Peruvian military 4.4 million dollars in arms,"
Now could there be a connection between the increase in military aid to Peru, and the evidence of military or police weapons from Peru being used against the Honduran citizens?
A little research on the Net turns up this link: http://www.usaid.gov/pe/downloads/cbjfy2009peru.pdf where there is new money requested for foreign military financing as well as the usual amounts requested for the war against drugs.
I have not found anything further to support remind's assertion of 4.4 M, but I speculate that there is a connection.
Toronto supporters of Honduran democracy rally in Toronto
So, Uribe is changing the Colombian constitution to run for a third term. Where is the outrage!? America, where are you? This evil, evil, anti-democrat is changing his country's consitution with the ascent of the people! O NOES
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aseY9jcAxAAA
Uribe hasn't taken a public position on the referendum or said whether he'd run in the 2010 election if the constitutional change is approved. He has repeatedly stressed the need to maintain his strategies aimed at defeating the drug-funded rebels that have battled Colombia's government for more than 40 years.
Despite the fact that there was a coup d'etat in Honduras, the United States, and its minions like Great Britain, Canada, and so on, would rather participate in preparations for more atrocities in the middle east. This time it's Iran. This sabre-rattling has continued in the G-20. Fortunately, the Chinese and the Russians have slowed the Yanqui drive to war ... for the time being.
One leader, or former leader, who has done a good job of drawing attention to this problem is former Cuban President (Comrade) Fidel Castro.
A Revolution in the Making - Fidel Castro Ruz
Castro concludes:
The current session of the United Nations General Assembly can be a historic one depending on its rights and/or wrongs.
Constitution of Honduras suspended for 45 days, (so they say).
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/3465/honduras-coup-leader-micheletti-decrees-45-day-suspension-constitution
Globo Radio and Channel 36 shut down. Because Article 72 has been suspended, the freedom of the press is no longer guaranteed under the Constitution of Honduras.
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/3468/second-honduran-coup-came-today-because-first-one-failed
Suspension of human rights in Honduras by the Michelletti dictatorship.Honduras Newslinks 27 September
http://williambowles.info/americas/2009/0909/hond270909.html
Green Party supporters debate Honduras (and rabble) here.
Green Party supporters debate Honduras (and rabble) here.
There are certainly some imperialists who post on the Green site.
"There are no facts in these articles, just conjecture. You are convicting Canada and the US of participating in coup based on the fully biased opinion of some dude in cahoots with Chavez. It is really not appropriate. You should be demanding a higher standard from your journalistic references. Rabble is one huge collection op-ed pieces. It is *not* reporting journalism and I question how you can be using them as a reliable source of information."
Being in cahoots with Chavez is apparently a crime to some Green supporters.
The protests are clearly having an effect:
The coup-installed president of Honduras backed down Monday from an escalating standoff with protesters and suggested he would restore civil liberties and reopen dissident television and radio stations by the end of the week.
Riot police ringed supporters of ousted President Manuel Zelaya who gathered for a large-scale protest march, setting off a daylong standoff. The government of interim President Roberto Micheletti declared the march illegal, sent soldiers to silence dissident broadcasters, and suspended civil liberties for 45 days.
But in a sudden reversal, Micheletti said Monday afternoon that he wanted to "ask the Honduran people for forgiveness" for the measures and said he would lift them in accordance with demands from the same Congress that installed him after a June 28 coup. He said he would discuss lifting the measures with court officials "as soon as possible," adding: "By the end of this week we'll have this resolved."
He also repeated his pledge not to attack the Brazilian Embassy, where Zelaya has been holed up with 60 supporters since sneaking back into the country Sept. 21. He even sent "a big hug" to Brazil's president, a day after giving him a 10-day ultimatum to expel Zelaya or move him to Brazil.
- AP
Snipers Firing on Zelaya: Honduras Update
http://panafricannews.blogspot.com/2009/10/honduras-news-bulletin-sniper...
"Radio Globo reports: Snipers fire on Zelaya..
Mercenaries and paramilitaries arrive in Honduras
Urgent Take Action Now!
Get tough on Honduras coup perpetrators:NDP
OTTAWA - The Canadian government has failed to exert any concrete diplomatic pressure on the de facto government of Honduras in order to end the political crisis. New Democrats call on the government to announce targeted economic and diplomatic sanctions against the Honduran coup perpetrators.
"The situation in Honduras is worsening and the authorities have yet to sign onto the San José plan to resolve the stand-off," said New Democrat Foreign Affairs Critic Paul Dewar (Ottawa Centre). "Canada is lacking the diplomatic will to defend the rights and freedoms of the Honduran people".
If Uncle Sam doesn't provide detailed instructions on the matter, then our stooges in Ottawa do nothing as usual.
Get tough on Honduras coup perpetrators:NDP
[If Uncle Sam doesn't provide detailed instructions on the matter, then our stooges in Ottawa do nothing as usual.
perhaps those ARE the detailed instructions on the matter...
Get tough on Honduras coup perpetrators:NDP
[If Uncle Sam doesn't provide detailed instructions on the matter, then our stooges in Ottawa do nothing as usual.
perhaps those ARE the detailed instructions on the matter...
So if Uncle Sam is calling for Zelaya's reinstatement as president of the country and given amnesty from Michiletti's kanagaroo court accusations, then why are our old line party stooges not singing along in perfect harmony as usual?
Although nominally calling for reinstatement, clearly they have not taken any forceful or concrete steps to implement reinstalling Zelaya, which they could do in the blink of an eye if they so desired. The party stooges here are silent because Washington wants it that way.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/latin_america/july-dec09/honduras-re...
""Obama has done 'almost nothing' to help Honduras, said Eulogia Chavez, a prominent Zelaya supporter and president of the Honduran middle -school teachers union. Asked about President Obama's Nobel prize, he said, 'If you look at his attitude toward Honduras, he didn't deserve the Nobel.
It almost feels like he's more on the side of the coup leaders.."
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/091012/world/honduras_politics_coup
Zelaya supporters blast Honduras media crackdown
TEGUCIGALPA (AFP) - Supporters of deposed President Manuel Zelaya argued interim leaders' crackdown on opposition media could derail talks aimed at resolving the months-old political crisis.
"It is a really appalling issue, something right out of a dictatorship," said Rafael Alegria, a leading coordinator of protests against the ouster of Zelaya, the elected president.
A government decree published in the official Gazette Saturday gave authorities the right to "revoke and cancel" licenses of radio and television stations considered to be a threat to "national security" and accused of spreading "hatred."
Last month, the government of Roberto Micheletti, which came to power as the result of a June 28 military coup, already shut down Radio Globo and Channel 36 television seen as close to Zelaya and restricted freedom of assembly and movement.
The new decree gives the coup leaders legal grounds for future similar measures, according to analysts.
"The new decree is simply aimed at silencing us once and for all," said Channel 36 director Esdras Lopez. He charged that Micheletti was trying to keep the television channel for his own use.
Saturday Zelaya and the interim government agreed to create a joint cabinet and ditch an amnesty for coup leaders, one of the negotiators announced.
But the de facto government later imposed new restrictions on the media aimed at controlling the flow of information about the country's political crisis.
Meanwhile, the creation of a joint cabinet and punishment of coup leaders remain dependent on Zelaya's return to the presidency, still far from certain four months into the standoff that emerged from the coup.
Union leader Juan Barahona, one of Zelaya's top three negotiators, told a rally of hundreds of the president's followers Saturday that the joint cabinet, if indeed formed, would be made up of ministers from both governments.
A diplomatic delegation from the Organization of American States left Honduras Thursday without resolving the political impasse between Micheletti and Zelaya, who was forced out of the country at gunpoint.
A rancher known for his trademark white cowboy hat, Zelaya veered to the left after his election and alarmed conservatives by aligning himself with leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. They feared Zelaya was seeking to change the constitution to allow himself to seek reelection.
The Zelaya camp, Barahona added, opposed amnesty because such a move would mean "amnesia, forgetfulness and forgiveness, and we cannot condone the coup.
Talks are set to resume Tuesday, with OAS diplomats maintaining that progress has been made, though the key issues have not yet been addressed.
"If after all of this, they say that there is not going to be reinstatement (of Zelaya), what difference does it make if we made progress on anything else?" Barahona asked. "Tuesday, we are going to get at that key point in detail. If on October 15 we do not have a deal, the talks will have failed."
I am saddened beyond belief that on the day of the Peace Prize award, a struggling democracy in Honduras was besieged with U.S. supplied weapons and U.S.-trained paramilitaries and snipers in support of coup leaders over the democratically-elected people's leaders. In fact, the latest dispatch from Honduras is that many of the snipers and paramilitaries-now descending on Honduras from all over Latin America-were trained in my home state of Georgia.
More and more people are experiencing cognitive dissonance and rightly so. Our leaders and respected organizations are lying to us! One friend and former Congressional Staffer of mine puts it this way: we need a democratic military instead of a militarized democracy.
Thread drift/ The coup isn't effecting their football. Honduras has qualified as the third CONCACAF team for the World Cup./ end thread drift
From TIME:
A vacation in Honduras can conjure up visions of spectacular destinations: the Mayan ruins of Copán, cloud forest after cloud forest filled with exotic flora and fauna, the gorgeous beaches and the dolphin-filled waters off the island of Roatán. But that's not what tourist-industry reporters saw when the country's Minister of Tourism, Ricardo Martínez, presented a video at a recent convention in neighboring El Salvador. With a sound track of revolutionary music, it showed supporters of ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya clashing with riot police in the streets of the capital, Tegucigalpa.
Martínez, who was ousted from the government along with Zelaya after the country's June 28 coup d'état, was apologetic but unflinching about showing the video. "I'd like to tell everyone to come to Honduras and that it's a tranquil place and everything is beautiful, but you think I'd be successful with that message?" he says. "Of course not."...
Tourism was the country's main economic motor, but since the coup, says Martínez, Honduras' tourism industry - which grew by a robust 9% in 2008 - has plummeted 70%. The 7% tourism growth projections for 2009 are now expected to dip into the red. And the 155,000 Hondurans employed by the tourism industry are, in the words of Martínez, "suffering violently." Several TACA airlines flights to Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula, which used to bring hundreds of tourists to Honduras every day, have been canceled. A project to build an international airport at the Copán ruins was suspended, and charter groups from Europe are backing out. Overall, it is estimated that Honduras' economy has been set back 10 years over the past three months.
Report from Day 1 of La Voz de los de Abajo Hondouras Delegation
We arrived in the middle of the day and successfully linked up with several compañeros waiting for us from the Honduran resistance. The first stop was Radio Progreso, one of the few radio stations in Honduras that has been brave enough to cover the massive resistance of the Honduran people to the coup d'etat which took place on June 28th of this year. There the director of programming explained how 30 members of the army raided the station the day of the coup and ordered it off of the air. It returned to broadcasting the next day, though several radio personnel have received death threats and several have been beaten and jailed.
Day Two Report of La Voz de los de Abajo Human Rights Delegation in Honduras
Day Three Report of La Voz de los de Abajo Delegation to Honduras
This Monday October 26th the resistance decided to mobilize outside of the congress. The Honduran resistance hasn't missed a single day in the streets in the over 120 days that have passed since President Manuel Zelaya was forcibly removed from power by U.S.-trained military generals on June 28th of this year. Our delegation arrived early and scoped out a place to flee to in the case the tear gas that has bathed so many other resistance protests began to fly. An older man sitting on a bench advises us to go across the bridge to the crowded marketplace in the area of the city known as Comayaguela, saying "the army is less likely to chase people there because they know all the people support us."
Buying time until the mobilization starts, we walk over to the central plaza. Several high school students walking by are talking with pride about the resistance, "they're over there by the congress!" says one to another. A security guard at a nearby pharmacy, upon learning we are here to bear witness and document in the case of human rights violations says, "good, because those those police seem to love to beat the crap out of people. The police and the army. You'll see." Luckily on this day we didn't. But what we did bear witness to was an energy and spirit of struggle that continues unabated despite over 120 days of brutal repression, killings, beatings and jailing.
The grandmothers of the resistance lead people in chants celebrating the struggle to restore democracy and re-found the country through a constitutional assembly. It would be easy for an outside observer to get the impression based on the energy and animation of the protesters that this was a mobilization that had been built up to and rested before, rather than just another day of an every day struggle in Honduras that the coup-plotters have been unable to quiet.
Honduras rivals resolve deadlock
The interim leader of Honduras says he is ready to sign a pact to end its crisis which could include the return of ousted President Manuel Zelaya.
Roberto Micheletti said the agreement would create a power-sharing government and require both sides to recognise the result of November's presidential poll.
Mr Zelaya said the deal, which requires the approval of the Supreme Court and Congress, would be signed on Friday.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8333210.stm
US-backed fascists in Honduras just needed to buy some time to rig the next election
The negotiation is in the streets: A day of resistance and repression
...
And the Winner in Honduras is...the United States
http://www.counterpunch.org/shansky11052009.html
"Despite coup leader Roberto Micheletti's claims that his de-facto government has made 'significant concessions' in the accords, the real concession has been made from the other side. These are the basic terms both sides have agreed to:.."
Berta Cáceres: "We only have one option. It is to struggle. It is to continue the resistance. It is to march towards the re-founding of the country."
...
National Front of Resistance Against the Coup: The elections will not be recognized, the struggle continues
1. Since the midnight deadline of Thursday November 5th passed without the restitution of legitimate president Manual Zelaya, we declare we will actively not recognize the electoral process of 29 November of this year.
Elections which are imposed by a de facto regime that represses and violates the human and political rights of the citizenry would only validate nationally and internationally the oligarchical dictatorship and secure the continuation of a system which marginalizes and exploits popular sectors in order to guarantee the privileges of a few.
Participation in such a process would give legitimacy to the coup regime and to its successor which would be fraudulently installed on January 27, 2010.
...
It is clear that the resistance to the coup in Honduras is a revolutionary movement. Honduras is in a revolutionary situation, and I suspect that if the resistance does not win, the situation will end very badly, both for the Honduran people, and for the broader revolutionary movement in Latin America.
We owe the Honduran people our attention, our full support, and our full solidarity.
Southcom: Washington Develops Its Operations in Soto Cano Airbase in Honduras
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16252
Committee of Family Members of the Detained and Disappeared in Honduras: De Facto Government Preparing Repression in Run-up to Elections
The environment of repression and uncertainty, which is re-enforced with the order given the 16th of November, 2009 by the Sub-secretary of Service Networks of the Ministry of Public Health which orders the preparation of a CONTINGENCY PLAN to cover health services 24 hours a day from the 19th of November to the 4th of December, 2009. Along with order No. 1055-09-SSRDS, the Plan should include a halt on anticipated appointments without putting the health of patients at risk, reprogramming of selective surgeries scheduled for those dates and dealing with the shortage of medicines and medical supplies for the plan.
These measures appear to be related to the carrying out of the illegitimate electoral process on November 29th, structured abnormally reflected in the militarization and para-militarization expressed in the incorporation of the military reserves to support the Armed Forces in watching over the electoral sites which already included 16,000 military troops and 14,000 police agents.
US to recognise Honduras poll result - 28 Nov 09 - Real News
Another victory for American style democracy. Those dissidents in that country need to get with the Obama progressive program of Hope and Change quickly because otherwise after the 29th they will no longer be dissidents they will be magically transformed into terrorists fighting against democracy and the rule of law. Harper will be cheering the newly enthroned government on while telling the Americans that their most loyal colony is in full support.
It would be far worse under Sarah Palin. She would have recognized the election results last week.
Ha ha. Good one.
Mind you, Palin might have worn some knee-high leather boots and really got into the coup-sponsored "election". Barak Obama took a more, low-key liberal sort of approach. Huge difference there. [/end sarcasm]
The "Yes we can"- No we won'ters should be ashamed of themselves. Richard Nixon once said that people don't give a shit about the place[Latin America]. The struggle for democracy in "the backyard" continues.
Agreed, they should be ashamed. As should Obama himself. I read this today: National Lawyers Guild Calls for the US to Disavow the Legitimacy of Elections in Honduras.
Bogus Honduran Elections Hypocrites. US, Costa Rica, Panama, Perú, Colombia & Israel. The only nations to recognize the illegal elections
"Henry Kissinger said in the seventies, "if we can't control Latin America, how can we dominate the world?"
Writer's Union chronicle on 158th Day of Resistance: "The struggle continues"
The two candidate in the election were chosen last November, 7 months prior to the coup.
Coup or not, the election results would have likely been the same.
If you are a social DEMOCRAT, you have to recognize that Zelaya was essentially a left wing George Bush, trying to evade congress to get his will. He refused to submit his 2009 budget, then tried to bypass congress to get his term limit removed, trying to act unilaterally even though he was supposed to go through congress.
The Honduras constitution forbids presidents from running twice, because they wanted to prevent the string of dictatorships they suffer throughout most of the twentieth century. Zelaya tried to go around this and got the boot. The coup was illegal, (the supreme court had ordered him detained and the military took this a different way) but shortly after, the congress legally stripped Zelaya of his successor and nominated someone else from his same party to be the interim government.
The two candidate in the election were chosen last November, 7 months prior to the coup.
Coup or not, the election results would have likely been the same.
If you are a social DEMOCRAT, you have to recognize that Zelaya was essentially a left wing George Bush, trying to evade congress to get his will. He refused to submit his 2009 budget, then tried to bypass congress to get his term limit removed, trying to act unilaterally even though he was supposed to go through congress.
The Honduras constitution forbids presidents from running twice, because they wanted to prevent the string of dictatorships they suffer throughout most of the twentieth century. Zelaya tried to go around this and got the boot. The coup was illegal, (the supreme court had ordered him detained and the military took this a different way) but shortly after, the congress legally stripped Zelaya of his successor and nominated someone else from his same party to be the interim government.
As discussed on the Green Party blogs, my understanding is Zelaya was not seeking to extend his term. That appears to be a baseless assertion used to try to justify the coup. There were other candidates in the election as well, including Carlos H. Reyes, who withdrew his candidacy in protest.
Yup. demagogue is spouting animal droppings. Some would just call them lies.
Honduran Youth under Attack
...
...
The weekend murders raise the death toll since June 28 to at least 35.
Honduran Resistance Front: "We are on our feet and in struggle and increasing our organizing efforts to defeat the oligarchy."
Mel Zelaya Steadfast in Honduras: Corporate media report rumours of his departure
The first reports that he was to leave the embassy tonight came from the corporate media in Honduras, who have been active supporters of the military coup. Zelaya has been in hiding in the Brazilian embassy since 21 September.
...
Zelaya's continued presence in the embassy has become one of the key symbols of the fraudulant nature of the recent elections.
The problem is that some posters seem to think because someone is left wing, they break their countries own laws but if someone is right wing it is evii.
Try holding the same standards to all governments despite ideology. Zelaya did not have the constitutional authority to get his will, and tried to go beyond Congress by illegally forcing a series of referendums.
Posters here would be all over George Bush or Stephen Harper is they tried to go around congress/parliament to do the same. Progressives should be aware of wolves in sheep's clothing who think its necessary for them to stay in power forever to make changes. We may get a benevolent socialist once in awhile, but mainly we get Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and others.
We have seen to many of these personalities throughout history. They rarely lead to expanded welfare or human rights in the long term. The best check on progressive policies is to foster leaders who are willing to
The coup was illegal (Zelaya should never have been exiled) and ongoing police presence and human rights violations are unwarranted, but this does not mean the election result would have been any other way and should not be valid.
Or that Zelaya would not have been legally impeached as the supreme court had ordered before the military seemed to get involved.
This is some more issues on how he tried to go around Congress.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124744094880829815.html
Lobo was the front runner by far and there is no allegations of improprieties at the poll. (Lobo even said he supported the fourth ballot box.. although not the June plebsicite which Zelaya called directly without congresses approval.)
The Election.
While the Honduran Nationals won, the Liberal party was the governing party and was the ones in charge of the elections. The Liberals barely won with Zelaya in 2005 over the National Party, and by all indications voters were fed up with the Liberals. (Not just Zelaya, but also Michellini who was the intern leader.)
Carlos Reyes was never anything more than an obscure independent candidate who was lucky to polls more than 6% or the votes. The previous few election, the Nationals and Liberals always combined for more than 95% of the votes. Which is actually surprising, since Honduras uses an open list proportional representation system.
Anyways, everyone seems to thing it is the US versus Zelaya or some case like that. Rather, Zelaya upset his own party and unified the two main camps against him for his series of antics.
He is no Evo Morales who worked his way up defending indigenous rights. Zelaya was an industrialist tycoon, who thought he could emulate Castro.
I'll admit, I liked his stances legalizing drugs, but even where I like the progressive policies in some of these countries, does not mean I like the way that totalitarianism in South America is becoming the norm.
But here, if you don't like US Media.
Get on google and scan articles PRIOR to the Coup. IE, rather than accusing the media of revisionism afterwards or quoting socialist articles.
Reporters without Borders was highly critical of Zelaya and his attacks on freedom of the press. And accused Zelaya of ordering murders of journalists way back in his term:
http://www.rsf.org/Head-of-Radio-Cadena-Voces-flees.html
Or this was when he tried to create massive government censorship bureau:
http://liberalitas.wordpress.com/2008/12/10/honduras-plans-media-watchdo...
Pretty much any news source or blogger you can find in Honduras before the coup were anti-Zelaya. (although my spanish isn't good enough to scan all of them.)
http://www.hondurasnews.com/2009/04/23/reaction-to-new-constitution/
A good take on tools that Zelaya was already using to plan on disrupting the 2009 elections by refusing to submit his budget.
http://octavioislas.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/3008-coha-report-zelaya-of-...
This a very good Honduran Blog..
http://borninhonduras.blogspot.com/2009/03/public-ministry-consultation-...
(This author actually came out originally against the coup in one of his posts and mocks the new president in many posts as being an opportunist..)
I'm willing to entertain other sources pre-coup, but I can't find any sympathetic to Zelaya on the constitutional plebicites he was having.
Honduras and the Obama Administration
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/03/20/obama-clinton-and-honduras/
"...To make a long story short, the Honduran coup regime incredibly survived international embargos and diplomatic negotiations that in the end only served to extend its grasp on illegitimate power. The disturbing suspicion that the US government, the historic godfather of the region, had given its blessing to the new regime, became certainty when the State Department issued an agreement that paved the way for coup-sponsored elections without assuring the return of the elected government. Honduras is not a failed state. It is a violated state..."
Carbon Blood Money in Honduras
In June 2009, a military coup in Honduras deposed the government of Manuel Zelaya, stymieing the government’s progressive social reforms and experiments with participatory democracy. "It was not only to expel President Zelaya,” says Juan Almendarez, a prominent Honduran environmental and humanitarian advocate. The coup happened “because the powerful people in Honduras were acting in response to the people’s struggles in Honduras.”
The result has been social decay and political repression. The homicide rate in Honduras has skyrocketed under the Porfirio Lobo regime, registering as the world’s highest in 2010. Human rights groups highlight the ongoing political assassinations of regime opponents. In this small country of 8 million people, 17 journalists have been killed since the coup. LGBTI organizers, indigenous rights activists, unionists, teachers, youth organizers, women’s advocates, and opposition politicians have also received death threats or been killed. Those responsible are rarely punished by the justice system, which instead devotes its energies to prosecuting social and human rights activists. Protests are often met with teargas canisters and live ammunition.
The coup has also proved a setback for campesino activists seeking to halt the encroachment of large landowners on their farms.