Honduras Coup: Soldiers kidnap VZ, Cuba, Nicaragua envoys

[American Dream]

* CKUT Radio: Turmoil in Honduras
interview with journalist Laura-Julie Perreault, La Presse newspaper

by Stefan Christoff

http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/38370


Listen to an interview with journalist Laura-Julie Perreault, foreign affairs writer at La Presse newspaper in Montreal.

Interview is focused on the current political turmoil in Honduras stemming from a military coup stages against the left-leaning President Manuel Zelaya in June 2009.

Attention across the Americas turned to Honduras this year after Zelaya was abducted by soldiers admits a national debate concerning Zelaya's increasingly left-leaning policies and moves to join the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), a Venezuelan-lead economic trading block in the Americas working to counter U.S. and corporate influence in the Americas.

Today, Manuel Zelaya is held-up at the Brazilian embassy in Honduras, while supporters have staged multiple major street demonstrations in recent months in opposition to the first military coup in Central America in recent history, sparking many memories of violent military-driven politics throughout Central America in the 1980s within the context of the Cold War.

Although the recent coup in Honduras has been officially condemned by the Organization of American States (OAS), also by both Canada and the U.S., official support for Zelaya aside from natural political allies such as Venezuela, Bolivia and Brazil has been tepid, while Canada has maintained diplomatic and military ties with the coup government.

Montreal-based journalist Laura-Julie Perreault writer for La Presse, the largest French language daily newspaper in North America, recently visited Honduras reporting on the current political crisis in the country.

* Laura-Julie Perreault writes for La Presse, read on-line:
http://www.cyberpresse.ca/

* Stefan Christoff is a Montreal-based community organizer and journalist:
http://www.twitter.com/spirodon/

[American Dream]

http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2278/1/

KILLING ACTIVISTS IN HONDURAS

Written by Joseph Shansky
Wednesday, 23 December 2009


Walter Trochez

“As a revolutionary I will be today, tomorrow and forever on the front lines of my people, all the while knowing that I may lose my life." - Walter Trochez, 25, murdered in Tegucigalpa on 12/13/09

The bodies of slain activists are piling up in Honduras. While it's being kept quiet in most Honduran and international media, the rage is building among a dedicated network of friends spreading the word quickly with the tragic announcement of each compañero/a.

Now that the world heard from mainstream news outlets such as the New York Times of a “clean and fair” election on Nov. 29 (orchestrated by the US-supported junta currently in power), the violence has increased even faster than feared.

The specific targets of these killings have been those perceived as the biggest threats to the coup establishment. The bravest, and thus the most vulnerable: Members of the Popular Resistance against the coup. Their friends and family. People who provide the Resistance with food and shelter. Teachers, students, and ordinary citizens who simply recognize the fallacy of an un-elected regime taking over their country. All associated with the Resistance have faced constant and growing repercussions for their courage in protesting the coup. With the international community given the green light by the US that democratic order has returned via elections, it’s open season for violent forces in Honduras working to tear apart the political unity of the Resistance Front against the coup.

The killings are happening almost faster than they can be recorded.

On Sunday, Dec. 7, a group of six people were gunned down while walking down the street in the Villanueva neighborhood of Tegucigalpa. According to sources, a white van with no license plates stopped in front of the group. Four masked men jumped out of the van and forced the group to get on the ground, where they were shot. The five victims who were killed were:

· Marcos Vinicio Matute Acosta, 39

· Kennet Josué Ramírez Rosa, 23

· Gabriel Antonio Parrales Zelaya, 34

· Roger Andrés Reyes Aguilar, 22

· Isaac Enrique Soto Coello, 24

One woman, Wendy Molina, 32, was shot several times and played dead when one of the assassins pulled her hair, checking to see if anyone in the group was still alive. She was taken to the hospital and survived.

The Honduran independent newspaper El Libertador reports that the group members were all organizers against the coup. According to a resident in the area, "The boys had organized committees so that the neighbors could get involved in the Resistance Front."

This massacre was part of a string of Resistance-related murders during the past few weeks alone. On December 3, Walter Trochez, 25 a well-known activist in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community was snatched off the street and thrown into a van, again by four masked men, in downtown Tegucigalpa. In the report that he later filed to local and national authorities, Walter said he was interrogated for hours for information on Resistance members and activities, and was beaten in the face with a pistol for refusing to speak. He was told that he would be killed regardless, and he eventually escaped by throwing open the van door, falling into the street, and running away.

It wasn't the first time Walter had been subject to these kinds of threats. He was a much-loved organizer against the coup who had been documenting human rights violations, particularly in the gay community. Walter had just published two articles. One following the elections was titled "The Triumph of Abstentionism", on the success of the effort by the Resistance to encourage citizens to refuse to vote. The other was called “Escalation of Hate and Homophobic Crimes against the LGBTT Community Rooted in the Civil-Religious-Military Coup d'état in Honduras”.

In both, he concludes: "As a revolutionary I will be today, tomorrow and forever on the front lines of my people, all the while knowing that I may lose my life".

On Dec. 13, one week later, Walter was shot in the chest by a drive-by gunman while walking home. He died at the hospital.

On Dec. 5, Santos Garcia Corrales, an active member of the National Resistance Front, was detained by security forces in New Colony Capital, south of Tegucigalpa. He was then tortured for information on a local merchant who was providing food and supplies to the Resistance. After reporting the incident to local authorities, Santos’ body was found five days later on Dec 10, decapitated.

There have been others as well, notably a rise in murders in the LGBT community since the coup. In particular, several transvestites have been recently killed in similarly gruesome ways. Human rights advocates report that “up to 18 gay and transgender men have been killed nationwide — as many as the five prior years — in the nearly six months since a political crisis rocked the nation.”

The latest victim, Carlos Turcios, was kidnapped outside his home in Choloma Cortes, at three in the afternoon of Wednesday Dec. 16. He was found dead the next day, with his hands and head cut off. Carlos had been vice-president of the Choloma chapter of the Resistance Front, a town located a few hours outside of the capital. Andres Pavón, president of CODEH (Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in Honduras), commented: "We believe this horrendous crime joins others where the bodies show signs of brutal torture…This aggression is directed to the construction of collective fear.”

It is a sinister effort to shake up a community that is now in fact stronger than ever. As Walter Trochez noted (and CNN confirmed), most of the country refused to go to the polls that day. Many of the world’s governments, including most of Latin America, refused to recognize the results.

In this climate of fierce repression, citizens can no longer depend on authorities for the most basic protective rights, and those fearful for their lives cannot report to the police. Complaints they file, such as those of Santos and Walter, could soon become signatures to their own death letters. Many believe with good reason that the killings are state-sponsored. At the very least, they are the result of new conditions which allow for the widespread deterioration of state protection.

Pavón and other human rights leaders in Honduras have been extremely vocal in denouncing these atrocities, but the story has remained under the radar for most Hondurans and almost all international media. At the time when Hondurans most need exposure to these abuses, they’ve been left to fend for themselves.

How did this happen? Why are people being randomly executed in dark corners of the country for simply standing in opposition to a military coup?

Most of the bloodshed is on the hands of coup president Roberto Micheletti and other leaders of the regime. However, President Barack Obama and the US State Department played a major role in allowing conditions to get to this point. The US government took no concrete action against the thousands of documented violations since the coup took place June 28. It’s no shock that the violence has worsened dramatically with the eyes of the world now averted.

In a recent interview, Francisco Rios of the National Front Against the Coup reiterated Frente communiqués which stated that the Resistance, though now lying low, is preparing a massive organization effort for next year and beyond. Rios reported that they have stopped meeting publicly as a safety measure for now, but will soon begin dividing into chapters around the country with plans to emerge as a new, strengthened political force. Walter, Santos, Carlos, and all of the Resistance fighters who gave their lives have inspired others in the movement to continue the struggle for justice in Honduras.



Joseph Shansky was reporting from Honduras during the recent military coup, and can be reached at fallow3@gmail.com.

[JackRiddler]

Almost a year since this thread was active.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/ ... ctatorship

US role in establishing Honduran dictatorship
Share323232


1010
by CharlesII
Sun Nov 28, 2010 at 05:48:07 PM PST

One of the documents released by Wikileaks has established that as of July 24th, 2009, approximately one month after the coup, Ambassador Hugo Llorens had established that there was no basis for the removal of President Manuel Zelaya and that it was an illegal military coup. This is significant because:
As a Cuban exile, Ambassador Llorens was in no way sympathetic to left-leaning governments.
The cable was addressed to Legal Advisor Harold Koh, among others. Koh has been regarded as one of the "good guys" at State. This places his reputation in danger. In addition, Legal Advisor Joan Donoghue, an addressee, was elevated to the International Court of Justice and should be obliged to step down.
The Millennium Foundation Challenge Corporation, for which Hillary Clinton was Chairman of the Board, continued to deliver aid, contrary to US law.
This analysis went to the White House, meaning that the Administration thereafter participated in what it knew to be an illegal dictatorship.
CharlesII's diary :: ::

On July 24, 2009, US Ambassador to Honduras Hugo Llorens, cabled Assistant Secretary Tom Shannon, NSC Advisor Dan Restrepo, Legal Adviser Harold Koh, and Legal Advisor Joan Donoghue to advise them of his analysis of the coup that had taken place a little less than one month earlier.

Llorens was blunt, headlining the memo: OPEN AND SHUT: THE CASE OF THE HONDURAN COUP.He stated plainly that:

The Embassy perspective is that there is no doubt that the military, Supreme Court and National Congress conspired on June 28 in what constituted an illegal and unconstitutional coup against the Executive Branch... There is equally no doubt from our perspective that Roberto Micheletti's assumption of power was illegitimate.

Acknowledging that Zelaya may have overstepped his bounds, it firmly refutes the legal basis for removing Zelaya on the basis of his calling for a non-binding referendum on a Constitutional Convention, stating:

Many other Honduran officials, including presidents,going back to the first elected government under the 1982 Constitution, have proposed allowing presidential reelection, and they were never deemed to have been automatically removed from their positions as a result.
(C) It further warrants mention that Micheletti himself should be forced to resign following the logic of the 239 argument, since as President of Congress he considered legislation to have a fourth ballot box ("cuarta urna") at the November elections to seek voter approval for a

constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution. Any member of Congress who discussed the proposal should also be required to resign, and National Party presidential candidate Pepe Lobo, who endorsed the idea, should be ineligible to hold public office for 10 years.

And it plainly stated these important points:

-- the military had no authority to remove Zelaya from the
country;

-- Congress has no constitutional authority to remove a
Honduran president;

-- Congress and the judiciary removed Zelaya on the basis
of a hasty, ad-hoc, extralegal, secret, 48-hour process;

-- the purported "resignation" letter was a fabrication and
was not even the basis for Congress's action of June 28;
and

-- Zelaya's arrest and forced removal from the country
violated multiple constitutional guarantees, including the
prohibition on expatriation, presumption of innocence and
right to due process.

I analyzed the coup in a five part series: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/ ... n-Honduras

The judgment of that series, that the United States Government participated in a military coup and the establishment of a dictatorship, has now been largely vindicated by the words of Ambassador Llorens. What remains is to establish the role of the United States in the run-up to the coup and, in particular, to understand how President Zelaya was flown out through a US (co)-operated air field during his kidnapping. There are 153 cables in the time period of May 1st, 2009-July 31st, 2009, and I hope to read them all.

I'm pressed for time now, but look forward to posting later. See you in the threads, Cadejo04.

PS: Thanks to pico for the correction on the name of Millenium Challenge Corporation.
PPS: Cable ID 217920. Thanks m16eib.
PPPS: Should have credited Quotha, which picked up the El Pais posting first, and which is a blog everyone who cares about Honduras should be reading. Also, NYT now has the document.
PPPPS: Zelaya has responded. A loose translation: "This document will allow us in attending the International Criminal Court and of Human Rights to denounce the United States. As a State violating human rights, it took no precautionary steps against the Coup D'Etat. The revelation from Wikileaks compromises them deeply because, knowing of the crime, they covered it up." He directly accused US intelligence of foreknowledge and support for the coup.

Tags: Recommended, Latin American, Honduras, Honduras coup, Manuel Zelaya, democracy, foreign policy, State Department, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama (all tags) :: Previous Tag Versions

[JackRiddler]

http://www.americasquarterly.org/node/2014

Wikileaks and the Honduran Coup
November 29, 2010
by Daniel Altschuler

The recent release of hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables by Wikileaks will undoubtedly focus the greatest attention on U.S. policy in the Middle East, but it could also shake things up in Latin America. Already, one of the leaked diplomatic cables has revealed the United States embassy’s assessment of the Honduran coup as a conspiracy against President Zelaya by the Supreme Court, Congress and military.

The summary reads as follows:

The Embassy perspective is that there is no doubt that the military, Supreme Court and National Congress conspired on June 28 in what constituted an illegal and unconstitutional coup against the Executive Branch, while accepting that there may be a prima facie case that Zelaya may have committed illegalities and may have even violated the constitution. There is equally no doubt from our perspective that Roberto Micheletti's assumption of power was illegitimate. Nevertheless, it is also evident that the constitution itself may be deficient in terms of providing clear procedures for dealing with alleged illegal acts by the President and resolving conflicts between the branches of government.

The cable then offers a detailed legal analysis of the coup. It acknowledges that there was reason for concern that Zelaya might have acted—or subsequently act—illegally, and that the Honduran constitution is plagued by ambiguity on matters relating to impeachment. But it finds that the lion’s share of accusations against Zelaya were either based on supposition or fabrication. The cable then concludes that the Congress lacked the authority to remove Zelaya, as his removal from power would require court proceedings and due process. His capture by the military and removal from the country was also completely unjustified.

This cable is both remarkable and it is not.

First, what is not really news: that Ambassador Hugo Llorens, the U.S. State Department and the Obama administration knew that what took place was a coup. Lest it go unsaid, the Obama administration categorically rejected Zelaya’s ouster all along. Hugo Llorens, then-U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Thomas Shannon, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and all the other State Department officials involved in this matter were quite clear about the illegality of Zelaya’s ouster and the illegitimacyof Micheletti’s de facto government.

But this cable is still remarkable for its tone and its level of detail. By using the language of “conspiracy” and systematically debunking the arguments made by coup supporters, the cable makes the wrong of Zelaya’s removal abundantly clear. Today, the revelation of the Llorens cable is the top headline in Honduran newspapers, where it will hopefully advance public debate within the country about last year’s crisis.

The cable also undermines the arguments made in an influential Law Library of Congress Report, which argued that Zelaya’s removal from power (though not from the country) was legal. Conservatives in the United States used this report to claim that Zelaya’s ouster was really just Honduras’ version of a legal impeachment. Republicans in Congress kept pushing this line, using it as a tool to pressure the State Department and place holds on presidential appointments.

This pressure made the Honduras affair a headache for the Obama administration, which tried to wash its hands of the matter by prematurely stating it would recognize the November 2009 elections. Meanwhile, there was little pushback from within the Obama administration on the details of the events leading to the coup.

The leaked analysis by the embassy offers such a systematic rejection pro-coup case, but it was never advanced publicly. Had the administration made public such an assessment of the Honduran coup—and its implicit rejection of the LLC report—it would have provided a useful tool for refuting the spurious arguments made by conservatives. Instead, as summer 2009 drew to a close, the position that the coup was a defense of the rule of law gained traction inside the Beltway.

This dealt a blow to both the chances of Zelaya’s restitution and defenders of democracy in the Americas more generally.

*Daniel Altschuler is a contributing blogger to www.AmericasQuarterly.org. He is a Copeland Fellow at Amherst College and a doctoral candidate in Politics at the University of Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. His research focuses on civic and political participation in Honduras and Guatemala.

[JackRiddler]

http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/ ... -two-years

Journalist killed in Honduras, the 11th in two years

May 11, 2011, 20:02 GMT



Tegucigalpa - Journalist Hector Medina Planco was killed in Honduras to become the 11th media person killed in the Central American country since 2009, police said.

Medina Polanco was shot by three unknown attackers late Tuesday in the central Honduran town of Morazan. He died Wednesday at Mario Catarino Rivas Hospital in the northern city of San Pedro Sula, 250 kilometres from capital Tegucigalpa.

He was the news editor of the local cable television channel, and his brother said he had previously suffered two other attacks and filed the respective complaints with the police. He had reported on acts of corruption in Morazan.

Police did not give details as to the likely motives behind Medina Polanco's death.

[JackRiddler]

http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews ... 7H20110528


Ex-Honduran president Zelaya returns from exile
Sat May 28, 2011 9:36pm GMT

By Gustavo Palencia

TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - Former president Manuel Zelaya returned to Honduras on Saturday after being exiled by the army two years ago in a coup, clearing the way for the nation to normalise relations with its neighbours in the Americas.

The Honduran army, acting on a court order with backing from Congress, whisked the left-leaning Zelaya out of the country in June 2009 after he pushed a referendum seen by the opposition as an attempt to extend his term as president.

Thousands cheering and waving flags greeted Zelaya as he stepped off the plane in Tegucigalpa in stifling heat. Zelaya, who the constitution bars from running for office again, had been living mostly in the Dominican Republic since his exile.

The expulsion of Zelaya in 2009 was condemned around the world as an anti-democratic flashback to the region's Cold War era past of dictators, coups and military rule.

Honduras was kicked out of the Organisation of American States, or OAS, which groups democracies in the Americas. OAS members later cut off aid to the impoverished nation.

The coup plotters said Zelaya, a staunch ally of Venezuela's leftist president Hugo Chavez, was a threat to democracy and quickly held elections after his ouster.

The new president, Porfirio Lobo, has been lobbying to repair ties with nations who opposed the coup, like Brazil, which offered its embassy in Tegucigalpa as a refuge to Zelaya when he briefly returned during the crisis.

Lobo's government is now recognized by the United States, the European Union and Central American countries but has not won entry back into the OAS. The organisation will vote on allowing Honduras back into the fold next week.

Venezuela's Chavez teamed up with Colombia's conservative President Juan Manuel Santos to draft a plan to allow Honduras back into the OAS.

The agreement was conditioned on Zelaya's return home, free of the threat of imprisonment, and guarantees that his allies can participate in politics.

A former businessman who sports a cowboy hat and thick moustache, Zelaya moved to the left after he was elected in 2006. Some politicians and business elites feared he would drag Honduras, a strong U.S. ally, down Chavez's socialist path and decided to kick him out of office before that could happen.

Tensions still simmer in the country between the toppled leader's supporters and the Lobo administration. Zelaya's return could either calm or inflame those differences. Zelaya is due to meet Lobo later on Saturday.

"This is a country that's in deep trouble," said Michael Shifter at the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue.

"The problems are certainly far from being resolved, but the government has made a good effort to try to deal with a difficult situation, and bringing it back into the OAS is maybe a way to help," he said.


(Additional reporting by Alex Leff and Mica Rosenberg; Editing by Paul Simao)

© Thomson Reuters 2011.

[JackRiddler]

.

Follow links for video and to give Amy some hits.

In the second segment, Zelaya gives details on US involvement in coup.

May 31, 2011

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/5/31/o ... _report_on

Out of Exile: Exclusive Report on Ousted Honduran President Zelaya’s Return Home 23 Months After U.S.-Backed Coup

In a Democracy Now! global broadcast exclusive, we take you on the plane of ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya as he and his family return home after almost two years in exile. We speak with Zelaya, ousted Honduran foreign minister Patricia Rodas, Honduran exile René Guillermo Amador, and former Colombian senator Piedad Córdoba, one of the many representatives of Latin American countries who accompanied Zelaya home. We also speak to Father Roy Bourgeois of School of the Americas Watch on the role U.S.-trained generals played in the 2009 coup. "This military coup had real connections to the School of the Americas. The two top generals, the key players in this military coup—the head of the air force, the head of the army—were graduates of the School of the Americas,” said Bourgeois. [includes rush transcript]

Manuel Zelaya, ousted Honduran president
Rene Guillermo Amador, returning Honduran exile
Father Roy Bourgeois, School of the Americas Watch
Patricia Rodas, ousted Honduran foreign minister
Rene Guillermo Amador, Honduran exile
Piedad Cordoba, former Colombian senator

MANUEL ZELAYA: [translated] Thanks to you, I was able to return to the land that witnessed my birth. Thanks to your fight. Thanks to your effort, comrade. Thanks to your effort, comrade. Thanks to your demands. Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: Honduran President Manuel Zelaya returned to his country this weekend after being ousted at gunpoint in a military coup on June 28th, 2009. In a U.S. broadcast exclusive, Democracy Now! takes you on Zelaya’s flight home. Our journey began in the Nicaraguan capital on Friday.

AMY GOODMAN: We’ve just landed in Managua. We have two people who just came in from Spain. Interestingly, one of them is from Honduras. He is a leader of the grassroots movement in Honduras.

RENÉ GUILLERMO AMADOR: [translated] My name is René Guillermo Amador. Twenty months in exile. After the coup d’état, I had to leave, and that’s why we’ve been in Spain this whole time. I wrote an email to President Zelaya some time ago saying that he should go back to Honduras. And we made the commitment that we would be there with him at the moment at which he would do that.

It’s very difficult to do it at this time because the points that the resistance front has been pushing for have not been complied with. And to give a vote of confidence to a regime that has not complied with the minimum respect is something that causes us great pain. But there are over 200 compañeros and compañeras who have not been able to return from exile, so this is one of the points that is not consistent.

AMY GOODMAN: René, why did you have to leave?

RENÉ GUILLERMO AMADOR: [translated] Because the situation to guarantee the safety of our lives was no longer guaranteed within Honduras.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Father Roy Bourgeois, you have just landed in Managua, Nicaragua. Why are you here?

FATHER ROY BOURGEOIS: Well, you know, the SOA Watch movement that so many in the United States are a part of—

AMY GOODMAN: School of the Americas Watch.

FATHER ROY BOURGEOIS: The School of the Americas Watch. When the military coup took place close to two years ago, we were very, very upset by this, as so many were here in Honduras. And we came just a few days after the coup to express our solidarity.

AMY GOODMAN: To Honduras?

FATHER ROY BOURGEOIS: To Honduras.

AMY GOODMAN: After Zelaya was forced out.

FATHER ROY BOURGEOIS: Yes, just a few days after, we came here to meet with our friends, counterparts, we had met years—you know, during these years. And I must say, we were very, very alarmed at the seriousness of the situation. This military coup had real connections to the School of the Americas. The two top generals, the key players in this military coup—the head of the air force, the head of the army—were graduates of the School of Americas, which did not really surprise us. It’s been a pattern throughout the years.

So we came back then, and we are back now to express our support and solidarity with the people of Honduras, who really are living under intense repression. We were in Honduras just a month ago to follow up our visit after the coup, to meet once again with our friends here to get an update on what’s going on. And we met with many campesinos, the small farmers way out into the countryside, teachers, labor leaders. And we were quite surprised to see, once again, that fear, that repression, that’s still very alive in Honduras.

What saddens us, though, is that—well, first of all, when the coup happened, what we heard was President Obama, immediately after the coup, did say that it was a military coup and that the President, President Zelaya, must return with no conditions. He was the democratically elected president. But I must say, these were words only that lasted, I would say, about 24 hours. And something happened, Amy. They got to President Obama, and he did not use that word ever again, along with Secretary of State Clinton and others. Those who used that word "coup" when it actually—what do you call it when the president, democratically elected president of a country, at 5:00 in the morning is awakened with his pajamas at gunpoint and put on a plane and flown out of the country and could not return? What do you call it other than a military coup? And actually, a few days later, we came here, where we met also with our U.S. ambassador, Llorens. And he also referred to it as a military coup, and he said the same thing as we were saying: what do you call it if this is not a coup? But something happened. They stopped using that word "coup."

And we were very, very disappointed in President Obama. There was such an opportunity, as President Zelaya expressed and so many of the people in Honduras, that our president—you know, we have such influence and power in this region, throughout the world, and especially in this small country, Honduras. We really could have done something, within a short while, to bring President Zelaya back to this country—cut off military aid, withdraw our U.S. ambassador. But none of this happened. But now we see this as somewhat of a historic moment here with the return of the democratically elected president, Zelaya, Mel, as he’s known by so many.

AMY GOODMAN: The delegation that will accompany Zelaya greets him at a hotel across the street from Sandino International Airport. I ask Zelaya how he feels.

How do you feel right now?

MANUEL ZELAYA: [translated] I feel very full of hope and optimism and just very good feelings. The dialogue that we have yet to come, and the political action, is possible instead of armaments. No to violence. No to military coups. Coups never more.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I can’t believe who I’m seeing right now here across from the airport in Managua, Nicaragua. The last time we saw each other was in Port-au-Prince when you greeted President Aristide, who was ousted and returned home in Haiti. Now here are about to get on a plane with President Zelaya to return to Honduras. Piedad Córdoba, why are you here?

PIEDAD CÓRDOBA: [translated] I am Piedad Córdoba. I am the spokesperson of Colombians, both men and women, for peace. This is a process that we have been accompanying since the coup d’état itself some time ago.

AMY GOODMAN: You yourself had been kidnapped.

PIEDAD CÓRDOBA: [translated] Yes, I was in fact kidnapped by the paramilitaries.

AMY GOODMAN: For how long?

PIEDAD CÓRDOBA: [translated] Sixteen days.

AMY GOODMAN: And this was when you were a state legislator?

PIEDAD CÓRDOBA: [translated] Yes, it was when in the Senate of the Republic, and that was some 10 years ago.

AMY GOODMAN: What does it mean that it was President Santos, the Colombian president, and President Chávez of Venezuela who witnessed this accord between the current president of Honduras, Lobo, and the ousted president, Zelaya, for Zelaya’s return?

PIEDAD CÓRDOBA: [translated] The message is very, very clear, and it has to do with politics. It is the triumph of politics against war. It was very much easier to have confrontation and to have war than to have dialogue and sensibilities. And so, it is an absolute, overwhelming triumph of this kind of politics. It gives the possibility for the people to really witness and be involved in differences and to be witnesses of the true change that comes with that process.

AMY GOODMAN: Piedad Córdoba, former Colombian senator, one of the many representatives of Latin American countries who accompanied ousted president Zelaya and his family on their historic trip home. When we come back, we take you on the flight to Honduras and sit down with President Zelaya to talk about the day the military kidnapped him at gunpoint and why he believes the U.S. is behind the coup. This is Democracy Now! Back in a minute.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: We continue our special on the return of Manuel Zelaya.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re coming onto the tarmac right now, where President Zelaya, his family, his supporters have all gathered to get on the flight to go home to Tegucigalpa, to Honduras, for the first time in almost two years. It’s hot. It’s windy. And it’s a historic occasion. As one ambassador said to me, this is Latin America’s moment. President Zelaya just said, as I was interviewing him, this means no war, no violence, no more coups. We’re getting on the flight.

PATRICIA RODAS: [translated] I am Patricia Rodas, ex-president of the Liberal Party of Honduras. And also I am the ex-foreign minister of the citizens’ power of the President, José Manuel Zelaya Rosales.

AMY GOODMAN: When were you last in Honduras?

PATRICIA RODAS: [translated] I was expelled from my country by the military. They came to my house. I was taken prisoner by the air force of Honduras. And then, later, they deported me at midnight, and they transferred me in the airplane. Apparently, this airplane belonged to Miguel Facussé, the plane in which I was transferred. I was transferred forcibly and expatriated forcibly. And at that moment, I was received by the Republic of Mexico.

AMY GOODMAN: And your feeling right now?

PATRICIA RODAS: [translated] It is absolutely indescribable. These are absolutely feelings that are bittersweet. And what we will miss in this new struggle, this new step of the struggle, we will miss the compañeros, the men and women whose lives were lost by the repression, the persecution.

AMY GOODMAN: The family of President Zelaya has now just gotten on the flight, and now President Zelaya himself, in his signature cowboy hat, is coming onto the red carpet. This is the beginning of another journey that began for President Mel Zelaya two years ago in Honduras. He was driven out of the country at gunpoint in a military coup. What happens next is not clear. The flight from Managua to Tegucigalpa is expected to be about half an hour. We hear that tens of thousands of people are waiting for him in his home country.

We have just flown from Nicaraguan airspace into Honduran airspace. President Zelaya and his wife Xiomara, they’re in the front row. And actually, the President has flown over Tegucigalpa before, but he was not able to land. It was a very fateful day when hundreds of thousands gathered at the airport in Tegucigalpa to greet him. Andrés Conteris, with Democracy Now! en Español, has been translating for us.

Talk about that day. The date was...?

ANDRÉS CONTERIS: The date was July 5th, 2009, Amy, and it was a very, very fateful day. It was the day when the people of Honduras went in massive force to the Toncontín airport in Tegucigalpa, one of the most dangerous airports in the world, I might add, and we’re about to land there. This airport is the place where President Zelaya first attempted to return into his country after the coup on June 28th, 2009. He was not allowed to land. They blocked the airstrip with military trucks. And then, there were 250,000, it is estimated; that many people, a quarter million, were there to receive their president. And I was there, as well. And we all wanted that plane to land. We could see the plane in the air, just as when we approach in about 15 minutes they will be able to see us. And what happened is that that plane was not allowed to land.

And what happened after that? The people continued in a very peaceful protest. And that peaceful protest turned violent, not by the demonstrators, not by those who were protesting, but by the military and the police who started shooting at the crowd. And there were several victims who were wounded, but one who was killed. His name is Isis Obed Murillo, 19 years old at the time on July 5th, 2009. And there is a monument in his honor very near the airport where he died. I have been at that monument at a moment when there have been ceremonies in honor of the martyrs of the coup d’état of Honduras. It’s actually the very first place that I saw Xiomara Castro de Zelaya, the wife of President Zelaya, who stayed in Honduras after he was expatriated in the coup.

AMY GOODMAN: President Zelaya has landed in Honduras with his family. He is just about to step out of the plane. We saw thousands of people on the outskirts of the airport waving flags. We also saw riot police. Now, a small gaggle of press is going to document his arrival.

When President Zelaya walks off the plane, he kneels down and kisses the ground. After greeting family and friends, many of whom he hadn’t seen for years, his motorcade slowly made its way through massive crowds to the rally to thank his supporters. It was held at the memorial to the young man killed by Honduran security when Zelaya had attempted to land in Honduras a week after the coup. President Zelaya addressed the crowd. Zelaya then went to the presidential palace and had a ceremonial banquet with the delegation that accompanied him on the flight, as well as the current Honduran president, Porfirio Lobo, and OAS Secretary General Insulza. President Zelaya then went home for the first time in 23 months. Friends and family gathered throughout the house, including his bedroom, singing songs and greeting each other.

May 31, 2011

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/5/31/e ... _zelaya_on

Exclusive Interview with Manuel Zelaya on the U.S. Role in Honduran Coup, WikiLeaks and Why He Was Ousted



Shortly after Manuel Zelaya returned to his home this weekend for the first time since the 2009 military coup d’état, he sat down with Democracy Now! for an exclusive interview. He talks about why he believes the United States was behind the coup, and what exactly happened on June 28, 2009, when hooded Honduran soldiers kidnapped him at gunpoint and put him on a plane to Costa Rica, stopping to refuel at Palmerola, the U.S. military base in Honduras. “This coup d’état was made by the right wing of the United States,” Zelaya says. “The U.S. State Department has always denied, and they continue to deny, any ties with the coup d’état. Nevertheless, all of the proof incriminates the U.S. government. And all of the actions that were taken by the de facto regime, or the golpista regime, which are those who carried out the coup, favor the industrial policies and the military policies and the financial policies of the United States in Honduras.” [includes rush transcript]

AMY GOODMAN: Manuel Zelaya, the former president of Honduras, returned home on Saturday after 23 months in exile. At a news conference Sunday in his living room, Zelaya said the coup was the work of an international conspiracy that should be investigated. It was the first coup in Central America in a quarter of a century. The military kidnapped Zelaya from his home at gunpoint, put him on a plane to Costa Rica, stopping to refuel at Palmerola, the U.S. military base in Honduras—this after he tried to organize a non-binding referendum asking voters if they wanted to rewrite the constitution. Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos brokered the agreement between ousted President Zelaya and the current Honduran President Porfirio Lobo. It was called the Cartagena Accord, paving the way for Zelaya’s return.

Democracy Now! flew with President Zelaya from Managua, the Nicaraguan capital, to Honduras. On Sunday, we sat down with him at his home in Tegucigalpa. I asked President Zelaya to talk about what happened the day of the coup, June 28th, 2009.

MANUEL ZELAYA: [translated] A president who was elected by the people was taken out of his home at gunpoint in the early, early morning wee hours in his pajamas and taken and abandoned in Costa Rica, in the airport of Costa Rica.

AMY GOODMAN: But first, can you tell me what exactly happened here? What time was it? What did you hear? How did you wake up?

MANUEL ZELAYA: [translated] I arrived to my home at 3:30 in the morning. The next day, we were going to have a referendum, public referendum, throughout the whole nation. It was only an opinion poll, basically, and it was not legally binding—14,000 polls placed all over the country. And there was an international conspiracy in order to say that communism was entering into this country and that the Caracas plan was going to enter in to destroy the United States and that we are destroying the U.S. empire, if they would let that opinion poll take place. Many who were business leaders and others, high society folks, they fell into that trap. This coup d’état was made by the right wing of the United States.

Those early morning hours, in the wee hours of that morning, they started to pressure the honor guard. They came here at 5:15 in the morning. There were isolated shots that were fired in the neighborhood, some in this street over here and others in the back part of the house. You can see that this is a small house, middle class. It’s easy to assault this house. I was woken by the gunshots. I went downstairs in my pajamas to the first floor, on the patio on the outside. At that very moment, the gunshots were impacting on the door in the back. My first reaction was to hit the floor and to cover myself from the gunshots. That is the moment in which the military entered into the patio in the back.

They threatened me with their rifles, M-16 machine guns. They said that it was a military order. And they were shouting at me, and they were ordering me to give my cell phone, because I was talking on my phone. There were more than 10 military, who were hooded, who entered into the house, actually. But outside there were 200 to 300. The only thing you could see were their eyes. Everything else was covered. And they surrounded me. They threatened me, that they were going to shoot. And I said to them, "If you have orders to shoot, then shoot me. But know that you are shooting the president of the republic, and you are a subalternate, you are an underling." And so, they did not shoot at me.

And so, they forced me to go to their vehicles outside with my pajamas on. We landed in the U.S. military base of Palmerola. There, they refueled. There were some movements that happened outside. I don’t know what conversations took place. About 15, 20 minutes, we waited there in the airport of Palmerola. And then to Costa Rica, and everything else is public after that.

AMY GOODMAN: Why were you brought to the U.S. military base? It is not that far to fly from Tegucigalpa airport to Costa Rica. Why would you be brought to the U.S. military base? And they must have had the U.S. military’s permission.

MANUEL ZELAYA: [translated] The U.S. State Department has always denied, and they continue to deny, any ties with the coup d’état. Nevertheless, all of the proof incriminates the U.S. government. And all of the actions that were taken by the de facto regime, or the golpista regime, which are those who carried out the coup, and it is to make favor of the industrial policies and the military policies and the financial policies of the United States in Honduras.

AMY GOODMAN: Was your daughter Pichu in the house?

MANUEL ZELAYA: [translated] In my house, there were three people. The woman who cleans the house and who works here, and she has 10 years working with us, she is a woman of great trust. And she continues to work here. Her name is Suyapa. She was taken out, and they dragged her by pulling out her hair, because the military, after they captured me, they entered into each one of the rooms, and they broke into the rooms through using their rifle butts, looking for my wife and for my daughter. My daughter is very thin, and so she went underneath the bed. Suyapa, the cleaning lady, she’s a little overweight, and so she could not hide. So they grabbed her by her hair, and they took her away. Pichu, whose real name is Xiomara Hortensia, she hid under the bed, and they didn’t find her.

AMY GOODMAN: The M-16s, where were they made, that the hooded Honduran soldiers used?

MANUEL ZELAYA: [translated] All of the arms that the Honduran military uses are U.S. weapons. And the high command of the military of Honduras is trained at the School of the Americas.

AMY GOODMAN: After the coup, did the U.S. stop the weapons flow to Honduras?

MANUEL ZELAYA: [translated] This week, there were 85 members of Congress of the United States, they sent a letter to the State Department, Hillary Clinton, and this letter speaks to the necessity of controlling the support, and they speak of paralyzing, which is given to the armed forces of Honduras. And so, they point to the high rates of violations of human rights that take place in Honduras. In other words, after the coup d’état in this country, the U.S. has increased its military support to Honduras.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you support the call of the Congress members?

MANUEL ZELAYA: [translated] All who defend human rights and who are against the armaments and war making, they have my support.

AMY GOODMAN: You say that the coup was a conspiracy. And you talked about the right wing in the United States. Explain exactly what you understand. Who fomented this coup against you?

MANUEL ZELAYA: [translated] The conspiracy began when I started to join what is ALBA, the Latin American nations with Bolivarian Alternative. So, a dirty war at the psychological level was carried out against me. Otto Reich started this. The ex-Under Secretary of State Roger Noriega, Robert Carmona, and the Arcadia Foundation, created by the CIA, they associated themselves with the right wing, with military groups, and they formed a conspiracy. They argued that I was a communist and that I was attacking the security of the hemisphere, because I’m a friend of Fidel, I’m a friend of Chávez, and I had declared my government as a government which is progressive.

AMY GOODMAN: And yet, WikiLeaks released that trove of U.S. government cables, and in it was a cable from then-U.S. ambassador—the then-U.S. ambassador to Honduras to the State Department, saying that—I think it was titled "Open and Shut: The Case of the Honduran Coup," and it was saying it was illegal, it was unconstitutional. It was written by U.S. Ambassador Hugo Llorens.

MANUEL ZELAYA: [translated] Hugo Llorens cooperated in order to avoid the coup d’état. He knew everything that was happening in Honduras. And I am a witness to the effort that he made to stop the coup. But when he perceived that he could no longer stop it, then he withdrew. I don’t know if he had orders to withdraw, but he allowed everything to happen. He did help my family a great deal after the coup. And I am grateful to him now. He showed me that he is someone who believes in democracy and not in the coups d’état. But a great part of the Pentagon does not believe this, nor does the Southern Command.

AMY GOODMAN: What does the Southern Command have to do with this?

MANUEL ZELAYA: [translated] The link that Ambassador Ford, who was the ambassador from the United States before Llorens, he said that I could not have a friendship with Hugo Chávez. He wanted me to give political [asylum] to Posada Carriles. He wanted to name who my ministers of my cabinet of my government should be. He wanted his recommendations to become ministers of my government.

AMY GOODMAN: Posada Carriles, he wanted him to be able to take refuge in Honduras, the man who was alleged to be the mastermind behind the Cubana bombing that killed scores of people?

MANUEL ZELAYA: [translated] After eight days of my becoming president of the country, the ambassador, Charles Ford, asked me if I could give political asylum to Posada Carriles in Honduras. And of course, I sent him to outside. He spoke to my foreign minister, my secretary of state, about that—the same ambassador who prohibited me from becoming a member of the ALBA. And this ambassador, who just left Honduras, who left the country with a political profile of myself, the ambassador, Ford, left this letter as a profile of the president, and when you read it, you can tell that it is the precursor of the coup itself. WikiLeaks published this document. They published the profile that Ambassador Ford made of me to give to Hugo Llorens, saying that the United States needs to make decisions about what it will do the following year in order to detain me, because I am tied to narcotrafficking and to terrorism and to many, many other things. So, he prepared the ambiance, situation. And he was transferred from the embassy to the Southern Command. And that is the tie. And if you ask today, where is this Ambassador Ford? He is in the Southern Command. And so, he left here in order to prepare the coup d’état.

AMY GOODMAN: And yet, the coup d’état took place under President Obama, not before.

MANUEL ZELAYA: [translated] We’re talking about the United States, so it’s an empire. The United States is an empire, and so Obama is the president of the United States, but he is not the chief of the empire. Even though Obama would be against the coup, the process toward the coup was already moving forward. The most that they tell a president like President Obama, that there’s a political crisis going on. But they do not talk about the details that they were involved in in terms of the conspiracy.

AMY GOODMAN: President Obama early on called it a coup. But then the administration seemed to back off, both he and Hillary Clinton.

MANUEL ZELAYA: [translated] They gave themselves up before the coup itself. That is the proof, in fact, that the coup came from the north, from the U.S. So they are even able to bend the arm of the President of the United States, President Obama, and the State Department, and they impeded my restitution as president of the country.

AMY GOODMAN: Ousted President Manuel Zelaya, sitting in his home in his living room in Tegucigalpa for the first time in 23 months, kidnapped at gunpoint by Honduran soldiers as his daughter Pichu hid under her bed upstairs. He was then flown to Palmerola, the U.S. military base in Honduras, supposedly to refuel, and then on to Costa Rica. It was the first military coup in Latin America in more than a quarter of a century.

We leave you today with Zelaya’s address to tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of Hondurans upon his arrival home on Saturday.

MANUEL ZELAYA: [translated] Your presence here this afternoon shows the support of the international community, that the blood was not shed in vain, because we’re still standing, keeping our position valid. Peaceful resistance. Fellows, resistance is today the cry of victory, of the return to Honduras of all the rights and guarantees of the Honduran democracy.

AMY GOODMAN: Tomorrow, in part two of our interview, President Zelaya will talk about his plans for the future. We’ll also speak with his wife, former First Lady of Honduras Xiomara Castro de Zelaya. We ask her if she plans to run for president next. Special thanks to Democracy Now!’s Hany Massoud for his remarkable camera work and Andrés Tomas Conteris for translating, and to both for making this broadcast possible. Also thanks to Channel 11 in Tegucigalpa.

May 31, 2011

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/5/31/z ... resistance

Zelaya’s Son Héctor: The Honduran Resistance Helped Pave the Way for Our Return



We speak with Héctor Zelaya, son of former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, as he accompanies his father home after the military coup d’état that led to his ouster on June 28, 2009. “I [cannot] think of any president that went into exile and defeated the exile in the first two years. I’m grateful for our people and all the resistance in my country,” Héctor Zelaya says. “Because of their fight against the coup and getting their rights and fighting for their rights, we have our president back in his country and back in his house.” [includes rush transcript]

AMY GOODMAN: President Zelaya has landed in Honduras with his family. He is just about to step out of the plane. We saw thousands of people on the outskirts of the airport waving flags. We also saw riot police. Now, a small gaggle of press is going to document his arrival.

When President Zelaya walks off the plane, he kneels down and kisses the ground. After greeting family and friends, many of whom he hadn’t seen for years, his motorcade slowly made its way through massive crowds to the rally to thank his supporters. It was held at the memorial to the young man killed by Honduran security when Zelaya had attempted to land in Honduras a week after the coup. President Zelaya addressed the crowd. Zelaya then went to the presidential palace and had a ceremonial banquet with the delegation that accompanied him on the flight, as well as the current Honduran president, Porfirio Lobo, and OAS Secretary General Insulza. President Zelaya then went home for the first time in 23 months. Friends and family gathered throughout the house, including his bedroom, singing songs and greeting each other. I spoke with his son Héctor Zelaya Castro.

AMY GOODMAN: What does this day mean to you?

HÉCTOR ZELAYA CASTRO: I don’t think of any president that went to exile and defeated the exile in the first two years, and that I’m grateful for our people and all the resistance in my country. Because of their fight against the coup and getting their rights and fighting for their rights, we have our president back in his country and back in his house. And today he’s going to sleep for the first time in his bed since two years ago.

AMY GOODMAN: You were coming here almost two years ago on the night of June 28th, 2009. Talk about what happened.

HÉCTOR ZELAYA CASTRO: You know, that day, since 5:45 a.m. until 3:00 in the afternoon, I was maybe in automatic mode. You know, I was just doing what the logical thing gave me to do. And until—around 10:00 in the morning, I remember, I just received another call saying that my dad was flying to Costa Rica and to tell all my family that everything was OK and that they didn’t harm him at all, and he was flown down to Costa Rica. So then, there was a coup d’état. It was the first time I heard that word in my whole life. I’m just 29 years old. And, well, the first thing with my brothers and my sister, we thought, let’s go to one of the embassies and take refuge, because this is persecution. They’re going to try—and so, I started receiving all those calls and messages threatening my life, and not to go to the streets, and "We’re looking for you," and these kind of things. So, everybody, strategically, we went to different embassies.

[American Dream]

Honduras: America's Great Foreign Policy Disgrace

November 20, 2011

By Mark Weisbrot
Source: The Guardian


Imagine that an opposition organiser were murdered in broad daylight in Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador or Venezuela by masked gunmen, or kidnapped and murdered by armed guards of a well-known supporter of the government. It would be front page news in the New York Times, and all over the TV news. The US State Department would issue a strong statement of concern over grave human rights abuses. If this were ever to happen.

Now imagine that 59 of these kinds of political killings had taken place so far this year, and 61 the previous year. Long before the number of victims reached this level, this would become a major foreign policy issue for the United States, and Washington would be calling for international sanctions.

But we are talking about Honduras, not Bolivia or Venezuela. So, when President Porfirio Lobo of Honduras came to Washington last month, President Obama greeted him warmly and said:

"Two years ago, we saw a coup in Honduras that threatened to move the country away from democracy, and in part because of pressure from the international community, but also because of the strong commitment to democracy and leadership by President Lobo, what we've been seeing is a restoration of democratic practices and a commitment to reconciliation that gives us great hope."

Of course, President Obama refused to even meet with the democratically elected president who was overthrown in the coup that he mentioned, even though that president came to Washington three times seeking help after the coup. That was Manuel Zelaya, a left-of-center president who was overthrown by the military and conservative segments of society in Honduras after instituting a number of reforms that people had voted for, such as raising the minimum wage and laws promoting land reform.

But what angered Washington most was that Zelaya was close to the left governments of South America, including Venezuela. He wasn't any closer to Venezuela than Brazil or Argentina was, but this was a crime of opportunity. So, when the Honduran military overthrew Zelaya in June of 2009, the Obama administration did everything it could for the next six months to make sure that the coup succeeded. The "pressure from the international community" that Obama referred to in the above statement came from other countries, mainly the left-of-center governments in South America. The United States was on the other side, fighting – ultimately successfully – to legitimise the coup government through an "election" that the rest of the hemisphere refused to recognise.

In May of this year, Zelaya stated publicly what most of us who followed the events closely already guessed was true: that Washington was behind the coup and helped bring it about. While no one will likely bother to investigate the US role in the coup, this is quite plausible given the overwhelming circumstantial evidence.

Porfirio Lobo took office in January 2010, but most of the hemisphere refused to recognise the government because his election took place under conditions of serious human rights violations. In May 2011, an agreement was finally brokered in Cartegena, Colombia which allowed Honduras back into the Organisation of American States. But the Lobo government has not complied with its part of the Cartegena accords, which included human rights guarantees for the political opposition.

Here are two of the dozens of political killings that have occurred during Lobo's presidency, as compiled by the Chicago Religious Leadership Network on Latin America (CRLN):

"Pedro Salgado, vice-president of the Unified Campesino Movement of Aguán (MUCA), was shot then beheaded at about 8.00pm at his home in the La Concepción empresa cooperative. His spouse, Reina Irene Mejía, was also shot to death at the same time. Pedro suffered a murder attempt in December 2010 […] Salgado, like the presidents of all the cooperatives claiming rights to land used by African palm oil businessmen in the Aguán, had been subject to constant death threats since the beginning of 2011."

The courage of these activists and organisers in the face of such horrific violence and repression is amazing. Many of the killings over the past year have been in the Aguán Valley in the north-east, where small farmers are struggling for land rights against one of Honduras' richest landowners, Miguel Facussé. He is producing biofuels in this region on disputed land. He is close to the United States and was an important backer of the 2009 coup against Zelaya. His private security forces, together with US-backed military and police, are responsible for the political violence in the region. US aid to the Honduran military has increased since the coup.

Recent US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks show that US officials have been aware since 2004 that Facussé has also been trafficking large quantities of cocaine. Dana Frank, a professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz who is an expert on Honduras,summed it up for the Nation last month: "US 'drug war' funds and training, in other words, are being used to support a known drug trafficker's war against campesinos."

The US militarisation of the drug war in the region is also pushing Honduras down the disastrous path of Mexico, in a country that already has one of the highest murder rates in the world. The New York Times reports that 84% of cocaine that reaches the US now crosses through Central America, as compared to 23% in 2006, when Calderón took office in Mexico and launched his drug war. The Times also notes that "American officials say the 2009 coup kicked open the door to [drug] cartels" in Honduras.

When I voted for Barack Obama in 2008, I never thought that his legacy in Central America would be the return of death-squad government, of the kind that Ronald Regan so vigorously supported in the 1980s. But that seems to be the case for Honduras.

The Obama administration has so far ignored pressure from Democratic members of Congress to respect human rights in Honduras. These efforts will continue, but Honduras needs help from the South. It was South America that spearheaded the efforts to reverse the 2009 coup. Although Washington ultimately defeated them, they cannot abandon Honduras while people no different from their friends and supporters at home are being murdered by a US-backed government.



From: Z Net - The Spirit Of Resistance Lives
URL: http://www.zcommunications.org/honduras ... k-weisbrot

[StarmanSkye]

THIS (below) is what the 'triumph' of US-supported free-market democracy looks like in Honduras, where the whole community of Gregores (sp?) with 110 families in the Aguan Valley was suddenly, methodically & utterly destroyed by police officials and private security forces of the man who claimed to own the disputed property. It's been alleged the landholder had the community razed and the peasants violently evicted in preparation for selling the land to the wealthy politically-connected Palm Oil magnate Facuesa (sp?) who owns extensive plantation acreage that surrounds the community on three sides. Wealthy plantation owners in the Aguan Valley and elsewhere in Honduras strenuously resisted the popular land-reform movement which, along with a Constitutional Convention to rewrite laws reigning-in the excessive power and influence of the nation's entrenched political and economic elites, minimum-wage increases and social program expenditures, was actively promoted by since-deposed President Zelaya.

These popular initiatives that sought to redress Honduras' longstanding political and economic inequalities became the catalyst for the quasi-military coup on behalf of the institutional elites who saw their franchise on privelege and authority threatened by an engaged and organized citizenry attempting to democratize the greater public good.

Suggestations and allegations that the US was a silent partner providing encouragement, training, information/intel, tactics, funding and strategy to the coup-plotters and their elite supporters has since been verified by, among other sources, official US documents made available by Wikileaks (yet further evidence that contradicts, or at least confounds the belief of many skeptical truthseekers and peace & justice advocates that Wikileaks is a US spook psyops).

This recent action, razing a whole peasant community in such a high-handed & contemptuous manner by a coalition of private 'security' forces and Police on behalf of a wealthy landlord, is a continuation of 'business as usual' under the oligarchy-serving reign of good ol' boy President (sic) Lobo, characterized by serial human-rights abuses and brutal murders that quite boldly are being used to intimidate, threaten and terrify the largely-peasant activist-protesters who are STILL practicing peaceful mobilization and resistance against the very SAME forces of corporate-sponsored theft, political illegitimacy, subverted justice, technocratic treachery, anti-democratic betrayal, organized fraud, multi-national racketeering, criminal networking and globalized tyranny which the 'Arab Spring' and now the Occupy Wall Street protests are up-in-arms-over and standing tall, in solidarity, with linked-arms AGAINST.

Again, we see, its all connected.

The self-imposed Ruling Elites ie. the One Percenter landlord/banker/corporate/insider/technocrat cronies are imposing their version of indentured servitude on We the 99% Middle/Lower/Working classes, witholding a fair share of what we have worked for but which they increasingly own or 'manage', limiting means to ownership in and access to our own viable self-sufficient productive communities, diverting the benefit of our own produced surplus and depriving us of essential resources for our own survival so they can be adminstered and auctioned-off in centrally-managed exclusive markets that the elite financiers and ponzi-scheme bankers can leverage for a greater-and-greater share of the ever-shrinking 'pie' that they have left for WE the 99% to fight for the crumbs of.

What's wrong with this vision of what is desireable and necessary that our 'leaders' have told us is our shining LEGACY, their gift to us, the prize untold millions have sacrificed and died for, the best of all possible worlds?

Rather: WTF is RIGHT with it?
NADA!!!!

[StarmanSkye]

BTW, thanks AD for that very-well written Z-net article on the nitty-gritty details about how the US political & economic technocracy colluded in removing Zelaya. In the last several weeks I have often wondered how the Honduran struggle for Freedom, Justice & Human/Civil Rights has been going since the oligarchs retrenched their power under US protection & guidance.

While following reports re: the 'Arab Spring' and various recent OWS actions I reflected on the global aspect of protest that, like the Honduran peasants, were targetting the same 1% who are behind the tyranny, fraud, exploitation, violence, wars, crimes of opportunity and organized smuggling franchises that are victimizing WE the 99%, imposing servitude upon us and bringing-about a brutal, reactionary, neofeudal version of corporate fascism that is directly contrary to the ideals of democracy and rule-of-law.

One by-now not-unusual offshoot of the ruling-elite oligarchy and their military/Police enforcers in 3rd world nations solidifying influence and authority while quashing their political opposition and clamping-down on a Free Press, is that signs of an invigorated drugs-and-guns smuggling activity become noticeable -- as is the case in Honduras. The usual suspects and talking-head pundits who seized on every scrap of evidence no matter how outrageous, contrived, desperate or ludicrous to 'prove' that Zelaya's deposing was 'legal' and justified, missed no opportunity to claim that Zelaya, as an avowed 'leftist' who was friends with Venezuala's Chavez, was an Extremely Dangerous Fellow, undoubtedly planning to import Communism that would destroy America -- as well as an unrepentant drug-smuggling opportunist eagerly scheming to make addicts of America's youth (presumably that would be the 60% who have so-far resisted the toxic allure incitement to become slaves to South America's most lucrative exports, ie. Cocaine, Weed and now, thanks to savvy drug-cartel entrepreneurs who were quick to see opportunity in increased market-share resulting from the diversion of 90% of the Middle East's Opium supply to feed the hungry conumers in Europe and Russia, domestic strains of Heroin).

It just goes to show how abysmally informed much of the US public is that the State Dept. and CIA propagandists channeling their crapola psyops thru the US mass media 'news' programs could expect even liberals to ignore Zelaya actually striving to enact the economic & democratic reforms a large segment of Honduran society desperately wanted, simply because they 'bought' the nonsense that Zelaya was a closet narco-thug.

[compared2what?]

MANUEL ZELAYA: [translated] The link that Ambassador Ford, who was the ambassador from the United States before Llorens, he said that I could not have a friendship with Hugo Chávez. He wanted me to give political [asylum] to Posada Carriles. He wanted to name who my ministers of my cabinet of my government should be. He wanted his recommendations to become ministers of my government.

AMY GOODMAN: Posada Carriles, he wanted him to be able to take refuge in Honduras, the man who was alleged to be the mastermind behind the Cubana bombing that killed scores of people?

^^ That -- as well as the Facusse/cocaine/SOA/Honduran post-coup leadership nexus -- certainly sheds an interesting light on what Jimmy Hughes has been doing in Honduras all these years, in view of his longstanding close ties to the military faction responsible for ousting Zelaya.***

I briefly referred to those once here, fwiw. But I later realized that he was even more closely linked to them through General Daniel Lopez Carballo (one of the SOA graduates who's said to have designed the coup) than he is through the guys I'd named. Anyway. Carballo is his buddy and his patron and a fellow member of the Full Gospel Business Men's Fellowship, International, etc., etc.

The more things have changed since the '80s, the more they've stayed the same, huh? It's very depressing. Tragic, even.
______________

*** "IMO," I should probably add. Because I'm really, really not trying to pick a fight with anyone who takes a different view of the matter. It's just that I found it interesting. So I'm sharing it. That's all.

Peace.

[Allegro]

.
c2w, I hit upon a pdf in which a couple of quick searches gleaned some names and associations I appreciate knowing about.

… Anyway. Carballo is his buddy and his patron and a fellow member of the Full Gospel Business Men's Fellowship, International, etc., etc.… [REFER.]

Thank You.
~ A.

[JackRiddler]

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/2/16/d ... rison_adds

February 16, 2012
Deadly Fire at Overcrowded Prison Adds to Worsening Toll in Post-Coup Honduras


More than 350 inmates were killed this week when a fire swept through an overcrowded prison in Honduras. It was the world’s deadliest prison fire in a century. Most of the prisoners who died had never been charged, let alone convicted. Honduras is plagued with judicial corruption, rampant drug trafficking, and the highest murder rate in the world, which critics say has worsened since the 2009 coup that overthrew Manuel Zelaya. We’re joined by Dana Frank, professor of history at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Honduras correspondent for The Nation magazine. "This was not a natural disaster," Frank says. "There were two previous prison fires like this in 2003 and 2004... There have been reports saying that this should have been cleaned up long ago." [includes rush transcript]
Filed under Honduras

Guest:
Dana Frank, professor of history at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Honduras correspondent for The Nation magazine.
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Rush Transcript
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Related Links
"In Honduras, a Mess Made in the U.S." By Dana Frank (New York Times, Jan. 27, 2012)
Read Dana Frank in The Nation Magazine
"Honduras in Flames." By Dana Frank (The Nation, Feb. 16, 2012)

JUAN GONZALEZ: We turn now to Honduras, where a fire swept through an overcrowded prison Tuesday night and killed more than 350 inmates. It’s the world’s deadliest prison fire in a century. According to the Associated Press, most of the inmates who died had never been charged, let alone convicted. More than half were either awaiting trial or being held as suspected gang members.

A local official says an inmate called her moments before the fire and told her he was going to set the facility on fire and kill everyone inside. Many of the prisoners burned to death in their cells. Red Cross volunteer José Manuel Gómez described the scene.

JOSÉ MANUEL GÓMEZ: [translated] It’s a traumatic and horrible. We saw a completely charred body, and we are placing them into bags in parts, because when we grab them, they disintegrate. It’s shocking.

JUAN GONZALEZ: More than a third of the inmates held in the Comayagua prison died. As news of the fire spread, hundreds of relatives rushed the gates outside the burned-out prison, demanding updates about the fate of their loved ones. Meanwhile, Honduran President Porfirio Lobo announced measures to help the families of the victims.

PRESIDENT PORFIRIO LOBO: [translated] Members of the army are installing tents for the mourning families and relatives so they can grieve, like we are doing in the capital, also so they can receive medical attention and food. Furthermore, there will be a revision of the conditions in all jails to see how we can improve.

AMY GOODMAN: Honduran prisons are plagued with overcrowding, due in part to drug trafficking arrests. The United Nations says Honduras also has the highest murder rate in the world. All this comes as the country recovers from a 2009 coup.

For more, we’re joined by Dana Frank, professor of history at University of California, Santa Cruz, and Honduras correspondent for The Nation magazine. Her most recent piece appears in the New York Times; it’s called "In Honduras, a Mess Made in the U.S."

What happened here? What do you understand, Professor Frank?

DANA FRANK: Well, let’s be clear right off: this was not a natural disaster. There were two previous prison fires like this in 2003 and 2004, when people died because the police either deliberately set the fire to kill gang—alleged gang members or because they allowed it to happen because of overcrowding. There have been reports saying that this should have been cleaned up long ago, and it’s just gotten worse and worse.

The other thing to understand is, when the fire broke out, the prisoners were locked down. There are many, many, now, testimonies from prisoners who managed to survive, saying that the police—the police, they’re guards. And I want to understand that these—underscore that these are regular police that manage the prisons; they’re not prison guards in a separate system. The prisoners that escaped are saying—or that survived, are saying that the police threw away the keys, they laughed at them, they refused to open the cells. And one prisoner is saying that they shot at the prisoners. And when the prison—and so, these people died because they died in their cells screaming, trying to get out, locked down in their cells. And human rights advocates are underscoring that penitentiary officials have a sacred duty to protect the lives of those inside.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And Dana Frank, there were some reports that firefighters were delayed in being able to get to the fire to put it out?

DANA FRANK: Absolutely. The police wouldn’t let the firefighters into the prison for 30 minutes. They also tear-gassed and fired at family members who were rushing to the prison to try to figure out what was happening. And there were also the firefighters 15 minutes away at the U.S. Air Force base, at Soto Cano, that were also not there.

AMY GOODMAN: Hundreds of prisoners killed. Can you talk about the relationship between the Honduran government and the United States and where you think that weighs in here?

DANA FRANK: Well, you know, but this is the ongoing coup regime. It’s really important to not act like the coup that happened on June 28th, 2009, is somehow over. The same people are controlling the Honduran government. Pepe Lobo has appointed, for example, Daniel Orellana, the head of the prisons, was one of the—the chief of the police at the time of the coup.

And all of this is being supported by the Obama government. You know, the Obama administration has, in fact, just in its budget two days ago, asked for a doubling of the U.S. military aid to Honduras. They’ve just spent $50 million to expand Soto Cano Air Force Base, as this—knowing full well about the total corruption of the ongoing Lobo government. And this is a really—a tremendously outrageous thing that the Obama administration is doing, and people need to be paying more attention to this.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And Dana Frank, the impact of the spreading U.S. war on drugs on—especially on Central America, as thousands of inmates from U.S. prisons are released from prison, deported down there, the growth of crime and drugs, and then the government crackdowns on drugs in those countries?

DANA FRANK: Well, you know, human rights defenders in Honduras will be the first to say that the drug problem is very serious, and it’s growing. They would also be the first to say that it’s mushroomed since the coup, in this context on complete impunity. There’s no functioning judicial system. And it’s important to understand that the Lobo government is completely in bed with the drug traffickers. So you can’t say here’s the government helping clean up the drug traffickers, and here’s the drug traffickers; it’s all corrupt from top to bottom. And the Honduran police and judicial systems are especially—are especially corrupt.

The problem is, there’s been a lot of spin saying, "Well, we have to spend even more money on the Honduran military and police in order to fight drugs." And that’s just throwing money at the same problem, because you can’t make a distinction between the Lobo government and its police and the drug trafficking. And this is the issue all over Central America, this militarization in the name of fighting drugs, which is not what the Honduran human rights people, it’s not what the Honduran opposition is calling for. They are the first to suffer from the drug issues. But they say that this corrupt government, very highly backed and increasingly backed by the Lobo administration in the United—excuse me, the Obama administration in the United States, is the problem here. And so, it’s really important to not let this spin to the right to increase militarization of Central America in the name of fighting drugs or cleaning this up.

AMY GOODMAN: Dana Frank, the piece you wrote in the New York Times called "In Honduras, a Mess Made in the U.S.," you got a lot of flak for that.

DANA FRANK: Well, you know, you know that you’ve hit a button when the State Department marshals two ambassadors to attack you, both the current Honduran ambassador to the United States, whose statement is, you can—word for word right out of State Department press releases, and they also rounded up a former Honduran ambassador—U.S. ambassador to Honduras. Those articles were placed in Honduran newspapers, deliberately attacking me. And, you know, it’s obviously a very serious pushback, because it’s very threatening for someone to actually make it in the New York Times, believe it or not, saying that there was a coup, saying that the U.S. backed the coup, saying that the election that put Lobo into office was fraudulent, and saying that there’s ongoing state-sponsored repression in Honduras, all of it funded and backed by the United States.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you think should happen now? We only have 30 seconds. But what do you think, as a U.S. citizen, your own government should be doing in relation to Honduras?

DANA FRANK: Well, we need to be immediately suspending the U.S. police and military aid to Honduras. And listeners need to be calling their Congress members and senators immediately, right now, and say, "Suspend the U.S. police and military aid to Honduras." This is what the human rights defenders are asking for, very clearly.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, we want to thank you very much for being with us.

DANA FRANK: Thanks so much for having me.

AMY GOODMAN: Dana Frank, professor of history at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Honduras correspondent for The Nation. Her latest piece is in the New York Times, called "In Honduras, a Mess Made in the U.S."

[geogeo]

Dana gets it right! SOMEONE gets it. The MSM have been studiously avoiding connecting the dots of illegal regime, death squads, prisons burned down with gang members inside, narcos, coup and aftermath, etc., etc. Maybe this message will begin to filter out. Because if it does not, and this piece of shit country (US) we live in continues to deny responsibility, Honduras WILL collapse, as will El Salvador and Nicaragua. Having Somalia/Afghanistan on 'our' doorstep should be a lot scarier than the fear of the 'commies', as you will have more and more people trying to get out, and going through Mexico, ongoing destabilization there, etc.

Of course, perhaps that is what the psychos who run our foreign policy want. They have already made it possible to turn over essential functions of government in Central America to the Zetas.

[hanshan]

...

MANUEL ZELAYA: [translated] The link that Ambassador Ford, who was the ambassador from the United States before Llorens, he said that I could not have a friendship with Hugo Chávez. He wanted me to give political [asylum] to Posada Carriles. He wanted to name who my ministers of my cabinet of my government should be. He wanted his recommendations to become ministers of my government.

AMY GOODMAN: Posada Carriles, he wanted him to be able to take refuge in Honduras, the man who was alleged to be the mastermind behind the Cubana bombing that killed scores of people?

^^ That -- as well as the Facusse/cocaine/SOA/Honduran post-coup leadership nexus -- certainly sheds an interesting light on what Jimmy Hughes has been doing in Honduras all these years, in view of his longstanding close ties to the military faction responsible for ousting Zelaya.***

I briefly referred to those once here, fwiw. But I later realized that he was even more closely linked to them through General Daniel Lopez Carballo (one of the SOA graduates who's said to have designed the coup) than he is through the guys I'd named. Anyway. Carballo is his buddy and his patron and a fellow member of the Full Gospel Business Men's Fellowship, International, etc., etc.

The more things have changed since the '80s, the more they've stayed the same, huh? It's very depressing. Tragic, even.
______________

*** "IMO," I should probably add. Because I'm really, really not trying to pick a fight with anyone who takes a different view of the matter. It's just that I found it interesting. So I'm sharing it. That's all.

Peace.

Concur - & tx


...