This is from a post BitterLittleFlower just made in [link:www.progressiveindependent.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=97790&mesg_id=97800|another thread]

Just to be clear, fact, Zelaya isn't even a Leftist. The platform he ran on, his promise to the people is that he'd oppose the IMF restructuring programme that was forced on Honduras.

To put this in a little perspective, Honduras the center of CIA operations in Central America. Its geographical position, right smack bordering El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua, make it another one of those national security concerns to protect our "way of life".

The USAID budget for Honduras was $37 million for fiscal year 2007.




[div class=excerpt style=background:#FEFEFF]
Apparent coup in Honduras: President tells of his 'brutal kidnapping'


http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2009-06/47757898.jpg
President Manuel Zelaya is one of a new crop of leftist presidents who have been elected in recent years in Latin America.

Manuel Zelaya says he was snatched from his bedroom and flown to Costa Rica. The action by Honduras' army follows Zelaya's firing of the top military commander.

By Tracy Wilkinson and Alex Renderos
9:17 AM PDT, June 28, 2009

Reporting from Mexico City and San Salvador -- Honduran army troops seized President Manuel Zelaya early today and sent the leftist president into exile in an apparent coup, reports from the Central American country said.

Troops moved through the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa, and surrounded the presidential palace and other government buildings. The state television network was off the air as hundreds of angry Honduran citizens poured into the streets and shouted support for Zelaya. "The fact is, this is a coup d'etat and the president of Honduras has been kidnapped and beaten up," Honduras' ambassador to the Organization of American States, Carlos Sosa Coello, told CNN's Spanish-language network.

"This has been a brutal kidnapping," Zelaya told reporters in the Costa Rican capital of San Jose. He said he was rousted from his bed by masked army officers who shouted, fired warning shots and pointed a gun to his chest and head. Still in his pajamas, he said, he was hauled away to an aircraft, in which he was flown to Costa Rica.

Zelaya declared that he remained the president of Honduras and called on international support to "defend democracy."

The military action followed days of unrest ahead of a referendum over constitutional reforms scheduled for today. The vote was to ask Hondurans whether they wanted another referendum to change the constitution in a number of ways, including allowing re-election of the president.

Army leaders opposed the vote, which they, Congress and election officials said was illegal. In response, Zelaya last week fired the top military commander and then ignored a Supreme Court order to reinstate him.

President Obama, in a statement issued by the White House, said he was "deeply concerned" about the developments.

"As the Organization of American States did on Friday, I call on all political and social actors in Honduras to respect democratic norms, the rule of law and the tenets of the Inter-American Democratic Charter," the president said. "Any existing tensions and disputes must be resolved peacefully through dialogue free from any outside interference."

Honduran Foreign Minister Patricia Rodas called on the public to support the missing president. "We will fight in the streets for the president to return to Honduras," she said. "We will resist until he returns."

"This has been a brutal kidnapping," Zelaya told reporters in the Costa Rican capital of San Jose. He said he was rousted from his bed by masked army officers who shouted, fired warning shots and pointed a gun to his chest and head. Still in his pajamas, he said, he was hauled away to an aircraft, in which he was flown to Costa Rica.

Zelaya declared that he remained the president of Honduras and called on international support to "defend democracy".

Janina del Veccio, minister of security for Costa Rica, confirmed that Zelaya was in her country. She told CNN that the president said he had been kidnapped from his bedroom and bundled into an aircraft, in which he was flown to Costa Rica.

Xiomara de Zelaya, the president's wife, told a television network that soldiers fired shots as they swept into the presidential residence before dawn. "They beat him and took him away," she said, adding that the rest of the family was scattered but unharmed.

Latin America had been the site of a series of army takeovers in the '60s and '70s but had since moved solidly into civilian democratic rule. Zelaya is one of a new crop of leftist presidents who have been elected in recent years in Latin America.

Another of them, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, said today, referring to the coup: "This is a troglodyte act of the 19th century."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-honduras-coup29-2009jun29,0,2480224.story


Joe Lieberman where are you? Here's a real call to "defend democracy" for you.

[div class=excerpt style=background:#FEFEFF] Venezuela Threatens Attack On Honduras
8:59pm UK, Sunday June 28, 2009

Venezuela's president Hugo Chavez has threatened military action against Honduras after the country's president was overthrown.

http://news.sky.com/sky-news/content/StaticFile/jpg/2009/Jun/Week4/15322093.jpg
Honduran soldiers on the streets of the capital after President Zelaya was deposed


Honduras' supreme court claims it told the army to oust President Manual Zelaya after his attempt to hold a referendum on his re-election.

And the country's congress has voted to accept what it claims is a letter of resignation from the president.

Congressional Secretary Jose Alfredo Saavedra has read a letter read purportedly signed by Zelaya and dated Friday.

In a show of hands, a majority of the members of congress voted to approve the resignation.

But Zelaya told CNN the resignation was "totally false," and said he is still president.

During the coup the ambassadors of Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba were taken hostage.


Chavez says he's ready for attack

President Chavez said Honduran soldiers left the Venezuelan ambassador on the side of a road after beating him.

Speaking on state television, President Chavez said he would do everything necessary to "abort" the coup.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Sunday has also condemned the action. :eyes:

"We call on all parties in Honduras to respect the constitutional order and the rule of law, to reaffirm their democratic vocation, and to commit themselves to resolve political disputes peacefully and through dialogue," she said in a statement.

President Zelaya was arrested at his home by around a dozen soldiers and taken to a military base on the outskirts of the capital, Tegucigalpa.

Mr Zelaya said soldiers rousted him out of bed, beat his bodyguards and arrested him in his pyjamas.

He was then flown to Costa Rica from where he condemned his ousting from power.

Mr Zelaya said he was a "victim of kidnapping" and a "coup d'etat," part of a plot by members of the military to remove him from power".

http://news.sky.com/sky-news/content/StaticFile/jpg/2009/Jun/Week4/15322204.jpg
President Zelaya calls his family

He said he would not recognise any replacement, asked his compatriots to peacefully resist and said the United States should demand his government be reinstated.

President Barack Obama said he was "deeply concerned", :eyes: while Czech Foreign Minister Jan Kohout, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, called for "a swift return to constitutional normality."

A neighbor told Honduran television that about 200 troops arrive at Zelaya's home in a dawn swoop.

Shortly after, tanks rolled through the streets and Army trucks carrying hundreds of soldiers equipped with metal riot shields surrounded the presidential palace in downtown Tegucigalpa.

Pro-Zelaya protesters yelled insults at the soldiers while more troops could be seen surrounding the palace.

Tear gas was also fired by police as hundreds of supporters gathered in the centre of the capital.

Mr Zelaya was elected in 2006 for a non-renewable four-year term but planned a vote asking Hondurans to sanction a future referendum to allow him to run for re-election.

He was opposed by the country's Supreme Court, the military, Congress and members of his own party, the Liberal Party of Honduras.

Last week he sacked the country's top military chief, General Romeo Vasquez, and also accepted the resignation of Defense Minister Edmundo Orellana after military commanders refused to distribute ballot boxes for Sunday's vote.

But in defiance of the president the Honduran Supreme Court unanimously voted to reinstate General Vasquez.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Honduras-President-Manuel-Zelaya-Deposed-In-Coup-Venezuela-Threatens-Military-Attack/Article/200906415321924?lpos=World_News_Top_Stories_Header_0&lid=ARTICLE_15321924_Honduras_President_Manuel_Zelaya_Deposed_In_Coup%3A_Venezuela_Threatens_Military_Attack
[/quote]

http://msnbcmedia3.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photos/040229/040229_aristide_profile_hmed6a.hmedium.jpg

http://www.drxyzzy.org/image/trwnbt.jpg

I love and admire Peace Patriot and JudiLynn's knowledge about South America...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3942632#3942981

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3942961#3943089

Oscar Arias also condemned the RW coup. Is he a "big attention whore"?

Before the day is out, virtually everyone will have condemned this coup, except the U.S., which has merely expressed "concern." (I hope Obama does better than that!) The coupsters have kidnapped the Venezuelan, Nicaraguan and Cuban ambassodors in Honduras. The OAS will act. They have already passed a resolution in support of President Zelaya.

Chavez often says things that the other Latin American leaders are thinking, but are more reluctant to say publicly. He is a good barometer of sentiment about the U.S. among most of Latin America's leaders. For instance, when the Bushwhacks tried to topple Evo Morales this last September--funding fascist murderers right out of the U.S. embassy--Chavez was quick to condemn it publicly, and, indeed, that's when he kicked the U.S. ambassador out of Venezuela and recalled the Venezuelan ambassador from Washington. But all of Latin America's leaders were involved in backing Evo Morales. Michele Batchelet--who was especially active in stopping the coup in Bolivia--later told the following joke to a group of investors in the U.S.: "Why has there never been a coup in the United States?" Her answer: "Because there is no U.S. embassy in the United States!"

The other leaders knew very well what was going on in Bolivia, and who was behind it. Chavez said it openly and reacted immediately. Batchelet worked more behind the scenes (but highly effectively). Her joke reveals her thinking.

Similarly, when Chavez called Bush "the Devil" at the UN, and Rafael Correa (then running for president of Ecuador) was asked what he thought of that remark, he replied, "It's an insult to the Devil!" I'm sure he got roars across Latin America. He was running neck and neck with Ecuador's richest banana magnate, and this remark apparently pushed Correa way ahead in the polls. (He won with over 60% of the vote.)

Chavez may be an "attention whore"--or just an honest man who says what he thinks, let the chips fall where they may. Hard to be sure, not knowing him personally. (I tend toward the latter view. And, what politician is NOT an "attention whore"?) But that's neither here nor there. What is important to know is that Chavez is seldom wrong, when he speaks of the U.S., and he most certainly reflects the popular view in Latin America--and often the views of other leaders.

So, what most of them are thinking now is: The U.S. has done it again. Desperate to retain some base of toadying support for the Empire, they have picked on one of our weaker new leaders and ousted him, via bribes and promises to the military and the fascist party, and covert agents.

Latin American leaders have good reason to believe this--it has happened so many times before. Obama will need to get active to distance himself from this coup, if he wishes to retain good will in Latin America. Whether he knew about it or not, it occurred on his watch--and it is not yet remedied. It will likely become the litmus test of his sincerity in speaking about a new era of cooperation and respect. I think his hands are tied in many ways, but I do hope that better Latin American/U.S. relations survive this event, whatever the U.S. involvement was. There are many unknowns. I hope that the Honduran military and rightwing acted without U.S. support, and are quickly deposed, and Zelaya restored to his rightful office. But I can't say that I have much hope that that is the case, and how it will turn out. The united leadership of Latin America may act to end the coup, as they did very successfully in Bolivia. But the Bushwhacks were nearly out of office when that occurred. This may be different--more difficult to resolve--with so much at risk re future relations with the U.S. (Venezuela and the U.S. restored diplomatic relations just this week. Think there are forces within our "war on drugs" and corpo/fascist establishment that want to foul that up? You bet there are!)


Peace Patriot Sun Jun-28-09 03:24 PM

Response to Original message
14. A "referendum that would have allowed for his re-election." That is NOT true!

The referendum was an advisory vote on whether or not to convene assemblies to discuss re-writing the Constitution (which was written during the Reagan era)--a process that has occurred in a long term and orderly fashion in several other Latin American countries over the last decade, most recently in Ecuador and Bolivia, to the great benefit and increased civil rights of most people.

The referendum had NOTHING TO DO WITH PRESIDENTIAL TERM LIMITS!

For more recent news and better commentary, see...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

Yes, Zelaya was kidnapped by the rightwing Honduran military--dragged out of his house in the middle of the night, beaten and flown against his will to Costa Rica. Someone else was appointed president, and there are reports of the media and all electricity being shut down in Honduras. It is a rightwing coup. What Zelaya had done was merely to promote this advisory vote on a Constitutional process. The vote had no force of law. But it would likely have indicated a high level of discontentment among Honduras' vast poor majority. The reaction of the rightwing elite has been violence and repression. Oscar Arias, president of Costa Rica, just issued a statement condemning the coup. And Zelaya, in a statement from Costa Rica, has asked for calm and non-violence in public response.

http://www.southernstudies.org/2009/06/key-leaders-of-honduras-military-coup-trained-in-us.html



A human rights group is reporting that the general leading the military coup that launched in Honduras today is being led by a general trained at a controversial U.S. Army school based in Fort Benning, Georgia.

According to news sources, leftist President Manuel Zelaya was kidnapped and transported to Costa Rica this morning after a growing controversy over a vote concerning term limits. Over the last week, Zelaya clashed with and eventually dismissed General Romeo Vasquez -- who is now reportedly in charge of the armed forces that abducted the Honduran president.

According to the watchdog group School of Americas Watch, Gen. Vasquez trained at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation at least twice -- in 1976 and 1984 -- when it was still called School of Americas.

The Georgia-based U.S. military school is infamous for training over 60,000 Latin American soldiers, including infamous dictators, "death squad" leaders and others charged with torture and other human rights abuses. SOA Watch's annual protest to shut down the Fort Benning training site draws thousands.

According to SOA Watch, the U.S. Army school has a particularly checkered record in Honduras, with over 50 graduates who have been intimately involved in human rights abuses. In 1975, SOA Graduate General Juan Melgar Castro became the military dictator of Honduras. From 1980-1982 the dictatorial Honduran regime was headed by yet another SOA graduate, Policarpo Paz Garcia, who intensified repression and murder by Battalion 3-16, one of the most feared death squads in all of Latin America (founded by Honduran SOA graduates with the help of Argentine SOA graduates).

General Vasquez isn't the only leader in the Honduras coup linked to the U.S. training facility. As Kristin Bricker points out:

The head of the Air Force, Gen. Luis Javier Prince Suazo, studied in the School of the Americas in 1996. The Air Force has been a central protagonist in the Honduran crisis. When the military refused to distribute the ballot boxes for the opinion poll, the ballot boxes were stored on an Air Force base until citizens accompanied by Zelaya rescued them. Zelaya reports that after soldiers kidnapped him, they took him to an Air Force base, where he was put on a plane and sent to Costa Rica.

For previous Facing South coverage of controversy surrounding the School of Americas/Western Hemisphere Center, see here.

[div class=excerpt style=background:#FEFEFF]Coup d'État in Hondura

Obama's First Coup d'État

(Note: As of 11:15am, Caracas time, President Zelaya is speaking live on Telesur from San Jose, Costa Rica. He has verified the soldiers entered his residence in the early morning hours, firing guns and threatening to kill him and his family if he resisted the coup. He was forced to go with the soldiers who took him to the air base and flew him to Costa Rica. He has requested the U.S. Government make a public statement condemning the coup, otherwise, it will indicate their compliance.)

Caracas, Venezuela - The text message that beeped on my cell phone this morning read “Alert, Zelaya has been kidnapped, coup d’etat underway in Honduras, spread the word.” It’s a rude awakening for a Sunday morning, especially for the millions of Hondurans that were preparing to exercise their sacred right to vote today for the first time on a consultative referendum concerning the future convening of a constitutional assembly to reform the constitution. Supposedly at the center of the controversary is today’s scheduled referendum, which is not a binding vote but merely an opinion poll to determine whether or not a majority of Hondurans desire to eventually enter into a process to modify their constitution.

Such an initiative has never taken place in the Central American nation, which has a very limited constitution that allows minimal participation by the people of Honduras in their political processes. The current constitution, written in 1982 during the height of the Reagan Administration’s dirty war in Central America, was designed to ensure those in power, both economic and political, would retain it with little interference from the people. Zelaya, elected in November 2005 on the platform of Honduras’ Liberal Party, had proposed the opinion poll be conducted to determine if a majority of citizens agreed that constitutional reform was necessary. He was backed by a majority of labor unions and social movements in the country. If the poll had occured, depending on the results, a referendum would have been conducted during the upcoming elections in November to vote on convening a constitutional assembly. Nevertheless, today’s scheduled poll was not binding by law.

In fact, several days before the poll was to occur, Honduras’ Supreme Court ruled it illegal, upon request by the Congress, both of which are led by anti-Zelaya majorities and members of the ultra-conservative party, National Party of Honduras (PNH). This move led to massive protests in the streets in favor of President Zelaya. On June 24, the president fired the head of the high military command, General Romeo Vásquez, after he refused to allow the military to distribute the electoral material for Sunday’s elections. General Romeo Vásquez held the material under tight military control, refusing to release it even to the president’s followers, stating that the scheduled referendum had been determined illegal by the Supreme Court and therefore he could not comply with the president’s order. As in the Unted States, the president of Honduras is Commander in Chief and has the final say on the military’s actions, and so he ordered the General’s removal. The Minister of Defense, Angel Edmundo Orellana, also resigned in response to this increasingly tense situation.

But the following day, Honduras’ Supreme Court reinstated General Romeo Vásquez to the high military command, ruling his firing as “unconstitutional’. Thousands poured into the streets of Honduras’ capital, Tegucigalpa, showing support for President Zelaya and evidencing their determination to ensure Sunday’s non-binding referendum would take place. On Friday, the president and a group of hundreds of supporters, marched to the nearby air base to collect the electoral material that had been previously held by the military. That evening, Zelaya gave a national press conference along with a group of politicians from different political parties and social movements, calling for unity and peace in the country.

As of Saturday, the situation in Honduras was reported as calm. But early Sunday morning, a group of approximately 60 armed soldiers entered the presidential residence and took Zelaya hostage. After several hours of confusion, reports surfaced claiming the president had been taken to a nearby air force base and flown to neighboring Costa Rica. No images have been seen of the president so far and it is unknown whether or not his life is still endangered.

President Zelaya’s wife, Xiomara Castro de Zelaya, speaking live on Telesur at approximately 10:00am Caracas time, denounced that in early hours of Sunday morning, the soldiers stormed their residence, firing shots throughout the house, beating and then taking the president. “It was an act of cowardness”, said the first lady, referring to the illegal kidnapping occuring during a time when no one would know or react until it was all over. Casto de Zelaya also called for the “preservation” of her husband’s life, indicating that she herself is unaware of his whereabouts. She claimed their lives are all still in “serious danger” and made a call for the international community to denounce this illegal coup d’etat and to act rapidly to reinstate constitutional order in the country, which includes the rescue and return of the democratically elected Zelaya.

Presidents Evo Morales of Bolivia and Hugo Chávez of Venezuela have both made public statements on Sunday morning condeming the coup d’etat in Honduras and calling on the international community to react to ensure democracy is restored and the constitutional president is reinstated. Last Wednesday, June 24, an extraordinary meeting of the member nations of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), of which Honduras is a member, was convened in Venezuela to welcome Ecuador, Antigua & Barbados and St. Vincent to its ranks. During the meeting, which was attended by Honduras’ Foreign Minister, Patricia Rodas, a statement was read supporting President Zelaya and condenming any attempts to undermine his mandate and Honduras’ democratic processes.

Reports coming out of Honduras have informed that the public television channel, Canal 8, has been shut down by the coup forces. Just minutes ago, Telesur announced that the military in Honduras is shutting down all electricity throughout the country. Those television and radio stations still transmitting are not reporting the coup d’etat or the kidnapping of President Zelaya, according to Foreign Minister Patricia Rodas. “Telephones and electricity are being cut off”, confirmed Rodas just minutes ago via Telesur. “The media are showing cartoons and soap operas and are not informing the people of Honduras about what is happening”. The situation is eerily reminiscent of the April 2002 coup d’etat against President Chávez in Venezuela, when the media played a key role by first manipulating information to support the coup and then later blacking out all information when the people began protesting and eventually overcame and defeated the coup forces, rescuing Chávez (who had also been kidnapped by the military) and restoring constitutional order.

Honduras is a nation that has been the victim of dictatorships and [link:www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bal-negroponte1a,0,294534.story|massive U.S. intervention] during the past century, including several military invasions. The last major U.S. government intervention in Honduras occured during the 1980s, when the Reagain Administration funded death squads and paramilitaries to eliminate any potential “communist threats” in Central America. At the time, John Negroponte, was the U.S. Ambassador in Honduras and was responsible for directly funding and training Honduran death squads that were responsable for thousands of disappeared and assassinated throughout the region.

On Friday, the Organization of American States (OAS), convened a special meeting to discuss the crisis in Honduras, later issuing a statement condeming the threats to democracy and authorizing a convoy of representatives to travel to OAS to investigate further. Nevertheless, on Friday, Assistant Secretary of State of the United States, Phillip J. Crowley, refused to clarify the U.S. government’s position in reference to the potential coup against President Zelaya, and instead issued a more ambiguous statement that implied Washington’s support for the opposition to the Honduran president. While most other Latin American governments had clearly indicated their adamant condemnation of the coup plans underway in Honduras and their solid support for Honduras’ constitutionally elected president, Manual Zelaya, the U.S. spokesman stated the following, “We are concerned about the breakdown in the political dialogue among Honduran politicians over the proposed June 28 poll on constitutional reform. We urge all sides to seek a consensual democratic resolution in the current political impasse that adheres to the Honduran constitution and to Honduran laws consistent with the principles of the Inter-American Democratic Charter.”

As of 10:30am, Sunday morning, no further statements have been issued by the Washington concerning the military coup in Honduras. The Central American nation is highly dependent on the U.S. economy, which ensures one of its top sources of income, the monies sent from Hondurans working in the U.S. under the “temporary protected status” program that was implemented during Washington’s dirty war in the 1980s as a result of massive immigration to U.S. territory to escape the war zone. Another major source of funding in Honduras is USAID, providing over US$ 50 millon annually for “democracy promotion” programs, which generally supports NGOs and political parties favorable to U.S. interests, as has been the case in Venezuela, Bolivia and other nations in the region. The Pentagon also maintains a military base in Honduras in Soto Cano, equipped with approximately 500 troops and numerous air force combat planes and helicopters.

Foreign Minister Rodas has stated that she has repeatedly tried to make contact with the U.S. Ambassador in Honduras, Hugo Llorens, who has not responded to any of her calls thus far. The modus operandi of the coup makes clear that Washington is involved. Neither the Honduran military, which is majority trained by U.S. forces, nor the political and economic elite, would act to oust a democratically elected president without the backing and support of the U.S. government. President Zelaya has increasingly come under attack by the conservative forces in Honduras for his [link:www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Central_America/Honduras_Joining_ALBA.html|growing relationship with the ALBA countries], and particularly Venezuela and President Chávez. Many believe the coup has been executed as a method of ensuring Honduras does not continue to unify with the more leftist and socialist countries in Latin America.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Source: The author

Original article published on 28 June 2009

[link:www.tlaxcala.es/detail_auteurs.asp?lg=en&reference=173|About the author]

URL of this article on Tlaxcala: http://www.tlaxcala.es/pp.asp?reference=7962&lg=en
[/quote]

to keep the record straight.

I'm surprised this coup isn't being twitter but I'm probably speaking too soon.

Can I just take a wild stab that the anti-Castro & anti-Chavez people are out in force today?

What a surprise. Thanks for the clear confirmation.

World reaction: Honduran crisis
News that Honduran President Manuel Zelaya had been deposed by the army and forced out of the country drew strong condemnation from within Latin America and expressions of concern further abroad.


[div class=excerpt style=background:#FEFEFF]VENEZUELAN PRESIDENT HUGO CHAVEZ

If our embassy were attacked, for example, if our ambassador were kidnapped or beaten, well that military junta of a government that is there, even though it doesn't show its face, would be entering a state of war, a de facto state of war. We would have to act, even militarily, we are obligated to do so. I couldn't sit here with my arms crossed, knowing by phone that they are massacring my ambassador or entering the Venezuelan Embassy. No. I have put the armed forces of Venezuela on alert. [/quote]

[div class=excerpt style=background:#FEFEFF]BOLIVIAN PRESIDENT EVO MORALES

To allow people to participate and decide the future of their country through their vote, it is not possible that some groups ignore this, including the military. This is a discredit to the armed forces, who democratically participate in the decisions that the people of each country take. We no longer live under dictatorships. Those will continue to fail. What is currently happening in Honduras is an adventure of a group of the military who have assaulted democracy. Thus they will fail. [/quote]

[div class=excerpt style=background:#FEFEFF]ECUADOREAN FOREIGN MINISTRY

(Ecuador) will not recognise any government that is not that of President Manuel Zelaya. [/quote]

[div class=excerpt style=background:#FEFEFF]ARGENTINE PRESIDENT CRISTINA FERNANDEZ

I'm deeply worried about the situation in Honduras. It reminds us of the worst years in Latin America's history. We will demand that the OAS [Organization of American States] fully comply with the democratic charter that requires unconditional respect for democracy and, above all, the restoration of the Honduran president. I do not hesitate to call this a return to barbarity. All countries of the continent and the entire international community should demand the return of the democratically elected president.[/quote]

[div class=excerpt style=background:#FEFEFF]US SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON

The action taken against Honduran President Manuel Zelaya violates the precepts of the Inter-American Democratic Charter and thus should be condemned by all. We call on all parties in Honduras to respect the constitutional order and the rule of law, to reaffirm their democratic vocation and to commit themselves to resolve political disputes peacefully and through dialogue. [/quote]

[div class=excerpt style=background:#FEFEFF]SPANISH PRIME MINISTER JOSE LUIS RODRUIGEZ ZAPATERO (THROUGH HIS OFFICE)

The head of the government expressed his strongest condemnation for the illegal detention and expulsion of the constitutional president of the republic of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya. The solution to any dispute must always be found through dialogue and respect for democratic rules. There is not, neither can there ever be, a solution to the Honduran crisis outside the country's constitutional framework. [/quote]

[div class=excerpt style=background:#FEFEFF]EUROPEAN UNION STATEMENT

The EU strongly condemns the arrest of the constitutional president of the Republic of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, by the armed forces. This is an unacceptable violation of constitutional order in Honduras. The EU calls for the urgent release of President Zelaya and a swift return to constitutional normality. [/quote]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8123434.stm [/quote]

HAVANA, June 28 (PL). — Cuba today urged international organizations and Honduran public opinion to condemn the coup d’état taking place in that Central American country.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla called on the United Nations, the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), the Rio Group and the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS) to demand respect for constitutional guarantees in Honduras.

Cuba considers the coup d’état taking place in that country to be brutal and criminal, and demands the restoration to office of President Manuel Zelaya, and demands guaranteed protection of the life of Foreign Minister Patricia Rodas.

"I denounce the criminal and brutal character of this coup d’état," Rodríguez Parrilla said in a press conference.

The Cuban minister of foreign affairs also urged the Honduran armed forces to protect the life of their Foreign Minister, Patricia Rodas, whose whereabouts were unknown shortly after midday.

Rodas had been with the ambassadors of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua at about 10 a.m. local time in Honduras when Major Oceguera of the armed forces tried to convince her to leave Honduras, the Cuban foreign minister said.

However, a group of about 15 soldiers wearing ski masks broke into the place where they were and took the diplomats and the foreign minister to the Tegucigalpa air base, according to Juan Carlos Hernández, Cuban ambassador in Honduras, who spoke via telephone.

Hernández emphasized that they were pushed and beaten by the soldiers, who took away their cell phones.

Rodríguez, for his part, called on international public opinion, and the Honduran armed forces — especially its honorable and honest officers — to respect the life of Rodas.

The soldiers who kidnapped Rodas violated international law and the Vienna Convention, the Cuban foreign minister noted, and they acted in the manner of the most cruel and violent Latin American dictatorships of the past.

Likewise, he called for dignity and adhesion to freedom and the Constitution on the part of Honduran political parties and the Congress.

Translated by Granma International

Cite: http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2009/junio/domingo28/cubadeclaracion-i.html

[div class=excerpt style=background:#FEFEFF]
06:14am Calm.

06:28am Area around presidential residence militarized.

06:43am Official TV channel says president was detained by army.

07:08am No electricity.

07:10am Government chanel has beem removed from airways, as well as Channel 36, which is affiliated with the presidency.

07:24am Communications media recommends the population stay in the homes and remain calm.

07:26am Heavy military presence outside Presidential Residence.

07:45am Armed forces confirm the president was detained by order of the Honduran courts.

08:05am Army confiscates electoral materials to be used in today's election.

08:16am Honduran Secretary of State Patricia Rodas detained.

08:24am Emergency. Organization of American states calls an emergency meeting on Honduran crisis.

08:54am Militarized. Army mobilizes in Tegucigalpa streets. Government buildings under armed guard.

09:07am Protests. Tanks pass through blockades erected by protestors in some streets in the capital.

http://www.elheraldo.hn/ [/quote]

This is crazy. We're so desperate to keep a dying empire on life support that we're lashing out overwhere, making more enemies.

Logically, I can't even follow the reason. The US empire is very weak right now and in a precarious situation. These desperate measures will only weaken the US further. What are the boys in DC even thinking?

[div class=excerpt style=background:#FEFEFF]Honduras Coffee Producers Say They Are 'Very Concerned' On Coup

JUNE 28, 2009, 5:11 P.M. ET

DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

Honduran coffee producers on Sunday expressed shock over a military coup in the normally peaceful Central American country and said they were deeply concerned over what the political and economic impact would be.

"The situation here has been getting worse and worse in these last few weeks and we are very concerned about what will happen," an official from the Honduran Coffee Institute, or Ihcafe, told Dow Jones Newsiwres by telephone from the capital Tegucigalpa.

Honduran military stormed the residence of President Manuel Zelaya just hours before a disputed constitutional referendum and Zelaya was subsecuently forced into excile in Costa Rica, where he was reported to be save.

Concern had been growing both in Honduras and abroad in recent days that Honduras democracy could be threatened by the vote, a referendum ruled illegal by the country's supreme court and objected by most members of Congress including a majority of members of Zelaya's own party.

Eyewitnesses in Tegucigalpa said telephone networks were congested and hard to get through, state television was suspended and electricity was reported to be out in parts of the capital while military was guarding government buildings.

"It's very difficult to get through to any telephones and even if many of us were opposed to this referendum, we are really worried about what will happen," said another coffee industry official.

Honduras is one of Latin America's five largest producers of top-quality mild washed arabica beans. Coffee production from the current 2008-09 harvest through June 15 was down 1.5% to 2,907,587 60-kilogram bags, Ihcafe said last week.

-By Maja Wallengren, Dow Jones Newswires; mwallengren@hotmail.com

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20090628-702952.html[/quote]

Obama.

and too busy trolling that "concern" to condemn a coup we backed.

Any minute now Bill Clinton is going to teach him how to wag his finger in our face.


[div class=excerpt style=background:#FEFEFF]
At an emergency session of the OAS taking place at this moment, the Honduran representative Carlos Sosa compared the coup to Chile in 1973, noted that Zelaya has not requested asylum in Costa Rica as reported by some press, and called for immediate condemnation of the coup. He invoked Art. 20 and 21 of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, noting, 'We can no longer continue to use the diplomatic language we used last Friday. Honduras requests to solidarity of all of you in an emphatic condemnation of this coup d'etat.' He noted that the government has received statements of solidarity from all the countries and in contrast with the past no government has participated in the coup.

The Gorillas Have Escaped from their Cage

The Venezuela representative stated, 'I wonder if we wasted time last Friday, debating if this were a coup or a problem of separation of powers... I think we failed, we did not issue a strong enough condemnation, we did not include the name of President Zelaya although we had reason to do so. Why didn't we pronounce as energetically as we will now do today?'

'Today, someone opened the gorilla's cage and slapped the OAS in the face, with its moderate pronouncement, terribly moderate. We said it was a coup then... I hope we issue a strong condemnation and a pronouncement in favor of the consultation. This has implications for the entire continent.' He mentioned that the organization has remained on the sidelines in other cases--Guatemala, Chile-- and cannot do so now, that history is being repeated.

He went on to accuse former Bush Under-Secretary of State Otto Reich of complicity in the coup: 'We have information that worries us. These is a person who has been important in the diplomacy of the U.S. who has reconnected with old colleagues and encouraged the coup: Otto Reich, ex sub-Secretary of State under Bush. We know him as an interventionist person... In 2002 he tried to deny the constitutional position of Pres. Hugo Chavez in this body. (reference to 2002 Venezuela coup attempt). Mentioning episodes of the dark history of Reich in the heisphere, he concludes, 'We suffered the First Reich, the Second Reich, and now we are suffering the Third Reich.' He said Reich is operating under an NGO.

Nicaragua: 'We recognize the legitimate government of Manuel Zelaya... We are witnessing an international crime in Honduras. We energetically condemn these acts of barbarity. The OAS is obliged to energetically condemn these acts immediately. It should demand the immediate reinstatement of President Zelaya... demand the resestablishment of democracy for the people that are only asking to exercise... their sovereign rights.'

There are reports that the ambassadors of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua and the Foreign Minister of Honduras, Patricia Rodas, who just weeks ago presided over one of the finest moments of the OAS when Cuba was re-admittted, are held captive. What a difference those weeks have made. This talented diplomat, who could not control her joy at the consensus achieved in the previous session, is now in the hands of military thugs.

(snip)

Guatemala: We will not recognize any other government in Honduras that has not been duly elected... We hope that the Honduran citizenry will face this risk that has come true... Central America has paid a high cost in blood and pain to build a democratic life. As Central Americans, we must learn to live under the law...with respect for institutions and the institutions must be the first to recognize this.'

United States: 'The concerns we raised on Friday over the political situation and the most recent events that have put in jeopardy the rule of law are worrisome. (Reads Obama statement-below).


More from the OAS session: (translated and paraphrased on the spot to the best of my abilities)

'This is a blow not to Honduras but to democracy in all of Latin American and a blow the the Inter-American Charter. This is a reality-- a reality that this body should condemn as unacceptable. This is an emergency, so we appreciate that the Sec. General (SG) is traveling tomorrow to Honduras. We call for the immediate return to democratic institutions, to convoke an extraordinary session of the General Assembly (GA), to defend institutions in Honduras. This is an act of brute force that disrupts democracy in a neighboring country. The Inter-American Charter (does not include force) but it gives us an arsenal of moral arms sufficient to restore democracy in Honduras."

Antigua and Barbuda: 'We are a family, the attack on the rule of law in Honduras is antithetical to the OAS... We call for the immediate restitution to power of the legitimate leader of our sister state.'

Jamaica: 'I am pleased to see that within 12 hours of announcement of the coup we have been able to gather here to address this attack on the very principles that brought us together. We call for... the repudiation of the coup, restitution of President Manuel Zelaya, and third, (reading from Argentine statement) armed forces must abandon the coup and the military must return to its barracks and allow civil rule to be reestablished. There is a difference among members special security session, foreign ministers meeting or General Assembly. The SG will determine if all or one of the three is accepted. We must issue a resolution that includes respect for the diplomatic agreements that Honduras is party to, (the charters, etc.) and includes condemnation of any violations of human rights to its own citizens or diplomatic persons in Honduras. The OAS must unanimously support the Sec. General and note that he is empowered to act in his best interest. Agreed he should go to Honduras, but he must assess the security situation to ensure his safety so we don't add another problem.

Peru: Reports that Costa Rica has said President Zelaya is safe and that his presence is temporary. He has met with President Arias who has condemned the coup and called for a return to the rule of law.

Haiti: (not a language i can blog)

Bolivia: Energetically condemns the military coup. We support the legitimate government of Honduras led by Manuel Zelaya and urge all diplomatic measures for his reinstatement.

Belize: Ready to work with the OAS to undertake any actions necessary including a meeting of foreign ministers to restore President Zelaya to office.

Barbados: Calls for reinstatement of the democratically elected government of President Jose Manuel Zelaya. Will work with all other members of the OAS to right this abhorrent wrong.

Brazil: (Reads proclamation of Brazilian government): Condemns the coup against Pres. Zelaya. Military acts of this type erode democracy and cannot be accepted. Calls for a return to democratic institutionality. We stand with the Honduran people. Pres. Lula will contact other heads of state and Minister Amorim will contact foreign ministers. Asks OAS to remain vigilant and active until Pres. Zelaya has returned to office.

Venezuela: Regarding Argentina and issuing an ultimatum: We must say we do not negotiate with coup leaders. The only legitimate leader is President Zelaya so we must be careful... The best response is to stand with Pres. Jose Manuel Zelaya Rosales-with his full name-- not the Honduran government, or any other less specific term. Declare ourselves in permanent session until Zelaya is restored to power in Honduran territory.

Nicaragua: Seconds proposal to declare the OAS in permanent session and not authorize talks of any type with coup leaders or supporters. We must take into account where Pres. Zelaya is to discuss with him wherever he is. Nicaragua issues a call to the Honduran Armed Forces: there is a small group that is behind the coup but there are also sectors that remain loyal to the constitution and the president. We call on these sectors to uphold the constitution and the public order, and the right of the Honduran people to express itself freely and participate in the consult.

Spain: (observer) Energetically condemns the coup and informs that Spain and 27 countries of European Union in Corfu where they are meeting, in the words of the presiding Minister of the Czech Republic the coup is an unacceptable violation of the rule of law in Honduras.

Honduras: The mayor of San Pedro Sula has also been kidnapped by masked delinquents. The wife (of the president?) is in her native city in Honduras and is worried about her children. We thank you for your solidarity. We cannot fall in the trap of negotiation with persons who are not valid interlocutors due to their actions.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/laura-carlsen/live-blog-oas-session-on_b_222012.html [/quote]

Where is the wall-to-wall US coverage?

Where are the celebrities cheering on the protesters from their mansions and laptops?

I just saw on CNN that Bon Jovi and Joan Baez are recording protest songs... in Farsi.

Did Bon Jovi even know what the word "Farsi" meant two weeks ago?


Aside from the dramatic consequences in Honduras and Latin America, this coup in broad daylight is going to be compared to Iran, and US propaganda is going to suffer as people see what a REAL coup looks like.


Good luck to the people of Honduras.

COUP IN HONDURAS

The following is an article I wrote for Narco News. I will not be actively updating this blog today as I focus all of my energies on covering the coup for Narco News. For up-to-the-minute information on the coup in Honduras, go to www.narconews.com

School of the Americas-Trained Military Detains and Expels Democratically-Elected President Zelaya

Early this morning approximately 200 Honduran soldiers arrived at President Manuel "Mel" Zelaya's residence, reportedly fired four shots, and detained the President. Zelaya told TeleSUR that the soldiers took him to an air force base and put him on a plane to Costa Rica.

Zelaya told TeleSUR from San Jose, Costa Rica, "They threatened to shoot me." Honduras' ambassador to the Organization of American States, Carlos Sosa Coello, reports that the president has been beaten up.

Zelaya told TeleSUR that he doesn't believe it was regular soldiers who kidnapped him. "I have been the victim of a kidnapping carried out by a group of Honduran soldiers. I don't think the Army is supporting this sort of action. I think this is a vicious plot planned by elites. Elite who only want to keep the country isolated and in extreme poverty."

Zelaya fears for the safety of his family, who remains in Honduras. He pleaded with TeleSUR viewers to seek a way to "have a dialogue with these soldiers so that they don't harm my family, so that they don't shoot anybody. We can settle our differences through dialogue."

The anti-Zelaya President of Congress, Roberto Micheletti, has declared himself interim president of Honduras. On the Friday before the coup, Zelaya called Micheletti "a pathetic, second-class congressman who got that job because of me, because I gave you space within my political current."

Zelaya informed TeleSUR that he has not requested asylum in Costa Rica, and that he will return to Honduras as its president to complete his term, which expires in 2010.

Honduran Media Shut Down

Radio Es Lo De Menos, an independent radio station reporting from Honduras, issued a press release before its power was cut. The press release states that several cabinet members have been detained, and there are arrest warrants out for other cabinet members as well as leaders of social organizations. It calls on the international community to hold protests outside Honduran embassies and consulates.

TeleSUR reports that the soldiers have also arrested the Cuban, Venezuelan, and Nicaraguan ambassadors to Honduras, as well as Chancellor Patricia Rodas. The Venezuelan ambassador told TeleSUR that the soldiers beat him during the kidnapping. La Prena reports that soldiers have detained at least one pro-Zelaya mayor, San Pedro Sula's Rodolfo Padilla Sunseri.

Cell phones are reportedly no longer working in Honduras. The power has been cut in at least some parts of the country, disabling independent media and state television stations for the time being. Before the state televisions went off the air, Channel 8 managed to communicate to its viewers, "It appears as though the soldiers are coming here." Seconds before it went off the air, Channel 8 told citizens to gather in the Plaza de la Libertad. Channel 8 appears to have been taken over by the military, but it is still not transmitting.

Honduras' privately owned Channel 12 and Channel 11 are showing classic soccer clips.

Soldiers Block Opinion Poll

Soldiers have also moved to block the opinion poll that sparked the coup. Today Hondurans were supposed to register their opinion in a non-binding poll that asked them, "Do you think that the November 2009 general elections should include a fourth ballot box in order to make a decision about the creation of a National Constitutional Assembly that would approve a new Constitution?" The poll would have had no legal weight.

In the town of Trujillo, soldiers have taken the streets and are not allowing citizens to vote in the opinion poll.

In Santa Rosa, soldiers reportedly under the orders of the Federal Prosecutors Office have seized ballot boxes from schools and public places.

Soldiers seized ballot boxes in Dulce Nombre Copan as well, but citizens have gone to the military base to take them back again.

In Santa Barbara, La Prensa reports that the opinion poll is going on as planned, with no interference thus far from the military.

Soldiers are also carrying out operations on the country's major highways, according to La Prensa. The situation could get ugly on the highways, as La Prensa reports that peasants from the Guadalupe Carney community have taken over some highways.

School of the Americas Connection

The crisis in Honduras began when the military refused to distribute ballot boxes for the opinion poll in a new Constitution. President Zelaya fired the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Romeo Orlando Vasquez Velasquez, who refused to step down. The heads of all branches of the Honduran armed forces quit in solidarity with Vasquez. Vasquez, however, refused to step down, bolstered by support in Congress and a Supreme Court ruling that reinstated him. Vasquez remains in control of the armed forces.

Vasquez, along with other military leaders, graduated from the United States' infamous School of the Americas (SOA). According to a School of the Americas Watch database compiled from information obtained from the US government, Vasquez studied in the SOA at least twice: once in 1976 and again in 1984.

The head of the Air Force, Gen. Luis Javier Prince Suazo, studied in the School of the Americas in 1996. The Air Force has been a central protagonist in the Honduran crisis. When the military refused to distribute the ballot boxes for the opinion poll, the ballot boxes were stored on an Air Force base until citizens accompanied by Zelaya rescued them. Zelaya reports that after soldiers kidnapped him, they took him to an Air Force base, where he was put on a plane and sent to Costa Rica.

Congressman Joseph Kennedy has stated, "The U.S. Army School of the Americas...is a school that has run more dictators than any other school in the history of the world."

The School of the Americas has a long, tortured history in Honduras. According to School of the Americas Watch, "In 1975, SOA Graduate General Juan Melgar Castro became the military dictator of Honduras. From 1980-1982 the dictatorial Honduran regime was headed by yet another SOA graduate, Policarpo Paz Garcia, who intensified repression and murder by Battalion 3-16, one of the most feared death squads in all of Latin America (founded by Honduran SOA graduates with the help of Argentine SOA graduates)."

Honduran Gen. Humberto Regalado Hernandez was inducted into the SOA's Hall of Fame. School of the Americas Watch notes that he was a four-time graduate. As head of the armed forces, he refused to take action against soldiers invovled in the Battalion 3-16 death squad.

School of the Americas Watch points out that this is not the first time the SOA has been involved in Latin American coups. "In April 2002, the democratically elected Chavez government of Venezuela was briefly overthrown, and the School of the Americas-trained [soldiers] Efrain Vasquez Velasco, ex-army commander, and Gen. Ramirez Poveda, were key players in the coup attempt."

According to School of the Americas Watch, "Over its 58 years, the SOA has trained over 60,000 Latin American soldiers in counter-insurgency techniques, sniper skills, commando and psychological warfare, military intelligence and interrogation tactics. Colombia, with over 10,000 troops trained at the school, is the SOA's largest customer. Colombia currently has the worst human rights record in Latin America."

http://mywordismyweapon.blogspot.com/2009/06/coup-in-honduras.html

that Arabic wasn't the primary language of Iran

Honduran Military Assassinates Leftist Presidential Candidate
Posted by Kristin Bricker - June 28, 2009 at 5:09 pm

Congressman Cesar Ham Was a Zelaya Ally and Organizer of the Opinion Poll on a New Constitution

Cesar HamCesar Ham, presidential candidate and the head of Honduras' only registered leftist political party, the Democratic Unification of Honduras, is dead. He was killed by a squad of soldiers who arrived at his home this morning to arrest him.

The military has rounded up many of Zelaya's allies within the government. Chancellor Patricia Rodas remains kidnapped.

Honduran police confirmed Ham's death to Notimex. The official version of events, as reported by Notimex, is that Ham confronted the military squad that came to his house with a gun, "and therefore he had to be killed."

Despite being from a different party, Ham was a close ally of ousted President Manuel Zelaya. Ham's party, the Democratic Unification of Honduras, is Honduras' only registered leftist party. Zelaya is from the conservative Liberal Party; he became a populist leftist after being elected.

Ham, at the time of his assassination, was a member of Congress. He wholeheartedly supported President Zelaya's initiative to form a constitutional convention to write a new Constitution, and he was one of the main organizers of today's thwarted opinion poll that would have gauged public opinion on forming a constitutional convention.

Ham has come under fire this year from fellow members of Congress, with help from Honduras' right-wing media. Gregorio Baca, a dissident member of Ham's party who opposed an alliance with Zelaya, accused Ham of receiving "millions of dollars" from President Zelaya in exchange for his support of a referendum on a new constitutional convention. Right-wing newspaper El Heraldo accused Ham and his deputy Misael Castro of embezzling government money to pay for luxury cars. Neither of the accusations were ever verified by a court of law.

This past March the Democratic Unification party chose him as its presidential candidate by a vote of 104-4. The coup plotters had previously announced that the November 2009 elections would go on as planned. Ham's assassination means that the only leftist candidate in the upcoming elections is now dead.

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/kristin-bricker/2009/06/honduran-military-assassinates-leftist-presidential-candidate

It was ALL in Spanish. There's some English shoing up now but none of it that hysterical show we saw during the Iran story.

Go figure :shrug:

http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23Honduras


Bon Jovi and Baez? Have they really nothing better to do than fall for that?


CNN showed some footage of Honduran women hitting soldiers as they were running single-file somewhere. Repeatedly hitting them.

Now that took courage.

On the otherhand we have a techno "revolution" in Iran where Joe Lieberman of all people is urging everyone to stand in solidarity with a bunch of yuppies who give a rat's ass about the poor.

I'm with you, Good luck to the people of Honduras.



Did you see the latest fabrication?

http://www.progressiveindependent.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=202&topic_id=11816

...Risk game at its worst

(Thanks Tinoire for taking the initiative here) Not sure if this contains any new info considering Chlamor's posts from narco, pretty intensive there ....haven't read through them completely yet, but a decent synopsis here, I think, sans the tragic asassination...I got this via email without link, sorry.

HONDURAS AT THIS MOMENT: THE AMBASSADORS OF NICARAGUA, CUBA, VENEZUELA
AND THE FOREIGN MINISTER OF HONDURAS PATRICIA RODAS HAVE BEEN KIDNAPPED
BY HOODED ARMY PERSONNEL AND HAVE BEEN BEATEN UP
Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 13:25:39 -0400

Bolivarian Circle Louis Riel and Hands Of Venezuela inform:

IN HONDURAS AT THIS MOMENT: THE AMBASSADORS OF NICARAGUA, CUBA,
VENEZUELA AND THE FOREIGN MINISTER OF HONDURAS PATRICIA RODAS HAVE
BEEN KIDNAPPED BY HOODED ARMY PERSONNEL AND HAVE BEEN BEATEN UP

Ten minutes ago, President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras has just spoken
to Telesur. He is at the airport of San Jose, Costa Rica where he was
taken at gun point, in his pyjamas, from his house where there was a
twenty minute gun battle between his guard and hooded army personnel.

He declared that this was brutal kidnapping, that he has not asked
for political asylum, he is still the legal and democratically elected
president of Honduras.

He urged all the presidents of Latin America, of the Alba group, of
Mercosur, of all the region to reject this abuse of the Honduran
people, not to recognize any other government of Honduras, and to
fight for themselves, for the democratic rule in Latin America.

He urged OAS president M. Insulza , who was to arrive in Tegucigalpa
today, not to cancel his trip and to apply the Democratic Charter of
the OAS and help to restore the constitutional order in Honduras.

He urged the president of the United States to reject this coup
d'etat, because if he does, the coup will collapse. But if he does
not, then the world will know the USA is behind it.

He urged the noble Honduran people to stand up for their rights in
non-violent ways, through civil disobedience in demonstrations
throughout the country along with the workers and unions.

Zelaya thanked the president and authorities of Costa Rica who are
there in the airport with him, as well as several ambassadors, among
them the Venezuelan ambassador. He has received telephone calls and
solidarity from Presidents Ortega and Chavez, among others.

There is a meeting tomorrow of Central American presidents in
Nicaragua and President Ortega has assured Zelaya they will not
recognize any other Honduran president but him .

There's a shitload of "US Advisors" down there just teaching people how to knit I'm sure.

Do you remember when the School of the Americas crowd first showed up at DU? I'm so disgusted. The influx of people denouncing Chavez and supporting that school didn't happen by accident.

So they've killed Ham and are have arrested other Zelaya allies.

This isn't going to end well. How many planatations does this empire need?


The English in the following isn't very good but this article is clear and authentic.

[div class=excerpt style=background:#FEFEFF]
In statements to television channel Telesur, Chavez stated that he rejected the coup "right from its bone marrow" and asked the Honduran military troops not to face the people that went out to the streets to request the return of President Manuel Zelaya.

"The United States has a lot to do with this, Obama should be pronounced to reject the coup right from the marrow," the Venezuelan leader stated.

He specified that elements, such as the fact that the Honduran press media are braodcasting cartoons instead of information, corresponds with the format of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for the coup.

The format is to misinform the people, if it were not for Telesur that is locating in the heroic level in this battle, the images of the coup would not be transmitting, Chavez said.

The South American leader assured that behind the coup, it is the bourgeoisie and the rich people that transformed Honduras into a banana republic, a political, military and terrorist base of the US and of the US empire.

Chávez added that the coup was caused because he wanted to consult the people and asked the military troops to meditate and not to generate a genocide.

He also said that the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), of which nine countries are already members, among them Honduras and Venezuela, are in consultation and elaborating an anticoup strategy.

http://www.escambray.cu/Eng/Special/CoupHonduras/Cchavez090628152.htm [/quote]

[div class=excerpt style=background:#FEFEFF]
"Soldier, empty out your riffle against the oligarchy and not against the people"

Hugo Chavez, as reported by [link:www.venezuelanalysis.com|Venezuela Analysis] [/quote]

Lots of talk about rising against the oligarchy lately

[link:www.cadenagramonte.cubaweb.cu/english/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=522&Itemid=14|We'll Give a Lesson to the US Empire]

[link:mathaba.net/news/?x=620929|I'm not going to let these oligarchies sue the country while they continue to exploit our national riches," Correa said.]


[link:www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=81190|Chavez praises Honduras' President for leading people versus oligarchy]

[link:news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-06/20/content_11572037.htm|Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega accused US ambassador Robert Callahan of trying to unite "oligarchy political forces" in the country]


[link:news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-06/29/content_11618865.htm|Ortega said on Sunday that "Honduras' oligarchy" had condemned themselves to the "scrapheap of history"]


"More than ever before, Miami continues to be the great continental trash can for all the defeated oligarchies." [link:www.granma.cu/ingles/2009/junio/juev11/Miami.html|And when will Miami's terrorist nest be cleared out?]


[div class=excerpt style=background:#FEFEFF]
According to the watchdog group School of Americas Watch, Gen. Vasquez trained at the [link:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Hemisphere_Institute_for_Security_Cooperation|Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation] at least twice -- in 1976 and 1984 -- when it was still called School of Americas.

The Georgia-based U.S. military school is infamous for training over 60,000 Latin American soldiers, including infamous dictators, "death squad" leaders and others charged with torture and other human rights abuses. SOA Watch's [link:www.soaw.org/article.php?id=321|annual protest] to shut down the Fort Benning training site draws thousands.

According to [link:www.soaw.org/|SOA Watch], the U.S. Army school has a particularly checkered [link:www.soaw.org/article.php?id=241|record in Honduras], with over 50 graduates who have been intimately involved in human rights abuses. In 1975, SOA Graduate General Juan Melgar Castro became the military dictator of Honduras. From 1980-1982 the dictatorial Honduran regime was headed by yet another SOA graduate, Policarpo Paz Garcia, who intensified repression and murder by Battalion 3-16, one of the most feared death squads in all of Latin America (founded by Honduran SOA graduates with the help of Argentine SOA graduates).

General Vasquez isn't the only leader in the Honduras coup linked to the U.S. training facility. As [link:narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/kristin-bricker/2009/06/coup-honduras|Kristin Bricker] points out:

The head of the Air Force, Gen. Luis Javier Prince Suazo, studied in the School of the Americas in 1996. The Air Force has been a central protagonist in the Honduran crisis. When the military refused to distribute the ballot boxes for the opinion poll, the ballot boxes were stored on an Air Force base until citizens accompanied by Zelaya rescued them. Zelaya reports that after soldiers kidnapped him, they took him to an Air Force base, where he was put on a plane and sent to Costa Rica.

For previous Facing South coverage of controversy surrounding the School of Americas/Western Hemisphere Center, see [link:www.southernstudies.org/2006/11/will-school-of-assassins-be-closed.html|here].

http://www.southernstudies.org/2009/06/key-leaders-of-honduras-military-coup-trained-in-us.html[/quote]

The story is being constantly updated here:
[link:www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/4554|Obama's First Coup d'Etat]

[div class=excerpt style=background:#FEFEFF]

UPDATE 17: 5:37PM -Coup Government In Place In Honduras

It's official, illegal, but official. Roberto Micheletti, up until right now the head of Congress, has just been sworn in as de facto president after violently ousting President Zelaya from power, kidnapping him and forcing him into exile in Costa Rica. Micheletti just gave a speech before Congress, broadcast live via CNN en Español and Telesur, along with Honduran stations, was enraged with power, often yelling and declaring his "utmostrespect for democracy and the constitution" (?!) He also discussed how his "cabinet" which he is about to announce, will "restore democracy" and "respect for the constitution" to the country. He repeated over and over again that what took place was not a military-civil coup but rather a "civil society" action to "ensure democracy".

Still no word about kidnapped and beaten Foreign Minister Patricia Rodas' whereabouts. The Congress also did not explain President Zelaya's beating and kidnapping and forced exile or the forged resignation letter, which they now obviously are no longer using as a legitimate"justification" for the coup. It's just too bogus.

BTW, The US Military Group in Honduras trains around 300 Honduran soldiers every year, provides more than $500,000 annually to the Honduran Armed Forces and additionally provides $1.4 million for a military education and exchange program for around 300 more Honduran soldiers every year.

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/4554 [/quote]

The basic military job there is to maintain a runway capable of accepting U.S. Air Force C-5A heavy lift transports (which can even lift tanks by air). The airfield is a major military gateway into Central America. There are officially 550 U.S. military and 650 contractors there, organized as "Joint Task Force-Bravo". This includes "Security Forces", training units, helicopter units, and special ops as well as airmen.

It is a significant presence. Given the size of the force and the small size of the Honduran military, it is inconcievable that the U.S. military was unaware of the coup.

You're putting it very mildly and politely lol.

JTF Bravo is the HQs implementing much of the unrest of the last few decades. Zelaya was trying to get it converted into a civilian airstrip and move them off to an area on the coast (the area sounded like Mosguito but that's not it).

I hear all "our" personnel are restricted to base right now which means they're out directing traffic and instigating as much as they can.

According to the State Dept briefing they're only involved in humanitarian activities anyway. Isn't that nice of us? Spending over $100,000 to train SF guys and sending them to risk their lives in Honduras helping little old ladies get to the store when it floods?

I'm tickled we're discussing Cabral's address while watching Honduras. Honduras seems to me a current example of what happens when the fight for national liberation doesn't include breaking from capitalism? Strange bedfellows as Kid pointed out.


[div class=excerpt style=background:#FEFEFF]Background Briefing on the Situation in Honduras
Teleconference Background Briefing by Two Senior Officials

Washington, DC

June 28, 2009

(snip)

OPERATOR: Thank you. Our next question comes from Mark Mazzetti. Please state your affiliation.


QUESTION: New York Times. Hi, guys. You said earlier, at the beginning of the call, that this was an even that was a long time in brewing. Can you say what U.S. officials had done in recent days to try to prevent this from taking place?


SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Well, I mean, first of all, remember, it’s not just us. You know --


QUESTION: Right --


SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: -- as the second Administration official noted, this has been a brewing conflict that has caught the attention and the concern of the OAS, of ourselves, and of the Central American – the other Central American countries and the European Union embassies inside of Honduras. And we’ve been working in concert with them in an effort to facilitate dialogue among the different and competing institutions, and especially to try to address the larger issue of political polarization inside of Honduras. I mean, I don’t want to go into great detail in terms of everyone we spoke to and every action we took, but we were consistently and almost constantly engaged over the last several weeks with our partners working with Hondurans trying to ensure that the political conflict around this survey that President Zelaya had proposed was resolved in a peaceful way that respected the democratic institutions and the constitutional order of Honduras.


QUESTION: You said a few minutes ago that you were in constant (inaudible) with the military and that they stopped taking the calls. (Inaudible) U.S. and allies been in regular contact with the military over the last few days to again prevent this from happening?


SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Yes. We have been in contact with all Honduran institutions, including the armed forces.


QUESTION: Okay.


OPERATOR: Thank you, sir. Our next question comes from Juan Lopez. Please state your affiliation.

(snip)

QUESTION: NBC News. Hi, can you respond to Miguel D'Escoto’s statement today (inaudible) saying that, quote, “(inaudible) action (inaudible) part of a new policy, a new U.S. policy, in other words, (inaudible) that the army in Honduras has a history of (inaudible) collaboration with the United States (inaudible) condemn the (inaudible) the President and the Secretary of State (inaudible) but can you at least respond to the concerns expressed by the (inaudible)?


SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: I’m sorry, the contact there is very bad.


SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL TWO: Yeah.


SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: I missed most of that.

QUESTION: I’m sorry. I’m asking if you could respond to Miguel D’Escoto’s statement today expressing concerns that the United States policy is not at all clear and, quote, he said, “Many are now asking if this coup is part of this new policy,” in other words, a U.S. policy, as it is well known that the army in Honduras has a history of total collaboration with the United States. Can you respond to that and how you feel about D’Escoto’s comments?


SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL TWO: The position of the United States Government has been very clear. (snip)

QUESTION: So does –


SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: I’m sure Mr. D’Escoto made those statements because he didn’t understand what was happening on the ground. But you know, aside from the statements that we have made, I think anybody in Honduras at all familiar with what we’ve been doing would recognize that we have been working very hard to promote (blah blah blah....)

(snip)

QUESTION: I’m with the New York Times. Is the U.S. Government calling this and considering this a coup d’état? Can you talk about the use of language? Some other governments have called it that.


And then second, can you give us details on how many U.S. soldiers, troops are in Honduras and what their role is there? Thank you.


SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: I mean, the U.S. troop presence in Honduras is largely contained to Joint Task Force -Bravo operating out of Soto Cano Air Base. They provide airlift support for operations throughout Central America and the Caribbean Basin, largely for humanitarian purposes. I don’t know the exact number of airmen we have at that base, but they’re there for humanitarian purposes.

And I’m sorry, what was the first part of your question?


QUESTION: Coup d’état.

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2009/06a/125453.htm [/quote]

http://www.opednews.com/articles/OBAMA-S-FIRST-COUP-D-ETAT-by-shamus-cooke-090628-822.html

OBAMA'S FIRST COUP D'ETAT?

by Eva Gollinger www.chavezcode.com

[Note: As of 11:15am, Caracas time, President Zelaya is speaking live
on Telesur from San Jose, Costa Rica. He has verified the soldiers
entered his residence in the early morning hours, firing guns and
threatening to kill him and his family if he resisted the coup. He was
forced to go with the soldiers who took him to the air base and flew
him to Costa Rica. He has requested the U.S. Government make a public
statement condemning the coup, otherwise, it will indicate their
compliance.]

Caracas, Venezuela - The text message that beeped
on my cell phone this morning read "Alert, Zelaya has been kidnapped,
coup d'etat underway in Honduras, spread the word." It's a rude
awakening for a Sunday morning, especially for the millions of
Hondurans that were preparing to exercise their sacred right to vote
today for the first time on a consultative referendum concerning the
future convening of a constitutional assembly to reform the
constitution. Supposedly at the center of the controversary is today's
scheduled referendum, which is not a binding vote but merely an opinion
poll to determine whether or not a majority of Hondurans desire to
eventually enter into a process to modify their constitution.

Such
an initiative has never taken place in the Central American nation,
which has a very limited constitution that allows minimal participation
by the people of Honduras in their political processes. The current
constitution, written in 1982 during the height of the Reagan
Administration's dirty war in Central America, was designed to ensure
those in power, both economic and political, would retain it with
little interference from the people. Zelaya, elected in November 2005
on the platform of Honduras' Liberal Party, had proposed the opinion
poll be conducted to determine if a majority of citizens agreed that
constitutional reform was necessary. He was backed by a majority of
labor unions and social movements in the country. If the poll had
occured, depending on the results, a referendum would have been
conducted during the upcoming elections in November to vote on
convening a constitutional assembly. Nevertheless, today's scheduled
poll was not binding by law.


In fact, several days before the
poll was to occur, Honduras' Supreme Court ruled it illegal, upon
request by the Congress, both of which are led by anti-Zelaya
majorities and members of the ultra-conservative party, National Party
of Honduras (PNH). This move led to massive protests in the streets in
favor of President Zelaya. On June 24, the president fired the head of
the high military command, General Romeo Vasquez, after he refused to
allow the military to distribute the electoral material for Sunday's
elections. General Romeo Vasquez held the material under tight military
control, refusing to release it even to the president's followers,
stating that the scheduled referendum had been determined illegal by
the Supreme Court and therefore he could not comply with the
president's order. As in the Unted States, the president of Honduras is
Commander in Chief and has the final say on the military's actions, and
so he ordered the General's removal. The Minister of Defense, Angel
Edmundo Orellana, also resigned in response to this increasingly tense
situation.

But the following day, Honduras' Supreme Court
reinstated General Romeo Vasquez to the high military command, ruling
his firing as "unconstitutional'. Thousands poured into the streets of
Honduras' capital, Tegucigalpa, showing support for President Zelaya
and evidencing their determination to ensure Sunday's non-binding
referendum would take place. On Friday, the president and a group of
hundreds of supporters, marched to the nearby air base to collect the
electoral material that had been previously held by the military. That
evening, Zelaya gave a national press conference along with a group of
politicians from different political parties and social movements,
calling for unity and peace in the country.

As of Saturday, the
situation in Honduras was reported as calm. But early Sunday morning, a
group of approximately 60 armed soldiers entered the presidential
residence and took Zelaya hostage. After several hours of confusion,
reports surfaced claiming the president had been taken to a nearby air
force base and flown to neighboring Costa Rica.

President Zelaya's wife, Xiomara Castro de
Zelaya, speaking live on Telesur at approximately 10:00am Caracas time,
denounced that in early hours of Sunday morning, the soldiers stormed
their residence, firing shots throughout the house, beating and then
taking the president. "It was an act of cowardice", said the first
lady, referring to the illegal kidnapping occurring during a time when
no one would know or react until it was all over. Castro de Zelaya also
called for the "preservation" of her husband's life, indicating that
she herself is unaware of his whereabouts. She claimed their lives are
all still in "serious danger" and made a call for the international
community to denounce this illegal coup d'etat and to act rapidly to
reinstate constitutional order in the country, which includes the
rescue and return of the democratically elected Zelaya.

Presidents
Evo Morales of Bolivia and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela have both made
public statements on Sunday morning condeming the coup d'etat in
Honduras and calling on the international community to react to ensure
democracy is restored and the constitutional president is reinstated.
Last Wednesday, June 24, an extraordinary meeting of the member nations
of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), of which
Honduras is a member, was convened in Venezuela to welcome Ecuador,
Antigua & Barbados and St. Vincent to its ranks. During the
meeting, which was attended by Honduras' Foreign Minister, Patricia
Rodas, a statement was read supporting President Zelaya and condemning
any attempts to undermine his mandate and Honduras' democratic
processes.

Reports coming out of Honduras have informed that
the public television channel, Canal 8, has been shut down by the coup
forces. Just minutes ago, Telesur announced that the military in
Honduras is shutting down all electricity throughout the country. Those
television and radio stations still transmitting are not reporting the
coup d'etat or the kidnapping of President Zelaya, according to Foreign
Minister Patricia Rodas. "Telephones and electricity are being cut
off", confirmed Rodas just minutes ago via Telesur. "The media are
showing cartoons and soap operas and are not informing the people of
Honduras about what is happening". The situation is eerily reminiscent
of the April 2002 coup d'etat against President Chavez in Venezuela,
when the media played a key role by first manipulating information to
support the coup and then later blacking out all information when the
people began protesting and eventually overcame and defeated the coup
forces, rescuing Chavez (who had also been kidnapped by the military)
and restoring constitutional order.

Honduras is a nation that
has been the victim of dictatorships and massive U.S. intervention
during the past century, including several military invasions. The last
major U.S. government intervention in Honduras occured during the
1980s, when the Reagan Administration funded death squads and
paramilitaries to eliminate any potential "communist threats" in
Central America. At the time, John Negroponte, was the U.S. Ambassador
in Honduras and was responsible for directly funding and training
Honduran death squads that were responsible for thousands of
disappeared and assassinated throughout the region.

On Friday,
the Organization of American States (OAS), convened a special meeting
to discuss the crisis in Honduras, later issuing a statement condemning
the threats to democracy and authorizing a convoy of representatives to
travel to OAS to investigate further. Nevertheless, on Friday,
Assistant Secretary of State of the United States, Phillip J. Crowley,
refused to clarify the U.S. government's position in reference to the
potential coup against President Zelaya, and instead issued a more
ambiguous statement that implied Washington's support for the
opposition to the Honduran president. While most other Latin American
governments had clearly indicated their adamant condemnation of the
coup plans underway in Honduras and their solid support for Honduras'
constitutionally elected president, Manual Zelaya, the U.S. spokesman
stated the following, "We are concerned about the breakdown in the
political dialogue among Honduran politicians over the proposed June 28
poll on constitutional reform. We urge all sides to seek a consensual
democratic resolution in the current political impasse that adheres to
the Honduran constitution and to Honduran laws consistent with the
principles of the Inter-American Democratic Charter."

As of
10:30am, Sunday morning, no further statements have been issued by the
Washington concerning the military coup in Honduras. The Central
American nation is highly dependent on the U.S. economy, which ensures
one of its top sources of income, the monies sent from Hondurans
working in the U.S. under the "temporary protected status" program that
was implemented during Washington's dirty war in the 1980s as a result
of massive immigration to U.S. territory to escape the war zone.
Another major source of funding in Honduras is USAID, providing over
US$ 50 millon annually for "democracy promotion" programs, which
generally supports NGOs and political parties favorable to U.S.
interests, as has been the case in Venezuela, Bolivia and other nations
in the region. The Pentagon also maintains a military base in Honduras
in Soto Cano, equipped with approximately 500 troops and numerous air
force combat planes and helicopters.

Foreign Minister Rodas has
stated that she has repeatedly tried to make contact with the U.S.
Ambassador in Honduras, Hugo Llorens, who has not responded to any of
her calls thus far. The modus operandi of the coup makes clear that
Washington is involved. Neither the Honduran military, which is
majority trained by U.S. forces, nor the political and economic elite,
would act to oust a democratically elected president without the
backing and support of the U.S. government. President Zelaya has
increasingly come under attack by the conservative forces in Honduras
for his growing relationship with the ALBA countries, and particularly
Venezuela and President Chavez. Many believe the coup has been executed to ensure that Honduras does not continue to unify with the
more populist, leftist and socialist countries in Latin America.

but Michael Jackson's death sure seems a convenient msm distraction from so much these days...;) especially handy for this coup.:getdown:

We've gotten a lot of info down in Houston about the good doctor tending to him. What a mess...

but....;)

[div class=excerpt style=background:#FEFEFF]Honduran Coup Turns Violent, Sanctions Imposed
by Laura Carlsen


http://americas.irc-online.org/images/irc/1596.jpg
Zelaya supporters clash with soldiers near the presidential palace
in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Photo: www.businessweek.com.

Thousands of Hondurans are now in the streets to protest the coup d'etat in their country. They have been met with tear gas, anti-riot rubber bullets, tanks firing water mixed with chemicals, and clubs. Police have moved in to break down barricades and soldiers used violence to push back protesters at the presidential residence, leaving an unknown number wounded.

If the coup leaders were desperate when they decided to forcibly depose the elected president, they are even more desperate now. Stripped of its pretense of legality by universal repudiation and faced with a popular uprising, the coup has turned to more violent means.

The scoreboard in the battle for Honduras shows the coup losing badly. It has not gained a single point in the international diplomatic arena, it has no serious legal points, and the Honduran people are mobilizing against it. As the military and coup leaders resort to brute force, they rack up even more points against them in human rights and common decency.

Only one factor brought the coup to power and only one factor has enabled it to hold on for these few days-control of the armed forces. Now even that seems to be eroding.

Cracks in Army Loyalty to the Coup?

[link:narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/al-giordano/2009/06/reports-two-military-battalions-turn-against-honduras-coup-regime|Reports are coming in] that several battalions-specifically the Fourth and Tenth-have rebelled against coup leadership. Both Zelaya and his supporters have been very conscious that within the armed forces there are fractures. Instead of insulting the army, outside the heavily guarded presidential residence many protesters chant, "Soldiers, you are part of the people."

President Zelaya has been remarkably respectful in calling on the army to [link:americasmexico.blogspot.com/2009/06/pres-zelaya-calls-for-military-to.html|"correct its actions."] It is likely the coup will continue to lose its grip on the army as intensifying mobilizations force it to confront its own people.

International Community Imposes Sanctions

In the diplomatic arena, it's not that the coup is losing its grip-it never even got a foothold. The meeting of the Central American Integration System in Managua Monday became a forum for pronouncements from one after another of the major diplomatic groups in the region. Latin America is a region where diplomatic recombinations have proliferated in recent years, so the alphabet soup of solidarity statements just keeps on growing.

The Bolivarian Alliance (ALBA) [link:americasmexico.blogspot.com/2009/06/alba-and-via-campesina-issue-new.html|issued a resolution], announcing the withdrawal of its ambassadors while continuing the member countries' international cooperation programs in Honduras. The group urged other nations to do the same-a growing list including Brazil and Mexico has already followed suit.

The ALBA group cited the Honduran Constitution, which states in Art. 3:

"No one owes obedience to a government that has usurped power or to those who assume functions or public posts by the force of arms or using means or procedures that rupture or deny what the Constitution and the laws establish. The verified acts by such authorities are null. The people have the right to recur to insurrection in defense of the constitutional order."

Putting teeth behind the words has already begun. The Central American countries agreed to close off their land borders to all commerce with Honduras for the next 48 hours. The Central American Bank for Economic Integration has [link:news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-06/30/content_11625527.htm|cut off all lending]until the president is restored to power.

It also called for sanctions in multilateral organizations: "We propose that exemplary sanctions be applied in all multilateral organizations and integration groups, to contribute to bringing about the immediate restitution of the constitutional order in Honduras, and to make good on the principle of action that Jose Marti taught us when he said: 'If each one does his duty, no one can overcome us.'"

The Rio Group of Latin American and Caribbean nations also met in Managua and issued a statement condemning the coup and supporting Zelaya. Organization of American States Sec. General Jose Insulza was there too. President Zelaya received a standing ovation following his closing speech.

The U.S. government has been unambiguous in its condemnation of the coup and support of President Zelaya. President [link:news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090629/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_honduras_coup|Obama stated] today:

"We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the democratically elected president there." He added, "It would be a terrible precedent if we start moving backward into the era in which we are seeing military coups as a means of political transition rather than democratic elections." [//ul] http://www.unwiredview.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/sleping-smiley.jpg

After years of the Bush administration, when the commitment to democracy abroad was decided more on the basis of ideological affinities than democratic practice, some sectors have trouble accepting that the U.S. government is condemning the overthrow of a president who espouses left-wing causes. Note the obstinacy of reporters at [link:www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2009/125481.htm|today's State Department press conference]:

[ul]QUESTION: "So Ian, I'm sorry, just to confirm-so you're not calling it a coup, is that correct? Legally, you're not considering it a coup?"

MR. KELLY: "Well, I think you all saw the OAS statement last night, which called it a coup d'état, and you heard what the Secretary just said ..." (Clinton explicitly called it a coup).

This discussion and another drawn-out discussion in which reporters attempted to open up a window of doubt over support for reinstatement of Zelaya went on quite a while. Ian Kelly, the Dept. spokesperson, held fast as reporters tried to equate supposed violations of law by Zelaya with a military coup in a fantasy "everyone's-at-fault" scenario. Kelly reiterated that the coup is indeed an illegal coup and the only solution is the return of the elected president.

The "coup question" is more than semantics and has implications beyond conservative media's political agenda to justify the coup leaders. When a legal definition of coup is established, most U.S. aid to Honduras must be cut off.

Here's the relevant part of the foreign operations bill:

Sec. 7008. None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available pursuant to titles III through VI of this Act shall be obligated or expended to finance directly any assistance to the government of any country whose duly elected head of government is deposed by military coup or decree.

So far, the Obama administration has focused on diplomatic efforts and is waiting to see how long the Honduran stand-off will last before looking to specific sanctions. The probability that the coup's days are numbered makes that a reasonable strategy for the time being.

Attack on Freedom of Expression
The military coup has also launched an all-out attack on freedom of expression in the country. Venezuela's [link:www.telesurtv.net/solotexto/index.php|Telesur reports] that its team was detained and military personnel threatened to confiscate its video equipment if it continued to broadcast.

The ALBA declaration notes the use of censorship as a tool of the coup, "This silence was meant to impose the dictatorship by closing the government channel and cutting off electricity, seeking to hide and justify the coup before the people and the international community, and demonstrating an attitude that recalls the worst era of dictatorships that we've suffered in the 20th century in our continent."

Grassroots organizations that support President Zelaya have faced an uphill battle against the media, which alternates between scaring people about the risk to keep them out of the streets and denying the existence of those who do go out. A [link:americasmexico.blogspot.com/2009/06/alba-and-via-campesina-issue-new.html|message from Via Campesina Honduras] warns people that information is controlled by the coup to hide opposition, cut off communications on many channels, and only allow information that favors them. They have now organized to open up contact with reporters throughout the world.

An increasingly organized opposition and independent media on the scene and on the net are breaking through the information blockade. A third source is [link:narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/translating-twitter-honduras|Twitter]. A major player in the Iranian uprising, Twitter has become the pulse of, if not the body politic, at least some bodies of that politic.

All this means that the information black-out designed by the coup is riddled with points of light. It's still hard to get statistical information like crowd numbers or figures of killed and wounded, but Honduras is certainly not the isolated and insignificant "banana republic" it once was.

The Return of the President
Zelaya now leaves for New York City where he will speak before the General Assembly of the United Nations to further outpourings of support. In Managua, he announced that from there he will return, accompanied by Insulza, to Honduras.

In an interview with CNN a coup leader said that Zelaya "can return to Honduras-as long as he leaves his presidency behind."

The Honduran ambassador to the UN, Jorge Reina, said that although the coup leaders have asked to address the UN, "the UN does not recognize them ... They have made a serious mistake, those who think that countries can be led through coups."

"That history has passed."

For More Information
ALBA and Via Campesina Issue New Declarations Against the Honduran Coup http://americasmexico.blogspot.com/2009/06/alba-and-via-campesina-issue-new.html

Honduran Coup Moves from Failed Arguments to Repression, International Sanctions Imposed http://americasmexico.blogspot.com/2009/06/honduran-coup-moves-from-failed.html

Resolution from the OAS Diplomatically Isolates Honduran Leaders http://americasmexico.blogspot.com/2009/06/resolution-from-oas-diplomatically.html

http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6223 [/quote]

nt

A short note here about the role of Honduras' military in the removal from office and exile to Costa Rica of President Mel Zelaya. I am dismayed at the reaction of the White House and Foggy Bottom - that they would be so quick to condemn the defense of democracy in Honduras by its military and so slow to attack the destruction of democracy in Iran by its paramilitary can only be indicative of a shallowness of understanding of foreign affairs by the administration.

I lived in Honduras for six months in 1989, assigned to Joint Task Force Bravo, stationed at a Honduran air force base Soto Cano in the Comayagua Valley. No, I did not live in the nearby town so I didn't rub elbows with everyday Hondurans most of the time. The Honduran civilians working for JTF-B were well educated, from the higher economic levels of society. As director of public affairs, I had a Honduran secretary, a recent college graduate with outstanding command of English.

But I did get around the country a lot, pretty much from one end to the other, north, south, east and west. My second commander there was completely fluent in Spanish and had served at the US embassy in El Salvador. Since one of the primary missions of JTF-B was civil affairs and assistance, this colonel spent a lot of time on the road visiting Honduran battalion commanders. (Unlike the US Army, the basic unit of the Honduran army was the battalion, who were posted on individual bases around the country.) My colonel always took a handful of principal staff with him, of which I was one.

Why was it necessary to spend so much time coordinating (and when necessary, schmoozing) Honduran battalion commanders? Because unlike much of the rest of Latin America's armies, the officer corps in Honduras has always been of the people, not the upper, ruling classes. This is in marked contrast to El Salvador's military, for example, as my boss explained, where the officers came from the uppers and defended the uppers' privileges and power jealously.

But in Honduras, going all the way back to the 1840s, battalion commanders had not only a military-command responsibility, but a civilian law-enforcement responsibility. They were closely equivalent to American sheriffs in many regards. Because of their ordinary roots, battalion commanders, officers and their soldiers were much less "classed" than elsewhere in Latin America. There never formed a significant rift between the people and the military.

Though attenuated nowadays from days of old, the Honduran army has long had a traditional role as keeper, and sometimes guardian, of civil order and has been viewed by the people as such. I remember one battalion commander we visited who almost every day went for walks for an hour or two somewhere in his district, sometimes with a staffer accompanying him, sometimes not. He was highly respected and warmly regarded by the people.

Another battalion commander, whom I call Rodrigo, spent about half his time supervising his battalion's construction of civil-building projects in the district, especially schools and water management works. This officer was sharply critical of JTF-B's management of civil-engineering projects for villages and small towns because, he said, we did too much for the people. We needed to involve them more so that they "owned" half the project. We stayed the night at his base, arising early the next morning only to find that Lt. Col. Rodrigo had canceled the morning's activities with us. In fact, he wasn't even there any more.

Most, maybe all, the Honduran lieutenant colonels I met were graduates of the US Army's Command and General Staff College at Ft Leavenworth, Kansas, or of the School of the Americas, then located at Fort Benning, Ga. Many were graduates of both. These schools served to strengthen and deepen Honduras' democratic traditions. Here's a plain illustration.

Just after returning from Rodrigo's base in late summer 1989, the other principal staff officers and I were summoned to the task force's SCIF, the Secret Compartmented Information Facility, a super-secure room in the J2's office area. It was the only place on our compound where were could be positive that the our conversations could not be overheard.

There we learned the reason for Lt. Col. Rodrigo's mysterious disappearance overnight. He and the other battalion commanders had converged on Honduras' capital, Tegucigalpa, to confront the army's chief of staff. It seemed that this general had decided to mount a coup of some kind - perhaps not the full-scale coup Latin America was known so well for, but a significant seizure of power nonetheless. When the battalion commanders got wind of it, they went the capital, entered together into the chief's office and forced him to resign on the spot. Not a shot fired and the country's civilian government remained intact.

What the Honduran army did last week in shoving Zelaya, a would-be puppet of Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez, out of office was not a coup by even the wildest imagination. It was Zelaya who was trying to mount a coup, by using an unconstitutional referendum (with ballots printed in Venezuela!) to justify remaining in office as long as he wanted. No one in government, including his own party, supported Zelaya.

In fact, the Honduran Supreme Court actually ordered the army to remove him, a perfectly sensible development because of the historical role of Honduras' military in civil order.

If the Obama administration had stopped to consider Honduran history and culture (or had the State Dept. paused even to consult its own experts, it would not (one supposes) have been so quick on the trigger. But instead, it practiced "ready-fire-aim," though without the aim, even too late.

http://senseofevents.blogspot.com/2009/06/role-of-honduran-military.html

I was looking for a table of organization of the Honduran Army to see how significant the report of 2 army battalions in revolt was when I found this.If we can take this at face value, sans the rw editorializing, then the scenario which Fidel proposed is not at all far fetched. To be sure, the higher ranks are compromised by the ruling class by the usual bribery, but those excluded from the gravy train may well retain populist sympathies. That there have not(yet?) been serious massacres of civilians and that it looks as though the troops/police are showing some restraint makes for the possibility of a counter coup by mid-grade officers, maybe tomorrow.

Heh. But stranger things have happened...

here waiting to be noticed!!

[div class=excerpt style=background:#FEFEFF]Honduran Rivals See U.S. Intervention as Crucial in Resolving Political Crisis
By GINGER THOMPSON
Published: July 12, 2009

SAN JOSÉ, Costa Rica — When President Óscar Arias of Costa Rica set out to find a negotiated solution to the Honduran political crisis, he hailed it as an opportunity for Central Americans to show they could resolve their own problems, and he established some simple ground rules.

On Thursday morning, Mr. Micheletti showed up with six, adding an American public relations specialist who has done work for former President Bill Clinton and the American’s interpreter, and an official close to the talks said the team rarely made a move without consulting him.

Then on Friday, with the negotiations seemingly going nowhere, Mr. Arias reached out for American support of his own, telling Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton that pressure from the United States was crucial to ending the stalemate.

In the two weeks since the coup against Mr. Zelaya, the Obama administration has taken great pains to distance itself from the crisis as part of an effort to make the United States just one of many players in a region that it has long dominated. And Latin American leaders have publicly expressed support for what they describe as Washington’s new spirit of collaboration.

Privately, and not so privately, however, it has become clear that leaders on all sides of this crisis see the United States as the key to getting what they want.

In recent days, Mr. Zelaya and his allies, who include some of the most vocal critics of United States policy in the region, have repeatedly called on Washington to increase its pressure on Mr. Micheletti by recalling its ambassador — the United States is one of the few countries in the region that continues to keep its envoy in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital — and by imposing tougher sanctions.

Even Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chávez, made a rare call to Assistant Secretary of State Thomas A. Shannon Jr. on Friday to directly make an appeal he had issued earlier on television.

“Do something,” Mr. Chávez had said to reporters. “Obama, do something.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Micheletti has embarked on a public relations offensive, with his supporters hiring high-profile lawyers with strong Washington connections to lobby against such sanctions. One powerful Latin American business council hired Lanny J. Davis, who has served as President Clinton’s personal lawyer and who campaigned for Mrs. Clinton for president.

And last week, Mr. Micheletti brought the adviser from another firm with Clinton ties to the talks in Costa Rica. The adviser, Bennett Ratcliff of San Diego, refused to give details about his role at the talks.

“Every proposal that Micheletti’s group presented was written or approved by the American,” said another official close to the talks, referring to Mr. Ratcliff.

With or without the presence of foreigners, Mr. Arias faces long odds against success. Mr. Zelaya and Mr. Micheletti refused to meet face to face and left the talks before the end of the first day. And while there was less hostility between the two delegations on Day 2, an official close to the talks said Mr. Arias was unable to get the groups to agree on a date for the next round of talks or even to shake hands in front of the throngs of reporters gathered outside his home.

“He told them, the Palestinians and Israelis were enemies for generations, and their leaders shook hands,” an official said, referring to Mr. Arias. “You all were friends until two weeks ago. And yet you cannot make one symbolic gesture?” :rolleyes:

But people who are familiar with the talks — diplomats, lawyers and government officials who attended the meetings or monitored them from offices in Costa Rica, the United States and Honduras — said the sessions produced at least one important breakthrough: leaders on both sides of the divide moved beyond their blustery statements so that mediators could identify the real obstacles to a peaceful compromise.

Among the most intractable of those obstacles, said three officials close to the talks, was Mr. Micheletti. While Mr. Zelaya indicated that he was willing to accept a compromise that would return him to office with significantly limited powers, the officials said, it appeared that Mr. Micheletti believed he could run out the clock and hold on to the presidency until his country’s presidential elections in November.

The officials said Mr. Arias told Mrs. Clinton that the United States had to make clear to Mr. Micheletti that elections held by an illegitimate government would themselves not be considered legitimate.

However, one official said that the United States wanted to be careful “not to take a huge public role.” He said the United States indicated that it would quietly make clear to Mr. Micheletti that the $16.5 million it has already suspended in military aid could be expanded to include $180 million in other economic development assistance that is still under review.

Mr. Micheletti’s supporters are pushing back in part by paying hundreds of dollars an hour to well-connected Washington lawyers who have initiated a charm offensive from Washington. On Friday, Mr. Davis was testifying on Capitol Hill in support of Mr. Micheletti’s de facto government.

And on Saturday, Mr. Davis called reporters close to midnight to notify them that Mr. Micheletti had fired Enrique Ortez, whom he had appointed as his foreign minister, for having outraged American officials by referring in a television interview to President Obama as “that little black guy who doesn’t even know where Tegucigalpa is located.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/13/world/americas/13honduras.html [/quote]

[div class=excerpt style=background:#FEFEFF] Ex-Clinton aides advising Honduran coup regime
By Bill Van Auken
15 July 2009

Ever since the military abducted President Manuel Zelaya at gunpoint on June 28 and expelled him from the country, the Obama administration has cast itself as a steadfast defender of “democracy” in Honduras.

The real nature of that defense has become somewhat clearer with the news that key former aides to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, have surfaced as top advisers to the illegal regime led by Roberto Micheletti, which was installed by the coup.

Ginger Thompson of the New York Times reported from San Jose, Costa Rica Sunday that in organizing the first sessions of a US-brokered mediation exercise between the ousted President Zelaya and the leader of those who overthrew him, Micheletti, Costa Rican President Oscar Arias instructed both men to appear at his residence with just four advisers.

“On Thursday morning, Mr. Micheletti showed up with six, adding an American public relations specialist who has done work for former President Bill Clinton and the American’s interpreter, and an official close to the talks said the team rarely made a move without consulting him,” Thompson reported.

The PR man was identified as Bennett Ratcliff of San Diego. Thompson quoted an official close to the talks as saying that “Every proposal that Micheletti’s group presented was written or approved by the American (Ratcliff).”

Perhaps even more significantly, Lanny Davis has emerged as among Washington’s most prominent defenders and spokesmen for the Honduran coup regime, acting as a lobbyist for the Honduran branch of the extreme right-wing Latin American Business Council.

Davis has been closely tied to the Clintons since he attended Yale Law School together with them in 1970. Between 1996 and 1998, he served as President Clinton’s special counsel. And in the 2008 presidential campaign, he served as one of Hillary Clinton’s most prominent fundraisers and surrogates in attacking her principal rival, Barack Obama.

It is inconceivable that such figures would be playing such a prominent role in advising and defending the coup regime in Honduras without receiving a green light from both Secretary of State Clinton and the Obama White House.

Davis put in an appearance at a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee last Friday, defending the coup and insisting that “democracy and civil liberties are flourishing in Honduras.”

This is an outrageous lie. Davis’s testimony came less than a week after Honduran troops opened fire on peaceful protesters at the Tegucigalpa airport, killing 19-year-old Isis Obed Murillo. As he spoke, a curfew enforced by the military remained in effect. Hundreds remain jailed, and the regime itself admitted Monday that since the coup it had subjected 1,286 people to arbitrary arrest. Sections of the media that have opposed the coup were shut down or expelled from the country. The day after Davis appeared, Telesur and Venezuelan TV (VTV) journalists were arrested by hooded police and deported.

In an indication that repression is intensifying rather than lessening, two prominent opposition leaders were shot and killed on Saturday, the night after Davis delivered his lying testimony to Congress.

Roger Bados, a leader of the National Resistance Front and president of a cement workers union, was gunned down in the northern industrial city of San Pedro Sula. On the same day, Ramon Garcia was taken off a bus in the Callejones sector of the western province of Santa Barbara and executed. He had been a prominent figure in anti-coup demonstrations in the area.

In his appearance before the House panel, Davis acknowledged that, given “the wisdom of hindsight,” things “could have been done differently that night the army whisked him (Zelaya) out of the country.” But he urged the committee to “look forward and not argue about past history,”
referring to the violent overturning of a government less than two weeks earlier.

He praised his long-time political associate, Hillary Clinton, for engineering the mediation by Oscar Arias, while giving a strong indication of its real purpose. He stressed that this process “will take time and doesn’t involve parachuting Mr. Zelaya immediately back into Honduras.”

Davis placed emphasis on the importance of “bipartisanship” and “civility” in discussing the coup. His own remarks were largely in bipartisan unity with those of another panelist, Otto Reich, George W. Bush’s former assistant secretary for Western Hemisphere affairs.

Reich is an anti-Castro Cuban émigré and extreme right-wing ideologue, who got his start in government as a key participant in the operation to support and fund the contra death squads attacking Nicaragua. He acted as the government protector of Cuban anticommunist terrorists Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch and, in 2002, played a prominent role in supporting the abortive coup against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

That one of the most prominent associates of Hillary Clinton finds himself in the same camp with such a figure is a far more accurate measure of the Obama administration’s real attitude to the Honduran coup than all of the platitudes about restoring democracy.

Costa Rican President Arias, meanwhile, announced Tuesday that he would resume his mediation on Saturday, calling for Zelaya and Micheletti to return to San Jose. It is widely acknowledged in Honduras by both sides that this process, proposed by Washington, is serving to legitimize the coup regime and essentially run out the clock on what remains of Zelaya’s presidency. Presidential elections are set for the end of November.

The State Department is maintaining the fiction that Arias is acting independently. Department spokesman Ian Kelly told a press conference Monday, “It’s not a process that is being led by the United States of America.” The response of the reporters was general laughter. As in earlier statements by Clinton and other spokesman, Kelly reiterated the US “support for the restoration of democratic order in Honduras,” without either condemning the coup or calling for the restoration of Zelaya.

Zelaya himself issued an “ultimatum” to the coup regime from neighboring Nicaragua on Monday, declaring that if the upcoming session does not result in his restoration to the presidency, “the mediation will be considered failed and we will proceed with other measures.” He did not spell out any such measures, however, aside from talking about facing the regime’s “bayonets” and inviting it to shoot him.

Such dramatic rhetoric cannot conceal the fact that Zelaya, like Micheletti, is in the end appealing primarily to Washington to come to his aid. Zelaya, a product of the Honduran oligarchy, has no intention of overturning the class system and political establishment in Honduras.

A number of critics of the coup have pointed to the appointment of Fernando Joya Améndola as a government minister as an indication of the reactionary character of the regime. No doubt it is. Better known as Billy Joya, he is a former captain in the Honduran army who is credited with the creation of a unit known as Battalion 316 in the 1980s, which provided aid to the CIA-backed contras and carried out death squad killings and torture against student activists, trade unionists and leftists in Honduras itself. He himself has been charged in numerous abductions, disappearances and killings.

The only problem, however, is that he served Zelaya as well, brought into his government as a senior adviser to the secretary of security over the protests of relatives of those he killed.

In the final analysis, no section of this ruling elite has any real independence from imperialism. This is also the standpoint of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who last week put in a call to the US State Department and publicly urged Obama to “do something” about Honduras.

Chavez referred to the Honduran coup as Obama’s “moment of truth,” urging him, “Demonstrate that you are ready to confront the hawks.”

Nothing could more clearly express the bankruptcy of left bourgeois nationalism in Latin America.

Obama is not going to confront any “hawks.” The evolution of US policy in the wake of the coup has demonstrated, once again, that the military and intelligence agencies in the US are asserting their power even more directly than under the Bush administration, using Obama as their front man. This is undoubtedly the case in Honduras, where the overthrow of an elected president is inconceivable without prior approval from Washington and the US military, which continues to occupy the country.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jul2009/hond-j15.shtml [/quote]

US Secretary of State Clinton’s Micro-Management of the Corporation that Funds the Honduras Coup Regime
Records Demonstrate that the Secretary Has Hands-On Control of the Fund that Gave $6.5 Million to the Regime After the June 28 Coup

By Bill Conroy and Al Giordano
Special to The Narco News Bulletin

August 11, 2009

In recent days, Narco News has reported that, in the three months prior to the June 28 coup d’etat in Honduras, the US-funded Millennium Change Corporation (MCC) gave at least $11 million US dollars to private-sector contractors in Honduras and also that since the coup it has doled out another $6.5 million.

The latter revelation – that the money spigot has been left on even after the coup – comes in spite of claims by the State Department that it has placed non-humanitarian funding “on pause” pending a yet-unfinished review.

Narco News has further learned – based on a review documents available on the websites of the Millennium Challenge Corporation and the US State Department – that Secretary Clinton, as chairman of the MCC board, is not just a figurehead in name only. She has played an extremely active role in governing and promoting the fund and its decisions.

An August 6 statement by MCC acting chief executive officer Darius Mans praises Clinton and President Obama for their balls-out support of MCC:

Now, well into a new administration and era, I am encouraged by the level of support MCC has been given by Congress and senior government leaders. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, chair of MCC’s board, confirms, “President Obama supports the MCC, and the principle of greater accountability in our foreign assistance programs.” The Secretary herself has referred to Millennium Challenge grants as a “very important part of our foreign policy. It is a new approach, and it’s an approach that we think deserves support.” Deputy Secretary of State Jack Lew has said, “MCC is getting off the ground and making real progress.

Secretary Clinton’s official “blog” at the State Department reveals that the June 10 meeting of MCC’s board – just 18 days before the Honduras coup – was on the Secretary’s schedule:

Here’s what Hillary has on her plate for today, June 10th:
10:00 a.m. Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Board Meeting and Luncheon.


Last March, the previous MCC acting executive director Rodney Bent wrote:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton chaired her first MCC Board meeting this week. I was pleased to be part of this historic transition, and I welcomed Secretary Clinton’s active participation at the meeting. Her presence and the presence of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and other public and private sector Board members signal the importance of MCC’s ongoing commitment to delivering change in the lives of the world’s poor.

A recent move by the Clinton-led MCC board documents that the US-funded corporation has already discussed the cutting of funds to another Central American country, Nicaragua, based on criticism of its government, and that this was the topic of MCC’s June 10 session, chaired by Secretary Clinton. The Christian Science Monitor reported:

LEÓN, NICARAGUA - US concerns over last year’s questionable municipal elections in Nicaragua could be strong enough to cause leftist President Daniel Ortega, a cold-war nemesis of the US, to lose $64 million in development aid.

In a Wednesday meeting with the board of directors of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), an international development initiative started during the Bush administration, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will discuss whether to cancel the remaining portion of a $175 million compact awarded in 2006.

In December, the US government froze new aid after expressing serious concern about “the government of Nicaragua’s manipulation of municipal elections and a broader pattern of actions inconsistent with the MCC eligibility criteria.”

At the June 10 meeting, the MCC board approved partially terminating the agency’s foreign-aid compact with Nicaragua — resulting in some $62 million in U.S. foreign aid being withheld from that nation, which shares a border with Honduras. And in May o f this year, the Clinton-led MCC board approved the termination of the agency’s compact with Madagascar in the wake of a coup in that nation. However, no such action has been taken by the MCC board, to date, in the wake of the Honduran coup.

In the context of President Obama’s statement last weekend that those who urge the US to take stronger action against the Honduras coup regime “think that it’s appropriate for us to suddenly act in ways that in every other context they consider inappropriate,” calling it “hypocrisy.” The revelation that Clinton and MCC have already sanctioned the elected government of Nicaragua and its private sector in ways that it so far refuses to sanction the illegal coup regime of Honduras and its private backers has revealed one important fact: That Washington has already determined that “it’s appropriate” to deny MCC funds to a country for lighter and more transient reasons than those that exist to sanction a coup regime in another.

Didn’t a certain US President, last weekend, speak the word “hypocrisy” in the context of the US and the Honduras coup?

If “it’s appropriate” to sanction Nicaragua for lesser reasons, why not apply the sanction of denying MCC funds to a criminal coup regime in Honduras that Washington claims it has “paused” giving money, but that it continues to fund?

http://narconews.com/Issue59/article3760.html