President Zelaya has returned to Honduras & is in the Brazilian Embassy

by Al Giordano and General Joe Tue Sep 22, 2009 18:20

"This is a textbook example of what we've referred to before as "dilemma actions." It puts the coup regime on the horns of a dilemma, in which it has no good options. It can leave Zelaya to put together his government again from the Brazilian embassy with the active support of so many sectors of Honduran civil society, or it can try to arrest the President, provoking a nonviolent insurrection from the people of the kind that has toppled many a regime throughout history. "
The President Has Returned: All Hell Breaks Loose in Honduras!

Live Blog: President Zelaya Has Returned to Honduras
Posted by Al Giordano - September 21, 2009 at 11:58 am
By Al Giordano

The first to break the news in English was the Honduran Campesino blog:
Honduran president Manuel Zelaya is in Tegucigalpa…
The United Nations is protecting Mel…
TeleSur confirms the report, as does Reuters:
"I am here in Tegucigalpa. I am here for the restoration of democracy, to call for dialogue." he told Honduras' Canal 36 television network.
As occurred during the first hours of the June 28 coup d'etat, the Internet signals of Channel 36 and Radio Globo are blocked, as is cell phone service in the capital (I've yet to confirm that there is any Internet or cell phone access in Tegucigalpa at all right now - it all appears to be jammed - but we do have reporter Belén Fernández reporting right this moment from that city and the information blockade will be broken soon enough.) We can take that extreme of censorship as additional confirmation that the President has indeed returned and the illegitimate coup regime is panicking.
Developing... We'll update here as we're able to report and confirm more...
Update: 12:08 p.m. Tegucigalpa (2:08 p.m. ET): TeleSur confirms that the President is in Tegucigalpa but adds that it cannot confirm reports that he is in the United Nations building there. It anticipates a press conference from Zelaya this afternoon...
12:24 p.m. Tegucigalpa (2:24 p.m. ET): One of our correspondents just got an email message from Tegucigalpa which reports that not all cell phone service is blocked.
12:28 p.m.: Via TeleSur: The Spaniard news agency EFE reports that the President is in the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa.
12:29 p.m.: The US State Department confirms that Zelaya is in Honduras (via AP).
12:39 p.m.: The web page of the coup regime's "president" leads with a loud denial: "Micheletti denies the presence of 'Mel' in the country." Meanwhile AFP reports that the Brazilian government has confirmed Zelaya's presence in its Embassy in Tegucigalpa, according to TeleSur.
12:47 p.m.: TeleSur is showing images of uniformed National Police members, with billy clubs, shields, helmets and guns, surrounding the zone near the Brazilian Embassy, apparently to close access to the area, blocking anti-coup demonstrators from entering or leaving. The network is also broadcasting live images, from Channel 36, of two helicopters circling over the Embassy.
12:51 p.m.: TeleSur reporter Adriana Sívori is now inside the Brazilian Embassy and confirms President Zelaya's physical presence there.
1:57 p.m.: We now have phone contact with Narco News correspondent Belén Fernández, who in Tegucigalpa this morning walked into the Radio Globo headquarters just as the news broke that Zelaya had returned. She's going to have one hell of a story for us later today.
2:04 p.m.: Connecting the dots... The return of Zelaya has all the markings of a very well coordinated operation by the Honduran civil resistance and the member countries of the Organization of American States (OAS). The choice of Brazil's embassy - the Latin American country with the largest Air Force - pretty much guarantees that the coup regime can't possibly think it can violate the sovereignty of that space. That the US State Department confirmed, this morning, that Zelaya is in Honduras while the coup regime denied it strongly suggests it had advance knowledge that this would happen today (if not active participation).
This is a textbook example of what we've referred to before as "dilemma actions." It puts the coup regime on the horns of a dilemma, in which it has no good options. It can leave Zelaya to put together his government again from the Brazilian embassy with the active support of so many sectors of Honduran civil society, or it can try to arrest the President, provoking a nonviolent insurrection from the people of the kind that has toppled many a regime throughout history. Minute by minute, hour by hour, and, soon, day by day, the coup regime is losing its grip. At some point it will have to choose either to unleash a terrible violent wave of state terrorism upon the country's own people - which will provoke all out insurrection in response (guaranteed by Article 3 of the Honduran Constitution) - or Micheletti and his Simian Council can start packing their bags and seeking asylum someplace like Panama. Meanwhile, the people are coming down from the hills to meet their elected president. This, kind readers, is immediate history.
2:24 p.m.: Some other consequences of today's breaking development: President Zelaya today erases any of the talk or speculation that he did not have the courage to put himself at risk in this struggle, which will also have an emboldening effect on every single individual among the hundreds of thousands in the civil resistance. The effect is causing all to think: If he's willing to risk all, then so am I.
This move also makes a laughing stock out of Micheletti and his security forces. Remember our reports about how airfields throughout the country were blocked by buses and other vehicles, so paranoid was the regime about Zelaya's potential return? That Zelaya slipped through the security net demonstrates that the coup regime does not have the control it claims to have. Micheletti - the usurper dictator - has also helped elevate his status as a national buffoon with his early claims today that Zelaya hadn't really returned. He accused the media that reported his return of lying and of "media terrorism." Well, now the same pro-coup newspapers that reported his tantrum have this photo, taken today, of President Zelaya and his cabinet members inside the Brazilian Embassy:

There you have it. Countdown to complete mental breakdown by Micheletti and his dwindling core of supporters (and, yes, that includes a grouplet of US expats that have been blogging constant disinformation from Honduras - their self-delusion and dishonesty to all is now crashing on the rocks of reality, too).
2:56 p.m.: Ivan Marovic - who as a young man played a major role in strategizing the civil resistance that toppled the Serbian dictator Milosevic, and who spent a few days in Honduras this summer at the invitation of the civil resistance - and I just had a chat online about our observations of what is happening and how it changes everything in Honduras.
With his permission, I'll share with you an excerpt:
me: So, let's put ourselves in Micheletti's shoes. What options does he have at this point?
Ivan: It's a tough one. He can arrest Zelaya, but Zelaya said he's here to call for dialogue. That would be bad. Micheletti can enter a dialogue, but then he's screwed.
me: Well, I don't think he can send troops into the Brazilian Embassy, which is sovereign territory. Brazil has the biggest air force in Latin America. Brazil is the coordinating nation of the UN security forces in Haiti...
Ivan: This is important, because with Zelaya in the country, the momentum has shifted. Stalling doesn't work anymore.
me: It's a textbook "dilemma action."
Ivan: Yes.
me: The regime can either leave him there to reassemble his government with broad popular support, or it can unleash a wave of violence and terror, which would provoke all out insurrection. Now that Zelaya has demonstrated he is willing to risk his own freedom and safety, that becomes contagious to hundreds of thousands that will decide to do the same.
Ivan: Yes, this has a big symbolic value. That's why no regime is afraid of the government in exile. But in the country, that's a different thing.
It's a game changer, folks.
3:05 p.m.: Here's transcript from today's US State Department briefing in Washington DC with spokesman Ian Kelly and reporters:
QUESTION: Do we know if President Zelaya has come home? And what does it signal?
MR. KELLY: Well, you know, literally, as I was about to come down, I saw the news report and I was able to talk to my colleagues in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs. It does seem to be true that he has returned to Honduras. And the Embassy is still seeking details about what he hopes to achieve and what his next steps are.
I think that at this point, really, all I can say is reiterate our almost daily call on both sides to exercise restraint and refrain from any kind of action that would have any possible outcome in violence, refrain from activities that would – could provoke violence.
QUESTION: How did he come in, and where is he? What --
MR. KELLY: Don’t know.
QUESTION: When did it happen?
MR. KELLY: Like I say, the Embassy is trying to find out these details. But I do know that we have confirmed that he’s in Honduras. Where exactly he is, I don’t know. And we’re just trying to find out more details.
QUESTION: Last time we tuned in, he was under threat of arrest if he came home. Is that still what’s in play right now?
MR. KELLY: I’d have to refer you to the de facto regime in Tegucigalpa. Of course, we believe that he’s the democratic – democratically elected and constitutional leader of Honduras.
I'll ask you, kind readers, the same question I asked Ivan Marovic, above: If you are coup "president" Roberto Micheletti, what is your next move? It's hard to predict, because he's not always a rational player on the field.
3:37 p.m.: The coup regime makes its first move, declaring a military curfew in effect from 4 p.m. to 7 a.m. What's not clear is whether it will be obeyed by the crowds converging around the Embassy, and what the regime's next move will be if the public disregards its curfew.
4:21 p.m.: The military curfew began 21 minutes ago, but a multitude of citizens continue to congregate in front of the Brazilian embassy, making and listening to speeches against the coup regime. In other words: What if they called a curfew and nobody stayed home?
4:31 p.m.: Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim says that he doubts very much that the Honduran coup regime would commit "a flagrant violation of International Law" by invading his country's embassy in Tegucigalpa.
4:56 p.m.: The regime is trying everything. Cell phone service is being screwed with again for the past hour. Channel 36 has gone off the air. Radio Globo's Internet site is down. Here is an alternate link to Radio Globo's live stream. Keep storming the gates of the information blockade.
5:06 p.m.: Radio Globo reports that a caravan of more than 2,000 vehicles filled with coup opponents is en route from the state of El Paraiso to the national capital. Also reports massive traffic jams in Tegucigalpa now, an hour after curfew took effect.
5:21 p.m.: Coup "president" Micheletti just spoke on a "cadena nacional" (in which all TV, radio and cable stations are required to broadcast his message). He confirmed that Zelaya is in the country, insisted that the June 28 coup was "legal," said Zelaya will have to face charges against him, insisted that the country is in complete calm (if so, then why the military curfew?), attacked the government of Brazil for protecting Zelaya in its Embassy, and told everyone that the National Police and the National Army are behind him. He ended with shouts of "Viva Honduras" to a small group of coup functionaries. He sounds frightened, but is digging in his heels.
Upon the termination of his broadcast, a woman on Radio Globo mocked him mercilessly, saying "no one owes obedience to an order by a de facto regime," and noted that the curfew was called just ten minutes before it took effect, leaving millions of Hondurans to have to get home from work but without enough time to do it. "Nobody is obeying the order," she said. "Nor should they."
5:30 p.m.: I'll be live on Flashpoints radio (available at the KPFA website), hosted by Dennis Bernstein, at the top of the hour (8 p.m. ET, 5 p.m. PT) to talk about the situation in Honduras. There will also be a report from Tim Russo - professor at the upcoming Narco News School of Authentic Journalism - who was in front of the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa today when President Zelaya appeared from the balcony to greet the crowd, and took audiotape of the moment.
5:42 p.m.: Leaders of the Liberal Party bloc that turned against the coup have now signed a public letter calling on party members "in all the popular barrios" of Tegucigalpa and throughout the country to converge on the Brazilian Embassy to protect President Zelaya. Radio Globo just read the letter live on the air.
5:50 p.m.: The coup regime has just cut electricity to entire neighborhoods surrounding the Brazilian Embassy and Channel 36 TV. How long do you think it will take the people to install a generator in each place? The same will happen when the regime cuts the water, the next likely step coming from that form of logic. And the people will usher in water trucks to refill the tanks. Hell, they'll bring it cup by cup if they have to! This is a losing gambit by the Micheletti regime because it does not have control of the street.
6:52 p.m.: As predicted in the previous update, the regime's attempt to cut electricity to the Brazilian Embassy is already an epic fail. Tim Russo just reported live on that Flashpoints radio show from inside the Embassy as the electric power went back on! A discussion about a half hour prior, on Radio Globo, included a call for generators and a pledge by the head of the electrical workers union to send technicians to set them up. A half hour later, there was light. An organized people can never be beat. That is the lesson of Honduras.
8:17 p.m.: The coup regime has just extended the military curfew until 6 p.m. tomorrow evening, which means nobody goes to work on Tuesday, not even during daylight hours, and all stores will be closed. (Schools were already out as the teachers unions called a national strike and for their members to come to the Brazilian embassy.) Meanwhile, the US State Department has recommended that US citizens avoid all non-essential travel to Honduras. It's as if there's a general strike without it even being called for!

This hemispheric awakening is being fostered by independent media artists/sources who you can easily follow. Some are:

www.narconews.com
www.telesurtv.net/noticias/canal/senalenvivo.php
www.venezuelanalysis.com/
http://chiapas.indymedia.org/ Spanish

Join this struggle for justice and true freedom. Our brothers and sisters across the Americas are doing their parts from conditions of extreme hardship and danger. Surely it is time for us to “step up” from here. We may be on the verge of an historic victory. Spread the news everywhere.

by giggle, gurggle, twitter, wireless head - ( iosaf) hip hip horah for the common man! Mr Z is back!!! Tue Sep 22, 2009 20:28

Cutting electrical, water or gas supplies to diplomatic legations without prior explanations and warning (such a final demand for non-payment of a utility bill or a polite note informing of essential infrastructure repairs) may be considered a breach of the Vienna Convention.

That would fall under the category of "casus belli" which together with casus foederis I bothered to mention when I wrote my news article breaking this news into easy to understand bits for an Irish readership in the small hours of our Tuesday.

If you can afford to take advantage of the whole package of the Vienna Convention then it's a 100% certainty that you're a sovreign state who can also afford its own electrical generator and provision a well stocked larder. But the fact that the "cutting of power" act of aggression and the outstanding defiant response of the electrical trade unionists was reported on the air waves is significant.

whether or not Brazil actually found herself without lecky and in need of a sparky.

Linked and Dated background and analytic coverage of the "Honduran Crisis" from the week before the coup d'etat to the events of this last 24 hours may be read at this link :
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/94157

you could make a feature out of it, & a good one at that just as long as no-one really believed that "all hell has broken out in Honduras" as the headline of this report suggests.


Hell doth not emerge from breaking news.
or Heaven neither..,


;-)

by iosaf Tue Sep 22, 2009 21:35

Everyone could almost seem to be in the wrong place of the time-continuum thing & as fans of good chess play might muse, this is as interesting as a Karpov / Kasparov opening.

* President Zelaya is, as we all now know, in the Brazilian embassy. He's not in his presidential palace.

= wrong place to be in many ways . this is indeed the wrong placement at the kernal of this whole crisis thing. He's actually supposed to be 4km across the city doing his job.

* President Lula is at it happens in New York in the USA at the moment & not in his presidential palace either.

= ok place to be. if you've got money on you and don't have to trust cabbies. & at least he has an excuse not to go on the frontline of Brazilian telly and answer tough questions from the Brazilian equivalent of Pat Kenny.

* The Brazilian ambassador to Honduras is in Brazil.

Although it's perfectly ok for Brazilians to be in Brazil any day of the week, generally being an ambassador to somewhere like Honduras includes the duty of being on site at the right or wrong moments. It appears this is either a right or wrong moment which we might assign the impartial adjective of crucial . The absence of the Brazilian ambassador to Honduras in Honduras could be a "wrong place" at "right time" or vice versa. You'd have to think either very far ahead in the embassy's "number 2" chap's CV or very far back in how old Mr Z managed to spend 4 days incognito in Honduras with or without his cowboy hat. ( I reckon he took his hat off for the incognito bit. It must have been difficult but at least he didn't have to go shaving off his moustache).

_______________________________________________

In the updates to my main article on this crises I explained that Brazil ha stopped all visa requests from Honduras in August as a sign of their remarkably strong position on the crisis ting, so no Honduran has been able to visit Brazil for a few weeks now.

In the last 24 hours the Hondurans have closed their airports, borders and ports. So you can bet your bottom Lisbon punting flutter that Ryanair aren't going to be creating jobs there soon or weighing the Brazilian ambassador's diplomatic baggage when he returns. Oh yes. Nobody is getting in and nobody is getting out.........

hmm.......

I hope I'm not being too clever by half, but of course we all know that the Vienna Convention on diplomatic legations, immunity & inviolable natures of the ferrere rocher thing are really getting important for the chattering classes. I'd advise many of you to look the convention up on wikipedia.

Meanwhile - it is now reported on Brazilian media that its embassy (without an ambassador) has water, electricity, gas and all the usual things back to normal.

Nobody is wondering did they have to put on gas masks when the Honduran cops started firing the tear gas.

But an opinion poll from the main daily seems to be roughly 50%/50% in favour or against meddling in Honduran affairs.

Nobody yet has made their photographic career by copyrighting an image of president Zelaya in his pyjamas next to a poster of Pele or whatever kind of kitsch you'd expect to find in a Brazilian embassy. I've never been in one, so I wouldn't be able to even guess. But I reckon Pélé was a hero and at least a Brazilian name you'd recognise.

________________________________________

the National Party of Honduras which is ironically supposedly contesting a general and presidential election at the moment has announced in the last 40 minutes that it supports dialogue between Mr Zelaya and the usurping regime.

ah!
you see?

hell may not be breaking loose, but at least one piece on the board has moved. The ordinary folk on the street must be wetting themselves with delight, all this progress without even a strong word from Obama.

Mr Z waving (not saluting) with that flag in the background.

third world cop wearing Kevlar body armour firing tear gas canister at civilians outside the Brazilian embassy to Honduras

similarly well equiped 3rd world cops with gas masks bullying people at the railings of the Brazilian embassy.

by iosaf Wed Sep 23, 2009 12:53

Without actually providing any evidence for the plan, Zelaya has told TeleSUR that the Honduran army were going to enter the Brazilian embassy yesterday, assassinate him and then the forensic team would report it as suicide. The Brazilian daily newspaper "O Globo" immediately picked up on the story. This statement has ended with the message that Mr Z is not going to commit suicide (just in case anyone was wondering) and another of his usual "He'll die on his feet not live on his knees" lines. The source of that line is Emiliano Zapata by the way. (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Emiliano_Zapata )

The good news is that so far nobody has died, because every time mr Z has spoken of himself being bumped off other little people do tend to die.

TeleSUR (Spanish) http://telesurtv.net/noticias/secciones/nota/58160-NN/z...idio/
Globo (Portuguese) http://oglobo.globo.com/mundo/mat/2009/09/23/zelaya-den...0.asp

The English Guardian has produced a short article in English (?) which describes the scene in the embassy as being that of Mr Z, a few mates and a few diplomats lounging around under photographs of Brazilian beaches. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/23/honduras-ma...bassy

In the last comment I had mentioned the important fact that the Brazilian ambassador to Honduras is not on site. I had also jokingly suggested someone get a photo of Zelaya in the embassy in his pyjamas or at least a poster of pele. I also wondered how he could go about incognito and suggested it could be the hat thing.

hence the illustration.

which brings to me wonders I have about the modern day mobile phone and its battery capacity and pixel quality photographs. For as we know if we read the press, the Brazilian compound is surviving on a diesel generator, nobody is getting in or out and there are no phone lines. I suppose you could take photos with a webcam and internet them out. Zelaya in his pyjamas might not be an exactly dignified image of an ousted yet legitimate president, but if I were his spin doctor, I'd make sure that image got out. I'd even include a teddy bear.

Meanwhile the breaking news this hour is : illegitimate but de facto president of Honduras Roberto Micheletti has announced he is willing to talk to Mr Z.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8270126.stm
* but only if Mr Z accepts the current election campaign farce........ (which even the USA under Clinton has already said it won't accept) [c/f the September 5th comment to this article of Sept 4th http://www.indymedia.ie/article/93903?search_text=honduras )

now that's silly. a picture of Micheletti in his pyjamas could be go for a laugh too. Especially if they had little arrows on them. Which they might just do.

Hat off incognito Mr Z, under map of Brazil (not Pele not cute dancer not beach) next to flag of Honduras. on phone. as usual.

by iosaf Thu Sep 24, 2009 01:48

_______________________UPDATES_____________________

* Police admit one death yesterday. Their estimates of 40 people attempting to enter the embassy compound garden has conflicted with an interview given by telephone to "El Pais" which referred to 350. The dead man was a builder Francisco Alvarado 65 years of age. His sister also gave an interview to "El Pais".

* the UN has suspended all assistance and monitoring of the Honduran elections.

* The Usurpist regime has extended the curfew indefinitely and ordinary people in the capital are now going to go without foodstuffs soon if they haven't already.

* Accordingly this afternoon supermarkets were looted in Tegucigalpa. No doubt pissed off shop-keepers were wondering where were the police when you need them.

* Today's clashes with police occured in daylight hours as Hondurans attempted to march on the UN building in their capital. Well at least they were being political and not robbing tinned fruit.

* ALBA (the bolivarian alliance of latin american states) has followed OAS in demanding the siege end.

* President Lula of Brazil speaking at the UN has said the international community wants President Zelaya restored.

* The Spanish state has announced its ambassador is to return to Honduras. That ambassador Mr Ignacio Rupérez was recalled by Madrid earlier during the crises. Of course the Spanish embassy is inviolable, good for refuge, and has plenty of space for baggage. He is to consult with the EU before going because as we know all us EU people aren't talking to the Honduran usurpist regime or even giving them aid.

his excellency ambassador Ignacio Ruperez is returning to Honduras because the legitimate president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, (the bloke in the hat who accredited him), phoned him up & asked him back.

simple as that...."hello!? hola!? remember me!? yep. I'm back home. would you put some duty free in your baggage for me?"

________________________________________________________________________

(now follows quite a bit of my considered opinion & perhaps what probably to many is no more than waffle)

The media industrial complex loves opinion polls and voxpops. They are amongst one of those most powerful tools of subtle influence on short-term political and long-term commercial decision making, as I always tell people in bars if they give me half the chance to tear them away from the sports telly.

& so the opinion poll set up yesterday by the Brazilian "Globo" on whether or not it was a good thing for Brazil to be involved with Honduras ended up much as it had begun - 50/50. Today's delight has been the TeleSUR opinion poll asking its online visitors if they think the gorillas in Honduras will respect the inviolable nature of the Brazilian embassy. 72% think "no".

Of course it's a loaded question (as always) coz as we ought recognise - the gorillas have already placed the nature of the Brazilian diplomatic legation and its embassy in what I'd term a situation of "exception" to the inviolable nature of the Vienna convention and international diplomatic protocol.

I'm very aware that after years of writing in a few languages my grammar, spelling, syntax and even vocabulary can seem really sloppy especially when I don't go to the bother of proof-reading an article or comment. But every now again I find words which exist in other languages which share roots with English but lack a precise equivalent or even translation. This has bothered me much on a professional basis as translator or interpreter as much as teacher of English and really irks me to the point of abstraction when I explain to anyone my thoughts on why English hasn't got its own word for coup d'etat and I've always to write the German word putschist to describe the people who do the Frenchie coup d'etat things.

I'd like to take credit for coining if not helping to popularise the word precarity instead of precariousness for describing a generation's socio-economic condition & now I'd like thoughtful readers to accept my neologism (or new word) Inviolability for thinking about this embassy seige just coz it looks so like inviolabilidad in Spanish (and/or) inviolabilidade in Portuguese.

Inviolability, this new concept I ask you to consider is not to be confused with immunity which the only other noun ending in "-ity" most of ye will have put together with the adjective "diplomatic" until now.

The media industrial complex in English has seemed to compliment Zelaya on his timing of arriving in the Honduran capital just as the UN start their general assembly and hear President Obama speak to them for the first time. They have also added subtle applause to the way he has now quite undoubtedly "kept his word" : he said he'd come back & now he's back.

But they are not (they being the media industrial complex in English) paying too much attention to the inviolability of the Brazilian embassy, its right to give refuge & the immunity of its accredited diplomatic legation.

I hope I'm not getting too heavy here on you & distracting you from the sports telly or the Karpov/Kasparov chess clash.


Let us briefly look at these three elements distinctly with due regard to recent historical precedents and a particularly English speaking independent media reader's perspective . we are not, after all & before anything - "the media industrial complex".

(a) inviolability Even though a key member of the usurpist Honduran regime said there was no law on Earth to stop Hondurans going in and taking out (to arrest) Zelaya - there are in fact several international conventions and accords which establish, guarantee & define the limits of an embassy's inviolability. I've mentioned the Vienna. I'd also remind younger readers that at some point in the mid 20th century their ancestors would have listened to wireless broadcasts informing them that war had been declared and people had a few hours to get out of their embassies. That was and is how polite the whole embassy thing is. You start a world war in which hundreds of millions of people will die but you still give the enemy ambassador enough time to take down the curtains, pack away the brandy and as often happened burn files in the garden. There have however been key incidents in more recent history where embassies' inviolability was "spoilt". The US military surrounded the embassy of the Roman Catholic state, which is as you know the Vatican and its embassies are called "Apostolic Nunciatures" ( not to be confused with nonce-iatures )in Panama in 1989. The US government positioned its military in this siege formation to ensure the extraction of a man called Noriega who had been military dictator of Panama since 1983. They (the USA) supported him when he began the job as dictator and they (the Vatican) accredited him with diplomats. The US played non-stop heavy metal music, much with rude lyrics at industrial volume every minute Noriega was in the embassy. It was a perfect example of psychological warfare & indeed is one of the best overt examples of techniques used in hard interrogation by the spooks. c/f Noriega's arrest http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Nifty_Package The Vatican state's embassy ought bring us logically to the second point "refuge" but first I'd like to remind younger readers of the Iranian embassy siege in London which took place 9 years previously in 1980. It also was a perfect example of modern precision warfare in which telly viewers were treated to a live broadcast of the British SAS ending a five day "terrorist occupation" of the Iranian embassy by a very interesting bunch of Iranian seperatists (whose region is to this day an interesting place). Telly viewers saw the SAS absailing down the front of the building and then going in the windows to shoot everyone up. Or at least that's how it looked from the BBC, the intelligence value of this high profile incident was the preparation for the five team SAS assult (only 2 abseiled) which had been collated using cameras on fibre optic cables introduced to the building. Now fibre optics were very swish back in 1980 and nobody had thought to sell novelty lights with them. c/f http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_embassy_siege In the case of the Iranian embassy siege the Iranian state (you know the one that doesn't get on with the Brits) gave the go-ahead for the Brits to end the siege. Yet they then got uppity afterwards and not only about the fatality rate but also the fibre optic camera things. (They leave terrible holes in the plasterwork those yokes - which is why they are generally led through light fittings or plug socket earth terminals). The US seige of the Panamian embassy though provoking much complaint did not end in much displeasure on the part of the Roman Catholic state which to this date has never even criticised the US death penalty. I have chosen deliberately not to include the 1972 burning of the British Embassy to Ireland on Dublin's Merrion Square incident, believing the true facts of the matter are still not available for historical examination and also happening to hold the opinion that the burning of that embassy after such a prolonged protest was an incident which counted on prior agreement or acquiescence through diplomatic back channels. Now we go logically to refuge or "sanctuary".

Refuge

Embassies like hospitals trace their roots to the mid medieval period in general (after the establishment of the principle christian monastic rules & orders) and the pragmatism of the muslim world during and after each bit of war we call the "crusades". I don't have to go into the remarkable naivety of medieval pilgrims who wanted to visit Sion much, nor do I want to, because I'd be waxing lyrical on a pet subject and speciality. But many of these people had very little idea of where they were going, what they were carrying (virus wise) nor even how to wash their hands. The muslims through whose lands they walked or marched to the "Holy Land" before, during or after a crusade - at least washed their hands, feet and head every day. On the whole the sight of a new season's bunch of poorly prepared pilgrims quite probably infected with something nasty was the best encouragement for both sides Christian and Muslim to establish areas of refuge, sanctuary & if we touch on warfare and burial rites - the roots of a nightly truce and the white flag. These traditions may have links to some aspects of Julian Roman law, but their establishment in our cultures and international law have in much essence changed little since the dark ages. Although the sanctuary of churches is something which has in my lifetime been sidestepped several times. I witnessed myself the cathedral of Barcelona theoretically "desanctified" (by removal of a host and quenching of candles) so riot police could enter and remove 4,000 mostly muslim migrant protesters by force. Many readers will remember the Afghan hunger and thirst strikes in Dublin's Patrick's cathedral and perhaps like to read again or for the first time the statement from the Church of Ireland on its consideration of its sanctuary, inviolability and refuge then. Alas, I can't find it now - but suffice to remind readers that the Anglican cathedral of St George in Jerusalem (back where it all began) gave sanctuary, refuge and succour to Mordechai Vanunu the Israeli nuclear whistle-blower in 2004.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordechai_Vanunu

Immunity
In its diplomatic sense this means any foreigner whose credentials have been presented to the state in which they are thereafter "accredited" or "resident" may move freely, without let or hindrance. It also means they don't get their baggage or mail searched. We can laugh and say that at times they can get away with murder. (they do) we can note that they can drink and drive and smoke spliffs (they do). But sometimes their baggage is subject to checks. When I write baggage and you think about baggage most people think a hold-all, a suitcase. In 2007 the state of Zimbabwe impounded 3 sea freight cargo containers which formed part of British state diplomatic baggage. Just in case you've never bothered to examine a sea freight container or wonder what can go in them - they are generally 12 metres long, 2 and a half metres wide and 2.5 metres tall. They generally let you pack 67 cubic metres of gear in each one. Now even allowing for the food shopping and clothing retailing and furniture markets in Zimbabwe being unlike that an attaché would be accustomed to in England, you must admit 200 cubic metres of diplomatic baggage is quite a hefty load. Try getting that past a Ryanair check-in desk. Oddly enough the Zimbabweans after complaining about MI6 (who else) went quiet on the story, the attaché found another legation to work in and the British got their 3 cargo containers back.

So the first European ambassador to go back to Honduras might well be the Spanish one. He might even get to Honduras before the Brazilian ambassador returns to his embassy (for those who missed the previous comments he isn't actually on site).

Jairo Sánchez, a trade unionist shot in the face whist standing outside the Brazilian embassy garden yesterday. - he's still alive.

by - Thu Sep 24, 2009 07:05

this poor kid had nothing much in the option for provisions - they've looted all the t-shirts as well as food. Let's hope he has well off parents or the photographer wants to adopt him or pay him at least.

click on image and read story

by iosaf Thu Sep 24, 2009 12:08

At around 1pm Irish time today the umpteenth curfew ordered by the usurpist gorilla regime in Honduras will be lifted.

This means people can go to work (if they have jobs), go window shopping (if there are windows amd even if there are windows - there is anything left to gawk or peer at through them)

They'll be able to look for lost kids too.

They won't be able to visit the Brazilian embassy or try and see their legitimate president though.

Thus shall the usurpist regome attempt to bring normality back to Honduras.

Oddly enough after ordering so many curfews and killing so many poor sods and for some reason not having the gumption to do the coup d'etat thing properly from the outset by killing Zelaya - nobody can really say normality is being restored to Honduras.

Honduras is abnormal.

- Importantly abnormal.

Meanwhile on the other side of the inflatable guest beds and the flags, more than a few news sources who are supportive of Zelaya's legitimacy are wondering "aloud" - ¿is he going round the bend?

He has released 4 interviews in the last 24 hours which are to say the least a wee bit paranoid........he keeps going on about not committing suicide............he's mentioned nerve gases..........psi war broadcasts...........specialised mercenaries.......... what can this mean?
..................fibre optic cameras peering in on him...........voices in the head????? .

Maybe he just needs to put on his pyjamas and sleep a good night's presidential sleep in a decent executive sized bed.


However, Lest it doth passeth that the legitimate president of Honduras merit a tin foil hat by the weekend..,
Let us not forget that all this is really about the little chaps, chapettes and their chapitos and chapitas & think about how their Hell might be breaking loose.

Hell as Satre almost said, is other poor people.
he would have said that but Simone de Bouvoir was very snobby and had an awful Kevin Myersish influence on him

it's got to the stage that now they've even looted the kid who was in the last photo... he's missing... keep an eye out for him!

this is where president Z sleeps. hardly private. & who would have thought anyone really bought (or looted) those inflatable beds.

by Dunk Thu Sep 24, 2009 12:56

PRESIDENT MANUEL ZELAYA: [translated] I had to travel for fifteen hours, sometimes walking, other times marching in different areas in the middle of the night, because I wanted to celebrate the country’s independence day with the Honduran people. Those who believe that governing was something easy have made a mistake. To govern is something serious. Governing requires talent, dedication and love for the people.

Report from Democracy Now:
Report from Honduras: Ousted President Manuel Zelaya Returns to Honduras in Defiance of Coup Government
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/9/22/report_from_hondu...anuel

How nice it was to see while walking to work the other morning on the front page of the Vanguardia newspaper here in barcelona, that picture of Zelaya back in his country, even if officially and publicly he is still not YET on his soil, but brazilian embassy, with or without the lekky

thanks iosaf for constant updates and putting of things into perspecive

lets hope that all goes well for our herman@s de Honduras and not only them but all of latin america...

lets also hope that that spirit or fight for a healthier, saner, more just and dignified existence jumps to the little "green isle" which has allowed a government to rob them and more...

We can only hope that Ireland awakens and that all concerned citizens get angry (thankfully in post tiger world, nama cuts and more this is already happening, a bit) moan (this has always happened, without the later imporant part) and TAKE ACTION (its been done before, remember who broke the first link in the old british empires world) to ensure that the world they collectively want is the one in which they exist in...

Greetings from Barcelona

Dunk

by iosaf Thu Sep 24, 2009 20:59

* The Honduran airports are open again for business and pleasure travellers.

* The siege of the Brazilian embassy continues - no food has been allowed in.

* but the wife of president Zelaya has succeeded in getting a tanker truck of drinking water through the cordon.

* There are reports that Zelaya met unofficially with a representative (un-named) of the usurpist regime last night.

* So far at the UN General Assembly session as each head of state gets up for their 20 minute rant, all Latin Americans have called for the restoration of Zelaya.

* Spain's Zapatero gave his 20 minute thing today and also insisted on the return of Zelaya. He didn't answer Ghadaffi's wonderful question during his speech yesterday so I still can't update anyone on who killed JFK.

* Mercosur has finalised the list of all Latin American multi-national organisations who in reaction to Zelaya's homecoming have declared that he should now be restored to power as well.
______________________________________________________________________________

It would appear from the photograph circulated today that not only does Manuel Zelaya enjoy the comfort of an inflatable bed but also can count on the services of a priest. This raises questions for me & should for many too.

¿ Did the priest travel in the car boot, swim rivers, take his uniform off, go incognito to accompany Zelaya?

Was the priest already in the Brazilian embassy when Zelaya arrived?

Was the priest one of the first supporters to rally to the compound when news broke that Zelaya had returned and managed to dodge tear gas and jump the fence complete with his little ciborium?

[an explanatory note to non-eucharistic taking readers who perhaps didn't learn their RC catechism, receive confirmation rites from the CofI and instead were brung up presbyterian or something more exotic - a ciborium is the little container you use to carry the little bit of bread around once it has been transubstantiated from a mere foodstuff into the essence of the Christ.

Is the man in the photo with the host and ciborium really a priest?

If the priest did not arrive with Zelaya, or afterwards, or was not on the site before - then short of a miraculous passage through the police cordon afforded inviolable immunity (perhaps to carry a eucharistic host to a place where no food may be brought...........

¿ is the priest the un-named contact between Zelaya and the usurpist regime ?


maybe we'll never know.
maybe it's not important.
maybe I'm making something out of nothing and it's just a deposed president getting holy communion on a wednesday night they way socialist leaning leaders are generaly known to do.

today's image reminded me of Saddam Hussein's dental check when the US caught him. But Pres Z. is in fact taking a holy communion euchuristic wafer & some water.

by iosaf Fri Sep 25, 2009 18:16

This early evening's breaking news temporarily caused an outage of service on Telesur's website.

it has now been revealed the interlocutor between the usurpist regime and Zelaya are Roman Catholic priests My speculation in the last comment is thus proven as a correct anaylsis of the facts available as understood by the photo issued of Wednesday night - However, the work of these RC points of contact are reported as having begun yesterday Thursday.
http://telesurtv.net/noticias/secciones/nota/58333-NN/m...uras/

* Brazil has demanded of an emergency session of the UN Security Council that its embassy that the inviobility of its embassy be respected. The BBC used the word inviobility in their report last night, so we're on the way to the acceptance of a useful little new word!
Brazil is calling for a formal declaration that its inviobility has been violated .

* The attack by Honduran police using tear gas on the embassy seems to be a defiant response to that meeting...... the gauntlet is thrown. = Yes - diplomatic inviobility has been spoilt, now what's the international community going to do about it? Send in blue helmets to take the tear gas off Honduran cops?

http://telesurtv.net/noticias/secciones/nota/58332-NN/b...-onu/

* the Honduras usurpist regime has issued yet another curfew for 18 of its provinces outside of the capital including all bordering regions with its neighbours Nicaragua & Guatemala & El Salvador.

* the RC Church it seems has been attempting to broker a meeting between Zelaya and 4 representatives of the current general and presidential elections - which as we know have already been deemed invalid by the international community.

* the BBC reports those inside the embassy are surviving on biscuits and according to one living in inhuman conditions with helpful allusion made to the inflatable beds and mention that they can not even wash. Considering the conditions many Hondurans live in; their food, their water & their bedding the BBC article really comes across to me at least as hyperbole - if not smelly. There are undoubtedly many people in the compound and they are not accustomed to their current situation, nutrition or quantity of water. However there is also obviously an electrical system, at least 3 high quality digital video cameras of professional TV quality and a host of working mobile phone lines.
Their condition is being exagerrated to the detriment of the consideration of ordinary Hondurans.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8274498.stm

* Farce

* Farcical

The international community has failed and is failing and has at this stage passed a point of no return on its handling of and response to the Honduran crises.

if you pondered my questions about the priest then ask yourself now how many days does an average hispanic male go without shaving and his stubble be clearly visible?

If there is enough water to drink, there is then enough water in order (for all those who have never lived in primary conditions) water to clean cooking utensils and recepticles, wash, shave, dilute bleach for the sewage.

that is why all the toilet paper is on the shelf in the photograph no?
One luxury item which we go through so much of. Hygienic paper, something we take so for granted in the occidental world is right up at the top of luxury lists with tampons and razor blades.

the average Honduran lives a dismal life. The situation is now utterly farcical - how much loo roll do you see? how much stubble?

by iosaf Fri Sep 25, 2009 21:43

I am adding this comment because there is now some hard evidence of a slightly technical nature becoming available about the attack using gas cylinders on the Brazilian compound earlier today in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa. On a light-heared note I'd also ruefully admit that no sooner do I encourage the adoption of a new word inviolabilty I start mis-spelling it.

we have several sides of the story now to update.

* the UN Security Council has denounced the intimidatory acts on the part of the illegitimate government of Honduras and its police and military today.

* Zelaya has said that everyone in the compound was affected by the gas which is now being attributed to the Honduran military rather than police. We are talking about -

* _____ tear gas (the bog standard kind which many a reader will have experienced or at least know or admire someone who has)
* _____ another combination of material based which included hydrogen cyanide

* I've a name for the priest : Fr. Andrés Tamayo. He has called for the military cordon to be withdrawn to at least 1km from the compound.

* the gas attack and the use of sonic frequencies is not of course not confined to the Brazilian compound. Its neighbours are having a hard time too. & probably have decided they'd like to vote out whatever regime is doing this.

* we have been presented with technical evidence of the use of ultra and infra sonic device use on the part of the military. The signals at the ultra sonic level are akin to the mosquito signal which readers might remember caused protests worldwide when fast food stores used it to discourage loitering on the part of adolescents and children whose sensitivity to higher frequencies and ultra-sonic is more acute than adults. ( c/f http://www.indymedia.ie/article/86200 ). As a musician and organist I can personally attest to the long observed effect of infra sonic vibrations which form a regular part of the harmonic system of the deepest note ands thus longest pipes of pipe organs within the confines of large acoustical environments (such as typically cathedrals). They are known to provoke key emotional responses in all adults as well as children, spinal sensations and at in recent years one frequency has been discovered in lab conditions which induces vomiting.
http://telesurtv.net/noticias/secciones/nota/58343-NN/z...lena/
_________________________________________________________________________

Anyone going "elementary Dr Watson" on me, when I discussed stubble in the last comment and photo would have pointed out that president Zelaya probably uses an electric shaver. As others might have pointed out that the man to his left who has previously been seen holding a TV camera is wearing stubble.

However, I believe consideration of the facts as known, presented by both sides & weighing them on what we know or may collectively contribute to our knowledge is vital.

We have been told drinking water was brought in. We had been told water was cut off. We know that the sewage system and tap water is not potable or drinkable, so the cisterns in the toilets where the toilet paper goes are not good for drinking but are for shaving and washing. We know that water purification tablets are standard provisions in any embassy compound with a well stocked larder or medical cabinet. We also know that water is in fact the first obvious method of introducing toxines to the environment. We know that use of nerve gases would constitute a breach of international law and evince questions on the chemical armanent of the Honduran military so may discount previous talk of it. But now after such talk - hyperbole &c - we have canisters fired into the compound-.

For those interested in the issues of refuge, sanctuary, inviobility and diplomatic immunity and embassy sieges which I touched in a comment up the page - consideration might be given to the decision taken by the Irish Embassy / Foreign Affairs department & Government not to allow Iranian civilians enter the Irish compound during election protests earlier this year (c/f my report which listsed those embassies who did allow civilians avoid tear gas & plastic as well as metal bullets those nights when the death toll stood at 20 in a state ruled by a regime now known to have been enriching uranium secretly : http://www.indymedia.ie/article/92798 ) On which note might I bring readers back to my first report on the Honduran crises, shortly before the coup 'detat and its comments in which I listed the pharmaceutical corporations who backed the usurpist regime. They are pivotal in the production of the military gases used today. That article & its comments might be read here - http://www.indymedia.ie/article/92883?search_text=honduras )

by dunk Sat Sep 26, 2009 11:11

hhhmmmm

Strange goings on indeed, then again, its always a little strange when dealing with and / or figting against coups.

Iosaf, you state "The international community has failed and is failing and has at this stage passed a point of no return on its handling of and response to the Honduran crises." If that is the case, what can we, here there everywhere, do to assist - visit local Honduras embassys and consulates, ask our dept of foreign affairs to put on further pressure...???

Anyway, interesting take on this BOLD move from Mel;

Amy Goodman (democracy now presenter and alternative nobel prize winner for this work) has written article on TRUTHDIG:
President Zelaya and the Audacity of Action
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090922_president_...tion/

Zelaya’s bold move occurs during a critical week, with world leaders gathering for the annual United Nations General Assembly, followed by the G-20 meeting of leaders and finance ministers in Pittsburgh. The Obama administration may be forced, finally, to join world opinion in decisively opposing the coup...

...Then in Pittsburgh, where the G-20 is meeting to assess and act on the global financial crisis, Brazil’s support for Zelaya may be a factor. Brazil, a G-20 member, is by far the largest economy in South America, and is a key ally and trading partner of the U.S. With tear gas wafting through the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa, and a potential armed assault on it by the coup regime to arrest Zelaya, this week may force Obama and Clinton to finally help the people of Honduras undo the coup.

2 interesting vids up on guardian site to help get a feel for things

Youths in Honduras take to the streets in support of Manuel Zelaya
Impromptu protest staged after ousted president is smuggled back into the country
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2009/sep/23/hondu...otest

Manuel Zelaya returns to Honduras
Ousted president Manuel Zelaya sneaked back into Honduras on Monday almost three months after he was toppled in a coup
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2009/sep/22/manue...-coup

Defying curfew in tear gas zones, the youth of Honduras chant "We want Mel"

by iosaf Sat Sep 26, 2009 16:52

* Micheletti has denied that gases were sent by military into the compound and is insisting that the police and military cordon is there because Brazil wants its embassy to be secure. That's his reply to the UN Security council & isn't he more cocksure of himself than big swinging Micky Mc Dowell ever was?
http://telesurtv.net/noticias/secciones/nota/58380-NN/m...lula/

* The red cross has complained bitterly that it was not allowed pass through the cordon to treat the victims of the gas attack whether they were in the compound or in neighbouring houses. (They are complaing at the Honduran usurpist government not the Brazilians.) They did so in the end about 16 hours ago and treated people for a gas attack.

* Zelaya has in his latest statement said that people in the embassy are vomiting and pissing blood, which sounds pretty revolting, gruesome, messy, frightening & makes one wonder has anyone lost any teeth, nails or had haemorrhages in their eyes, noses or ears.

((( perhaps we could squeeze those extra symptoms into tomorrow's news ;-)))

* The Latin American Human Rights council has published a report trying to bring attention to the systematic abuses since the coup d'etat.

* Today's Telesur opinion piece focuses on the terror felt each night by Hondurans.
http://telesurtv.net/noticias/opinion/1313/terror-en-la...uras/

In answer to Dunk's question - "what can we do?" - I think we must follow each step as we have followed it, with attention and learn borg-like how the complex behind the Honduran coup are working without losing sight of how Mr Z's side are playing it too. As LASC in Dublin have already highlighted, we should compare and contrast with Haiti. But we are (in my opinion) dealing with a new evil critter here. The sophistication of this coup and these putschists is as truly remarkable as their cheek is brazen. How else can one see Micheletti the usurpist president's response to a UN Security Council condemnation of intimidation and violation of an inviolable diplomatic legation? It's cheeky - it's brazen - it's cocksure and.......... it's very sophisticated.
I'm not convinced the counter campaign is as sophisticated but maybe therein lies its strength. The best we can do is make sure it stays in the news & analysis, unfortuanately just the way they want it - with the chap in the hat Mr Z. Ordinary little Hondurans are really newsworthy everyday of the week especially if they're not being rounded up, disappeared or killed by the truckloads. Nor would readers who are close to a Honduran consulate such as Dunk & myself in the same city doing a stinkbomb attack really make much of a difference. I don't know about him but I'm not up for buying an inflatable bed off the television shopping channel and occupying the place till dragged out by the stubble or scruff (whichever grows quickest).

by iosaf Sat Sep 26, 2009 18:04

Ordinary little Hondurans are really newsworthy especially if they're being rounded up, disappeared or killed by the truckloads........................... or we can get a photo of them in a football stadium

What we needed was a photo of a football stadium thing.
& we've just got it! with today's tally for the last 4 days.

* 2 dead.
* 18 shot.
* 92 other injuries.
* over 600 detained
- some of whom were held in the national football stadium because the police said they lacked sufficient infrastructure.

The Spanish language site of the BBC carries the words of one the people who found themselves picked up by force, brutalised, hit and trucked off to the national stadium of Chochi Sosa. Maynor Pena, a 23 year old was out on the street trying to get to work perhaps coz she reckoned she needed the money. When she was in the stadium she estimated there were approximately 120 others who were a mixture of curfew breakers like herself and others who were supporters of President Z.

Pinochet's football stadium in Santiago held 12,000 men and women from the September 11th coup till December of 1973. maybe the evil critter isn't so sophisticated if you take your eye of Mr Z for a while quite a few people will think. Or maybe the mere hint of football stadium prison camps to any Latin American is enough to chill the blood and piss or puke it out of any curfew breaker.

this is a national football stadium the people in it broke curfew. They might not have coughed blood but some would have shat themselves. So would you.

by iosaf Mon Sep 28, 2009 06:15

( 1 )

In what is being reacted as a very serious move the usurpist Honduran cabinet has suspended for 45 days, 5 key rights guaranteed in the Honduran constitution.


* movement.
* expression.
* assembly.
* treatment of prisoners (habeus corpus - visitors - access to lawyers)
* personal liberty (detention without charge / trial)




In addition the usurpist president has decreed against the non state media leaving Honduras with one radio and one TV channel

They made this decision had sat upon it keeping it secret till the final hours of Sunday which are teh early hours of European time. The decision was made last Friday just after a 10 day ultimatum deadline was given Brazil & promptly rejected by the Brazilian government who still refuses to deal with "coup-mongers".

In the words of this morning's El Pais correspodent, the 2 page document is frightening and the manner of its release is most curious. "PCM-M-016-2009" was published in the Honduran Government gazette dated on Saturday but did not issue the gazette until the last hours. Rumours amongst foreign journalists led to key members of the usurpist regime being as asked for comment to which there was no certain reply. Amongst those asked was the usurpist prime minister Carlos López Contreras who answered " I have no idea ask the minister of the interior " The usurpist prime minister's signature is on the decree.

Article 187 of the constitution does allow for the state to suspend certain aspects of the constitution if the national territory is invaded, the population suffers an epidemic, or some other such exceptional matter arises. Though not specified we might understand asteroid strikes or appearance of giant flesh eating bug eyed monsters. However a quick glance at the constitution qualifies the state of "siege" or "exception" which many of us would understand better as military law Article 188 . refers to the "estado de sitio" in territories affected by the reasons for such a decree under Article 187

Back when this began, the internet & even this very site saw regular postings by pro-Micheletti commentators claiming that Zelaya had been ousted to guarantee the constitutional rule of law in Honduras. At that point I linked to the constitution & went through it with the editor of a large circulation newspaper for the Hispanic community over morning coffee, where I live in Barcelona.
c/f http://www.indymedia.ie/article/92883?search_text=hondu...54875

The Honduran constitution :
http://pdba.georgetown.edu/Constitutions/Honduras/hondu....html

In response to the declaration these extraordinary suspensions of rights especially when they pretend to be celebrating a farcical election, President Zelaya has called on the Honduran Congress to use its powers to overturn the measures.
________________________________________________________________________

report in Spanish "El Pais"
http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/Micheletti...2/Tes

report in Spanish "BBC mundo"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mundo/america_latina/2009/09/09092...shtml

report in Spanish TeleSUR
http://telesurtv.net/noticias/secciones/nota/58459-NN/z...tias/

( 2 )

In response to the Brazilian refusal to deal with "Coup-mongers" the usurpist regime has now offered more details of its plans when the deadline is up : they will no longer the diplomatic status of the embassy compound.

http://telesurtv.net/noticias/secciones/nota/58457-NN/g...lena/

( 3 )

The ambassador from Spain who had been recalled and whose return was announced together with all the ambassadors of the OAS states have been refused entry at the Honduran airports Sunday.
In addition 3 high level members of the OAS have been deported from Honduras are now in Costa Rica - their offence was seemingly voicing criticism of the government.


& so the football stadium may fill up with terrified civilians after all........
ironically now that Zelaya is back in the state, it really does begin to look, walk, talk and for ordinary Hondurans - feel like a coup d'etat.

Shocking military law package announced as foreign ambassadors denied right of return.

by iosaf Mon Sep 28, 2009 17:21

For those who have missed the shocking raft of measures unleashed on Honduras yesterday, please read the comment or understand that the coup regime, one week after the return of Zelaya and his refuge in the Brazilian embassy, is truly staring to show its colours.

Part of the decress (explained in last comment) were aimed at the media. It was understood by almost every commercial news organisation that the focus of these measures would be foreign media such as TeleSUR and maybe even the BBC. Yesterday links suggested RadioGlobo and TV channel 36 would be left as the near official voice pieces of the regime.

But on the same day coup leader Micheletti tells Hondurans on TV that martial law is in place his soldiers have shut down the offices and dismantled the equipment

It has also emerged that the OAS mission which was expelled included one US diplomat, 2 Canadians and 1 Chilean. They were it seems expected, invited, but in the end -

in for a penny in for a pound?

by iosaf Tue Sep 29, 2009 20:19

Such a raft of measures & constitional suspensions as those decreed by the usurpists and supported by their military immediately afterwards - should & would in normal circimstances be approved by the Honduran congress. The Honduran congress is presently not led by its legitimate prime minister. She remained loyal to Zelaya and has brought his voice via her mobile phone to the UN.
http://www.telesurtv.net/noticias/secciones/nota/58530-...pais/

I believe this is the first time a speaker at the podium of the UN has put their mobile phone to a microphone so a head of state could speak to the delegates . [ what times we live in !? when such a technological advance could first be used by president holed up in an embassy surrounded by gas wielding gorillas!? eh!?]

& so the Congressional leader or "speaker" Saavedra in noting that the Congress had called for the stopping of the measures also noted they had not yet received a copy for their voting Let's not that these same people approved the coup d'etat in the last three months when of course it seemed to them "less like a coup" http://www.telesurtv.net/noticias/secciones/nota/58521-...tias/

the Sec. Gen. of the UN, Mr Ban Ki Moon, who we really hear much less of than any of his predecessors has today called for the constitutional guarantees on human rights to be upheld in Honduras. http://www.telesurtv.net/noticias/secciones/nota/58571-...uras/

Out on the street ordinary Hondurans are continuing to defy the regime with posters, and sometimes their own individual and powerful protests, such as the little old lady in the photo. Her message overcomes her misspelling of the word for "censorship" as she sat alone under an umbrella protecting her from both the rainy season's start of the last days and the intermittently strong sunshine. She had no protection from the police and army within a few metres of her beyond the attention of the photographic lenses. I can't say how long she sat at the cordon in that pose. I can't say where she came from or what happened to her immediately afterwards or shall occur in her future. I surmise she wrote the message. I have never worried about spelling mistakes. Literacy is a luxury - not a right. Those who think to make a big deal out of the sometimes clumsy use of written language which typifies the poor, in my honest opinion really don't understand the transient nature of luxury.


Luxury is nothing more than an umbrella of presumed rights and privileges with a price tag

I get the feeling that many Hondurans who before quite happily opposed Zelaya and thus found themselves supporting Micheletti and the idea of farcical congressional and presidential elections are now being wondering did they get it wrong. For the first time many people whose dislike of Zelaya and how they perceived leftism of the Bolivarian hue are beginning to realise that however bad it might have seemed to them - fascist dictatorship leaves and is going to leave a much worse taste in the mouth......... not to mention less food in the shop, money in the pocket and telly to watch.

President Zelaya talks to the UN via his prime minister's mobile phone and UN microphony. "a first for our technological age"!

By far the best photo of the granny who couldn't spell censorship in Spanish under her umbrella.

by Mel via DN! via that mobile Wed Sep 30, 2009 16:35

PRESIDENT MANUEL ZELAYA: [translated] My greetings to the United Nations. My greetings to the United Nations. Anybody who had any doubt that a dictatorship is taking hold of my country, now with what has happened in the last ninety-three days of repression, I think that any of those doubts that might have subsisted are dispelled. But besides being subject to a coup d’état, Honduras is being subjected to a fascist rule, which is suppressing the rights of its citizens and which is oppressing the Honduran people.

very good democracy now feature;
Internal Pressure Forces Honduran Coup Regime to Reverse Civil Liberties Crackdown, But Repression Continues
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/9/29/internal_pressure...egime

The Honduran coup regime has been forced to reverse a harsh crackdown on civil liberties amidst growing protests for the restoration of the ousted President Manuel Zelaya. But Honduran forces still blocked a large protest march and shut down two media outlets that have criticized the coup regime. Meanwhile, a top US diplomat criticized the coup regime’s decision but then turned around to issue a harsh condemnation of ousted Zelaya. We go to Honduras to speak with Andrés Conteris from inside the embassy where Zelaya is hiding and speak to Luther Castillo, a Honduran doctor who is in Washington to speak with US lawmakers.

by iosaf Wed Sep 30, 2009 16:36

General Romeo Vasquez (pictured in his top brassic glory & a cap with the logo of WHINSEC as the "School of the Americas" is now known) has given his first interview since the whole thing began.

The whole began for IMC Ireland readers on July 26th when I wrote a report of his troops being stationed on the street. Within days soldiers from one of his elite corps had awoken the President Zelaya and flown him out of the country. Zelaya was infamously still in his pyjamas.

Now Vasquez has given an interview in which he denies Honduras is under military rule. That is indeed how many non-Spanish media outlets have got round describing state of exception . He laconically suggests that if it were so, & furthermore Honduras had been subjected to a military coup d'etat, then he would be in charge. Mr numero Uno. El Head Honcho.

He has also denied ordering the operation which saw Zelaya deported & then rounded up by supporting the usurpist regime. He's also denied using sonic weapons on the compound & the whole interview was given as he stood on the street in combat fatigues with a mixed group of ordinary soldiers and armed police in the background. These thus were not the words of a man behind a desk reading his correspondence but the words of a leader of men..,

The interview is available to watch in its Spanish language original on the site it whose correspondent it was given to (TeleSUR oddly enough) and in take-up on the BBC Spanish news site here :

http://telesurtv.net/noticias/secciones/nota/58588-NN/r...uras/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/mundo/america_...ng=es


..........................Well good and dandy say ye............ pick it to pieces for us iosaf!

The same July 26th back when Zelaya was still in the presidential palace of Honduras, the now usurpist president Micheletti wrote a letter to General Romero Vazquez which exhorted the general to make his move as agreed the previous JUNE 28th. I reported that letter's existence in this comment :
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/92883?search_text=hondu...56211
& thoughtfully included a photograph of a facsimile of the letter in this illustration :
http://www.indymedia.ie/attachments/jul2009/micheletti_...r.jpg
The letter is one more piece of evidence (of which there are many pieces) which support the general analysis that the Honduran oligarchy worked and planned long with multi-national corporative interests and the military to not only topple Zelaya but (here follows my speculative addition) use Zelaya's toppling as an excuse to seize control & keep it. For those reasons I spoke throughout my comments resulting following that pivotal July 26th and the ensuing coup of July 28th that I saw evidence of several coup d'etat plots . I have already made it clear that I hold great significance to the "how and where" of the Vazquez interview. A man who glibly speaks of the constitutional role of the armed forces whilst simultanously offering political opinions is a hypocritical paradox enough if sitting behind his desk where he read Micheletti's letter(s). But when the man is seen on the street in his fatigues offering such opinions next to his foot soldiers and then pushes the enveloped of the oligarchy & rather than express explicit support for Micheletti's interim presidency decides in fine byantine fashion to underscore that he is not Mr Numero Uno / Señor Head Honcho he is of course inviting us to consider yet more options to resolving this crises.., Of course South American coups and military dictatorships have often kept a veneer of civilian clothing about them. I made that exact point in part 2 of the series which accompanies my news, opinion & analysis on Honduras "New Latin American century" which dealt with one "ex-general" of the Brazilian dictatorship meeting up with Nixon. (scroll to article and find links)


____________________________________________________________________________


Meanwhile today the Honduran army have evicted with force a bunch of "peasants" who combining loyalty to Zelaya with general workshyness had taken to residing full time complete with posters in the Institute of Agrarian Studies. 57 peasants were removed by the army and police. http://telesurtv.net/noticias/secciones/nota/58640-NN/m...ario/


____________________________________________________________________________


Which brings us logically to pondering the state of agrarian and other economics in Honduras and the Central American region. In the updates to the comments of the main article on the coup before Zelaya returned, I made a point of noting that when the USA suspended aid, that paltry amount had been intended to go to build a highway across the place.

Many readers would be wondering why anyone would want to build a highway across the place. The reason is pretty simple. The majority of road freight in Central America going in the north / south direction passes through Honduras............ when its borders are open...........when there is no curfew.

El Salvador usually does a daily trade of 2.6 million US$ with Honduras, a lot of jobs rely on that trade on both sides of the border. Jorge Daboub of the El Salvadorian chamber of Commerce has explained to the Spanish BBC news site that 12,000 jobs in his state rely on that daily trade and the arrival and processing of 16 freight containers of raw materials. Their jobs are on the line because the truckies aren't getting through.

Guetamala is even more reliant on Honduran commercial trade routes normally expecting to do a daily trade of 7.8million US$. Even more than the safe and timely contractual arrival and departure of freight & people on buses to Honduras is another factor with even further repercussions. The only road options on the north/south route are through El Salvador. If freight is bottled-up in curfew in Honduras when it eventually gets back on the road the infrastructure is overloaded. This is bad for business. This is woeful for commerce. This is a headache for finance. Poor people lose their jobs. Tachiometers get diddled.

Although wearing a different uniform, he gave an interview & noted he's not Head Honcho - "yet?"

Romero Vazquez graduated from the School of the Americas & so has got their cap. & you thought it was a UN blue helmet, didn't you?

by iosaf Thu Oct 01, 2009 16:43

My roughest estimate puts the number of detained since Zelaya's return at a minimum of 700. Which is approximately 100 a day. Prior to Zelaya's return the detention numbers stood roughly in the low thousands between 2000 and 3000. That's a lot of people. We know 2 people died in the last week and prior to that the death rate is about 5. That's not a lot of people in a state whose murder rate is the highest in Latin America with an average of 12 people a day being killed as I explained in the article which began this series http://www.indymedia.ie/article/92883?search_text=honduras

But these people flash across our screens and newspapers as a forlorn cascade of human casualties, lumped together in numbers, only once photographed in group (in the stadium round-up illustrated up this page) & perhaps because they are ordinary little Hondurans we don't stop to ponder what happens to them next? .

Antonio Porta Álvarez is a 41 year old man who hails from the town of Chipiona in Andalucia near the city of Cadiz on the south western coast of Spain. His town is home to the third largest lighthouse in Europe and in the 2006 census registered a population of 17,952. The main economic activity of this little town is fishing, flower production (thanks to employment initiatives and investment from Dutch companies) and the swwet & sour end of wine production, by which I mean moscatel and vinegar. Like most of its Andalucian hinterland it's a highly religious conservative setting within which to grow up and its accent typical of the Andalucian dialect is mocked throughout much of the Spanish speaking world as coarse and provincial. It's hardly a startling place and Antonio Porta Alvarez doesn't appear to have been a startling person. He is from our POV an ordinary little Spaniard .

On the 17th of September 2009, Mr Porta flew to the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa, not on business but an errand of love. He had met via the internet a woman who he wanted to meet and found a room in a hotel in the same block of that city as the Brazilian embassy compound. We can presume his courting was going well because five days later he was still in that hotel and happily keeping in touch with his sisters and mother who all live in Chipiona, Andalucia. Then things took a turn for the worse & Antonio was detained during the initial days of the embassy siege. Since he was a guest in a hotel in the exact vecinity of the compound, it's hardly surprising that he found himself caught up in the hundreds of detained - we presume all he had to do was step outside the door and see what all the fuss was about. In fact all the staff and guests of his hotel were told to leave by the armed police and he was arrested further down the street as part of that forced evacuation. We can only imagine what he was feeling.

He had his first court appearance on the 28th of September, his sister had flown out to be at his side and offer the support of family and neighbours. He was charged with sedition and another count of affray. He's facing a prison term between 8 and 15 years. His sister described to local press in Andalucia and one TV news agency in Spain how it taken extraordinary effort ( one can presume bribery was called for ) to see her brother in the holding cells. She described the bare room without bedding or a matress where he is held and the conditions where he is now going to spend another month on remand till his second court appearance. She expressed astonishment at his arrest, the charges and the conditions of his detention. "He knows nothing about politics and has never been political. He never even took part in anything political or on the street in the village" she told journalists. We might note that since his detention, the constitutional guarantees for prisoners afforded by the Honduran constitution have been suspended and the Spanish ambassador to Honduras who was recalled during the summer has been denied his return. We might note that Honduras appeared on the list of states to which the Spanish foreign ministry advised its citizens not to visit long before Antonio arrived but maybe not before he bought his ticket. We may presume that the consular mission of his state in Honduras is doing its best to assist to him under the circumstances. We could note in passing that today the same RC church which is pivotal to life in his home town, has through its council of bishops expressed support and solidarity with the bishops of Honduras. We could note on a deeper level that the head of the RC church in Honduras was once as a cardinal prince of the Church considered a candidate for the papacy, the progressive alternative to Ratzinger. We could note on a thoroughly profound level that that same cardinal expressed support for the coup d'etat in its initial weeks in an interview granted to the Spanish rightwing newspaper "El Mundo". Whilst we do all this noting however, Antonio Porta continues in jail, in less than salubrious conditions facing a term of imprisonment between 8 and 15 years.

This is the first time Señor Antonio Porta Álvarez has been written about in English. .

3 of 57 Honduran "peasants" evicted from the Agrarian institute on Wednesday...........whither do they go?

by pele Fri Oct 02, 2009 19:20

We now have a 45 minute surge to say goodbye to the titted taoiseach, shelve the Green Party, forget the PD's and earn the praise of right wing nuts across Europe and the dismay of the kind of people we wouldn't allow on our (sofa / setee / lounge / pouf / barstool) let alone sit in our front garden.

Front gardens are not for sitting in.

You got a front garden, really implies if not means you've got a back garden or a garden on the side at least.

Where do you sit?

;-)

another one of those easy to recognise global symbols

by dunk Fri Oct 02, 2009 23:34

Last weekend, Micheletti warned Brazil he could close its embassy if it did not decide whether to hand over Zelaya or give him asylum by a 10-day deadline, but he has since backed off from the threat.

OAS consensus on how to handle the Honduran crisis fell apart this week when the United States, Canada, Costa Rica, Bahamas and Peru proposed dropping Zelaya's return to power as a precondition for legitimate elections.

Key Honduran business leaders, who backed the coup, have said Zelaya could be allowed to return but without executive power. They suggest he could be placed under house arrest until his term ends in January when he would face corruption charges. Both Zelaya and Micheletti have rejected the offer...

full article: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/1002/...6.htm

At least there is a little bit more discussion in the Irish papers, this all helps.

telesur clip with images:
TELESUR Zelaya en Honduras 1/4 Cerco a la embajada de Brasil REPRESIÓN AL PUEBLO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk0LPqH8ncU

Caption: Video Id: Kk0LPqH8ncU Type: Youtube Video
TELESUR - Zelaya in Brazil embassy in Honduras

by Dunk Sat Oct 03, 2009 10:57

Honduras thaw paves way for talks
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8288241.stm

A thaw in the Honduras political crisis has paved the way for talks between representatives of the ousted president and the man behind his downfall.

Aides to Manuel Zelaya and de-facto President Roberto Micheletti will reportedly meet next week.

An emergency decree limiting civil liberties would be lifted within days, Mr Micheletti was quoted as saying.

Hours after he met a visiting US Congressional delegation, he said a dialogue was "beginning" between his supporters and those of Mr Zelaya

The thaw came after an OAS preparatory mission was allowed into the country on Friday.

Although no agreement has yet been reached, Mr Micheletti said recent discussions with the OAS head showed "peace is coming back" to Honduras.

by iosaf Sat Oct 03, 2009 16:27

Thanks Dunk for reminding us in those last two comments how callow and superficial commercial and the "self-rightously neutral" BBC coverage of this can be.

Mario Fidel Contrera was shot twice in the face by one of two men who passed him by on the street whilst riding a motorbike today. His death brings the total counted by the Honduran group "Cofadeh" (comitee for the families of detained or disappeared) to 15.

So not much peace there.

Meanwhile the other story needs to be fleshed out of its propaganda spin too. In the last days three members of the US Congressional house comittee on Foreign Affairs visited usurpist president Micheletti. They were all members of the US Republican party. At the same time (as confirmed today) the OAS delegation refused entry before was allowed enter Honduras, as yesterday a secret meeting between the usurpist regime and that team was held at the USAF base in Honduras.

Back when all this started I went to lengths in the comments to the original article to explain that whereas many spoke of the Yankee empire being behind this whole affair, I preferred to call it the Dixie empire. With the use of illustrations, I attempted to explain what I meant by the Dixie empire and made constant reference to Obama's back yard. (For those who can't be bothered to look back at that article and its udpates - there was a moon landing with Confederate flag and a White House with a Confederate flag) http://www.indymedia.ie/article/92883?search_text=honduras. I pointed out that the US wing of the Pentagon, whose offices are across the Potamac river from Obama's White House, US SOUTHCOM undoubtedly played a role in the execution of this coup if only at the merest level of full acquiescence which would derive from signals intelligence.

In the series which accompanied this theme I explained the role of US SOUTH COM further and its relationship with the US republican party whose has long seen Latin America as a mere geographic landmass to stop its hurricanes and land to provide fruit, coffee, cocaine, tobacco and cheap labour. I also paid attention to the politics of the two US Senate committees linked to foreign affairs and funding as well as the less powerful House of Representatives committee in the new approach by the Obama / Clinton adminstration to the role of US hegemony in Latin America.
c/f
The new Latin American century seres on FARC, Latin American arms races, US bases, Brazil yesterday and today, Colombia, US constitutionalism and foreign policy in Latin America & sundry fibs
part 1 of that series : http://www.indymedia.ie/article/93553
part 2 of that series : http://www.indymedia.ie/article/93578
part 3 of that series : http://www.indymedia.ie/article/93652

It is thus very significant that US Republicans, congressmen for the bible belt and former slave states of king cotton chose to break ranks with the international community and go meet with the usurpist regime (to the obvious delight of Micheletti) whilst a USAF "forward operating location" played host to a secret meeting supposedly aimed at a negotiated settlement & the solution so long put by the usurpist regime of elections which nobody will or ought recognise is the message brought home to Dixie.

The priests are not, it would appear out of the loop. So what else is left in the loop?

Well we have 15 dead - they're not coming from the grave. We have as I wrote above over 700 detained. The original attempt at brokership included an amnesty of political prisoners. That would include the ordinary little Spaniard who I wrote about just up the page who is awaiting his appeal trial to see will he spend 8 to 15 years in jail for sedition. By the way, for those who might think sedition takes a decent bit of planning, contacts and time normally beyond the scope of a supposdely apolitical Andalucian who merely went to Honduras on a courting expedition, it has now emerged that Antonio Porta Álvarez has been suffering irreversible brain damage since a road accident some years ago.

Those who pay the most attention and have sharp eyes will recognise the woman in the photograph. She appears up this page under her umbrella with her mouth taped. She was a colleague of the school teacher gunned down today Mario Fidel Contreras. She is in fact one of the leaders of the Honduran resistance. As such she travels and operates with a "handle with care" label, which as we mostly probably don't need reminding can be as much a benefit as it is a curse. This little old lady is in a way a walking breathing barometer of repression. As long as she is one the street doing her thing we can not talk of wholescale repression. But this coup d'etat is not as I keep repeating that kind of game. She is most probably like many who bear the "handle with care" label in our EU states as Latin America being left unmolested and inviolate for strategic reasons.

Every day this little old lady appears in a Honduran related photograph. She's quite a case & still on the street.

by iosaf Sun Oct 04, 2009 19:43

Anyone who thinks, including quite obviously commentators past & present such as whoever wrote the editorial of the "Irish Times" of June 30th http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/0630/1....html that this coup d'etat is nothing more than a constitutional flap in a third world country which merely ought be considered a "crises" - should really be taking stock of themselves & their attitudes to democratic values & human rights.

Yesterday I reported the 15th death of a resistance movement member.

Today I report the 16th - Mr Antonio Leiva who was shot (like the 15th) by a motorbike pillion passenger.

Last week I wrote of a Spaniard who is facing a prison term after appeal of between 8 and 14 years.

Today I report that 96 people have been charged with sedition.

Sedition is by its very nature a political crime and all those charged with sedition are political prisoners. Sedition if not accompanied by crimes or supposed crimes against person, such as murder, rape, manslaughter/homocide/assassination, grevious bodily harm or such like must be considered to be a politically motivated crime.

When the only evidence of sedition is that the accused and convicted consorted with or was arrested amongst supporters of Zelaya whilst exercising their universal human rights to assembly, free speech & expression (as well as their constitutional duty under Article 3 of the Honduran constitution to resist coup d'etats) then we are dealing with clear political oppression and transgression of internationally held principles and near universally ratified rights

I have always maintained as much & see no reason why I should change my mind now c/f http://www.indymedia.ie/article/92883?search_text=hondu...54875

& so Saturday saw the usurpist president Micheletti celebrate the annual armed forces day in the presidential palace accompanied by 350 members of the Honduran mlitary wings as well as a limited number of observers (including press) and attachés (including personel of USSOUTHCOM).

He gave thanks to the army for deposing Zelaya & described their actions as "valient". He said in his own words :-

"Esa acción valerosa ha permitido que en el cielo de nuestra patria y a la par del pabellón nacional sigan flameando los estandartes de la democracia, la paz, la justicia y la independencia de nuestra patria"
=
"That valient action has permitted that in the sky of our patria and on par with the national flag the standards of democracy, peace, justice and the independence or our patria continue to *blaze*"
[*flamenado* can be interpreted as "blaze" or as "flutter" as well, either or both. It's the only ambigious word or verb in this whole bombastic line of utter shite].
http://telesurtv.net/noticias/secciones/nota/58865-NN/m...tado/

Those standards of democracy mean a general & presidential election campaign which no international organisation or institution will recognise is being carried under a state of exception with curfew and daily losses to the economy valued at millions of US dollars.

: Those standards of justice mean that the sedition act is used without evidence and the rights of prisoners have been suspended in a state of exception which shall last for many more weeks. Those standards of justice mean the closure of a radio station and a television station and the confiscation and subsequent damage of their broadcasting equipment. Those standards of justice mean the detention and brutalisation of journalists on the street.

: The standards of democracy are such that even the congress of those deputies and officers who did not follow Zelaya into exile may vote for the derogation of the decree allowing for suspension of the rights to assembly, opinion, movement, prisoner rights & be ignored. Those standards of democracy are such that even the constitutionalism of the USA and its foreign policy have been compromised by a delegatio of southern US state congressmen and senators. For let's not forget this is the second time two of those individuals has travelled to Honduras and both in addition to their role on US House standing Comittees also hold extensive financial interest in the Central American region. Those standards of democracy ignored the last opinion poll before the coup d'etat which suggested 72% of Hondurans supported constitutional reform & 75% supported their new higher wages

Those standards of peace are such that several thousand people have been detained, 16 political activists have been murdered and the diplomatic legation of Brazil to Honduras is under siege has been vocally threatened in the press by members of the usurpist government. That UNESCO has joined with those condemning the deterioration of human rights & at least 36 of the detained are on hunger strike.

Those standards of independence are such that the usurpist regime of Honduras has lost all financial assistance apart from 150 million US dollars assinged by the g20 since the coup began. A approximate loss which is close to one billion US dollars and euros. The standards of independence are such that Honduras already one of the poorest states on Earth and as such considered for suspension of debt payments (if democratic) is now sliding off the scale of poverty and the only international representatives who shall deal with it are the US Republican party and the chief of the OAS who finally gets to talk and chinwag - not in a church, nor even an embassy, not even in the offices of his institution in Honduras but rather a US military base.

I wonder publically about "our Madam of the Irish Times", & is this what she expected when she allowed for the June 30th editorial to be published & why so far there has been no follow-up?

The leadership of the resistance are being murdered one by one. do we wait till only the mothers of the dead & disappeared are left?

by iosaf Tue Oct 06, 2009 17:16

Micheletti has part of his choreography probably scripted by US Republicans (since one was standing right next to him at the time - this is a fair supposition) - has now declared that the deporting of Zelaya was not only a mistake but added insult to injury by assuring that those soldiers who did the bundling off of the president in pyjamas will be punished .

& as we know, the dead will be resurrected & all political prisoners will be released and reimbursed their wages lost while imprisoned, the hunger strikers will get free reverse liposuction operations & the Honduran people will celebrate a completely normal general election whilst radio Globo and the telly station salvage some new equipment.

For the great news is that the suspension of human rights has ended!

...................Meanwhile on the other side of the farce, Zelaya really seems to be doing better statesmanlike politics. I wonder which counts for more? looking and sounding like a statesman with the EU in tow or looking and sounding like a gorilla with the US Republicans in tow?

* The IMF has assured Zelaya of a huge massive humongous cash injection to the Honduran economy when he is reinstated (not if).

* The EU and Brazil meeting today signed a joint declaration condemning both the coup d'etat and the repression which followed.

For those interested in details, Micheletti qualified his comments on how it was a mistake to deport Zelaya by offering the opinion that he should have been sent to court instead. That's just so you don't think what he really meant to say was what I have written many times - what went either very wrong with this coup or was the true sign of it's novelty and importance was the fact that they didn't kill Zelaya and have done with him for ever .

Yep.

They just killed little people instead.

by iosaf Tue Oct 13, 2009 17:40

In the updates and analysis to the article which broke news of the coup d'etat in Honduras, I offered as "the second reason this is happening" a short explanation of bananas on June 30th. http://www.indymedia.ie/article/92883?search_text=hondu...54987 The first reason I had given on June 29th was "drugs". Not the usual illegal drugs but those manufactured by the pharmocorps. http://www.indymedia.ie/article/92883?search_text=hondu...54878

It is a great pity for this boycott campaign in Ireland, that there is no immediate target. Chiquita did operate through the Irish based "Keeley fruits". But that company bought back the 25% share the corporation had had in 2005. Nonetheless there is some market presence from the corporation which we ought not forget operates a cartel amidst the tarriffs of the EU banana pricing lark.

News on the Chiquita boycott : http://www.indymedia.ie/article/94410
i gcoinne an coup agus phairtithe baghátail chiquita!

However the drug companies and pharmocorps mentioned in the June 29th analysis comment (the Monday after the coup d'etat weekend) still provide Irish residents with a target.

Meanwhile, it seems from the little data which emerges about the negotiations between Zelaya and Micheletti that the 7 point accords previously suggested by Arias of Costa Rica (c/f http://www.indymedia.ie/article/92883?search_text=hondu...56211 ) are being discarded by both sides .

The most important element of those accords, which were if we remember rejected by the gorillas almost immediately amidst a scenario which I lamented as an error on Zelaya's part, was to my mind & what I hope is a shared sentiment by all of us -
an amnesty of all political prisoners

That would mean
* upturning 96 charges of sedition.
* wiping the criminal records of all the thousands arrested for their political activity or breaking curfew.
* bringing a score of people back from the dead.

Amnesty for all the political prisoners is a priority which can not be undermined. Surely none of us can accept a restored Zelaya should that restoration not include the release and purging of the criminal records of all those ordinary Hondurans who obeyed article 3 of their constitution and resisted the coup d'etat?

all else would be & no doubt for some time has been - F-a-r-c-e

by o as if Fri Oct 16, 2009 23:42

Amado Guevara is captain of the Honduran soccer football team (they play neither GAA nor rugby out there yonder). He has been reported in the last twenty minutes to have presented his shirt to the daughter of legitimate president Zelaya with the inscription (as far as you can say signed footie t-shirts get inscribed) for señor presidente Zelaya from his friend Amado Guevara .

Amado will lead the Honduran team in the 2010 world cup in South Africa. We can probably presume that Amado is not facing the oppresive measures which "green revolution" Iranian footballers suffered after they appeared in a qualifier match wearing green bracelets - they were struck off the team.

But nor can we be sure if there is anything more to say about the supposed "Honduran negotiation process" which was scheduled to finalise today Friday.

Because a signed t-shirt by Cpt Guevara is much update on the farce as can be offered.

All the same - Latin Americans take their soccer very seriously.

http://telesurtv.net/noticias/secciones/nota/59788-NN/g...rena/

by pat c Mon Oct 19, 2009 15:55

Amid a Crisis, Hondurans Heap Large Hopes on a Tiny Religious Icon

There, behind glass and a ragged bead curtain, is a replica of a tiny historic figurine depicting the patron saint of Honduras, Our Lady of Suyapa, who is revered for her power to work miracles. The original figurine was lost and then recovered in the men’s room of the restaurant almost a quarter-century ago, and people still visit the little shrine to pray at the spot where she was found.

To many Hondurans, the little saint has taken on special significance in a political crisis that has uncovered pent-up social hostility since the president was deposed nearly four months ago. To many here, it seems this country has lost its way, and they have turned to their miracle-working saint to put it back on track.

Yes people are turning to the BVM for comfort in the time of crisis. Some of them are Zelaya supportes: At the hilltop basilica, the anger surfaced right at the entrance. Octavio Cruz, a photographer who earns a few pennies taking photographs of worshipers as they come out of Sunday Mass, broke down as he described how he had finally learned to read in a night school staffed by teachers sent from Cuba to support Mr. Zelaya. “His crime is to be with the poor classes, to give them hope,” Mr. Cruz, 58, said of the ousted president.

Rather than arriving with stunning visions and digital sound effects this appartion came with a poke in the ribs: “The Dear Little Dark One” — was found by a peasant, Alejandro Colindres, in 1747 as he bedded down for the night alongside the road and felt a jab in his ribs. He kept pushing the offending object away, but it kept finding its way back to disturb his sleep.

Only a miracle will resolve this situation.

by X Tue Oct 20, 2009 14:27

‘For over 100 days, I and the people of Honduras, have been defending democracy and fighting against the return of militarisation in the region. My return to the Presidency is to be a symbolic statement to send a strong message to the perpetrators of the coup d’etat that we do not accept the resurgence of violence and human rights abuses in Central America and that we stand firm in our defence of democracy and peace,” President Manuel Zelaya told The Irish Times in an interview from his refuge in the Brazilian embassy in the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa shortly after negotiations with representatives of the de facto government of Roberto Micheletti broke down.

Zelaya declares eventual return to office must be 'symbolic'

The ousted president of Honduras talks to FIONUALA CREGAN about the coup d’etat that led to his removal and his vision of the country’s future
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2009/1020/122...a=rel

Honduras government talks stall (Reuters )
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/1020/...6.htm

The de facto Honduran government relaxed curbs on protests and media last night but toughened criticism of ousted President Manuel Zelaya as talks to end a three-month political crisis stalled.

Talks to resolve the crisis sparked by Central America's first coup in more than a decade sputtered with both sides stuck on the question of whether Mr Zelaya can return to the presidency ahead of a November election.