Tag: Honduras

Honduran police clash with pro-democracy demonstrators

The military coup that deposed Honduran President Manual Zelaya has been denounced by almost everyone except the Honduran military.  President Obama said about it, “We stand on the side of democracy, sovereignty and self-determination.”   The OAS has condemned the coup.  ALBA has condemned the coup.  The UN General Assembly has condemned the coup.  Central American nations have sealed their borders with Honduras.  Most (except El Salvador) have also withdrawn their ambassadors.  Roads are blocked in the country.

Police and soldiers clashed with pro-Zelaya protesters in the capital on Monday, and about 5,000 anti-Zelaya demonstrators gathered at a main plaza in Tegucigalpa on Tuesday to celebrate his ouster.

What is to happen next appears to be a confrontation, a face-off between the deposed President and the military coup that arrested and deported him.

Earlier today it was reported that President Zelaya will return to Honduras on Thursday:

Ousted Honduran President Manual Zelaya has announced that he will return to Honduras on Thursday.  “I’m going to finish my four-year term, whether or not you coup leaders are in agreement,” he stated.

Zelaya will return to Honduras accompanied by the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), José Miguel Insulza, and a commission of Latin American presidents.  The Argentine government has announced that its President Cristina Fernandez will accompany Zelaya to Honduras as part of the presidential commission.  In a press conference following his speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Zelaya stated that Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa will also accompany him.

Colinas, Santa Barbara, Mayor Amable de Jesus Hernandez told TeleSUR that citizen caravans were being organized to travel from his region to the capital of Tegucigalpa on Thursday to receive President Zelaya.

Initially, earlier today, the return of the deposed president and other officials wasn’t supposed to be a direct confrontation with the military forces that arrested and forcibly deported him to Costa Rica:

Reports in Honduran and international press that interim President Roberto Micheletti says that “if Zelaya sets foot on Honduran soil he will be arrested” are overblown, thanks in large part to a provocative headline in that regard published by Colombia’s Radio Caracol.  Yes, Micheletti has stated that Honduran courts have issued arrest warrants against Zelaya, but thus far he has not definitively stated that his forces will attempt to arrest Zelaya…

The [Radio Caracol] interviewer asked Micheletti how he planned to respond in the event that Zelaya … returned on Thursday.  Micheletti responded: “My country’s courts have arrest warrants against him for breaking the law.”  He then went on to explain his case for why Zelaya had broken the law when he attempted to carry out a public opinion poll on forming a new constitutional convention to draft a new constitution.  Micheletti never told Radio Caracol that his government planned to act on the aforementioned arrest warrants.

Protesters on Monday faced off against the soldiers of an illegitimate Government to demand the restoration of their stolen democracy.  It’s not Iran.  It’s Honduras.  And because it’s Honduras, which is in this very hemisphere, squashing a democratically elected government like a Palmetto Bug seems in the Trad Media^TM to be less of an outrage.  After all, Honduras doesn’t have oil.  It doesn’t have nukes.  It’s not part of the dreaded axis of evil.  It never held US citizens hostage.  Sure, the US has destabilized it in the past century, exploited its natural resources, turned it into a Banana Republic.  But so what, the US did that to virtually every country in this hemisphere.  Even now the Honduran military has strong ties to the US.  So it’s different from Iran, right?  Real different. Or is it?

The New York Times reports:

One day after the country’s president, Manuel Zelaya, was abruptly awakened, ousted and deported by the army here, hundreds of protesters massed at the presidential offices in an increasingly tense face-off with hundreds of camouflage-clad soldiers carrying riot shields and automatic weapons.

The protesters, many wearing masks and carrying wooden or metal sticks, yelled taunts at the soldiers across the fences ringing the compound and braced for the army to try to dispel them. “We’re defending our president,” said one protester, Umberto Guebara, who appeared to be in his 30s. “I’m not afraid. I’d give my life for my country.”

Leaders across the hemisphere joined in condemning the coup. Mr. Zelaya, who touched down Sunday in Costa Rica, still in his pajamas, insisted, “I am the president of Honduras.”

Honduran President kidnapped, beaten, deported for trying to hold an election so that the people could vote on amending their Reagan given constitution written by SOA dictators.

I’m on some pretty wide ranging email lists, and often have volumes of mail. How I got on this list, I haven’t a clue. Today, my inbox was empty, but for this one:

Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela

Ministry of People’s Power for Foreign Affairs

Statement

The Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela condemns the coup d’état that the Honduran oligarchy is attempting to perpetrate against the constitutional government of President Manuel Zelaya Rosales and the people of Honduras.

President Manuel Zelaya Rosales was kidnapped, removed from his home by force, rendered incommunicado for several hours, and violently expelled from his country by a group of unpatriotic, coup-mongering soldiers. The hooded soldiers kidnapped Chancellor Patricia Rodas and also arbitrarily detained and beat the Ambassadors of Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. These shameless soldiers are responsible before national and international laws for the crimes that they are committing and for the violation of the constitution and its laws.

The government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela strongly urges the international community to condemn this situation and urges that the necessary measures be taken by us to defeat this coup d’état in Honduras and to reestablish the legitimate government of President Manuel Zelaya Rosales.

Caracas, June 28, 2009

Ministry of People’s Power for Foreign Affairs/ Translation by the Press Unit of the Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to the United States

They BEAT all the Leftist Embassadors. Welcome to the prodigy of School of the Americas at work.

Today’s events in Honduras certainly seem to have a US OK stamped all over them.  

With Obama suggesting only that:

any disputes must be settled peacefully through negotiations

And the administration saying that they know nothing of Honduran constitutional law–they’re at the least saying it’s all OK, and at most that they knew about it and approved beforehand.

Reminds me a lot of Bush in Haiti.

It’s disgusting, and a lot of people could will get hurt.  

On the so called left, the excuse that this is justified by a Referendum on extending or removing term limits seems to be fooling many, but I mean c’mon, how do you justify lies in the press (the main paper in Honduras is claiming that President Zelaya has resigned, which is a lie) , shutting down media and electricity, curfews and Honduran troops in the streets with teargas, and a few reports of much worse.  

But the sad state of todays Obamabots is “He’s got this.”

I’m afraid he very well may have “got this”.

Just like other US presidents of the past also “got this” all over Honduras.

The reason we won’t have change is because the American electorate doesn’t want it–they’re totally fine with death squads in Central America, if Obama says it’s OK.

(can’t get images to post) but see:

http://www.noticias24.com/enfo…