Threats, Detentions, Persecutions Prior to Honduran Polls

[L. Coyote]

Source: Periódico 26

Threats, Detentions, Persecutions Prior to Honduran Polls

Tegucigalpa, Nov 22, (PL).- The Committee of Relatives of the Detained and Disappeared in Honduras (COFADEH) has denounced a rise in death threats, detentions and persecutions against opponents of the coup prior to the November 29 elections.

A release from that organization expresses concern for the deterioration of human rights and alert the international community the dictatorship prepares a fierce repression against the people before and during the November 29 polls.

The unusual deployment of the army's soldiers, police and paramilitary groups to guard polling stations is an evidence of that, COFADEH stated.

Meanwhile, the leader of the de facto regime Roberto Micheletti has threatened to severely punish those who call not to vote in elections. The polling has been termed illegal by the Front against the Coup d'Etat, a vast alliance of people's organizations.

................

Read more: http://www.periodico26.cu/english/news_world/november2009/honduras-elections112209.html

---

A Masquerade Crowns the Honduran Putsch
BY JULIO GODOY - http://www.indepthnews.net/news/news.php?key1=2009-11-23%2015:35:09&key2=1
IDN-InDepthNews Service

BERLIN (IDN) - On Nov 29, the Honduran people are called upon to go to the polls .......

......... This spurious government has not only violated the laws it allegedly wants to protect -- it has also returned to the evil practices of its military ancestors and supporters: It has arrested, wounded, tortured, or killed thousands of Honduran people demonstrating against the coup; it has shut down or otherwise intimidated independent news outlets. It has also banned some parties from taking part in the elections.

However, the U.S. administration headed by Barack Obama has announced that it recognizes the elections and the government that shall emerge from them as "legitimate". This U.S. position stands in sharp contrast to the overwhelming position of Latin American governments, which have rejected the elections as what they are: A masquerade that crowns the coup d'etat of last June.

........... it became clear that Clinton was supporting the Honduran putsch -- one of her closest associates, Lanny Davis, a lawyer who supported her failed bid for the Democratic party ticket for the presidency in 2007, was hired in the aftermath of the coup by the Honduran chamber of commerce to lobby on behalf of the new illegal government in Washington.

Not only that: By now, it is a confirmed fact that Clinton and her ministry of foreign affairs had prior knowledge of the coup in Honduras. Clinton's ministry has also admitted that two high level state department officials, Thomas Shannon and James Steinberg, were in Honduras just days before the putsch. According to the official version, both diplomats were in Honduras to “impede the coup”. However, Washington's alleged opposition to the putsch appears rather bizarre: In fact, U.S. military officers were direct witness of the forced exile of president Zelaya.

==============================
Previous LATEST threads:

Interim Leader in Honduras Says He’ll Briefly Step Down
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4154423

Honduras regime seeks to disarm citizens ahead of polls
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4155309

[L. Coyote]

1. Report on Women's Human Rights Violations Shows Systematic Attack on Women Under Honduran Coup

Report on Women's Human Rights Violations Shows Systematic Attack on Women Under Honduran Coup
Laura Carlsen | November 10, 2009 | http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6564
Americas Program, Center for International Policy (CIP)
americas.irc-online.org


On Nov. 2 representatives from Honduran women's organizations presented a grim panorama of violations of women's human rights by the de facto regime led by Roberto Micheletti before the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights (ICHR).

Their testimonies provided documented proof that the coup regime and its security forces have been responsible for rapes, beatings, murders, and harassment of Honduran women in the resistance movement, and the dictatorial elimination of gains in gender equity. These crimes against women have been committed in the context of impunity for the perpetrators.

As the U.S.-brokered agreement between Micheletti and the legitimate government led by President Manuel Zelaya falters, the on-going crisis in Honduras continues to claim victims and women are particularly at risk. As in violent dictatorships throughout history, women's bodies have become a battleground. Honduran women have formed the backbone of the resistance movement against the coup from Day One and suffered systematic and gender-targeted repression as a result.

Honduras has a strong and organized feminist movement. This movement came together, fortified by the integration of hundreds of independent women, in the coalition Feminists in Resistance following the coup. It has seen its members beaten, its hard-fought gains rolled back, its institutions taken over, and its projects for gender equity in public policy shattered over the past four months, under an illegitimate and ultraconservative regime. Despite the personal risk and the continuous setbacks, it remains strong and united and committed to restoring the rule of law necessary for peaceful advances in women's rights.

During this week, which many hoped would mark the return to constitutional government, the coup regime made another key move against women's rights. On Nov. 3, a law pushed through the day after the coup by the de facto regime went into effect that prohibits the morning-after pill .......................

[L. Coyote]

2. 240 Academics and Experts on Latin America Call on Obama to Denounce Human Rights Abuses

Honduran Elections: Over 240 Academics and Experts on Latin America Call on Obama to Denounce Human Rights Abuses by Honduran Dictatorship
Free and Fair Elections Are Possible Only After the Coup is Reversed, They Say
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/11/12-7


CLAREMONT, Calif. - November 12 - Over 240 academics and experts on Latin America sent a letter to President Obama yesterday urging him to denounce the ongoing human rights violations perpetrated by the coup regime in Honduras ahead of the planned November 29 elections. They also urged him to demand the immediate restitution of President Manuel Zelaya and to support a full three months of electoral campaigning after the coup has been overturned and "debating, organizing, and all other aspects of election campaigns can be conducted in an atmosphere that is free from fear; in which all views and parties are free to make their voices heard - not just those that are allowed under an illegal military occupation." This would mean that this month's elections - which Latin America and the European Union have said they will not recognize - would need to be rescheduled.

"With only days left before the scheduled November 29 elections, the U.S. government must make a choice," the letter states. "It can either side with democracy, along with every government in Latin America, or it can side with the coup regime, and further isolate the United States in the hemisphere."

Last Thursday, the Rio Group, which includes all of Latin America and most of the Caribbean, issued a statement declaring that they would consider the November 29 elections to be illegitimate if Zelaya is not first reinstated.

The current letter continues: "Moreover, the U.S. cannot afford to maintain its deafening silence regarding the innumerable and grave human rights abuses committed by the coup government in Honduras - a silence that has become a conspicuous international embarrassment."

Numerous press reports have described human rights abuses and violations of civil liberties during the three-month period in which electoral campaigning is allowed under Honduran law, including illegal mass arrests, beatings, torture, and shootings by state security forces, attacks on the freedoms of assembly, speech, and of the press. This repression has been widely documented .....

................

[L. Coyote]

3. Honduran Resistance Calls for Deepening of Democracy

Honduran Resistance Calls for Deepening of Democracy
Matt Schwartz - 10 November 2009 - http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2201/1/


"I call myself a veteran Defender of Human Rights- it sounds better than old- and as I sit down to write this I feel ill at ease, perhaps because I have the idea that over the long process of the last few decades, we had achieved some small and relative advances in the area of Human Rights. Perhaps its because I always look towards the past in order to spy into the future and, of course, to check on the present…" –Bertha Oliva de Nativi

The history of Bertha Oliva de Nativi is the history of Honduras. If the storyline of the past one hundred years of this continent has been ‘so few with so much, and so many with so little’, then Bertha has been the fearless protagonist racing to rewrite the chapters that will hence come. In 1982 Berta’s husband, Professor Tomas Nativi disappeared. One of hundreds of Hondurans and tens of thousands of Central Americans to lose their lives to state sanctioned violence, Tomas and all of those who have disappeared remain the most terrifying and silencing bootprint of the military regimes of the 1980’s. The stories are all too common: "they came to our door in the middle of the night" or "he just never came home ever again." .............

.......... journalists, doctors, educators, trade unionists, community organizers, mothers, fathers, grandparents. Here they trace for us the context of the current state of affairs in Honduras and speak to the most pressing issues at hand.

We the People of Central America

The history of repression in Central America has flown for centuries like a river into the sea of the impoverished masses. If we follow this flow upstream we see that it runs directly through the handful of local elite families to the source - the economic and military might of the United States. Luis Mendez, an organizer with the National Front of Resistance against the Coup D’etat, puts the June 28 military takeover of Honduras in historical context:

"We the people of Central America have tread through sad and painful processes. ......................

[L. Coyote]

4. Human Rights Expert Calls on Obama to Denounce "Grave Human Rights Violations"

Honduras' Most Prominent Human Rights Expert Calls on Obama Administration to Denounce "Grave Human Rights Violations"
Fri, 06 Nov 2009 - http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/honduras-most-prominent-human-rights,1031858.shtml


Washington, D.C. (Vocus) November 5, 2009 -- Bertha Oliva, the head of Honduras' most well-known and respected human rights organization, called on the Obama administration to denounce the "grave human right violations" in Honduras.

"How can it be that the United States government is silent while Hondurans are subjected to arbitrary arrest, the closure of independent media, police beatings, torture and even killings by security forces?" asked Oliva.

Oliva is the General Coordinator of COFADEH, the Committee of Relatives of the Disappeared and Detained in Honduras. She is currently in Washington, D.C., to brief Members of Congress, their staff, and other policy makers on the situation in Honduras.

Oliva's grim assessment of human rights and civil liberties under the more than four months of coup government is shared by major international human rights groups such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the OAS Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), and others.

"And now the U.S. government says we can have free elections in less than three weeks," said Oliva. "That is a sick joke." .....................

[L. Coyote]

5. Honduras Coup at Ibero-American Summit

Honduras Coup at Ibero-American Summit
http://www.periodico26.cu/english/news_world/november2009/honduras-iasummit112109.html


San Jose, Nov 21, (PL).- The crisis created by the coup d'état in Honduras will be the center of debates at the 19th Ibero-American Summit in Portugal on November 20-December 1, the Costa Rican Foreign Ministry said.

Although the slogan of the meeting is Knowledge and Innovation, the political conflict in Honduras will certainly be the focus of debates and discussions, Foreign Minister Bruno Stagno pointed out.

The summit will begin a day after the general elections called by the de facto regime in Honduras, which have been condemned by broad popular sectors and the international community.

The United Nations, the Organization of American States (OAS), the Rio Group and the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) have said they would not recognize the elections under the de facto regime.

.................

[L. Coyote]

6. A Week Before “Elections” = Candidate Resignations, More Censorship and Repression

A Week Before “Elections” in Honduras, Candidate Resignations, More Censorship and Repression
Independent Presidential Candidate and Liberal Party Vice Presidential Candidate Among Those Who Withdrew from the Ballot
By Tamar Sharabi - The Narco News Bulletin - November 22, 2009 - http://www.narconews.com/Issue62/article3946.html


TEGICUGALPA, HONDURAS, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2009: Nine days before the Honduran elections are scheduled to take place, Channel 36, Cholusat Sur, has been taken off the air once again. A parallel signal has been transmitting over the station. Initially airing pornography, now the same movie has been on repeat for the second day in a row. This new attack on the press comes the morning after Micheletti announced that he would be leaving the Presidency ‘provisionally’ from November 25 until December 2 for the country “to concentrate on the electoral process and not on the political crisis.”

Micheletti’s announcement has been “welcomed” by the US State Department which currently along with Panama and Colombia are the only countries recognizing the elections. Micheletti added that he would return if there were threats to security. Officially the armed forces have been turned over to the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) 30 days prior to the elections. The National Front Against the Coup D’état in an announcement called the “absence” of Micheletti’s “dictatorship…only a maneuver to hide the totalitarian role of the de facto regime and the armed forces that have been applied to an illegitimate, illegal and fraudulent electoral process.”

................

Official Resignations

On Friday November 20, 146 days since the coup, people awaited the arrival of approximately 30 electoral candidates to officially resign their candidacy. According to Rafael Barahona, a member of Zelaya’s party in resistance, many candidates have strategically waited until the last week to resign so that their respective parties have less time to name a new candidate. This will be a challenge for the TSE who by law must accept resignations until Election Day but will also unlikely have time to change the ballots.

In an article in La Tribuna, Secretary of the TSE, David Matamoros stated that only 0.1% of the candidates have resigned officially and that there were “serious problems” with removing the photographs of all the candidates that will withdraw. The article also claims that “Judge Enrique Ortez Sequeira, had informed prosecutors of the actions of the protesters, who retreated when they were tired of shouting.” Unsurprisingly, they would like to inform their readership that there will be consequences againt people who protest against the elections. However, the participants did not retire from the protest because they were tired. In fact, at 2 p.m. uniformed police and also members of the Special Command “Çobra” unit (COECO, in its Spanish initials) intimidated the people to leave. Though threatening the protesters with their clubs and cans of tear gas neither was ultimately used because the resistance movement peacefully evacuated the area.

Below is an unofficial list of candidates (the TSE would not provide an official one) that have withdrawn their candidacies.

Presidential

Carlos H Reyes, Presidential Candidate (Indep)
Maria Margarita Zelaya Rivas, ‘Designada Presidencial’ (Equivalent to Vice President), (L)

Diputados, equivalent to Congresspersons
Leonardo Mejía Bonilla, Cortes (L)
Ricardo Gamero Cortes, Cortes, (L)
Edis Antonio Moncada Eguigure, Suplente F.M. (L)
Jorge Antonio Yánes Fernandez, Olancho (UD)
Marco Tulio Fúnez, F.M. (UD)
Lino Enamorado Izaguirre, F.M. (UD)
María Carmela López, Yoro (UD)
Andres Martinez, F.M. (UD)
José María Martínez, Yoro (UD)
Ana Rosa Vda. de Mejía, Cortes, (L)
Rafael Edgardo Barahona Osorio, F.M. (L)
Marlene Paz, Cortes, (UD)
Carlos Ponce, Paraiso (PINU)
José Isidro Ponce, Olancho (UD)
José Edgardo Castro Rodríguez, Cortes, (L)
Elvia Argentina Valle Villalta, Diputada, Copan (L)
German Zepeda, Cortes (UD)

Mayors

Juventino Bonillo, Saba, Colon (Indep)
Faustino Martínez, San Pedro Sula, Cortes (Indep)
Leonardo Martinez, Yoro (UD)
Rufino Vásquez Meza, San José, La Paz (UD)
Nelson Geovany Núñez, Lima, Cortes, (UD)
Harvin Pineda, San Pedro Sula, Cortes (Indep)
Donato Quiroz, San Antonio, Cortes (L)
Rodolfo Padilla Sunseri, San Pedro Sula, (L) (Actual Mayor that was also overthrown on the 28th of June and has been in exile in Nicaragua)

Deputy Mayor

Miguel Angel Chavarría, San Antonio, Cortes (UD)
Juan Miguel (Lito) López Erazo, San Pedro Sula, Cortes (L)
María Gloria García, Lima, Cortes (UD)
Patricia Ivett Pineda, San Pedro Sula, Cortes (Indep)

(These positions are not popularly elected; they come in ‘package deals’ with the Mayors)

Regidor, equivalent to serving on City Council:
Nora Yesenia Córdova, Cortes, (Indep)
Gloria Marina Guzmán Cruz, Lima, Cortes
Mario Medrano, San Manuel, Cortes (N)
Orfilia de Mejía, San Pedro Sula, (L)
Wendy Munguía, Lima, Cortes (UD)
Regina Villamil Munoz, San Pedro Sula (Indep)

[L. Coyote]

7. Arrests and Militarization Precedes Honduran Elections = as porno replaces opposition station

Arrests and Militarization Precede Honduran Elections
Inside Costa Rica - ‎Nov 22, 2009‎ - http://insidecostarica.com/dailynews/2009/november/22/centam-091122-02.htm


TEGUCIGALPA - News media closures, illegal detentions and militarization increase, portray today's panorama in Honduras just 8 days from the illegal elections called by the de facto regimen.

In the last hours the television channel 36 was taken off the air, one of the main press elements opposed to the June 28 Coup d'Etat against President Manuel Zelaya.

"We hold the regime chief Roberto Micheletti responsible for this new interruption" the channel's head, Esdras Amado Lopez said and he specified the signal was substituted by porno and cowboy films.

Meanwhile, Dina Meza from the Committee of Relatives of Missing Prisoners, revealed night arrests accomplished by the security forces in capital districts..

......

The Armed Forces are scattered all over the country, ... demanded the mayors to make a list of the people who they considered are enemies of the electoral process to neutralize them and the district attorney's office order the 530 prosecutors in the country to be ready to chase them. ......

[Downwinder]

8. Honduran President Zelaya earns high marks for governance, U.S. agency scorecard shows

The MCC Scorecard

The U.S. taxpayer-funded agency called the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), which oversees a multi-billion dollar foreign-aid fund, was established in 2004 under the Bush administration to help spur development in poor nations through programs injected with a strong dose of neo-liberal economic theology.

MCC is currently in the final year of a five-year $215 million aid program for Honduras. The MCC Honduras program is designed to fund agricultural and transportation projects that “will increase the productivity and business skills of farmers and their employees who operate small- and medium-sized farms, and will reduce transportation costs between targeted production centers and national, regional, and global markets,” according to the MCC’s description of the aid compact.

Each year, as part of its assessment of countries participating, or seeking to participate, in its aid programs, MCC issues what it calls country “scorecards” that assess the economic and political conditions in those nations based on a comparison to other nations with similar per-capita incomes .

A score above the median (the middle point) in that comparison is considered a passing grade by MCC, for the purposes of assessing performance, while a score below the median is considered a failing grade.

The scorecard is developed from a range of data and reports prepared by a variety of organizations (none of them socialist in leanings), such as the World Bank, Freedom House, UNESCO and the Heritage Foundation.

The results of the scorecard assessment are released annually, but because of the dated nature of the data, the scorecard largely represents a trailing assessment; in other words, the scorecard released this year represents, in large measure, an assessment of a nation’s performance in 2008. The scorecards grade across three major categories, which are defined as “ruling justly,” “economic freedom,” and “investing in people.”

The most recent MCC scorecards, released earlier this month, seemingly were completely overlooked by the mainstream press, particularly the U.S. media outlets who continue to print propaganda promoting the justness of the Honduran coup based on the pretense that Zelaya was a wild-eyed socialist who was leading Honduras to ruin.

And there might be a good reason for the media silence with respect to the scorecard for Honduras.

The most recent scorecard for that Central American nation (the fiscal year 2010 report released on Nov. 9) shows that during the period covered, primarily 2008, when Zelaya was still in power, Honduras received passing grades on every measure of “economic freedom,” save one.

In fact, some of those grades were near the top of the class with respect to similarly situated nations. For example, Honduras in the most recent MCC scorecard, ranked in the the 89th percentile with respect to is regulatory quality and in the 98th percentile in terms of its trade policy

More: http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/bill-conroy/2009/11/honduran-president-zelaya-earns-high-marks-governance-us-agency-scoreca

[L. Coyote]

9. Honduran Dictatorship Is A Threat to Democracy In the Hemisphere

Honduran Dictatorship Is A Threat to Democracy In the Hemisphere
Mark Weisbrot - November 23, 2009 10:41 AM - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-weisbrot/honduran-dictatorship-is_b_367544.html


A small group of rich people who own most of Honduras and its politicians enlist the military to kidnap the elected president at gunpoint and take him into exile. They then arrest thousands of people opposed to the coup, shut down and intimidate independent media, shoot and kill some demonstrators, torture and beat many others. This goes on for more than four months, including more than two of the three months legally designated for electoral campaigning. Then the dictatorship holds an "election."

Should other countries recognize the results of such an election, to be held on November 29th? Latin America says absolutely not; the United States is saying, well, "yes we can"- if we can get away with it.

"There has been a sharp rise in police beatings, mass arrests of demonstrators and intimidation of human rights defenders," since President Zelaya slipped back into Honduras and took refuge in the Brazilian embassy, wrote Amnesty International. Human Rights Watch, the OAS Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and human rights groups worldwide have also condemned the violence and repression perpetrated by the Honduran dictatorship.

On November 5, the 25 nations of the Rio Group, which includes virtually all of Latin America, declared that they would not recognize the results of the November 29th elections ..........

.......... Another surreal part of the whole political discussion has been the attempt to portray Zelaya, who was merely delivering on his campaign promises to the Honduran electorate, as a pawn of some foreign power - conveniently chosen to be the much-demonized Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. The anti-communist hysteria of 1950s McCarthyism is still the model for these uncreative political hacks.

What a disgrace it will be to our country if the Obama team follows through on its current strategy and recognizes these "elections!" It's hard to imagine a stronger statement than that human rights and democracy in this hemisphere count for zero in the political calculations of this administration.

[EFerrari]

11. Mark has a good clear style that is very effective.

A disgrace, indeed.

[L. Coyote]

10. Another False Flag attack? = Bomb Explodes at Party’s Offices ....

In a political struggle characterized by peaceful protests on one side and violence on the other, several news-making "attacks" in which noone is injured, the target is missed, or the whole event seems more surreal and fabricated than actual are raising claims of "false flag" propaganda operations intended to sway public opinion by providing fodder for internal newscasts blaming the junta resistance. Here is another such suspicious event, where noone is taking responsibility, noone is caught, no suspects are identified, etc., just news to sway opinion of the resistance.

Meanwhile, news that a pro-Zelaya television station went off the air, replaced by porn and cowboys, is pushed off the news.

===========================
Bomb Explodes at Party’s Offices in Northern Honduras
http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=347808&CategoryId=23558


TEGUCIGALPA – A bomb exploded on Saturday at the offices of the opposition, center-right National Party in the northern city of El Progreso, causing damage to the main gate but no injuries.

The blast left the gate “destroyed,” Ricardo Bermudez, a National Party congressional candidate, told HRN radio.

At the time of the explosion, which occurred at around 7:45 a.m. local time (1345 GMT), “none of our activists was inside the building” and the guard had gone out for breakfast, he said.

Bermudez added that, according to preliminary reports by the National Police, the bomb, hurled by unknown assailants, was made of a “plastic explosive.”

The candidate said the perpetrators of the attack, rather than seeking to cause material damage, were trying to “intimidate citizens” into staying away from the Nov. 29 general elections, the first since a June 28 coup ousted elected President Mel Zelaya.

“Those few (who reject the elections) are trying to intimidate people from going to the polling stations, but that won’t happen; the Honduran people won’t let themselves be intimidated, they like to live in peace,” he said.

Several bombs have exploded in recent weeks in Honduras, although no one has been injured and no arrests have been made in connection with the attacks. ..............

[L. Coyote]

18. Honduras police say 4 people, rifles seized = Micheletti claims a plot to attack him

Honduras police say 4 people, rifles seized
By JUAN CARLOS LLORCA (AP) – 1 hour ago - http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jAkMGKIUDg_ngUiZboxQbYj5_DPwD9C6BDL00


TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Honduran police detained two Nicaraguans and two Hondurans along with several rifles, and interim President Roberto Micheletti claimed the weapons were part of a plot to attack him during Sunday's presidential election.

The suspects, weapons, communications equipment and gun sights were found during a raid on a house in the city of El Progreso, north of the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa, authorities said Tuesday.

"Today, police informed me that there was going to be an attack against me in the city of Progreso when I went to vote," Micheletti said at a news conference. Micheletti is from Progreso.

............. In announcing the weapons seizure and detentions, police spokesman Orlin Cerrato said, "There is no doubt that the intentions of these people was to cause chaos and fear among the Honduran people to damage the elections."

Authorities are nervous about purported efforts to disrupt the vote. On Nov. 12, assailants fired an anti-tank grenade toward a building where ballots for the presidential election were stored.

.........

[L. Coyote]

25. Gunmen shell Honduran Supreme Court building

Gunmen shell Honduran Supreme Court building
Source: RIA Novosti - http://en.rian.ru/world/20091126/156987934.html


Unidentified gunmen have fired grenades from portable launchers at the buildings of the Supreme Court and the Canal 10 television in the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa, local police said.

No casualties have been reported and the buildings were only slightly damaged in the attack.

According to police spokesman Orlin Cerrato, the attack was planned to intimidate Honduran citizens on the eve of the presidential elections scheduled for November 29.

"The shelling of public buildings will not scare the people and will not hamper the presidential polls. We will take all necessary security measures to ensure the free expression of the will of the electorate," Cerrato said in an interview with the HRN radio on Wednesday.

..........

According to police, over 30 attacks with explosive devices have targeted institutions and media outlets from both sides of the conflict since the June coup despite the interim government has ordered citizens to turn in their weapons.

...............

[L. Coyote]

12. VIDEO: Honduras, recent violence and repression

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x405856

Berta Oliva, leader of COFADEH (Committee of Relatives of Missing Prisoners in Honduras) speaks about the purpose of COFADEH and their history of involvement in the search for the disappeared. She speaks about how the torturers from the dark period of the 1980's, who used to hide in the shadows to murder, now have the protection of the military coup government to challenge through their rapes and illegal detentions, the very framework of human rights in Honduras and the world.

[L. Coyote]

22. VIDEO: Coup in Honduras Workshop = at the School of the Americas Protest

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x406915

[Zorra]

13. And so, the great SOA RW extremist tradition of installing bloodthirsty dictators in Latin America

continues.

It's too bad President Obama didn't send in the Navy Seals to covertly take Micheletti out before it go to this point.

Now, the anti-democracy Micheletti is going to kill and imprison many innocent people.

The old question:

"If you knew what Hitler was going to do before he started killing all those innocent people, would you have assassinated him before he started his madness?"

Well, a lot of us knew what Micheletti was going to do.

[L. Coyote]

14. VIDEO: Radio Progreso closed by Honduras Junta

Radio Progreso closed by Honduras Junta
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x406516

24 November 2009 - Reporters Without Borders is today posting a video of a raid on Radio Progreso,
a radio station based in the northern town of El Progreso that was one of the first victims of last June’s coup d’état.
http://www.rsf.org/spip.php?page=article&id_article=35075

[L. Coyote]

15. PRESIDENT ZELAYA's Letter to the Presidents of the Hemisphere

"The Name of Our Country is América" - Simon Bolivar
The Narco News Bulletin
Reporting on the War on Drugs and Democracy from Latin America
November 24, 2009 | Issue #62

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Legalizing Coups d’Etat by Means of Spurious Electoral Processes Divides the Unity of the Nations of América”
A Letter to the Presidents of the Hemisphere

By Manuel Zelaya Rosales
President of Honduras
November 22, 2009

Honorable Presidents
Nations of América

Dear Presidents,

I write you in my role as President of Honduras, valuing the excellent relations between our countries and in defense of the democracy violated in Honduras as consequence of the Military Coup d’Etat perpetrated June 28 of this year, when soldiers invaded my home and at gunpoint kidnapped and took me to Costa Rica.

The National Congress forged my resignation letter and, abusing its power, emitted an illegal decree which “separated me from the charge of Constitutional President” without Constitutional backing to do so. The same was the case for the arrest order that the Court had emitted without having received any legal complain and without my having been cited to appear before any tribunal or trial. It has been condemned and described by all the countries of the world as a violent and surprising rupture of democratic order, a Military Coup d’Etat.

At this moment in Honduras we are in a de facto State. There is no Constitution. Nor are there Constitutional powers because they have been destroyed by force by the military Coup d’Etat on that ominous day of June 28, 2009.

The Constitution of the Republic establishes in Article 3: “No one owes obedience to an usurper government, nor to those who occupy public positions or jobs by the force of weapons or using means or procedures that bankrupt or fail to recognize what the Constitution and the law establishes. Those actions by so-called authorities are null and void. The people have the right to insurrection to defend the Constitutional order.”

In reading that article, you can understand that the Honduran people are legally empowered to act using all means, styles and forms that they consider necessary to restore democracy. We have consciously taken the path of peaceful resistance, with the goal of establishing noncooperation and nonviolence like methods of civil disobedience and twenty-first century popular struggle against the rise of military force.

We thank the entire international community for your support for our labor to reconstruct the State of Law, that being the last effort of the poorly reached Tegucigalpa-San José Accord, backed by the OAS and the US Department of State. Its letter and spirit has as its proposal the “return of the title the executive branch to what it was prior to June 28.” And it was openly violated by the de facto regime which in which Mr. Micheletti pretends to head a government of reconciliation, refusing to convene the National Congress, in definitive noncompliance of the timeline and text.

Now, unilaterally, he seeks to utilize the aborted accord by convening the National Congress on December 2, a date upon which the political actors of the accord will have been substantially modified, in the sense that by then they will have already been submitted to the opinion ofthe voters without having restored Constitutional order.

The elections of November 29 and their use of public funds under a de facto regime, without having previously restored democracy and the State of Law as OAS and UN resolutions demand, without even having installed the government of unity and reconciliation, are illegal, illegitimate, and constitute a criminal act.

At the moment that the de facto regime with its soldiers convenes a spurious electoral process under repression, without legal guarantees, and without a political agreement, in which the military dictatorship is the guarantor of the law, it only strengthens its actions of force and impunity.

Precisely today, Channel 36, property of journalist Esdras Amado López, the only television chain that has opposed the regime, has had its signal blocked and taken off the air by the dictatorship.

The de facto regime has frontally disregarded the resolutions of the OAS, the UN and the European Union. It has also violated the Democratic Charter of the OAS and its resolutions while some of Honduras’ friends among countries demonstrate ambiguity and support for the electoral process without having restored democratic order and without political dialogue. That permits the de facto regime to impose its will by force.

As President of Honduras, I communicate with you to say that below these conditions I will not back the electoral process and will proceed to challenge it legally in the name of the men and women of my country and of hundreds of community leaders that suffer the loss of democracy, the repression, the unfair circumstances and the suppression of freedom.

These elections have to be annulled and rescheduled to when the sovereign will of the people is respected.

In these difficult moments for our brother countries of América, we ask for your solidarity with Honduras.

* That you accompany us based on the facts that you know, reiterating the position of not supporting a unilateral intent to give validity to an accord that was quickly rescinded by the violations consummated by the dictatorship.
* Reaffirming the condemnation of the coup d’etat of the military State and not supporting a de facto regime whose existence today shames all the peoples of Latin América Latina, that after all the attempts by the international community to reverse the coup d’etat have ended in a total failure for everyone.
* Appealing to maintain your firmness in the execution of the resolutions passed by the OAS and the UN and not adopting ambiguous and imprecise positions like those displayed today by the government of the United States of America, with whose final posture has weakened the process of reversing the coup d’etat, demonstrating division in the international community. By feeding this coup d’etat the democratic security in the hemisphere and the stability of the Presidents of América is put at risk, with the resurgence of military castes over civil authority. Legitimizing coups d’etat by means of spurious electoral processes divides and does not contribute to the unity of the nations of América.
* I ask for your cooperation so that this Military Coup d’Etat its bloody violations of human rights do not go unpunished. Already, the International Criminal Court has received complaints and allowed them to proceed to trial to obtain justice for our people and apply the corresponding sanctions to those who committed treason to the Nation and crimes against humanity in Honduras.
* We voice our energetic rejection of those who support the maneuvers to launder the coup d’etat, covering up for the golpistas to leave their crimes protected.
* With our full attention, we invite all the nations to recognize our government and that they abstain from supporting the actions of the illegal regime that usurped power by force of weapons.
* We cordially demand and exhort your representatives to the OAS and the UN to continue defending and supporting the rights of the people and of the legitimately elected governments, since when one of our nations suffers an assault it is an affront to all América; and, each time a government elected by the peoples of América is toppled, violence and terrorism win and Democracy suffers a defeat.

In wait of your response, I appreciate the invaluable support demonstrated until now for these principles and I send you greetings reiterating my esteem and my highest consideration.

JOSE MANUEL ZELAYA ROSALES
President of the Republic of Honduras

cc: Sr. José Miguel Insulza, Secretario General de la OEA
Sr. Ban Ki Moon, Secretario General de la ONU
Sr. José Barroso, Comisión Unión Europea
Archive

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[L. Coyote]

16. Honduran Tension Increasing after Militarization

Honduran Tension Increasing after Militarization
http://www.cadenagramonte.cubaweb.cu/english/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1157:-honduran-tension-increasing-after-militarization-&catid=3:world&Itemid=14


Tegucigalpa, Nov 24.- The vast deployment of armed forces, policemen, paramilitary bodies, and reservists continue reheating Tuesday the political tension unleashed in Honduras, almost five months of the military coup.

The mobilization of troops, which characterizes the nation after the military coup against Constitutional President Manuel Zelaya, makes more ostentatious whatever the questioned November 29 elections get closer.

The country's military chief Gen. Romeo Vazquez announced special plans, including the transfer of soldiers in helicopters to any point in Honduras he considers necessary.

The National Front against the Coup d'Etat denounced this weekend that the repressive wave gripping Honduras includes mercenaries contracted by armed forces.

...............

[L. Coyote]

17. Junta Declares New State of Emergency = “Election” Militarized, Full Media Control

Honduras Coup Regime Declares New State of Emergency Prior to Sunday “Election”
Al Giordano - November 24, 2009 at 5:57 pm - http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/3626/honduras-coup-regime-declares-new-state-emergency-prior-sunday-%E2%80%9Celection%E2%80%9D


The Gaceta Oficial, (“Official Gazette”) of the Honduras coup regime is now freshly printed and has three new decrees and two orders restricting freedom of the press, the right to bear arms and officially strips Catholic Father Andres Tamayo of his Honduran citizenship, ordering him expelled from the country (the good Padre left for El Salvador last week).

Here are a few of the regime’s greatest hits from this week’s barrage of repressive decrees which are expressly part of what the coup leaders call an "election" coming up on Sunday:

Decree PCM-M-029-2009

“Due to growing internal threats,” the Armed Forces will be deployed, in support of the National Police, to guard polling places, the custody and transport of ballots (before and after they are utilized by voters), and 5,000 members of the military reserve were deputized beginning on November 13.

Decree PCM-M-030-2009

This decree declares a “State of Emergency” nationwide, and places the regime’s “Secretary of State” inside the military command to oversee all activities related to the November 29 “elections.” This decree pretty much erases the previous order that the quasi-independent Supreme Electoral Tribunal would exclusively be in command of the Armed Forces in the month prior to the “election.” In other words, not even the window dressing added to give the vote a gloss of pseudo-independence could be tolerated by regime leader Roberto Micheletti, who has now placed a member of his Simian Council at that helm.

Decree PCM-M-031-2009

The November 29 “elections are under threat by groups that try to block their development with threats of all kinds, creating fear and disorder in the general population.” Therefore, says the decree, a nationwide ban on bearing all types of firearms went into effect on Monday, November 23, “until ordered otherwise.” (Memo to self: Make sure to write the National Rifle Association about Senator Jim DeMint's efforts in Honduras.)

Order number 2169-2009 of the Secretary of Government and Justice

“The conduct of Mr. José Andrés Tamayo Cortez is incongruent with constituional precepts and secondary laws of the Honduran State… that justify his characterization as UNWORTHY to have Honduran nationality and is ordered to be expelled to his country of origin.”

Executive Order 124-2009 authorizes the coup regime's media regulating organization CONATEL to close any media at will.

.......

[L. Coyote]

19. Women Nobel Peace Laureates, Rights Leaders Urge SoS Clinton to Condemn Violence Against Women

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - November 25, 2009 - 10:37 AM
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/11/25-2

Women Nobel Peace Laureates & Women’s Rights Leaders Urge Secretary of State Clinton to Condemn Violence Against Women in Honduras

WASHINGTON - November 25 - More than 175 human rights and feminist leaders--including three Nobel Peace Prize winners and leaders of national and international women’s organizations—today sent an Open Letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today, urging her to condemn widespread violations of women’s human rights in Honduras.

“In the lead up to the November 29 elections, we are extremely concerned about the increase in a pattern of repression and abuse of women at the hands of the de facto regime, especially women who form part of the opposition to the coup,” said Nobel Laureate Jody Williams. “Recent reports that the deployment of troops and police has intensified, and women opposition leaders are being targeted, should give the US government ample reason to reconsider its apparent willingness to endorse the elections as legitimate.”

Williams received the Nobel in 1997 for her prominent role in the international campaign to ban the use of anti-personnel landmines and has worked extensively in Central America to promote peace and human rights.

“Given Secretary Clinton’s commitment to women’s rights and her pledge to fight violence against women, we are asking her to speak out about the dangerous and appalling situation faced by Honduran women, ” she added.

The letter was also signed by Rigoberta Menchu, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992 for her work in advancing reconciliation following Guatemala’s civil war, and by Mairead Maguire, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976 for her efforts to promote a peaceful resolution to the civil conflict in Northern Ireland.

Other signatories to the letter include Mary Robinson, the former President of Ireland and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997 to 2002.

Human rights organizations have noted a sharp rise in violations against women since the June 28 military coup d’état in Honduras. The letter summarizes 240 cases of violations of women’s human rights recently presented before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. These include physical abuse, sexual abuse, rape, sexual harassment, threats, arbitrary detentions, a rise in femicides, the closure of feminist radio programs and other media, and impunity for crimes against women.

It concludes, “We urge you to condemn the orchestrated campaign of violence against women being waged by the current de facto regime. Finally, we urge you to insist on a withdrawal of armed forces from the streets, neighborhoods, and homes of Honduras.”

Honduras has national elections scheduled for November 29, which are being actively boycotted by Honduran women’s groups. The letter states that free and fair elections cannot take place under current conditions.

“Hastily improvised elections—without the full participation of Honduran society, international recognition, or the reinstatement of the elected president—cannot be free or fair and do not guarantee a return to rule of law. Only a return to rule of law can reestablish legal institutions for redress of human rights violations and end the current situation of impunity for crimes against women."
###

[L. Coyote]

20. Honduras foreign minister Carlos Lopez Contreras defends 'ban' on broadcaster

Honduras: Minister defends 'ban' on broadcaster


Rome, 25 Nov. (AKI) - Honduras foreign minister Carlos Lopez Contreras has defended a ban by the de facto government of Roberto Micheletti on a popular broadcaster thought to be sympathetic to deposed president, Manuel Zelaya .... Last week the Honduran TV network Canal 36, also known as Cholusat Sur, claimed its signal had been interrupted by the Micheletti government which since taking power has allegedly tightened controls over the media.

However, Contreras told Adnkronos International (AKI) that the ban on Canal 36 was justified.

"If we look at respect for freedom of speech anywhere in the world, and you actually hear what the channel is saying daily, you would see that in any country in the world, with or without elections, this channel would have been suspended," he said.

He said Canal 36 'belonged' to Zelaya when he was the head of the executive government. .... Contreras rejected Zelaya's allegations that Micheletti was being supported by Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga.

"Zelaya's accusations have absolutely no foundation. The cardinal is a person which has a global reach and he would never put in jeopardy his image for a political situation. I consider Zelaya's claims unfair."

..................

He also said that the views of the secretary-general of the Organization of American States, (OAS) the Chilean Jose Miguel Insulza, were irrelevant.

"Elections are the expression of popular sovereignty of a nation and if the candidates and parties are satisfied, it does not matter what Insulza says in the OAS nor the observers.

"Observers do not give us legitimacy or validity...the world has to accept what this is, a transparent and massive turnout - or what we hope that it will be massive - and that there will be no complaints."

Honduras will host elections on 29 November ...........

[Judi Lynn]

23. It has been the style of all these golpistas to flaunt the power they've stolen

from the people of Honduras. Now even the Foreign Minister is thumbing his nose at the world.

It would be so decent to see Latin American right-wing monsters finally start reaping their just rewards for vicious, murderous contempt and bloodthirsty, deliberate attacks on the people of their country to control them through fear.

http://cache.daylife.com.nyud.net:8090/imageserve/0gkrdxe5lxe6C/439x.jpg

Meeting with right-wing ####, South Carolina Republican Rep. Jim DeMint and company.

http://www.latribuna.hn.nyud.net:8090/web2.0/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/carlos-lopez-contreras1.jpg http://colombiareports.com.nyud.net:8090/pics/2009/07/carlos_lopez_contreras.jpg

foreign minister Carlos Lopez Contreras

http://graphics8.nytimes.com.nyud.net:8090/images/2009/09/27/world/28honduras_600a.jpg

Honduran soldiers hiding grafitti

The truth hurts, doesn't it, jerks?

[L. Coyote]

21. DE FACTO GOVERNMENT PREPARES REPRESSION IN ELECTION BUILD UP

DE FACTO GOVERNMENT PREPARES REPRESSION IN ELECTION BUILD UP
http://hondurasoye.wordpress.com/2009/11/23/honduras-cofadeh-de-facto-government-preparing-repression-in-run-up-to-elections/


The Committee of Family Members of the Detained and Disappeared in Honduras (COFADEH), to the national and international community expresses its worry about the deterioration of the human rights situation in Honduras that deepens day by day and takes on new forms.

The new wave of death threats, political persecution, illegal detention, torture, militarization of some areas of the main cities and incursion of cars without license plates with tinted windows driven by heavily armed people with their faces covered by masks into neighborhoods identified with the Resistance Against the Coup that have been declared free of political propaganda, adds to it the obtaining of information about leaders of the resistance ordered by the military and politicians.

The environment of repression and uncertainty, which is re-enforced with the order given the 16th of November, 2009 by the Sub-secretary of Service Networks of the Ministry of Public Health which orders the preparation of a CONTINGENCY PLAN to cover health services 24 hours a day from the 19th of November to the 4th of December, 2009. Along with order No. 1055-09-SSRDS, the Plan should include a halt on anticipated appointments without putting the health of patients at risk, reprogramming of selective surgeries scheduled for those dates and dealing with the shortage of medicines and medical supplies for the plan.

These measures appear to be related to the carrying out of the illegitimate electoral process on November 29th, structured abnormally reflected in the militarization and para-militarization expressed in the incorporation of the military reserves to support the Armed Forces in watching over the electoral sites which already included 16,000 military troops and 14,000 police agents.

.....................

[L. Coyote]

24. An Interview with Honduran Coup General Romeo Vásquez Velásquez By BELÉN FERNÁNDEZ

An Interview with Honduran Coup General Romeo Vásquez Velásquez
By BELÉN FERNÁNDEZ - November 25, 2009 - http://www.counterpunch.org/fernandez11252009.html

García and I had 2 hours in between phone calls to discuss such themes as how the colonel had once seen Jennifer López in person, how the weather in Fort Benning, Georgia—home of the former School of the Americas (SOA)—was similar to the weather in Honduras, and how the colonel’s studies in the Dominican Republic had led him to the conclusion that Dominicans spoke barely intelligible Spanish because they were negros, a term for which he provided the English translation “niggers” in case there was any confusion. Extensive international training conducted by the Honduran armed forces had nonetheless not prevented Simon Henshaw, Deputy Mission Chief at the US embassy in Tegucigalpa, from classifying them at a human rights discussion in August as “extremely uneducated.”

Vásquez ... the general was a very religious man, which was merely what Vásquez had consistently said about himself, confessing to the daily La Tribuna that prior to 28 June 28 he had been prepared to retire to a quiet family life but that god had made alternate arrangements..... Vásquez responded to the question of where he visualized himself in 10 years by saying: “Well… I might be the president of Honduras, ha, ha, ha, ha… Anything is possible.”

.... Vásquez declared that the current mission of the Honduran military in Honduras was to prevent violence on November 29.....

.... on November 13, when the Honduran media hype for the day consisted of an alleged explosion the night before in the vicinity of the warehouse where election materials were being stored. The initial story was that the explosive device had been launched from a passing aircraft; when it was eventually conceded that the aircraft in question had been a TACA Airlines flight arriving from Guatemala, the explosion was instead blamed on an RPG—a weapon the Honduran police had determined was only possessed by the army of Nicaragua despite the fact that they were still unable to determine where exactly the explosion had taken place.

Vásquez nonetheless blamed the practice of inventing things on opponents of the coup: “They try to create fictitious scenes in order to make the world think that Honduras is in the midst of conflict, right? And as you can see since you are in Honduras, we are not in conflict at the moment; we have simply had problems with regard to the law.” ....

Legality factored heavily into Vásquez’ outline of the events leading up to June 28, in which he stressed that the refusal of the military to follow Zelaya’s orders to retrieve public opinion survey materials from the Air Force base outside Tegucigalpa was “not because the armed forces didn’t want to carry out the mission but rather that we simply couldn’t because we had to uphold the rule of law.” The supposed illegality of complying with orders from the commander in chief of the military had been determined, according to Vásquez, by “all of the judges”—meaning the Honduran Supreme Court of Justice—and other entities such as the Attorney General’s Office, the Public Prosecutor’s Office, and the College of Lawyers. The general stressed that all of these institutions had been consulted by the armed forces in their search for “a peaceful solution to the crisis” of what to do about the survey, which he attributed to “part of an international project commanded by Hugo Chávez via countries belonging to the ALBA .” Vásquez nonetheless maintained that the Honduran armed forces were not ideologically motivated .....

As for Article 102 of the Constitution prohibiting the forced expatriation of any Honduran citizen, Vásquez responded to my question of why Micheletti had announced that the decision to remove Zelaya from the country had been incorrect by saying that the military respected the coup president’s opinion but that he should understand that “what we did was based on humanitarian considerations.” .....

.....

Additional inconsistencies in perspective included Vásquez’ proclamation that the “goal of the military at the moment is the protection of life” and that “human life is the priority of the state,” ...........

[PufPuf23]

26. POTUS Obama through SOS Clinton send mixed messages

regarding Honduras and one that does believes that there are those in the USA that aided and abetted the Honduras coup is naive, brain dead or corrupt.

Very disappointing. Policy is continuing the PNAC agenda in Latin America.

[L. Coyote]

27. New LATEST thread: Honduran high court rules against Zelaya's return

Honduran high court rules against Zelaya's return
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4161444