New Reports Demolish Justifications for Ouster of Zelaya Honduran Coup Myths Dispelled

[L. Coyote]

Source: San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center.

Sunday Nov 1st, 2009 - By STEWART J. LAWRENCE

In a recent commentary published on the Forbes Magazine web site, two veteran human rights lawyers, Juan Mendez and Viviana Krsticevic, take to task the authors of a recent analysis prepared for the US Congress that suggested that the Honduran constitution allowed the Honduran Congress to remove Zelaya from office. In fact, the Honduran Congress has no formal impeachment power and the vote to remove Zelaya was merely a legislative decree that was of dubious legality, the authors note. In 2003, the Honduran Supreme Court had struck down the efforts of the Honduran legislature to assert its independent authority – but according to the authors, that didn’t keep the legislature from invoking this same authority to try – wrongly - to justify legal action against Zelaya..

The Honduran Supreme Court was also complicit in violating the Honduran Constitution, Mendez and Krsticevic note. Most notably, the Court ordered the armed forces to capture Zelaya and search the presidential residence, despite the fact that article 293 of the Constitution explicitly establishes that the national police, not the army, execute all legal decisions and resolutions, in accordance with the principle of civilian rule. There were also due process violations that occurred throughout the criminal proceedings against Zelaya. Zelaya was never read his rights, informed of the charges against him, or provided access to his lawyers while being detained, then forcibly expelled from the country.

And then there is the matter of the expulsion itself, which as Mendez and Krsticevic note, has no grounding whatsoever in Honduran law. In theory, Zelaya should have been held for trial, or arrested and then released, pending trial. Amazingly, the Supreme Court cited the threat of a “flight risk” to justify an indefinite detention of Zelaya – as if Zelaya had any interest in leaving office, much less the country.

The only “flight” that occurred, in fact, was the airplane trip that Zelaya took into exile courtesy of the armed forces. They rousted him at night in his pajamas and at the point of a bayonet, demanded that he leave – or else. Some “democracy.”

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Read more: http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/11/01/18627362.php

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Previous LATEST thread:
Deal reached to reinstate ousted Honduran president
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4125418

[L. Coyote]

1. Honduran Congress to review crisis accord Tuesday

Honduran Congress to review crisis accord Tuesday
November 01, 2009 01:42 EST - http://www.wztv.com/template/inews_wire/wires.international/3bd2d68b-www.fox17.com.shtml


TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) -- Honduran lawmakers plan to wait until Tuesday to consider a U.S.-brokered agreement that could return deposed President Manuel Zelaya to power.

Monday is a holiday in Honduras and many legislators are busy campaigning for Nov. 29 elections that will elect a successor to Zelaya. Lawmakers also suggest debating the agreement will take time.

In a meeting broadcast by Radio Globo, Zelaya remains optimistic about the timeline, saying he hopes he'll be back in office by Thursday. But, the Organization of American States says according to the accord, there's no deadline that Congress needs to meet to make a final decision on Zelaya's reinstatement.

Diplomats are urging lawmakers not to delay. Many countries have said they won't accept the upcoming elections if the coup isn't reversed.

[L. Coyote]

2. Honduras: Deal signed for Zelaya’s return, but struggle continues

Honduras: Deal signed for Zelaya’s return, but struggle continues
Stuart Munckton - 31 October 2009 - http://www.greenleft.org.au/2009/816/41985


After more than 120 days of mass resistance .....................

By signing the agreement, the regime is forced to acknowledge Zelaya’s removal was not constitutionally valid, as it claimed, but a coup. It held off on agreeing to Zelaya’s return until the very last minute.

The agreement also commits Zelaya to form a government of “national reconciliation” involving the coup plotters. It remains unclear what the make-up of such a government will be, and how much power will rest with Zelaya.

The agreement also places a referendum on a constituent assembly off the table until Zelaya leaves office.

The agreement also leaves open the question of bringing those responsible for crimes during the coup to justice.

Thousands of people have been illegally detained by the coup regime, and dozens have been disappeared or killed. The FNRG said death squads linked to the regime are targeting coup opponents.

The agreement specifically does not grant amnesty for crimes committed. However, it only promises to establish a “truth commission”.

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[bertman]

3. Sounds like "somebody" wants the U.S. Congress to hear the EDITED VERSION of the

Honduran Constitution.

Any bets on which version will eventually be presented to our lawmakers?

Rec.

[L. Coyote]

4. Honduran Newspapers Deliver Photo Images of Resistance Participants to Police

Honduran Newspapers Deliver Photo Images of Resistance Participants to Police
Freedom of the Press Acquires New Definitions

By Belén Fernández
Special to The Narco News Bulletin

November 1, 2009
http://www.narconews.com/Issue61/article3913.html


As if the ethical nature of the photographic practices of pro-coup Honduran newspapers has not already been sufficiently negated by the use of Photoshop to erase blood from anti-coup victims of military and police repression, evidence of even more incriminating tactics has now emerged. According to a source with intimate knowledge of the goings-on at one of the leading Tegucigalpa dailies – who spoke on condition of anonymity in the interest of personal safety – Honduran papers have also responded to the June 28 coup against President Mel Zelaya by delivering photos of Resistance marchers to the police.

Andrés Pavón, president of the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in Honduras (CODEH), confirmed that the presence at marches of photographers from the daily El Heraldo had not resulted in extensive photographic coverage of the events in the paper itself, causing him to question the real purpose of the images. Speaking at the Burger King outside the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa where Zelaya continues to be confined, Pavón defined newspaper contributions to police archives as journalistic terrorism – a different take on the media terrorism that coup president Roberto Micheletti had accused Channel 36 of on September 21 for reporting that Zelaya was in Tegucigalpa and not in a Managua hotel.

El Heraldo, La Prensa, and La Tribuna – essentially interchangeable mouthpieces for the Honduran coup government – appear on the list of members of the Miami-based Inter American Press Association (IAPA), whose mission according to the organization’s website includes “defend press freedom wherever it comes under threat in the Americas.” Ricardo Trotti – Press Freedom Director for the organization representing newspaper owners throughout the hemisphere – responded over the phone to a request for the definition of “press freedom” utilized by the IAPA, his first response being that he did not understand the question; his second was that the Declaration of Chapultepec, adopted by the Hemispheric Conference on Freedom of Expression in Mexico City in 1994, provided some aspects of the definition but that press freedom was an abstract rather than a concrete concept.

Trotti refrained from invoking the concept’s abstract nature when I asked whether the practice of Honduran IAPA members passing images of Resistance protesters along to the police would qualify as press freedom. He explained that he could not offer a judgment on the matter without knowing the facts but said that the IAPA would investigate the claim if they received a formal complaint.

The likelihood of such an investigation is cast into doubt

[Judi Lynn]

5. Unbearable. Unforgiveable. It stand to reason IAPA would be involved in this.

It's a hideous organization headquartered in Miami. One of
their principle people used to be Augustin Edwards, who owned
"El Mercurio" in Santiago, Chile, who was 
generously awarded HUGE chuncks of US taxpayers' hard earned,
and honestly earned money, given this windfall to let the CIA
use his papers, radio stations, etc. to launch a full-scale
war on Salvador Allende before his election, and to rip away
at him daily after that, lying, demonizing, until he was
killed in the US-supported coup, and replaced by the US
puppet, bloody monster Pinochet, at which time Augustin
Edwards media outlets started praising Pinochet without
ceasing until he finally left office, many thousands of
tortured, and murdered people later.

Edwards and his son both own conservative media, and are
probably major voices at IAPA still.

I HAD to save this article you located. It's too important to
simply read and forget. I hope there will be a day 
of reckoning for all these hidous people.

Thank you very much.

[L. Coyote]

6. Democracy Now: Deal Reached in Honduran Coup Crisis; Zelaya Restoration Would Depend on Vote

Deal Reached in Honduran Coup Crisis; Zelaya Restoration Would Depend on Vote by Honduran Congress
http://staging.democracynow.org/2009/10/30/honduras


The Honduran coup regime and representatives of the ousted President Manuel Zelaya reached an agreement late Thursday that would pave the way for Congress to restore Zelaya to office and allow him to serve out the remaining three months of his term. We go to the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa to speak with Andrés Conteris, who has been holed up at the embassy since Zelaya took refuge there last month.

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