Seven Honduran broadcasters slain since March

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Washington Post

Seven Honduran broadcasters slain since March
By Anne-Marie O'Connor
Saturday, April 24, 2010

Honduran television reporter Jorge Alberto "Georgino" Orellana had just left the station where he hosted his own show when a man stepped from the shadows, shot him dead and vanished. On Tuesday, Orellana became the seventh Honduran broadcaster to be gunned down since March 1 in a country where complaints about human rights abuses have increased since a military-led coup in June.

Most of the victims had reported on organized crime in the northern coastal region of Honduras, a key transshipment point for U.S.-bound cocaine.

Reporters Without Borders recently declared Honduras "the world's deadliest country for the media."

"This is unprecedented," said Carlos Lauria of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. "Journalists are being targeted, and the state is almost absent. It's a green light for these people." Lauria said the killings appeared to be "the work of hit men, very professional."

Jose Miguel Vivanco of Human Rights Watch said the government of President Porfirio Lobo has shown little willingness to solve a pattern of threats, harassment and attacks on grass-roots leaders, unionists and priests since the coup.



Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/23/AR2010042304800.html?wprss=rss_world

[saigon68]

1. The US sanctioned Coup at work

[David__77]

2. Solidarity with the masses of Honduras.

Legality be damned. May be Honduran people have the best of luck in sweeping away the ruling class and their system that is rotten to the core.

[maryf]

3. K&R

Thanks for the report...

[Judi Lynn]

4. Reminder of last month's assassination of a Honduran teacher:

‘TEXT-BOOK’ STATE TERRORISM IN HONDURAS: DEATH-SQUADS KILL TEACHER, BROAD DAYLIGHT, IN FRONT OF STUDENTS

Rights Action
March 28, 2010

On March 23, at the same moment that a group of seven Honduran lawyers were presenting information to the Inter-American Human Rights Commission in Washington DC concerning systematic human rights abuses being committed against the pacifist Honduran National Resistance Front (FNRP), a death squad comprised of heavily armed men wearing ski masks and civilian clothes, killed a prominent FNRP member, a teacher, in front of his high school students. According to a communiqué issued by the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in Honduras (CODEH), "At 3pm an unknown person was spotted in front of the San Jose del Pedregal High School.

The unusual presence of a stranger caused concerns among students and thirty teachers who make up the staff of teachers who work at the school. Among the teachers was Professor of Social Science Jose Manuel Flores, who worked as teacher counselor. "Witnesses on the scene saw two pickups approach the rear of the school premises, apparently 2009 models, one green and white. "Professor Manuel, as his friends called him, was in the back of the facility overseeing pupils, when the assassins found him. They passed the perimeter fence and fired their guns at close range.

"The teacher was on a balcony from which he fell, and they fired on him again from above. As they fled, the ski mask of one of the attackers became entangled in the razor coil over the fence which they had cut open to look for their victim. The teacher died instantly." THIS IS STATE TERRORISM The killing of a prominent teacher in front of his students and colleagues, in the middle of the day, a man who was active in the FNRP, participating in protests and publishing articles in alternative press, is calculated act of repression designed to terrorize other Honduras and to send a silencing message.

Among many in the FNRP, the timing of the crime -- at the same time as the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights hearing held in Washington - is part of that message, reminiscent of the attack on the family lawyer Jari Dixon Herrera immediately following a CNN interview in Washington DC. While the attackers' identity is not known, it is important to note that when current Minister of Government Oscar Alvarez served as Minister of Government, under the administration of President Maduro, he instituted a practice in which police dressed in civilian clothes and wearing ski masks (of varying types) participate in raids.

Their appearance makes them indistinguishable from organized crime assassins, who operate with impunity throughout Honduras and the region. This is the same modus operandi of state terrorism and death squads that operated in U.S. backed regimes in Honduras throughout the 1970s and 1980s, during the so-called 'cold war'. During the eight months since the June 28, 2009 military coup in Honduras, dozens of FNRP activists have been killed, some during illegal detention by police forces, others in death squad type situations like the killing of Professor Manuel. There is not a credible or functional justice system operating in Honduras. Proper investigation by Honduran authorities is not possible.

More:
http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/americas/honduras/6643.html

http://aliveinhonduras.org.nyud.net:8090/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/manuel1_p.jpg http://hondurashumanrights.files.wordpress.com.nyud.net:8090/2010/03/asesinato_profesor_manuel_flores.jpg

Professor Flores
http://cache.daylife.com.nyud.net:8090/imageserve/089j4dQaPc14k/x350.jpg http://www.defensoresenlinea.com.nyud.net:8090/cms/images/stories/asesinato_profesor_manuel_flores_companero_lo_lloran.jpg http://static.guim.co.uk.nyud.net:8090/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/3/24/1269435839010/A-police-woman-stares-at--006.jpg

[madrchsod]

5. in honduras you never know who is going to kill you...

http://www.streetgangs.com/news/041110_mara_gang

20,000 have died in the last 5 years due to street gangs.

could some of the attacks on unionists,priests,and grass-roots leaders have been done by the "mara" street gangs?

[Judi Lynn]

6. Washington’s Invented Honduran Democracy

Washington’s Invented Honduran Democracy
Friday, 23 April 2010, 12:47 pm
Press Release: Council on Hemispheric Affairs
Washington’s Invented Honduran Democracy

by COHA Staff


• With the wave of killings now besieging the country, the White House will be hard put to provide credible evidence that it has helped found a democracy in Honduras

• It should come as no surprise that the Obama administration’s disappointing Honduran policy has done little to discourage the seventh murder of a Honduran journalist in recent days, making the tiny Central American country the world’s murder capital when it comes to gunning down media professionals with impunity.

Since the constitutionally-elected government of President Manuel Zelaya was overthrown by a military coup on June 28, 2009, Washington has dragged its feet and repeatedly has acted as an apologist in first defending the Honduran de facto government of Roberto Micheletti and its successor, the government of Porfirio Lobo Sosa. Although the (U.S. based) National Democratic Institute’s characterized Lobo’s election as democratic, it was boycotted by dozens of anti-coup candidates, carried out under conditions of state-sanctioned violence, and the UN, EU, OAS and Carter Center refused to send monitors to Honduras to evaluate the quality of the elections. Despite the U.S. position of glossing over the non-democratic aspects associated with U.S. policy towards Honduras, most of the world has established a cordon sanitaire around the tainted heir of the coup government and has blocked military, financial, and diplomatic ties to it.

Washington’s Latin American policy makers have insisted in their erratic and inconsistent policy gyrations and rapidly altered scripts that they were following a policy aimed against the protagonists of a coup d’état against the legitimate Zelaya government, but the reality of U.S. policy was another matter. The June 2009 coup that ousted Zelaya took place five months after the Obama administration had assumed office; as such, the entire affair has occurred on president Obama’s watch. In October of 2009, COHA expressed its extreme concern that conservative Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) had been playing a definitive, if not destructive role in the formulation of U.S.-Honduran foreign policy by placing a “hold” on two U.S. diplomatic nominations by the Obama White House. These included Arturo Valenzuela, who had been nominated to be Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs. COHA further reported that “Senator DeMint has stated that he will release his hold on the confirmations of Valenzuela and Shannon only after the U.S. affirms that it will recognize the upcoming November elections in Honduras.”

More:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO1004/S00454.htm

http://image3.examiner.com.nyud.net:8090/images/blog/EXID5325/slideshows/US%20congressmen%20meet%20micheletti%20AP-Eduardo%20Verdugo.jpg

Jim DeMint, middle, and his Republican contingent on their mission to personally control U.S. official policy with
the Honduran coup, visiting with oligarch coup president Roberto Micheletti, the tumor in a suit, 2nd from the right.

http://bleedingheartshow.files.wordpress.com.nyud.net:8090/2009/07/6110x.jpg http://3.bp.blogspot.com.nyud.net:8090/_SFDPcITcycc/Skjxhqg-YlI/AAAAAAAAHAQ/enh5ANRxRvM/s400/hondurascoup.jpg

http://www.edmontonsun.com.nyud.net:8090/news/world/2009/09/26/Honduras_Coup_14.jpg

http://online.wsj.com.nyud.net:8090/media/1124pod12.jpg

"Honduras interim President Roberto Micheletti looked at a homeless woman sitting in an aisle during Mass in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Monday."

[malaise]

7. Tut tut child

They're not Western journalists - they don't count. It's only a violation of press freedom if the journalist is from one of the corporate media or in a country daring to challenge Western orthodoxy.

[Peace Patriot]

8. "Lobo just recently woke up..."?????

"'Lobo just recently woke up and realized this could become a serious obstacle on his agenda to rejoining the international community,' Vivanco said. 'But it's not good enough. It's too little, too late. They need to investigate and prosecute those responsible for threats and abuses. They need to prosecute those who are in bed with organized crime.'"--from the OP

It's not surprising that Jose Vivanco of Human Rights Watch (HRW) would make such a whitewashing statement regarding Washington's handpicked whitewasher of the murderous fascist coup in Honduras (Lobo), nor is it surprising that the Washington Past would print it. "Lobo just recently woke up..."? Don't make me laugh. But it IS rather surprising that the Washington Past would print this article at all. One wonders what the CIA's agenda is here. The Past prints nothing that has not been vetted by (or written by) the CIA. My guess: To blame the killings of anti-coup political activists and journalists on "the drug lords" to justify more billions of US taxpayer dollars for the corrupt, murderous, failed U.S. "war on drugs." That "war" is in disrepute in Latin America. It needs some "WMDs in Iraq"-type propaganda to hype it up.

Never, ever, ever, EVER take a Washington Past article at face value. The choice of subjects (news that will be covered), formulation of headlines, choice of 'experts' to quote and slant of the content ALWAYS serve multinational corporate/war profiteer purposes. None of these parties--our multinational corporate rulers and war profiteers nor their U.S. government servants--give a goddamn about the lives of Hondurans or Honduran democracy. The coup in Honduras was long in the planning, was abetted by the U.S. embassy in Honduras and the U.S. military commanders at the U.S. military base in Honduras (where the plane carrying the kidnapped president out of the country at gunpoint stopped for refueling) and WAS DESIGNED TO destroy the leftist majority movement that was mobilizing for serious economic/political reform. President Zelaya had recently aligned with the union movement and the poor majority. He had to be gotten rid of. I sometimes think that what Obama/Clinton did was to plead that he not be killed and to insist on some 'democracy' cosmetics (the phony election under martial law)--the limit of their power as to a Bush Junta/Pentagon designed coup--but that may be a charitable interpretation of their behavior. Furthermore, they have COMPLETELY IGNORED the killings until now. These targeted political murders--of union leaders, teachers, community organizers, human rights workers and coup protestors--started early on, in the coup, and continues to this day. Clinton was fine with holding an "election" under these circumstances. In fact, she engineered the "election" and used millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars and foaming-at-the-mouth rightwing Republicans from John McCain's U.S. taxpayer funded "International Republican Institute," among others, to organize and fund it.

So why is it now a problem that Honduran leftists and journalists are being slaughtered? Think about it. A similar slaughter has been on-going in Colombia which is the recipient of $7 BILLION in U.S. military aid and is the linchpin of the Pentagon's plan for "full spectrum military operations in south America." Indeed, a recent mass grave containing up to 2,000 bodies was discovered in La Macarena, Colombia, nearby to one of the SEVEN U.S. military bases in Colombia, and it is an open question whether or not the U.S. military (and also the UK military) participated in it. Local people say the bodies are of 'disappeared' local community activists. But even if that slaughter was NOT "turkey shoot" practice for Afghanistan, and was solely the crime of the U.S. funded Colombian military, it is certainly arguable that it is U.S. POLICY to acquire and retain client countries by PROMOTING the slaughter of those who oppose it or in any way advocate for the rights of the people who live there.

So, again, why did these political killings in Honduras finally make the pages of that imperial U.S. horn, the Washington Past? Is it because they've figured out how to use it for more war profiteering? Got to fund those "investigators" from Colombia, Spain and the FBI that Lobo has invited to Honduras. (Colombia!) Got to fund more "Darth Vader" cops, guns, bullets, spy planes, military bases and private 'contractors' to solve this "problem." Create the "problem"; 'solve' the "problem" with billions of U.S. tax dollars. That is the pattern.

[Judi Lynn]

9. You're so right, this IS the pattern. The same people blame any violence in Colombia

on the FARCs, have always completely stonewalled all information on the Colombia government's atrocities, conducted either directly through its military, or its ultra-violent narcotrafficking paramilitaries which handle all the truly, rawly savage criminal work the military can't afford to to have on its reputation if it hopes to continue getting massive funding from the totally uninformed U.S. taxpayers. They have employed nightmarish methods chosen to linger in the minds of anyone who even hears about them, involving the use of chainsaws on living victims, machetes, disembowling, torturing, throwing bodies into the river after cutting them open so they will sink more quickly.

There's even a woman who seems to have made it her mission to go to the river daily and bring out the bodies of people killed this way. The war against humanity seems to have altered her life in such a way she knows she can't move to stop it, but she can show respect for the victims by saving their bodies, at least.

It's all designed to keep Colombians living in such fear they will eventually be too terrified to fight back when they are wildly abused, just as dissent was finally driven underground in Chile under the US-supported and planted bloody butcher puppet dictator, Augusto Pinochet, just as dissent was finally silenced in Argentina after 30,000 were tortured and killed, many thrown out of airplanes, and many simply "disappeared."e

Now with Honduras, AGAIN, it's time once more to claim the "peasants" are criminals after they won't accept the overthrow of their president, and subsequent tortures, murders, disappearances, that there is an urgent need to cleanse Honduras of its "gangsters," and in some cases when they think they can say it with a straignt face, they attempt to blame the country's resistance to the fascists as being created by Hugo Chavez. Yup. Honduras, as we know, has brought BACK an internationally condemned death squad leader and villain, Billy Joya, to serve as head of their security. He lead the notorious, grotesque Battalion 316 back during President Ronald Reagan's time in office, and his army of monsters inflicted their own reign of terror with the blessings of the U.S. government, US Ambassador John Negroponte even pretending they didn't exist.

Battalion 316, Wikipedia:

Intelligence Battalion 3-16 or Battalion 316 (various names: Group of 14 (1979–1981)<1>, Special Investigations Branch (DIES) (1982–1983),<1> Intelligence Battalion 3-16 (from 1982 or 1984 to 1986),<1><2>, Intelligence and Counter-Intelligence Branch (since 1987)<1>) was the name of a Honduran army unit responsible for carrying out political assassinations and torture of suspected political opponents of the government during the 1980s.

Battalion members received training and support from the United States Central Intelligence Agency both in Honduras at U.S. military bases <3>, as well as from Alfredo Mario Mingolla and other members of the Argentine Battalion 601 (including Ciga Correa), who had collaborated with the Chilean DINA in assassinating General Carlos Prats and had trained, along with Mohamed Alí Seineldín, the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance <4>. At least 19 Battalion 3-16 members were graduates of the School of the Americas.<5><6> The Battalion 3-16 was also trained by Pinochet's Chile <4>.

The name indicated the unit's service to three military units and sixteen battalions of the Honduran army.<1> The reorganisation of the unit under the name "Intelligence Battalion 3-16" is attributed to General Gustavo Alvarez Martínez.<2>

1980's
According to the human rights NGO COFADEH, Battalion 3-16 was created in 1979 with the name "Group of 14"<1>. In 1982, its name was changed to the "Special Investigations Branch (DIES)", commanded by "Señor Diez (Mr. Ten)".<1>

In 1982, according to requests for U.S. declassified documents by the National Commissioner for Human Rights in Honduras<2>, or in 1984 according to COFADEH<1>, its name was changed to the "Intelligence Battalion 3-16". The reorganisation of the unit under the name "Intelligence Battalion 3-16" is attributed to General Gustavo Alvarez Martínez.<2>

From 1987 until at least 2002, it was called the "Intelligence and Counter-Intelligence Branch".<1>

Links with Argentina
Gustavo Alvarez Martínez, at that time a Colonel, studied at the Argentine Military College, graduating in 1961 <4>. By the end of 1981, i.e. during the Dirty War in Argentina during which up to 30,000 people were disappeared by Argentine security forces and death squads<7>, more than 150 Argentine officers were in Honduras <4>. This training operation took the code-name of Operation Charly and used training bases in Lepaterique and Quilalí <4>. The CIA took over from the Argentinians after the Falkland War, although Argentine officers remained active in Honduras until 1984-1986 <4>.

The Argentine Navy's ESMA also sent instructors to Honduras, including Roberto Alfieri González who served in the National Guard of El Salvador as well as in Guatemala and Honduras <4>.

Links with the United States
The CIA had a strong role in establishing, training, equpping and financing Battalion 3-16<2><3>. The U.S. Ambassador to Honduras at the time, John Negroponte, met frequently with General Gustavo Alvarez Martínez.<8> In summarising declassified U.S. documents showing telegrams (cables) sent and received by Negroponte during his period as U.S. Ambassador to Honduras, the National Security Archive states that "reporting on human rights atrocities" committed by Battalion 3-16 is "conspicuously absent from the cable traffic" and that "Negroponte's cables reflect no protest, or even discussion of these issues during his many meetings with General Alvarez, his deputies and Honduran President Robert Suazo. Nor do the released cables contain any reporting to Washington on the human rights abuses that were taking place."<8>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battalion_3-16_(Honduras)

Our own military war industry has NO intention of letting the people of Honduras, or of Colombia make their own decisions about which way their countries are going, and THEY are going to keep control in Honduras and Colombia no matter HOW many people are going to get killed to maintain control.

Without these two areas they can't operate with the mobilility to move against Central and South American presidents and peoples they maintain currently.

As long as they can claim "gangsters" or "rebels" or "socialists" or "communists" are causing trouble, they believe they have a blank check to resort to ANY measure to tighten the power they now have over the countries, even when they have to manufacture the evidence themselves before they can feed it to the corporate media in a form fit for distribution (pure propaganda) to the taxpayers.