Honduras!!!

[ComradeMan]

Isn't this depressing...

"Victory declared in controversial poll that was already a win-win for Honduras's wealthy elite"

• Rancher Porfirio Lobo takes presidential election
• While some party, others vow to fight on for Zelaya

Rory Carroll (http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/rorycarroll) in Tegucigalpa
guardian.co.uk (http://www.guardian.co.uk/), Monday 30 November 2009 20.32 GMT

(http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/30/honduras-election-zelaya-porfirio?CMP=AFCYAH#history-byline)
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Admin/BkFill/Default_image_group/2009/11/30/1259613096343/Celebrations-following-el-002.jpg
Supporters of Honduran presidential candidate for the National Party, Porfirio Lobo, celebrate. Photograph: Yuri Cortez/AFP/Getty Images

Within hours of the polls closing the celebrations began. Cavalcades of honking cars raced up and down Boulevard Morazan. The Hotel Maya filled with cheering people in blue T-shirts. The media fell into paroxysms of delight.

A wealthy rancher named Porfirio Lobo had just won Honduras presidential election, heralding a "democratic fiesta". By dawn today the revellers were heading home, perhaps stopping for breakfast at one of Tegucigalpa's myriad Pizza Huts, Burger Kings and Wendy's.

"This is a wonderful day. The country has regained its equilibrium," beamed Ana Gomez, 29. After days of grey skies even the tropical sunshine returned.

But not everyone was minded to party. Honduras is in crisis: internationally isolated, shunned by investors and aid agencies. The president ousted in a June coup, Manuel Zelaya, is besieged in the Brazilian embassy, the compound ringed by barbed wire, police and soldiers. "These elections are illegitimate," he said.

Foreign governments lined up to condemn the vote as a whitewash. Many boycotted it and vowed "continued resistance". The homeless children who sleep on rubbish dumps in Tegucigalpa's slums were too hungry or high on glue to care.

How did it come to this? How did a sleepy central American backwater known for coffee and Maya ruins become a dangerously polarised international pariah?

Miguel Alonzo, sifting through the debris of his office, had an answer. "We are run by an oligarchy, that's how." The root of the crisis, he said, was the fact that an elite made up of little more than 10 families runs Honduras. "They control the economy and they control politics."
On Saturday Alonzo's civic association, Comal, paid the price of backing Zelaya's boycott campaign. Police and soldiers stormed the office and carted away computers, cash and documents. They said they were looking for weapons.

That, and the violent crackdowns on pro-Zelaya rallies, seemed anachronistic. Latin America had supposedly left repression behind in the 1980s and embraced progressive democratic governments.
"Honduras is different!" Roberto Micheletti, the de facto president, boasted last week. He was talking about its defiance of international pressure to restore Zelaya to power, but was right in other ways. From the late 19th century Honduras was turned into a giant banana plantation by US fruit corporations. They dominated the economy and made and broke governments. US marines intervened in central America more than 30 times, and in Honduras seven times, between 1900 and 1934. The US supported friendly despots on and off until 1981, when democracy replaced military rule. Power alternated between the National and Liberal parties, but an Americanised conservative elite pulled the strings.

The 10 most powerful families, many descended from Palestinian and Jewish immigrants, dominate banking, insurance, manufacturing, telecommunications and media, including TV and newspapers.
Half the population of 7.6 million still lives on less than $2 a day. "Hondurans are not being well served by their institutions," Julia Sweig of the Council on Foreign Relations thinktank said with understatement. Slums such as Cementerio, a fetid sprawl of shacks with human scavengers and mangy dogs, resemble a Hogarth sketch. Armed gangs make it one of the deadliest places in Latin America.

Unlike the rest of central America, however, during the cold war no leftist insurgency arose in Honduras, a placidness which neighbours mocked as doziness.

Zelaya changed that. Elected in 2005, he was an improbable revolutionary. A wealthy logger and part of the ruling elite, in 2007 he veered left and embraced Venezuela's socialist president, Hugo Chávez. An ideological conversion or tactical ploy, depending who you ask.
Mel, as he is universally known, lowered school fees and raised the minimum wage. The implementation was clumsy and in some cases backfired, costing jobs, but the poor embraced Zelaya.

The constitution constrained him: to avoid lapsing back into authoritarian rule Honduras limited the executive to one term. It was the "world's worst constitution", according to Costa Rica's president, Óscar Arias. Zelaya tried to change it by holding a non-binding referendum in June. The elite and middle class, already alarmed by the president's leftist shift, revolted. "He was going to perpetuate himself in power, just like Chávez, we had to stop him," said Romero Alguilera, owner of a taxi fleet.

With the blessing of congress, the supreme court and Zelaya's own party, masked soldiers seized and exiled him on 28 June. The world condemned the coup – even the Obama administration, which had no love for a Chávez ally. Governments withdrew ambassadors, aid was frozen and investment evaporated. The de facto rulers seemed unaware that coups were no longer acceptable: the US resisted full-blown sanctions but cut aid and visas for the elite.

The 10 families, with Micheletti as their frontman, fought back. They hired Washington lobbyists to woo Republicans and Democrats. The tactic was to run down the clock until Sunday's election, intended to cement Zelaya's loss of power.

The authorities closed pro-Zelaya media and curbed civil liberties. Security forces snuffed out protests with teargas, clubs and in some cases live rounds, leaving hundreds injured and several dead.

Zelaya sneaked back into the country in September but failed to rally mass support. Local media, controlled by the ruling elite, ran false stories that Cubans, Iranians and Venezuelans were hiding in the Brazilian embassy. One newspaper even reported there were Martians.

"Resistance" rallies dwindled and the ubiquitous grafitti – "Mel is coming!" – looked ever more wishful. As the elections loomed, the White House broke ranks with the region and hinted it would recognise the result, emboldening Costa Rica, Panama, Peru and Colombia to follow suit. Canada and the EU are expected to do the same.

Lobo, the president-elect, ran on a slogan of change, but the well-heeled revellers in the Hotel Maya spoke of equilibrium restored. "Things will get back to normal," smiled Luis Gomez, a business graduate. Honduran normal, that is.

Taken from Yahoo News.

[Guerrilla22]

Not surprising. Zelaya wasn't allowed to run for re-election, even though he was lawfully allowed to do so. Hooray for "democracy"

[ComradeMan]

Yeah... what kind of democracy too....!

[rednordman]

I do actually wonder whether the USA actually had an active role in the military coup. This being said with the knowledge that he was far from a socialist.

[The Red Next Door]

Rich people, ASSHOLES FOR LIFE

[Che Guevara]

Looks like Colombia has a new friend.

Sad, sad day for Honduras.

[Brady]

I do actually wonder whether the USA actually had an active role in the military coup. This being said with the knowledge that he was far from a socialist.

Indeed...they've had to be more subtle about it than they were in the 70s when they used to be pretty open about helping to remove unpalatable regimes. This time they've been able to criticize the coup all the while knowing they would get the right result in the end ie a conservative government. Very clever.

[KurtFF8]

The Pro-Zelaya camp boycotted the election so of course this result was going to happen, no surprise here. Many countries (at least the ALBA countries) are considering this result to be illegitimate.

[Artemis3]

Not surprising. Zelaya wasn't allowed to run for re-election, even though he was lawfully allowed to do so. Hooray for "democracy"

He didn't want to. What he wanted was to ask the people if they were interested in forming a Constituent Assembly to revoke the current bourgeois state Constitution. Thats what triggered the fascists to do the coup, with USA support.

Now Zelaya doesn't want to be reinstated anymore, as in his words, that would mean accepting a rule from an illegitimate government. Meaning, there is only one thing the Honduran resistance accepts: Constituent Assembly (Ie. abolition of current State and the forming of a new).

For these "elections" the resistance called for abstention which was very high, hence the "victory". Next is overthrowing the puppet regime, followed by forming the people's National Constituent Assembly.

[Artemis3]

I do actually wonder whether the USA actually had an active role in the military coup. This being said with the knowledge that he was far from a socialist. On June 28, president Manuel Zelaya was kidnapped from his home (Presidents in Honduras don't use a Presidential House to sleep it seems) and taken by force at gunpoint and later tied put into a plane in the near international airport. This plane took off, but instead of leaving the country, it landed in the Palmerola (Soto Cano) US Air base where it stayed for a while, then the plane took off to Costa Rica, upon landing there the President (still in pajamas) was left, literally, in the runway.

Now you might wonder, if all they wanted was to take him out of the country, why bother to land in the US military base?

After this event he attempted to go back in the country for months, first by plane, then by land. until later he managed to sneak in and took refuge in the Brazilian embassy, where he has been forced to stay ever since.

From June 28 until today, the Honduran people has changed by circumstances (and brutal repression) from being almost apathetic in politics to very active direct action in the streets, suffering the onslaught of brutal police/army attacks backed by US/Israeli weapons and fancy new equipment, such as those 140db+ "sonic guns" you are not supposed to turn on more than a minute, leaving it on for hours against the embassy and surroundings; use of gases, including banned things such as Hydrogen Cyanide (found 150ppm near the embassy, lethal dose is 300ppm), among others which are also used daily against protesters in the streets (the cops love putting nails in their batons and hit people directly in the head), etc...

Interestingly these fascists don't blame their actions upon the "sacrilege" of Zelaya wanting to consult things to the masses, they blame it on Chavez. Venezuela cooperation with Honduras at that point was very small, a little reduction of oil price, which is a benefit for most caribbean countries, and some humanitarian aids here and there (Honduras is the 3rd most poor country in the continent). Apparently, such aids were endangering US oil companies interests in the country...

[Artemis3]

The Pro-Zelaya camp boycotted the election so of course this result was going to happen, no surprise here. Many countries (at least the ALBA countries) are considering this result to be illegitimate. All but 2 countries (Colombia and USA) have officially denied the validity of these "elections". To do so would mean validating military coups all over the place. You see, when the right doesn't like a leftish gov, make a coup and call for elections a few months later, problem gone?, or so they think...

[cyu]

See also the story here: http://www.revleft.com/vb/democracy-honduras-radio-t123647/index.html

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.marxist.com/honduras-election-repression-boycott-resistance.htm


Honduras “election”: repression, boycott and resistance


Written by Jorge Martín Monday, 30 November 2009

The elections called by the Honduran coup regime on November 29 saw a significant increase in abstention, despite the harsh repression by the military and the police. But the regime has not been able to crush the movement of workers, peasants and youth. On the contrary, they are now more politically aware, better organised and ready to struggle against the oligarchy.

The elections called by the Honduran coup regime on November 29 saw a significant increase in abstention, despite the harsh repression by the military and the police.

[...]


---


http://wsws.org/articles/2009/dec2009/hond-d01.shtml


Honduran vote held amid repression, mass abstention


By Bill Van Auken
1 December 2009

Sunday’s national elections in Honduras were marked by systematic repression against opponents of the country’s coup regime and reports of record abstention. Nonetheless, the Obama administration in Washington hailed the results as a “very important step forward for Honduras” and a “legitimate way out” of the crisis that began with the military overthrow of the country’s elected President Manuel Zelaya on June 28.

[...]


---


http://wsws.org/articles/2009/nov2009/hond-n27.shtml


Washington endorses gunpoint election in Honduras


By Bill Van Auken
27 November 2009

The Obama administration has declared its support for elections being held this Sunday in Honduras, under conditions in which the regime that came to power in a coup last June has refused to cede power and is preparing intense repression against those who oppose it.

The action has placed Washington at odds with virtually all of Latin America, whose governments have refused to recognize the elections as legitimate.

[...]

[tongueLaRouge]

I would very much like to see the documents that prove USA support. I know Honduran soldiers are still being sent to Honduras from the School of the Americas. Anything else? It seems Obama Admin is playing both sides...they have denounced the coup regime yet not actually stepped in for "democracy". Brilliant. They know have another ally in Latin America. They expect the people to be their humble selves and accept this complete disregard of the will of the people. Yet there seem to be talks of civil war in certain camps. I'm sure it is going thru many Leftists' mind right now. There exists a real opportunity for the People of Honduras to totally take this where it needs to go.

Sergio Mancada, co-founder of Hondurans for Democracy stated on Democracy Now!

SERGIO MONCADA: From reading between the lines, U.S. Department wants to have it both ways with the statements of Mr. Arturo Valenzuela yesterday. I think we’ll be hearing for the next couple of days more reports about the actual number of voters that turned out. the discrepancies between the official numbers and, for example the numbers that are being provided by the company that was hired to do exit polls. And I believe the state department will keep playing this game of recognizing this and we want Hondurans to move ahead, but the state department will really have to play a much, much more aggressive role in actually healing the divisions within the country. Hondurans are so divided right now that it is impossible–impossible to achieve peace. In fact, there are many factions within Honduras in both camps are speaking of the very tangible possibility of a civil war happening and what’s happening in the region.

[cyu]

Photos from http://www.marxist.com/honduran-elections-little-fingers-up-we-didnt-vote.htm of opponents to pro-capitalist regime:

http://www.marxist.com/images/stories/honduras/honduras-2-12-11-230.jpg

http://www.marxist.com/images/stories/honduras/honduras-2-12-1-230.jpg

http://www.marxist.com/images/stories/honduras/honduras-2-12-4-230.jpg

http://www.marxist.com/images/stories/honduras/honduras-2-12-8-230.jpg

http://www.marxist.com/images/stories/honduras/honduras-2-12-10-230.jpg

http://www.marxist.com/images/stories/honduras/honduras-2-12-9-230.jpg

http://www.marxist.com/images/stories/honduras/honduras-2-12-2-230.jpg

http://www.marxist.com/images/stories/honduras/honduras-2-12-6-230.jpg

http://www.marxist.com/images/stories/honduras/honduras-2-12-7-230.jpg

[Luisrah]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF5BVTE39Mc

The coup media of which they are owners.
Let them go to channel 10 or ''televicentro'' and say ''yes we are coupists (sp?) and we kill our comrades''
Let them have shame and have courage to show up in the media.
Because they know that we, the people have the power to put ''Gorilleti-Michelleti'' in cheq (sp?) and put an end to his government.
I imagine a joke where a media talks to the other ''Michelle.. or better.. Gorilleti'', do you like the government?
-No, because they almost put me in cheq. Because it is a great cicle.

Please Michelleti, stop killing your comrades man. Because they have the will to fight, they aren't hypocrites like you
They say ''Oh, we want peace kisses'' and on day 28 they stabbed us.
This is injustice comrades! And how many soldiers think the same way!
And the Cardinal speaks ''oh, i'm a saint''. Oh really? And where did these shameless guys show up from? Where did they come from?
And to end:
Harder on the coupists!
Harder on the coupists!
And a steady step towards Revolution!
A steady towards Socialism!
Pátria o muerte!
We will win!
Michelleti, get out! Get out!

[Artemis3]

I would very much like to see the documents that prove USA support. I know Honduran soldiers are still being sent to Honduras from the School of the Americas. Anything else? It seems Obama Admin is playing both sides...they have denounced the coup regime yet not actually stepped in for "democracy". Brilliant. They know have another ally in Latin America. They expect the people to be their humble selves and accept this complete disregard of the will of the people. Yet there seem to be talks of civil war in certain camps. I'm sure it is going thru many Leftists' mind right now. There exists a real opportunity for the People of Honduras to totally take this where it needs to go. If someone is a lawyer in the USA, i suggest using the FOIA to request documents. We found lots of incriminating evidence of acts against Venezuela that way. See: http://www.venezuelafoia.info/

A "Hondurasfoia" site would be quite interesting...

[RedSonRising]

FF5BVTE39Mc

The coup media of which they are owners.
Let them go to channel 10 or ''televicentro'' and say ''yes we are coupists (sp?) and we kill our comrades''
Let them have shame and have courage to show up in the media.
Because they know that we, the people have the power to put ''Gorilleti-Michelleti'' in cheq (sp?) and put an end to his government.
I imagine a joke where a media talks to the other ''Michelle.. or better.. Gorilleti'', do you like the government?
-No, because they almost put me in cheq. Because it is a great cicle.

Please Michelleti, stop killing your comrades man. Because they have the will to fight, they aren't hypocrites like you
They say ''Oh, we want peace kisses'' and on day 28 they stabbed us.
This is injustice comrades! And how many soldiers think the same way!
And the Cardinal speaks ''oh, i'm a saint''. Oh really? And where did these shameless guys show up from? Where did they come from?
And to end:
Harder on the coupists!
Harder on the coupists!
And a steady step towards Revolution!
A steady towards Socialism!
Pátria o muerte!
We will win!
Michelleti, get out! Get out!

That youngster has amazing verbal skills, that organized event shows the working class of Honduras can still mobilize and that the coup won't rest easy despite fraudulent elections.

[ckaihatsu]

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/3660/electoral-fraud-proved-honduras-more-50-percent-did-not-vote

The Field


Electoral Fraud Proved in Honduras: More than 50 Percent Did Not Vote


Posted by Al Giordano - December 7, 2009 at 8:18 am

By Al Giordano

[YouTube video]

While most international news organizations took obedient dictation of the Honduras coup regime's claims of more than 62 percent voter participation in the November 29 "elections," authentic journalist Jesse Freeston did what real reporters are supposed to do: He went directly to the source, asked questions, took notes, and videotaped the evidence.

Freeston today publishes this bombshell report, above, on The Real News that documents definitively that Honduras electoral officials knowingly lied about their claims of more than 60 percent voter turnout. The hard results in possession of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE, in its Spanish initials) demonstrate only 49.2 percent turnout: That means that a majority - more than 50 percent - of Honduran citizens abstained in the "elections" that the National Front Against the Coup d'Etat had called unfair, unfree and placed under boycott.

The hard numbers show that abstention - and by inference, the Resistance - was the winner in the November 29 vote.

Usually, electoral fraud is committed to change the outcome between candidates in an election. It is not yet known whether the stuffing of official results with claims of 62 percent voter turnout (about 25 percent higher than the actual 49 percent participation) was also used to change the results of presidential, congressional or municipal contests.

The real question all along was well known to be: How many Hondurans would vote? And how many Hondurans would not? In the coup regime's zeal to legitimize this electoral farce it invented a number - 62 - and claimed that to be the percent of participation in the November 29 vote. Journalist Freeston walks the viewer, step by step, through the post-electoral claims by presidential candidate Pepe Lobo (declared winner of the mock elections), members of the Honduran Congress, diplomats from the United States, Canada, Costa Rica and other countries, and international corporate newspaper editorials, all of which cited the "more than 60 percent turnout" to label the "elections" as free, fair and transparent.

He then goes inside the vote counting rooms at the Supreme Electoral Tribunal in Tegucigalpa, camera in hand, and videotapes the real numbers from computer screens and paper print-outs: 49.2 percent turnout. He also conducts an interview with Leonardo Ramírez Pareda, the official responsible for counting the votes, who in a moment of frankness (perhaps unaware of what his bosses were claiming outside the room to the press) says, matter of factly, that the participation was at 49 percent. All of this evidence is on camera, and it is now known to the world, thanks to the journalist gumshoe work of Freeston and The Real News.

The 49.2 percent turnout count, Freeston notes, is very close to the independent count of the US-financed "Hagamos Democracía" organization, which works under the auspices of the National Democratic Institute (NDI) of the US State Department's National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Freeston notes that the NDI withheld its own count information from its press release lauding the the "elections" as a success.

The work that Freeston did to bring you, and all Hondurans and citizens of the world, these facts was something that any reporter for AP, Reuters, CNN, NPR, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal or any other media could have done, but did not do: report the real facts that were available on the ground even as the Supreme Electoral Tribunal still has not - eight days after the "elections" - released the official town by town "results" which make a lie of its chairman's election night claims of 62 percent turnout.

Logic would dictate that the same governments and media organizations that, in the days since, have cited the false turnout numbers as the reason to consider the Honduras "elections" free, fair and transparent, and therefore recognize their "results," now must withdraw that recognition. Some have been played as fools, once again, by an anti-democratic coup regime. Others are willing participants in the dishonest charade.

Freeston's report is a game changer inside Honduras and outside of it as well. It will shortly be translated to Spanish and other languages (as will this written summary of it). The real facts will be distributed far and wide by the Honduran resistance and by pro-democracy voices everywhere on earth. The conclusion is based on hard data and therefore undeniable: The Honduras coup regime cooked the "results" of the November 29 "elections" with knowing falsehood. The real results reveal that abstention and the Resistance-called boycott of the electoral theater won the majority two Sundays ago. The elections are therefore absolutely illegitimate, cannot be recognized, and neither can their "results." And authentically freedom-loving peoples of Honduras and the world will never adhere to them, abide by them, respect them or acknowledge them.

The coup d'etat unleashed last June 28 now has led to a situation where the incoming government that is slated to take power on January 27, 2010 enjoys no more legitimacy or legality than the present coup regime. The Honduras people are without a democratically elected government, and will continue to be without one for some time to come. And any other country's government, or media, that continues to claim to recognize them as legitimate reveals itself to be complicit in the theft of democracy.

Now, kind readers, do your part: break the information blockade, distribute Freeston's video report far and wide, translate it into your own languages, and wave it in the faces of any government official or media organization that attempts to repeat the big lie of majority participation in the Honduras vote last week. They are the usurpers of democracy. And you are its last, best hope.

Update: Jesse Freeston, the investigator and author of the report, adds an important point - that the 49 percent total was itself subject to opportunities for padding between the ballot box and that count. Thus, if anything, the number could well be too high, still:

"The TSE tabulation is still up-stream from numerous opportunities for fraud. So I don't think it's fair to assume that the 49 percent number is correct. There's the entire military apparatus between the vote cast and the vote count."


Comments
With the vote count
Submitted December 7, 2009 - 1:22 pm by Matt H (not verified)

With the vote count seemingly bellow 40% in San Pedro Sula (documented at one polling station in this video and by the mayoral voter turnout, held concurrently: http://hondurascoup2009.blogspot.com/2009/12/mayoral-update-san-pedro-su... ) one has to wonder that even a 49% is not highly inflated.

The 49% may in fact have been the fall back position, it is not that far off the last election's turn out.

What this does show clearly is the international media's unwillingness to do proper journalism, their editor's ignorance and/or willingness to sell the coup, and the ease at which international opinions are influenced by an unvarified lie.

One week later, there will be no retraction stories, or coup-supporting governments changes of statements.

* reply

Military next to ballot boxes
Submitted December 7, 2009 - 2:13 pm by John Ellis (not verified)

Military standing guard outside yes, but what were the military doing inside the polling places, even having hands on the ballet boxes?

Surely such a self-evident military coup d’etat, that even the military makes no reasonable effort to cover it up.

* reply

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[CommunistWaffle]

Viva Honduras y San Pedro!

[ckaihatsu]

[labor_action] Repression increases in HONDURAS

Yosef M <[email protected]> Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 4:18 PM


[In forwarding the following message from a local peace coalition, I do not endorse the idea of calling Secretary Clinton, an imperialist politician and drum majorette for the US national security state. The message below is being sent to provide information about a terrible situation in Honduras, which the US government, of which Clinton is a part, is undoubtedly abetting. --YM]

We are receiving alarming reports from partners in Honduras. Emboldened by the United States endorsement of the November 29th "elections," the state terror apparatus in Honduras has ramped up its grisly repression.

There has been a spike in targeted murders and abductions following the November 29th "electoral event" which was massively boycotted by the people of Honduras. This escalation of human rights abuses is especially alarming because the judicial system is on holiday until January 2nd. People are terrified and are leaving the country.

Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department has "recognized the improved security situation in Honduras" and lifted the U.S. travel alert for the country.

Please call Secretary Hillary Clinton 202-647-5291 and register your alarm at the escalation of human rights violations in Honduras. You can cite the following cases:

-Dec. 6th Death Squad style killing of five members of the resistance movement in the Villanueva neighborhood of Tegucigalpa.

-Dec. 11th Decapitated body of resistance member Santos Corrales Garcia was found dumped on the road just outside of Tegucigalpa after being abducted by men wearing National Criminal Investigation Directorate uniforms and armed with machine guns. His body showed signs of torture.

-Dec. 12th Human rights defender Walter Trochez, member of the BGTL community and active member of the National Resistance Front was murdered after having survived a previous assassination attempt.

-Dec. 14th Death of teacher/activist Karen Hernandez Mondragon after fatal shooting.

-Dec. 16th Murder of 16 year old Catherine Nicolle Rodriquez Cabrera, daughter of journalist Karol Cabrera..

-Dec. 17th Abduction of two members of the Unified Peasant Movement of Aguan, MUCA in Sinaloa, Colón on Wednesday morning by four hooded men. Eleven arrest warrants have been issued for other members. 1000 peasant families occupying land in the region have been threatened with forcible removal by security forces.

Thank you for accompanying the people of Honduras during this holiday time that is becoming a human rights nightmare in Honduras. Call the State Department today and next week.

In Solidarity,
Jenny Atlee, Tom Loudon

We are translating reports of human rights violations and posting to www.quixote.org as we receive them -please check for regular updates.

[cyu]

Excerpts from http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/290.php

http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/b290b.jpg

state henchmen shot Alejandro Villatoro, the owner of Radio Globo – one of the few media outlets brave enough to speak out against the coup – and stole the computer from which the station was broadcasting.

Indeed, Radio Globo had by that point resorted almost exclusively to broadcasting online from secret locations, after months of repression... Some, like Canal 36, have shut down altogether after having equipment destroyed, signals interrupted, offices ransacked and editors assassinated.

Between June and November, 33 people were killed in political violence and hundreds more were detained, beaten, kidnapped, raped and otherwise victimized by an increasingly militarized state apparatus.

Human rights groups like the Committee of the Families of the Disappeared and Detained in Honduras (COFADEH) have worked tirelessly since June 28th to produce detailed documentation of the brutality. Their reports, not surprisingly, fall on deaf ears.

the coup produced the unintended consequence of uniting an otherwise fragmented group of organizations into a broad coalition – the Frente Popular Nacional de Resistencia (National Popular Resistance Front) – which has become the most important popular organization in Honduras. Its members come primarily from the poorest classes – workers and campesinos – but are also drawn from the relatively small ‘middle’ classes, including teachers, lawyers, doctors, left-liberal politicians and civil servants etc.

Zelaya’s own background was as a junior-member of the oligarchy, a wealthy rancher from the south, and his long political career had never shown any signs of divergence from the standard conservatism of Honduran politics. In fact, the only thing that separated Zelaya from someone like Roberto Micheletti – the tremendously unpopular figure who emerged as de facto President after the coup – was that he recognized the growing popularity of the movements for social reform.

Zelaya before June 28th was simply a means to an end for the social movements in Honduras – a politician who had proven to be malleable to demonstrations of popular politics. His endorsement of the constituyente was the most important move he made and, in fact, he conducted the process with due diligence to the existing constitution and, despite its being repeated in every AP news bulletin since the coup, it never contained even the possibility of giving Zelaya another term in office.

the current constitution of Honduras was ratified in 1982, during the period in which it earned the nickname ‘U.S.S. Honduras.’

The 1982 constitution was written after decades of military dictatorship while Honduras was playing host to a U.S.-led paramilitary contra force of over 15,000 soldiers trained in what we now call ‘counter-insurgency’ – specializing in campaigns of terror against primarily poor and ill-equipped guerilla forces and their supporters. During that period, according to Joan Kruckewitt, “the use of repression, instead of concessions and reform, became the norm” and that “the military emerged from the period of U.S.-led militarization as the most powerful sector in the country, with few checks and balances to restrain them.” Indeed, between 1981-84, while the new constitution was being written, ratified and established into political order, the military carried out 214 political assassinations, 110 ‘disappearances,’ and 1,947 illegal detentions.

They pump out misleading or, at best, willfully ignorant anti-Zelaya rants everywhere they can, notably on internet news sites; my own reports have been consistently attacked and, in one instance, they even went as far as to threaten my life.

[fredbergen]

See these articles from The Internationalist no. 30 (http://www.internationalist.org/int30toc.html) (November-December 2009):

Honduras: Sweep Away the Coup Plotters, Generals and Capitalists – Fight for a Workers and Peasants Government!
For Revolutionary Workers Struggle Against Coups in Central America

The civilian-military coup d’état of June 28 unleashed a nightmare for the Honduran masses, and not just for them. It threatens all of Latin America with a return to the times of the military dictatorships, of the dirty wars and the death squads of the 1970s and ’80s. Despite the denials by U.S. spokesmen, this coup was “made in U.S.A.” The question that is posed is how to eradicate this plague that has beset Latin America for decades. To suppose that the solution is to be found in merely reestablishing “constitutional order” by restoring President Zelaya, or even that it can be resolved in a bourgeois-democratic framework, is to ignore the class forces which produced the coup, as well as the web of complicity extending from Tegucigalpa to Washington, D.C. Historically, left-wing forces in Central America have been dominated by a nationalist vision and politics, but only through international socialist revolution is it possible to eradicate the threat of constant coups, which are inherent in Latin American capitalism under imperialist domination For Revolutionary Workers Struggle Against Coups in Central America (http://www.internationalist.org/centralamericacoups0910.html)


Urgent: Protest Bloody Repression in Honduras! (http://www.internationalist.org/protestrepressionhonduras0909.html) (22 September 2009)

Now It’s Official: U.S. Backs Coup Regime – A Threat to All Latin America
Honduras After the Phony “Election”: More Repression and Resistance
On November 29, the authors of the civilian-military coup d’état who seized power in Honduras five months earlier held a plebiscite-style pseudo-election accompanied by massive repression designed to legitimize the dictatorship. In the poor barrios of the capital Tegucigalpa and major towns and in the countryside, the call “don’t vote” was widely followed and people massively stayed home. Since then there has been a wave of disappearances and murders of resistance activists. The death squads are back. Despite the bloody repression, the groups leading the resistance to the coup regime vowed to continue the struggle. However, even though it was based in the trade unions, peasant organizations, women’s and gay rights groups and organizations of indigenous peoples and the black Garífuna population, politically this movement was tied to Zelaya and other bourgeois politicians and parties. Although the Resistance Front declared this “chapter” of the struggle closed, it is wedded to popular-front bourgeois politics, such as its call for “participatory democracy” through a constituent assembly. The League for the Fourth International has called throughout for independent labor mobilization to defeat the gorila (reactionary militarist) coup, and for a revolutionary workers party to lead the fight for a workers and peasants government. Honduras After the Phony “Election”: More Repression and Resistance (http://www.internationalist.org/hondurasresistrepression0912.html)

“Dialogue” with the Coup Regime and Its Yankee Godfathers Is a Trap
The San José-Tegucigalpa Accord: No to the Imperialist Edict!
The San José-Tegucigalpa Accord, supposedly the result of “dialogue” between representatives of Honduran president Manuel Zelaya and the puppet “president” of the coup regime, Roberto Micheletti, is actually an imperialist diktat. Zelaya’s supporters hailed the signing of the Accord as a victory. This is a major error: not only did it mean dropping the demand for a constituent assembly, one of the key issues that touched off the coup, but it also requires signers to denounce “any sort of demonstrations opposed to the elections or their result, or which promote insurrection.” This agreement does not mean the restoration of “constitutional order,” and even less does is it a victory for “democracy”; rather, it is a victory for the blood-soaked coup plotters. At the present time it is necessary to unmask the electoral farce of the coup regime: to the extent possible, it would be appropriate to call for an active boycott to prevent the electoral farce. A paramount task, particularly outside Honduras, is defense of the resistance fighters against the deadly repression. The San José-Tegucigalpa Accord: No to the Imperialist Edict! (http://www.internationalist.org/hondurasnotoedict0911.html)

[cyu]

Excerpts from http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2278/1/

Now that the world heard from mainstream news outlets such as the New York Times of a “clean and fair” election on Nov. 29 (orchestrated by the US-supported junta currently in power), the violence has increased even faster than feared.

With the international community given the green light by the US that democratic order has returned via elections, it’s open season for violent forces in Honduras working to tear apart the political unity of the Resistance Front against the coup.

On Sunday, Dec. 7, a group of six people were gunned down while walking down the street in the Villanueva neighborhood of Tegucigalpa. According to sources, a white van with no license plates stopped in front of the group. Four masked men jumped out of the van and forced the group to get on the ground, where they were shot.

One woman, Wendy Molina, 32, was shot several times and played dead when one of the assassins pulled her hair, checking to see if anyone in the group was still alive. She was taken to the hospital and survived.

The Honduran independent newspaper El Libertador reports that the group members were all organizers against the coup.

On December 3, Walter Trochez, 25 a well-known activist in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community was snatched off the street and thrown into a van, again by four masked men, in downtown Tegucigalpa. In the report that he later filed to local and national authorities, Walter said he was interrogated for hours for information on Resistance members and activities, and was beaten in the face with a pistol for refusing to speak. He was told that he would be killed regardless, and he eventually escaped by throwing open the van door, falling into the street, and running away.

On Dec. 13, one week later, Walter was shot in the chest by a drive-by gunman while walking home. He died at the hospital.

On Dec. 5, Santos Garcia Corrales, an active member of the National Resistance Front, was detained by security forces in New Colony Capital, south of Tegucigalpa. He was then tortured for information on a local merchant who was providing food and supplies to the Resistance. After reporting the incident to local authorities, Santos’ body was found five days later on Dec 10, decapitated.

The latest victim, Carlos Turcios, was kidnapped outside his home in Choloma Cortes, at three in the afternoon of Wednesday Dec. 16. He was found dead the next day, with his hands and head cut off. Carlos had been vice-president of the Choloma chapter of the Resistance Front, a town located a few hours outside of the capital. Andres Pavón, president of CODEH (Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in Honduras), commented: "We believe this horrendous crime joins others where the bodies show signs of brutal torture…This aggression is directed to the construction of collective fear.”

citizens can no longer depend on authorities for the most basic protective rights, and those fearful for their lives cannot report to the police. Complaints they file, such as those of Santos and Walter, could soon become signatures to their own death letters.

Pavón and other human rights leaders in Honduras have been extremely vocal in denouncing these atrocities, but the story has remained under the radar for most Hondurans and almost all international media. At the time when Hondurans most need exposure to these abuses, they’ve been left to fend for themselves.

How did this happen? Why are people being randomly executed in dark corners of the country for simply standing in opposition to a military coup?

Most of the bloodshed is on the hands of coup president Roberto Micheletti and other leaders of the regime. However, President Barack Obama and the US State Department played a major role in allowing conditions to get to this point. The US government took no concrete action against the thousands of documented violations since the coup took place June 28. It’s no shock that the violence has worsened dramatically with the eyes of the world now averted.

[Communist]

----

A new phase in the struggle in Honduras (http://www.workers.org/2010/world/honduras_0121/)

By Berta Joubert-Ceci
Published Jan 17, 2010 8:42 PM

After a brief holiday interlude, the Honduran resistance went back to the streets with renewed energy and commitment. On Jan. 7, 15,000 people marched from the Polytechnic University to the National Congress (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Congress_of_Honduras) in Tegucigalpa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tegucigalpa). This time, beside demanding the return to office of their legitimate president, Manuel Zelaya Rosales (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_Zelaya), the resistance’s demands included the continuation of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolivarian_Alliance_for_the_Americas) (ALBA) — since de facto president Roberto Micheletti had sent a bill to Congress for the withdrawal of Honduras from the ALBA — and the refusal of amnesty for crimes perpetrated since the coup on June 28. Both were items scheduled to be discussed at the Congress’ session that day.

ALBA, hope for the poor

Honduras joined the ALBA in 2008 under Zelaya, and membership in it, although short-lived, has enormously benefitted the poorest in the country. However, since the beginning, transnational companies, particularly U.S.-based ones like ExxonMobil, have opposed it, fearing huge losses in their profits. In fact, the purpose of ALBA trade includes precisely the kind of transactions that put people first and profits at the service of the poor.

For example, through the ALBA, Honduras received a donation of 100 tractors from Venezuela, in addition to financial aid for poor peasants. In this the third-poorest country on the continent, the ALBA was a promise to elevate the quality of life — bringing education, housing and health care to the poor. In less than a year, more than 150,000 people attained literacy, out of 300,000, before the golpistas (coup plotters) kicked out the Cuban teachers who were part of the program “Yo Sí Puedo” (Yes, I Can).

One of the main objectives of the military coup was precisely to hit the ALBA, not only in Honduras but in the entire region. It is a tremendous threat to the capitalists in Honduras and to the imperialist north. ALBA trade is not only based on solidarity, but on a different system that promotes regional integration and socialism and therefore challenges imperialism.

Amnesty, yet the repression continues

The second main item put forth in the Honduran Congress was a proposal for amnesty for all crimes committed since the coup. This was the second bill sent by Micheletti to Congress — a grotesque circus plotted, with the help of the United States, for the mere purpose of convincing the international community that the fraudulent elections held on Nov. 29 were valid. Right-wing National Party’s Porfirio Lobo was “elected” by less than 50 percent of the voters.

Most of the countries, with the exception of the U.S. and those headed by right-wing U.S. allies — Canada, Panama, Colombia, Peru and Costa Rica — have not recognized the result of the elections and only recognize Zelaya as the legitimate president of Honduras.

The U.S. sent State Department representative Craig Kelly to Tegucigalpa last December to convince Micheletti to step down before Jan. 27, the date of Lobo’s inauguration, in an unsuccessful effort to make Lobo’s presidency palatable to the international community. Since Micheletti refused to step down, Kelly simply endorsed the amnesty proposal from both Micheletti and Lobo. To try to put a face of legitimacy on the coup government, they have again proposed a government of “national reconciliation” as was proposed, yet failed, before.

The second act of this circus happened after Kelly’s visit, when the Office of the Prosecution, composed of pro-coup officers, charged coup leader and Army General Romeo Vásquez and all the members of the Joint Chiefs for their role in the expatriation of Zelaya on June 28 and for “abuse of authority” during the coup. Yet there was not a word about their many crimes against the people in resistance after the coup — the assassinations, mutilations, injuries, harassment, arrests and all sorts of violent acts against women, children, seniors, men, youth, the Garifuna people and the lesbian, gay, bi and trans communities. Of course, amnesty for these criminals is already being planned in Congress.

Zelaya’s response

While still in the Brazilian Embassy, President Zelaya continues to be very much in touch with the people, with whom he communicates through radio interviews. On Jan. 6 Zelaya read a statement to Radio Globo where he presented a proposal for the transformation of Honduras into a new social model, a “pro-socialist liberalism that will give way to a popular and democratic authority.”

In the statement he mentions the need for the redistribution of wealth and equal opportunities for all, among other popular measures. He concludes, saying, “It is inevitably the duty of every Honduran to mobilize and dismantle the ideological dictatorship. ... The bourgeois state has concluded and collapsed.” Zelaya proposed instead a “state as a guide, to orient and to be responsible for the destiny of the population. ... The bourgeois model has exhausted itself.”

A new phase in the struggle

The National Front of Popular Resistance (http://hondurasresists.blogspot.com/) has been meeting to discuss the new phase of the struggle, trying to strengthen the resistance and convert itself into a viable alternative political force.

On Jan. 7 the FNRP issued its first public statement of the year, its 44th since the coup on June 28. It reviews the current scenario in Honduras and the tasks ahead for the resistance. The FNRP states:

“1. The Honduran Resistance starts the year 2010 in the struggle against the dictatorship, rejecting the maneuvers that this regime carries out in order to clean up its image through a false power transition process from Micheletti to Lobo, which will in turn leave untouched the current system of state domination by a privileged minority of highly corrupted entrepreneurs, transnational corporations and the army and repressive police.

“2. We make it known that the regime is ready to withdraw its membership as the State of Honduras from the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of the Americas — People’s Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP) that, since its signature on Oct. 9, 2008, has benefited the popular sectors in our country and has shown that it is actually possible to establish new types of relationships between peoples and governments in order to benefit the poor while proposing a true integration of the great Latin American motherland.
“The imminent withdrawal from the ALBA-TCP shows that the coup d’état took place in order to stop the urgent structural transformations of society and to send a message to other Latin American nations that are building alternative and progressive national projects.

“3. We reject the anti-poor economic reforms proposed by the oligarchy and denounce its deliberate intention to dismiss social achievements that have been so preciously obtained by popular organized sectors. Water and basic food prices have increased, international reserves are being emptied dramatically in the past few months as well as the savings of state-owned companies like ENEE [Empresa Nacional de Energía Eléctrica (http://www.enee.hn/)] or Hondutel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hondutel). The oligarchy amended the formula to calculate fuel prices in order to benefit the big transnational companies; contracts are constantly being written in favor of the entrepreneurs involved in the coup. Likewise, they are planning other measures such as a real reduction of the minimum wage, repeal of the teacher’s decree, cancellation of free school tuition, currency devaluation, privatization of national public companies and the pension funds of public employees, among others.

“4. We denounce to the international community the repressive state in which the Honduran society lives which has reached its worst since the end of last year with an increasing number of assassinations, persecution and exile of our comrades. We call on the international human rights organizations to increase their pressure on the de facto regime.

“5. We reject the regime’s plans to approve an amnesty which would forgive themselves for crimes against humanity committed since the carrying out of the coup. We must remind that such crimes have no statute of limitations and that sooner or later those responsible will have to face justice.

“6. We keep up our demands of returning to the institutional order and to install a democratic and popular National Constituent Assembly, in accordance with the sovereign right of the people to define the society in which they live.

“We are in resistance and we will win!”



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Verbatim copying and distribution of this
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[Ligeia]

http://movil.el-nacional.com/n.php?id=124546
Theres been a new assasination of a
The Frente de la Resistencia Popular de Honduras denounced east Wednesday that one of its activists, Claudia Brizuela, was assassinated in the city of San Pedro Sula, to the north of the country, and so the number of leaders of this social movement rises to four who were executed during the government of the successor of the regime, Porfirio Lobo.
Nonidentified people arrived at the colony Céleo González, the north of the city, knocked at the door where the Young person Claudia Larissa Brizuela lives (36 years) and immediately shot her repeatedly causing her immediate death. The group detailed that the activist was daughter of Pedro Brizuela, ex- unionist and one of the oldest militants of the Honduran Communist Party, at the moment he belongs to the Party Democratic Unification (UD, left) and is writes articles for La Prensa.
The organization denounced ' systematic and selective aggression to the members of the National Front.
The Public Ministry of Honduras also requested Wednesday the capture of ex- president Manuel Zelaya, two ex- ministers and other two ex- civil servants of the former Government, because of fraud,falsification and abuse of office.

[Communist]

.
U.S. government backs Honduran oligarchy (http://www.workers.org/2010/world/honduras_0318/)

By Michael Kramer
Mar 14, 2010

The Obama administration continues to support the ruthless Honduran oligarchy in its war against a nonviolent political and social movement led by the Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular. The movement has united peasants, workers, trade unionists and students; the Garifuna, Afro-Honduran and Indigenous communities; and lesbian/gay/bi/trans/queer activists, women’s groups, intellectuals and Christians guided by liberation theology.

The FNRP was formed after the Honduran military kidnapped President Jose Manuel Zelaya. On June 28 Zelaya was taken from his residence to the Soto Cano Air Base — a U.S. military installation in Honduras — and flown to San Jose, Costa Rica.

The Obama administration claimed it knew nothing of the coup until after the fact. But aircraft cannot fly in or out of the base without clearance from the 612th Air Base Squadron, which is in charge of base operations, air traffic control and checking flight manifests. Vehicles cannot enter or leave the base without clearance from the Joint Security Force, which is responsible for base security and includes Army, Marine and Air Force personnel.

The Honduran military has umbilical-cord ties to the Pentagon. Two of the military leaders of the coup — Gen. Romeo Vasquez and Gen. Luis Javier Prince Suazo — are graduates of the School of the Americas located on the U.S. Army base at Fort Benning, Ga. The Honduran Air Force Academy is located on the Soto Cano Air Base. It is inconceivable that the Honduran military could make the necessary coup preparations, including troop movements and telephone calls, without Pentagon, CIA and U.S. embassy knowledge.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters during a recent trip to South America that “The Honduras crisis has been managed to a successful conclusion. It was done without a civil war, it was done without violence, and I think that our policy in the vast majority of countries in Latin America is either given high marks or great respect.” (Reuters, March 1) This is a lie.

This writer travelled to Honduras in October as part of a fact-finding and solidarity delegation initiated by the International Action Center and observed first-hand a civil war — from the barrios to downtown — in the streets of the capital city Tegucigalpa. One side — the Armed Forces of Honduras and the National Police — had automatic weapons and crowd suppression devices, while the other side — the FNRP — was completely unarmed.

Since day one of the coup the oligarchy has used violence in an attempt to destroy the FNRP. Peaceful demonstrators have been beaten up, gassed and shot to death. Death squads and nightriders in pickup trucks with tinted windows have followed and seized FNRP members. In February Vanessa Yamileth Zepeda, a leader of the Workers Union for the Honduran Social Security Institute; Julio Funez Benitez, a member of the SANAA national utility union; and Claudia Larisa Brizuela Rodriguez, the daughter of a prominent FNRP leader, were all murdered by death squads.

The Feminist Collective of University Women is a radical women’s organization that opposes the coup and supports LGBTQ rights. In an interview posted on the Web site hondurashumanrights.wordpress.com on March 7, members Blanca Dole, Celeste Mejia and Gabriela Flores all described receiving threatening phone calls and being followed by cars with tinted windows and no license plates.

Solidarity is key

Most Latin American countries do not recognize the coup-installed government, whether led by Roberto Micheletti or Porfirio Lobo. Yet on March 4 Clinton directed the release of $30 million to the current coup leaders.

At this time international solidarity, especially from North America, is most important to the FNRP. The rotation of short-term delegations and the work of activists based in Honduras give space to the FNRP and ensure that the Honduran people are not isolated and that the actions of the oligarchy and the Honduran military are documented for future consideration in international courts of justice.

North American solidarity with the Honduran people has its own heroic history. James Carney, a Jesuit priest from Missouri known as Padre Guadalupe, was the spiritual advisor to a Honduran guerrilla unit of the Revolutionary Party of Central American Workers-Honduras. In July 1983 Padre Guadalupe was captured by the infamous Honduran army Battalion 3-16 and executed with CIA agents present.

One of the leaders of the unit who was killed in the same action was the Nicaraguan-American David Arturo Baez Cruz. Baez Cruz was a former member of the U. S. Army Special Forces who was radicalized while stationed in Panama. The events are described in the book “Inside Delta Force” by Eric Haney, a U.S. military advisor to Battalion 3-16 in July 1983.

Thousands will gather in Washington, D.C., on March 20 to protest the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is important that the U.S. war against the people of Honduras also be on the agenda that day.
_____



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