Hugo Llorens Meets with Presidential Candidates
United States ambassador to Honduras, Hugo Llorens, met with four of the Presidential candidates yesterday. Also at the meeting were Carlos Flores Facusse, Adolfo Facusse, Leo Valladares Lanza, and others not identified.THE OAS MEETING
On the meeting held today by the OAS, the Nicaraguan Ambassador to the organization stated very important points to understand the inner events taking place in Honduras. Furthermore, he pointed out the lack of action of the US, in spite of it taking sanctions that affect mostly the Honduran population and not really anything to restore our democratically elected president, plus the "lukewarm" attitude of this country towards the violation of human rights, the Brazilian embassy, and what has been done to President Zelaya alongside 70 people accompanying him inside.
The U.S., Canada, Mexico, Peru, and Colombia, the right powers of the continent & associated gringo asslickers were in complete agreement with the initiative of inciting the electoral process, proposed by Canada and the U.S. But in reality, they are clearly and intentionally ignoring what the rest of the delegation, ie- Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Paraguay, and Uruguay exposed, countries, who have a clear understanding of what it means to have an electoral process under a fascist, repressive regime, who by no means, will allow the environment, for the process to take place in a transparent way, plus constantly violating human rights, which is no condition for the Honduran population to take part in such a fraudulent state. What is also being deliberately ignored by these right powers, in spite of the other countries exposing clearly the point, is that even though, the OAS has rejected the Coup d'état, an electoral process being held under a dictator, would mean to "wash out" the Coup and at the end accept it, when it is not the organization's stance as well as all countries in the world. What is the saddest thing is forgetting about the will of the peoples and the consecuences, ie- the deaths, the wounded, the losses that this regime has brought to the Honduran population, taking them for granted and following the will of the U.S. in an apparent solution of the crisis, when the people are not willing to accept neither the actual dictator, as well as the manipulated outcome of an electoral process being held under his command, with the puppetteers being the candidates participating on it.
The right powers of the Organization, do not care about what the will of the peoples is, they do not care about how diametrically the Hondurans have changed, and that this process cannot be held back, less that even if they force us to accept an oligarchic puppet as president, who is deemed to follow the will of the elites and Micheletti himself, that people will never accept it in their hearts, minds, and souls. But this is what they call democracy and what they want to cal a democratic process, one where human rights are violated, one where the elections will be militarized, where people will be forced to curfues and no transparency nor freedom of speech will take place, which is a superficial solution to the problem. How can anyone expect there to be a democratic process when people are being beaten up, everyone is arrested for no reason, killed, attacked, in a psychological as well as physical war? How can their be elections if the media is completely biased and the only media allowed to work is the one who favours Micheletti? We will just get political campaigning for the candidates who support and are supported by Micheletti, hence, evidently quite biased. This is completely crazy. Their concept of democracy is a farse. This ridiculous and narrow-minded solution to the problem is even a threat to democracy in our country and to the region, for the simple reason that it intends to legitimize a coup d'état. Validalize elections under an ilegal government is legalizing it. Validalize elections under a fascist regime is legalizing human rights violations and abuse of power.
Free and Transparent Elections?
This morning the de facto government published, in La Gaceta, a decree suspending five articles of the constitution for 45 days. Among those articles suspended are the right of free speech (article 72), free assembly (article 78), the free movement (article 81), arrest only with a warrant (article 84), and personal freedom (article 69). The alleged reason for the suspension is Zelaya's call for insurrection.Article 3 section 1 of the decree says "free circulation is prohibited, restricted by the parameters communicated in nation broadcast on radio and television."
Article 3 section 2 of the decree says "it is prohibited all public gatherings not authorized by the police and military; because if they do, they will be detained and jailed."
Article 3 section 3 says "it is prohibited to publish in any media, spoken, print, or televised, anything that offends human dignity, public functionaries, or questions the law and government resolutions. Any such attempt is an attack on peace and public order." CONATEL will "suspend any radio station, television station, or cable system that does not adjust its programming to fit these restrictions."
Article 4 give the de facto government the right to "detain anyone outside during a curfew or is suspected by the police of causing harm to persons or things; also people who gather with the objective of committing crimes or put their lives in danger."
As El Heraldo notes in its article, the de facto government seeks to avoid the gathering of protesters in support of Manuel Zelaya, and to take off the air Channel 36 and Radio Globo.
Oscar Matute, the Government Minister, said "this absolutely will not affect the electoral process, its not like that." Yeah right.
BTW, La Prensa tells us that this decree has not yet been approved by Congress, so its not yet law, but they are already enforcing it. Congress will not meet until this afternoon.
Hounduran police, soldiers raid two media outlets
Radio Globo and Channel 36 are pulled from the air. The stations, known to be sympathetic to ousted President Manuel Zelaya, are accused of inciting rebellion.
By Alex Renderos and Tracy WilkinsonReporting from Mexico City and Tegucigalpa, Honduras -- The de facto Honduran government has silenced two dissident broadcasters, part of a crackdown on civil liberties aimed at undermining support for ousted President Manuel Zelaya.
Soldiers and police before dawn today raided Radio Globo, a national broadcaster sympathetic to Zelaya. Late Sunday, Channel 36 television was yanked from the air. The two stations frequently carry interviews with Zelaya and his supporters -- voices given short shrift in most other Honduran media.
The coup-installed government of President Roberto Micheletti accused the stations of inciting rebellion.
"The radio station is a disaster," Globo's owner, Alejandro Villatoro, told the Spanish news agency EFE after the raid. Villatoro said soldiers had seized the equipment but that most employees had escaped.
Also today, two foreign journalists, one from a Guatemalan television station and the other from Televisa of Mexico, were beaten up by security forces, their employers said.
Supporters of Zelaya said they planned to go ahead today with a march despite a decree late Sunday in which the de facto rulers suspended several constitutional guarantees, including the freedom to congregate. The emergency decree also makes it easier for the army to arrest citizens.
From his refuge at the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa, the capital, Zelaya called on people to take to the streets to mark the three-month anniversary of his ouster and carry out what he has called the "final offensive." The acting government says Zelaya is attempting to foment violent "insurrection."
The army took Zelaya from his home June 28 and put him on a flight to Costa Rica, after courts accused him of breaking the law by attempting to hold a referendum on possible changes to the constitution. He sneaked back into the country last week and holed up at the embassy. With universal international backing, he is fighting to reclaim his office.
Presiding over an emergency meeting of the Organization of American States in Washington, Secretary-General Jose Miguel Insulza condemned the suspension of civil rights as a "harsh sentence" imposed on the Honduran people.
The OAS has been attempting to mediate the crisis. But on Sunday, the Micheletti regime expelled most members of an OAS advance team and threatened to yank the Brazilian Embassy's diplomatic immunity if it continued to harbor Zelaya. The government gave Brazil 10 days to turn him over for arrest or take him out of the country.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said his government would not be cowed by ultimatums from "coup plotters."
Inside the embassy, Zelaya and his followers are living in conditions that a visiting doctor described as deteriorating. Several in the embassy are ill with flu-like symptoms, the doctor told The Times.
The embassy is surrounded by army and police troops, who have used tear gas and batons to fight off Zelaya supporters and break up demonstrations.
Honduras' acting rulers have threatened to arrest Zelaya, a flamboyant timber magnate who gradually turned to the left and alienated the nation's elite.
The crisis has vexed the Obama administration, which has been unable to resolve it despite Washington's historic influence over the small Central American nation. The U.S. has frozen or cut millions of dollars worth of aid and canceled visas for Micheletti and other coup backers, including powerful businessmen.
At today's OAS meeting, the U.S. representative was critical of both sides, according to news agencies. Lewis Anselem, American ambassador in the OAS, said Zelaya's secret return from exile was "irresponsible and foolish" while the de facto government's suspension of liberties was "deplorable.
Library of Congress Report Determines Honduran Coup Was Constitutional Despite Having Unconstitutional Aspects
Golpistas Oppose Rewriting Honduran Constitution but Don’t Understand the Current One Either
By Belén Fernández
Special to The Narco News Bulletin
September 28, 2009
The most prevalent argument in favor of the June 28 coup that ousted Honduran President Mel Zelaya is that Zelaya intended to accumulate more than the single presidential term currently permitted him by the Honduran Constitution. This argument fails to take into account the question that was to be posed in the nonbinding public opinion survey slated to take place on the day Zelaya was removed to Costa Rica, which was not “Do you want the president to remain in power forever?” but rather “Are you in favor of installing a fourth ballot box at the general elections [in November] where the public can vote on whether or not a National Constituent Assembly should be convened to rewrite the Constitution?” The Honduran Constitution consists of 375 articles, most of which do not concern presidential reelection – suggesting that Hondurans wishing to rewrite the document might have complaints other than their inability to have the same leader for more than 4 years.Article 374, which states that Constitutional articles concerning presidential limits cannot be amended, has been incessantly invoked to prove Zelaya’s culpability in the matter of the intended survey. Not invoked are articles seemingly more applicable to the situation, such as Article 45, which declares as punishable any act impeding or limiting civil participation in the political life of Honduras and which might thus prove useful in an analysis of the survey’s thwarting; additional analysis might be offered to Article 60, which claims there are no clases privilegiadas in Honduras. Article 63 stating that “the declarations, rights, and guarantees listed in this Constitution will not be understood as a denial of other declarations, rights, and guarantees that are not specified but arise from the ideals of independence, representative democracy, and the dignity of man” might meanwhile be applied to prospects for a National Constituent Assembly, as the rewriting of the Constitution is not addressed in any declarations, rights, or guarantees but appears to coincide with the required ideals. As for the ideals of coup president Roberto Micheletti, we are left with the question of why he sought to suspend Article 374 in 1985 in order to prolong the presidency of Roberto Suazo Córdoba.
Micheletti might currently benefit from the suspension of Article 68 prohibiting cruel and degrading punishment, as well, as even pro-coup Channel 10 TV has labeled as “torturous” the emissions from the sonic device being utilized by the Honduran military in the environs of the Brazilian embassy. Article 68 is not, however, included in the list contained in Article 187 of laws that can be suspended in the event of an invasion of national territory or other “general calamity,” which apparently now applies to invasions of national territory by the national president. Articles that can be suspended include 69, concerning the right to personal freedom; 72, concerning freedom of thought and freedom of expression; and 99, stressing the inviolability of residences.
Aside from the case of the Zelaya home, residence violation has been mainly focused on areas inhabited by the supposedly nonexistent less-privileged classes, who in addition to realizing their own existence have presumably realized that Zelaya raised the minimum wage in their favor. From the golpista point of view, the novel 290 USD per month income was part of the strategy designed to produce a popular fixation with eternal presidential terms, although I have yet to encounter an opponent of the coup in Honduras who has argued that the resistance is more concerned with Zelaya than with the necessity of a National Constituent Assembly. As for other instances of lack of concern for the president, his removal from the country was accompanied by a lack of concern for Article 102 of the Constitution, which is not authorized for suspension during times of general calamity and which states: “Ningún hondureño podrá ser expatriado ni entregado por las autoridades a un Estado extranjero” – No Honduran can be expatriated or delivered by authorities to a foreign nation.
The perception that Zelaya has been the victim of more constitutional violations than he himself has enacted might be rectified in the future by conferring Brazilian citizenship on him prior to his re-expatriation. Republican Congressman Aaron Schock of Illinois has devised a different – Honduran – destiny for Zelaya, which is outlined in a September 24 press release from his office announcing: “Schock Releases Report Contradicting State Department on Honduras.” The released report is courtesy of the Library of Congress; the press release describes its gist as follows:
“While the Library of Congress report found the removal from power of former President Zelaya legal and constitutional, they also found Zelaya’s removal from the country to be explicitly unconstitutional.”Contrary to what the title of the press release implies, the Library of Congress’ constitutional coup with unconstitutional aspects appears to be quite compatible with the State Department’s non-military coup with military aspects. Schock attempts to compensate for the unconstitutional bit by advocating Zelaya’s release from the Brazilian embassy into a life as an ordinary citizen of Honduras, who will only face trial if he starts inciting violence or advocating the overthrow of the government. As for the legal and constitutional basis for Zelaya’s overthrow, we find in the August 2009 Library of Congress report – entitled “Honduras: Constitutional Law Issues,” by Senior Foreign Law Specialist Norma C. Gutiérrez – that it depends heavily on Article 205 of the Honduran Constitution.
Section 20 of Article 205 specifies that the National Congress of Honduras has the power to “approve or disapprove of the administrative conduct of the president” and other functionaries. According to Gutiérrez, additional Congressional possession of the power to interpret the Constitution “leads one to the conclusion that the National Congress… interpreted the word ‘disapprove’ to include also the removal from office.” Instead of explaining how one is led to this conclusion when Gutiérrez has just indicated that the section of Article 205 permitting the Congress to remove the president from office was repealed in 2003, she includes the following footnote:
“This line of analysis was confirmed in an August 3, 2009, telephone interview with Mr. Guillermo Pérez-Cadalso, a Honduran attorney who formerly served as Supreme Court Justice and Secretary of Foreign Relations.”
This footnote is incidentally not the first contribution to the Library of Congress report by Pérez-Cadalso, whose credentials are reiterated in each of the footnotes in which he appears while his ties to the current coup government are not. Pérez-Cadalso’s debut occurs at footnote 25 of the report, which corresponds to the words “took Zelaya out of the country” in the following statement: “After his arrest, on June 28, the military, acting apparently beyond the terms of the arrest warrant, took Zelaya out of the country.” The rest of the words in the statement are covered by footnote 24, which reads: “Assessment by the author based on the facts and the law. The ruling of the Supreme Court consisted only of an arrest and raid warrant”; why “took Zelaya out of the country” requires a footnote is unclear, especially when the information is attributed to a speech made by Pérez-Cadalso before the U.S. House Committee on International Affairs, Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere on July 10, 12 days after it was established that Zelaya had been taken out of the country.
As for Article 102 of the Honduran Constitution, Gutiérrez conveys the prohibition on the expatriation of Hondurans but fails to suggest that Congress was simply exercising its power of interpretation of the law. Other creative interpretations were presented to me last week by a pro-coup acquaintance who claimed that the military had only expatriated Zelaya in order to save his life, as Hugo Chávez was seeking a martyr. My acquaintance had not yet worked out the details of the operation, such as how the armed forces had had the presence of mind to save Zelaya from themselves; Pérez-Cadalso has indicated a similarly weak command of details, as indicated by his appearance in footnote 43, which corresponds to the statement:
“Although the National Congress unanimously approved an alleged letter of resignation by Zelaya, dated four days before his arrest, no mention of this letter was made in the Decree issued by Congress removing the President from office.”
The footnote, credited to a phone interview with the former Supreme Court justice and Foreign Minister, reads:
“It is believed by some in Honduras that Zelaya signed the letter on June 24, before his arrest, to make use of it after the referendum, when presumably the National Constituent Assembly was going to be initiated, on June 29 because Zelaya anticipated that he would be elected President of the Assembly.”
It is thus apparent that neither Pérez-Cadalso nor Gutiérrez made the effort to inform themselves of the very simple content of the proposed public opinion survey, concerning the installment of a fourth ballot box in the November 29 general elections to determine whether or not a National Constituent Assembly would be convened. The date of the general elections suggests that it would have been somewhat logistically difficult for the Assembly already to be in place on June 29 and for Zelaya to have already been elected its president; footnote 43 goes on to concede that “[i]t is also generally understood that that the letter [of resignation] was not included in the Congressional Decree because Zelaya denied writing the letter,” information that is of course only of secondary importance after Zelaya’s scheme to become president of everything he possibly can.
Pérez-Cadalso’s final donation to the report occurs in the last footnote, where he has evidently confirmed that Honduran authorities are currently investigating the military removal of Zelaya in violation of Article 102 of the Constitution. The investigation of illegal acts does not seem to preoccupy the ex-Supreme Court justice and Foreign Minister, who – in an article appearing on September 25 on hondudiario.com – rejoices at the abundance of possibilities for conflict resolution in Honduras “after finding out” that the Library of Congress has declared the destitution of Zelaya legal. The article attributes the revelation of the Library of Congress’ findings to US Congressman Aaron Schock and does not mention the role played in their formation by Pérez-Cadalso, who additionally praises the Library of Congress as “una institución muy seria, eminentemente apolítica, académica y de proyección científica, jurídica.” (“A very serious, eminently apolitical, academic instution of scientific and judicial projection.”)
As for the seriousness of other institutions within the juridical sphere, a September 25 analysis by Jennifer Moore refers to the current lack of an independent judiciary in Honduras and the “speed with which the Supreme Court processed legal measures to block [Zelaya’s public opinion] survey.” In addition to pinpointing the Citizens’ Participation Law of Honduras as legal validation for the survey, the article describes the concerns of an international group of lawyers that visited Honduras in August, such as “the contrast found between the ease with which Zelaya’s ouster was executed and the delays in addressing civil society requests for habeas corpus and constitutional protection as a result of police and military excesses over the last three months.” According to a report by the delegation, judicial negligence of the Constitution is reinforced by “powerful economic and political sectors including those who control the Honduran media”; media inattention to the Constitution is meanwhile underscored in the August 18 edition of La Prensa, featuring photographs of an exam allegedly administered to students by anti-coup teachers.
In one such photograph, a student has filled the blank in the sentence “Hondurans have the right to _____ in defense of the Constitution” with the word democracia, which has been marked wrong by the examiner and changed to insurrección. The correction is indignantly noted in the caption to the photograph, which fails to perceive that the fill-in-the-blank is directly drawn from Article 3 of the Honduran Constitution stating that “[e]l pueblo tiene derecho a recurrir a la insurrección en defensa del orden constitucional.” We might thus claim that La Prensa is encouraging violations of Article 168 of the Honduran Constitution establishing the obligatory teaching of said document; Article 274 meanwhile provides more thought-provoking material for use by Honduran teachers in future fill-in-the-blank endeavors, such as: “The Armed Forces will _________.” (cooperate with the President in literacy campaigns)
Other pro-coup enclaves ignorant of Constitutional trivia include an American expat community in La Ceiba, whose ringleader maintains a blog entitled “La Gringa’s Blogicito” in order to update the world on the trials of simultaneously living as an expat and engaging in tropical gardening in Honduras. New trials have arisen for La Gringa now that a reappeared president has been thrown into the mix, and she alternately encourages her flock to listen to Newt Gingrich and conducts tirades against Zelaya, who has pronounced that “the people have a right to disobey laws of ‘the usurpers,’” in addition to pronouncing “many other statements designed to incite violence and anarchy.”
One of the stipulations of Article 3 of the Honduran Constitution is that obedience to a usurper government that has assumed power by way of arms is not required. If the current Constitution is thus conducive to violence and anarchy, golpista resistance to rewriting it becomes all the more intriguing.
Honduras decree allows limits on media, public
A Honduran policeman stands guard Monday at the closed-down building of the Canal 36 TV station.
Authorities say the measure comes in response to unrest that increased significantly September 20 when ousted President Jose Manuel Zelaya secretly returned to Honduras and sought refuge in the Brazilian Embassy. Monday marks the three-month anniversary of Zelaya's ouster June 28 in a military-led coup.
The 45-day decree announced Sunday night forbids any unauthorized public gatherings, allows officials to make arrests without a judicial order and lets the government close down news media that threaten "peace and order."
Jose Miguel Insulza, secretary general of the Organization of American States, said the Canal 36 TV station and Radio Globo had been reported closed.
"We are worried by this decision," Insulza said about the emergency measures.
Canal 36 has been the target of gas attacks and had its transmitters blown up since the coup, news reports said.
The United Nations, the OAS and the European Union have condemned the coup and demanded that Zelaya be reinstated. Micheletti has vowed that Zelaya will never return to power and has said the deposed president will be arrested if he comes out of the Brazilian Embassy here in the nation's capital.
The Second Honduran Coup Came Today Because the First One Failed
By Al Giordano
D.R. 2009 Latuff, special to The Narco News Bulletin
On the morning of June 28, coup regime soldiers stomped into the offices of Radio Globo and Channel 36 in Tegucigalpa and silenced their transmitters. The two networks filed court orders to be able to get back on the air. And for the past three months they’ve each been subject to written orders from the Honduras regime to cease broadcasting (the journalists, in turn, refused to be censored) and to paramilitary attacks that poured acid on their transmitters, and yet they and their journalists heroically got themselves back on the air rapidly.
On this morning, three months later, it was déjà vu all over again, as those same military troops reenacted the battle of June 28, busting down the doors of both broadcasters and this time removing their transmitters and equipment. And soldiers have surrounded both houses of media to prevent the people from retaking them.
This time, due to yesterday’s coup decree, there is no legal recourse for the journalists. Under the decree, if a judge even looks at a motion from those media, he, too, can be rounded up, arrested and detained. And if another media reports what happened, it, too, can be invaded and silenced by force.
Today’s “do over” of the June 28 Honduras coup proves two big truths.
First: that the original coup failed to establish control over the country and its people. More than 90 days of nonviolent resistance have demolished what little support the coup regime had inside and outside of Honduras, and left them only with their small core of oligarchs and security forces to defend their putsch against the majority.
And second: That despite all the regime’s Orwellian talk of how it was a “legal” coup, how it was executed to defend the Constitution, and how the continued broadcasting of critical media proved it was not a dictatorship, its intention all along was far more sinister: to erase democracy and its most basic freedoms in order to establish autocratic control by a few over 7.5 million Honduran citizens and the lush natural and human resources in that land.
A significant portion of the Honduran population has gone underground overnight. Tipped off that last night their homes would be raided and they would be hauled off to the soccer stadium in Tegucigalpa where the regime already holds at least 75 citizens incommunicado – reports of the use of torture are all the more credible because the regime won’t allow any attorney, doctor or human rights observer inside the stadium to inspect – other rank-and-file Hondurans opened their homes to resistance organizers throughout the country. They are hiding from the regime, but they are in constant contact with each other, and with our reporters.
Another part of last night’s wave of state terror came in the form of this provocation: Key human rights leaders and attorneys were notified anonymously of an alleged roundup of dissidents at a particular police station in the capital. They rushed down to look for the detainees, only to be greeted by the very nervous and heavily armed station police who had, simultaneously, received an anonymous phone call telling them that a mob was on its way there to burn down the station. Fortunatel
y, cooler minds prevailed and once the human rights attorneys explained to the police the message they had received, both sides figured out it was an attempt trick them into a violent confrontation.
y, cooler minds prevailed and once the human rights attorneys explained to the police the message they had received, both sides figured out it was an attempt trick them into a violent confrontation.
That the regime has to try and fool and manipulate its own police forces provides an indication that not all of them are thrilled with the latest decree and events.
This is what the coup plotters always wanted: the prohibition of constitutional rights and total authoritarian power in their hands. They tried to have it both ways for three months – defending themselves to the world with their absurd “the coup is not a coup” doublespeak – but that failed. Now they’ve gone to Plan B, which unmasks them for what they are: terrorists, and enemies of democracy and freedom.
Their first coup failed in only three months. That’s why the date of September 28 now enters the history books as the second coup attempt in Honduras of 2009. The second resistance is out there, regrouping, figuring out its next moves, and when those moves come, probably soon, we’ll be reporting their words and deeds, despite the fact that the coup regime has also just made that reporting illegal, too.
Similarly, our longtime friend and colleague, the Brazilian cartoonist Latuff, author of the image above, doesn't take orders from golpistas either. Today he makes public his email address - carlos.latuff@gmail.com - and offers support and his talents at image-making to all members of the Honduran resistance as the next phase of the struggle begins.
The second coup - today's - came because the first one failed miserably, as this one will, too.
Fuente: narcosphere.narconews.com
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