Manuel Zelaya at the Brazilian embassy in Honduras, 21 September 2009. Photograph: Orlando Sierra/AFP/Getty Images
Now that
Manuel Zelaya has returned to
Honduras, the coup government – after first denying that he was there – has unleashed a wave of repression to prevent people from gathering support for their elected president.
This is how US secretary of state
Hillary Clinton described the first phase of this new repression Monday night in a press conference: "I think that the government imposed a curfew, we just learned, to try to get people off the streets so that there couldn't be unforeseen developments."
But the developments that this dictatorship is trying to repress are very much foreseen. A completely peaceful crowd of thousands surrounded the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa, where Zelaya has taken refuge, to greet their president. The military then used the curfew as an excuse to
tear-gas,
beat and
arrest the crowd until there was nothing left. There are reports of scores wounded and three dead. The dictatorship has
cut off electricity and water to the embassy and cut electricity to what little is left of the independent media, as well as some neighbourhoods.
This is how the dictatorship has been operating. It has a very brutal but simple strategy.
The strategy goes like this: they control the national media, which has been deployed to convince about 30-40% of the population that their elected president is an agent of a foreign government who seeks to turn the country into a socialist prison. However, that still leaves the majority, who have managed to find access to other information.
The strategy for dealing with them has been to try to render them powerless – through thousands of arrests, beatings and even some selective killings. This has been documented, reported and denounced by major human rights organisations throughout the world:
Amnesty International, the
Centre for Justice and International Law,
Human Rights Watch, the
Inter American Commission on Human Rights and others.
One important actor, the only major country to maintain an ambassador in Honduras throughout the dictatorship, has maintained a deafening silence about this repression: the US government. The
Obama administration has not uttered one word about the massive human rights violations in Honduras.
This
silence by itself tells you all you need to know about what this administration has really been trying to accomplish in the nearly three months since the Honduran military squelched democracy. The Obama team understands exactly how the coup government is maintaining its grip on power through violence and repression. And
Barack Obama, along with his secretary of state, has shown no intention of undermining this strategy.
In fact,
Zelaya has been to Washington six times since he was overthrown, but not once did he get a meeting with Obama. Why is that? Most likely because Obama does not want to send the "wrong" signal to the dictatorship, ie that the lip service that he has paid to Zelaya's restoration should be taken seriously.
These signals are important, because the Honduran dictatorship is digging in its heels on the bet that they don't have to take any pressure from Washington seriously. They have billions of dollars of assets in the US, which could be frozen or seized. But the dictatorship, for now, trusts that the Obama team is not going to do anything to hurt their allies.
Luz Mejias, the head of the Organisation of American States' Inter-American Human Rights Commission, had a different view of the dictatorship's curfew from that of Hillary Clinton. She called it "
a clear violation of human rights and legal norms" and said that those who ordered these measures should be charged under international criminal law.
What possible excuse can the military have for breaking up this peaceful gathering, or can Clinton have for supporting the army's violence? There was no way that this crowd was a threat to the Brazilian embassy – quite the contrary. If anything it was protecting the embassy. That is one reason why the military attacked the crowd.
On 11 August, 16 members of the US Congress
sent a letter to Obama urging him to "publicly denounce the use of violence and repression of peaceful protesters, the murder of peaceful political organisers and all forms of censorship and intimidation directed at media outlets." They are still waiting for an answer.
Some might recall what happened to Bill Clinton when his administration sent mixed signals to the dictatorship in Haiti in 1994. Clinton had called for the dictator Raul Cedras to step down so that the democratically elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide could be restored. But Cedras was convinced – partly because of contradictory statements from administration officials like Brian Latell of the CIA – that Clinton was not serious.
Even after Jimmy Carter, Colin Powell and then-senator Sam Nunn were sent to Haiti to try to persuade Cedras to leave before a promised US invasion, the dictator still did not believe it. In September 1994, Clinton sent 20,000 troops to topple the dictatorship and restore the elected president (who ironically was overthrown again in 2004, in a US-instigated coup).
By now, the coup government in Honduras has even less reason than the 1994 Haitian dictatorship to believe that the Obama team will do anything serious to remove it from power.
What a horrible, ugly message the Obama administration is sending to the democracies of Latin America, and to people who aspire to democracy everywhere
guardian.co.uk
Curfew-trapped Hondurans seek food amid crisis
By MARK STEVENSON, Associated Press Writer Mark Stevenson, Associated Press Writer –
49 mins ago
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – Hungry Hondurans scrambled through looted stores and lined up for food on Wednesday during a break in a long curfew called to halt violence that erupted with the return of the country's deposed leftist president.
Troops and police ringed the Brazilian Embassy where ousted
President Manuel Zelaya took shelter on Monday after returning home in a daring challenge to the interim government that threw him out of the country at gunpoint in June and that vows to arrest him if he leaves the shelter of the
diplomatic mission.
Most other Hondurans were trapped as well, cooped up in their homes since Monday evening by a government order to stay off the streets — an order ignored by some looters and pro-Zelaya protesters.
Schools, businesses, airports and border crossings closed, though the coup-installed government lifted the nationwide curfew for six hours Wednesday so that businesses could open briefly and people could buy what they needed.
Brazil's Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva used the podium at the U.N. General Assembly to demand Zelaya be reinstated as Honduras' president the U.S. State Department called for restraint by both sides.
From Washington, Spokesman Ian Kelly said the U.S., which still has contact with Honduran officials, had helped get authorities to restore water and power service they had cut at the Brazilian embassy where Zelaya is holed up and had helped evacuate some Brazilian embassy staff.
But on a street in Tegucigalpa, Lila Armendia peered out through her wooden gate at a scene of burning trash bins placed by protesters.
"It's scary to go out," she said.
Being stuck inside her home is no good either. "It's like being in jail," said the 38-year-old seamstress who has been unable to work.
People determined to stock up for the uncertain days ahead trudged past bandana-masked youths sitting on boulders they had used to block roads.
About two dozen people at a supermarket littered with overturned shelves hunted through shards of glass and smashed potato chip packages for undamaged food.
Police said they arrested 113 people after scores of business were looted as protesters skirmished with officers throughout Tuesday night.
Zelaya told the Argentine cable channel Todo Noticias that 10 of his supporters had been killed, though he gave no details. Authorities said there were no deaths at all, though they said one person suffered a gunshot wound.
Dr. Mario Sanchez at the Escuela Hospital in Tegucigalpa said three people were treated for gunshot wounds there, however.
At an upscale shopping mall in the capital, women wearing track suits and pearl earrings formed a bumper-to-bumper line of orange shopping carts that snaked around the parking lot of a Price Smart they expected to soon open.
"This is a nightmare," said Lijia Acietuno, a 26-year-old business manager. "Look what this man has done to our country," she said, referring to Zelaya.
The crisis appeared to be taking a toll on Zelaya, too. He stared into space Wednesday as a shrinking core of supporters at the isolated Brazilian embassy raised their fists and vowed to fight for his reinstatement.
The boisterous leader known for his trademark white cowboy hat had been traveling the hemisphere, meeting with heads of state to build a wall of diplomatic condemnation against the government that hustled him out of the country at gunpoint June 28.
He now finds himself confined to the cramped embassy compound surrounded by troops waiting to arrest him.
The interim government's foreign minister Carlos Lopez, said that soldiers would not try to enter the embassy to arrest Zelaya.
But he also said yet again that Honduras' interim government would not bow to intense international demands for him to serve out his final months as president.
Before he was ousted, the country's
Supreme Court has endorsed charges of treason and abuse of authority against Zelaya for repeatedly ignoring court orders to drop plans for a referendum on whether the constitution should be rewritten.
The interim government accuses Zelaya of trying to create disturbances ahead of the Nov. 29 presidential elections that coup-backers hope will restore an international image of democracy to the nation and ease foreign pressure.
Zelaya says he has no plans to leave the embassy and has repeatedly asked to speak with interim President Roberto Micheletti, who says he is open to talks with the participation of the
Organization of American States.
Zelaya said Micheletti's refusal to accept international demands for his reinstatement mean he "does not have the will to resolve what is happening in Honduras."
"If he has any conscience, then he should yield and search first for peace and not for his own personal benefit," Zelaya said on the Costa Rican radio program Nuestra Voz.
Kelly said the interim government has invited a delegation from the Organization of American States to help solve the standoff — a moved welcomed by the United States.
Brazil's Silva, meanwhile, urged the world to insist on reinstating Zelaya.
"Unless there is political will, we will see more coups like the one that toppled the constitutional president of Honduras," Silva told the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York.
The Brazilian government asked the U.N. Security Council to discuss the security of Zelaya and its embassy in Honduras.
Zelaya's opponents accuse him of wanting to end the constitutional ban on re-election — a charge Zelaya has repeatedly denied.
U.S.-backed talks moderated by
Costa Rican President Oscar Arias broke down after Micheletti's government refused to accept a plan that would allow Zelaya to return to the presidency with limited powers and prohibit him from attempting to revise the constitution.
Many Hondurans feel caught in the middle of a fight between two leaders — neither of whom they support.
"We are like prisoners. This is unbearable," said Edie Eguigure, 47, waiting in a long line to buy food for his family. "It's time for Micheletti and Zelaya sit down to negotiate to end this problem that is affecting more than anything the poorest of the poor."
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