CASUALTIES OF THE `BLOODLESS´ COUP: NO MATTER WHAT PROMINENT U.S. APOLOGISTS SAY, THE MILITARY TAKEOVER OF HONDURAS WAS - AND IS - VIOLENT AND UNJUST

CASUALTIES OF THE `BLOODLESS´ COUP:
NO MATTER WHAT PROMINENT U.S. APOLOGISTS SAY, THE
MILITARY TAKEOVER OF HONDURAS WAS - AND IS - VIOLENT
AND UNJUST
By Jeremy Kryt, October 23, 2009,
http://www.inthesetimes.com/main/print/5084/

Many apologists for the thuggish takeover of the elected government
in Honduras still claim that what happened last June 28 was a
"bloodless" coup. In a Wall Street Journal editorial on October 10, U.S.
Senator Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) went one step further, denying there even
is a political crisis here, and referring to the ousting of President Mel
Zelaya as a "supposed military 'coup.'"

But the hundreds of peaceful demonstrators who have been brutally
beaten since the putsch might disagree with adjectives like
"supposed" and "bloodless." As might the family of Jairo Sanchez, the
most recent victim of government-sponsored violence, who after
weeks of drifting in and out of consciousness, died in the capital on
Monday, October 19.

According to the report prepared by the Committee for the Families of
the Disappeared in Honduras (COFADEH), Sanchez, a 38-year-old
husband and father, was shot in the face during a police raid against
unarmed marchers on September 30. Three other peaceful
demonstrators were critically wounded in the same attack.

Apparently none of this well-documented violence made an
impression on DeMint. The senator recently returned from a brief visit
to Tegucigalpa, were he'd been the guest of the same political elites
who worked with the military to orchestrate the putsch. "As all strong
democracies do, after cleansing themselves, Honduras has moved
on," DeMint opined.

During his visit, Honduras was under martial law, independent media
were shuttered and police and soldiers attacked peaceful protestors
just blocks from the Senator's hotel. Yet upon returning home, DeMint
reported "there is no chaos there," that like the coup itself, this is all
merely "supposed."

Honduras was plunged into this "supposed" chaos last summer, when
soldiers exiled Zelaya and presented a false letter of abdication to
Congress on national television. In the same ceremony, far-right
political veteran Roberto Micheletti was installed as a puppet to head
the civilian government.

Since then, riot police and soldiers have shown an increasing
willingness to use violence against anyone who publicly opposes the
coup. Truncheons, tear gas, rubber bullets and even live rounds are
frequently employed to disperse peaceful demonstrations.

COFADEH estimates that since the coup, 17 people have died at the
hands of authorities. DeMint, however, made no mention of such
casualties in his editorial. Nor did he reference the political scandal his
Honduran junket had caused back home. In order to show his support
for the coup regime, DeMint had defied direct orders from John Kerry,
head of the Foreign Relations Committee. Because Kerry refused to
authorize the trip, the senator flew to Honduras in a military jet sent by
the Pentagon, causing crucial Foreign Relations Committee meetings
to be cancelled in his absence.

But that wouldn't be the first time the South Carolina Republican has
been the source of a political log-jam. DeMint -- who was ranked by the
National Journal as the most conservative of all U.S. Senators in both
2007 and 2008 -- is also holding up crucial votes on Obama's picks for
assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs (Arturo
Valenzuela) and ambassador to Brazil (Thomas A. Shannon Jr.).

'ARMED AGAINST THE UNARMED'
During a recent interview, COFADEH Director Bertha Oliva said, " are
killing people...and it is selective. They are targeting the leaders of the
resistance, just as they did in the 80s... And they can control the
media, to help them accomplish whatever they intend."

Oliva said Zelaya had initiated some modern social reforms in
Honduras, like raising the minimum wage, initiating social security and
passing laws to conserve natural resources. But such bold moves
threatened the power structure for the nation's wealthiest families and
the military. When the rancher-turned-president vowed to let the
people vote on a referendum for broad constitutional reforms, troops
seized Zelaya in his pajamas, hustling him out of the country at
gunpoint.

"This is a struggle of the armed, against the unarmed," said Oliva,
when I met in her downtown office, which was recently shelled with
tear gas by police. "But the Resistance will not give up its peaceful
principals."

Zelaya returned to the capital in a surprise move on September 21, but
remains holed up in the Brazilian Embassy, under threat of arrest and
surrounded by hundreds of troops. In addition to union leader
Sanchez, others killed by authorities since Zelaya's return include a
67-year-old man, a newly-wed girl, a school teacher and a nurse. And
that's just in the last month.

" ignores these casualties, because they would like to say that the
Resistance does not exist," Oliva said. "But they will not be able to say
it for much longer."

'SLAVES TO A PIECE OF PAPER'
The coup-plotters in Honduras claim they acted to prevent Zelaya from
extending his time in office and becoming a despot like Hugo Chavez.
In his editorial for the Journal, DeMint also defended the legality of
their actions, citing an August briefing from the U.S. Library of
Congress. In fact, the U.S. Library of Congress report (PDF file) makes
clear that the Honduran military's decision to exile Zelaya was "in
direct violation of the Article 102 of Constitution."

DeMint also accuses Zelaya of defying the Honduran Supreme Court
regarding the much-disputed constitutional referendum. But such
accusations must be viewed in context. The Library of Congress brief
says that when the Supreme Court first outlawed the referendum,
Zelaya was willing to play along. He obliged the Court by suggesting a
nonbinding poll so that, in the words of the report, "The Honduran
people could express their opinion" on Constitutional reforms.

But the Supreme Court ruled even a simple poll to be inexplicably
illegal. The judicial branch of the Honduran government was
preventing a plebiscite, one of the basic tools of transparent, isocratic
government.

The Court's injunctions were increasingly repressive, obviously
designed to thwart much-needed reforms. According to Oliva, Zelaya
was simply answering public demand by agreeing to a referendum on
the Constitution. "In the current system, everything is rigged for the
interests of the wealthy," Oliva said. "Zelaya wanted to give the people
a voice."

DeMint, echoing the junta itself, claims that the nonbinding poll on
political reforms would have somehow allowed Zelaya to extend his
time as president. In fact, the proposed ballot question made no
mention of term limits, and Zelaya was not even running in the
upcoming elections.

"They are usurpers," Oliva said. "The only way they can hold onto
power is by spreading lies and fear."

Dr. Valerio Gutierrez, Secretary of State under current de facto leader
Roberto Micheletti, said in a recent interview that Zelaya had tried to
subvert the authority of Congress and the Supreme Court, thus
legalizing his own deposition. Yet Gutierrez admitted that "many
people in Honduras want to change the constitution" and that this
could be a good idea "if the majority voted for it." If such a vote is not
allowed, said Gutierrez, the people would be little more than "slaves to
a piece of paper."

CONSTITUTIONAL CONTENTION
Near the close of his Wall Street Journal article, DeMint praises the
Honduran Constitution, and likens its framers to our own Founding
Fathers. But several legal experts I've spoken to in Tegucigalpa,
including Honduran Congressman Marvin Ponce, admit that their
national charter is deeply flawed, describing it as 'draconian' and
'outdated.'

The Honduran Constitution was written in 1982 under the auspices of
Policarpo Paz Garcia, the last military junta to rule this beautiful but
impoverished country. "It does not include rights for women, or for
minorities, and it lends itself to exploitation by the elite sectors of
society," said Ponce, who recently had his arm broken in three places
when soldiers attacked him during a peaceful demonstration.

But in his editorial for the Journal, DeMint insisted on the connection
between America's own patriotic heritage and the current peasant-
killing, media-censoring de facto regime in Honduras. The Senator
wrote that the Micheletti government had comported itself, "as our
own Founding Fathers would have hoped."

When I asked Oliva why she thought powerful U.S. politicians like
DeMint were backing the coup in Honduras, she answered using the
Spanish word "golpista." Golpista translates literally as "putschist" -
although today in Honduras, it has taken on a meaning closer to the
English word "fascist."

"There are golpistas everywhere in the world," she said. "Not just in
Honduras. It is a mindset. An ideology. Of course they would stick
together."

(Jeremy Kryt is a graduate of the Indiana University School of
Journalism and the University of Iowa Writers Workshop. He has been
reporting from Honduras since August, and his coverage of the crisis
there has appeared in The Earth Island Journal, Alternet and The
Narco News Bulletin, among other publications)

* * *

WHAT TO DO

MAKE TAX-DEDUCTIBLE DONATIONS

to support Honduran organizations and people working with the
National Front Against the Coup. Make check to "rights action" and
mail to:

UNITED STATES: Box 50887, Washington DC, 20091-0887
CANADA: 552-351 Queen St. E, Toronto ON, M5A-1T8
CREDIT-CARD DONATIONS: http://rightsaction.org/contributions.htm

For foundations and institutional donors, Rights Action can (upon
request) provide a full proposal of which organizations and people we
are channeling funds to and supporting.

WATCH A 2-PART "FAULT LINES" NEWS REPORT ABOUT
HONDURAS:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYY4vj9ROC0&feature=player_emb
edded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upMu_oR2YUU&NR=1