UN rights council condemns abuses in Honduras coup

UN rights council condemns abuses in Honduras coup

(AP) – 1 day ago

GENEVA — The U.N. top rights body is condemning abuses following the June 28 coup in Honduras.
The 47-nation U.N. Human Rights Council unanimously endorsed Thursday a proposal by Latin American countries, including Cuba, calling for an immediate end to all human rights violations.
The Geneva-based council, of which the United States is a member, also called for the restoration of the ousted government of President Manuel Zelaya.
Honduras' interim leaders suspended some civil liberties Sunday and empowered police and soldiers to break up unauthorized public meetings, arrest people without warrants and restrict the news media.
The decision came after Zelaya called on supporters to stage mass marches to protest the coup.

Honduras Government Blamed for 14 Deaths

TEGUCIGALPA – Fourteen politically motivated killings have taken place in Honduras since the June 28 escorted departure of former president Mel Zelaya, a human rights group founded when death squads stalked the Central American country in the 1980s said Wednesday.

“We have 14 people who have been murdered since the coup d’état,” the coordinator of the Committee of Relatives of Disappeared Detainees, or Cofadeh, told Efe.

The killings took place in Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula – the country’s two largest cities – and other locations, Bertha Oliva said, adding that police and soldiers were also “torturing people.”

Some people arrested for their opposition to the coup have been burned by their jailers with cigarettes, while others have been sodomized with police batons, she said.

Oliva said some of the torturers were from the army’s 3-16 Intelligence Battalion, blamed for 184 deaths during the early 1980s.

A veteran of that unit, former Capt. Billy Joya, is security adviser to Roberto Micheletti, former head of Congress who was elected head of government after Zelaya’s ouster.

Oliva joined members of two anti-coup resistance groups outside the Honduran Supreme Court on Wednesday to protest the judiciary’s unwillingness to investigate allegations against the security forces.

Since Zelaya's departure, the organizations said in a statement, the high court has failed to respond to 52 motions filed in opposition to actions of the government, an attitude that “contrasts with the celerity with which the judiciary acts when the charges are against members of the resistance.”

Claudia Hermannsdorfer, an attorney with the Women’s Rights Center in Tegucigalpa, said the International Criminal Court has been informed of the human rights violations committed by the Micheletti government.

“We are speaking even of murders,” she said. “The people responsible for the coup d’etat – the armed forces and Roberto Micheletti – will have to face the International Criminal Court, which already has the cases absolutely documented and will act at any moment.”

Police and soldiers used force Wednesday to remove 57 Zelaya followers from a government building they occupied shortly after the events that ousted the elected head of state.

The security forces acted in accord with the state of siege imposed by the Micheletti government days after Zelaya slipped back into the country and took up residence at the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa.

“This action forms part of what the decree is,” police spokesman Orlin Cerrato told reporters, adding that authorities are trying to determine whether any other state property is under occupation.

“There are people detained, they will be questioned to see what (criminal) responsibility they have,” he said.

The operation to remove the Zelaya partisans from the National Agrarian Institute began at 5:30 a.m.

Cerrato said authorities did not plan any further evictions Wednesday, though supporters of the deposed president have spent the last few nights on university campuses in and around Tegucigalpa.

“We were waiting: so it’s now that they pounced on us. They clubbed me when I tried to get my suitcase,” one of the peasants rousted from institute, 52-year-old Pedro Serrano, told Efe.

Rural leader Rafael Alegria, a coordinator of the National Resistance Front , rushed to the institute when he learned of the police action.

“It’s a dictatorship and anything can happen,” he said. “They are desperate; they are applying a decree that is illegal, that has not been approved by Congress. This is a fascist act.”

The speaker of the Honduran Congress said Monday that the Micheletti government should revoke the decree suspending constitutional guarantees.

Jose Alfredo Saavedra made the request hours after the government invoked the state of siege as justification for shutting down two media outlets sympathetic to Zelaya.

Micheletti, who was named “interim” president by a plurality of lawmakers after Zelaya's departure, said he was open to the idea of scrapping the state of siege, which has sparked harsh international criticism.

The measure was also criticized by the hopefuls competing in the Nov. 29 presidential election, who pointed out that the 45-day duration of the emergency measures would effectively reduce the time for campaigning to two weeks.

And late Wednesday, the country’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal formally asked Micheletti to revoke the decree.

Micheletti argues that Zelaya’s ouster was not a coup, and that the soldiers were enforcing a Supreme Court ban on the president’s planned non-binding plebiscite on the idea of revising the constitution.

The Organization of American States, the United States and the European Union have been pressing Micheletti to accept the San Jose Accord, a proposal put forward by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias.

The plan calls for Zelaya to return and lead a national unity government for the few months left in his term, and for a political amnesty that would protect both sides in the dispute.

While Zelaya has accepted the plan, the Honduras government flatly rejects the reinstatement of Zelaya, who stands accused of violating the country's Constitution.

Both the EU and Washington say they will not recognize the winner of the Nov. 29 presidential election unless Zelaya is restored to office prior to the balloting.

Honduras regime wavers amid international uproar

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Agence France-Presse | 09/29/2009 7:50 PM

TEGUCIGALPA - Honduran de facto leaders pledged to reconsider a clampdown on rights and resume mediation efforts, as deposed President Manuel Zelaya appealed for help from the United Nations.
The deep divides within the Central American country echoed beyond its borders as the Organization of American States failed Monday after more than 10 hours of debate to reach consensus on the crisis sparked by the June 28 coup.
Amid widespread international criticism, de facto leader Roberto Micheletti said he was prepared to rescind a decree restricting civil liberties so that upcoming presidential polls are not affected.
"We're worried that this decree could affect the elections," Micheletti told journalists in Tegucigalpa, hours after soldiers shut down two dissident media outlets under the new measures. "If it's necessary, we'll revoke it."
Protesters earlier taped their mouths shut to symbolize the loss of their right to express themselves as they were prevented from answering Zelaya's call to converge for a mass protest.
Zelaya appealed to the UN General Assembly on Monday to restore law in Honduras in an address he gave by telephone from his refuge in the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa -- where he emerged after a surprise return last week.
"Anybody who had any doubt that a dictatorship is taking hold of my country, now with what has happened in the last 93 days of repression, I think any of those doubts that might have existed are dispelled," Zelaya said over a cell phone held by his foreign minister Patricia Isabel Rodas Baca.
Human Rights Watch was one of several groups to criticize the censorship imposed by the de facto government, condemning a decree banning public statements deemed to offend officials or the government.
"This kind of decree has been the norm for authoritarian rulers, from Chile's Pinochet to Cuba's Castros," said Jose Miguel Vivanco, HRW's Americas director.
While Latin American countries repeated calls to restore Zelaya to the presidency, a senior US representative to the OAS broke ranks and criticized Zelaya's return.
"The return of President Zelaya to Honduras, absent an agreement, is irresponsible and serves neither the interests of the Honduran people nor those seeking a peaceful reestablishment of a democratic order in Honduras," said Lewis Amselem.
As the pan-American body -- which suspended Honduras after the coup -- mulled over the crisis, the wavering de facto regime invited back members of an OAS mission it had expelled the previous day.
The foreign ministry said in a statement it was "pleased" to invite the preparatory mission to visit Honduras from Friday and apologized for sending back four officials, who were detained at the capital's airport on Sunday.
It also invited a mission of regional foreign ministers and top OAS officials to the country on October 7.
Brazil meanwhile ruled out the possibility of dispatching troops to protect its embassy in Honduras, after the de facto leaders had threatened to close it.
But late on Monday the de facto foreign ministry said it would ensure security at the Brazilian embassy, rowing back from previous tough talk of deadlines and demands.
"(We will) continue to grant protection to Brazil's offices... (although) diplomatic relations no longer exist," a statement said.
The de facto leaders are seeking to arrest Zelaya on charges of treason and abuse of authority.
They allege Zelaya, who veered to the left after his election and forged an alliance with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, ignored court orders to drop plans for a constitutional referendum that could have given him another term.

FOTOS: Resistencia días 95 y 96 (G. Trucchi)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Honduras: Women Targeted for Resisting Coup

Honduran women continue their resistance to the de facto regime that kidnapped and ousted the democratically elected president in a coup d'état on June 28, 2009. In August an international delegation organized by JASS and allied organizations traveled to Honduras and accompanied Honduran Feminists in Resistance, an alliance of feminists and womens organizations, on a mission to increase awareness of the impact of the crisis on women.

"Women have walked this country from end to end, raising consciousness about what is happening and connecting women and movements. Like the "grandmother", an old woman who, in El Paraíso, took a megaphone and for 18 hours straight stood in front of the military and told stories and parables. Or the young women who challenge the military head-on, pushing their bayonets out of the way so that they don't use them on anyone again.... those women who have been raped, verbally and emotionally tortured, the political prisoners... those women who refuse to stop honoring life through their actions." ~ María Suárez, Radio Feminist

Resistance Honduras accounts for more than 200 people linked to the coup

Police authorities and the government de facto dictatorship in Honduras have reported that at least two protesters died in clashes with police, after the return to the country's deposed president Miguel Zelaya, in this connection the ambassador of the Republic of Honduras, Germain Espinal, said Thursday that unofficial figures recorded up to 300 deaths linked to the events following the coup of June 28.

 During a formal session that the City Council held Guaicaipuro state of Miranda, in solidarity with the people of Honduras, Espinal said that in addition to that amount of deaths, the National Resistance Front recorded up to 3 thousand wounded and hundreds jailed.

 "They use technology of war to terrorize the population living on the street, is the technology of death and repression, with the collaboration of foreign arms dealers who cooperate with each other," he said.
 

Espinal added that this repression is a sign of the bestial and brutal nature of the coup, which despite the media closures and restriction of free access to information and freedom of press, has been seen worldwide .


However, on the other hand he  reiterated that  the constant mobilization of the people continues, led by the National Resistance Front, seeking to realize the aspirations of the people of Honduras and the judicial and legal logic of the continent.

 "The resistance in the streets is maintained despite the disruption of constitutional guarantees, even much higher since President Zelaya back," he said.

Regarding the presence of the constitutional head of state in the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa, Espinal noted that Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, has said the embassy is the home of Zelaya. “ "
 

 The fact that President Zelaya has extraterritorial protection and sovereign, in addition to diplomatic immunity, a response to the unanimous agreement of the Americas to restore democratic order in Honduras, guarantee and return to the presidency of Manuel Zelaya, "said Espinal.

 Finally, reported that there are very slow to understand the need to resume dialogue and negotiation tables, as demanded by the international community through the Organization of American States, the Rio Group, the Union of South American Nations and to the European Union.