HONDURAS: DICTATORSHIP RECRUITING RIGHT-WING EXTREMISTS AS “OBSERVERS”

HONDURAS: DICTATORSHIP RECRUITING RIGHT-WING EXTREMISTS AS “OBSERVERS”
by Jean-Guy Allard, Granma International
In order to cover up the invalidity of the upcoming November 29 elections, the usurping regime of Roberto Micheletti is heavily recruiting—via an association of pro-coup businesspeople — “observers” from right-wing extremist organizations. “Between 300 and 500 observers have now been confirmed,” was the headline on the daily La Prensa, owned by the local magnate, Jorge “Pepsi” Canahuati, while the author of an article inside the paper claimed, with pro-coup fervor, that “about 600” of these “international observers from Northern, South and Central America” will be present at the elections.
Finding such observers when all international agencies devoted to this activity have refused to cooperate has been entrusted by the military/business junta in Tegucigalpa to one of its most active partners, Amilcar Bulnes, president of the Honduran Council of Private Enterprise (COHEP). Bulnes told the daily La Prensa — owned by his friend Canahuati — that the election process “is central to providing a better investment climate,” which should be based on “social stability.” This opinion is shared by the hierarchies of the army, police and death squads run by Billy Joya.
“They will come from the United States, Europe, Chile, Argentina, Colombia and Central America,” Bulnes specified, revealing that two of them are among the most “eminent” representatives of the continent’s extreme right-wing forces: the former presidents of Guatemala, Alvaro Arzú, and of El Salvador, Alfredo Cristiani.
It has already been announced that the coup regime’s elections will feature representatives — also described as “observers” — from the neo-Nazi group UnoAmérica; the Latin American and Caribbean Network for Liberty, an appendage of the Liberty Foundation financed by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED); and the Foundation for Social Analysis and Studies, run by the former Spanish prime minister, José María Aznar.
The organization UnoAmérica, tied to the CIA and financed by the NED, was involved earlier this year in a plot to assassinate President Evo Morales of the Plurinational State of Bolivia.
(Translated by Granma International. Circulated by Walter Lippman, CubaNews, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/)