Honduras Updates

Making the Coup “Stick” by Forcing a Vote
The Honduran armed forces are comprised of 12,000 men and 14,000 police in this impoverished Central American nation of 7.5 million people, and the military has called up reservists for deployment during the election. — AFP

AFL-CIO: Free Elections Not Possible Now in Honduras

The continued repression of trade unionists by the regime set up in Honduras after a June 28 coup makes it impossible to hold free and fair elections, says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka in a Nov. 13 letter to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Trumka points out that delegates to the AFL-CIO Convention in September passed a resolution calling on the U.S. government to suspend military aid to Honduras until President Manuel Zelaya, the democratically elected leader, is returned to office and human and trade union rights have been restored.

Click here to read the convention resolution on Honduras and here to read Trumka’s letter.

Via Adrienne Pine - Letter from Zelaya to Obama

Excerpts:

From the Desk of the President

Dear President Obama:

When we met for the first time the 8th of July with the Secretary of State Cinton after the Coup d'Etat there was made clear to me and to the world the position of the Obama administration of condemning the Coup d'Etat, not recognizing its authorities and demanding the return to the state of law with the restitution to the office of President elected by the people. The official position of your government and its representatives that sponsored and signed the resolutions of the UN, OAS. In which the third point demanded my immediate and secure restitution.

As the Secretary General of the OAS José Miguel Insulza has pointed out, there does not exist a political environment for elections, as has been observed and pointed out by the North American Congress member [Jan Schakowsky] in her visit to Honduras, observing a veritable environment of violation of human rights in Honduras....

The presidential election is now scheduled for the last week of November. In this case, as Constitutional President of Honduras, and as citizen who represents and was elected by the democratic vote of the people of Honduras, I see myself obligated to state that under these conditions we cannot back it and we will proceed to challenge it legally in the name of thousands of Hondurans and hundreds of candidates that feel that this contest is unequal and does not present the conditions of free participation.

In Honduras due to the repression that the Honduran people today is subjected to, where there is no respect even for the highest authority of the President of the Republic, where they have not considered that in three years I achieved the best economic indicators and the greatest reduction of poverty in the 28 years of democratic life, where I was removed by force of arms, never was submitted to a trial nor to due process and today have 24 accusations and orders for arrest for drug trafficking, corruption, and terrorism, among others, and where the major part of the Ministers of my cabinet are the object of political persecution and are to be found fleeing the regime in different parts of the Americas.

3500 people detained in 100 days, more than 600 people wounded and beaten in hospitals, more than 100 assassinations and an unknown number of people subjected to tortures committed against citizens that dared to oppose and demonstrate for their ideas, for liberty, and for justice, in peaceful demonstrations, all that converts the elections of November into an anti-democratic exercise by an illegitimate state, due to the uncertainty and military intimidation, for large sectors of the people.

To carry out elections, in which the President elected by the people of Honduras, who is recognized by your Government and the international community, is prisoner, surrounded by military in the diplomatic mission of Brazil, and a de facto president, who imposes the military, surrounded by the powerful in the palace of government, would be a historic shame for Honduras and an infamy for the democratic peoples of the Americas.

This electoral process is illegal because it covers up the military coup d'etat, and the de facto state that Honduras lives with does not furnish guarantees of equality and liberty of citizen participation, for all the Hondurans, it is an antidemocratic electoral maneuver repudiated by large sectors of the people to cloak the material and intellectual authors of the Coup d'Etat.

The elections are a process, not just a day when you go to vote, they are a debate, they are the exposition of ideas, they are equality of opportunities.

In my status as President elected by the Honduran people, I reaffirm my decision that from this date on, whatever will happen, I WILL NOT ACCEPT any accord of returning to the presidency, to cloak the coup d'etat, that we know has a direct impact through military repression on the human rights of the inhabitants of our country....

We are firmly resolved to battle for our democracy without hiding the truth and when a people decide to peacefully fight for its ideas, there is no weapon, no army nor maneuver that is capable of stopping it.

In the expectation of your prompt response, I repeat my highest regards.

JOSE MANUEL ZELAYA ROSALES
President of Honduras

Election Boycott Kicks Off with “To Vote is to Say “Yes” to the Coup D’Etat”

HondurasOye - Soto Cano Base: SOUTHCOM Awards $38M Contract to Honduran Firm for “IT-Communications”
This critical infrastructure program supports the Commander of JTF-Bravo — the Commander of all U.S. military operations in Central America in the execution of USSOUTHCOM’s strategy to build Partner Nation Capacity. It is intended to bolster security, stability and prosperity in the Americas.

President Manuel Zelaya: Talks Are Off with Coup Government After Deal Collapses

An American-mediated accord to end the four-month political crisis in the country appears to be in shambles just a week after it was signed. On Friday, ousted President Manuel Zelaya, who remains in the Brazilian embassy, declared the deal was over. Meanwhile, coup president Roberto Micheletti said he would install a national unity government without the participation of Zelaya. DemocracyNow interviewed President Zelaya from the Brazilian embassy.

Reporters Press State Department on U.S. Recognition of Fraudulent Elections:

IAN KELLY: The bottom line is that we have a Honduran process in place, where the two sides have sat down. They’ve signed on to the agreement. The agreement is specific in terms of the next steps to be taken. If the two sides can agree on a way forward—and the best way forward is this agreement; I mean, it’s very specific—then we support it. But what happens between now and November 29, you know, I don’t know. But we’re supporting this Honduran process.

REPORTER: Even though it is not being implemented? You’re continuing to support it, even though you’re disappointed in what it is?

IAN KELLY: We’re disappointed that this—

REPORTER: But you’re still going to support the process.

IAN KELLY: We’re supporting the process.

REPORTER: Well, then, I don’t understand. Then what you just said, as the bottom line, means nothing.

IAN KELLY: It means that—it means that they need to sit down and start talking again. They—it means that they have to stop saying—maybe they need to stop making dire statements like the agreement is dead.

REPORTER: There must be someone in this building who can give a straight answer to this question.

Negotiations Fail

AP - US-brokered pact for Honduran crisis failsOusted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya said Friday that a U.S.-brokered pact failed to end a four-month political crisis after a deadline for forming a unity government passed.

But the U.S. still thinks the accord can work, and is working to move forward on it, said a State Department official speaking on condition of anonymity because an official statement was still being prepared.

The Obama Administration's position contradicts the ousted leader of Honduras.

"The accord is dead," Zelaya told Radio Globo from the Brazilian Embassy where he has been holed up under threat of arrest. "There is no sense in deceiving Hondurans."

Zelaya spent Friday huddled in meetings with supporters and it was unclear what his next move would be.

Jorge Reina, a negotiator for Zelaya, said the pact fell apart because Congress failed to vote on whether to reinstate the deposed president before the deadline for forming the unity government.

"The de facto regime has failed to live up to the promise that, by this date, the national government would be installed. And by law, it should be presided by the president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya," Reina said.

Shortly before midnight, Micheletti announced that a unity government had been created even though Zelaya had not submitted his own list of members. Micheletti said the new government was composed of candidates proposed by political parties and civic groups. He did not name the new members.

Hundreds of Zelaya supporters gathered outside Congress on Thursday to demand his reinstatement. The protesters said they will boycott the elections if Zelaya is not returned to power beforehand to serve out his constitutionally limited single term, which ends in January.

Reina accused Micheletti of preparing "a great electoral fraud this November."

"We completely do not recognize this electoral process," Reina said. "Elections under a dictatorship are a fraud for the people."

National Resistance Issues Midnight Deadline: No Zelaya, No Recognition of Electoral Process or Results

COMMUNIQUÉ No. 33: DEADLINE FOR THE RESTORATION OR THE ELECTIONS SHALL NOT BE RECOGNIZED
Communiqué No. 33

The National Resistance Front Against the Coup d’État communicates to the Honduran population and the international community:

WHEREAS

1. During 131 consecutive days of struggle, we have pressured for a peaceful way out of the political crisis that our country is undergoing as a result of the coup d’état perpetrated by the Honduran oligarchy. In this period we have accompanied the initiatives that have been put forward from several national and international sectors, maintaining three fundamental demands: a) the return of institutional order with the restoration of the legitimate president, Manuel Zelaya Rosales, b) respect for the sovereign right to set up a National Constitutional Assembly with which the country may be refounded and c) punishment for the human rights violators.

2. That the so-called Tegucigalpa-San José agreement contains as its first priority the return to constitutional order and literally indicates “bring back the incumbency of the Executive Power to its state prior to the 28 of June until the conclusion of the current governmental term, the 27 of January of 2010.”

3. That the National Congress, co-author of the breaking of the constitutional order on the 28 of June, is using delaying tactics in refusing to convene the full assembly in order to repeal the decree that installed the defacto regime.

4. That the OAS and the United States government, whom we consider accomplices in the military coup d’état, do not show interest in the definitive ouster of the putschists from power.

WE THEREFORE RESOLVE:

1. If today Thursday, November 5, by 12:00 midnight at the latest, President José Manuel Zelaya Rosales is not restored to his office, the National Resistance Front Against the Coup d’État shall not recognize the electoral process and its results.

2. We alert all of the organizations of the Resistance on a national level so that if the restoration of President Zelaya does not happen in the established period they may be ready to execute the actions of non-recognition of the electoral farse.

3. We call on the international community to maintain the position of non-legitimation of the defacto regime and the November 29 elections.
“WE RESIST AND WE SHALL WIN”

Tegucigalpa, M.D.C. November 5, 2009.

Honduras deal thrown into doubt

Al Jazeera - Honduras deal thrown into doubt

A deal to end the political standoff in Honduras has been thrown into doubt after a negotiator for the de facto government suggested that Manuel Zelaya, the ousted president, will not be returned to power.

The comments by Arturo Corrales prompted confusion on Saturday as it had been thought Zelaya and Roberto Micheletti, Honduras's de facto leader, had reached a deal.

The two sides have been at odds for four months over whether Zelaya should be reinstated before presidential elections due to be held in November.

It was thought that through the deal Zelaya could be returned to power before elections on November 29, if the measure won support from congress and the supreme court.a

But Corrales said that since congress would not be in session before the elections, Zelaya would not be confirmed in office.

"The congress is not in session, and I understand that it is programmed to return after the elections, because each one of the representatives is, at this very moment, in their respective districts campaigning around the clock," he said.

Andres Conteris, a reporter for the US-based public television and radio show Democracy Now, who has been holed up with Zelaya in the Brazilian embassy in the Honduran capital, said the remarks by Corrales went against the agreement.

"This is absolutely a contravention of both the spirit and the word of the accord that was signed today," he told Al Jazeera by phone from the embassy in Tegucigalpa.

"For the negotiator of the coup regime to say that the legislature is not going to meet until after the election is a contravention because the accord specifically states that no later than November 5, the new constitutional authority of the unified government will be empowered as the new government of Honduras."

Great interview from Adrienne Pine on Honduras -
(It goes black for a few seconds in the beginning but the video comes back)


Honduras: Briefing with COFADEH leader Bertha Oliva, 11/5 @ 11 AM, Cannon 201
Briefing with Bertha Oliva, General Coordinator of COFADEH,
Committee of Relatives of Missing Prisoners in Honduras

Thursday, November 5, 2009
11 AM
Cannon 201
Bertha Oliva is the General Coordinator of the Committee of Relatives of Missing Prisoners in Honduras (COFADEH). Bertha's husband, professor Thomas Nativí was "disappeared" in 1981, during the period when the death squads were active under Honduras' military dictatorship. She founded COFADEH together with other women who lost their loved ones, in order to keep alive the memory of the hundreds of dissidents that were "disappeared" between 1979 and 1989 and seek justice and compensation for their families. Among other achievements, her organization succeeded in obtaining a condemnation of Honduras by the Inter American Court for Human Rights, the first such ruling against a state in the institution's history.

Bertha has since become an emblematic figure in the Central American human rights movement. In addition to the issue of the disappearances, her organization represents victims of severe rights violations, educates the general public on human rights issues, and investigates and helps prepare legal documentation for cases. COFADEH has been keeping careful track of the massive rights violations that have taken place under the coup regime that took power in Honduras on June 28, 2009 and has just finished a detailed report on the current human rights situation.

HondurasResists: The negotiation is in the streets: A day of resistance and repression

Running away from tear gas clouds behind them several people carry a woman in shock around a corner to a water spigot someone has found. Her bright yellow shirt is soaked in a mix of sweat, tear gas and water. People gather around her wiping her down and washing out her eyes and their own. Suddenly we hear more shots and the footsteps of the elite cobra commando unit of the Honduran police. As we flee to the top of a hill we run into another human rights observer who reports that several people have been badly beaten and are in the hospital. We find our way to where the resistance has re-grouped in front of the Marriott hotel. A van pulls up with food for the resistance and people form lines to get some tortillas and cheese. As people begin to sit down and eat four large army trucks arrive, slowly driving through the crowd as cobras pour out the back and put on their gas masks. An older woman with an apron on is yelling at them, “why don't you just kill me now?” Without any warning the cobras and army, now several rows deep, begin advancing on the crowd. Within moments and without provocation tear gas is flying in the air and the army and police are chasing after people with batons swinging.

Moments before all this started we were marching under the sun to colorful rhythms of a high school marching band. Not far away, a mother and her small child walked hand-in-hand with smiles so big the sun reflected off their teeth. A couple of people had stopped to buy ice cream from a vendor. An older woman with her whole family were waiting in the shade for the march to continue forward.

The march started with thousands of people gathering early in the morning at the national pedagogical university, preparing to openly defy the de facto government's prohibition of marches and take the streets to demand the restitution of President Manuel Zelaya and a constitutional assembly to re-found the country from below. When we asked the police to speak to the person in charge in order to announce the presence of human rights observers, an officer said, “here the military is in charge, talk to him, over there” and pointed out a military commander at the back of the thick line of authorities. Here in Honduras, the military is in charge.

“The true negotiation is in the streets. When they throw tear gas bombs at us, that is a negotiation. When we march, that is a negotiation. When they beat us, that is a negotiation. The fight in the streets is the real negotiation, not what happens in the talks between the official delegations. We are completely clear that only the people will save the people,” Garífuna leader Alfredo Lopez later told us, just a few hours before de facto Honduran president Roberto Micheletti would for the first time announce a willingness to allow Zelaya's return to power.

On the 124^th day in a row of resistance to the coup d'etat in Honduras, the first demand of the resistance – the restitution of the democratically-elected president Manuel Zelaya – appears within reach. Since the military kidnapped him on June 28^th, at least 26 members of the non-violent resistance have been killed. Over 4,000 have been detained. Women have been assaulted and gang raped by police and army officers. Teachers have disappeared only to show up in a morgue or with their body cut all over. This repression has done little more than strengthen the will and deepen the commitment of the resistance. The demand for a new constitutional assembly and the re-founding of the country in the name of participatory democracy and human rights has become universal.

As indigenous leader Berta Cáceres told us, “Honduras used to only be known for its role as a U.S. base hosting the contra operations or as the place struck by hurricane Mitch. Now it is known for the dignity of its people. We have come too far to ever turn back and this struggle is just beginning.”

Reports of agreement deal are premature

Honduras Oye - What Deal? The Fat Lady has Many Sisters
Great analysis of the many problems with the current deal:
Here are some excerpts -

The Honduran military kidnapped the president and forcibly exiled him to Costa Rica. Then, it put a wall of armor between the golpistas and the people of Honduras. The military defended its coup through gross human rights abuses, including murders and disappearances and maintains a massive presence throughout the entire country four months after the coup. If the military, at any point, had laid down their guns, this coup would have fallen in three days.The agreement produced late Thursday nite, appears to have five basic components: formation of a “unity” government, recognition of the November 29 election, no amnesty, verification committee to make sure the agreement is implemented, and a truth commission.

The agreement calls for a “unity” government and one can expect Zelaya to be boxed in very tightly. The only unity in this government will be among the golpistas on how best to keep Zelaya’s hands tied.

As for recognizing the November 29 election, you could not put a bigger dagger in the heart of the people of Honduras. For all intents and purposes, this will be a golpista election. And, as was the case in Haiti, the people of Honduras will boycott it massively. In the agreement, the international community is being asked to guarantee that it will recognize the result of the election before it even takes place. Regardless of who wins in the election, the winner will carry the banner for the golpistas and the de facto regime’s power grab will be legitimized.

Al Giordano - Reports of deal are premature

Reuters reports that coup “president” Micheletti has agreed to step down:

”I have authorized my negotiating team to sign a deal that marks the beginning of the end of the country’s political situation,” Micheletti told reporters on Thursday night.

He said Zelaya could return to office after a vote in Congress that would be authorized by the country’s Supreme Court. The deal would also require both sides to recognize the result of a Nov. 29 presidential election and would transfer control of the army to the top electoral court.

If approved by Congress, Zelaya would be able to finish out his presidential term, which ends in January. It was not clear what would happen to other elements of the agreement if Congress votes against Zelaya’s restoration.

Micheletti’s claim that a Congressional vote to restore Zelaya would require Supreme Court authorization is a flat out lie, according to a source with Zelaya inside his Brazilian Embassy refuge in Tegucigalpa: “That is what the golpistas have put out, but that is NOT the accord… The Supreme Court gives its non-binding opinion to the Congress, but the key is that all of this takes time, time that the golpistas want to keep taking.”

This is likely a move by the golpistas to gain support from the international community to hold fraudulent elections. There is no way free and fair elections can take place in less than a month after over 100 days of oppression, censorship and intimidation. That is IF they even restore Zelaya to full power in a reasonable time frame. Its likely to be drawn out by the Supreme Court and Congress and pushed up right to the November elections.

El Libertador - Military requests names and phone numbers for anyone involved the resistance movement
Military chief of communications Carlos Roberto Rivera Cardona has requested all mayors submit the names and phone numbers of leaders involved in the resistance movement against the coup. While the armed forces are denying such requests, El Libertador published an actual copy:

Coup Updates

Honduran Embassy - Micheletti calls for an end of negotiation
With three U.S. diplomats expected to arrive in coup-torn Honduras, interim President Roberto Micheletti said Tuesday that negotiations on ending a four-month political crisis must wait until after Nov. 29 elections.

COFADEH reports increased human rights violations
21 assasinated, four of whom are teachers; 4,234 denunciations of violations of human rights, and 114 citizens accused of sedition.

Foreign Policy in Focus - Coup's Impact on Honduran Women
Salvador Zuniga, of the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), believes the June coup was prompted in part by a socially conservative religious reaction to feminist organizing around reproductive rights. "What I can say is that the feminist compañeras (companions or comrades) are in greater danger than any other organization," he says.

A young mother named Irma Villanueva made her own story public in mid-August. She told Radio Progreso how she had been arrested at a recent demonstration and then raped by four policemen. One of the rapists implied they were punishing Villanueva for her political activity: "[N]ow you're going to see what happens to you for being where you shouldn't be."

Villanueva is not alone. Honduran Feminists in Resistance, a group formed immediately after the coup, reported to the Latin American Herald Tribune on September 3 that they had documented 19 cases of rape committed by Honduran police. Honduran feminists believe that this number is probably conservative.

NACLA Report on the Americas - Honduran Coup Regime and Landowning Elites Enlist the Support of Foreign Paramilitaries
A United Nations human rights panel issued a warning concerning the presence of contracted foreign paramilitary forces operating inside the troubled country. According to the UN Working Group on the use of mercenaries, an estimated 40 members of the infamous United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) have been hired by wealthy Honduran landowners to defend themselves "from further violence between supporters of the de facto government and those of the deposed President Manuel Zelaya."

As Zelaya's Foreign Minister Patricia Rodas notes, it is widely believed that these mercenaries are being used to "do the dirty jobs that the armed forces refuse to do." In addition, the panel established direct links between President Roberto Micheletti's coup-installed government and foreign paramilitaries, stating that an additional group of 120 hired soldiers from several countries throughout the region had been created to provide support for the coup regime. This report confirms allegations made by the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo back in September.

Noting that Honduras is a signatory to the international convention against the use of mercenaries, the panel, comprised of a diverse array of security and human rights experts, expressed its deep concern and called upon the Honduran golpistas to take action against the use of paramilitaries inside Honduran territory.

The AUC, essentially an umbrella organization of various right-wing death squads, many of which also collaborate with Colombian drug traffickers, is one of the region's most notorious paramilitary organizations and is classified as a terrorist group by the U.S. State Department.

The AUC has also been directly and indirectly linked to numerous powerful elites and business interests in Colombia, including many close to President Álvaro Uribe's administration, and is said to operate "parallel" to the Colombian military. Accordingly, the linkages connecting the Honduran military regime, powerful members of the country's landed elite, and right-wing Colombian paramilitaries are extremely troubling but not altogether surprising.

Back on July 4, before any evidence of direct collaboration with Colombian narco-terrorists had emerged, journalist Al Giordano noted that the Honduran regime was in the process of making itself into a "rogue narco-state," shutting itself off from the international community while allying with the most shadowy and reactionary sectors of the Latin American right. Among its prominent supporters have been Rafael Hernández Nodarse, a millionaire arms trafficker with ties to Cuban terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, and Otto Reich, a Washington super-hawk who played a prominent role in Iran-Contra affair. All these parties share an agenda of preserving unjust wealth and resource distributions while waging total war against social democracy using any means necessary. Honduras merely represents the most recent arena in which this war is being waged.

The right's problem with Zelaya has never been that he tried to reform his country's deeply flawed constitution ("the worst in the world," according to Costa Rican President Óscar Arias), but because, according to Micheletti himself, he "became friends with Daniel Ortega, Chávez, Correa, Evo Morales. ... He went to the left." In other words, Micheletti is using the same tactics of "guilt by association" that his AUC allies use to justify their violence, only this time the "guilt" consists of association with other popular, democratically elected heads of state in the region. Nevertheless, the message and the effect are still the same: If you oppose us, and what we stand for, we will take you down with force.