Recent events in Honduras

With little fanfare Zelaya has already left Honduras for the Dominican Republic where he will no doubt fade into oblivion. Meanwhile the US is quietly applauding the success of the coup leaders in waiting out the clock and carrying out presidential elections. Micheletti has been made a legislator for life and the military has been given amnesty. As the article below illustrates the US has obviously accepted the election as legitimate even though Zelaya was never restored and Micheletti never resigned! No doubt the US will soon restore full aid to the regime and full military co-operation. This is from this site.


The Puppet Master Pulls The Strings
If there was any doubt that the United States is orchestrating the political choreography going on in Honduras right now, it should be put to rest. Arturo Valenzuela, representing the United States at Porfirio Lobo Sosa's inauguration, told the press today that the United States has not made any decision about restoring aid to Honduras yet. "We haven't made any determinations yet," said Valenzuela. "The new president of Honduras has taken the country in the right direction," Valenzuela added after Lobo Sosa talked both about establishing a government of reconciliation, and establishing a truth commission in his first 100 days in office, both of which Valenzuela called "essential elements" to the restoration of democratic order in Honduras. "Things are moving pretty much in the right direction."

US Ambassador to Honduras meets Zelaya

This issue has gone completely off the press radar at least the anglophone press. Zelaya achieved absolutely nothing and the coup govt got absolutely everything they wanted. No word though about what the aid situation is. I expect the aid that was stopped has begun flowing from the US already. Many Latin American countries may not recognise the new elected president although we will see what happens. The US is no doubt happy except that it would like to do something to ensure that more countries recognise the new government. Of course countries such as Colombia , Panama and Costa Rica will do so. Costa Rica's recognition is sort of a bad joke since Micheletti snubbed and undercut Arias at every turn but then Arias no doubt is getting some goodies from the US for being such a nice guy! This is from presstv.

US Amb. meets Zelaya at Brazil embassy
Sun, 20 Dec 2009 14:05:00 GMT
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FWashington Ambassador to coup-hit Honduras Hugo Llorens has met with ousted leader Manuel Zelaya at the Brazilian Embassy in a bid to settle the political crisis in the Central American nation.

"Hugo Llorens came to the embassy and told Zelaya he would travel to the United States for Christmas. Steps to resolve the crisis will follow," AFP quoted Zelaya's advisor Rasel Tome as saying on Sunday.

"Efforts are ongoing at the Central American level and in the Dominican Republican for a dialogue in a neutral environment."

Zelaya, the constitutional president, was removed from power by his own army in a bloodless coup on June 28, and was subsequently sent into exile.

He secretly returned to his country in September and sought refuge at the Brazilian embassy in the capital Tegucigalpa.

Numerous rounds of talks failed to restore Zelaya to serve the remainder of his term and the nation went to polls to elect a new president on November 29, while coup leader Roberto Micheletti served as interim head of state.

Llorens had earlier praised the presidential election but had described it as 'not enough'.

"It is important to work looking ahead on the implementation of Tegucigalpa-San Jose Agreement, which it also makes a path, together with the elections, to solve this problem and bring the reconciliation of the Honduran people," Llorens told the press, Xinhua reported.

Initially Washington was in favor of Zelaya's reinstatement before the November vote. However, US support for the ousted leader cooled down with the White House insisting that Zelaya's restitution is an internal matter.

RB/MMN

Honduras: Zelaya meeting in Dominican Republic Cancelled

Again the Micheletti government simply keeps to the same position it has held since the whole farcical negotiation process started and it has ultimately won at every step. It has no reason to give an inch now because it knows that Obama will do nothing. He has retreated all along. The sticking point now is that in order for Zelaya to go anywhere to meet anyone he must recognise the coup govt. in order to get safe passage. This of course would mean he relinquishes any claim to be president so of course he refuses.
The only possible negotiated way out now is for Zelaya to meet with the president elect Lobo Sosa in order to work something out. This meeting could take place in the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa. However, Sosa himself may have limited power over the actions of Micheletti and he also belongs to the main opposing political party to that of Micheletti. This is from this site.



Dominican Meeting Cancelled
Porfirio Lobo Sosa and Manuel Zelaya Rosales will not meet in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic on Monday. Both Zelaya and Fernandez pronounced the effort dead. Fernandez said the de facto government of Roberto Micheletti placed too many obstacles to obtaining the safe conduct for Zelaya. The Dominican government issued a communique which read in part:

"The willingness to begin dialogue this week was reiterated by President Fernandez, as much as by Zelaya and the candidate elect, but the de facto government insists on conditioning Zelaya's leaving the Brazilian Embassy as political asylum."
Yesterday, a spokesperson for Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom, announced that if the de facto government issued a safe conduct for Zelaya to meet with Lobo, then Guatemala, which up to now has rejected the elections in Honduras, would recognize Lobo Sosa as "the legitimate president of Honduras." The spokesperson alluded to the possibility that other countries would also make this concession if the safe conduct was forthcoming.

Still, the de facto government announced yesterday that Zelaya was free to seek "territorial political asylum" but that it could not be in any Central American country, and he would first have to sign a piece of paper acknowledging, among other things, that Congress had removed him from office. Milton Mateo, a spokesperson for the de facto Foreign Minister, Carlos Lopez Contreras, told the AP that:

"It has been decided at the highest level of government: it will be a territorial asylum and cannot be in any country touching on Honduras, that is in Central America."
The reason they want him to seek political asylum is that under the Caracas Convention of 1954, someone seeking territorial asylum cannot involve themselves in confrontations with the government in their home country. This would remove Zelaya as a "threat" to the de facto government and let them get their propaganda out.


Peruvian President Alain Garcia immediately suggested that Lobo meet with Zelaya in the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa.

"Lobo should talk with Zelaya to find out what terms Zelaya would accept for a recuperation of his political dignity, or at least to give the impression that he knows how to dialogue. To turn your back on him is less democratic"

Meanwhile, Porfirio Lobo Sosa, returned to Honduras after visiting the United States. He announced, on return, that he would establish the truth commission called for the the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord, during the first quarter of 2010, as the Accord requires.

In a surprise move, Ricardo Maduro, former president of Honduras, called on Congress to declare a general amnesty for political crimes, including those committed by Zelaya and Micheletti.

"Its a tragedy to leave open the wound, in the sense that constitutional violations can be used by any future government to reopen this wound, to re-separate the Hondurans, and to use it for political persecution, be it against President Zelaya or against President Micheletti and theirs, it appears to me that we need to close now this wound."
He called on Congress to do it now.

Zelaya to exit Honduras?

The coup leaders have in effect achieved a great victory. It seems evident that the US will recognise the recent elections and Zelaya has been left out in the cold or at least sitting surrounded in the Brazilian embassy. No doubt Brazil would like to see him find a new home. At first it seemed as if Zelaya would go to Mexico but again it was all a trick to get Zelaya to recognise the legitimacy of the Micheletti regime and renounce any claim to be president. Of course Zelaya refused. This is from this site.


Thursday, December 10, 2009
Roadblock
The chaos of information surrounding the trip Manuel Zelaya planned to take to Mexico has settled, and the story is now fairly clear. It is true that Mexico offered, and both Manuel Zelaya and the de facto government of Honduras initially accepted, that Zelaya would leave the Brazilian embassy with a safe conduct (solicited by Mexico, not Zelaya) and then reside in Mexico as an honored guest for some period of time.

Why it fell apart is instructive. It fell apart because Zelaya would not sign a declaration authored by the de facto government. Carlos Lopez Contreras, the de facto Foreign Minister, said

"There was an understanding that Zelaya would subscribe to a declaration...that he respected the Guaymuras pact, and respected in a like manner, the decision of the National Congress in the sense that it confirmed the end of his mandate."
They want Manuel Zelaya to recognize their authority and give up his claims to authority, to give them legitimacy. He shouldn't, and he won't. As he said last night,

"I could be here 10 years, I have my guitar."
Indeed, he played his guitar for those listening to Radio Globo last evening.

Why is this a roadblock? Porfirio Lobo was given homework by Oscar Arias and Ricardo Martinelli on Tuesday, which included getting Roberto Micheletti to step aside, since it will be fatal to Lobo's case for international recognition for Micheletti to be the one handing over power. Micheletti has more than once said he won't resign until and unless Zelaya also renounces as president. Stalemate.

Recent News on Honduras Accord and Elections

You will find almost nothing of this detail in any of the mass media. In fact the most you are likely to find anywhere is just a bald byte that the Honduran Congress says no to the re-instatement of Zelaya. Actually what they did was to pass a motion that again ratified the transition to the govt. of Micheletti. So in effect they have used the Accord brokered by the US to legitimise the coup government. Rather surprisingly the US actually objects and even maintains that Zelaya is the legitimate president. However, they will no doubt do nothing to upset the status quo in which the coup continues and again a unity govt. will be formed without the participation of Zelaya. Perhaps the US hopes to rope Zelaya in to some other face saving farce that will provide a fig leaf for the recognition of the coup government. This material is from this site.


Thursday, December 3, 2009
"Disappointing" vote by Congress "broke" Accord
The Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord committed both the faction of Roberto Micheletti and the legally elected president of Honduras, José Manuel Zelaya Rosales, to a series of steps that, as has been noted at length here and elsewhere, was fatally flawed by the lack of a sufficiently clear timeline and an undefined mechanism for the formation of the expected "unity" government.

The US government, after it committed itself to recognizing the outcome of the election whether or not Zelaya was restored by the proposed vote in the Honduran Congress, has been held awkwardly to the transparent fiction that the Accord never was intended to imply a vote on Zelaya's restitution had to take place before the elections.

So immediately after the election, the Honduran Congress chose, for whatever reason, not to vote on a straight motion whether or not to restore President Zelaya, but rather, decided to turn the clock back to June 28 and re-enact the passage of the decree through which they claimed to install Roberto Micheletti as replacement president.

Where does that leave things?

Speaking for the US, Arturo Valenzuela said

We're disappointed by this decision since the United States had hoped that Congress would have approved [Zelaya's] return.
He also, remarkably, reiterated that the US continues

to accept President Zelaya as the democratically elected and legitimate leader of Honduras
and that

the status quo remains unacceptable.
In response to questioning after Valenzuela's statement, unnamed Senior Administration Officials expanded on this theme, noting that the November 29 voting

we have always felt, was an important step to the solution of the problems of Honduras, but not a sufficient one, because the restoration of the democratic and constitutional order had to go by additional measures... [emphasis added]

These "additional measures" explicitly included

this vote that the Congress was supposed to take on the restoration of Zelaya...[emphasis added]

Translation: the US expected a different vote than the one they got. What kind of vote? well, I am glad you asked:

That's why we were disappointed. And the fact that the Congress, in fact, did not vote President Zelaya back into office...
And about the unacceptable status quo, the same unnamed officials said

the absence of democratic and constitutional order is the unacceptable status quo
and

we continue to accept President Zelaya as the democratically elected president of Honduras.
For his part, Ricardo Lagos, the former Chilean president who had the bad experience of being part of the all-too-briefly functional "verification" commission, went further. As reported in El Universal of Venezuela, speaking on CNN En Español Lagos said

the refusal of the Honduran Congress to restore the overthrown president Manuel Zelaya "breaks" the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord and will make international recognition "more difficult"
Lagos puts the blame for the breaking of the accord squarely on the de facto regime and the Honduran Congress:

The decision "finishes breaking the accord between the (interim) government and Zelaya..it began to be broken [when] one of the parties thought that he could constitute [the unity government]" in a unilateral form...in reference to the regime of Roberto Micheletti.
Most important, in this interview, Lagos said that

in his reading, the vote on the part of Congress about the situation of Zelaya foressen in the Tegucigalpa Accord carried "implicitly" an "elegant form to restore" the overthrown official.
Or to put it another way: Lagos, like most readers, thought the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord called for a vote on restoring Zelaya as a way to give Congress a face-saving means to redress their original actions.

So, the US and Lagos are in harmony and both consider what the Congress did an unfortunate, even disappointing, waste of the opportunity provided in the Accord. Right?

Well, not so fast. The US manages to add yet another twist to its already contorted position. Valenzuela added to the remarks quoted above the qualification that

the decision taken by Congress, which it carried out in an open and transparent manner, was in accordance with its mandate in Article 5 of the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord.
Let us pause to think about the implications here.

The US does not recognize the coup of June 28 as legitimate, and continues to consider Manuel Zelaya the only legitimate president of Honduras (while looking wistfully ahead to the end of January and a new inauguration as their new solution).

Yet the framework now transparently identifiable as forged by the US-- despite the thin veil of Costa Rican mediation cast over it by the use of Oscar Arias as a conduit-- has had one real result: it gave the Honduran legislature a chance to reaffirm the very same unconstitutional actions whose outcoes the US says it still does not recognize.

Quite a powerful tool, that Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord: it apparently cleanses constitutional rupture and makes it something the international community has to accept-- because it was transparent.

But then, so were the events of June 28. They were transparently a coup d'etat.

Yet, the US argues that the exact same decree that was illegitimate on June 28 is legitimate in December because it was enacted in response to the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord.

What a powerful thing that Accord turned out to be: it supercedes the Constitution of Honduras and whitewashes a universally condemned coup.
Posted by RAJ at 7:55 PM 10 comments Links to this post
Labels: Arturo Valenzuela, Congreso Nacional, Honduras coup, José Manuel Zelaya Rosales, Ricardo Lagos, Tegucigalpa/San Jose Accord

Brazil, Venezuela condemn Honduras vote result.

No doubt many other countries will for the time being also refuse to recognise the result. The Honduran Congress is to consider today whether to re-instate Zelaya a part of the deal brokered by the US. But the deal is already dead and I expect that the Congress will follow the line of the Supreme Court and consider the reinstatement illegal. It really makes little difference since Zelaya said he would not agree to be reinstated at this stage. But one never knows, perhaps Zelaya might agree that some symbolic move is the best available to him now. However, Micheletti has won it would seem and probably sees no need to accomodate anyone. The US is on his side and that is all that matters over the longer run. This is from presstv.


Brazil, Venezuela condemn Honduras vote result



Brazil and Venezuela have condemned the result of the Honduran presidential election after a military coup ousted President Manuel Zelaya.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Sunday that failure to oppose the move could encourage other adventurers to stage coups in Latin America.

"If the countries that can ... make gestures do not do so, we do not know where else there could be a coup," Lula said.

Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said earlier on Thursday that Brazil would not recognize the disputed election as that would be paramount to legitimizing the coup.

Meanwhile, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a close ally of Zelaya, called the vote an 'electoral farce'.

Zelaya has been residing at the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa since his return to the country from exile in September.

The ousted leader told his supporters to boycott the election and said the winner would not be a true president.

"He is going to be a very weak leader without recognition from the people and most countries," Zelaya told Reuters.

During the election on Sunday, police fired tear gas and used water cannons on Zelaya's supporters, wounding some and arresting many others. Angry protesters rejected the election result, claiming that about 75 percent of the electorate failed to participate in the vote.

Honduras' conservative opposition National Party said on Sunday that its candidate Porfirio Lobo won the election.

Blog report from Honduras

This is a report from someone in Honduras looking at events from the viewpoint of a supporter of the opposition to the coup. We will get quite different accounts from the mainstream media who have not been following events for the most part. Now the elections have been held with limited disruption and there will be vastly different claims about the turnout! However, the restrictions on campaigning and the law against recommending a boycott will not be mentioned nor the fact that not only the independent candidate for president withdrew but many others running for other positions. However, with the US accepting the results and some its allies, things will return to normal, and the repression of opposition groups can continue with continued lack of coverage by mainstream media. After all, it was not Ahmadinejad who was elected but a wealthy conservative rancher who will not betray his own class or the US investors in Honduras. Repression under those auspices is simply normal.


Honduras: everything is fine, haven't you heard?
posted by Tyler Shipley -It was a relatively quiet day in Tegucigalpa. Terror will do that.

Oh, there were people in the streets – protestors filled the square in front of the Congreso, for the 103rd consecutive day. Organizers in the Frente Popular de Resistencia met to determine what they would do about the pending pantomime elections. Leaders of the five main human rights groups in Honduras delivered an official denunciation of the coup elections to the Tribunal Supremo Electoral (TSE). The Movimiento de Mujares Visitacion Padilla, a feminist organization associated with the Resistance, amassed a crowd of many dozens of courageous women to demonstrate outside a police station where one of their leaders had been detained overnight.

Merlin Equiqure, one of the founders of a feminist movement that has been on the front lines of the coup resistance in spite of a powerfully patriarchal social structure, remains under arrest tonight without the possibility of bail - why? Because she was caught with a can of spray paint. The paint was used – as photo evidence has clearly demonstrated – to decorate placards and props for a piece of street theatre the group put together for the international day against violence against women. Her organization, in collaboration with the growing feminist movement in Honduras, has been tirelessly denouncing the fact that women have been particularly victimized under the coup regime – a pamphlet from a related organization wrote, “we are victims of sexual abuse, they beat our breasts, hips, buttocks and vulva; they put batons in our crotch, they threaten us with rape and other types of sexual aggression in a clear demonstration of contempt of this society towards the body and the integrity of women.” Merlin’s group, named after a famous woman who struggled for women’s rights in the 1920s, is made up of over 6000 predominantly young women – some of the women I spoke to this morning were teenagers - demonstrating courage I could never dream of exhibiting myself. In a piece of tragic absurdity that brought me to tears, one of their community leaders is now facing a trumped up prison sentence where she will likely face the very same sexualized violence that she has been so tirelessly fought to expose and denounce.

But women’s bodies are not only being used by the golpistas as objects for desecration and humiliation in prison cells; they are simultaneously being used to woo the smug gringos who have breezed into town to ‘supervise’ the farce elections this weekend. A cocktail party was held this evening at the Mayan Hotel for the representatives of NDI and IRI (elections-observation organizations linked to the Democratic and Republican parties in the US, respectively) and other observers cobbled together from the far-reaches of the Latin American Right (including Armando Calderon Sol, former president of El Salvador.) As they toasted to the great strides that Honduras was making towards a stronger democratic republic, they were entertained by 14- and 15-year old Mayan girls, dancing in sexualized traditional dresses, much to the delight of the overwhelmingly male ‘champions of democracy.’

I suppose it is possible that the American elections observers believe that this farce is a legitimate election. If the individual I spoke to two days ago was any indication, they clearly have very little knowledge of Honduran history; normally, at this point in an election campaign, there truly would be a ‘fiesta.’ Supporters of the two primary parties would be waving red or blue flags, encouraging people to support their candidate, and arguing in taxis over who was best suited to run the country. This year, the flag vendors walking from car-to-car are ignored. This afternoon, Pepe Lobo, the election frontrunner, held a rally in the Colonia Kennedy and paid people 200 lempiras each to attend. Even with the financial incentive, it was a feeble rally. Perhaps it is because, as a taxi driver explained to me this morning, “in July, they were paying people 500 lempiras to attend the white marches. Then they dropped it to 300 and now it is 200. I can make more driving my taxi.”

In front of the Congreso, the daily protests continue but they, too, are smaller than usual. For a movement that once pulled hundreds of thousands of people to its demonstrations - the protests in Tegucigalpa were the largest sustained demonstrations Central America has ever seen - the fact that only a few hundred are still in front of Micheletti’s new office is a sign that the repression is working. If our daily conversations in taxis and stores and street corners are any indication, there are very few people who support the coup outside of those closely connected to the oligarchy, but this is a resistance that is exhausted and unnerved. Leaders keep getting detained or disappeared. Military watch our every move from rooftops. Rumours of tanks mobilizing for the weekend charade are convincing the peaceful and unarmed resistance that the massive marches of the past months may not be viable in this moment.

On a personal note, I find myself increasingly conscious of a certain inevitability about the way things will play out here, in the short term. Barring some unanticipated violent insurrection, Sunday’s pantomime will likely play itself out quietly – the Frente has strongly encouraged people to stay home and stay safe - and one of the oligarchs will be crowned President, albeit with a very low voter turnout. While it is obvious to most people here that the elections are a mockery of democracy and that Honduras has essentially become a dictatorship, it is equally obvious that the United States will recognize the results of this sham as legitimate. On that note, it is truly impossible to adequately describe the level of disrespect and derision with which the NDI and IRI ‘elections observers’ have shown to the people of Honduras.

A small but illustrative example: I stood this afternoon with some of those gringo observers in suits as they walked with their military escort into the TSE building, laughing in mockery at the gathering of the five most prominent human rights organizations in Honduras, whose meeting with TSE officials was delayed by 3 hours in order to accommodate the schedules of the U.S. observers. The observers refused to give interviews, laughed about the value of local money (“how many of these damn things do I need to get a decent cup of coffee”) and ridiculed the Resistance for not understanding that “no matter how it plays on TV, sometimes the bad guy really is the bad guy.”

They were referring, of course, to Manuel Zelaya, holed up in the Brazilian embassy. The fact that they focus the Resistance on him is proof-positive of their profound misunderstanding of the situation. Zelaya is but a figurehead – one who was generally viewed with suspicion and doubt in his three and a half years in office before the coup – for a movement that has its roots in trade unions, women’s organizations, student activism, human rights advocacy, campesino groups, indigenous struggles and countless other grassroots social movements that have been built up over many decades and have come together in the wake of this assault on their already-flawed democratic system.

What neither the arrogant gringos nor the foolish golpistas recognize is that nothing is fine in Honduras. No matter how emphatically Barack Obama can say ‘yes,’ Hondurans have already said ‘no.’ No to sham elections. No to violence against women. No to police and military repression. No to unrelenting poverty. No to North American imperialism and local comprador oligarchs. No to an unfair and easily manipulated constitution. No a la reforma – si a la revolucion. I came to Honduras to experience what seemed like the climax of a story – I have discovered that it is only the beginning of what will likely be a long and hard struggle for true justice, peace and democracy.

>> Tyler Shipley's blog

The Lobo victory in Honduras

Another wealthy rancher is president of Honduras but presumably this one has enough sense not to alienate fellow members of the elite by raising the minimum wage etc. While as the article mentions many countries will still shun Honduras they can rest easy in that the US and its allies do recognise the elections and will soon declare that everything is on the up and up and the aid pipeline will be turned back on and also the military co-operation. The US never did withdraw troops or even its ambassador. The entire negotiations were a complete fraud. The negotiations were supposed to negotiate the return of Zelaya to the presidency but instead they negotiated the Micheletti plan of never allowing him to return and of legitimizing the presidential elections. This is the new smart diplomacy.

Victory declared in Honduras poll
November 30, 2009
By Rory Carroll

• Rancher Porfirio Lobo takes presidential election
• While some party, others vow to fight on for Zelaya

Within hours of the polls closing the celebrations began. Cavalcades of honking cars raced up and down Boulevard Morazan. The Hotel Maya filled with cheering people in blue T-shirts. The media fell into paroxysms of delight.

A wealthy rancher named Porfirio Lobo had just won Honduras's presidential election, heralding a "democratic fiesta". By dawn today the revellers were heading home, perhaps stopping for breakfast at one of Tegucigalpa's myriad Pizza Huts, Burger Kings and Wendy's.

"This is a wonderful day. The country has regained its equilibrium," beamed Ana Gomez, 29. After days of grey skies even the tropical sunshine returned.

But not everyone was minded to party. Honduras is in crisis: internationally isolated, shunned by investors and aid agencies. The president ousted in a June coup, Manuel Zelaya, is besieged in the Brazilian embassy, the compound ringed by barbed wire, police and soldiers. "These elections are illegitimate," he said.

Foreign governments lined up to condemn the vote as a whitewash. Many boycotted it and vowed "continued resistance". The homeless children who sleep on rubbish dumps in Tegucigalpa's slums were too hungry or high on glue to care.

How did it come to this? How did a sleepy central American backwater known for coffee and Maya ruins become a dangerously polarised international pariah?

Miguel Alonzo, sifting through the debris of his office, had an answer. "We are run by an oligarchy, that's how." The root of the crisis, he said, was the fact that an elite made up of little more than 10 families runs Honduras. "They control the economy and they control politics."

On Saturday Alonzo's civic association, Comal, paid the price of backing Zelaya's boycott campaign. Police and soldiers stormed the office and carted away computers, cash and documents. They said they were looking for weapons.

That, and the violent crackdowns on pro-Zelaya rallies, seemed anachronistic. Latin America had supposedly left repression behind in the 1980s and embraced progressive democratic governments.

"Honduras is different!" Roberto Micheletti, the de facto president, boasted last week. He was talking about its defiance of international pressure to restore Zelaya to power, but was right in other ways. From the late 19th century Honduras was turned into a giant banana plantation by US fruit corporations. They dominated the economy and made and broke governments. US marines intervened in central America more than 30 times, and in Honduras seven times, between 1900 and 1934. The US supported friendly despots on and off until 1981, when democracy replaced military rule. Power alternated between the National and Liberal parties, but an Americanised conservative elite pulled the strings.

The 10 most powerful families, many descended from Palestinian and Jewish immigrants, dominate banking, insurance, manufacturing, telecommunications and media, including TV and newspapers.

Half the population of 7.6 million still lives on less than $2 a day. "Hondurans are not being well served by their institutions," Julia Sweig of the Council on Foreign Relations thinktank said with understatement. Slums such as Cementerio, a fetid sprawl of shacks with human scavengers and mangy dogs, resemble a Hogarth sketch. Armed gangs make it one of the deadliest places in Latin America.

Unlike the rest of central America, however, during the cold war no leftist insurgency arose in Honduras, a placidness which neighbours mocked as doziness.

Zelaya changed that. Elected in 2005, he was an improbable revolutionary. A wealthy logger and part of the ruling elite, in 2007 he veered left and embraced Venezuela's socialist president, Hugo Chávez. An ideological conversion or tactical ploy, depending who you ask.

Mel, as he is universally known, lowered school fees and raised the minimum wage. The implementation was clumsy and in some cases backfired, costing jobs, but the poor embraced Zelaya.

The constitution constrained him: to avoid lapsing back into authoritarian rule Honduras limited the executive to one term. It was the "world's worst constitution", according to Costa Rica's president, Óscar Arias. Zelaya tried to change it by holding a non-binding referendum in June. The elite and middle class, already alarmed by the president's leftist shift, revolted. "He was going to perpetuate himself in power, just like Chávez, we had to stop him," said Romero Alguilera, owner of a taxi fleet.

With the blessing of congress, the supreme court and Zelaya's own party, masked soldiers seized and exiled him on 28 June. The world condemned the coup – even the Obama administration, which had no love for a Chávez ally. Governments withdrew ambassadors, aid was frozen and investment evaporated. The de facto rulers seemed unaware that coups were no longer acceptable: the US resisted full-blown sanctions but cut aid and visas for the elite.

The 10 families, with Micheletti as their frontman, fought back. They hired Washington lobbyists to woo Republicans and Democrats. The tactic was to run down the clock until Sunday's election, intended to cement Zelaya's loss of power.

The authorities closed pro-Zelaya media and curbed civil liberties. Security forces snuffed out protests with teargas, clubs and in some cases live rounds, leaving hundreds injured and several dead.

Zelaya sneaked back into the country in September but failed to rally mass support. Local media, controlled by the ruling elite, ran false stories that Cubans, Iranians and Venezuelans were hiding in the Brazilian embassy. One newspaper even reported there were Martians.

"Resistance" rallies dwindled and the ubiquitous grafitti – "Mel is coming!" – looked ever more wishful. As the elections loomed, the White House broke ranks with the region and hinted it would recognise the result, emboldening Costa Rica, Panama, Peru and Colombia to follow suit. Canada and the EU are expected to do the same.

Lobo, the president-elect, ran on a slogan of change, but the well-heeled revellers in the Hotel Maya spoke of equilibrium restored. "Things will get back to normal," smiled Luis Gomez, a business graduate. Honduran normal, that is.

The predictable US response to Honduran vote.

There will be inflated reports about turnout and no mention of the withdrawal of the independent candidate. No doubt the Honduran Congress will now be emboldened to not ratify the agreement that would return Zelaya to power. The agreement has long been dead anyway since the Zelaya side interpreted it as involving the Congress voting before the election to restore him and then a unity government would be formed. Micheletti delayed the vote until after the election and had no intention ever of reinstating Zelaya. The US went along with this circus. The US will be able to dragoon a few allies in Latin America to join in recognising the results and over time no doubt others will cave in as well but there will be a lasting rancorous relationship between the US and many Latin American countries at this diplomatic farce on the part of the US. This is from hondurascoup.

Monday, November 30, 2009
State's Rich Fantasy Life
The US State Department has weighed in on the election results in Honduras this morning, and indeed there are no surprises here.



Honduran Election

Ian Kelly
Department Spokesman
Washington, DC
November 29, 2009

We commend the Honduran people for peacefully exercising their democratic right to select their leaders in an electoral process that began over a year ago, well before the June 28 coup d'etat. Turnout appears to have exceeded that of the last presidential election. This shows that given the opportunity to express themselves, the Honduran people have viewed the election as an important part of the solution to the political crisis in their country.


Except that the turnout appears not to have exceeded the turnout in 2005, according to the TSE's own firm hired to make the statistical projections and do exit polling. They report a turnout of 47.6% versus the TSE's claim of a 61.3% turnout. Their report has a 2% confidence interval (accurate at 98% level) whereas the TSE's claim is just an assertion, with no numbers presented to back it up. Both sets of results were presented at the 10 pm TSE press conference, but notice who the State Department decided to listen to.

The Honduran people overwhelmingly expressed themselves. Forced democracy where they could not choose candidates who represented them was not the solution for them. It was status-quo or "no go" and they didn't go in droves, despite the State Department's blind eye. Anyone who thinks the election resolved anything in Honduras is naive.


We look forward to continuing to work with all Hondurans and encourage others in the Americas to follow the lead of the Honduran people in helping advance national reconciliation and the implementation of the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord. Significant work remains to be done to restore democratic and constitutional order in Honduras, but today the Honduran people took a necessary and important step forward.
One wonders what fantasy world the State Department lives in that the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord will ever be implemented. I hate to tell you, but its dead. The ink wasn't even dry on the signatures when Thomas Shannon publicly agreed to recognize the results of the elections no matter what, nailing its coffin shut. You've made half-hearted efforts to resurrected it, but you're not Merlin. Its not going to come back to life.

So what's the likely US policy going forward? We've now recognized the sham election where exit polling suggests that fewer than half of the electorate actually participated. If the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord is dead and buried, as I contend, then I can only see the State Department returning to its practical, unprincipled stand, exemplified by Lew Anselem's comments on the elections, and a swift return to the status quo, a complete white-wash and acceptance of a 21rst century coup by our government. What a sad bunch of politicians.
Posted by rns at 6:09 AM 0 comments Links to this post
Labels: elections, US State Department
Sunday, November 29, 2009
TSE announces 61.3% Participation; other estimates range lower
(Corrected at 8 AM EST) The Tribunal Supremo Electoral (TSE) headed by Saul Escobar, reported in national broadcast at 10:00 pm, that turnout was 61.3%. He also reported they had preliminary, unaudited, results, from about 8,600 polling places (out of 15,300), that they had counted 1.7 million votes for all offices so far.

However, these were unaudited results because the system they had set up to verify the numbers transmitted by cell phone, which appears to have been to make a digital recording of the call, failed, so they have not been able to check that the numbers digitized and entered into the vote counting computers matched the numbers called in by the various polling places.

The TSE is spinning this turnout as just what you would expect given the recent trends, which they said was in line with a 6% per election decline in each of the last several elections, even though this is a supposed increase.

Already, La Prensa reports in their Minute by Minute column a turnout of 61.3 % which would be an increase, not a decrease, from the previous election. This would lead one to expect approximately 2.8 million votes.

So, what does this mean in terms of legitimacy of the election and effectiveness of the call for boycott by the Frente de Resistencia? Even by the TSE's numbers, which are unaudited and preliminary, and don't match with press reports, that's a 38.7% abstention rate.

The TSE had hired a polling firm to do exit polling. They presented a report the TSE conference as well. They sampled 1000 polling places (of the 15300) and reported only a 47.6% participation rate (at a 98% confidence level). This report is more in line with what the Frente de Resistencia. The polling firm further reported they saw a 7% decline in voting over 2005. The results reported by the TSE are based on their sample precincts.

Thus we can expect a great deal of interpretation being projected into the void.

El Tiempo, in a story projecting Pepe Lobo as winner, reported that the TSE had counted 570,954 votes from 4159 polling places "selected strategically to have the tendency in all the country". This is a sample of 27.2% of the planned polling places. While it would not scale directly (since other polling places could have larger numbers of voters) it is curious to see 1/3 of the polls yield only 500,000 votes, and still have claims for 62% turnout, which would project 2.8 million votes overall.

This would be implied by the turnout estimate Bloomberg reports, citing TSE magistrate Danny Matamoros (although it is unclear when Matamoros made this statement, whether before the 10 PM announcement over radio that we report on here, or after). Matamoros is widely quoted as claiming long lines of voters led to the indelible ink running out, which makes him seem rather invested in portraying this as a huge electoral turnout. As in most elections, we are likely to need to wait sometime for official figures, and meanwhile, unofficial claims will likely be taken up and repeated as if they were established facts.

The next thing to watch for are reports of the differences between votes cast and valid votes, to detect any effect from deliberate null voting.

For now, if the TSE projection reported at 10 PM can be taken at face value, there was no massive turnout of Honduran voters yearning to use the ballot box to move beyond the coup. At best, there was a continuation of the long-established gradual discouragement of eligible voters about the worth of voting, which we have previously suggested is itself a kind of unorganized protest against elected government.

But it is also reasonable to propose that there was a measurable effect from the campaign to boycott the vote, whether we use Boz's numbers (and say that about 100,000 voters stayed home in protest) or suggest a different target number would have been reasonable in such a politicized election year.

That the results would favor Porfirio Lobo was never in question. The actual numbers are unvailable on the TSE website as of 8 am this morning, and the website for vitural observers that gave access to the cameras, is not broadcasting images of the count.

So much for the TSE's promise that they had a triple backup system that would prevent any delays in delivering the results
RNS and RAJ

Honduran sham election.

This article is interesting in that it not only gives a history of the coup negotiations recently but also notes some of the splits within those who support the coup. The parts about the military are particularly frightening. It remains to be seen if anything such as descrribed really happens. In the US there is virtually no discussion of the issues and the whole Honduran farce is off the radar of mainstream media. The article should have mentioned that the US brokered agreement was quite vague and had no timetable for a decision to be made by congress on Zelaya's re-instatement but of course it was understood that it would be before the formation of a unity government and the the Honduran Congress would simplify ratify the agreement. If it did not do this then the agreement would be null and void. But Micheletti stalled and now the congress will not meet until after the elections and also an opinion has been received from the Supreme Court that Zelaya cannot be legally re-instated. This whole affair has shown the US to be just as it was under Bush as far as Latin American policy is concerned just the rhetoric has changed but the reality remains the same as reactionaries such as Jim Demint are able to force the Obama administrations hand and get them to recognise the coup elections. Of course this may have been what the Obama administration wanted anyway.

Honduras en lucha!


Honduras' sham election
Shaun Joseph analyzes the upcoming elections in Honduras--a sham vote orchestrated by the coup regime after it broke its commitment to restore Manuel Zelaya.

November 24, 2009



JUST OVER five months since the June 28 coup d'etat against Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, elections scheduled for November 29 will complete the current phase of the struggle over Honduras' future--but only by opening another, perhaps darker, period.

A "peaceful" resolution to the Honduran drama was widely expected after October 30, when U.S. negotiators brokered the Tegucigalpa/San José Accords between representatives Zelaya and the golpista (coup-maker) government headed by Roberto Micheletti.

But Washington's hands-off behavior in the following week allowed Micheletti to break the agreement by unilaterally announcing the formation of a "unity government," headed by himself, while the golpista-controlled Congress deliberately dithered on the question of restoring Zelaya to office, which was the prime condition of the opposition to the coup regime to recognize the elections.

Although the Accords are obviously in tatters--members of the "unity government" aren't even known, nearly three weeks after they were supposed to be installed--the U.S. insists on acting as if everything is still going according to plan. This is because the agreement, were it not a fiction, would legitimize the upcoming elections and lead to the normalization of Honduras' international relations, which is important for North American corporations, especially in the fruit, textile and mining sectors.


For more on the situation in Honduras, Spanish speakers can find live streaming video from the Venezuelan TV station TeleSur. The Honduran TV network Cholusat Sur and radio station Radio Globo also provide live streams, although both are frequently pulled off the air by the golpistas.

English speakers can find frequent updates at the excellent Honduras Oye!, Honduras Coup 2009, Honduras Resists and Quotha.

The Facebook page Miguel and Shaun in Honduras also posts frequent updates from a variety of sources in both languages.


Although the concessions to Zelaya--which were actually minor and largely symbolic--have been voided by the golpistas, the U.S. wants to retain the provisions dear to its own capitalist interests.

But while the U.S. plans to recognize the November 29 elections, it has so far found no other country willing to join it, at least publicly. On the contrary, a number of Latin American countries have openly stated that they won't recognize elections carried out under the golpista dictatorship. These countries include Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

It will be difficult for the U.S. to carry any Latin American countries with its line, even traditional allies. Not only is Latin American popular opinion solidly opposed to the Honduras coup, but a section of the region's elite also understands the toppling of Zelaya as an attack on attempts to build capitalist links independent of U.S. imperialism. The Organization of American States (OAS), traditionally a U.S. instrument, has refused to send observers or provide technical assistance for the elections.

So the Obama administration--supposed advocates of "smart power" in contrast to the Bush presidency--have demonstrated their "smartness" by devising a diplomatic fiasco in Latin America much worse than anything its predecessor ever bumbled into.

Of course, U.S. imperialism's priorities of defending American power limit its prospects for success in any circumstance. But the Obama administration has cut a sorry figure, even on the tactical level.

The clearest statements on Obama's Honduras policy seem to be funneled through Republican senators: Jim DeMint of South Carolina was first to announce Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's promise to recognize the Honduran elections, regardless of Zelaya's status, and Richard Lugar of Indiana announced that the State Department would fund "election observation missions" organized by the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute (international fronts of the Democratic and Republican Parties, respectively).

In the meanwhile, the administration had no response to two letters from Zelaya himself, despite the fact that he is Honduras' legitimate head of state, according to every nation and international body in the world.

The Obama administration seems to think it can erase five months of dictatorship through a ready-to-order election. In reality, they are inviting a more severe crisis.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

THE CALL of the National Resistance Front Against the Coup d'Etat to boycott the coming elections has been widely taken up across Honduran civil society. A letter renouncing the elections signed by over 300 candidates was delivered by U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky to Obama, although the names haven't been released due to fear of reprisals from the golpista regime.

Among those known to have withdrawn from the vote are independent presidential candidate Carlos H. Reyes; Rodolfo Padilla Sunceri, the incumbent Liberal Party mayor of San Pedro Sula, Honduras' second city; Elvia Argentina Valle Villalta, the incumbent Liberal Congress deputy from Copán; and Margarita Zelaya de Elvir, the Liberals' vice presidential candidate. There have been resignations by candidates of all parties--including, incredibly, at least one from the center-right National Party.

Unfortunately, the leftist Democratic Unification Party (UD), which previously associated itself with the anti-coup resistance, made the astonishing decision to participate in the elections, affirmed a party conference on November 21.

UD claims that it doesn't want any offices vacated by its members to fall into golpista hands. But in the unlikely event that UD kept all its positions, or even gained more, its officials would have zero effect in a regime spawned by a military dictatorship.

To be sure, as the sole organized party of the left, UD would lose a great deal by withdrawing from the elections, as the party would certainly be stripped of its legal status. But now, UD will lose something far more precious: the respect of the most politically conscious militants in Honduras. (Some individual UD candidates have withdrawn from the vote.)

Naturally, the boycott question is forcing everyone in and around the anti-coup resistance to take sides. More surprising, however, is that the elections, instead of giving the oligarchy's leadership the opportunity to regroup and reorient, seem to be tearing them apart. The key fault lines lie between the two major parties on the one hand, and between the politicians and the military on the other.

Both Zelaya and Micheletti are members of the Liberal Party. After the coup, a "melista" (Zelaya-supporting) faction of the Liberals went over to the resistance, where it tended to constitute a more conservative, compromising wing of the grassroots opposition to the golpistas.

If the Accords had been implemented, the melistas would have been a natural bridge back to electoralism and rapprochement with the Liberal mainstream. In the face of golpista intransigence, though, the Liberal Party is now hopelessly split--its presidential candidate, Elvin Santos, is running a distant second to Porfirio "Pepe" Lobo of the National Party.

Unfortunately for Lobo, the fact that the elections will not be monitored by any credible organizations, but a motley crew of pro-coup kooks and flunkies, greatly increases the chances for fraud. Suspicious results could have the two golpista parties at each others' throats.

The second, perhaps graver, division is between the politicians and top military officers. As Andrés Pavón of the Honduran human rights organization CODEH said in a statement on November 14:

The military command feels profoundly nervous about the current situation they confront, as the politicians have left them alone for weeks, and [the commanders] have sniffed out, with good reason, the incapacity of the new government, which will be derived from the fraudulent electoral process, to completely protect them from the consequences of their criminal actions at the national and international levels.

No government in Honduras will willingly accept economic and diplomatic sanctions imposed on the country just to protect military officers from jail. So the military could become convenient scapegoats to calm cries for justice in the wake of the election.

Pavón says that inside sources leaked to him plans for a military provocation on November 29--with paramilitary units, disguised as a fictitious "Armed Command of the Resistance," committing a massacre. The massacre will then be used as justification for a campaign of terror against the National Resistance Front. The plan is said to have been devised by Gen. Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, head of the Honduran military and a graduate of the School of the Americas.

Pavón's credibility is impeccable, so it is likely that this heinous scheme is at least being discussed in military circles. The Front apparently considers it a serious threat and referred to the plot specifically in its most recent communiqué.

Indeed, there is a distinct possibility of a "coup within a coup," with the military taking direct power and demagogically blaming the politicians for the crisis. Micheletti's bizarre declaration that he intends to "absent [himself] from the exercising of [his] public functions" from November 25 to December 2 increases the chances of such a military seizure of power.

This would truly take Honduras back to the dark ages, turning the clock back further than even the golpistas intended.

Repression everywhere, plans for possible bloodbaths, rumors of coups, free speech trampled, an election that promises more violence than voting--and the U.S. government clings to the idea that the November 29 elections will be a step forward for stability and democracy!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY is critical--the resistance needs the time and political space to reorient itself for a new period in the struggle.

Simply exposing the plans for provocations can help defeat them, since they require some degree of secrecy to work. Activists in the U.S. should also agitate against recognition of whatever regime emerges after November 29, against special trade status for Honduras (such as membership in CAFTA), and against all international aid (including "humanitarian" aid that cannot be trusted to an anti-popular regime).

One remarkable victory for international solidarity came November 17, when Russell Athletic agreed to rehire 1,200 Honduran workers who had been fired after they formed a union at their factor. The victory was a result of a campaign by United Students Against Sweatshops, which got several universities to sever licensing deals with Russell and exposed the company's misdeeds at a series of public events. This should serve as an inspiration.

The stakes are much higher in the struggle over the coup. It involves not just an economic struggle in one factory, but the political class struggle nationally and internationally.

Still, for all its power, U.S. imperialism is isolated, exposed and discredited in Latin America today. An international resistance can win.


Fuente: socialistworker.org

Honduras election sets return to business as usual.

The article mentions little about the conditions under which the elections are taking place. It is a criminal offence to recommend boycotting the elections among other things and rallies can only be had with permission of the coup government. The US will no doubt recognise the elections no matter what. It seems that Senator Demint's agreement to allow the nomination of the ambassador to Brazil and of Arturo Valenzuela to go through was conditional upon the US recognising the Honduran presidential elections. This will put the US at odds with the Rio group. There is going to be more and more conflict between the US and many Latin American countries but with some such as Panama and Colombia seeking to ally themselves with the US. No doubt Honduras will also do so. Honduras was a springboard for anti-Sandinista operations funded by the US.
This article seems to think that there might be some accommodation between the new president and Zelaya but that seems unlikely although perhaps this might be useful in gaining recognition from other Latin American countries. This is from antiwar.com


Honduras election sets return to business as usual

Zelaya platform dead as Honduras presidential election marks return to business as usual

OLGA R. RODRIGUEZ
AP News

Nov 22, 2009 14:38 EST

The coup last summer in this tiny, Central American country blew up into an international incident, with thousands of Hondurans taking to the streets while everyone from Barack Obama to Fidel Castro lined up behind ousted President Manuel Zelaya.

Now, with Zelaya still holed up in the Brazilian Embassy, voters will choose a new president Nov. 29 from the political establishment that has dominated Honduras for decades.

No one is pushing the leftist agenda of the ousted leader, who said he was trying to lift a country where seven in 10 people are poor.

That's because Zelaya was disturbing a deeply conservative society that has long cherished peace and stability.

"It's a risk-averse culture," said Manuel Orozco, a Central America expert with the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue.

The months of turmoil as Zelaya pressed for his reinstatement, the negotiation and U.S. shuttle diplomacy are about to be overtaken by business as usual — Honduran style.

Even many of the poor who supported Zelaya as he aligned himself with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Latin America's new left say they will vote for conservative front-runner Porfirio Lobo, a 61-year-old wealthy businessman who is ahead by double digits in the polls.

"I will vote for the one who can fix this and give us work right now, because those suffering are the poor," said Reina Gomez, 53, a single mother who washes clothes for a living and who supported Zelaya in 2005.

Zelaya, a commanding figure whose standard uniform includes a white cowboy hat, was prohibited by the constitution from running for more than one term — even before the military whisked him out of the country at gunpoint in the June 28 coup.

His opponents said he wanted to follow in Chavez's footsteps and revise the constitution to extend his time in office. Zelaya denies any such intention.

Honduras has always been run by a handful of families who control the news media, economy and every power sphere from the military to the Supreme Court.

As many of Central America's conservative governments battled leftist insurgencies from the 1960s to the 1980s, Honduras had no civil war and served as a key staging area for U.S.-backed Contras fighting Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista government.

But in one of the Western Hemisphere's poorest nations, gaunt workers in torn shoes and worn clothing trudge from their hillside shanty towns past Tegucigalpa's gleaming shopping malls to work in garment factories or American fast food restaurants.

Most survive on $250 a month.

"Here the politicians don't appreciate the people. They promise you all kinds of things but one comes in and then the next, and things are still the same," said construction worker Mario Espinal, 52, whose work diminished by half when international loans were cut off in the political crisis.

Like his counterparts from Nicaragua to Ecuador, Zelaya began preaching reform that favored the poor. He raised the minimum wage by 60 percent and pulled in Venezuelan aid that included free tractors and $300 million a year for agricultural investment.

"President Zelaya gave us hope that the people of Honduras would finally be able to emancipate themselves from a group of oligarchs that have kept this country subjugated through a constitution that was shaped to protect their interests," said Andres Pavon, a human rights activist.

While many Hondurans want reform, they were reluctant to trust Zelaya, a wealthy rancher elected from one of the two major conservative parties.

Orozco notes that other Latin American leftist leaders — from Chavez to Bolivia's Evo Morales and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in Brazil — grew up poor. They also spent years building their grass-roots movements, while Zelaya — with support from a couple unions and student groups — started shooting from the hip late in his term.

Zelaya "belongs to the elite, and he chose to dismiss his own peers and paid the price for that," Orozco said. "Those leaders have a hard time communicating their message. They think that because you like the poor, the poor are going to like you."

According to the CID-Gallup Poll, Zelaya's job-approval rating dropped steadily from 2007 to just 38 percent in October 2008, though it had rebounded to 53 percent by February and has held steady around 50 percent since. But beyond the first week of his ouster, he had a hard time amassing large numbers of supporters demanding his return.

Meanwhile, the left in Honduras is divided into small parties with few resources — and without a charismatic leader to unite them into a movement strong enough to challenge the conservative stronghold.

Presidential front-runner Lobo, who lost to Zelaya in 2005, is campaigning on a return to normalcy and blames Zelaya's Liberal Party for thrusting the country into international turmoil. His main opponent is the Liberal Party's Elvin Santos, a construction magnate.

The U.S-brokered pact with the interim government of Roberto Micheletti leaves the decision to reinstate Zelaya with the Honduran Congress, which has yet to vote. Zelaya has said he would not return to the presidency if Congress votes to restore him after the elections because that would legitimize the coup. The new president chosen in next week's elections will not take office until January.

But some say Zelaya might have done just enough to awaken a leftist movement in Honduras — either led by him or someone else.

"I can see Lobo setting something up and smoothing over things with Zelaya because he wants to ensure Zelaya won't be a nuisance," said Heather Berkman of the Eurasia Group. "I don't think his political career is over. I can see him coming back in some shape or form."

______

Associated Press Writer Alexandra Olson in Mexico City contributed to this report.

State Department and Human Rights in Honduras

This is typical of the evasive doubletalk coming out of the Obama administration on Honduras. It seems clear that the administration wants the whole issue out of the news and will quietly recognise the results of the election and pressure other countries to do likewise. The media conveniently has forgotten all about Honduras.

This is posted on the site hondurascoup.


State Department Discovers Human Rights Concerns
On November 13, State Department spokesperson Ian Kelly was asked for US reaction to the Human Rights conditions in Honduras since the coup. He professed total ignorance of the reports issued by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and even the IACHR. Here's the exchange from the October 13 daily press briefing:

QUESTION: A follow-up on Honduras. What does the U.S. think about the human rights situation there right now? There have been mass arrests, curfews, an emergency decree, and a ban on protests and media closures for three weeks during the presidential campaign. Does that undermine the electoral process, in the view of the U.S.?

MR. KELLY: Regarding the – well, first of all, our real priority here is to see this accord implemented step by step. We’ve only gotten through step one, and we need step two and step three to be implemented.

Regarding the – these reports, I’m actually not aware of these reports of any actions to – you say ban rallies and – no, I’m not just aware of those reports. I think that we would need to have more details about it for us to really comment on it.

Just to remind you, the Minister of Security issued an administrative rule on October 21 that prohibited all public gatherings, be they birthday parties or political rallies, without prior notification and permission of the National Police. Executive decree 124-2009, published on October 5, enjoined the military to monitor radio and television broadcasts and to denounce those of "general abhorrence" to CONATEL so that their broadcast licenses can be revoked.

Today the State Department suddenly expressed Human Rights concerns about the situation in Honduras since the coup, and claimed they've always had these concerns.

It all started with a question about a Human Rights Watch report on conditions in Cuba. Kelly replied that "human rights is at the center of our Cuban policy." He went on to elaborate that "So this is a real priority for the United States, and it will continue to be so." The questioner, seeking clarity asked, "Is that - human rights in the hemisphere?" to which Kelly replied, "Sure." Then the questioner reminded Kelly of his being asked about Human Rights in Honduras last week.

QUESTION: I believe last week, or maybe a little bit before then, you were asked about human rights abuses in Honduras, and reports from the same organization that Dave just mentioned as well as Amnesty International and local human rights groups who have catalogued 4,234 violations since the coup, including 21 murders, or executions as they call them.
There are growing calls from trade union movement here for the U.S. not to recognize the elections unless these things are corrected. Is this something of concern to you guys?

MR. KELLY: It is. It has been and remains a concern. There have been a number of human rights violations since the coup, and we have consistently called on the regime to respect the rights of individual citizens. And we’ve been particularly concerned about some of the moves against the media. And the U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa is closely monitoring the situation. It has reported back to us about a number of allegations of arbitrary arrests, disproportionate use of force, and, in particular, restrictions on freedom of expression. So yeah, we are concerned about it.

So somewhere between last week and this week, the State Department discovered to its surprise that Human Rights violations were going on in Honduras, that "it has and remains a concern."

However, in response to the question of what they're doing about it, if it's a concern, the reply was "we're monitoring very very closely." Makes you warm and fuzzy all over.

When asked if the media restrictions and human rights violations have any bearing on recognition of the elections, Kelly at first allowed as how "The lack of freedom of media, of course, is an important – would be an important indicator of this", the "this" being the freedom and transparency of the Honduran elections. He took it all back a few minutes later when he said "we’ll look at restrictions on the media, particularly restrictions of access to candidates in the campaign before the elections themselves."

Sure, one important thing is access by the candidates to media. So its good to hear that the US State Department cares about that.

But the bigger issue is more fundamental: restrictions on what the media can say, with the threat of losing their license hanging over them everyone freedom of speech.

Mark Weisbrot: Honduran Dictatorship is a Threat to Democracy in the Hemisphere.

Actually the sort of democracy that is common in the hemisphere is designed to ensure that the ruling class stays in power and that the power of the people is limited by the free choice of at least two parties who represent primarily the interest of those with power and money. Of course the power of the ballot does ensure some benefits for the masses that keep them hoping for better from the system. In Honduras the two main parties are run by the elites and Zelaya was himself part of that group. His sin is to help out the working classes too much at the expense of the rich and the elites who turned against him as a result. The elites are closely tied in with powerful interests in the US many of whom support the coup. As this article shows the Micheletti regime has hired expensive PR operatives with ties to Clinton. THe US will probably recognise election results because Sen DeMint has allowed the nomination of the ambassador to go through. The agreement by which Zelaya was thought to be returned to power is dead and it is doubtful that the Micheletti side ever thought of it as an agreement for his return. It was just a stalling tactic to allow the elections to go ahead without Zelaya.

.Mark Weisbrot: Honduran Dictatorship is A Threat to Democracy in the Hemisphere
.Honduran Dictatorship Is A Threat to Democracy In the Hemisphere

November 19, 2009


Honduran Dictatorship Is A Threat to Democracy In the Hemisphere

By Mark Weisbrot

A small group of rich people who own most of Honduras and its politicians enlist the military to kidnap the elected president at gunpoint and take him into exile. They then arrest thousands of people opposed to the coup, shut down and intimidate independent media, shoot and kill some demonstrators, torture and beat many others. This goes on for more than four months, including more than two of the three months legally designated for electoral campaigning. Then the dictatorship holds an “election.”

Should other countries recognize the results of such an election, to be held on November 29th? Latin America says absolutely not; the United States is saying, well, “yes we can”- if we can get away with it.

“There has been a sharp rise in police beatings, mass arrests of demonstrators and intimidation of human rights defenders,” since President Zelaya slipped back into Honduras and took refuge in the Brazilian embassy, wrote Amnesty International. Human Rights Watch, the OAS Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and human rights groups worldwide have also condemned the violence and repression perpetrated by the Honduran dictatorship.

On November 5, the 25 nations of the Rio Group, which includes virtually all of Latin America, declared that they would not recognize the results of the November 29th elections in Honduras if the elected President Manuel Zelaya were not first restored.

Why is it that Latin American governments can recognize this threat to democracy but Washington cannot? One reason is that many of the governments are run by people who have lived under dictatorships. President Lula da Silva of Brazil was imprisoned by the Brazilian dictatorship in the 1980s. President Michele Bachelet of Chile was tortured in prison under the brutal Pinochet dictatorship that was installed with the help of the Nixon administration. The presidents of Bolivia, Argentina, Guatemala, and others have all lived through the repression of right-wing dictatorships.

Nor is this threat merely a thing of the past. Just two weeks ago the President of Paraguay, Fernando Lugo, had to fire most of the military leadership because of credible evidence that they were conspiring with the political opposition. This is one of the consequences of not reversing the Honduran military coup of June 28th.

Here in the United States we have been subjected to a relentless campaign of lies and distortions intended to justify the coup, which have been taken up by Republican supporters of the dictatorship, as well as by hired guns like Lanny Davis, a close associate of Bill and Hillary Clinton. Perhaps the biggest lie, repeated thousands of times in the news reporting and op-eds of the major media, was that Zelaya was overthrown because he was trying to extend his term of office. In fact, the non-binding referendum that Zelaya proposed had nothing to do with term limits. And even if this poll of the electorate had led eventually to a new constitution, any legal changes would have been far too late for Zelaya to stay in office beyond January 29.

Another surreal part of the whole political discussion has been the attempt to portray Zelaya, who was merely delivering on his campaign promises to the Honduran electorate, as a pawn of some foreign power – conveniently chosen to be the much-demonized Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. The anti-communist hysteria of 1950s McCarthyism is still the model for these uncreative political hacks.

What a disgrace it will be to our country if the Obama team follows through on its current strategy and recognizes these “elections!” It’s hard to imagine a stronger statement than that human rights and democracy in this hemisphere count for zero in the political calculations of this administration.

Micheletti playing a new game!

This has all been on great farce from the beginning. While the point of negotiations was supposed to be to reinstate Zelaya as president at every step of the way Micheletti has steadfastly refused to grant his restoration at all. When finally it looked as if he would do so he has done nothing but stall and will not even call Congress to consider ratification of the agreement and Zelaya's reinstatement until after the presidential election! Although there were supposed to be further negotiations on implementation of the agreement there seems to be no new news and for Zelaya's side the agreement is in effect dead. Micheletti went ahead and formed a socalled unity government all on his own! If things continue as they are probably most Latin American states will not recgonise the results. However, the US probably will! These excerpts are from presstv.

Honduran interim leader may resign

Honduran interim leader Roberto Micheletti says that he may resign from his position temporarily ahead of the Nov. 29 presidential elections.

Micheletti said that he will consult his advisers about resignation ahead of the vote and by Dec. 2, when Congress is scheduled to vote on whether to reinstate ousted President Manuel Zelaya.

"My purpose with this measure is for the attention of all Hondurans to concentrate on the electoral process and not on the political crisis," Micheletti said Thursday.

He did not say who would be in charge of the government if he takes the weeklong leave of absence, adding that he would immediately return to the presidency should threats to order and security arise.

After Zelaya was ousted by the country's military on June 28, Micheletti was named president by Congress.

The ousted leftist leader derided Micheletti's announcement as 'an easy maneuver ... to deceive fools,' the Associated Press reported.

Zelaya again warned that he would not return to the presidency if Congress votes to restore him after the elections, saying doing so would legitimize the coup.

"It's illegal and violates the rights of the voters because it tries to hide a coup d'état," Zelaya said.

Questions answered on Honduran situation

This post is in answer to a series of questions re the situation in Honduras by a reader of narconews.
While two dissident media outlets are operating again the equipment taken has not been given back!
The independent candidate in the elections has withdrawn, calling the whole process fraudulent.
I originally understood that the Honduran Congress would have to ratify the agreement before the deal would even come into force. However, that does not seem to be the way that Micheletti or many others understand it. If the Congress were to eventually not agree to ratify the agreement then everything should be off but it would seem that if that happens everything will just go ahead as if nothing had really happened. But even this seems unlikely to happen before the elections. The coup leaders no doubt with the silent assent of the US have never negotiated in good faith for the return of Zelaya. They have negotiated an agreement not to have him return.

Dear Darrol,

Both Channel 36 and Radio Globo are back on the air, although the coup regime has not returned the equipment its troops removed from both their studios on September 28.

El Libertador has been reduced to publishing about one issue a month, and editor Jhonny Lagos and his staff are operating more or less in underground fashion due to the continued violent threats against them. I am not aware that the US government has extracted any pledges from the coup regime regarding press freedom or that it has addressed the matter at all.

As for the November 29 “elections,” Independent presidential candidate Carlos H. Reyes has officially withdrawn his name from the ballot, saying that he won’t participate in a fraudulent process. The National Front Against the Coup d’Etat (the coordinating body for much of the resistance) has called for a boycott of said “elections.”

The Organization of American States will likely meet in general assembly over the next week and the topic of recognizing or not recognizing the “elections” will likely be debated. A majority of OAS nations are not going to go along with any suggestion of recognizing them or sending electoral observers and that would leave the current position – non-recognition – in vigor. That will also put Washington in the position where it would harm its other interests in the hemisphere if it chose to unilaterally recognize the elections while the coup regime has not honored the Tegucigalpa accord.

The topic has come up repeatedly at US State Department press briefings over the past week and spokesmen evade any “yes” or “no” answer as to whether the US will recognize the November 29 “elections” even if President Zelaya is not restored to power. However, Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Shannon’s comments last week to CNN Español suggesting that Washington would recognize the “elections” regardless continue to give the coup regime oxygen and undercut all other pressures upon it.

The Honduran Congress has set a deadline of next Tuesday, November 17, for the Supreme Court and other agencies to issue their non-binding advisory opinions as to Zelaya’s possible return to the presidency. The court may issue a statement today or tomorrow: if it does, expect it to come out against that solution with continued threats to have Zelaya arrested if he sets foot outside the Brazilian Embassy.

Yesterday, inside that Embassy, US Ambassador Hugo Llorens sustained a long meeting with President Zelaya and will be returning there today for more discussion. Zelaya says the deal struck by the Tegucigalpa Accord is already dead. At the same time, he has not ruled out returning to the presidency if Congress votes to reinstate him. The key bloc of votes in Congress – 55 members of the National Party, led by its presidential candidate Pepe Lobo – have not publicly pronounced how they will vote if Congress does take up the measure. And other Congressional leaders keep crowing that they won’t convene such a vote until after November 29.

Meanwhile, coup dictator Roberto Micheletti has gone through this farce of declaring himself the head of a “national unity government” (one of the planks of the Tegucigalpa Accord).

In other words, the situation in Honduras is one big clusterfuck.

Is there still a chance that President Zelaya might return to office prior to November 29? It gets less likely through each day of stalling tactics by the regime, but there is still a needle that might be threaded and it would go like this: Congress would have to convene quickly after its November 17 deadline for advisory opinions, and the National Party bloc would have to vote in unison to authorize Zelaya's return together with a couple of dozen anti-coup Liberal Party legislators and some minor party members. What gets forgotten in a lot of the statements back and forth (including the mutually symbiotic gloating by international golpistas on the right and "Obama coup theorists" on the left for whom Honduras, its civil resistance, and its struggles are merely pawns on an imperialist chess board) that it is entirely in Pepe Lobo’s interest to make that happen, since it would be the only way to make the November 29 vote at all respected within and without Honduras, and he is almost certainly going to be the winner of that vote whether it is legitimized or continues to be illegitimate. What makes the most sense for Lobo is to do everything possible to try to salvage the perceived legitimacy, ahead of time, of that "election." Those are the hard political realities on the ground.

Many have accurately referred to this as the “fig leaf” solution, but it is one that, sources tell Narco News, Zelaya would still accept at this late date, despite his having called the Accord “dead.” (There is, of course, a lot of posturing coming from all sides.)

And although the Tegucigalpa Accord would have Zelaya himself refrain from pushing for a Constituent Assembly for a new Constitution, it is not binding on anyone in the national resistance, not even on Xiomara Castro de Zelaya or Pichu Zelaya. That’s the 800-pound gorilla that is not leaving the room no matter how the next weeks play out.

The fact remains that even back in June when Zelaya attempted a non-binding referendum in favor of voting November 29 for or against a new Constitution and Constituent Assembly, not even that timeline had it happening before this presidential term is done next January 27. Even had a November 29 referendum approved such a process, there would still have to be another election scheduled to select delegates to that Constitutional Assembly, the body that would write the new Constitution.

Once the November 29 vote passes – whether its results are recognized or not – the number one item on the national agenda will continue to be the popular demand for that Constituent Assembly and the rebirth of a nation that it could bring. A lot of the rest are just matters of the circus going on up above and the media's obsession with them. The resistance, after 136 days, is not going away. And we will continue – as we have all along - to do our job of looking below, rather than fixating above, and reporting to you the real story, which is what happens on the ground.

Micheletti breaks Honduran Agreement: Ricardo Lagos

Not only did Micheletti form the unity government without Zelaya but he also has not even set a date for the Honduran Congress to vote on the agreement. Surely until the Congress votes the agreement is not even in force. Micheletti simply does not intend to restor Zelaya at all as far as I can see. He is laughing up his sleeve and the US response is to say that they will recognise the coming elections whether Zelaya is restored or not. This is just bizarre.


OAS envoy says Honduran interim broke acccord by forming a unity gov't without Zelaya's input
By: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras - A member of a team sent to Honduras to monitor implementation of a U.S.-brokered deal says interim leaders violated the accord by forming a unity government without the ousted president's input.

The Organization of American States tasked former Chilean President Ricardo Lagos and U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis with verifying the pact.

Lagos told CNN en Espanol Saturday that interim President Roberto Micheletti broke the agreement by unilaterally forming a unity government.

Micheletti announced late Thursday that a power-sharing government had been created even though coup-deposed President Manuel Zelaya had not submitted his list of members. Zelaya declared the pact dead.

The two sides have not met since then.

Anti-Coup Group in Honduras rejects presidential election.

As noted in a previous posting the whole agreement brokered by the US has turned into a farce. Micheletti did not have the agreement ratified by the Honduran congress. He has not even set a date for them to consider it. Instead he has gone ahead and formed a Unity government on his own without the participation of Zelaya since he has not been re-instated in any shape or form. The United States for its part says it will recognise the elections anyway because a deal was signed! This is a travesty! The whole presupposition of negotiations was that Zelaya would be re-instated. Of course the US itself always waffled on this although Obama said a number of times that the US considered Zelaya the legitimate president of Honduras!
The social unrest in Honduras is bound to continue. Actually some groups are happy enough that Micheletti continues since this will help power the resistance. The rejection of the upcoming elections makes sense for anyone with the least concern about conditions for a legitimate election. There are laws prohibiting demonstrations and rallies without proper authorisation by coup govt. authorities etc. etc. The article is from this site.


National Resistance Against the Coup d’Etat Announces Boycott of November 29 Honduras Elections
Coup Regime’s Noncompliance with the October 30 Accord Renders Last Week’s Agreement Moot


By Tamar Sharibi
Reporting from Tegucigalpa
November 6, 2009

TEGUCIGALPA, HONDURAS, NOVEMBER 6, 2009: Hundreds of people have congregated daily outside the Honduran National Congress to pressure its members (known as ‘Diputados,’ or Deputies) to finally reinstate President Manuel Zelaya. The new wave of hope came after the US State Department’s visit that many interpret as a tactic to guarantee the November 29 elections. While US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proclaimed a “breakthrough in negotiations in Honduras,” things on the ground still seemed to be at a stalemate as of Thursday afternoon, November 5, the date that, according to the accord signed last week, should have brought – but didn’t bring – the end of the coup regime.

In response to the never-ending and not so genuine negotiations, the National Resistance Front Against the Coup d’Etat published this statement:

The National Resistance Front against the Coup d’Etat announces to the Honduran population and the international community:

Whereas:


1.That during 131 consecutive days of the struggle, we have pressured for a peaceful resolution to the political crisis that our country has lived resulting from the coup d’état perpetrated by the Honduran Oligarchy. In this period we have supported the initiatives that have been driven by various national and international sectors, maintaining three fundamental demands: a) the return of institutional order with the restitution of the legitimate president Manuel Zelaya Rosales, b) respect for our sovereign right to install a National Constituent Assembly that brings together the country and c) punishment for the violators of human rights.

2.That the call of the agreement Tegucigalpa-San Jose contains the priority element the return of constitutional order and literally states its purpose as “to bring back the title of the Executive Power to the state previous to the that of June 28 until the conclusion of the actual governing period, January 27, 2010”

3.That the National Congress, coauthor of the breaking of constitutional order on the June 28, is using delaying tactics, in not wanting to convene the complete assembly in order to repeal the decree that installed the de facto regime.

4.That the OEA and the government of the United States, who we consider accomplice of the military coup d’état, do not represent our interests in the definitive exit of the people involved in the coup d’état out of power.


So we resolve:


1.If today, Thursday, November 5, no later than midnight President Jose Manuel Zelaya Rosales is not reinstated to his position, the National Resistance Front against the Coup d’Etat will not recognize the electoral process and its results.

2.We alert all the organizations in the resistance on a national level so that in case President Zelaya is not reinstated in the established period to be ready to execute the actions of negating the farse elections.

3.We call on the international community to maintain the position that the de facto regime and the elections of November 29 are illegitimate.


We resist and we will be victorious!
Tegucigalpa, M.D.C. 5 of November 2009

Many resistance members have commented that the same Congress that invented the President’s resignation letter last June is now being trusted to clean up the mess.

US officials have given mixed signals about whether they will recognize the 29 elections regardless of whether President Zelaya is restored. On Wednesday, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly danced around reporters’ questions that sought more specificity:


QUESTION: It appears as though, as long as the congress agrees on something, you’re willing to accept it even it falls short of Zelaya being restored before the election.

MR. KELLY: I think what we’re saying is that we want the two parties to agree.


Despite last week’s US Delegation and the accord that resulted, police and military repression continue. On Thursday Oct 29, Day 124 of the resistance, a peaceful march organized by the resistance movement and the UD, the Democratic Unification Party, the only national political party to oppose the coup from the beginning, came under physical attack from coup security forces. The Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE, in its Spanish initials) had granted the UD party a permit to hold the march. Interestingly enough, the October 29 was also the first day that control over the military was transferred to the TSE purportedly to guarantee the ‘safety’ of the elections.

All the major news agencies were covering the official press conference being held at the American Embassy when the action broke out. The repression on this day was different because there was almost no warning on the attack. The march was making its way through a neighborhood called El Prado, passing by the main offices of TSE. As a few protestors ripped down election material, military trucks arrived and started beating anyone in sight.

After canisters of tear gas were shot into the crowd, people dispersed in all directions. Approximately 300 reassembled within the hour near the Marriot Hotel, two blocks away from the Presidential Palace. Once again, the military regrouped and attacked the crowd. Soldiers followed people into the bathrooms of local businesses to pull them out and either beat them or temporarily detain them.

Andres Pavón, director of CODEH, the Committee of Human Rights in Honduras, reported 12 people receiving medical attention with severe lesions. Since soldiers and police have arrested people from the public hospital in Tegucigalpa, Hospital Escuela, it is likely more people were in need of medical attention but too frightened to present themselves. Many people who are victims of last Thursday’s police repression prefered to take refuge in CPTRT, Center for the Prevention, Treatment and Rehabilitation for Victims of Torture and their Families.

So what conclusions can we draw from the US State Department visit? Considering the US Embassy’s media contacts list or following the mainstream media, one might be lead to believe that the State Department delegation truly was as historic as Secretary Clinton claimed it was. The walls of Tegucigalpa, though, shout a different message: “Solo el pueblo salva el pueblo,” (Only the people save the people). On the ground, most people never really trusted any of the diplomatic visits in the first place.

As of midnight last night, the National Resistance Front against the Coup d’Etat will begin its process of delegitimizing the electoral process. In a statement issued by President Zelaya, from the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa where he has taken refuge the past 46 days and nights, he said that the coup regime was plotting “a giant political-electoral fraud” through “constant violations of human rights, the cancellation of public liberties, the shutdown and confiscation of media like Channel 36 and Radio Globo, and the situation of having the President who was elected by the people surrounded by military soldiers in the diplomatic seat and the overall political persecution.” Zelaya added:


“We announce our total non-recognition of this electoral process and its results. Due to the above mentioned violations, elections under a dictatorship are a fraud to the people.”

The de facto government on the other hand, went about interpreting the Tegucigalpa/San Jose Accord as it pleased, supposedly naming its reconciliatory government while maintaining coup “president” Roberto Micheletti in power. The US will now have to answer to the international community – including the Organization of American States (OAS) – as the only government that says it might recognize the Nov 29 elections in Honduras.