Tehran and Tegucigalpa: A Tale of Two Capitals

[luke]

Tehran and Tegucigalpa: A Tale of Two Capitals

In Tehran, demonstrations called by the defeated US-backed presidential candidate are given non-stop, wall-to-wall coverage by the American media. The charges of former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi of a stolen election and a “coup d’etat” are embraced uncritically and reported as fact by the New York Times, the Washington Post and other “authoritative” newspapers, without any independent investigation or substantiation. A media propaganda campaign ensues aimed at isolating and destabilizing the ruling faction in Iran headed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The protests are dominated by better-off sections of the urban middle class, who largely voted for Mousavi and support his right-wing program of closer ties to American and European imperialism and a rapid introduction of pro-market policies. The working class, seeing nothing to support in the faction of “reformists” headed by Mousavi and the billionaire former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, abstains from the protests.

The media dispenses with any pretence of objectivity and proclaims the protest movement and its leaders the spearhead of a “green revolution” for democracy. Every act of repression by the Iranian regime is given headline coverage, and rumors of hundreds of deaths are reported as fact. The US media focuses its wrath in particular on the regime’s efforts to block Internet and mobile phone communication.

Two weeks later, the US-trained and equipped military of Honduras breaks into the home of the elected president, bundles him onto a plane and flies him out of the country at gunpoint. The basic crime of the deposed president, Manuel Zelaya, is aligning his government with Washington’s nemeses in Latin America, Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez and Cuba’s Fidel Castro, and carrying out modest popular reforms within Honduras, such as raising the minimum wage.

There can be no dispute that Honduras has undergone a coup. But the event is barely reported by the US press and broadcast media. Neither are the arrests and deportations of ministers of Zelaya’s government, the closures of local media outlets sympathetic to the ousted president, the arrests of foreign journalists and shutdown of US-based outlets such as CNN, and the imposition of a de facto state of siege, including a dusk-to-dawn curfew and the mobilization of thousands of Honduran troops in every major city.

The coup regime, which is backed by the Honduran business elite, the Congress, the courts and the Church, seeks to halt Internet and cell phone communication—evoking no protest from the US media.

Demonstrations in support of the coup staged by the new regime are dominated by the wealthy middle class of the capital, Tegucigalpa.

In the teeth of state repression, the Honduran teachers union launches a 60,000-strong strike that closes the schools, and thousands demonstrate in Tegucigalpa. The demonstrations are dominated by trade unionists, workers, the unemployed and the rural poor. This working class resistance to the coup barely gets a mention in the US media.

On Sunday, July 5, troops barricading the airport at Tegucigalpa fire on unarmed demonstrators who have gathered to welcome Zelaya as he attempts to land a chartered plane and resume his office. A 19-year-old youth is shot and killed. Again, barely a mention in the US news media.

One can only imagine how the US media would have responded had Ahamdinejad arrested Mousavi and thrown him out of Iran. Or the howls of indignation that would have erupted had the Iranian president blockaded the airport to prevent him from returning.

Examples of the double standard applied to Iran and Honduras abound. Just to cite a few:

CNN made great play of the efforts of the Iranian regime to censor the news and intimidate foreign journalists. It has said nothing about the shutdown of its own broadcasts by the Honduran coup government.

On July 4, CNN.com reported that it had received a video tape showing Honduran troops shooting out the tires of buses bringing anti-coup demonstrators to Tegucigalpa from the countryside. This video has been given little, if any, airplay by the network.

Most significant is the virtual absence of coverage in the US media of the murder and wounding of anti-coup demonstrators at Tegucigalpa airport on Sunday. The Financial Times on Monday provided a chilling account of the atrocity which makes clear its premeditated character. Reporting that a crowd of about 1,500 had gathered at the perimeter fence of the airport to welcome Zelaya’s plane, the newspaper writes:

“However, at about 3 PM on Sunday, soldiers guarding the runway to prevent the return of Mr. Zelaya launched an offensive against the unarmed crowd, according to witnesses.

“They opened fire from positions inside the airport and then sent teargas into the crowd.

“Moments later, a handful crossed the perimeter fence, which had been cut by the demonstrators, raised their automatic rifles and pointed them towards the mass of terrified men, women and children. Then they opened fire again. At least one person was killed, and as many as 30 were injured.”

The Latin American press has widely published photos of the fatally wounded youth, Isis Obed Murillo, being dragged away by fellow protesters. No such photos have appeared in major US newspapers or on television news channels. Murillo remains unnamed and unmourned in the American media.

One need only compare this callous treatment to the media frenzy over the death on June 20 of Neda Agha Soltan in Tehran. The death of the 27-year-old student, who was reportedly a bystander at a pro-Mousavi protest, occurred under murky circumstances. The government denied responsibility, but the media immediately declared her a martyr of the “green revolution.” Her picture was splashed across the front pages of newspapers and broadcast by every TV channel. “Neda” was proclaimed the “Joan of Arc” of the Iranian opposition.

This tale of two capitals provides a graphic illustration of the character and role of the American media. Owned and controlled by corporate goliaths, it functions as an adjunct of the state and a propaganda machine in behalf of US imperialist interests. Its class bias—and that of the lavishly paid individuals who serve as top editors, senior reporters and TV anchormen—is underscored by the diametrically opposed responses to the protests in Tehran and Tegucigalpa.

The same role is played by the so-called “progressive” liberal media, which has uniformly lined up behind the US campaign against the ruling faction in Iran. The web site of the Nation magazine on Wednesday carried as its lead an article by its Iran correspondent, Robert Dreyfuss, hailing calls by pro-Mousavi forces for new demonstrations. One searches in vain for an article on the events in Honduras. (For more on Dreyfuss, see: Nation’s man in Tehran: Who is Robert Dreyfuss?”.)

The American media adheres to no standards and observes no limits in carrying out its function of manipulating public opinion in accordance with the objectives, domestic and foreign, of the American ruling elite. Nothing so clearly demonstrates the decay of American democracy and the “free press” in the United States than the manner in which it lines up behind phony “color revolutions” against regimes deemed inimical to US interests and ignores flagrantly antidemocratic measures by regimes backed by the CIA, the military and the State Department.

[luke]

[luke]

[luke]

COLIN BURGON, BRITISH MP, SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS ON HONDURAS COUP

Neville Chamberlain once talked about “a quarrel in a far away country
between people of whom we know nothing.” That could apply to the subject that I want to raise today—the recent military coup in Honduras.

People probably do not know much about Honduras, but the journal Business Week tells us: “Honduras is one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere. Two-thirds of its 7.8 million citizens live below the poverty line...The country has one of Latin America’s most unequal distributions of wealth: the poorest 10 percent of the population receives just 1.2 percent of the country’s wealth, while the richest 10 percent collect 42 percent.”

President Zelaya was elected to lead the country in 2005. A member of the Honduras Liberal party, he was a wealthy rancher and a man of the centre or centre right. Under pressure of events, however, he began to change his politics and he implemented several progressive measures during his time in office. He raised the minimum wage by 60 per cent.—something that new Labour might note. He also gave out free school lunches and provided milk for babies and pensions for the elderly. He cut the cost of public transport, made scholarships available for students and forged alliances with the progressive Governments in the continent of Latin America such as those of Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador.

President Zelaya also sought to institutionalise many of his progressive developments with constitutional change. The non-binding poll of the public that he proposed for 28 June was aimed at gauging support for a proposed constituent assembly to redraft the constitution ahead of a ballot in November. This is the translation of the question: “Do you agree that, during the general elections of November 2009 there should be a fourth ballot to decide whether to hold a Constituent National Assembly that will approve a new political constitution?”

That step was too much for the military, and as a result, on 28 June—the day the ballot was supposed to take place—the President was kidnapped, bundled on to a plane and flown out of the country, and the military junta and the leading oligarchs in the country came together to form what is effectively an illegal Government.

The Honduran junta has rightly been almost totally isolated. It has been rejected by the General Assembly of the United Nations, the Organisation of American States and the European Union, among others. It is rare that I pay tribute to Ministers, but I pay tribute to the newly installed Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who has responsibility for Latin America. He responded very quickly and efficiently and made a statement to put on record Britain’s opposition to the coup. It is also important that the EU yesterday suspended more than $90 million in aid to Honduras in the wake of the coup.

However, such opposition has so far been ineffectual in restoring Zelaya to government and stronger action is need. Obviously, that stronger action should come from America, because at the end of the day, it calls the shots in what is historically its back yard. There were hopes of real change with the election of President Obama, but we can see that there are tensions within the American Government. Clinton, the Secretary of State, is possibly somewhat enamoured of the new regime and does not want to take the action that others in America would like. If the US is to break with the past and work with people rather than against them, as President Obama told the conference of Latin American leaders it wants to, the steps that he must take are clear. The Honduran Government—or rather, the supposed Government—must be replaced and a democratically elected President must be installed.

We hear lots about human rights in the media, but since the coup on 28 June that installed Roberto Micheletti, the regime has unleashed a wave of repression of human rights. Protesters and political activists have been killed, 1,300 people have been arrested, and there have been curfews, widespread media censorship and the violation of other civil liberties.

That is important, because although we have joked in the past about banana republics and Governments being changed on a monthly or daily basis, most of Latin America has emerged from that darkness and the people have begun to take charge of their destiny. We have seen that throughout the Latin American continent, including central America. The military junta represents an attempt to turn the clock back to those dark, dark days. If those dark days return, it will mean real hardship for the millions of people in central and Latin America.

I hope that the deputy Leader of the House will re-confirm that the UK is absolutely and implacably opposed to the Honduran military regime, and that the UK will do all it can to restore the democratically elected regime.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/cm090721/debtext/

i'd never heard of this colin burgon, but he's a labour mp

i've been disapointed that galloway hasn't even mention the coup in honduras

[luke]

MEDIA ALERT: SIDING WITH THE GENERALS - THE INDEPENDENT ON HONDURAS

Iran’s June 12 presidential elections have been widely criticised, both domestically and abroad, as lacking credibility. During the popular protests that followed, some 30 people were killed by government forces with hundreds more arrested. These events have been subject to intense and continuous US-UK media scrutiny.

Also in June, a military coup overthrew the democratically-elected government of Honduras. President Manuel Zelaya was kidnapped and deported to Costa Rica on June 28. Initial clashes between troops loyal to the coup plotters and Zelaya supporters left at least one person dead and 30 injured. On July 30, as many as 150 people were arrested, with dozens injured, when soldiers and police attacked demonstrators with tear gas, water cannon, clubs and gunfire. One of the wounded, a 38-year-old teacher, was left fighting for his life after being shot in the head. Journalists reporting from the scene were also attacked. (Bill Van Auken, ‘Honduran coup regime launches brutal crackdown,’ August 1, 2009, World Socialist Web Site; http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/aug2009/hond-a01.shtml)

Mark Weisbrot, Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, describes how the Honduran people have been “risking their lives, confronting the army's bullets, beatings, and arbitrary arrests and detentions”. And yet the US media has reported this repression “only minimally, with the major print media sometimes failing even to mention the censorship there”. (Weisbrot, ‘Hondurans Resist Coup, Will Need Help From Other Countries,’ ZNet, July 9, 2009; http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/21924)

Our own media database search (August 3) of national UK press editorials mentioning the word ’Iran’ over the previous five weeks delivered 26 results. A search for editorials containing the word ’Honduras’ delivered 2 results. In fact there has been a single leading article on the Honduran crisis (in the Independent on June 30 - see below). Over the same period, a search for UK national press articles mentioning ‘Iran’ gave 848 results; for ‘Honduras’ 96 results. This is not hard science, but it does indicate comparative levels of UK media coverage of the two issues.

Weisbrot notes that the Honduran coup is "a recurrent story” in Latin America, pitting "a reform president who is supported by labor unions and social organizations against a mafia-like, drug-ridden, corrupt political elite who is accustomed to choosing not only the Supreme Court and the Congress, but also the president". (Weisbrot, ‘Does the US back the Honduran coup?’ The Guardian, July 1, 2009; http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/jul/01/honduras-zelaya-coup-obama)

Mainstream outlets claim the coup marks a worrying return to earlier regional trends. A July 23 BBC “Q&A“ on Honduras commented:

“Coups and political upheaval were common in Central America for much of the 20th Century, and until the mid-1980s the military dominated political life in Honduras. Mr Zelaya's removal is the first in the region since 1993...” (‘Q&A: Crisis in Honduras,’ BBC website, July 23, 2009; http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8124154.stm)

This is false. In April 2002, a US-backed military coup briefly ousted Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez until mass protests returned him to power. A Guardian article that month reported that the “US ‘gave the nod’ to Venezuelan coup.” Several weeks prior to the coup attempt, US government officials had met the business leaders who assumed power after Chávez was arrested. General Rincon, the Venezuelan army's chief of staff, had visited the Pentagon the previous December and met senior officials. (Julian Borger and Alex Bellos, ‘US “gave the nod” to Venezuelan coup,’ The Guardian, April 17, 2002;
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/apr/17/usa.venezuela)

A 2004 military coup forced Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide to flee to Central Africa. Aristide told the Associated Press that he was forced to leave Haiti by US military forces. (Eliott C. McLaughlin, Associated Press, March 1, 2004) Jeffrey Sachs, professor of economics at Columbia University, wrote:

"Haiti, again, is ablaze... Almost nobody, however, understands that today's chaos was made in Washington - deliberately, cynically, and steadfastly." (Sachs, 'Fanning the flames of political chaos in Haiti,’ The Nation, February 28, 2004; http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0301-10.htm)

The BBC Q&A noted: “The role of the US is key, as it is Honduras's biggest trading partner.”

Curiously, the article failed to mention that the US has its only Central American military base in Honduras. In fact the Honduran military is armed, trained and advised by Washington in a relationship that is deep and enduring. The two generals who led the coup were both trained at the US School of the Americas (SOA) based in Georgia (SOA is now known as The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, or WHINSEC). Commander-in-chief Romeo Vasquez, head of the Honduran military, received training at SOA between 1976 and 1984. Luis Javier Prince Suazo, head of the air force, studied there in 1996. Colonel Herberth Bayardo Inestroza, a Honduran army lawyer who also trained at SOA, has admitted the illegality of the military’s kidnapping of Zelaya. He told the Miami Herald: "It would be difficult for us, with our training, to have a relationship with a leftist government. That's impossible." (Weisbrot, ZNet, July 9, op. cit)

Father Roy Bourgeois, founder of School of the Americas Watch, described SOA last month as “this school of assassins, this school of coups, this school with so much blood on its hands”. (’Generals Who Led Honduras Military Coup Trained at the School of the Americas,’ Democracy Now!, July 1, 2009; http://www.democracynow.org/2009/7/1/generals_who_led_honduras_military_coup)

Weisbrot notes that Washington’s response to the Honduran coup is guided by conflicting interests: “powerful lobbyists such as Lanny Davis and Bennett Ratcliff, who are close to [Hillary] Clinton and are leading the coup government's strategy; the Republican right, including members of Congress who openly support the coup; and new cold warriors of both parties in the Congress, the state department and White House who see Zelaya as a threat because of his co-operation with Venezuela's Hugo Chávez and other left governments.” (Weisbrot, ‘U.S.- Brokered Mediation Has Failed - It's Time for Latin America to Take Charge,’ ZNet, August 1, 2009; http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/22185)

This explains Washington's ambiguous reaction. The Obama administration’s first statement did not criticise the coup, and the state department continues to refuse to describe it as a coup. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has repeatedly refused to say that ‘restoring the democratic order’ in Honduras requires the return of Zelaya. It took three weeks for the White House to threaten to cut off aid.

Roger Burbach, Director of the Center for the Study of the Americas, writes:

“U.S. efforts to restore Zelaya have been quite tepid compared to other countries. While many ambassadors have been withdrawn, the US head diplomat Hugo Llorens, appointed by George W. Bush, remains in place. There are reports that he may have even given the green light to the coup plotters, or at least did nothing to stop them. And while the World Bank has suspended assistance, the State Department merely warns that $180 million in US economic aid may be in jeopardy. Most importantly the United States refuses to freeze the bank accounts and cancel the visas of the coup leaders, measures that Zelaya and other Latin American governments have urged Washington to do.” (Burbach, ‘Obama and Hillary Nix Change in Honduras,’ ZNet, July 27, 2009;
http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/22136)

Recently, US Assistant Secretary of State Philip Crowley, commented:

"We certainly think that if we were choosing a model government and a model leader for countries of the region to follow, that the current leadership in Venezuela would not be a particular model. If that is the lesson that President Zelaya has learned from this episode, that would be a good lesson." (James Suggett, ‘Honduras Coup,’ ZNet, July 28, 2009; http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/22149)


The Independent - Doing Democracy A Service

In their June 30 leading article, the Independent’s editors, led by pro-Iraq war editor Roger Alton (formerly editor of the Observer), opened with this extraordinary paragraph:

“The ousting of the Honduran President Manuel Zelaya by the country's military at the weekend has been condemned by many members of the international community as an affront to democracy. But despite a natural distaste for any military coup, it is possible that the army might have actually done Honduran democracy a service.” (Leading article, ‘Guns and democracy,’ The Independent, June 30, 2009; http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-guns-and-democracy-1724479.html)

By contrast, many experienced observers have warned that the coup represents an extreme threat to prospects for democracy in Honduras and the region. The Independent explained its reasoning:

“President Zelaya was planning a referendum to give him power to alter the constitution. But the proposed alterations were perilously vague, with opponents accusing Mr Zelaya of wanting to scrap the four-year presidential term limit. The country's courts and congress had called the vote illegal.

“This is an increasingly familiar turn of events in emerging democracies: an elected leader, facing the end of his time in office, decides that the country cannot do without him and resorts to dubious measures to retain power. The Venezuelan President, Hugo Chávez, won a referendum in February altering his country's constitution and abolishing term limits. He now talks about ruling beyond 2030.”

On the same day, in the same newspaper, Heather Berkman, a Latin America associate at the global political risk consultancy Eurasia Group, wrote:

“Manuel Zelaya has taken a few unexpected turns to the left during his tenure as President of Honduras, deviating from its political norms. This time, it looks like he may have gone too far... Mr Zelaya can be blamed for staging a coup that, in turn, provoked a counter-coup.” (Berkman, ‘Zelaya pushed,’ The Independent, June 30, 2009; http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/heather-berkman-zelaya-pushed-1724469.html)

Recall that these articles appeared in the Independent, widely considered to be at the left of the mainstream media spectrum.

Weisbrot argues that in fact there was no way for Zelaya to extend his rule even if the referendum had been held and passed:

“The June 28 referendum was nothing more than a non-binding poll of the electorate, asking whether the voters wanted to place a binding referendum on the November ballot to approve a redrafting of the country's constitution. If it had passed, and if the November referendum had been held (which was not very likely) and also passed, the same ballot would have elected a new president and Zelaya would have stepped down in January. So, the belief that Zelaya was fighting to extend his term in office has no factual basis - although most people who follow this story in the press seem to believe it. The most that could be said is that if a new constitution were eventually approved, Zelaya might have been able to run for a second term at some future date.” (Weisbrot, ‘Hondurans Resist Coup, Will Need Help From Other Countries,’ ZNet, July 9, 2009; http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/21924)

Nikolas Kozloff, journalist and author of ‘Revolution!: South America and the Rise of the New Left,’ traces the deeper sources of opposition to the Honduran president. Around 2007-2008, the initially conservative Zelaya began to embrace “the Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas.” Kozloff explains:

“It’s Chávez’s answer to the US-imposed free trade agreements in the region. And Zelaya had come out in support of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas. And so, this set him at odds with the United States, and there was a history of friction between the US and Zelaya leading up to the coup.” (‘What’s Behind the Honduras Coup? Tracing Zelaya’s Trajectory,’ Democracy Now!, July 1, 2009; http://www.democracynow.org/2009/7/1/whats_behind_the_honduras_coup_tracing)

As the Independent editorial makes clear, the mainstream offers a different version of events. Kozloff comments:

“I think if you were just reading the reports in the mainstream media, you might get the impression that this coup is just about term limits in Honduras and it’s just a conflict over whether Zelaya will be able to extend his constitutional mandate of one four-year term.”

The BBC, for example, reported: “Zelaya was sent into exile on 28 June amid a power struggle over his plans for constitutional change.” (‘Q&A: Crisis in Honduras,’ op. cit)

The Times wrote: “His opponents say that he wanted to overturn term limits and extend his power like leftist regional allies such as President Chávez of Venezuela...” (Hannah Strange, 'Deposed President "can never return",' The Times, July 3, 2009)

Kozloff comments: “And my point is that there is an ideological component to this coup... the first salvo against the Honduran elite was his moves to raise the minimum wage by 60 percent... I mean, this is a country where you have these maquiladora assembly plants, and the Honduran elite were, to say the least, displeased by the moves.”

In a rare exception to his newspaper’s wretched performance, Johann Hari wrote in the Independent of how Zelaya had “increased the minimum wage by 60 per cent, saying sweatshops were no longer acceptable and ‘the rich must pay their share’.

“The tiny elite at the top - who own 45 per cent of the country's wealth - are horrified. They are used to having Honduras run by them, for them.” (Hari, ‘The other 9/11 returns to haunt Latin America,’ The Independent, July 3, 2009; http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-a-coup-latin-america-didnt-need-1729429.html)

As Hari noted: “It was always inevitable that the people at the top would fight back to preserve their unearned privilege.”

Prior to the coup, US multinational Chiquita expressed its concern at Zelaya’s minimum wage decrees, which they said would reduce profits and increase export costs. Chiquita appealed to the Honduran Business Association, which was also opposed to Zelaya’s minimum wage policy. Kozloff told the website Democracy Now!: “what I find really interesting is that Chiquita is allied to a Washington law firm called Covington, which advises multinational corporations. And who is the vice chairman of Covington? None other than John Negroponte...”. (‘From Arbenz to Zelaya: Chiquita in Latin America,’ Democracy Now!, July 21, 2009; http://www.democracynow.org/2009/7/21/from_arbenz_to_zelaya_chiquita_in)

Negroponte was US ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985, when he played a key role in coordinating US terror attacks on Nicaragua by means of "the Contras", a mercinary army. Negroponte is complicit in massive human rights abuses committed by the Honduran military.

Throughout the twentieth century, Chiquita, then known as United Fruit Company, was associated with “some of the most backward, retrograde political and economic forces in Central America and indeed outside of Central America in such countries as Colombia”, Kozloff notes. In 1954, United Fruit played a leading role in the US-backed coup that ousted Jacobo Arbenz, the democratically-elected leader of Guatemala.

Kozloff reports that the current US Attorney General, Eric Holder, was Deputy Attorney General under Bill Clinton. Holder defended Chiquita and its actions in Colombia when Chiquita was allied to right-wing paramilitary death squads in the 1990s and was found guilty of paying off paramilitaries. Holder was Chiquita’s lead counsel.

We searched national UK newspapers (August 3) for articles containing the words ’Honduras’ and (separately) ‘Chiquita’, ‘John Negroponte’ and ’Eric Holder’ since June 28 - all searches produced zero results.

http://www.medialens.org/

[luke]

Honduran Coup: The U.S. Connection

While the Obama administration was careful to distance itself from the recent coup in Honduras — condemning the expulsion of President Manuel Zelaya to Costa Rica, revoking Honduran officials' visas, and shutting off aid — that doesn't mean influential Americans aren't involved, and that both sides of the aisle don't have some explaining to do.

The story most U.S. readers are getting about the coup is that Zelaya — an ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez — was deposed because he tried to change the constitution to keep himself in power.

That story is a massive distortion of the facts. All Zelaya was trying to do is to put a non-binding referendum on the ballot calling for a constitutional convention, a move that trade unions, indigenous groups, and social activist organizations had long been lobbying for. The current constitution was written by the Honduran military in 1982, and the one-term limit allows the brass-hats to dominate the politics of the country. Since the convention would have been held in November, the same month as the upcoming presidential elections, there was no way Zelaya could have remained in office in any case. The most he could have done was to run four years from now.

And while Zelaya is indeed friendly with Chavez, he is at best a liberal reformer whose major accomplishment was raising the minimum wage. "What Zelaya has done has been little reforms," Rafael Alegria, a leader of Via Campesina, told the Mexican daily La Jornada. "He isn't a socialist or a revolutionary, but these reforms, which didn't harm the oligarchy at all, have been enough for them to attack him furiously."

One of those "little reforms" was aimed at ensuring public control of the Honduran telecommunications industry, which may well have been the trip-wire that triggered the coup.

The first hint that something was afoot was a suit brought by Venezuelan lawyer Robert Carmona-Borjas claiming that Zelaya was part of a bribery scheme involving the state-run telecommunication company Hondutel.

Carmona-Borjas has a rap-sheet that dates back to the April 2002 coup against Chavez. He drew up the notorious "Carmona decrees," a series of draconian laws aimed at suspending the Venezuelan constitution and suppressing any resistance to the coup. As Chavez supporters poured into the streets and the plot unraveled, Carmona-Borjas fled to Washington, DC. He took a post at George Washington University and brought Iran-Contra plotters Otto Reich and Elliott Abrams to teach his class on "Political Management in Latin America." He also became vice-president of the right-wing Arcadia Foundation, which lobbies for free-market policies. Weeks before the June 28 Honduran coup, Carmona-Borjas barnstormed the country accusing Zelaya of collaborating with narco-traffickers.

Carmona-Borjas' colleague, Reich, a Cuban American with ties to right-wing factions all over Latin America and former assistant secretary of State for hemispheric affairs under George W. Bush, has been accused by the Honduran Black Fraternal Organization of "undeniable involvement" in the coup.

This is hardly surprising. Reich was nailed by a 1987 congressional investigation for using public funds to engage in propaganda during the Reagan administration's war on Nicaragua. He is also a fierce advocate for Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles, both implicated in the bombing of a Cuban airliner in 1973 that killed all 73 on board.

Reich is also a ferocious critic of Zelaya. In a recent piece in the Weekly Standard, he urged the Obama administration not to support "strongman" Zelaya because it "would put the United States clearly in the same camp as Cuba's Castro brothers, Venezuela's Chavez, and other regional delinquents."

One of the charges that Reich levels at Zelaya is that the Honduran president is supposedly involved with bribes paid out by the state-run telecommunications company Hondutel. Zelaya is threatening to file a defamation suit over the accusation.

Reich's charges against Hondutel are hardly happenstance, as he is a former AT&T lobbyist and served as Senator John McCain's (R-AZ) Latin American advisor during the senator's 2008 presidential campaign. McCain has deep ties with telecom giants AT&T, MCI, and Qualcomm and, according to Nikolas Kozloff, author of Hugo Chavez: Oil, Politics and the Challenge of the United States, "has acted to protect and look out for the political interests of the telecoms on Capitol Hill."

AT&T, McCain's second largest donor, also generously funds the International Republican Institute (IRI), which has warred with Latin American regimes that have resisted telecommunications privatization. According to Kozloff, "President Zelaya was a known to be a fierce critic of telecommunications privatization."

When Venezuelan coup leaders went to Washington a month before their failed effort to oust Chavez, IRI footed the bill. Reich, as then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's special envoy to the Western Hemisphere, met with some of those leaders.

Republicans in Congress have accused the Obama administration of being "soft" on Zelaya. Sen. Jim DeMint (SC) protested the White House's support of the Honduran president holding up votes for administration nominees for the ambassador to Brazil and an assistant secretary of state. Meanwhile, Zelaya's return was unanimously supported by the UN General Assembly, the European Union, and the Organization of American States.

But meddling in Honduras is a bipartisan undertaking.

"If you want to understand who is the real power behind the [Honduran] coup, you need to find out who is paying Lanny Davis," says Robert White, former U.S. ambassador to El Salvador and current president of the Center for International Policy. Davis, best known as the lawyer who represented Bill Clinton during his impeachment trial, has been lobbying members of Congress and testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Committee in support of the coup.

According to Roberto Lovato, an associate editor at New American Media, Davis represents the Honduran chapter of CEAL, the Business Council of Latin America, which strongly backed the coup. Davis told Lovato, "I'm proud to represent businessmen who are committed to the rule of law."

But White says the coup had more to do with profits than law. "Coups happen because very wealthy people want them and help to make them happen, people who are used to seeing the country as a money machine and suddenly see social legislation on behalf of the poor as a threat to their interests," says White. "The average wage of a worker in free trade zones is 77 cents per hour." According to the World Bank, 59% of Hondurans live below the poverty line.

The United States is also involved in the coup through a network of agencies that funnel money and training to anti-government groups. The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) contribute to right-wing organizations that supported the coup, including the Peace and Democracy Movement and the Civil Democratic Union. Many of the officers that bundled Zelaya off to San Jose were trained at the Western Hemispheric Institute for Security Cooperation, the former "School for the Americas" that has seen torturers and coup leaders from all over Latin America pass through its doors.

The Obama administration condemned the coup, but when Zelaya journeyed to the Honduran-Nicaragua border, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denounced him for being "provocative." It was a strange statement, since the State Department said nothing about a report by the Committee of Disappeared Detainees in Honduras charging 1,100 human rights violations by the coup regime, including detentions, assaults, and murder.

Human rights violations by the coup government have been condemned by the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights, the International Observer Mission, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Committee to Protest Journalists, and Reporters Without Borders.

Davis claims that the coup was a "legal" maneuver to preserve democracy. But that's a hard argument to make, given some of its architects. One is Fernando Joya, a former member of Battalion 316, a paramilitary death squad. Joya fled the country after being charged with kidnapping and torturing several students in the 1980s, but he has now resurfaced as a "special security advisor" to the coup makers. He recently gave a TV interview that favorably compared the 1973 Chilean coup to the June 28 Honduran coup.

According to Greg Grandin, a history professor at New York University, the coup makers also included the extremely right-wing Catholic organization, Opus Dei, whose roots go back to the fascist regime of Spanish caudillo Francisco Franco.

In the old days, when the United States routinely overthrew governments that displeased it, the Marines would have gone in, as they did in Guatemala and Nicaragua, or the CIA would have engineered a coup by the local elites. No one has accused U.S. intelligence of being involved in the Honduran coup, and American troops in the country are keeping a low profile. But the fingerprints of U.S. institutions like the NED, USAID, and School for the Americas — plus bipartisan lobbyists, powerful corporations, and dedicated Cold War warriors — are all over the June takeover.

Conn Hallinan is a columnist for Foreign Policy In Focus.

theres a good article here following the recent interview here between lanny davis - the lobbyist for the honduras business leaders - and historian greg grandin

[luke]

The Honduras coup is a sign: the radical tide can be turned
If this were Burma or Iran the assault on democracy would be a global cause celebre. Instead, Obama is sitting on his hands

If Honduras were in another part of the world – or if it were, say, Iran or Burma – the global reaction to its current plight would be very different. Right now, in the heart of what the United States traditionally regarded as its backyard, thousands of pro-democracy activists are risking their lives to reverse the coup that ousted the country's elected president. Six weeks after the left-leaning Manuel Zelaya was kidnapped at dawn from the presidential palace in Tegucigalpa and expelled over the border, strikes are closing schools and grounding flights as farmers and trade unionists march in defiance of masked soldiers and military roadblocks.

The coup-makers have reached for the classic South American takeover textbook. Demonstrators have been shot, more than a thousand people are reported arrested, television and radio stations have been closed down and trade unionists and political activists murdered. But although official international condemnation has been almost universal, including by the US government, barely a finger has been lifted outside Latin America to restore the elected Honduran leadership.

Of course, Latin America has long been plagued by military coups – routinely backed by the US – against elected governments. And Honduras, the original banana republic, has been afflicted more than most. But all that was supposed to have changed after the end of the cold war: henceforth, democracy would reign. And as Barack Obama declared, there was to be a "new chapter" for the Americas of "equal partnership", with no return to the "dark past".

But as the coup regime of Roberto Micheletti digs in without a hint of serious sanction from the country's powerful northern sponsor, there is every sign of a historical replay. In a grotesquely unequal country of seven million people, famously owned and controlled by 15 families, in which more than two-thirds live below the poverty line, the oligarch rancher Zelaya was an unlikely champion of social advance.

But as he put it: "I thought I would bring about changes from within the neoliberal scheme, but the rich didn't give an inch." Even the modest reforms Zelaya did carry out, such as a 60% increase in the minimum wage and a halt to privatisation, brought howls of rage from the ruling elite, who were even more alarmed by his links with Venezuela's Hugo Chávez and Cuba, and his determination to respond to the demands of grassroots movements to wrest political power from the oligarchs and reform the constitution.

Zelaya's attempt to hold a non-binding public consultation on a further vote for a constitutional convention was the trigger for the June coup. The move was portrayed by the coup's apologists as an attempt to extend Zelaya's term in office, which could not have happened whatever the result. But, as in the case of the Chilean coup of 1973, a supreme court decision to brand any constitutional referendum unlawful has been used by US and Latin American conservatives to give an entirely spurious veneer of legality to Zelaya's overthrow.

Behind these manoeuvres, the links between Honduras and US military, state and corporate interests are among the closest in the hemisphere. Honduras was the base for the US Contra war against Nicaragua in the 1980s; it hosts the largest US military base in the region; and it is almost completely dependent economically on the US, both in terms of trade and investment.

Whatever prior traffic there may have been between the Honduran plotters and US officialdom, it's clear that the Obama administration could pull the plug on the coup regime tomorrow by suspending military aid and imposing sanctions. But so far, despite public condemnations, the president has yet to withdraw the US ambassador, let alone block the coup leaders' visas or freeze their accounts, as Zelaya has requested.

Meanwhile, an even more ambivalent line is being followed by Hillary Clinton. Instead of calling for the restoration of the elected president, the secretary of state – one of whose longstanding associates, Lanny Davis, is now working as a lobbyist for the coup leaders – promoted a compromising mediation and condemned Zelaya as "reckless" for trying to return to Honduras across the Nicaraguan border. A clue as to why that might be was given by the state department's Phillip Crowley, who explained that the coup should be a "lesson" to Zelaya for regarding revolutionary Venezuela as a model for the region.

Obama this week attacked critics who say the US "hasn't intervened enough in Honduras" as hypocrites because they were the same people who call for the "Yankees to get out of Latin America". But of course the unanimous call from across the continent isn't for more intervention in Honduras – but for the US government to end effective support for the coup-makers and respond to the request of the country's elected leader to halt military and economic aid.

The reality is that Honduras is a weak vessel on the progressive wave that has swept Latin America over the past decade, challenging US domination and the Washington consensus, breaking the grip of entrenched elites and attacking social and racial inequality. While the imperial giant has been tied down with the war on terror, the continent has used that window of opportunity to assert its collective independence in an emerging multipolar world.

It's scarcely surprising that the process is regarded as threatening by US interests, or that the US government has used the pretext of the lengthy "counter-insurgency" war in Colombia to convince the rightwing government of Alvaro Uribe to allow US armed forces to use seven military bases in the country – which goes well beyond anything the Bush administration attempted and is already heightening tensions with Ecuador and Venezuela.

That's why the overthrow of democratic government in Honduras has a significance that goes far beyond its own borders. If the takeover is allowed to stand, not only will it embolden coup-minded military officers in neighbouring countries such as Guatemala, act as a warning to weaker progressive governments and strengthen oligarchies across the continent. It would also send an unmistakable signal that the radical social and political process that has been unleashed in Latin America – the most hopeful development in global politics in the past two decades – can be halted and reversed. Relying on Obama clearly isn't an option: only Latin Americans can defend their own democracy.

from http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/12/honduras-coup-democracy-barack-obama

[luke]

[luke]

President Zelaya Has Returned to Honduras



The first to break the news in English was the Honduran Campesino blog:

Honduran president Manuel Zelaya is in Tegucigalpa…

The United Nations is protecting Mel…

TeleSur confirms the report, as does Reuters:

"I am here in Tegucigalpa. I am here for the restoration of democracy, to call for dialogue." he told Honduras' Canal 36 television network.

As occurred during the first hours of the June 28 coup d'etat, the Internet signals of Channel 36 and Radio Globo are blocked, as is cell phone service in the capital (I've yet to confirm that there is any Internet or cell phone access in Tegucigalpa at all right now - it all appears to be jammed - but we do have reporter Belén Fernández reporting right this moment from that city and the information blockade will be broken soon enough.) We can take that extreme of censorship as additional confirmation that the President has indeed returned and the illegitimate coup regime is panicking.

Developing... We'll update here as we're able to report and confirm more...

Update: 12:08 p.m. Tegucigalpa (2:08 p.m. ET): TeleSur confirms that the President is in Tegucigalpa but adds that it cannot confirm reports that he is in the United Nations building there. It anticipates a press conference from Zelaya this afternoon...

12:24 p.m. Tegucigalpa (2:24 p.m. ET): One of our correspondents just got an email message from Tegucigalpa which reports that not all cell phone service is blocked.

12:28 p.m.: Via TeleSur: The Spaniard news agency EFE reports that the President is in the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa.

12:29 p.m.: The US State Department confirms that Zelaya is in Honduras (via AP).

12:39 p.m.: The web page of the coup regime's "president" leads with a loud denial: "Micheletti denies the presence of 'Mel' in the country." Meanwhile AFP reports that the Brazilian government has confirmed Zelaya's presence in its Embassy in Tegucigalpa, according to TeleSur.

12:47 p.m.: TeleSur is showing images of uniformed National Police members, with billy clubs, shields, helmets and guns, su rrounding the zone near the Brazilian Embassy, apparently to close access to the area, blocking anti-coup demonstrators from entering or leaving. The network is also broadcasting live images, from Channel 36, of two helicopters circling over the Embassy.

12:51 p.m.: TeleSur reporter Adriana Sívori is now inside the Brazilian Embassy and confirms President Zelaya's physical presence there.

1:57 p.m.: We now have phone contact with Narco News correspondent Belén Fernández, who in Tegucigalpa this morning walked into the Radio Globo headquarters just as the news broke that Zelaya had returned. She's going to have one hell of a story for us later today.

2:04 p.m.: Connecting the dots... The return of Zelaya has all the markings of a very well coordinated operation by the Honduran civil resistance and the member countries of the Organization of American States (OAS). The choice of Brazil's embassy - the Latin American country with the largest Air Force - pretty much guarantees that the coup regime can't possibly think it can violate the sovereignty of that space. That the US State Department confirmed, this morning, that Zelaya is in Honduras while the coup regime denied it strongly suggests it had advance knowledge that this would happen today (if not active participation).

This is a textbook example of what we've referred to before as "dilemma actions." It puts the coup regime on the horns of a dilemma, in which it has no good options. It can leave Zelaya to put together his government again from the Brazilian embassy with the active support of so many sectors of Honduran civil society, or it can try to arrest the President, provoking a nonviolent insurrection from the people of the kind that has toppled many a regime throughout history. Minute by minute, hour by hour, and, soon, day by day, the coup regime is losing its grip. At some point it will have to choose either to unleash a terrible violent wave of state terrorism upon the country's own people - which will provoke all out insurrection in response (guaranteed by Article 3 of the Honduran Constitution) - or Micheletti and his Simian Council can start packing their bags and seeking asylum someplace like Panama. Meanwhile, the people are coming down from the hills to meet their elected president. This, kind readers, is immediate history.

live blog at http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/3439/live-blog-president-zelaya-has-returned-honduras

[faceless]

excellent - here's hoping there's no violence

[luke]

we'll find out after 4pm honduras time;

The coup regime makes its first move, declaring a military curfew in effect from 4 p.m. to 7 a.m. What's not clear is whether it will be obeyed by the crowds converging around the Embassy, and what the regime's next move will be if the public disregards its curfew.

although theres already been plenty of violence since the coup leaders ousted zelaya

[luke]

[luke]

Amnesty: Honduras heading for disaster

Amnesty International denounced on Thursday the sharp rise in police beatings, mass arrests of demonstrators and intimidation of human rights defenders in Honduras since the June coup d'état.

The organisation warned that fundamental rights and the rule of law in the central American nation were in grave jeopardy.

According to reports, approximately 15 police officers fired tear gas canisters at the building of the prominent human rights organisation COFADEH on Tuesday.

Around 100 people, including women and children, were inside the office at the time.

Many were there to denounce police abuses during the break up of a demonstration earlier outside the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa, where ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya has taken refuge.

Amnesty International Americas programme director Susan Lee said: "The situation in Honduras can only be described as alarming.

"The attacks against human rights defenders, suspension of news outlets, beating of demonstrators by the police and ever increasing reports of mass arrests indicate that human rights and the rule of law in Honduras are at grave risk.

"The only way forward is for the de facto authorities to stop the policy of repression and violence and instead respect the rights of freedom of expression and association.

"We also urge the international community to urgently seek a solution before Honduras sinks even deeper into a human rights crisis."

Following the police dispersal of a demonstration outside the Brazilian embassy, demonstrators were reported to have been beaten by police and some several hundred detained.

Reports also indicated similar scenes of human rights violations across the country.

Amnesty said that that it had received information that dozens of protesters had been taken to unauthorised detention sites across the capital on Tuesday evening.

Most have since been released, but arbitrary arrests make those detained vulnerable to human rights abuses such as ill-treatment, torture or enforced disappearance.

from http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/world/Amnesty-Honduras-heading-for-disaster

[luke]

HONDURAN CONSTITUTION SUSPENDED

Late last night (UK time) the coup regime replaced the figleaf of constitutional legitimacy with a Pinochet-style moustache. At about 10pm (3pm Honduran time) the coup leaders unveiled a decree suspending the constitution and civil rights, and vowing to arrest their opponents.

All public gatherings and demonstrations are now officially banned, except those “authorized by police or military authorities.”

Freedom of movement is now officially banned:

“Freedom of transit, which will be restricted according to the parameters established by press releases broadcast on all radio and TV stations by the President of the Republic, which will be in effect in all national territory and during curfews.”

All insitutions of government and state have been put under the direct command of the military:

“All Secretaries of State, decentralized institutions, municipalities and other state organisms must place themselves at the orders of the National Police and Armed Forces without any equivocation”

The last remaining independent TV and radio stations are about to be attacked and closed down:

“Publication in any media, spoken, written or televised, of information that offends human dignity, public officials, or criticizes the law and the government resolutions, or any style of attack against the public order and peace. CONATEL (the Honduran communications commission), through the National Police and the Armed Forces, is authorized to suspend any radio station, television channel or cable system that does not adjust its programming to the present decree”

The coup leader’s decree also included an order to “detain all persons who are found outside of the established orders of circulation”

RESISTANCE SAYS “WE WILL IGNORE THE DECREE AND FIGHT ON”

The National Resistance Front has issued a statement saying that they will march in the capital Tegucigalpa today. People are heading towards Tegus from all parts of the country following President Zelaya’s call to his supporters to prepare for a “final offensive”.

The dictatorship will attempt to seal off the capital by blocking roads and attacking protesters with bullets, tear gas and water cannon. There is a significant risk of a bloodbath and mass arrests. The regime has previously imprisoned hundreds of people in football stadiums; some detainees have been tortured.

Solidarity is needed more than ever.

for a more detailed look check here

[major.tom]

I read this morning that they'd actually closed down 2 TV stations but the latest news today is that the coup "gov't" is backing down (albeit slowly -- "by Friday").