Honduran Coup Update, 07/02/09
Posted by Phoenix Woman on July 2, 2009
The coup leaders, who allegedly stole power because they wanted to “save” the Honduran Constitution, have now just trashed it:
Despite the best efforts of what I call “the Oligarch Diaspora” to flood the Internet with near identical messages that the Honduran coup “is not a coup” and that was a “constitutional succession” (cough, cough) dressed in the blue-and-white flag of Honduran democracy, the coup regime bared its fangs today. And like any vampire, it’s coming out at nightfall.
The same Congress that, after the military had kidnapped, beaten and dumped President Manuel Zelaya in Costa Rica had declared one of its own, Roberto Micheletti as the coup “president” today passed an emergency law stripping Hondurans of the following rights from the country’s constitution:
1. The right to protest.
2. Freedom in one’s home from unwarranted search, seizure and arrest.
3. Freedom of association.
4. Guarantees of rights of due process while under arrest.
5. Freedom of transit in the country.
Tomorrow morning’s papers are already out across the ocean in Europe, and correspondent Pablo Ordaz of the Madrid daily El Pais has reported from Tegucigalpa about the Coup Congress’ decree:
“Minute by minute, step by step, Honduras moves farther from its freedoms…”
Read the defenders of the coup and they are united by one powerful feeling: fear. They’re afraid of the growing demonstrations in the streets, like the in the capital city this afternoon captured in the video above, where despite the brutal repressions against the people, each day the opposition crowds grow larger, more emboldened, and better organized. In the defiant but smiling faces of the Hondurans opposing the coup you can see the palpable difference between their passion and the lack of it from the passive bumps on a log that attended yesterday’s pro coup rally.
The Congressional decree specified that only at night may those five freedoms be disappeared. And so tonight, a new reign of terror begins.
However, indications are that this reign of terror may be about to end:
The Organization of American States (OAS), which has unanimously demanded the reinstatement of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya within 72 hours or it will expel Honduras from the organization, is attempting various diplomatic overtures to convince the coup plotters that it will not be in their best interests to continue holding Honduras’ democracy hostage.
The US has been part of the formulation of that position (along with Venezuela, Brazil, the Central American nations and other leading players) and its clear that Washington is following the lead of the collective will of the hemisphere.
Keep your fingers crossed. The next 48 hours will tell the tale.
Stormcrow said
I don’t see how that follows, PW.
If these guys were approachable by any diplomatic or political means whatsoever, we wouldn’t even be talking about this, because it would never have happened.
Why should they be “convinced” by the OAS when they’ve already put their heads in nooses by kidnapping their entire country, and murdering people in order to do so? All the OAS is going to do is talk to them and maybe pass some economic sanctions. Those aren’t going to have much traction against people who most probably intend to steal everything Honduran not firmly bolted into cement, anyway. If there’s anything I can guess about this lot with a high degree of certainty, it’s that they’re NOT altruists.
The only way this is going to be wrapped up and disposed of is by naked force. Since I’ve never heard of a general strike getting anywhere in Latin America. In an industrialized country like Germany, yeah. Not in Latin America.
The only player besides the local Hondurans who can apply that force is the United States. Which is still involved in the endgame of one lost war, in the middle game of another, is absolutely tapped out of available troops, and has far less than zero credibility as an intervening power everywhere between the Rio Grande and Tierra Del Fuego.
Charles II said
There are three angles of interest, Stormcrow. First, a LOT of Hondurans are not coup-copacetic. The army isn’t really under control any more. Al Giordano said that two units are already showing signs of switching sides. Second, Zelaya isn’t coming alone, but escorted. I don’t know how much diplomatic artillery he will be coming with, but I am hopeful (no evidence, just a hopeful dream) that Clinton or Carter will decide to take the trip with him. Heaven knows Clinton could use the favorable press. Third, thieves tend to fall out, and there are no thieves like the Honduran oligarchy. Surely someone in the oligarchy will see an opening to gain power by backstabbing Micheletti’s faction and virtuously leading a return to “constitutional ‘democracy’”. Come November, they can install someone, eh… reliable.
Zelaya only has a few months more in power, so it never made any sense to create this international manure monsoon. The fact that they did just goes to show how effete and delusional they have become.
Phoenix Woman said
Stormie, these guys thought that they would have the backing of the US the same way their brethren in Venezuela did in 2002. They wouldn’t have tried this otherwise.
The fact that the OAS and the UN is, with the US, putting up a united front against the coup plotters — and from the very start — is a good sign.
Stormcrow said
If they figured they were going to get significant support from the US under any circumstance right now, they should have had their heads examined for leaks.
Like I said, we’re halfway through withdrawal from one lost war, and we’re in the middle part of losing another one. The Army is hard up enough to have been ignoring recruiting minimum standards – major red flag items like prison records and gang membership – for several years now.
We’re also in the start of a major 1929-redux economic depression, and Satan alone knows how long and how bad it’s likely to be. Let me put it this way: Flint Michigan is simply tearing down large parts of itself and letting the land revert to nature. I don’t even want to think of what it’s like in Southern California right now. And the worst of this is still to come.
We couldn’t do much to aid the plotters directly at this time in our history, even if President Palin were receiving her orders directly from God.
Phoenix Woman said
There’s no need for armed intervention, Stormie. In fact, our most effective weapon costs us nothing.
We’re cutting off what aid Honduras is getting, in keeping with the worldwide goal of making it a pariah state. The World Bank is also putting its aid program on hold.
At this point, it becomes a waiting game. And a guessing game: Namely, which nation will Micheletti the coup leader flee to when he is overthrown and Zelaya restored? Some think Colombia, others El Salvador; some suggest Italy, Micheletti’s ancestral homeland, where Berlusconi would no doubt give him a warm welcome.
Charles II said
Naah, PW. Honduras protects its own. There will be a show arrest of Micheletti and a lengthy trial with the verdict being, “Good job, but lay low until the heat’s off.”
Stormcrow said
Actually, when I referred to certain people needing to have “their heads inspected for leaks”, I was talking about the putchists themselves. Responding to your earlier statement …
My point was that even had the completely wrong people won last November, there was no real grounds for any remotely rational bunch of right-wing Honduran zealots to have expected jack shit from us right now.
We’re a squeezed-out toothpaste tube, and will be for half a decade at minimum.
This is shitty bad news for us. A damned good thing geography has dealt us the sort of hand that puts us squarely in the “uninvadeable” category. Right up there with Russia and the PRC, if not more so. Because if we weren’t, we wouldn’t be able to do much about it for anther 10-20 years.
But it presents a golden opportunity to every progressive from the Rio Grande river to the southern tip of Argentina.