Friday Cat Blogging

Honduras Coup, Act III, Day 1/Update 2

Hoy es huevos

Act I was tragedy, as the wicked chancellor expels the rightful president. Act II was dithering, as the Imperial State Department waffled and bungled its way into demanding sham negotiations, which produced nothing. Now in Act III, in an act of extravagant and quixotic hope, the forces of law ride back to the kingdom to overcome the wicked chancellor. Let’s hope that this ends in laughter rather than tears.

Take it away, Al:

Honduras’ legitimate President Manuel Zelaya yesterday told reporters that he will cross back to the country that elected him on Friday, July 24, via land, a date that also marks 215 years from the birth of the Great Liberator, Simon Bolívar:

“I leave (Managua, Nicaragua) for Estelí, then Somoto and through Ocotal, and the next day (Friday) cross the border,” Zelaya told reporters yesterday. Members of his family and many, many journalists will accompany him on that voyage.

The announcement could be a “head fake” to throw the regime off his path and allow him to more easily enter by another route, but if President Zelaya does choose that location to cross, the Las Manos border crossing, in the Honduran state of El Paraiso, is open from six a.m. to six p.m. and, on a normal day, staffed by the National Police and the Honduras Immigration Service. The border crossing is about 144 kilometers (89 miles) from the capital city of Tegucigalpa.

RAJ at HondurasCoup2009 points out that our media are out and out lying about the response of the Zelaya team to the latest Arias plan. The Zelaya spokesperson Rixi Moncada said that their side “supports” the plan. So, what does the LA Times says? Why, that he “rejects” the plan. However, credit Ginger Thompson of the NYT with getting it right…. even though she recycled the coupistas claims about the origins of the coup without pointing out that they are lies.

School of the Americas Watch has an interesting piece by Nicholas Kozloff on the role of Palmerola (Soto Cano) airbase, known as the US’s “unsinkable aircraft carrier” in the buildup to the coup. Toncotin airport, outside Tegucigalpa, is dangerous. So Zelaya negotiated a deal with the Bush Administration to convert the military base, Palmerola, into a civilian airport, while giving the US a spot in Mosquitia (sidebar: which is apparently the world’s homeland for mosquitoes–Minnesota is their unsinkable aircraft carrier). Then the US welshed on the deal and the coup was on.

TeleSur is doing a great piece on how Zelaya intervened to get land titles for small farmers. They show a lot of human interest pieces… just watching street vendors in Bolivia grilling a local specialty (I think she said the main ingredient was ox heart; whatever, the music was really cool)

Update. Indymedia is reporting on the general strike. Not much specific, but they say that the students are mobilized.

Update2: Zelaya is overnighting in Esteli, Nicaragua. The coupistas have imposed a curfew in the border provinces. A group of human rights activists have denounced “serious violations” of human rights. These include four people, in addition to Isis Obed Murillo, who were murdered for political reasons. One was an unidentified person, and the others were journalist Gabriel Fino Noriega, leftist Ramón García and labor leader Roger Iván Bados. There was also a hate crime (murder) against a member of the LGBT community.

Mistah Kurtz, He Sucks

The husband of Republican media strategist Sheri Annis is at it again with the framing. Get a load of the opening sentence from his latest spewage in the Washington Post: “President Obama declined last night to ask the American people to make much sacrifice to reform health care.”

Um, hello?!? The vast majority of the American people have already frickin’ sacrificed more than their frickin’ due here — that’s why medical costs are the #1 cause of personal bankruptcy in America. This is precisely why we need health care reform — because they’ve already sacrificed far, far more than enough.

Meanwhile, as Robert Reich noted recently, the rich folks that Obama wants to shoulder some of the health care reform costs — you know, guys like Kurtz? — have raked in more than their fair share of America’s bounty over the past three decades.

Quelle Surprise: GOP/Media Complex Slants Health-Care Coverage Against Obama

As if this surprised anyone who’s been paying attention over the past few years.

Honduras Coup, Act II, Day 9/update2

Tomorrow is the day when a general strike is supposed to begin, so today is relatively quiet. But news continues to emerge. The 25th protest is on, according to TeleSur, with the US embassy a place of interest. Tonight the three day cooling off period requested by the US for the Arias talks ends, and Zelaya is free to go (assuming no new commitments are made). TeleSur also reports that the standoff at the Venezuelan embassy continues, with the coupistas threatening to expel them, and promised to use all resources to maintain their presence.

El Libertador is reporting that in an interview with Pacifica Radio, Andres Pavon of the Honduran Committee for the Defense of Human Rights said that Zelaya was flown out through a US air base, Palmerola. If confirmed, this would be the first solid evidence of US involvement in the coup.

In the interview Pavon also confirmed what CubaDefense alleged: General Romeo Vasquez Velasquez is tied in with narcotrafficking, as well as close to the CIA and DEA [shades of Manuel Noriega]. He also says that because there’s a joint command of the air force with the US, it’s likely that preventing Zelaya from landing in Tegucigalpas was done in consultation with the US.

El Libertador also has a timeline of the presidency, 2006-8. One can see that Zelaya annoyed the oligarchy: subsidies for heating oil, minimum wage, daily fireside chats….

The Real News Network has a film on the public relations battle in Washington (via School of the Americas Watch)

Arias has proposed another plan, which is basically the first plan without its specificity: a “unity government” and amnesty.

(Image from Tiempo)

Update2: OK, a report on a piece of total lunacy worthy of Dan Burton from the newspaper Tiempo. It seems that a self-taught sculptor made a fiberglass statue of Zelaya, along with statues of other presidents and figures from independence. Zelaya gave him a little financial support, since the artist was extremely poor and had sick family members. So, what did the coupistas do? They hauled the statue of Zelaya into Parliament and proclaimed that Zelaya had planned to have these placed all over the country to immortalize himself.

As the sculptor said, “Should I laugh or cry?”

Things I Will Never Understand

Things I Will Never Understand: Why some people still think that a Hillary Clinton presidency would have been all that much different from a Barack Obama one. (Well, aside from perhaps President HRC’s possibly openly backing Lanny Davis’ efforts on behalf of the Honduran golpistas, as opposed to President BHO’s condemning the golpistas and cutting off aid to them.)

Case in point: Health care reform. Obama is about to do what the Clintons couldn’t pull off fifteen years ago, and yet there are some out there who think that we’d already have gone much, much farther if only she were in charge. Oh, really? If she and Bill still have pull, why aren’t they using it to rein in Mike Ross? Or are they afraid he’d blow them off?

Bush’s legacy to the youth of America (besides war, debt, and global warming)

Chris McGreal, The Guardian:

Teenage pregnancies and syphilis have risen sharply among a generation of American school girls who were urged to avoid sex before marriage under George Bush’s evangelically-driven education policy, according to a new report by the US’s major public health body.

In a report that will surprise few of Bush’s critics on the issue, the Centres for Disease Control says years of falling rates of teenage pregnancies and sexually transmitted disease infections under previous administrations were reversed or stalled in the Bush years. According to the CDC, birth rates among teenagers aged 15 or older had been in decline since 1991 but are up sharply in more than half of American states since 2005. The study also revealed that the number of teenage females with syphilis has risen by nearly half after a significant decrease while a two-decade fall in the gonorrhea infection rate is being reversed. The number of Aids cases in adolescent boys has nearly doubled.

The CDC says that southern states, where there is often the greatest emphasis on abstinence and religion, tend to have the highest rates of teenage pregnancy and STDs.

In addition, about 16,000 pregnancies were reported among 10- to 14-year-old girls in 2004 and a similar number of young people in the age group reported having a sexually transmitted disease.

The one statistic that isn’t given is the incidence of abortion, but indications are that it has been falling worldwide, most rapidly in countries where it is safe and legal.

Honduras Coup, Act II, Day 8/update 3

Amy Goodman of DemocracyNow did interviews on the Honduran coup. There are various interesting details, the most important of which is that Father Ray Bourgeois visited the US military base in Honduras and was told that cooperation between the Honduran military and the US has continued uninterrupted. Also, the School of Americas, now known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, continues to train Honduran officers.

In an act of incredible willful blindness, the US State Department is claiming that talks have produced “significant results” with “movement on both sides.”

TeleSur reports that UN General Assembly President Miguel d’Escotto says the coupistas are stalling until the last minute so that fake elections can be held.

Bertha Oliva de Nativi, head of the committee of the families of the disappeared (COFADEH), says that the coup has reunited all the players of the 1980s, which ran deaths squads. She says local CIA agents, Argentinian Carabinieri and White Hands (and many more malefactors) are involved. She says a member of the notorious 3-16 Death Batallion was named Chief of National Police before the coup.

Nicholas Kozloff, writing in Rebelion (reprinted at Telesur) notes that Zelaya wrote an impassioned letter to Obama in December 2008 complaining about the US embassy’s arrogance and meddling. He says that if Obama were serious about restoring the damaged relations with Latin America, he would do a thorough housecleaning to get rid of the Bushies, people like Ambassador and former Bush NSC-advisor Hugo Lorens. Kozloff also says that the State Department is dragging its feet in bringing pressure on the coup, apparently in deference to US business interests.

Update2: The coupistas have expelled the Venezuelan embassy. Update3: The Venezuelan diplomats have refused to leave! They say that they don’t recognize the coupistas as a government. This amounts to daring the coupistas to roust them from the embassy. If the coupistas did roust them, it would technically be an act of war.

Hugo Chavez says the coupistas counted on– and received– the support of the US government, but he says Obama may not have known. Assistant Secretary of State Philip Crowley did nothing to dispel that impression (via Eva Golinger):

QUESTION: Coming back to Honduras, we’re getting some reports out of the region that there might be some sort of rift now between Zelaya and the Venezuelan Government. Is that Washington’s understanding? And if so, is that something that can be leveraged as these negotiations move on? To put it another way, is Chavez out of the way, and does that make Washington happy?
MR. CROWLEY: (Laughter.) 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….
QUESTION: When you say that the Venezuelan Government is – should not be an example of government for any leader –
MR. CROWLEY: I’m a believer in understatement.
QUESTION: Can you say that again? (Laughter.) It’s like – it’s justifying, sort of, the coup d’état, because if any government try to follow the socialist Government of Venezuela, then it’s fair, then, that somebody can try to make it – you know, defeat the government or something like that? Can you explain a little bit where we’re – what was your statement about Venezuela?
MR. CROWLEY: Well, I think, as we have talked about and as the Secretary has said in recent days, we have, on the one hand, restored our Ambassador to Venezuela. There are a number of issues that we want to discuss with the Venezuelan Government. On the other side of the coin, we have concerns about the government of President Chavez, not only what he’s done in terms of his own country – his intimidation of news media, for example, the steps he has taken to restrict participation and debate within his country. And we’re also concerned about unhelpful steps that he’s taken with some of this neighbors, and interference that we’ve seen Venezuela – with respect to relations with other countries, whether it’s Honduras on the one hand, or whether it’s Colombia on the other. And when we’ve had issues with President Chavez, we have always made those clear.
QUESTION: Have you ruled this as a coup d’état there legally –
MR. CROWLEY: No.

It doesn’t matter that elsewhere Crowley said that the removal of Zelaya was “extraconstitutional” or that they support him serving out his term. Latin America heard loud and clear that Washington is teaching Zelaya a lesson.

This is your government on drugs

The human rights groups notice that something is amiss in the drug war in Mexico. Howard LaFranchi, Christian Science Monitor (via t/o):

Human-rights groups are calling on the United States to hold back millions of dollars in counternarcotics assistance to Mexico’s military, concerned about what they say is a rise in abuse cases in conjunction with Mexico’s drug war.

President Obama has so far resisted the demand, but the advocates’ campaign threatens to revive old tensions between the US and Mexico over American influence south of the border. …Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission reports a huge jump in reported human-rights violations by Mexican security forces: from 182 in 2006 to 1,230 last year. The Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) notes that such cases continue to be transferred to Mexico’s “notoriously opaque military justice system.”

Translation for the phrase “human-rights violation:” any murders, rapes, or kidnappings which cannot be covered up because the victim or the victim’s surviving family refuse to be intimidated into silence. I wouldn’t be surprised if the real number were 10 times greater– or more.

Now, what happens if a country refuses to militarize the drug war? From the BBC:

Venezuela provides “a safe haven” for Colombian armed groups operating along its border, the report says.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has dismissed the report’s findings, labelling it “a new lie” from the US.
…

Mr Chavez, speaking on Friday after a copy of the report was leaked, said the US was “the top drug trafficking country on the entire planet”.

Co-operation between Venezuelan and American drug enforcement agencies has declined sharply since 2005, when Mr Chavez accused US officials of spying, a charge they denied.

This is getting to be old. Aristide refusing to permit American sweatshops completely unrestricted exploitation of Haitian labor? Call him a drug trafficker. Zelaya raises the minimum wage? Call him a drug trafficker. Chavez tells the US, “Yanqui go home?” Call him a drug trafficker. Indeed, there’s an increasing question whether the US is funding separatist movements in Venezuela and Bolivia that promote lawlessness, exacerbate poverty, and thereby cause the rise of armed citizen movements that fund their resistance by selling drugs and committing other crimes.

The people who really are on drugs are the people in Washington who think that substance addiction and abuse can be cured with troops.

Honduras Coup, Act II, Day 7/update3

While the process is frozen with a 72-hour halt on dialogue, a lot of news is spilling forth.

Rights Action reports that pro-coup demonstrators are paid:

On a number of occasions, mine workers [from Goldcorp], ex-mine workers and other local young men, have travelled in buses from the Siria Valley to Tegucigalpa to participate in pro-coup marches organized by the pro-coup Movement for Peace and Democracy that is funded by the Honduran private sector (see more info, below) and possibly by the International Republican Institute, USAID and the NED (National Endowment for Democracy)…On the bus, the men and young men are paid 400 Lempiras cash. One young man told us that he, working as a campesino, could earn 100 lempiras ($5) on a typical day of work; thus, it was worth it and he was going to do it again;

RAJ at HondurasCoup2009 has two interesting pieces. The first is the emergence of a fissure in the coupistas. Ex-president Carlos Flores, who is viewed as the ideological force behind the coup, presented a separate counterproposal to the Arias plan. It’s basically a proposal for a cold peace, in which Zelaya returns and serves out his term without any real power, and the Armed Forces is ordered back to its barracks, but there’s no real accountability for the coup. Instead, it envisions a “Truth Commission” to write the official history of what happened. The second article is a suitably derisive explanation of what Micheletti is counterproposing to the Arias plan. As RAJ says, “The only news here is that they admit they made a mistake by denying President Zelaya his right to remain in Honduras. However, by describing him repeatedly as “citizen petitioner” they refuse to acknowledge he remains the consitutional president of the country.” This of course is precisely the debate that occurred on MercuryRising, with one of our commenters focusing on the admission by the coupistas that they made a “mistake” in kidnapping and expelling Zelaya, while the real issue is the illegality of the entire process used to remove Zelaya, probably from its very beginnings. When the latter is recognized, it becomes impossible to defend the coupistas as anything other than a dictatorship which must be put down.