Honduras Coup, Act IV, Day 14

Update3:
Al Giordano managed to ruin a good story about Frances Robles of the Miami Herald by inexplicably putting it together with the story of David Romero of Radio Globo (see below). But it’s late and so it will have to wait for another day.

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Update2:

Sadly, David Romero of Radio Globo did make the statements attributed to him by Ulf Erlingsson, specifically that “I ask myself if Hitler was or not correct in finishing with that race with the famous Holocaust.” and “why didn’t we let Hitler carry out his historic mission?” According to AP, Romero apologized for the statement. One of his grandfathers was Jewish. Neither fact– no fact, including the strain under which Radio Globo has operated–excuses the statement. The statement is inexcusable.

But just as inexcusable is the attempt to use the statement to attack Zelaya, who had absolutely nothing to do with it. Literally the only statement of the many compiled by the ADL that mentions Jews is Romero’s! All the rest of the statements have to do with Israel and specific complaints about the actions of that state. The attempt to confuse anti-Semitism with complaints about Israeli policy in order to attack Zelaya is a political use of the issue. Both Romero’s statement and the use of it for political gain disrespect the people who died in the Holocaust.

There are some hard facts that need to be remembered. Anti-Semitism was almost exclusively a right-wing issue until relatively recently. In Latin America, a number of refugees from the Third Reich took refuge with right-wing dictators. The Catholic Church openly taught anti-Semitism until relatively recently. As Al Giordano said:

Mel Zelaya was attacked by such anti-Semites when he appointed so many Jewish-Hondurans to top positions in his government, in representation much larger than in the population at large.

The people who have tried ceaselessly to push the meme that Zelaya and Chavez and, indeed, every leader that gets in the way of the right-wing agenda, are anti-Semitic are hypocrites.

Dick Emanuelsson has an article here
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Update: BTW, Ulf Erlingsson has stated that:

Ulf Erlingsson says (in English):
Ulf Erlingsson says:
2009-10-04 at 08:59 Charles II is trying to apologize for these reprehensible comments, even alleging that they may not be true. Considering that he apparently does not understand Swedish, I find this linking to this posting quite odd. Gabriel, on the other hand, whom he criticizes, does read Swedish.

It is interesting to see the Chavez and Zelaya apologists squirm now that it is dawning on the world that it was not a coup, but that the democratic institutions rather defended themselves against a coup, planned by persons with very undemocratic ideologies.

The joke is on him. Here’s a translation of the first paragraph and first sentence second paragraph of his post. Let him start eating his words:

Swedish media have been fooled because the people of Honduras with Nazi sympathies.

When President Zelaya was deposed by the Supreme Court and Congress on June 28, it was presented to the world as a coup. Although the president who took over, Roberto Micheletti, has acted in an exemplary manner which effectively led to a decreased, not increased, violence in the country, the outside world media has been full of horror stories about oppression, extrajudicial executions, arbitrary detention, and so further.

If one examines the origin of these hysterical stories as leads all trace back to a single radio station in Honduras, Radio Globo.

You’re lying when you claim that reports of human rights violations trace to Radio Globo. The Inter-American Center of Human Rights documented hundreds of cases of false imprisonment, numerous woundings, and some deaths. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have issued reports, and the Quixote Center has done some reporting. The UN has issued a statement excoriating the regime for human rights violations.

Your claim that the world is changing its opinion on the coup is a lie.

Your claim that I am an apologist is also a lie, pure and simple.

Your claim that Micheletti has behaved in an exemplary manner is… delusional at best. The UN had to remind him that Honduras has agreed to the Vienna Treaty protecting embassies from attack.

I wouldn’t be surprised if what you posted about Rivera Romero isn’t also a lie, but I didn’t hear the broadcast, so I’m keeping an open mind.

As I said in my post, raising false charges of anti-Semitism is very dangerous, because it trivializes the very real danger that anti-Semitism poses.
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A brilliant article conveying the mood of the resistance by Jeremy Kryt (via Narconews). An excerpt:

“Everyone who lives here has rights – that’s why it is a free country,” Inspector Rivera said to me the other day in the First Precinct, before confiscating my camera and forbidding me to use a tape recorder when I went to view the prisoners. “This is a country of peace and tranquility,” he went on. “There is no repression here.” Then the Inspector led me through a locked door, into the interior. In the cramped compound behind the station, all 38 men were jammed into a primitive, unlighted holding cell that was built to house about a dozen prisoners. The heat and smell were overpowering, but the farmers put on a brave face. The men did have water to drink, but they wanted no food, as they were engaged in a hunger strike against their “illegal detention”.

There’s also an insightful article by S. O’Donnell , reprinted from Pagina 12, an Argentinian newspaper at Vose El Soberano. Starting from a small view of being inside the embassy (“Surrounded. With military on the pavement. With military in the surrounding houses.”), it moves out to a very large view of the collapse of American influence and the rise of Brazilian (“[Brazil is]the sixth most powerful country in the world…the visit of the Brazilian congressman has been very fortunate…”…[the United States has been supportive... but the US won't use force with a war on in Afghanistan]… “But Brazil is rising as a power. Brazil world champion. Brazil Olympics. Brazil, owner of great petroleum reserves. Brazil, pillar of BRIC [Brazil Russia India China]…Brazil has just made a huge purchase of French armament…. Brazil could become the policeman of democracy in Latin America.”) Why have no Democratic congressmen– or consular officials–visited the Brazilian embassy? Why is the United States so self-absorbed that it doesn’t see how its stature shrinks with every day that it blunders about spouting blame but offering no answers? We may one day look back on this episode as the first unmistakable sign of the collapse of the American empire.

Another story by Arturo Cano, is reprinted from La Jornada but no link given. Rather than celebrate the Day of the Soldier witrh parades, it is being celebrated in small groups in the barracks. The soldiers prevent Zelaya and his entourage from having any tinned foods or energy drinks. Forcing them to have fresh food means that half the people in the embassy got food poisoning from a chicken stew.

The more I think about, the tighter the parallels between the expulsion of Zelaya and the abduction of Aristide seem. One detail in particular: in both cases, fake resignations were produced.

Sara Miller Llana, Christian Science Monitor:

Radio Globo director David Romero says the station has over 400,000 listeners online, four times its regular following. “It is frustrating the government,” he says, laughing. “They can´t stop us.” …

This is not the first time the station has been closed, says Mr. Romero, the station director. Troops and police shuttered the station upon Zelaya´s ouster too. Mr. Romero jumped out of his office window to escape, breaking a shoulder, he says. This time, just after 5 a.m. on Monday, a convoy stormed the station again. Romero then escaped via a new route he set up in anticipation – rope and ladder. He bears rope burns as proof….