The American Anthropological Association is asking for input on a resolution condemning the Honduran coup. And it’s open for comment, right here! My comment was this:
I support the resolution, and suggest that the complaints against its imperfections represent an unwillingness to face facts.
1. Asking that people not be killed, beaten, or unjustly jailed is not meddling, “dominative,” or “hegemonic.” [these were arguments used in the rebuttal by coup supporters]. It is what every one of us would wish if the shoe were on the other foot.
2. Supporting the abolition of an institution, the Honduran military, that has almost never been used for defense but has regularly been used to kidnap, torture, and maim is not “over-the-top.” It is common sense.
3. It is a lie that anthropologists are not “political.” It was no accident that one of the main arenas of the McCarthy witchhunts was the AAA under Irving Hallowell. It was no mistake that anthropologists were used in the Vietnam War– and are being used for “human terrain mapping” in the drug war in Mexico. No, anthropologists are definitely political. The question is whether they will use their talents and knowledge to benefit the people from whose study they make their livelihoods or whether they will turn those talents to impoverishing them and erasing their cultures.
4. The argument that Zelaya’s attempt to poll the population on whether to convene a Constitutional Convention in any way justifies a coup is so self-evidently morally bankrupt that it hardly needs a response. Even if the argument had any validity, which it certainly does not, Zelaya is hardly in a position to try to conduct the poll, whereas the people who kidnapped him, murdered several dozen dissidents, gravely wounded hundreds, jailed thousands of others, and so on remain in power.
There’s a simple test for this situation. Do you think that American tax dollars should go in any way to encourage or support the Iranian mullahs, who even now are beating, kidnapping, torturing, and killing their citizens?
Then either you also believe that your government should stop supporting the Honduran dictatorship, or you are a hypocrite.
Please participate.
(Image from El Heraldo)
Zelaya warns his fellow Central American leaders that the failure to punish the coup undermines everyone.
In another blow to press freedom, so to speak, the editor of El Libertador René Novoa and another man were seized by police/armed forces. They were beaten with weapons.
Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim complained about the failure of the US to communicate with Latin America regarding the bases in Colombia and the re-activation of the Fourth Fleet, as well as the delay of sanctions against the Honduran dictatorship.
Tiempo reports that four masked men siezed and executed 50 year-old Juana Albertina Rodríguez and her son, 19 year-old Darwin José Ramírez in El Jaral, Santa Cruz de Yojoa.
The drought has turned into a water shortage and possible emergency in Tegucigalpa.
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Update: Radio Globo server is down. Channel 36 is reporting interference from the government (they seem to be getting flooded with hang-up calls). Lots of people are complaining about the foul water.
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