Honduran Dictatorship, Day 19

Via Adrienne, Cesar Silva has done a tremendous documentary on the coup and its aftermath, with English subtitles. I wish every member of Congress would watch this. You can see the huge crowds that turned out before the regime started assassinating people. Also from Adrienne, the home of the vice president of the beverage union was invaded, and the computer he used for organizing taken, the kidnapping and torture of a Resistance couple and their family , the murder of a leader of the nurses’ union, Vanessa Yamileth Zepeda , and for people of limited literacy such as our Congress, the Honduran coup in comic book form, and a report on the hacking of Vos el Soberano, which is probably the largest news aggregation site for the Resistance.

At Honduras Culture and Politics, RNS has an Orwellian story of how the official paper La Gaceta has been used to erase history. Nothing becomes law in Honduras unless it is published in La Gaceta, so the precise words of what it publishes are very important. The Congress approved a dam/reservoir to be built by Italian company, Eléctrica Nacaome, Sociedad Anonima (ENASA), with turbines to come from a Spanish company. Needless to say, this is not very popular with the electrical workers union– or, really, with anyone outside of the elite in a country with unemployment somewhere around 30%. So, La Gaceta published two editions: one with the controversial law, all copies of which were purchased by ENASA, and one without it. RNS says:

The administrator of the file room where the negatives of the pages of each edition of La Gaceta are filed has disappeared after asking for permission to take a leave of absence, along with the keys for the file room. The ex-President of Congress, Jose Alfredo Saavedra, under whose leadership the Congress approved supposedly approved the decreto in question, disclaims any knowledge saying he only oversees the discussion, not its content.

So there’s no record of what the contract says except what ENASA says it says.

Ramon Custodio (image via Moderate Left)

The so-called Commissioner of Human Rights, Ramon Custodio, most famous for denying that the police were using live ammunition against the resistance even as more and more corpses appeared to refute him,  is warning that a Truth Commission could re-open the “Cuarta Urna:” the poll to ask whether the people want the Constitution reformed. This is the abomination that must not be discussed in Honduras. The proximate cause of his fear is that the Pretendisent, Porfirio Lobo, may be thinking of naming a Resistance leader to the Truth Commission. As was said in Honduras long ago, it’s cheaper to buy a congressman than a mule, so there’s probably no need to fear.

Brother John has a piece on Bartolome de las Casas, someone important to read to understand why, by 1860, the Spanish attitude toward slavery was very much more enlightened than the American.

Via Magbana at Honduras Oye, a link to a story by Kari Lyderson of In These Times on the murder of Vanessa Yamileth Zepeda, as well as a link to an interview of Juan Almendares, MD, that appears in Honduras Resists.

The Latin American News Dispatch claims that the Half-Truth Commission that Lobo is establishing will investigate the overthrow of Zelaya. I doubt that is true, but what is certainly true is the statement in that article that the World Bank will restore $390M in funding (thereby preventing Honduras from ending in default) with $120M in new funding. Tamar Sharabi of Upside Down World has an interview of journalist Cesar Silva. Here’s an excerpt:

CS: I was kidnapped on Monday December 29th when I was on my way from the south where I went to distribute a documentary about the resistance and met with related colleagues….

They approached the taxi and held the driver at gunpoint, telling him to stay quiet otherwise they would kill him. They pulled me out of the taxi beating me up and took me into their car to a remote place in the mountains. We traveled about an hour while I was beaten inside the car. First they made me sit with my head between my legs, then they put a hood on me.

The kidnappers did not cover their faces nor were they wearing military clothes but by their vocabulary and communication by telephone with the ‘Jackal,’ it was clear they were getting orders. We reached an area away from the city where they put me in a dark room.

I was held from December 29 at 9:00am until the December 30th at noon. During these 27 hours I was interrogated every 45 minutes and punched in areas that leave no trace; my feet soles, testicles, stomach, and back, using their fists. I was naked and they kept wetting my body. In a moment of increased tension they tried to suffocate me with water. They threw water on my face until I was no longer able to breathe. I swallowed as much water as possible, but as I felt like I was drowning, another officer yelled that they would kill me another faster way.

The interrogations were about weapons; where they were, who were my contacts and how many leaders existed. They also asked where all my photos and videos were stored and what type of profile information we had of military leaders. They continued to threaten that I would not leave there alive and that I’d better trust in God. They offered me drugs to take to ease the pain of dying which I refused to accept.

On the morning of December 30, one of the officers told me that my life might be saved but that he wasn’t sure. Then I heard the torturers begin to plan my death. One of them suggested a shot in the head but then decided I would not suffer enough that way. Another one said they would let me hang myself from a tree or that they drag me attached to the car along the street. Then one of them said they could open my stomach and slowly pull out my intestines so I could talk as I died.

Hours later they took me out of there blindfolded with a hood and took me to “throw me out”. They dumped me in Tegucigalpa between the neighborhood ‘Cerro Grande’ and ‘El Chile,’ in a sector that is mountainous and very isolated.

Your tax dollars at work.