Honduran dictatorship, day 71

Via Adrienne, a 10 minute documentary by Jesse Freeston of The Real News… starring Adrienne Pine (among others)!

However, RAJ points out that Jesse’s view of how many countries have recognized Honduras is misleading. Even the US has not yet accepted the credentials of the man Honduras named as its ambassador. The countries that have fully normalized relations are Taiwan, Israel, Panama, Colombia, Costa Rica, Peru, El Salvador, Guatemala, and the Dominican Republic. A number of other governments are sending or have sent ambassadors, but this may not represent full normalization. These include France, Spain, Finland, Germany, the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Czech Republic, and India.

Another member of the Bajo Aguan farmers’ association, MUCA, has been murdered, according to Vos el Soberano (no direct link). Thirty five year old Jose Leonel Alvarez Guerra was shot as he arrived home by two people on a red motorcycle.

Tiempo says the half-Truth Commission will be constituted on the 29th of April. The members will be The Rector of the Honduran National University (UNAH), Julieta Castellanos; the ex rector of UNAH Jorge Omar Casco, the ex-vicepresident of Guatemala, Eduardo Stein, the ex-ambassador from Canadá to the US and Cuba, Michael Kerlin and maybe the ex-ministress of Peruvian justice, María Amadilia Zavala Valladares.

As proof that no good deed goes unpunished, Tiempo says that Spanish judge Baltazar Garzón, has himself been haled before a court by ultra-right forces for having investigated disappearances under the Dictator Francisco Franco. They’ve dug up a number of the bodies, so it’s not like there’s any doubt about the crimes– but the ultra-right says that Garzón lied in order to open the investigation. Since Garzón was the only person likely to actually hold the Honduran dictatorship (or the Bush Administration) to account, one can pretty well count out any reckoning for world leaders. Can the world actually get more corrupt than prosecuting the man who single-handedly brought Pinochet and Franco (in permanent absentia) to account?