Update3: Adrienne Pine has the translation of a statement from Dr. Juan Almendares, a heroic human rights figure and former university provost at the National University:
. This is a call to all students, professors, and authorities to join the resistance to the military coup. The real teaching and learning is happening in the streets, fighting together with the people, united with the resistance. Not doing so is to betray the people and the nation.
Tiempo, which has been nervously half-reporting on the coup, got a taste of the devil they’re dealing with when (at the university demo) photojournalist Héctor Clara Cruz was beaten, threatened and the cops tried to destroy his equipment. “Son of a whore, stop that s–t and stop taking pictures of us because if you don’t we’re going to rip off your dick” would be a fair translation of the warning issued by peace officers. There was a peaceful demonstration by thousands in front of the Supreme Court.
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Update2: Adrienne Pine has a report that hundreds of students were wounded by gunshots. It’s very specific that these were lead, not rubber. It seems to me that either there must be many fatalities or these must have been rubber bullets. Added: this is increasingly looking like a false report. Telesur mentions no fatalities.
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Update: I have corrected errors in the post below, including some links that went missing.
RadioGlobo, against all expectation, is still on the air, though my feed keeps bollixing. Eduardo Maldonado is discussing conflict at the university, though I got in late and it’s not clear if this is an incident today or in the past [Evidently 100 university students “rejected” presidential candidate Elvin Santos, after Santos’ bodyguards pistol whipped and menaced people. Shots were fired. According to Tiempo, the police ejected 3,000 students with tear gas and water cannons. A woman, rector of the university, was beaten by the police and wrestled to the ground.]. Maldonado says there is a media war, trying to smear Zelaya’s people–and even Hugo Llorens– as having received money from FARC. And he’s reading a number of the nastygrams they have received, calling him a “garbage dog” among many other not very creative insults. A report from the university says things have calmed down, but there are no classes. It sounds as if a tear gas bomb went off, and then there was firing, and that there are conflicting reports of how many injuries. (connection lost)
Jose Torres on the meeting between Zelaya and Llorens in Managua on 7/31. An interview with Salvador Zúñiga of COPINH (the Civic Council of Honduran Popular and Indigenous Peoples’ Organizations).
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Al Giordano has word on why Radio Globo was broadcasting despite the coup having ordered its closing: they are taking a stand, and the public is protecting them.
(Photo from cmi honduras, Indymedia)
Al says that the coupistas are targeting older and pregnant women for harassment, presumably with the goal of causing miscarriages in the latter and deaths among the former. I’m just waiting for the Cardinal to speak up about that.
RAJ has this:
Edmundo Orellana, the defense minister who resigned from the Zelaya government the week before the coup to register his disagreement with President Zelaya, and who since the coup has spoken out against the unconstitutional nature of the actions of Congress and the army, has published a new editorial calling for acceptance of the San Jose Accord.
In it, he briefly summarizes the many violations of Constitutional procedure that make the coup illegal.