Honduras Coup, Act III, Day 15/Updated

Update: Hey, everyone, warn Harlingen, Texas! The Sandinistas…er, Chavistas are gonna drive up and terrorize the good folks at Boomerang Baba’s Diner! From Ginger Thompson, NYT:

As if taking a page from a cold war playbook, Gen. Miguel Ángel Garcia Padget said the military had disrupted Mr. Chávez’s plans to spread socialism across the region. “Central America was not the objective of this communism disguised as democracy,” he said. “This socialism, communism, Chávismo, we could call it, was headed to the heart of the United States.”

Basically, the military junta that is running Honduras went on TV a couple of days ago to tell everyone that there’s no military junta, everything is all nice and legal like. And there aren’t any death squad killings.

In concealing as much as revealing, Ginger Thompson’s article, BTW, is an illustration of what is wrong with NYT coverage. This suspicious use of the subjunctive suggests she doesn’t think there was a coup: “television viewers could have been forgiven for thinking that [a coup] is exactly what had happened” She says the more the Generals denied it, the “clearer it became that they continued to play a leading role in Honduran politics”… implying, I suppose, that military occupation is what constitutes politics in Honduras. She lets General Vasquez say, “If that’s [coupistas is] what we were, we would have called a national emergency and detained all of those who are out there causing trouble.” without mentioning that most people would consider military roadblocks throughout two provinces an emergency of some kind and 2000 people jailed without charges to be rather a lot. And she lets this go by without mentioning that the “‘death squad’ strategies” are accompanied with actual dead bodies with multiple stab wounds and the like: “Gabo Jalil, the vice minister of defense in the de facto government, said in an interview that international human rights groups have made baseless accusations that the military is using ‘death squad’ strategies against Mr. Micheletti’s opponents.”

Harlingen, to arms!
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Lanny Davis did an interview on DemocracyNow. Appalled by his lies and aggressive demeanor, I had to turn it off. The low point was achieved near the end, where Lanny Davis said, “Could I comment about your being the moderator of this show, Amy? No, I guess you don’t want me to.” He did petty little crap like calling Greg Grandin “Mr. Professor,” and complaining that Grandin wasn’t pronouncing his name quite right. By my count (which could be off by as much as 5%) Amy Goodman used 1,185 words to set up and moderate the segment, Greg Grandin got 1,544 words, and Lanny Davis got 2,948 words!

I can’t believe this is a Clinton associate. He is a despicable person, a liar, and perfectly suited to represent his clients.

One question that arose in a debate on HondurasCoup2009 had to do with whether students had deliberately thrown rocks at bystanders and destroyed several fast food restaurants near the university in the course of the disturbances there. As I said, I had not heard any such allegations or seen any evidence of it, nor did it make any sense. Students destroying their own hangouts? More likely opportunistic criminals or agents provocateur.

After an hour of searching, and well over 24 hours after the streetfights, I finally found one photo and story on Tiempo, and a mention on El Heraldo, though there are many outlets I could have missed. The lag in publishing the photo is suspicious, suggesting to me that there might be a bit more to the story that we aren’t being told.

(Image from Tiempo)

The story states that the stores both inside and outside the university were destroyed in the course of fighting between students and Cobras. It says that the remainder of the stores were left undamaged, proving that the students attacked the stores they did because they didn’t like the politics of the owners (the logic is underwhelming, but it might be true). The photo shows damage to the awning, suggesting a group effort. The angle of bend suggests to me that perhaps the awning was down.

Radio Globo has covered some of the retaliation against government employees by the coup (which is presumably installing its followers in these sinecures) and is reading the nastygrams they receive. “Boca de sapo” (toad mouth) is about as creative as it gets.