I have been very much tied up, but will try to do an update late tonight.
RAJ has an answer to pro-coup partisans who don’t imagine that Americans have any idea what’s really going on in Honduras.
magbana at HondurasOye has discovered the Naumann Foundation, a German version of the National Endowment for Democracy (which devotes itself to undermining democracy), which Telesur mentioned some time ago.
Election season began. The Frente Contra el Golpe has threatened a boycott, but Carlos Reyes (independent) and Cesar Ham (UD) are candidates of the anti-coupistas, according to Tiempo. Elvin Santos will be the Liberal candidate and Porfirio Lobos the Nationalist. The pretend government says that Zelaya can return on in 2010.
Radio Globo is talking about Billy Joya, of the 3-16 batallion death squad. Juan Evangelista Lopez Grijalba (see also here and here), a colonel. Luis Alonso Morán Ñorel, ? Alvaro Ponce, Colonel Alexander Raimundo Hernandez Santos, and one other. There will be a march beginning at 8AM starting at the Universidad Pedagogica.
Adrienne Pine has been devoting effort to promoting the defense of Dario Euraque, a historian at Trinity College. The Hartford Courant has given him some considerable ink, which may help to spread the word that something is actually happening in Honduras.
Another source goes down: The TR-Honduras page has been suspended. My guess is that there is some cyber warfare going on. It’s a good time to make sure your software is up-to-date and that you don’t download anything you don’t absolutely need.
Brother John has an English translation of a statement by Franciscan Friars in Honduras. I have to say that statements like this remind me of the resistance song “No, no, no basta rezar. Hace falta muchas cosas para conseguir la paz.” The Sisters of Mercy (to whom Brother John also links) have more practical advice:
We urge the U.S. government to:
- be unequivocal and very public in denouncing the brutal human rights violations committed by Honduran military and police forces;
- cancel diplomatic as well as tourist and business visas for a broader group of those implicated in orchestrating or leading the coup;
- freeze the accounts in U.S. banks of these same coup leaders; and
- follow the example of other nations by recalling Ambassador Llorens until the legitimate president of Honduras is restored to office.
…
We also urge the Catholic community worldwide and all people of good will to strengthen international solidarity with the Honduran people, accompanying those whose basic human rights are being violated, advocating for a just and enduring resolution to this crisis, and addressing the many ways in which international greed for minerals and markets, wealth, power and control provide fertile ground for the suffering in Honduras. Long-term peace and stability depend on ensuring that the poor and marginalized sectors of society be included in the economic and political life of the country.
At its heart, the Honduran coup (and all the violence against the leftists of Central and South America) is because some business owners refuse to provide fair pay, engage in abominable environmental practices, and otherwise don’t practice the Christianity which most of them profess. If these people were behaving even slightly along the lines Jesus instructed, there would be no left.