HONDURAS UPDATE AUGUST 1 2009

HONDURAS UPDATE AUGUST 1 2009

By Emile Schepers

There is not a huge amount of new stuff to report at close of day Saturday, August 1. There are no new diplomatic initiatives, unless they are “behind the scenes”. The priority actions for us are still to get some steam behind H RES 630, which condemns the coup and calls for Zelaya’s restoration to power, in the House of Representatives, and to organize whatever kind of forums, press conferences, demonstrations etc. we can to back up the demands of the Honduran working class and people. Other than that:

1. As mentioned above, H RES 630 is the priority. It now has 44 cosponsors. That is the good news. The bad news is that the reactionary resolution, H RES 619, which applauds the coup and demands the Obama administration recognize the Micheletti regime, has been gaining on it, with a current 41 cosponsors. Most of the cosponsors on H RES 630 are from the Progressive, Hispanic and Black caucuses. The ones on H RES 619 are “the usual suspects”: Right wing Cuban exiles from South Florida and their allies, anti-worker pre-Neanderthals and fascists. But we have to realize that the WHOLE of the Republican Party is supporting Micheletti and the putchists, while BY NO MEANS ALL of the Democrats have yet come out in support of condemning the coup and restoring Zelaya.

2. One person has died as the result of the violent repression of pro-Zelaya demonstrators in Honduras yesterday, a schoolteacher. There have been acts in memorial at which Zelaya’s wife, Xiomara Castro de Zelaya, has been one of the main speakers.

3. On the website of Telesur (www.telesurtv.net) there is an interview this evening with president Manuel Zelaya which I summarize in English as follows: The violence that has resulted from the coup in Honduras should serve as a lesson for the international community, because it shows the need to create mechanisms to combat those who usurp authority by force. He criticizes people on the right wing in Nicaragua who have denounced his presence and that of Honduran refugees (perhaps about 500) in that country, saying that “What Nicaragua is doing is a gesture of hospitality, of immense love”. He denied he is forming an armed militia in Nicaragua to invade Honduras (as the right wing pro-coup press in Honduras has been saying), he said that he is creating a force not to create violence but to oppose violence. He criticized the anti-Chavez campaign in Honduras, and praised the Venezuelan president. He intimated that the claims that Chavez runs him are to hide the fact that the putchists overthrew him because he had the intention of discussing the problems of the country peacefully through the ballot box. He warned U.S. President Barack Obama that “the bad example of Honduras…is an example which could break up (descomponer) Latin America, put the security of the hemisphere at risk and also even the U.S. people”. He recalled that those in the United States’ extreme right, such as former Asst. Secretary of State Otto Reich, who have come out openly in favor of the coup, and that the plotters of the coup were the “hawks of Washington, agents of the CIA”. He said he is meeting with president Felipe Calderon of Mexico next week