HONDURAS UPDATE AUGUST 14 2009

HONDURAS UPDATE AUGUST 14 2009

By Emile Schepers

1. REPRESSION AND RESISTANCE IN TEGUCIGALPA AND SAN PEDRO SULA. The action is on the streets in Honduras’ two major cities, with protesters evidently not intimidated by increasing levels of repression by the coup government’s police and military. Dozens of people have been arrested in San Pedro Sula in addition to the previously reported arrests in Tegucigalpa. A number of people are blogging or reporting from the scene of the action. I recommend for updates from the street the blog on the website of the Quixote Center, www.quixote.org., although they do not have a new report today. I will also try to keep up with events.

2. PROSECUTION OF PROTESTERS ANNOUNCED, FOR “SEDITION” NO LESS. The Micheletti coup regime has announced it will prosecute 24 people captured in Tegucigalpa for “sedition”. They are specifically accused in relation to the burning of a Popeye’s chicken franchise and a city bus, and some other acts. Representatives of the National Front Against the Coup, which is organizing the demonstrations, say that these violent acts were carried out by government affiliated agents-provocateurs and not by the people accused of the crime.

3. RAUL REYES’ MAGIC COMPUTER STRIKES AGAIN. The coup regime has announced that it has evidence that the marches on Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula this week were “paid for” by the FARC (Fuerzas Armadas de la Revolucion Colombiana), the Colombian guerrilla organization. The regime says it will make known its evidence “at the appropriate time” but that it was received from the Colombian government and consists perhaps of information in a computer captured from the late FARC leader Raul Reyes when he was killed in a Colombian military incursion into Ecuador more than a year ago. Since that time, either the Colombian government or right wing authorities in other countries have accused a number of people of having connections to the FARC on the basis of this magic computer. For example, the right wing government of Alan Garcia found itself besieged by massive protests against its neo-liberal policies, and, hey presto! There was info in the Raul Reyes computer linking leaders of the protests plus previous opposition candidate for president Ollanta Humala “in the computer”. So it is no surprise that this magician’s trick is played against the left in Honduras also. How the computer knew more than a year ago that there would be marches in Honduras on August 11 of this year is not explained. If the computer knew this, it must have known that there would be a coup also, and how do you explain that, eh? For Latin American reactionaries, the Raul Reyes magic computer is the gift that keeps on giving. My beat up old computer can’t do ANY of those things. Darn!

4. WHAT GIVES WITH “INTERPOL” PLOY? Earlier this week, the coup regime claimed that Interpol had given orders to arrest four members of Zelaya’s cabinet for fraud and abuse of power, including Rixi Moncada, one of Zelaya’s main negotiators in the talks in San Jose Costa Rica. This was believed by a number of news sources. But I went to the Interpol website (http://www.interpol.int) and could find nothing about Honduras, except that right after the coup Micheletti and his merry men had asked Interpol to arrest Zelaya, and Interpol refused on the grounds that they did not want to be sucked into some arcane political intrigue. So am I looking at the wrong place on the Interpol website, or is there another Interpol out there somewhere? Or are Micheletti and his crew simply the inept liars I suspect them to be?

5. MICHELETTI REPS MEET WITH OAS IN DC. As announced representatives of the Micheletti regime met with OAS officials in Washington this week. Insulza says the talks were “very interesting”. Whatever actual results transpired from that meeting, we shall see presently.

6. CHECK OUT ARTICLES IN NARCO NEWS. The excellent Narco News Bulletin (http://www.narconews.com) has a running commentary and discussion of the Honduras issue. Check out the article by Bill Conroy and Al Giordano about the role of Elvin Santos, the former Liberal Party vice president of Honduras and current candidate of the Liberals in the fall elections, in relation to Millennium Challenge funds.
That’s all for now, more tomorrow.