HONDURAS UPDATE AUGUST 19

By Emile Schepers

1. CARAVAN THROUGH TEGUCIGALPA. Last night what appear to have been thousands of vehicles from motor scooters to trucks paraded through the streets of Tegucigalpa while drivers and passengers shouted slogans demanding an end to the coup regime and the return of President Manuel “Mel” Zelaya. People who saw it say it was a very impressive spectacle.

2. MICHELETTI SAYS ALL OF ARIAS’ PLAN OF SAN JOSE IS FINE EXCEPT THE PART ABOUT ZELAYA. Once more coup leader and de-facto president Roberto Micheletti said he is in agreement with the whole proposal presented weeks and weeks ago by Costa Rican president Oscar Arias except for the part of Zelaya returning as president. Micheletti now says that it was a mistake on the part of his military colleagues to have sent Zelaya out of the country; he should rather have been arrested and put on trial. The other points in the Micheletti plan are just about all concessions to the putchists offered in exchange for Zelaya’s return, so it would appear that unless someone pulls a rabbit out of a hat the Arias mediation has failed, and has been cynically used by Micheletti and his crew as a delaying mechanism.

3. INTERNATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATIONS DIMENSION OF THE COUP. Foreign Policy in Focus’ columnist Conn Hallinen mentions another dimension of the coup scenario in a Huffington Post posting on August 6, which you can read at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/conn-hallinan/honduran-coup-the-us-conn_b_252836.html. It seems that some of the people in the US who have been gunning for Zelaya, including Otto Reich and Senator John McCain, are very close to US telecommunications corporations (A.T.and T and others) who would like to see the privatization of Hondutel, the Honduran national telecommunications corporation. Reich had accused Zelaya of receiving bribes from Hondutel, and Zelaya has threatened to sue him for libel, Hallinen says. In many poor countries the telecommunications sector is an important bone of contention among various business and political factions.

4. MICHELETTI GIVES ARGENTINE DIPLOMATS UNTIL FRIDAY TO GO, GO GO. But the Argentine embassy says it does not recognize orders or directives from anybody but the Zelaya government, so they are not leaving as also are not the Venezuelan diplomats. My guess is that Micheletti will not go to the extreme of physically touching diplomatic personnel.

All for today, more tomorrow