HONDURAS UPDATE AUGUST 20 2009

By Emile Schepers

This week there were no new big breakthroughs, just a continual building of tension at all levels. Rather than commenting on each dimension, I will give you some websites to visit. Just block them off, copy them and paste them into your browser.

1. BIG STREET DEMOS IN HONDURAS CONTINUE. To read a detailed on-the-spot of the big demonstrations that have continued in Honduras this week, I recommend you check the “Honduras Oye” blog at http://hondurasoye.wordpress.com/, and especially the on-the-scene reportage by Alexy Lanza of the US Latino organization “Voces de Los de Abajo”. It should spell an end to any doubts about the vitality of the protest movement and the brutality of the coup regime.

2. AMY GOODMAN INTERVIEWS AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL HEAD, CONGRESSMAN GRIJALVA ON “DEMOCRACY NOW”. Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez interviewed Esther Major of Amnesty International’s London office and U.S. Representative Raul Grijalva (D-AZ). Major’s comments are on the AI documentation of brutality by the coup forces, while Grijalva makes comments relevant to the political context in the US. You can watch/listen to the interview or read the “rush transcript at the following address: http://www.democracynow.org/2009/8/20/amnesty_honduran_forces_using_arrests_beatings

3. Prensa Latina is reporting that Feministas en Resistencia, a Honduran resistance organization, and Gilda Rivera, coordinator of the Centro de Derechos de Mujeres (Women’s Rights Center) have documented 19 cases of rape carried out by the coup military and/or police. “These observations were corroborated by an “International Feminist Observation Mission” including observers from Canada, Costa Rica, El Salvador, the USA and Guatemala.

4. POOR, POOR ELVIN. An article by McClatchy Newspapers’ Tyler Bridges reports on diminishing support for the Liberal Party Candidate, Elvin Santos. I am not sure how well founded Mr. Bridges is in these things, but there is interesting info which purports to show that since the coup, the Liberal Party’s presidential candidate in the November 29 presidential elections, Elvin Santos, has lost a substantial lead in the polls to the National Party’s candidate Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo, AND ALSO that large numbers of people have moved away from both those candidates to others or the “undecided” column. Bridges’ sources attribute this change to Elvin having fallen between two stools, so to speak, with neither the pro-Zelaya nor the pro-coup sides now trusting him. He was Zelaya’s vice president but broke with Zelaya and resigned from the vice presidency to run for president. Pro-Zelaya folks think he was hand in glove with the coup plotters, and pro-coup people don’t appreciate his (recent) efforts to distance himself from the coup. Read the full article at http://www.mclatchydc.com/homepage/
I will leave it at that for now, back tomorrow.