HONDURAS UPDATE SEPTEMBER 26 2009

By Emile Schepers

The situation in Honduras is still extremely tense and volatile, though there is nothing dramatically new to report. Here are the main trends:

1. IN THE BRAZILIAN EMBASSY: Red Cross and others have been able to get through. People in the Embassy are holding out and recovering from symptoms reported earlier this week. President Manuel "Mel" Zelaya, who appeared at the embassy suddenly on Monday September 21, is in good health. The Narco News Bulletin has a special report on the equipment utilized to bombard the Brazilian embassy with high decibel sound and also toxic gas. There are interesting photos; read it here: http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/3460/honduran-coup-regime-mocks-un-security-council-embassy-attacks
Zelaya has had meetings with all the pro-coup presidential candidates including Elvin Santos of his own Liberal Party and Pepe Lobo of the National Party, but there are no breakthroughs.

2. IN THE STREETS: Once again today (Saturday) there were massive pro-Zelaya, anti-coup demonstrations involving thousand of people. So the coup regime slapped another curfew on the country, from 6 Saturday evening until 6 Sunday morning.

3. AT THE UNITED NATIONS: On Monday, Zelaya's foreign minister, Patricia Rodas, will speak on the situation in her country to the entire United Nations General Assembly. Originally, President Zelaya was to have spoken today. Today Zelaya spoke long-distance to a large crowd of supporters in neighboring El Salvador, urging El Salvador to speak up for democracy in Honduras at the General Assembly and not to let democracy collapse in the Central American region. (There have been civil wars and dictatorships in all of the Central American countries except Belize and Costa Rica in recent decades, and many observers fear that for the coup in Honduras to be successful will constitute a threat of more coups in the region and in South America. Many think that Guatemala, where within the last 50 years military dictatorships have massacred up to 200,000 civilians, could be the next country where a coup might take place).

More tomorrow