HONDURAS UPDATE SEPTEMBER 9 2009

By: Emile Schepers

The United States has joined most of the rest of the world in saying that it will not recognize Honduras' Nov. 29 election results if President Zelaya and constitutional order are not restored forthwith, as well as adding some sanctions, so we will see if the Micheletti regime can last.

The internal resistance in Honduras is amazingly strong and consisten on day 74 of the coup (which happened on June 28). Almost every day there is some kind of protest. Although we mainly hear about what is going on in the larger cities, Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula, various sources report impressive actions in smaller communities all over the country.

As predicted, the illegal de-facto regime of Roberto Micheletti is planning to squeeze the Honduran people harder in order to have the resources to continue the regime. A Reuters interview today with coup de facto Finance Minister Gabriela Nunez seems to bear this out (if you can read Spanish you can read the whole thing at http://lta.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleID=LTASIE5882U520090909 ). Nunez says that the coup government is "adopting a series of austerity measures" due to Honduras having lost $60 million in the suspension of foreign credits (she does not give more details in the interview). Nunez says that it is a pity that the poor will be the ones most affected by the cuts the defacto government is going to make.

I don't have more details at present, but it sounds like the defacto government is now reduced to holding the Honduran people hostage.