[News] Thursday, Bloody Thursday in Honduras

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Two reports follow

Thursday, Bloody Thursday in Honduras

Posted by 
<http://narcosphere.narconews.com/users/al-giordano>Al 
Giordano - July 30, 2009 at 7:29 pm
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/thursday-bloody-thursday-honduras

By Al Giordano

JULY 30, 2009, CUESTA DE LA VIRGEN, COMAYAGUA, 
HONDURAS: The first signs came in the form of 
tractor trailers, miles and miles of them, easily 
thousands, laden with melons and pineapples and 
bananas and sports apparel manufactured in the 
factories to the north, frozen in place, engines 
turned off, on the side of the road, about 80 
kilometers out of the capital city of Tegucigalpa.

It was one p.m. today and there were no cars or 
trucks coming from the other direction. The 
oncoming lane was empty and that’s the one your correspondent took.

The blockade had been in place since early 
morning. By 1:20 p.m., driving down from the 
mountain in the wrong lane, your vehicle still 
had not come to the blockage point. Finally, even 
the oncoming lane had become an endless traffic 
jam of more cars and trucks seeking the same southbound route, stopped cold.

A little after two p.m. the long line of vehicles began crawling forward again.

At a stretch of the road at the bottom of the 
miles-long hill stood three hundred or more 
military soldiers, National Police and 
specialized riot police with the acronym COEDO on 
their uniforms. They stood alongside the remains 
of burning matter, rocks and other debris that 
had just been cleared to the shoulders. The 
terrible sting of teargas clung to nostrils and 
throats and burned the eyes. But no remaining 
protesters could be seen anywhere.

The ANSA press agency would report that here, in 
Cuesta de la Virgen, the coup regime’s show of 
force against the nonviolent blockaders wrought 
<http://www.ansa.it/ansalatina/notizie/rubriche/amlat/20090731003934923882.html>a 
toll of 156 arrests, including three seriously wounded.

In the same hour, Radio Globo – its northern 
signal at 101.1 FM had weakened at this point in 
the highway as its capital city signal at 88.7 FM 
became accessible – reported that the violent 
repression against the pacific demonstrators was 
not an aberration restricted to Cuesta de la 
Virgen. Today’s crackdown had been ordered nationwide.

Roger Abraham Vallejo Cerrado, 38, secretary of 
the San Martín high school, who had participated 
in a different anti-coup demonstration in 
Tegucigalpa, received a bullet wound to the 
head.  Another 88 arrests and 25 wounded was the 
body count from the illegitimate state repression 
on this same road, at El Durazno, five kilometers from the capital.

Among the arrested today were presidential 
candidate Carlos Reyes, beaten violently by the 
coup soldiers, left with a broken arm and a 
bloodied ear, and also arrested was national union leader Juan Barahona.

The news team of Venezolana de Televisión (VTV) 
was physically attacked by the police, 
<http://www.telesurtv.net/noticias/secciones/nota/54945-NN/nuevas-agresiones-contra-personal-periodistico-internacional-en-honduras/>TeleSur 
reports.

Those are just a few glimpses of the story as 
seen and reported from below, from the ground 
level in a country occupied by a military coup regime.

Meanwhile, up above, the illegitimate “president” 
Roberto Micheletti, continued to mock the 
neutered "peace process" championed in San José 
and Washington. With the left hand, he flashed a 
peace sign, while with the right hand, according 
to multiple press reports, he today ordered the 
police and military forces to “put a stop” to the peaceful blockades.

And in the next-door country’s capital of 
Managua, Nicaragua, the legitimate President 
Manuel Zelaya met with US Ambassador to Honduras 
Hugo Llorens, who led a delegation of US 
officials there for talks of which the details are not yet publicly known.

The full toll of Thursday, Bloody Thursday in 
Honduras has not yet been counted. “They treated 
us like animals,” Baranhona told 
<http://www.prensa-latina.cu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=105355&Itemid=1>Prensa 
Latina, while under arrest. The “forces of order” 
pursued and brutally beat the multitude in many 
locations across the land that had, for the fifth 
time in three weeks, successfully blockaded the 
key points of the country’s major arteries for most of the business day.

The logic of such ritual animalistic repression 
has never been clear to this observer. It never 
works to win hearts and minds. It very rarely 
works to cause protests to diminish. More often, 
it reminds the people that the repressive nature 
of the regime is a big part of why they are 
willing to risk life and limb for a just cause.

As events of the next few days will demonstrate, 
the civil resistance to the Honduran coup is 
visibly growing in size, organizational capacity 
and geographical scope. Today was the first time 
the people had put up a blockade in Cuesta de la 
Virgen. Despite the bloody repression – more 
likely because of it – don’t make any bets that it will be the last.

Update II: Today in the state of Olancho, home of 
President Manuel Zelaya, coup supporters 
(popularly called "los perfumados" by many in 
Honduras) had announced a march in the 
President's home town of Catacamas, and loaded 
two busloads from the Tegucigalpa to play the 
role of local citizens two hours away. The 
authentic local citizens caught wind of it, 
though, and went to the town before Catacamas - 
La Real - and set up this blockade:

[]


The coup supporters never made it past the 
blockade, which was held peacefully and 
successfully without incident. Lacking local 
participants, the announced pro-coup march in Catacamas never happened.

Update III 10:44 Tegucigalpa Time, 12:44 a.m. ET: 
The legitimate First Lady of Honduras, Xiomara 
Castro, who has been in the border regions with 
Nicaragua for the past week, is right now 
entering the city of Tegucigalpa in a caravan and 
heading for Radio Globo, where she will make an 
announcement tonight. You can 
<http://www.radioglobohonduras.com/>listen to it 
here. Lord knows, most of Honduras will be. There 
is a certain optimism, if not giddiness, in the 
voices of the radio announcers telling this 
story. Remember that her husband, Mel Zelaya, met 
with a US delegation today in Managua. Oh my, here she is...

Update IV: There are conflicting reports about 
the status of schoolteacher Roger Abraham Vallejo 
Cerrado with some media saying he passed away 
tonight and others saying he is still fighting 
for life. Neither version is confirmed.

Update V: The Zelaya family has been on the air 
with a supporting case of hundreds on Radio Globo 
for 70 minutes now, with some very moving 
moments, but no "hard news," at least none 
announced. Tomorrow will be a most interesting day.
******************************************************

Honduras Coup: The Dumbest Regime on Earth

Posted by 
<http://narcosphere.narconews.com/users/al-giordano>Al 
Giordano - July 29, 2009 at 6:44 am
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/honduras-coup-dumbest-regime-earth

By Al Giordano

All governments have a tendency to become 
dimwitted and encrusted bureaucracies. But one 
month into the Honduras coup d’etat the 
illegitimate regime of “president” Roberto Micheletti wins the prize.

Its obsession with the possibility that the 
elected president Manuel Zelaya might return to 
Honduran soil has offered 32 days of clown show, 
one that has only served to increase the Honduran 
people’s opposition to the coup.

The regime says it has an arrest warrant for 
Zelaya but twice it has had the opportunity to enforce it and twice it did not.

The worry that the third time might be the charm 
has caused the illegitimate president to order a 
24-hour martial curfew in the border states of El 
Paraíso and Choluteca. You can see in the video, 
above, the blockades set up by military forces 
with specific orders to stop three kinds of 
shipments from reaching those states: food, 
medicine and potable water. The drivers 
demonstrate for the camera that all they are carrying is food.

And you can see the trucks and cars that had been 
transporting that newly defined contraband lined 
up and unable to cross the checkpoints.

Zelaya is camped out across the border in 
Nicaragua. How starving or suffocating the border 
state Hondurans somehow prevents him from 
reentering is not explained by the coup mongers.

A military official explains on camera that he 
and his troops are only following orders from 
“the president” (meaning, the joke of a leader 
that is Micheletti). He also claims that ten Red 
Cross vehicles carrying food and medicine were allowed through the checkpoints.

Yet in the video one can see a Red Cross vehicle 
detained at the checkpoint, unable to pass.

El Paraíso counts with 380,000 residents. 
Choluteca has 420,000. Together they are home to 
more than ten percent of the Honduras' 7.5 
million population. Even if the military official 
was telling the truth, how ten vehicles would 
somehow feed and heal 800,000 people – short of a 
Biblical miracle complete with a Sermon on the Mount – was also not explained.

[]


In sum, the coup regime has converted two of the 
most important states into giant penitentiaries, 
with 800,000 inmates who have been cut off from 
the rest of their country and from food and medicine.

Neither El Paraíso nor Choluteca have 
historically been hotbeds of unrest, especially 
compared to the politically active capital of 
Tegucigalpa and the northern coastal regions and 
their social, farmer and labor movements.

But in less than a week, through martial law, the 
coup regime has ratcheted up the resentment 
against it, now, from these regions, too. 
Honduras’ legitimate First Lady, Xiomara Castro, 
now being pushed from some corners to enter the 
November presidential election as a candidate, 
perhaps with a newly formed independent party, 
has drawn large crowds in the region during her 
attempts to reunite with her exiled husband.

A blogger named Boz lists some 
<http://www.bloggingsbyboz.com/2009/07/six-lessons-one-month-after-coup.html>lessons 
learned from the month of imposed dictatorship in 
Honduras, and the first is this:

The Micheletti government is dumb. If we didn't 
know it on day one, we knew it within the first 
week. The Micheletti government couldn't get its 
story straight about what occurred the day of the 
coup. They clearly botched the congressional 
vote, used a forged resignation letter, shut down 
media, imposed curfews and failed to get a single 
other government to recognize them. Violations of 
the constitution in the name of protecting the 
constitution and violations of civil liberties in 
the name of protecting democracy. Now it appears 
cracks are forming within the coup coalition. 
They've managed to stay in power for a month, but 
that's about all they've accomplished.

Meanwhile, yesterday, across the country, six 
hours away in Honduras’ second biggest city of 
San Pedro Sula, 
<http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2009/07/29/index.php?section=mundo&article=020n1mun>Micheletti 
reacted to news that Washington had begun to 
cancel the visas of coup leaders babbled this inanity:

“No gringo, Venezuelan, Bolivian or Ecuadoran is going to give orders to us.”

This, after his short-term Secretary of State had 
called US President Obama a “little nigger.”

To give you an idea of how deranged this coup 
“president” is while drunk with this particularly 
false brand of power, he offered his opinion of 
what would have happened if on June 28 the 
Honduran people had been allowed to vote on a 
non-binding referendum on whether they wanted to 
vote in November on whether to convene a Constitutional Convention:

“If we had permitted the Fourth Ballot Box, we 
would already, at this moment, be Chavistas, 
slaves to twenty-first century socialism, we 
would already be out of balance. Here, the only 
interference comes from the Supreme Creator!”

He forgot to mention that cats would already be sleeping with dogs, too.

Ahem, Señor Dictator: a binding vote couldn’t 
have taken place until November 29 and that would 
have only started the arduous process toward a 
democratically implemented change of the Honduran 
Constitution, a process that would take place 
under the next president elected on that same 
date. The suggestions that a previous non-binding 
vote could have “already” led to slavery and/or 
socialism are no more than the ravings of an unstable madman.

Meanwhile, the civil resistance to the coup 
continues to self-organize. In the coming hours, 
we’ll have important news to report about it







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