[News] President Zelaya Has Returned to Honduras

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Live Blog: President Zelaya Has Returned to Honduras

Posted by 
<http://narcosphere.narconews.com/users/al-giordano>Al 
Giordano - September 21, 2009 at 11:58 am
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/3439/live-blog-president-zelaya-has-returned-honduras

By Al Giordano

[]


The first to break the news in English was the 
<http://www.hondurancampesino.org>Honduran Campesino blog:

Honduran president Manuel Zelaya is in Tegucigalpa


The United Nations is protecting Mel


<http://www.telesurtv.net/noticias/canal/senalenvivo.php>TeleSur 
confirms the report, as does 
<http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE58K3JY20090921>Reuters:

"I am here in Tegucigalpa. I am here for the 
restoration of democracy, to call for dialogue." 
he told Honduras' Canal 36 television network.

As occurred during the first hours of the June 28 
coup d'etat, the Internet signals of Channel 36 
and Radio Globo are blocked, as is cell phone 
service in the capital (I've yet to confirm that 
there is any Internet or cell phone access in 
Tegucigalpa at all right now - it all appears to 
be jammed - but we do have reporter Belén 
Fernández reporting right this moment from that 
city and the information blockade will be broken 
soon enough.) We can take that extreme of 
censorship as additional confirmation that the 
President has indeed returned and the illegitimate coup regime is panicking.

Developing... We'll update here as we're able to report and confirm more...

Update: 12:08 p.m. Tegucigalpa (2:08 p.m. ET): 
TeleSur confirms that the President is in 
Tegucigalpa but adds that it cannot confirm 
reports that he is in the United Nations building 
there. It anticipates a press conference from Zelaya this afternoon...

12:24 p.m. Tegucigalpa (2:24 p.m. ET): One of our 
correspondents just got an email message from 
Tegucigalpa which reports that not all cell phone service is blocked.

12:28 p.m.: Via TeleSur: The Spaniard news agency 
EFE reports that the President is in the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa.

12:29 p.m.: The US State Department confirms that 
Zelaya is in Honduras (via 
<http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jAkMGKIUDg_ngUiZboxQbYj5_DPwD9ARS7TO0>AP).

12:39 p.m.: The web page of the coup regime's 
"president" leads with a loud denial: 
<http://www.presidencia.gob.hn/>"Micheletti 
denies the presence of 'Mel' in the country." 
Meanwhile AFP reports that the Brazilian 
government has confirmed Zelaya's presence in its 
Embassy in Tegucigalpa, according to TeleSur.

12:47 p.m.: TeleSur is showing images of 
uniformed National Police members, with billy 
clubs, shields, helmets and guns, surrounding the 
zone near the Brazilian Embassy, apparently to 
close access to the area, blocking anti-coup 
demonstrators from entering or leaving. The 
network is also broadcasting live images, from 
Channel 36, of two helicopters circling over the Embassy.

12:51 p.m.: TeleSur reporter Adriana Sívori is 
now inside the Brazilian Embassy and confirms 
President Zelaya's physical presence there.

1:57 p.m.: We now have phone contact with Narco 
News correspondent Belén Fernández, who in 
Tegucigalpa this morning walked into the Radio 
Globo headquarters just as the news broke that 
Zelaya had returned. She's going to have one hell 
of a story for us later today.

2:04 p.m.: Connecting the dots... The return of 
Zelaya has all the markings of a very well 
coordinated operation by the Honduran civil 
resistance and the member countries of the 
Organization of American States (OAS). The choice 
of Brazil's embassy - the Latin American country 
with the largest Air Force - pretty much 
guarantees that the coup regime can't possibly 
think it can violate the sovereignty of that 
space. That the US State Department confirmed, 
this morning, that Zelaya is in Honduras while 
the coup regime denied it strongly suggests it 
had advance knowledge that this would happen 
today (if not active participation).

This is a textbook example of what we've referred 
to before as "dilemma actions." It puts the coup 
regime on the horns of a dilemma, in which it has 
no good options. It can leave Zelaya to put 
together his government again from the Brazilian 
embassy with the active support of so many 
sectors of Honduran civil society, or it can try 
to arrest the President, provoking a nonviolent 
insurrection from the people of the kind that has 
toppled many a regime throughout history. Minute 
by minute, hour by hour, and, soon, day by day, 
the coup regime is losing its grip. At some point 
it will have to choose either to unleash a 
terrible violent wave of state terrorism upon the 
country's own people - which will provoke all out 
insurrection in response (guaranteed by Article 3 
of the Honduran Constitution) - or Micheletti and 
his Simian Council can start packing their bags 
and seeking asylum someplace like Panama. 
Meanwhile, the people are coming down from the 
hills to meet their elected president. This, kind 
readers, is immediate history.

2:24 p.m.: Some other consequences of today's 
breaking development: President Zelaya today 
erases any of the talk or speculation that he did 
not have the courage to put himself at risk in 
this struggle, which will also have an 
emboldening effect on every single individual 
among the hundreds of thousands in the civil 
resistance. The effect is causing all to think: 
If he's willing to risk all, then so am I.

This move also makes a laughing stock out of 
Micheletti and his security forces. Remember our 
reports about how airfields throughout the 
country were blocked by buses and other vehicles, 
so paranoid was the regime about Zelaya's 
potential return? That Zelaya slipped through the 
security net demonstrates that the coup regime 
does not have the control it claims to have. 
Micheletti - the usurper dictator - has also 
helped elevate his status as a national buffoon 
with his early claims today that Zelaya hadn't 
really returned. He accused the media that 
reported his return of lying and of 
<http://www.laprensahn.com/Ediciones/2009/09/21/Noticias/Micheletti-acusa-de-terrorismo-mediatico>"media 
terrorism." Well, now the same pro-coup 
newspapers that reported his tantrum have this 
photo, taken today, of President Zelaya and his 
cabinet members inside the Brazilian Embassy:

[]


There you have it. Countdown to complete mental 
breakdown by Micheletti and his dwindling core of 
supporters (and, yes, that includes a grouplet of 
US expats that have been blogging constant 
disinformation from Honduras - their 
self-delusion and dishonesty to all is now 
crashing on the rocks of reality, too).

2:56 p.m.: Ivan Marovic - who as a young man 
played a major role in strategizing the civil 
resistance that toppled the Serbian dictator 
Milosevic, and who spent a few days in Honduras 
this summer at the invitation of the civil 
resistance - and I just had a chat online about 
our observations of what is happening and how it 
changes everything in Honduras.

With his permission, I'll share with you an excerpt:

me: So, let's put ourselves in Micheletti's 
shoes. What options does he have at this point?

Ivan: It's a tough one. He can arrest Zelaya, but 
Zelaya said he's here to call for dialogue. That 
would be bad. Micheletti can enter a dialogue, but then he's screwed.

me: Well, I don't think he can send troops into 
the Brazilian Embassy, which is sovereign 
territory. Brazil has the biggest air force in 
Latin America. Brazil is the coordinating nation 
of the UN security forces in Haiti...

Ivan: This is important, because with Zelaya in 
the country, the momentum has shifted. Stalling doesn't work anymore.

me: It's a textbook "dilemma action."

Ivan: Yes.

me: The regime can either leave him there to 
reassemble his government with broad popular 
support, or it can unleash a wave of violence and 
terror, which would provoke all out insurrection. 
Now that Zelaya has demonstrated he is willing to 
risk his own freedom and safety, that becomes 
contagious to hundreds of thousands that will decide to do the same.

Ivan: Yes, this has a big symbolic value. That's 
why no regime is afraid of the government in 
exile. But in the country, that's a different thing.

It's a game changer, folks.




Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

415 863-9977

www.Freedomarchives.org  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20090921/c9c8c8b3/attachment.htm>