[News] President Zelaya Has Returned to Honduras
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Mon Sep 21 17:08:43 EDT 2009
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.
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