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<h1><font size=4><b>Cracks in the Honduran Coup Regime Grow
Wider</b></font></h1><font size=3>Posted by
<a href="http://narcosphere.narconews.com/users/al-giordano">Al
Giordano</a> - August 18, 2009 at 10:49 am <br>
<a href="http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/3376/cracks-honduran-coup-regime-grow-wider" eudora="autourl">
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/3376/cracks-honduran-coup-regime-grow-wider<br>
<br>
</a>By Al Giordano<br><br>
We've previously noted that some key members of the coup regime power
structure – notably business magnate Adolfo Facusse and Liberal Party
presidential nominee Elvin Santos – had begun waxing aloud to find a
scapegoat for the illegality of the June 28 coup d’etat. They had both
settled on the Armed Forces, and the “original sin” of all that has gone
awry since, according to them, was that the military shipped elected
President Manuel Zelaya out of the country instead of arraigning him to
face prosecution.<br><br>
Coup regime “president” Roberto Micheletti has just added his voice to
the cacophony,
<a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=azjI4deGp_Co">
Bloomberg reports</a>:<br><br>
</font>
<dl>
<dd>“There was an error by a certain sector,” Micheletti said today in an
interview in Tegucigalpa. “It wasn’t correct. We have to punish whoever
allowed that to happen. The rest was framed within what the constitution
requires.”<br><br>
<dd>…A mistake was made when Zelaya, still wearing pajamas, was put on a
plane to Costa Rica instead of being held for trial, Micheletti
said.<br><br>
</dl>That is indeed rich coming from Micheletti who has fumbled two
opportunities since the coup to walk his talk and arrest Zelaya as he
keeps claiming he wants to do. The first came on July 5 when Zelaya
attempted to fly into the Toncontin International Airport in Tegucigalpa
but Micheletti ordered the same Armed Forces to litter the runway with
trucks and soldiers to prevent the plane from landing. The second came on
July 19 when Zelaya briefly stepped into Honduran territory from the
Nicaraguan side of the border and again the military and police had
orders not to arrest him.<br><br>
Micheletti is in fact declaring the military a scapegoat for doing just
once what Micheletti himself has ordered them to do a second and third
time. He doesn’t really want Zelaya to stand trial because, first, the
so-called evidence against the President is flimsy and falsified, and,
second, because the regime fears that the very people of Honduras might
assemble to break down any wall that might hold their elected
president.<br><br>
In that context, Micheletti’s words constitute an admission that the coup
has been legally flawed from the start.<br><br>
Meanwhile, Liberal Party candidate Santos – under criticism for the
<a href="http://www.narconews.com/Issue59/article3766.html">multi-million
dollar highway construction contracts his company has from US
taxpayers</a>, thanks to the Millennium Challenge Corporation chaired by
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – has determined that the best defense
is to go on offense. Yesterday, he
<a href="http://www.latribuna.hn/web2.0/?p=30885">accused</a> exiled
Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, elected in 2005 on the Liberal Party
line, of a “political alliance” with National Party presidential
candidate Pepe Lobo to sabotage his chances in the planned November
“election.”<br><br>
And adding to the clown show was the coup regime’s make believe “foreign
minister,” <a href="http://www.latribuna.hn/web2.0/?p=30862">Simian
Council member Martha Lorena Alvarado</a>, who yesterday charged that the
delegation currently in Honduras from the Inter American Human Rights
Council, affiliated with the Organization of American States (OAS), is
“infiltrated by Latin American leftist movements.” (The delegation is
made up of human rights officials from elected governments throughout the
hemisphere.) She insisted that “the first violation of human rights” in
Honduras is that caused by striking schoolteachers whom, she accused, are
violating the rights of the children to go to school in the summer
months. As she spoke those words, out in the streets of the capital
National Police were busy beating up a reporter for Channel 36 television
who had the temerity to try and film what are now daily violent attacks
against peaceful demonstrators.<br><br>
This business of “working the refs” – the regime daily makes statements
aimed at discrediting an OAS delegation of foreign ministers that will
arrive next in Honduras to try and broker the return of the elected
president - is clearly intended to deflect from the continued
heavy-handed violation of the most basic democratic rights by an
unelected regime.<br><br>
And in Washington DC yesterday, a member of the coup regime’s own
delegation to the US admitted to
<a href="http://www.telam.com.ar/vernota.php?tipo=N&idPub=158105&id=308164&dis=1&sec=1">
the Argentina news agency TELAM</a> that the coup was illegal. Delegation
member Arturo Corrales (speaking, in the photo above) of the Christian
Democratic Party, is contradicting not just the Armed Forces but also the
man who sent him to Washington: Micheletti himself:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>“In Honduras, we are clearly convinced that the military
participation in this process is zero. Its participation is limited to
guard the electoral process,” said Corrales who added that President
Zelaya’s rights “were violated… Every Honduran citizen has the right to
live in Honduras and the State is obligated to do everything it can to
guarantee that.”<br><br>
<dd>“It’s true that Mr. Roberto Micheletti nominated us to represent the
executive branch (in Washington) but we all represent a longing for a
resolution in Honduras.”<br><br>
</dl>The layers of the onion around the Honduran coup regime continue to
peel and flake away from its core. The statements and actions of its own
key players contradict the regime’s daily insistence that there is
normality in the country.<br><br>
“We (the members of the Micheletti appointed delegation) are convinced
that the San José accord (to reinstate Zelaya to the presidency) is
worthwhile and continues being the focus of an agreement to come before
the (November 29) elections, “said Corrales. “This has come to the point
of maturity. I believe that the visit by the (OAS) foreign ministers (to
Honduras) is going to provoke the final stage of this dialogue and the
implementation stage will begin.”<br><br>
It remains to be seen whether the coup that can’t shoot straight will be
able to come to agreement among its own conspirators, much less with the
rest of Honduras and the hemisphere named América. But there is a sense
that in this game of musical chairs the tune is drawing to a close and
the coup plotters are nervously eyeing the seats in the hopes on not
being left the last ones standing alone and abandoned.<br><br>
<br><br>
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