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<h1><font size=4><b>The Second Honduran Coup Came Today Because the First
One
Failed</b></font></h1><font size=1>
<a href="http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/3468/second-honduran-coup-came-today-because-first-one-failed" eudora="autourl">
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/3468/second-honduran-coup-came-today-because-first-one-failed<br>
</a></font><font size=3>September 28, 2009 at 11:05 am<br><br>
By Al Giordano<br><br>
<i>D.R. 2009 Latuff, special to The Narco News Bulletin<br><br>
</i>On the morning of June 28, coup regime soldiers stomped into the
offices of Radio Globo and Channel 36 in Tegucigalpa and silenced their
transmitters. The two networks filed court orders to be able to get back
on the air. And for the past three months they’ve each been subject to
written orders from the Honduras regime to cease broadcasting (the
journalists, in turn, refused to be censored) and to paramilitary attacks
that poured acid on their transmitters, and yet they and their
journalists heroically got themselves back on the air rapidly.<br><br>
On this morning, three months later, it was déjà vu all over again, as
those same military troops reenacted the battle of June 28, busting down
the doors of both broadcasters and this time removing their transmitters
and equipment. And soldiers have surrounded both houses of media to
prevent the people from retaking them.<br><br>
This time, due to
<a href="http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/3465/honduras-coup-leader-micheletti-decrees-45-day-suspension-constitution">
yesterday’s coup decree</a>, there is no legal recourse for the
journalists. Under the decree, if a judge even looks at a motion from
those media, he, too, can be rounded up, arrested and detained. And if
another media reports what happened, it, too, can be invaded and silenced
by force.<br><br>
Today’s “do over” of the June 28 Honduras coup proves two big
truths.<br><br>
<b>First:</b> that the original coup failed to establish control over the
country and its people. More than 90 days of nonviolent resistance have
demolished what little support the coup regime had inside and outside of
Honduras, and left them only with their small core of oligarchs and
security forces to defend their putsch against the majority.<br><br>
<b>And second:</b> That despite all the regime’s Orwellian talk of how it
was a “legal” coup, how it was executed to defend the Constitution, and
how the continued broadcasting of critical media proved it was not a
dictatorship, its intention all along was far more sinister: to erase
democracy and its most basic freedoms in order to establish autocratic
control by a few over 7.5 million Honduran citizens and the lush natural
and human resources in that land.<br><br>
A significant portion of the Honduran population has gone underground
overnight. Tipped off that last night their homes would be raided and
they would be hauled off to the soccer stadium in Tegucigalpa where the
regime already holds at least 75 citizens incommunicado – reports of the
use of torture are all the more credible because the regime won’t allow
any attorney, doctor or human rights observer inside the stadium to
inspect – other rank-and-file Hondurans opened their homes to resistance
organizers throughout the country. They are hiding from the regime, but
they are in constant contact with each other, and with our
reporters.<br><br>
Another part of last night’s wave of state terror came in the form of
this provocation: Key human rights leaders and attorneys were notified
anonymously of an alleged roundup of dissidents at a particular police
station in the capital. They rushed down to look for the detainees, only
to be greeted by the very nervous and heavily armed station police who
had, simultan eously, received an anonymous phone call telling them that
a mob was on its way there to burn down the station. Fortunately, cooler
minds prevailed and once the human rights attorneys explained to the
police the message they had received, both sides figured out it was an
attempt trick them into a violent confrontation.<br><br>
That the regime has to try and fool and manipulate its own police forces
provides an indication that not all of them are thrilled with the latest
decree and events.<br><br>
This is what the coup plotters always wanted: the prohibition of
constitutional rights and total authoritarian power in their hands. They
tried to have it both ways for three months – defending themselves to the
world with their absurd “the coup is not a coup” doublespeak – but that
failed. Now they’ve gone to Plan B, which unmasks them for what they are:
terrorists, and enemies of democracy and freedom.<br><br>
Their first coup failed in only three months. That’s why the date of
September 28 now enters the history books as the second coup attempt in
Honduras of 2009. The second resistance is out there, regrouping,
figuring out its next moves, and when those moves come, probably soon,
we’ll be reporting their words and deeds, despite the fact that the coup
regime has also just made that reporting illegal, too.<br><br>
Similarly, our longtime friend and colleague, the Brazilian cartoonist
Latuff, author of the image above, doesn't take orders from
<i>golpistas</i> either. Today he makes public his email address -
carlos.latuff@gmail.com - and offers support and his talents at
image-making to all members of the Honduran resistance as the next phase
of the struggle begins.<br><br>
The second coup - today's - came because the first one failed miserably,
as this one will, too.<br><br>
<b>Update 11:26 a.m. in Tegucigalpa (1:26 p.m. ET):</b> And another few
rings fall away from the coup regime "onion" of support.
<a href="http://www.tiempo.hn/secciones/crisis-politica/4567-pepe-lobo-suspension-de-garantias-dana-la-imagen-del-pais">
The daily Tiempo reports</a> that National Party presidential candidate
Pepe Lobo - who leads in all polls for the November 29
"election" - has now spoken out against yesterday's coup decree
and its 45-day suspension of constitutional rights and
liberties:<br><br>
</font>
<dl>
<dd>The National Party presidential candidate, Porfirio Lobo Sosa,
lamented what has happened in the political crisis and after calling upon
Manuel Zelaya Rosales and Roberto Micheletti to sit down and dialogue, he
criticized the Executive Decree published in the Gaceta that restricts
various freedoms inherent to human beings.<br><br>
<dd>Lobo made those statements after leaving a meeting that four
presidential candidates, a former president of the nation and various
businessmen had with US Ambassador Hugo Llorens.<br><br>
<dd>The presidential frontrunner confirmed that, in addition to him,
candidates Elvin Santos, Bernard Martínez and Felicito Avila of the
Liberal, the Innovation and Unity, and the Christian Democratic parties,
respectively, were also present in the meeting.<br><br>
<dd>Lobo Sosa questioned the military curfews and the emission of the
Executive Decree against individual rights and news organizations because
"they damage the image of the country abroad and directly harm the
population."<br><br>
</dl>The meeting with the US Ambassador from which Lobo emerged to make
his first-ever public criticism of the coup d'etat and its repressive
maneuvers was also attended by former Honduran President Carlos Flores
Facussé, and business magnate Adolfo Facussé - both who had been original
backers of the June 28 coup attempt. If either of them follow Lobo into
denouncing the coup and its decree, the "coup onion" would lose
one or more of its most inner and powerful layers of support.<br><br>
12:12 p.m.:</b> Meanwhile, the anonymous pro-coup blogger who calls
herself La Gringa and personally approves each and every comment she
allows to be published, has just gone to the illegal extreme of
publishing
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=31191491&postID=8013457555751217646&pli=1">
an open call to assassinate</a> both President Zelaya and US Ambassador
Hugo Llorens. The violent call is also revealing in its racist and
misogynist language directed at US President Obama and Secretary of State
Clinton, as well as homophobic fantasies about Zelaya and the Ambassador.
I'll post that comment here because at some point "La Gringa"
may realize that she has just made herself a party to a crime and may
attempt to erase the evidence:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>How long will it take the Constitutional Government to finally expell
Llorens? And tell the monkey and she-dog in Washington to go to Hell. If
Honduras must go down, then for History the patriots must kill Zelaya and
his long-time LOVER Llorens.<br><br>
</dl>May the US Secret Service take notice at what that supposedly
American citizen has just involved herself in: an open call to
assassinate the US Ambassador and a foreign elected head of state. We
strongly denounce and reject her complicity in such illegal
plots.<br><br>
3:08 p.m.:</b> Steve Benen at Washington Monthly
<a href="http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_09/020156.php">
makes note</a> of another layer of the coup onion that seems to have gone
silent today: US Congressional Republicans:<br><br>
<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>WHERE'S THE CONGRESSIONAL COUP CAUCUS NOW?....</b> In July, a variety
of conservative Republican lawmakers were outraged by the official U.S.
government opposition to the overthrow of the democratically elected
government in Honduras. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) officially
<a href="http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_07/018914.php">
endorsed the military-backed coup</a>, and a variety of House Republicans
organized a
"<a href="http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_07/018969.php">
congressional coup caucus</a>" in support of the new, unelected
government.<br><br>
<dd>Oddly enough, we're not hearing much from this GOP crowd anymore.
<a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/76150.html">I wonder why
that is</a>...<br><br>
<dd>When DeMint endorsed the coup, her heralded those responsible for
ousting Zelaya as "guarantee[ing] freedom." House Committee on
Foreign Affairs Ranking Member Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) hosted a
private meeting for her Republican colleagues to "discuss how the
U.S. can now work to support the democratic institutions and rule of law
in Honduras."<br><br>
<dd>All of a sudden, these GOP lawmakers don't seem to be bashing the
Obama administration's position anymore. Interesting.<br><br>
</dl>Indeed!<br><br>
<br><br>
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