THE MEDIA AND THE HONDURAN MILITARY COUP

Siding with the Generals
- The Independent on Honduras

MediaLens

Iran’s June 12 presidential elections have been widely criticised, both domestically and abroad, as lacking credibility. During the popular protests that followed, some 30 people were killed by government forces with hundreds more arrested. These events have been subject to intense and continuous US-UK media scrutiny.

Also in June, a military coup overthrew the democratically-elected government of Honduras. President Manuel Zelaya was kidnapped and deported to Costa Rica on June 28. Initial clashes between troops loyal to the coup plotters and Zelaya supporters left at least one person dead and 30 injured. On July 30, as many as 150 people were arrested, with dozens injured, when soldiers and police attacked demonstrators with tear gas, water cannon, clubs and gunfire. One of the wounded, a 38-year-old teacher, was left fighting for his life after being shot in the head. Journalists reporting from the scene were also attacked. (Bill Van Auken, ‘Honduran coup regime launches brutal crackdown,’ August 1, 2009, World Socialist Web Site; http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/aug2009/hond-a01.shtml)

Mark Weisbrot, Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, describes how the Honduran people have been “risking their lives, confronting the army's bullets, beatings, and arbitrary arrests and detentions”. And yet the US media has reported this repression “only minimally, with the major print media sometimes failing even to mention the censorship there”. (Weisbrot, ‘Hondurans Resist Coup, Will Need Help From Other Countries,’ ZNet, July 9, 2009; http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/21924)

Our own media database search (August 3) of national UK press editorials mentioning the word ’Iran’ over the previous five weeks delivered 26 results. A search for editorials containing the word ’Honduras’ delivered 2 results. In fact there has been a single leading article on the Honduran crisis (in the Independent on June 30 - see below). Over the same period, a search for UK national press articles mentioning ‘Iran’ gave 848 results; for ‘Honduras’ 96 results. This is not hard science, but it does indicate comparative levels of UK media coverage of the two issues.

Weisbrot notes that the Honduran coup is "a recurrent story” in Latin America, pitting "a reform president who is supported by labor unions and social organizations against a mafia-like, drug-ridden, corrupt political elite who is accustomed to choosing not only the Supreme Court and the Congress, but also the president". (Weisbrot, ‘Does the US back the Honduran coup?’ The Guardian, July 1, 2009; http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/jul/01/honduras-zelaya-coup-obama)

Mainstream outlets claim the coup marks a worrying return to earlier regional trends. A July 23 BBC “Q&A“ on Honduras commented:

“Coups and political upheaval were common in Central America for much of the 20th Century, and until the mid-1980s the military dominated political life in Honduras. Mr Zelaya's removal is the first in the region since 1993...” (‘Q&A: Crisis in Honduras,’ BBC website, July 23, 2009; http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8124154.stm)

This is false. In April 2002, a US-backed military coup briefly ousted Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez until mass protests returned him to power. A Guardian article that month reported that the “US ‘gave the nod’ to Venezuelan coup.” Several weeks prior to the coup attempt, US government officials had met the business leaders who assumed power after Chávez was arrested. General Rincon, the Venezuelan army's chief of staff, had visited the Pentagon the previous December and met senior officials. (Julian Borger and Alex Bellos, ‘US “gave the nod” to Venezuelan coup,’ The Guardian, April 17, 2002;
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/apr/17/usa.venezuela)

A 2004 military coup forced Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide to flee to Central Africa. Aristide told the Associated Press that he was forced to leave Haiti by US military forces. (Eliott C. McLaughlin, Associated Press, March 1, 2004) Jeffrey Sachs, professor of economics at Columbia University, wrote:

"Haiti, again, is ablaze... Almost nobody, however, understands that today's chaos was made in Washington - deliberately, cynically, and steadfastly." (Sachs, 'Fanning the flames of political chaos in Haiti,’ The Nation, February 28, 2004; http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0301-10.htm)

The BBC Q&A noted: “The role of the US is key, as it is Honduras's biggest trading partner.”

Curiously, the article failed to mention that the US has its only Central American military base in Honduras. In fact the Honduran military is armed, trained and advised by Washington in a relationship that is deep and enduring. The two generals who led the coup were both trained at the US School of the Americas (SOA) based in Georgia (SOA is now known as The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, or WHINSEC). Commander-in-chief Romeo Vasquez, head of the Honduran military, received training at SOA between 1976 and 1984. Luis Javier Prince Suazo, head of the air force, studied there in 1996. Colonel Herberth Bayardo Inestroza, a Honduran army lawyer who also trained at SOA, has admitted the illegality of the military’s kidnapping of Zelaya. He told the Miami Herald: "It would be difficult for us, with our training, to have a relationship with a leftist government. That's impossible." (Weisbrot, ZNet, July 9, op. cit)

Father Roy Bourgeois, founder of School of the Americas Watch, described SOA last month as “this school of assassins, this school of coups, this school with so much blood on its hands”. (’Generals Who Led Honduras Military Coup Trained at the School of the Americas,’ Democracy Now!, July 1, 2009; http://www.democracynow.org/2009/7/1/generals_who_led_honduras_military_coup)

Weisbrot notes that Washington’s response to the Honduran coup is guided by conflicting interests: “powerful lobbyists such as Lanny Davis and Bennett Ratcliff, who are close to [Hillary] Clinton and are leading the coup government's strategy; the Republican right, including members of Congress who openly support the coup; and new cold warriors of both parties in the Congress, the state department and White House who see Zelaya as a threat because of his co-operation with Venezuela's Hugo Chávez and other left governments.” (Weisbrot, ‘U.S.- Brokered Mediation Has Failed - It's Time for Latin America to Take Charge,’ ZNet, August 1, 2009; http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/22185)

This explains Washington's ambiguous reaction. The Obama administration’s first statement did not criticise the coup, and the state department continues to refuse to describe it as a coup. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has repeatedly refused to say that ‘restoring the democratic order’ in Honduras requires the return of Zelaya. It took three weeks for the White House to threaten to cut off aid.

Roger Burbach, Director of the Center for the Study of the Americas, writes:

“U.S. efforts to restore Zelaya have been quite tepid compared to other countries. While many ambassadors have been withdrawn, the US head diplomat Hugo Llorens, appointed by George W. Bush, remains in place. There are reports that he may have even given the green light to the coup plotters, or at least did nothing to stop them. And while the World Bank has suspended assistance, the State Department merely warns that $180 million in US economic aid may be in jeopardy. Most importantly the United States refuses to freeze the bank accounts and cancel the visas of the coup leaders, measures that Zelaya and other Latin American governments have urged Washington to do.” (Burbach, ‘Obama and Hillary Nix Change in Honduras,’ ZNet, July 27, 2009;
http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/22136)

Recently, US Assistant Secretary of State Philip Crowley, commented:

"We certainly think that if we were choosing a model government and a model leader for countries of the region to follow, that the current leadership in Venezuela would not be a particular model. If that is the lesson that President Zelaya has learned from this episode, that would be a good lesson." (James Suggett, ‘Honduras Coup,’ ZNet, July 28, 2009; http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/22149)


The Independent - Doing Democracy A Service

In their June 30 leading article, the Independent’s editors, led by pro-Iraq war editor Roger Alton (formerly editor of the Observer), opened with this extraordinary paragraph:

“The ousting of the Honduran President Manuel Zelaya by the country's military at the weekend has been condemned by many members of the international community as an affront to democracy. But despite a natural distaste for any military coup, it is possible that the army might have actually done Honduran democracy a service.” (Leading article, ‘Guns and democracy,’ The Independent, June 30, 2009; http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-guns-and-democracy-1724479.html)

By contrast, many experienced observers have warned that the coup represents an extreme threat to prospects for democracy in Honduras and the region. The Independent explained its reasoning:

“President Zelaya was planning a referendum to give him power to alter the constitution. But the proposed alterations were perilously vague, with opponents accusing Mr Zelaya of wanting to scrap the four-year presidential term limit. The country's courts and congress had called the vote illegal.

“This is an increasingly familiar turn of events in emerging democracies: an elected leader, facing the end of his time in office, decides that the country cannot do without him and resorts to dubious measures to retain power. The Venezuelan President, Hugo Chávez, won a referendum in February altering his country's constitution and abolishing term limits. He now talks about ruling beyond 2030.”

On the same day, in the same newspaper, Heather Berkman, a Latin America associate at the global political risk consultancy Eurasia Group, wrote:

“Manuel Zelaya has taken a few unexpected turns to the left during his tenure as President of Honduras, deviating from its political norms. This time, it looks like he may have gone too far... Mr Zelaya can be blamed for staging a coup that, in turn, provoked a counter-coup.” (Berkman, ‘Zelaya pushed,’ The Independent, June 30, 2009; http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/heather-berkman-zelaya-pushed-1724469.html)

Recall that these articles appeared in the Independent, widely considered to be at the left of the mainstream media spectrum.

Weisbrot argues that in fact there was no way for Zelaya to extend his rule even if the referendum had been held and passed:

“The June 28 referendum was nothing more than a non-binding poll of the electorate, asking whether the voters wanted to place a binding referendum on the November ballot to approve a redrafting of the country's constitution. If it had passed, and if the November referendum had been held (which was not very likely) and also passed, the same ballot would have elected a new president and Zelaya would have stepped down in January. So, the belief that Zelaya was fighting to extend his term in office has no factual basis - although most people who follow this story in the press seem to believe it. The most that could be said is that if a new constitution were eventually approved, Zelaya might have been able to run for a second term at some future date.” (Weisbrot, ‘Hondurans Resist Coup, Will Need Help From Other Countries,’ ZNet, July 9, 2009; http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/21924)

Nikolas Kozloff, journalist and author of ‘Revolution!: South America and the Rise of the New Left,’ traces the deeper sources of opposition to the Honduran president. Around 2007-2008, the initially conservative Zelaya began to embrace “the Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas.” Kozloff explains:

“It’s Chávez’s answer to the US-imposed free trade agreements in the region. And Zelaya had come out in support of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas. And so, this set him at odds with the United States, and there was a history of friction between the US and Zelaya leading up to the coup.” (‘What’s Behind the Honduras Coup? Tracing Zelaya’s Trajectory,’ Democracy Now!, July 1, 2009; http://www.democracynow.org/2009/7/1/whats_behind_the_honduras_coup_tracing)

As the Independent editorial makes clear, the mainstream offers a different version of events. Kozloff comments:

“I think if you were just reading the reports in the mainstream media, you might get the impression that this coup is just about term limits in Honduras and it’s just a conflict over whether Zelaya will be able to extend his constitutional mandate of one four-year term.”

The BBC, for example, reported: “Zelaya was sent into exile on 28 June amid a power struggle over his plans for constitutional change.” (‘Q&A: Crisis in Honduras,’ op. cit)

The Times wrote: “His opponents say that he wanted to overturn term limits and extend his power like leftist regional allies such as President Chávez of Venezuela...” (Hannah Strange, 'Deposed President "can never return",' The Times, July 3, 2009)

Kozloff comments: “And my point is that there is an ideological component to this coup... the first salvo against the Honduran elite was his moves to raise the minimum wage by 60 percent... I mean, this is a country where you have these maquiladora assembly plants, and the Honduran elite were, to say the least, displeased by the moves.”

In a rare exception to his newspaper’s wretched performance, Johann Hari wrote in the Independent of how Zelaya had “increased the minimum wage by 60 per cent, saying sweatshops were no longer acceptable and ‘the rich must pay their share’.

“The tiny elite at the top - who own 45 per cent of the country's wealth - are horrified. They are used to having Honduras run by them, for them.” (Hari, ‘The other 9/11 returns to haunt Latin America,’ The Independent, July 3, 2009; http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-a-coup-latin-america-didnt-need-1729429.html)

As Hari noted: “It was always inevitable that the people at the top would fight back to preserve their unearned privilege.”

Prior to the coup, US multinational Chiquita expressed its concern at Zelaya’s minimum wage decrees, which they said would reduce profits and increase export costs. Chiquita appealed to the Honduran Business Association, which was also opposed to Zelaya’s minimum wage policy. Kozloff told the website Democracy Now!: “what I find really interesting is that Chiquita is allied to a Washington law firm called Covington, which advises multinational corporations. And who is the vice chairman of Covington? None other than John Negroponte...”. (‘From Arbenz to Zelaya: Chiquita in Latin America,’ Democracy Now!, July 21, 2009; http://www.democracynow.org/2009/7/21/from_arbenz_to_zelaya_chiquita_in)

Negroponte was US ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985, when he played a key role in coordinating US terror attacks on Nicaragua by means of "the Contras", a mercinary army. Negroponte is complicit in massive human rights abuses committed by the Honduran military.

Throughout the twentieth century, Chiquita, then known as United Fruit Company, was associated with “some of the most backward, retrograde political and economic forces in Central America and indeed outside of Central America in such countries as Colombia”, Kozloff notes. In 1954, United Fruit played a leading role in the US-backed coup that ousted Jacobo Arbenz, the democratically-elected leader of Guatemala.

Kozloff reports that the current US Attorney General, Eric Holder, was Deputy Attorney General under Bill Clinton. Holder defended Chiquita and its actions in Colombia when Chiquita was allied to right-wing paramilitary death squads in the 1990s and was found guilty of paying off paramilitaries. Holder was Chiquita’s lead counsel.

We searched national UK newspapers (August 3) for articles containing the words ’Honduras’ and (separately) ‘Chiquita’, ‘John Negroponte’ and ’Eric Holder’ since June 28 - all searches produced zero results.


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FIDEL ON THE SANDINISTA NICARAGUAN REVOLUTION 30 YEARS ON

Reflections of Fidel

The 30th Sandinista
anniversary and the San José proposal

(Taken from CubaDebate)

THE Honduran coup d’état promoted by the ultra-right wing
of the United States – which was maintaining the structure
created by Bush in Central America – and supported by the
Department of State, was not developing well due to the
energetic resistance of the people. The criminal adventure,
unanimously condemned by world opinion and international
agencies, could not be sustained.

The memory of the atrocities committed in recent decades by
dictatorships that the United States promoted, instructed
and armed in our hemisphere, was still fresh. During the
Clinton administration and in subsequent years the empire’s
efforts were directed toward the plan of imposing the FTA
(Free Trade Agreement) on all the Latin American countries
via the so-called Summits of the Americas.

The intention to compromise the hemisphere with a free
trade agreement failed. The economies of other regions of
the world grew at a good rate and the dollar lost its
exclusive hegemony as a privileged hard currency. The
brutal world financial crisis complicated the situation. It
was in those circumstances that the military coup came
about in Honduras, one of the poorest countries in the
hemisphere. After two weeks of growing popular struggle,
the United States maneuvered to gain time. The Department
of State assigned Oscar Arias, president of Costa Rica, the
task of aiding the military coup in Honduras, under siege
from vigorous but peaceful popular pressure. Never had a
similar action in Latin America met such a response. The
fact that Arias holds the title of Nobel Peace Prize
laureate had weight in the calculations of the government
of the United States.

The real history of Oscar Arias indicates that he is a
neoliberal politician, talented and with a facility for
words, extremely calculated and a loyal ally of the United
States. From the initial years of the triumph of the Cuban
Revolution, the United States government utilized Costa
Rica and assigned it resources in order to present it as a
showcase of the social advances that could be achieved
under capitalism.

That Central American country was utilized as a base for
imperialism for its pirate attacks on Cuba. Thousands of
Cuban technical personnel and university graduates were
extracted from our people, already subjected to a cruel
blockade, to provide services in Costa Rica. Relations
between Costa Rica and Cuba have been reestablished
recently; the country was one of the last two in the
hemisphere to do so, which is a matter of satisfaction for
us, but that should not deter me from expressing what I
think in this historic moment of our America.

Arias, who came from the wealthy and dominant sector of
Costa Rica, studied Law and Economy in a central university
of his country; he studied and subsequently graduated with
a Masters in Political Science from Essex University in the
United Kingdom, where he finally obtained the title of
Doctor of Political Science. With such academic laurels,
President José Figueres Ferrer of the National Liberation
Party made him an advisor in 1970, at the age of 30 and,
shortly afterward, appointed him minister of Planning, a
post in which he was ratified by the president who followed
Ferrer, Daniel Oduber. In 1978 he entered Congress as a
deputy of that party. He rose to general secretary in 1979
and held the office of president for the first time in
1986.

Years before the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, an armed
movement of Costa Rica’s national bourgeoisie under the
leadership of José Figueres Ferrer, father of President
Figueres Olsen, had eliminated that country’s small coup
army, and his struggle had the support of the Cubans. When
we were fighting against the Batista dictatorship in the
Sierra Maestra, we received some arms and munitions from
the Liberation Party created by Figueres Ferrer, but it was
too good a friend of the yanquis and soon broke off
relations with us. The OAS meeting in San José, Costa Rica,
which gave rise to the First Declaration of Havana in 1960,
should not be forgotten.

For more than 150 years, since the times of the filibuster
William Walker, who appointed himself president of
Nicaragua in 1856, all of Central America suffered and is
still suffering from the problem of United States
interventionism, which has been constant, although the
heroic people of Nicaragua have attained an independence
that they are prepared to defend to the last breath. It has
not known any support from Costa Rica since it achieved
independence, although there was one government of that
country which, on the eve of the victory of 1979, earned
the glory of being in solidarity with the Sandinista
National Liberation Front. When Nicaragua was bleeding on
account of Reagan’s dirty war, Guatemala and El Salvador
had also paid a high price in lives due to the
interventionist policy of the United States, which supplied
money, weapons, schools and indoctrination for the
repressive troops. Daniel [Ortega] told us that the yanquis
finally promoted formulas that put an end to the
revolutionary resistance of Guatemala and El Salvador.

On more than one occasion Daniel had commented to me, with
bitterness, that Arias, fulfilling instructions from the
United States, had excluded Nicaragua from the peace
negotiations. He met solely with the governments of El
Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala in order to impose
agreements on Nicaragua. For that, Daniel expressed
enormous gratitude to Vinicio Cerezo. He likewise told me
that the first agreement was signed in a convent in
Esquipulas, Guatemala, on August 17, 1987, after two days
of intensive talks between the five Central America
presidents. I have never spoken publicly about that.

But this time, at the commemoration of the 30th anniversary
of the Sandinista victory of July 19, 1979, Daniel
explained everything with impressive clarity, as he did
with all the themes throughout his speech, which was heard
by hundreds of thousands of people and broadcast on radio
and television. I use his words textually: "The yanquis
appointed him a mediator. We have a profound sympathy with
the people of Costa Rica, but I cannot forget that, in
those hard years, that the president of Costa Rica convened
the Central American presidents and did not invite us."
"But the other Central American presidents were more
sensible and they told him: ‘There cannot be any peace plan
here if Nicaragua is not present.’ In the name of historic
truth, the president who had the courage to break the
isolation imposed by the yanquis in Central America – where
the presidents had been forbidden to talk with the
president of Nicaragua and they wanted a military solution
– the man who took that valiant step was the president of
Guatemala, Vinicio Cerezo. That is the true history."

He immediately added: "The yanquis ran in search of
President Oscar Arias, because they know him! to seek a way
of gaining time, so that the coup perpetrators begin to
make demands that are unacceptable. Since when is a coup
leader going to negotiate with a person from whom he is
snatching his constitutional rights? Those rights can not
be negotiated, President Manuel Zelaya simply has to be
reinstated, as stated in the ALBA, Rio Group, SICA, OAS and
United Nations agreements. "In our countries we want
peaceful solutions. The battle being waged by the people of
Honduras at this time is a peaceful battle, in order to
avoid any more pain, which has already come about in
Honduras," Daniel concluded, textually.

By virtue of the dirty war ordered by Reagan and which, in
part – Daniel told me – was financed by drugs sent to the
United States, more than 60,000 people lost their lives and
a further 5,800 were maimed. Reagan’s dirty war gave rise
to the destruction and neglect of 300 schools and 25 health
centers; 150 teachers were killed. The cost rose to tens of
billions of dollars. Nicaragua was left with only 3.5
million inhabitants, it no longer received the fuel that
the USSR was sending it, and the economy became
unsustainable. He convened elections and even brought them
forward, and respected the decision of the people, who had
lost all hope of preserving the conquest of the Revolution.
Almost 17 years later, the Sandinistas victoriously
returned to government; just two days ago, they
commemorated the 30th anniversary of the first victory.

On Saturday, July 18 the Nobel Prize winner proposed the
known seven points of his personal peace initiative, which
detracted authority from the UN and OAS decisions and were
equivalent to an act of rendition on the part of Manuel
Zelaya, which were taking sympathy away from him and would
debilitate popular support. The constitutional president
sent what he qualified as an ultimatum to the coup leaders,
to be presented to them by their representatives, at the
same time announcing his return to Honduras for Sunday,
July 19, entering through any of that country’s
departments.

In the early afternoon of that Sunday, the huge Sandinista
event took place, with historic denunciations of the policy
of the United States. They were truths that could not be
anything but transcendental.

The worst thing is that the United States was encountering
resistance from the coup government to its sweetening
maneuver. We still do not know the precise moment at which
the Department of State, for its part, sent a strong
message to Micheletti and whether the military commanders
were advised of the positions of the government of the
United States. The reality is, for anyone who is closely
following the events, that Micheletti was insubordinate to
peace on the Monday. His representative in San José, Carlos
López Conteras, had stated that Arias’ proposal could not
be discussed, given that the first point – that is to say,
the reestablishment of Zelaya – was not negotiable. The
coup civil government had taken its role seriously and
didn’t even realize that Zelaya, deprived of all authority,
did not constitute any risk whatsoever to the oligarchy and
would suffer a heavy blow politically if he accepted the
Costa Rican president’s proposal.

On that same Sunday 19th, when Arias asked for another 72
hours to explain his position, Ms. Clinton spoke by
telephone with Micheletti and maintained what spokesman
Philip Crowley described as a "hard call." Some day we will
know what she said, but it was enough to see Micheletti’s
face when he spoke at a meeting of his government on
Monday, July 20: he really looked like a kindergarten kid
who had been scolded by the teacher. The footage and
speeches of the meeting could be seen via Telesur. Other
footage transmitted was that of the OAS representatives
making their speeches in the heart of that institution,
committing themselves to wait for the final word of the
Nobel Peace laureate on Wednesday. Did they know or not
what Clinton had said to Micheletti? Maybe they did, maybe
they didn’t. Maybe some, but not all of them knew. People,
institutions and concepts had been converted into
instruments of Washington’s high and arrogant politics.
Never did a speech in the heart of the OAS shine out with
such dignity as did the brief but valiant words of Roy
Chaderton, the Venezuelan ambassador, in that meeting.

Tomorrow the stony image of Oscar Arias will appear,
explaining that they have drawn up such and such a proposed
solution in order to avoid violence. I think that even
Arias himself has fallen into the large trap set up by the
Department of State. We shall see what he does tomorrow.

However, it is the people of Honduras who will have the
last word. Representatives of the social organizations and
the new forces are not the instruments of anybody within or
outside of the country, they know the needs and the
suffering of the people; their awareness and their courage
has multiplied; many citizens who were idle have joined
them; and those honest members of the traditional parties
who believe in freedom, justice and human dignity will
judge the leaders on the basis of the position that they
adopted at this historic minute. That attitude of the
military in the face of the yanqui ultimatums is as yet
unknown, or what messages are reaching the officers; there
is only one point of patriotic and honorable reference:
loyalty to the people, who have endured with heroism the
tear gas grenades, blows and shootings.

Without anyone being able to guarantee what the last
caprice of the empire will be; whether, on the basis of the
final decisions adopted, Zelaya will return legally or
illegally, the Hondurans will doubtless give him a great
reception, because it will be a measure of the victory that
they have already achieved with their struggles. Nobody
doubts that only the Honduran people will be capable of
constructing their own history!

Fidel Castro Ruz July 21, 2009 8:55 p.m.

Translated by Granma International

CHAVEZ: 'HODURAS ATTACKED BECAUSE IT IS OUR WEAKEST FLANK'

	July 4, 2009
The Lines of Chávez ALBA and the Hour of the Furnaces Ven-Global News Today is July 5th, the most significant and patriotic meaning: 198 years of our Declaration of Independence. On July 5th, 1811, a historical and decisive rupture occurred. And what a decisive rupture: our absolute independence was proclaimed, thus giving birth to our first Republic and the National state. It was a rupture with a clear political meaning that had already been announced on April 19th, 1810. The spirit of such a rupture was embodied, on the path towards July 5th, by the revolutionary Patriotic Society, whose continuous agitating activities and consequent pressure on our First Congress radicalize things. The flaming words of Miranda, Bolívar, Ribas, Coto Paúl gave impetus to the independence cause. It was a rupture promoted and led by a small group of Creole. The First Republic lacked the peoples balm. But it does not diminished, of course, the importance of the year 1811. By the way, it is necessary to pay attention to this lucid and passionate reflection of Augusto Mijares: "The truth complete truth is that Venezuela anticipated to give a legal foundation to its revolution with the same vehemence it showed later to defend it." I want to highlight the deep meaning of this date as reflected by the last verse of a song that became popular in the streets of Caracas in 1911: "United by bonds/made by heaven/all America exists as a nation." The feeling of a whole nation. The Constitution of 1811, the first of Our America, established that its precepts were inviolable. But, and this is important, it was possible to "alter and move these resolutions according to most of the people of Colombia wanting to gather in a national body to defend and preserve their freedom and independence." Colombia: there is the hand of Miranda. That is to say, Venezuela understood its existence as a free. sovereign and independent nation inside a bigger unity, just as we understand it today, thus resulting in the Bolivarian Alliance ALBA, in UNASUR. Only united we will be independent! Today is the day of the Bolivarian Armed Force. I send, through my words, the testimony of a grateful people that today knows that the arms of the Republic belong to them. It is a recognition given to the people by the people: the Day of the Bolivarian Armed Force if today the Day of the People in Arms. On this great day, I invite the Venezuelan soldiers to reflect: Look at yourselves in the painful mirror of Honduras. See the enormous difference between an Armed Force fraternally united to its people, as people in arms, and a military force that has been turned into an occupying army inside its own country and at the service of the bourgeoisie without Homeland, but with masters in the North. The union of Our America becomes stronger, gains momentum in the concert of nations and takes off the ground with a liberating fly. The neo-fascist blow of a group of military gorillas against President Zelaya... We have to think it over under the following factor: They want to make the Honduran government pay for its incorporation into the ALBA, its identification with those who aspire to have a world with more dignity and justice; they want to close the doors of a new history and get with their dark privileges out of the garbage. But in their blindness, they do not realize that they are trapped by a fatal anachronism and a total lack of historical sense. It has been told, as it is true, that the Honduran coup d État goes against what is embodied by these four letters: ALBA. The Bolivarian Alliance is not only a historical urgency, but the inexorable way to face the structural crisis of capitalism; therefore, it is the unifying tool with the highest political will when acting in favor of the unity of our America, which can not be put off. Thats the reason why they seek to attack, as I have said, its weakest flank. Thats the exact reason why the most sickening wing of the Honduran society, with arms, woke up with a party. With a stink of powder and arrogance, they believed that they could break a peoples hope. But the feeling of the people can not be hidden when they have decided to be free. The desire for transformation is felt in the Honduran air; thats the reason why we see on the TV screens soldiers chasing a ghostly enemy: the gorillas have ordered them to sow terror because they fear the people. These traitors to the homeland will never be able to understand the sacred fire of Morazan. His yesterdays accusing words are aimed today against them and everything they represent. "You men who have violated the most sacred rights of the people due to your sordid and selfish interest, I am talking to you, enemies of the independence and liberty." Lets recall, in the midst of this battle for the independence, the voice of young Colonel Simón Bolívar in his memorable public speech on July 3rd, 1811 in the Patriotic Society: "Hesitating will make us get lost." "It is the hour of furnaces," said Martí. It is the hour of the peoples! It is the hour of the future! With no hesitation, we will defeat! Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías / July 5th, 2009

US GOVT CONFIRMS IT KNEW HONDURAS COUP WAS COMING

Honduran anti-imperialist patriots gather in defiance of the military coup

Chavez Code

A New York Times article has just confirmed that the US Government has been "working for several days" with the coup planners in Honduras to halt the illegal overthrow of President Zelaya. While this may indicate nobility on behalf of the Obama Administration, had they merely told the coupsters that the US Government would CUT OFF all economic aid and blockade Honduras in the event of a coup, it's almost a 100% guarantee that the military and right wing parties and business groups involved in the coup would not have gone through with it.

So, while many make excuses for the Obama Administration's "calculated" statements, had they been more firm with the coup leaders, instead of "negotiating", the coup may never have happened. Also, the State Department says they believed "dialogue" was the best way to resolve the situation, but their lack of clarity and firm position has caused multiple human rights violations to occur in Honduras and a lot of tension to take place in the region.

And during the April 2002 coup against Chávez in Venezuela, the State Department also claimed it knew of the coup and tried to "stop" it. Later, in my investigations, it was discovered through documents from State and CIA declassified under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) that CIA, State and other US agencies, funded, supported, advised and armed the coup leaders....

Here is the NY Times article posted a few hours ago.

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More info here

CRISIS IN LATIN AMERICA AFTER RIGHT-WING COUP IN HONDURAS

Chavez: North American Imperialism and the
Extreme Right are Behind Coup in Honduras

June 28th 2009, by ABN / Tamara Pearson
Venezuelanalysis.com

This morning military personal kidnapped Honduran president Manuel Zelaya. According to one witness, 200 soldiers arrived at the president's house at 6am this morning, 4 shots were fired and later they left in vehicles towards the air base. The soldiers also took over the government television station, Channel 8, and took it off air. Zelaya is currently speaking live on Telsur TV, from Costa Rica.

In Venezuela, protests are starting in main city plazas and outside the Honduran Embassy. Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez spoke on Telsur earlier, with this statement, reported by the Bolivarian News Agency (ABN) and translated by Venezuelanalysis.com.

The president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez Frias, manifested his rejection, this Sunday, of the kidnapping of the president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, by that nation's military, and said that North American imperialism and the extreme right are behind this act.

"It's a brutal coup d'etat, one of many that happened over 10 years in Latin America. Behind these soldiers are the Honduran bourgeois, the rich who converted Honduras into a Banana Republic, into a political and military base for North American imperialism," said the Venezuelan head of state.

In telephone contact with the television channel Telesur, President Chavez urged the North American president [Barack Obama] to declare his opinion on the subject and said he considers the abuse against Honduras as being against all the peoples of Latin America.

Chavez said that from different mechanisms of regional integration, the Latin American people have started to mobilize, and he indicated that this coup will be defeated in order to return dignity to [Honduras].

"We say to the coup plotters, we are standing up. Honduras is not alone," Chavez said.

He also urged the Honduran soldiers who "acted in a cowardly way" to retake the constitutional thread and return the legally and democratically elected President [Zelaya] to his duties.

"Soldier, empty out your riffle against the oligarchy and not against the people," he said, adding, "These solders are going to know what the people are when the people start to go out into the streets."