http://quotha.net/node/1803 Jesse Freeston: Massive Turnout for Zelaya Launches New Chapter of Honduran Struggle Wed, 06/01/2011 - 10:03 AP
'Largest gathering in Honduran history' receives deposed leader's return, but where to now for Honduran resistance movement? Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAM2lf5FQJU&feature=player_embedded http://quotha.net/node/1804 Democracy Now! Does Honduras Wed, 06/01/2011 - 10:14 AP DN! has had some great coverage over recent daysand I'm not just saying that because I was interviewed on the show today<http://www.democracynow.org/2011/6/1/zelayas_return_neither_reconciliation_nor_democracy> : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DD-IrWXh5PA&feature=player_embedded Andrés Tomás Conteris and Amy Goodman accompanied Zelaya on his historic return, and have dedicated two whole days (so far) to Honduras coverage. Former Minister of Culture (most recently under Zelaya) and renowned historian Rodolfo Pastor Fasquelle is also interviewed at length for today's program <http://www.democracynow.org/shows/2011/5/30>, along with Mel Zelaya and Xiomara Castro de Zelaya. Yesterday's program, which details the return and interviews Zelaya and members of his family, is available here<http://www.democracynow.org/shows/2011/5/31> . In addition, Amy Goodman has written a column titled Hope and Resistance in Honduras<http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2011/6/1/hope_and_resistance_in_honduras>, and DN! maintained a live blog<http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2011/5/30/live_blog_democracy_now_reports_on_manuel_zelayas_historic_return_to_honduras>while accompanying Zelaya. See those links (and the links they link to) for even more DN! Honduras coverage. ---------------------- http://quotha.net/node/1802 Belén Fernández: 1.5 million Honduran thugs give heros welcome to Copa Airlines Wed, 06/01/2011 - 09:31 AP Utterly brilliant. Click title to see original in Pulse Media with image: 1.5 million Honduran thugs give heros welcome to Copa Airlines<http://pulsemedia.org/2011/05/29/1-5-million-honduran-thugs-give-hero%E2%80%99s-welcome-to-copa-airlines/> A few days prior to the return to Honduras of former president Mel Zelaya<http://pulsemedia.org/2011/05/29/zelayas-return-neither-reconciliation-nor-democracy-in-honduras/#more-32554>, overthrown in a June 2009 coup détat and subsequently exiled to distinguished guest-hood in the Dominican Republic, I met with the director of the state-owned Radio Honduras, Gustavo Blanco. Previously a top employee with anti-coup Radio Globo, Blancos ideological incompatibility with Globos political orientation was once again underscored when he informed me that the anti-coup National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP) was composed largely of violent troublemakers and uneducated poor people who didnt even understand why they were resisting the coup. Our ensuing debate resulted in a number of additional claims on Blancos part, such as that 59-year-old Honduran teacher Ilse Velasquez<http://quotha.net/node/1626>who this past March was struck in the face by a police-fired tear gas canister and then promptly run over and killed by a press vehiclewas actually to blame for her own demise given that she should have understood that her body type was not compatible with street protesting: ME: People of a certain body type do not have rights? BLANCO: She was fat. According to Blanco, the close-range firing of tear gas in crowded areas was meanwhile sanctioned by international law in situations in which said crowds were obstructing the flow of traffic. As anyone who has spent time in Tegucigalpa knows, obstructions to traffic flow occur fairly constantly, with or without the presence of teachers peacefully protesting the privatization of public education and post-coup government confiscation of their pension funds<http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=6635> . Honduran media logic was also deployed against the teaching profession in July 2009 when professor Roger Vallejos elimination, apparently by police bullet <http://quotha.net/node/786>, was justified in the daily *El Heraldo*<http://pulsemedia.org/2009/07/31/live-from-honduras-honduran-neighbors-dupe-hondurans-into-thinking-there-is-coup/>as being an effect of his choice to abandon his classroom in order to demonstrate against the illegal overthrow of the elected president. As for the convenience of the notion of FNRP dependence upon violent troublemakers when it comes to excusing violent repression by the security organs of the state, this was confirmed when, shortly after the obliteration of Ilse Velasquez, Human Rights and Labor Attaché for the U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa Jeremy D. Spector characterized the teachers movement as involving thugs <http://alainet.org/active/45842&lang=es>. He did, however, refrain from employing Blancos characterization of the Honduran police forces as *angelitos*. Other prior victims of the little angels and their friends include Honduran teenager Isis Obed Murillo<http://www.latina.com/lifestyle/news-politics/murder-19-year-old-isis-obed-murillo-sparks-youth-movement-honduras>, shot and killed by the military<http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/hp051010.html>on July 5, 2009 at Tegucigalpas Toncontin airport, where anti-coup Hondurans had gathered with the expectation of celebrating the repatriation of Zelaya, whose plane was ultimately unable to land and who only resurfaced in Honduras<http://pulsemedia.org/2009/09/23/live-from-honduras-channel-10-owner-breaks-news-of-men-hugging-men-on-floor-of-brazilian-embassy-in-tegucigalpa/>in September, where he took up residence in the Brazilian embassy before being re-expatriated in January of 2010<http://pulsemedia.org/2010/01/29/live-from-honduras-police-perform-halftime-show-at-zelaya-airport-farewell/>. Zelayas re-repatriation today took place at Plaza Isis Obed Murillo, located in the southern section of the Toncontin landing strip. Scheduled to arrive at 11 A.M. on a flight from Nicaragua, Zelaya landed four hours late. The crowd of expectant thugsestimated by event organizers to consist of 1.5 million Hondurans (out of a population of 7.5 million)remained nonviolent despite the unexplained delays, intense sun, and decided lack of personal space in which to combat suffocation. Many attendees had arrived the previous day and had spent the night in the midst of a torrential downpour. Added strains to the nervous system included the concentrated flag-waving and musical fanfare accompanying the arrival of commercial aircraft; following each premature climax, the thugs would once again accept that Mel was not in fact arriving on Copa Airlines, and the cycle would begin anew. As for the lack of police and military stationed within Plaza Isis Obed Murillo, this may have had something to do with the lack of violence. --------------- http://quotha.net/node/1801 More than Zelaya: Multilayered Resistance in Honduras Wed, 06/01/2011 - 09:00 AP [I'm extensively quoted, typos and all, from an email interview in the following piece by Matt Stannard on the new site Politics & Policy. Click title to see original] More than Zelaya: Multilayered Resistance in Honduras<http://politicalcontext.org/politics-policy/2011/05/more-than-zelaya-multilayered-resistance-in-honduras/> May 29, 2011 By Matt J. Stannard *Is the significance of Manuel Zelayas return to Honduras really about the brokerage of the Organization of American States? Is it even really about Zelaya himself? Reports from Honduran citizens, and my interviews with scholars and observers on the ground in Honduras, suggest otherwise.* Yesterday, the legitimately elected and illegitimately removed President of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, returned to that country<http://www.newsday.com/news/ousted-honduran-president-returns-from-exile-1.2910141>greeted by a large, heated crowd and a nation still bitterly divided by tension and violence. The return was the result of an agreement brokered by the Organization of American States and signed by President Porfirio Lobo and will allow Honduras to re-join the OAS. In a final drip of irony regarding the legal coup that some American commentators have defended, a Honduran court dropped all the charges against Zelaya that had been used to justify his removal in the first place. Its clear that Zelayas return changes nothing materially. But it will surely intensify the political struggle that Zelaya himself set into motion, a struggle supercharged by the coup and subsequent repression. The intensification of political struggle will be stark, because, as one Honduran blogger wrote<http://globalvoicesonline.org/2011/05/29/honduras-manuel-zelaya-returns/>, the country now has two presidents: Starting today, Honduras will have two presidents, two types of people, and the division will be absolute, a gap too big to heal, this division will be permanent, there is no doubt about that. ...He was received with a heros welcome, amid cries of Viva Mel! President Zelaya! making it known that he remains their president, now is the time to reflect: Who is the real president of the nation? Using stories often written by biased, pro-coup sources (outlined by Adreienne Pine in my interview with her below), the mainstream media has largely focused<http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-28/zelaya-back-in-honduras-paving-way-for-nation-s-oas-return-2-.html>on the role of the Organization of American States and the impact of Hondurass re-entry into the OAS. The American media has largely ignored the involvement of the United States government in the politics of the coup and subsequent installation of Lobo, as well as the repression that followed the coup. The post-coup atmosphere in Honduras has been retro-style brutal. Violence against women<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/29/honduras-blind-eye-femicides>is pervasive and deliberately ignored by authorities. There is a great deal of repression of journalists, typified by the recent murder<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=405x52058>of Hector Francisco Medina Polanco, who had reported on corruption in the right wing government. Widespread assassination and intimidation<http://www.alternet.org/economy/146608/welcome_to_the_new_honduras,_where_right-wing_death_squads_proliferate>of union members, teachers<http://www.thenation.com/article/160472/open-season-teachers-honduras>, and campensinos (peasants) has been reported. In the face of all this, Zelaya is perceived by many as a source of potential stabilization, rather than the destabilizing force in the right wing governments contrived narrative justifying the coup. While there has been speculation and debate concerning whether the U.S. engineered the original coup or passively supported it, there is little doubt that capital, and the military industrial complex, view Honduras with a different criterial lens than that of ordinary working people. This letter<http://forusa.org/blogs/john-lindsay-poland/construction-companies-urged-not-bid-violent-outcomes-honduras/8752>urging contractors and construction companies not to bid on infrastructure supporting U.S. military presence is significant. It includes leadership of several major religious groups, as well as Noam Chomsky and other academic activists. I spoke briefly with Dana Frank, prof history at UC Santa Cruz, author of Bananeras: Women Transforming the Banana Unions of Latin America. The other day, Frank wrote <http://www.progressive.org/mpfrank052711.html>: President Zelayas return offers a brief glimmer of hope, but the ongoing repression by current President Porfirio Lobos military regime now even worse than immediately after the coup remains undiminished, as state security forces now routinely use tear gas canisters as lethal weapons, and teachers, trade unionists and campesinos in the opposition are still being assassinated with complete impunity. Lobo and Secretary of State Clinton insist that democracy has been restored to Honduras. But the reality on the ground remains terrifying, which is why over 75 Congress members are calling for a suspension of U.S. military and police aid to Honduras. I asked her if she still believed this to be true, and whether the OAS-brokered agreement would do anything to stem the political repression and human rights violations in Honduras. The agreement guarantees nothing new except to Zelaya, she told me. Lobos police already teargassed and use live bullets against high school students on Wednesday, who were peacefully protesting the suspension of their teachers. This is AFTER the accord. I had a more extensive conversation with Adrienne Pine, assistant professor of anthropology at American University, is in Honduras presently, and was able to answer several detailed questions when I contacted her there, the day before Zelayas return. Among the most important things I learned from my interview with Professor Pine are first, that not all who opposed the coup are Zelaya supporters and, by extension, the drive to reform Honduras goes beyond simply Zelaya; and second, that we should be suspicious of the mainstream media concerning Honduran politics, as evidenced by Pines critique of the work of Freddy Cuevas. Third, the vast majority of Hondurans, regardless of their attitude toward Zelaya, consider the Lobo regime completely illegitimate. *POLITICALCONTEXT.ORG: Heres what the Associated Press had to sayit seems very spun: The 2009 coup that was staged to maintain the interests of Honduras political and business elite in the end may have created a window for change in one of the Americas poorest countries, where more than 65 percent of the people live in poverty. The article goes on to mention that congress has amended the constitution to do what Zelaya wanted to do, and also speculates that his popular support may be thin. How much of this is accurate?* Adrienne Pine: [AP reporter] Freddy Cuevas is a notoriously pro-coup reporter who has time and again distorted the facts on the ground and repeated nearly verbatim (albeit in translation) the lies of the same Honduran media outlets that themselves sponsored and provided the propaganda for the coup, and hired Lanny Davis <http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/lanny_davis_now_lobbying_in_support_of_honduran_co.php>as the Micheletti regimes lobbyist in Washington. *[Prof. Pine has written some notes about Cuevas's work** here*<http://www.quotha.net/node/1778> * and **here* <http://quotha.net/node/1656>*.]* With regards to his claims in this particular article, he misleads as usual. Honduras wanted back into the international community, specifically the Organization of American States is an outright lie, unless youre counting Honduras to mean only the Lobo administration and other coup-supporters. The vast resistance movement itself does not recognize the Lobo administration and is nearly unanimously opposed to reintegration into the OAS. The amendment to the constitution Cuevas refers to was carried out only in response to a massive campaign last year in which a Citizen Declaration demanding a representative, popular, and inclusive constituent assembly be held was signed by well over 1 million 250 thousand people. The amendment only provides the possibility of a constitutional assembly, without any promise of participatory inclusive democratic process demanded by the Resistance movement, and which formed part of Zelayas original proposal. The idea that Zelayas support is thin is utter nonsense. Whether he will retain his popularity in the months following his arrival is certainly up to debate, but at the moment Zelaya, as General Coordinator of the FNRP, has a something approaching saint-like status among a majority of Hondurans, something that will be more than evident in the masses of people that will be there, rain or shine, to receive him tomorrow. *PC: What is happening to Zelaya supporters on the ground right now? * AP: Its important to note that many, many of those who opposed the coup, and even gave their lives in the Resistance struggle, do not consider themselves Zelaya supporters. This has been a linguistic trick of the right wing to try to link Zelaya to Chavez (as a strongman with followers who dont lead themselves) and to simplify the struggle of the Resistance movement, which for most Resistance members is not about Zelaya, but rather about (albeit via different proposed strategies) the refoundation of the nation. The repression has only increased in recent months, with militarized police shooting directly into crowds on a weekly, and sometimes even daily basis, with live ammunition and teargas canisters, which are lethal. Just this week in Tegucigalpa, police ambushed a high school, shooting teargas canisters and live bullets at students as young as 16 years old who were protesting the Lobo governments suspension of their math teacher for speaking out against the privatization of education. One student was sent to the hospital and 21 others were arrestedalong with two student mothers, who had come to beg for mercyfor threatening the public order. *PC: A group called Artists in Resistance posted a **letter*<http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/aenr270511.html> * in support of Zelaya: Translated, a portion reads:* *Artists in Resistance is part of an essential current that seeks to make power an instrument of the people, and along this road we have been witnesses to the growth of thousands of voices and faces of leadership, leaders of neighborhoods, municipalities, towns, collectives, and organizations an immense demonstration of the strength and will accumulated over decades in the bowels of a humiliated Honduras.* AP: I translated that letter <http://quotha.net/node/1791>, and I wouldnt say its in support of Zelaya. Its welcoming him as a compañero in struggle, but at the same time making it quite clear that the collective disagrees with processes like that of the Cartagena Accord, which Zelaya signed without consulting the diverse leaders mentioned in the above quote. The Cartagena Accord, in paving the way for the FNRP to participate as a political party and for Honduras to be reincorporated into the OAS, also contradicts the overwhelming majority decision taken by the representative members of the FNRP in its national assembly on February 26, in which it determined that it would not participate in the electoral process and that it would not recognize the Lobo administration. *PC: At The Nation, **Tom Hayden writes*<http://www.thenation.com/article/161013/zelaya-return-honduras> *: The National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP) has been headed by Zelayas wife, Xiomara Castro, Juan Barahona, Rasel Tome, Guillermo Jimenez Rafael Alegria, and a cross-section of other popular leaders. At a convention in February, they voted to join a broad front (frente amplio) aimed a refounding Honduras through the constituent assembly. What are the viability and significance of groups like these?* AP: Hayden, whom I admire deeply, here unfortunately presents a simplified analysis of the FNRP structure, ignoring the point made by the Artists in Resistance above. The Resistance movement has not responded to the hierarchical leadership Hayden describes, but rather has created thousands of new leaders at all levels, many of whom aspire to a much more participatory and horizontal democratic process than that implied here. As a result, and as a result of the determination of the majority of the movement to NOT participate in elections, if were talking about electoral viability, I would say viability is low. The majority of the Resistance movement itself is not enthusiastic about that route, which it sees as illegitimate, and the leadership cited by Hayden is not really at the helm. However, if were talking about the movements viability in terms of bringing about grassroots change and challenging the violent structures of the Lobo administration and the Obama administration supporting it, the potential is enormous. The militancy of the social movement that arose in Honduras following the coup is unprecedented, and it has already had a huge impact, even if we just look at the concessions cynically cited by Cuevas. *PC: Zelaya has been promised the right to campaign for a new constituent assembly. Would the coup government had agreed to this if they thought Zelaya would be politically successful?* AP: On its own, the government and the oligarchy it represents will never cede power. All we have to do is look at the other treaties that it has negotiated, including the 2009 San Juan and Guaymuras Accords, both of which, it is clear today, were negotiated in bad faith. Even the weak stipulations of the Guaymuras accords, which paved the way for legitimation of the Lobo government, have not been complied with. If the coup government ends up allowing a constituent assembly, it with be neither representative nor inclusive. *PC: Is there any way Zelaya can do more from the outside than he could have as President? Considering he was ousted for fairly minimal reforms, I wonder if he can agitate better than he was allowed to lead?* AP: Certainly Zelaya has been more effective as a symbol and as a leader as an ousted president than he was as president. He wont return to the presidency (that is prohibited by the constitution, and although it gets broken right and left, Im pretty sure hell stand by that), but how he agitates, for what and with whom will determine his effectiveness. If, upon his return, he begins acting like a politician, making concessions without consulting the broad resistance movement, he will quickly lose support. However, if he leads in a more horizontal, inclusive fashion, as he has previously shown he is capable of doing, I think it is likely that he can have a great impact in pushing forward the agenda of the resistance movement. *PC: In brief, whats going to happen when Zelaya returns? (This was asked the day before Zelayas return)* AP: Tomorrow, Zelaya will return, masses of people with all hopes pinned upon him will greet him (some are already camped out at the airport), and one of the first things Zelaya will do is go to a formal luncheon with Porfirio Lobo (whom the Resistance doesnt recognize as president) and José Miguel Insulza, Secretary General of the OAS. It will be an enormous, powerful celebration of resistance, but at the end of the day, the only thing that will have concretely changed is that Zelaya will be in the country. As recent communiques by COFADEH <http://quotha.net/node/1786> and COPINH <http://quotha.net/node/1795> and the above-quoted Artists in Resistance letter note, democracy and reconciliation are still a long, long way away. ------------- http://quotha.net/node/1800 Jesse Freeston: Two Years After Coup, Overthrown President Returning to Honduras Wed, 06/01/2011 - 08:53 AP http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJlFbA9843A&feature=player_embedded [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:laamn-unsubscr...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:laamn-subscr...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:laamn-dig...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:laamn-ow...@egroups.com?subject=laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:la...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/laamn@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: laamn-dig...@yahoogroups.com laamn-fullfeatu...@yahoogroups.com <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: laamn-unsubscr...@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
