J'accuse, by Rodolfo Pastor Fasquelle

[Adrienne Pine, an anthropologist who blogs at http://quotha.net/, translated a Spanish-language statement by this prominent Honduran intellectual, published online July 7 at Rebanadas de Realidad. Her work is used here under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License, the terms of which govern any other use of this work.]

I Accuse

Rodolfo Pastor Fasquelle, Honduran Minister of Culture (Translation by Adrienne Pine)
Tegucigalpa, 07/07/09

Before the High Court--that of history--I accuse those who, in different ways, have participated in the coup that has been perpetrated against José M. Zelaya, who Honduras elected to hold office for four years and who is unanimously backed by the community of nations- of treason.

I accuse Romeo Vásquez Velásquez--who positioned himself, up to the final hours of his legitimate post, as the friend of the President and a disciplined soldier--of having planned and carried out this treasonous and violent act, together with the generals of the State, controlling a puppet Congress along with the institutions that depend on it, motived by vanity, his pride wounded by his dismissal, invoking the supposed "illegality" of the poll, according to the rigged verdict, to carry out the unforgivable crime of kidnapping his Commander in Chief, for which he later pretended to have an "arrest warrant," something the judge denies. And I accuse you, General, of ordering a repression that is getting worse; the illegal arrests, the violent soldiers; the injuries and deaths that may occur are on your shoulders, Sir.

I accuse his accomplice Carlos Flores Facusse of having planned the coup and having conspired with and urged on the coup forces just like his father before him, of having schemed for months--together with José R. Ferrari and his acolytes and Jorge Canahuati, cut of the same cloth--planning the publicity campaign aimed at influencing a broad swath of the public, hiring experts on psychological warfare in Miami to bombard the population with obfuscatory messages, lies and fabrications repeated a thousand times, taking advantage of the ignorance and naïvete generated by the system in a smear campaign against the government and a campaign of intimidation against those who planned to participate in the poll, campaigns that were carried out without scruples in preparation for the coup. And I accuse Carlos Flores of hiding now and feigning innocence when his puppets have played strategic roles in the coup.

To Flores' acolytes: Elvin Santos and Roberto Micheleti B, presidential candidates--both unconstitutional--on the inside and the shameless members of Congress, who lent themselves to the maneuvers of the military, in whose hands they have remained perfectly useless, and to the candidates for Congress and local governments who followed the order to sabotage the poll and who will receive the implacable condemnation by our thinking companions for their great betrayal of the Party, and the same goes for the madman E. Ortez Colindres. I accuse them of having destroyed the Party of my forefathers, of having buried it alive, though admittedly injured.

I accuse Pepe Lobo, Rafael L. Callejas and Rodolfo Irías Navas who hatched the opportunistic and irresponsible plan of the National Party facing crisis, under the supposition that, with the enemy fractured, they were the beneficiaries and winners, without giving thought to the discredit that would be brought by the unanimous vote of the National Party in favor of accepting first an assault, then a false resignation and then the illegal dismissal of the President. As such, if one day the National Party were to end up being judged by the Supreme Court of the country, it would be subject to the same treatment and would have the obligation to please the darkest circles of power to remain "in power."

I accuse, before the higher court of posterity and history, these turn-coat judges, who followed the instructions of their bosses and political patrons to produce unjust verdicts, who betray the State, who make up sentences to cover their own crimes and a new type of crime which could be hypothetically committed in the future, who try to ban freedom of expression and intervene in the Executive Branch. [I accuse] the businessmen of the employers' organizations COHEP [The Honduran National Business Council], CCIC [The Cortes Chamber of Commerce], ANDI [National Industrial Association of Honduras], FENAGH [National Federation of Agricultural and Livestock Producers], who, despite that fact that part of their membership (myself included) dissents, want to give a false legitimacy to the coup, and who invoke democracy and legality and peace while at the same time promoting a coup that destroys any chance of providing the conditions necessary to defend those flags. Who manipulate public opinion, forcing their employees to march for Micheletti and who have confessed (I can attest to this) having financed mercenaries, provocateurs, to infiltrate and create chaos in protests defending the only legitimate government, thereby justifying their repression. And [I accuse] their followers who shamelessly congratulate themselves for defending their petty interests. Prepare to pay the price, now that no one else has the means.

I accuse the journalists who have become accomplices in crimes against the nation, finally demonstrating their shamelessness, not when they take a position (which they would have the right to do) but when they -systematically- manipulate the facts which they have an obligation to transmit with objectivity, when they hide them or make them up and when they slant their reporting to gloss over the vilest actions of the coup leaders and denigrate even the most noble of intentions of the popular movement, inciting irrationality and the coup itself, as many of the most notable journalists have done. I accuse you Rodrigo, you Renato, Edgardo, Alfredo, you, my namesake [Rodolfo]. Shame! You are responsible for the coup. [I accuse] the ideologues and spokespeople of the coup, Leitzelar, Valladares. And the intellectuals who wielded their supposedly neutral academic positions, an immoral stance in this context because it had to do with choosing between right and wrong, as is the case here.

I accuse these self-appointed "apostles", false prophets and backstabbers who call themselves pastors, invoking the name of God in vain against a civic proposal for social reform, democratization and betterment of Honduran society, who have tried to politicize sacred symbols and aided and blessed the darkest and most corrupt forces; who manipulated their congregations and followers and then justified the coup and subsequent repression and who now ask us to prevent a "bloodbath," as if the armed groups were not their own troops. For these hypocrites who are fed in order to extol their own virtues, fanatical followers of false religion with their vile business of buying and selling the heaven and earth (at whatever price they name, given that their empty words cost nothing), manipulating their congregations with fear, may they rot in hell! Because, as Father Milla says, the marriage of money and religion is the worst form of sacrilege.

I also accuse of treason those empty-headed people in our middle class, who gave free reign to these lies and who placed their petit-bourgeois comfort above the principles that their elders taught them, those of justice and decency and empathy for the suffering of the poorest. And in the end what good will the media dogma, the drugs and the incense do for he who is responsible for the coup, the usurper? No one will forget your infamy (that of a whitewashed tomb), the fact that you are an apocalyptic beast in sheep's clothing or how, in your wickedness, you feign innocence. We will not even forgive you nor your successors for three generations, so that the memory of your evil deeds be a lesson for all.