More US spin on Honduras...

is brought to you by Voice of America, which starts its story from this morning with the following headline and tagline:

Honduran Congress Grants Zelaya, Coup Plotters Amnesty

Supreme Court also clears military of criminal charges; both moves seen as steps toward national reconciliation before President-elect Lobo takes office Wednesday.

Really? seen as "steps toward national reconciliation" by whom?

From the very first version of the US-inspired San Jose Accord, there has been a proposal for amnesty in the agreements that were proposed to end the coup.

Just as consistently, both sides in Honduras have rejected the call for amnesty. Some English-language commentaries suggested this was due to the fierce animosity between the two sides, and the desire by both to keep open the possibility for revenge prosecution.

But as we are seeing now, the issue for Hondurans is actually a good deal more complex than amnesty/no amnesty. Papered over in the VOA story is the continued uncertainty about the status of the additional bill of charges against President Zelaya, produced after the installation of the coup regime, which are not covered by this amnesty. The amnesty, as we noted in the previous post, is for specific identified crimes, those considered "political" or connected to them.

The debate in congress and the party-line split vote reveal major disagreement about the best way toward "national reconciliation" within the Congress itself.

What we are seeing in the spin given these moves by VOA is the US perspective. The US insists that Honduras go through a theatrical performance of enacting the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord even though that brokered compromise absolutely failed and is utterly irrelevant now. One hopes the US State Department doesn't suffer the illusion that Zelaya will not be prosecuted when he eventually returns to Honduras, because if so, they will likely be disappointed.

It is perhaps not too much to treat the VOA article as a proxy for how the US State Department would like to rewrite the story of the coup. From that perspective, two further things leap out.

First, in reporting on the shameless use of the Supreme Court as a mechanism to cleanse the Armed Forces of all responsibility for their actions on June 28, the VOA states that the Court found that the Armed Forces "acted to preserve peace in Honduras". That is certainly part of the court's argument; but by selecting that piece, and leaving out the part about the Armed Forces not acting out of "malice", the VOA gives a tweaked impression of the arguments being offered to justify the Armed Forces violating the Constitution as well as exceeding the Supreme Court warrant produced to justify their actions.

Bad enough that good intentions alone can clear the military of wrong-doing (thus creating a precedent for future interventions in government "to preserve peace". Are you listening, Pepe?) But perhaps it would be worth paying attention to the fact that the Honduran stakeholders feel there is something more involved: the question of whether people were motivated not just by their better angels, but by "malice". This is not a conflict that will be sanitized by formalized actions.

Which is, in essence, what the Congressional debate over "amnesty" showed. In our post from yesterday, we simply reported that the Liberal party abstained. The real story is more complicated, as Tiempo reported in the article we linked to in the previous post:

The Liberal Party abstained from voting because they could not come to agreement, since only 8 had defined a position (five against and three in favor), while among the rest there were diverse positions on the sense that it was necessary to know in depth the reach of the project [of amnesty], to socialize the decision more, to listen first to the Truth Commission and then consult the people in a plebiscite.

(For the public consultation observers out here, that would be consultar el pueblo en un plebiscito...)

In other words: the Liberal Party congress members are wary of how the Honduran public will react. As the party that occupied both sides in the coup, they have been burned the most by the political fallout. And they are worried about who this will affect, what the public will think about it, and how it will harmonize with the expected Truth Commission. Better to get the public to ratify it and relieve the political pressure.

And the second thing that leaps out in the VOA article: even to the bitter end, the English language media still think the real cause of this coup was a non-existent attempt to prolong the current Presidential term in office; as the last sentence of this meretricious piece of writing sums up the whole sordid seven months

Mr. Zelaya's opponents say he was ousted because he was trying to illegally change the constitution to extend his term in office. [emphasis added]

And VOA, like the US State Department, gives those "opponents"-- the architects of the coup-- the last word.

**********
[Nerdy word usage aside here: technically, the verb "socializar" has two meanings, the first to privatize something, as in State seizure of property, and the second

Promover las condiciones sociales que, independientemente de las relaciones con el Estado, favorezcan en los seres humanos el desarrollo integral de su persona

To promote the social conditions that, independently of relations with the State, favor in human beings the integral development of their persons.

The closest to the sense here would be that the Liberal Party congress members feel the need to promote the idea of amnesty among Honduran society, to introduce it as a social value that presumably they are not sure already exists. In other words, they are dubious that amnesty is part of the Honduran habitus.

Thanks For The Coup

In a private ceremony the command of the armed forces of Honduras gave awards to a handful of government officials. These officials "could not be thanked during the Armed Forces Day celebration," said Colonel Ramiro Archaga, spokesperson for the Armed Forces. "Besides, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Defense Minister, and the President wanted to thank them personally," Archaga continued.

"These are people who have contributed to the institution [Armed Forces] and the country, and what better moment than a reunion of the high command to recognize their merits in supporting defense of democracy."

The ceremony was closed to the press, and the public, because this is the meeting of the high command in which they discuss security strategy for Christmas.

So who are these "defenders of democracy" who could not be decorated in the public celebration of armed forces day, but rather, had to wait for a closed meeting of the high command?

Tomas Arita Valle, justice of the Supreme Court
Marcia Facussé, Liberal Party Congress person
Rafael Pineda Ponce, Chief of Staff to Micheletti
Gabriela Nuñez, Finance Minister
Roberto Zuniga, Budget director in Finance Ministry
Arturo Corrales, Negotiator on San Jose Accord team of Micheletti
Enrique Ortez Colindres, Foreign Minister for a few days at the beginning of the coup
Miguel Antonio Andino, administrative head of Defense Ministry

Anyone else think this is totally inappropriate?

Militarized Elections

Militarization is a reality. Today, Sunday, passing the turn off to Gracias on the western highway, not only were there police and troops but there was a machine gun on top of the cabin of a pick up with a soldier in the back. This is a place where there are often Transit Police check points (seat belts, non-functioning lights, etc.) But recently it has also been "manned" by the military and police (not just transit police).

So wrote a commentator on another of our blog posts.

Honduran elections have been militarized by definition since 1998. Article 272 of the Constitution spells it out:

to guarantee the free exercise of suffrage, [the Armed Forces] store, transport, and watch over the electoral materials and security of the process.

To that end, the President puts them at the control of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) one month before the election until the election is called and a winner declared.

So, we come to this year's elections. This time things are different. On June 28, the Armed Forces actively intervened in the constitutional government, and as their statements after the coup d'etat showed, they did so based in part by assuming they had a special active role in protecting the Constitution, and that this extended to deciding what kinds of political perspectives they would allow.

Since then, the Armed Forces has been deeply involved in suppression of civil rights in the country, changing forever the way those members of the public who have been threatened will see them.

Now Colonel Roger Alexis Turcios, who is in charge of the logistics and planning for the election, was asked if anything made this time different than in the past. He replied, "The security measures that we are taking this time are stronger and more strict". In the name of security, the military have expanded their role in this election.

12,000 police and 11,000 soldiers are assigned to guard 15,269 polling places. As part of the extended security measures for this election, the military were authorized to call up, arm, and equip an additional 5,000 reservists. "There are 11 military regions and each has a commander responsible for security in his region, and has his orders and plans," said General Bartolome Funez Castellon.

Because of their fear of an election boycott, the TSE has trained the 530 public prosecutors, as well as military and police officers, in what constitutes electoral crimes. General Romeo Vasquez Velasquez said, "we know that there are people that are inducing the public to not go and vote, for which they are committing an electoral crime, contrary to what they should do which is to urge lots of people to get out and vote ('vayan masivamente a votar') because we have chosen the democratic system which is the best in the world."

Vasquez Velasquez also said "We are doing sweeps at a national level, of reconnaissance, and also intelligence work, to detect if there are any problems in any areas and treat them with viable solutions."

Over the weekend, the police and military set up checkpoints around the country, where all vehicles including public transportation were stopped, and everyone's papers checked.

Friday the de facto government ordered a nationwide disarmament, so today these checkpoints started frisking everyone and confiscating any weapons found, even if the bearer has a licence to carry the weapon.

Foreigners are being asked to justify their reason for being in the country.

When people come to vote, they're going to pass a line of police about 300 feet (100 meters) from the polling place. Each polling place will be surrounded by a group of soldiers placed 150 feet away. There will be additional guards protecting election materials that will be stored nearby.

Inside the polling place will be "custodios", people designated as responsible for the management and provisioning of election supplies. Each of these will be a soldier who will authorize the release of more ballots, or indelible ink, from the nearby stores.

Now, this takes place against a background of threats against those who wish not to participate in this election, despite the fact that the constitutional call for obligatory voting has never been enforced by individual prosecution. As early as August, this was already emerging as a troubling theme linked to support for an enhanced role for the military in elections.

It takes place against a background of letters sent to municipal mayors throughout the country, directing them to send in lists of those identified as members of the resistance, on the theory that being a member of the resistance implies an intention to engage in some form of anti-electoral violence (as opposed to advocacy for electoral boycotts, which do not meet the definitions of anti-electoral offenses as specified in the electoral law).

And above all: it takes place against the background of the military coup d'etat and military repression since then.

This is the reality of the "free and transparent" elections that are promised for November 29.

Inadvertent truth? When generals merge with politicians...

A BBC report on the interpretive aftermath of the signing of the Tegucigalpa (Guaymuras) Accord rehearses the main points of disagreement between the two sides.

The Zelaya administration insisting that the Congressional vote on return of the Executive Power to its state prior to June 28 logically has to precede establishing a reconciliation government (or else we face the bizarre prospect of Zelaya, as a supposed "private citizen", negotiating half the cabinet posts based on-- what?).

The Micheletti group, meanwhile, continue to ignore the fact that what is at issue is timing of the Congressional vote-- not the outcome-- in favor of emphasizing that Zelaya has accepted whatever outcome comes from this vote-- which they will not commit to having before the supposed reconciliation government takes form.

And then there are those rumors of behind the scenes deals between Pepe Lobo and the US State Department, to ensure that if the Congress ever convenes, the vote will be for reinstatement of Zelaya.

But what is most interesting to me about this brief article is something else: the concluding sentences that read

In these last few precarious hours, many politicians are reluctant to declare themselves. And some, like Gen Romeo Vasquez have taken refuge in absolute silence.

As a reminder: General Vasquez and his Armed Forces are supposed to be apolitical and non-deliberative. He cannot even vote in the election, according the the Constitution. He isn't supposed to be a politician.

But this is one of the enduring legacies of the coup d'etat, come what may: the military has emerged from behind the scenes, newly empowered to make and break governments.

That should worry us all.

Lenca resistance continues

The Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) has issued a press release detailing the targeting of Honduras' Lenca people by the de facto regime, on of all days-- October 12:

Nocturnal aerial military manoeuvres to intimidate the indigenous population of Honduras


On Monday, October 12 combat helicopters of the coup regime's air force carried out night time aerial military manoeuvres, with the goal of intimidating the Lenca indigenous population of Honduras.

The manoeuvres constitute overflights at low altitude and launching of flares.

These manoeuvres added to repressive actions carried out in Colomoncagua where various military pertaining to the 10th battalion of infantry discharged firearms to thrash the people of the community of San Antonio Bados, after they had participated in a mass and mobilization of resistance against the coup d'etat, carried out on Saturday October 10 of the present year.

With the ancestral force of Lempira, Mota and Etempica our voices are raised for life, dignity, liberty, justice and peace.

La Esperanza, Intibucá

13 October 2009

Colomoncagua was included in a listing of indigenous towns paying tribute in Honduras in 1582, when it had 50 tribute-paying residents (normally male heads of families). It continued to pay tribute throughout the eighteenth century, with 141 tribute-paying residents identified as indigenous in 1801. Colomoncagua district today is inhabited by over 5,000 people, 1500 of them in the scattered villages of Colomoncagua itself. San Antonio Bados is the home of about 150 people.

These are people who have survived under the worst conditions of colonial oppression. That their resistance is drawing the attention of the military is testimony to the threat indigenous resistance presents to the de facto regime.

Lempira, Mota and Etempica were leaders of indigenous Honduran resistance against Spanish invasion in the sixteenth century. Lenca celebrations of Lempira stress that he never died, and to invoke his strength is to invoke the unbowed strength of people with five centuries of experience in persisting against all odds. In the 1970s, local secondary school students working with me were given the impression in their schools that Lempira was a myth.

Historical research by Honduran historian Mario Felipe Martinez Castillo identified and published documents from 1558 preserved in Spanish archives that showed that Lempira was, as the Lenca have always known, a real person.

Knowledge of history is, as we have noted many times here, a weapon.

Reading (Military) Tea Leaves in the "Mystery of Zelaya's Return"

The title paraphrases a report by Marc Lacey and Ginger Thomas in the New York Times.

On one level, it adds little of substance to the story of the return of Zelaya.

But remarkably for a news story, it manages to hint at a tantalizing set of possibilities that may turn out to be as important to the playing out of the Zelaya return as today's announcement by the major party presidential candidates that the clock is running out for their support of Micheletti's regime.

They start with one of the most widely discussed questions: how did he do it? how, with everyone in theory watching the border for him, did President Zelaya-- a very recognizable character-- make it all the way to Tegucigalpa without being spotted?

I personally have no problem imagining him crossing the border without hitting the Migración agents' radar. Working in northwest Honduras, I have been told repeatedly by country people that they pass over in the mountains for convenience when they want. I personally know North Americans who accidentally walked across the border in the mountains when out in the countryside. There is no fence along the border, and the description of President Zelaya crossing mountains? that describes almost every inch of the Honduran frontiers with Guatemala, El Salvador, and most of the border with Nicaragua. Only in the extreme northeast is the frontier not mountainous; and crossing there would be pointless, because communication with the rest of the country from the oriente is arduous, in the absence of paved roads, or in some areas, any roads.

But still, the question does resonate. How did he do it?

The NY Times rehearses the now familiar bits of the story: landing under cover of darkness in a sympathetic El Salvador; presumably, crossing somewhere on the Salvadoran border--where a Honduran border agent at El Amatillo is quoted as saying there are a lot of mountain passes where he could have crossed--and then the

15-hour slog that required trekking through the mountains and navigating back roads in buses, cars and trucks to get around military checkpoints.

That last point really resonates: while Honduras has very few major highways, which allows both the tactic of the resistance of stopping commercial traffic by burning tires on the road, and the military security tactic of setting up checkpoints to stop buses and other large vehicles, there is a network of largely unpaved roads, running through the mountains, that you can use to drive around most difficult patches.

In the 1990s, at the end of one field season, we wanted to get to the coastal city of Tela to spend a few last days soaking in the sun on a beautiful beach. But there were labor actions all that summer, and this time, the takeover blocked the approach to the bridge over the Ulua river on the highway leading from San Pedro Sula to Progreso. Because we had very limited time, we had splurged and instead of taking buses (the same ones owned by Roberto Micheletti, actually), we had bargained for a cab driver to drive us all the way from La Lima to Tela. And boy, was he motivated-- even more than us (I was ready to go into San Pedro Sula and find a hotel with a pool for two nights). So off we went into the banana plantations, driving over unpaved roads leading in a zig-zag pattern to an old, unused railway bridge downstream, where we crossed the Ulúa and then eventually meandered back to the highway. I had driven the same network of roads day after day for months throughout the early 1980s, and I didn't know this was possible.

Without any local knowledge, later in the 1990s, I navigated a three-wheel drive vehicle (that's a four wheel drive vehicle that is actually broken but you don't know it) off the main San Pedro-Tegucigalpa highway, into the mountains east of Lake Yojoa, across a river spanned only by concrete segments over which the water rushed, through back lanes where the only way we stayed on target was always taking the branch leading back to the west.

So I can see this. Not really a mystery, and I read on wondering what about this was all so mysterious-- heroic maybe, a great movie plot, but mysterious?

And this is where this non-news article becomes interesting. The reporters get the Honduran military on the record about the apparent failure of what surely was supposed to be an impregnable security wall:

The Honduran military denied that his return was a major security breach. “Military intelligence did not fail,” Adolfo Lionel Sevilla, the de facto defense minister, told El Heraldo, a Honduran daily newspaper. He added cryptically, “Everything can’t be publicized because it would create anxiety.”

Stop and think about that for a minute. Everything can't be publicized because it would create anxiety.

My goodness, what is the military hiding? Again, thank the NY Times for answering this question by the time-honored technique of juxtaposition; what immediately follows is not a clarification of this remark by the military or the de facto regime's pretend defense minister (who one suspects bit his tongue right after those words came out). Instead, they connect the dots to long-rumored differences in the sentiment of the military:

One worry is that some members of the Honduran military loyal to Mr. Zelaya may have aided in his return. “There is a certain amount of concern among Hondurans about how Zelaya got into the country,” said Christopher Sabatini, editor of Americas Quarterly, a New York academic journal. “It’s hard to imagine that he could get in without some cooperation from the military. And Micheletti, in particular, has to be worried about whether he really has control over all his forces.”

Romeo Vasquez Velasquez has thrown his support fully behind the de facto regime. This is actually extremely problematic philosophically in Honduras, since the constitution decrees that the military is to stand apart from politics. This is why they theoretically were considered the ideal agents to guarantee free elections. This is reinforced by requirements that military officers not stand for office. This is why the Armed Forces tried, early on, to distance themselves from their own actions through the powerful medium of-- the press release.

As a result, the Armed Forces are now thoroughly tied to the de facto regime, and not to their credit. Abolishing the military has actually been mentioned.

Now Romeo has to look around and think, "who is dealing behind my back?". And Micheletti may find himself sooner or later without the club that his command of the military provides: the one thing, other than continued US financial support, propping up his regime.

An Interview with President Zelaya

La Jornada de Mexico has the first published coverage available on the internet from the recent interview with Zelaya at the Brazilian embassy.

Possibly the biggest news item in the press interview is Zelaya's statement that OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza will travel to Honduras to mediate face-to-face talks.

Yo he regresado con el fin de buscar un arreglo pacífico de frente, para que el diálogo sea en mi propia tierra y en mi propio pueblo.

I have returned with the purpose of seeking a peaceful arrangement face to face, so that the dialogue will be in my own country and among my own people

Las fuerzas armadas deben apuntar sus rifles a los enemigos del pueblo y no contra el pueblo

The Armed Forces should point their rifles at the enemies of the people and not against the people

While the US State Department may have preferred him to stay out of Honduras and wait for non-existent progress in the moribund Arias mediated "negotiations", Zelaya makes an important claim here: even the worst coup apologists have had to admit his expulsion from the country was a constitutional violation.

The Supreme Court order for his detention June 28 actually was based on a claim he was a flight risk. Pro-coup apologists delight in claiming that President Zelaya cannot return because he would be arrested on both this order and a trumped-up list of 18 "charges" since the de facto regime was installed. But this ignores his actual desire to return to the country, where he would have the right to due legal process and to fight the charges against him, which many constitutional law professors have argued are procedurally and factually flawed. As noted here, the Supreme Court had not yet arrived at the point of trying, much less convicting, Zelaya, and while there were administrative charges that could be argued to have some basis, representing these administrative issues as the basis of charges of "treason" was overwrought.

The amnesty provision in the San Jose Accord is as much, or more, about protecting the coup architects from prosecution.

With Zelaya back in the country, negotiations could proceed without the baggage of that proposal, which gave away so much to the coup regime that it hardly made sense for Zelaya to agree to it. His presence in national territory allows for the participation of civil society in ensuring that there are negotiations; it raises the pressure on the Armed Forces, which desperately wants not to be smeared by their participation in the coup; and it may open a way for the factions within the coup and de facto regime that have tried to open up some breathing room to move more decisively away from Micheletti.

Vasquez Velasquez WILL NOT call the Armed Forces into the streets

So reports the minute by minute ticker in El Heraldo at 12:15 our time.

Looks like the question of what the military will do is getting clearer, no?

On the negative side: reportedly the Air Force did a flyover on the Brazilian Embassy. How crazy is the de facto regime? how much do they believe their own we-can-go-it-alone rhetoric? How out of control is the military?

And at 12:55 PDT, the minute by minute timeline on El Heraldo quote Romeo Vasquez as "confirming" the support of the Armed Forces for the government of Roberto Micheletti.

Zelaya, meanwhile, is quoted by La Prensa as calling on the Armed Forces not to repress the people.

Could it be true? Reports of US sanctions being enacted

A correspondent pointed us to a posting on the Libertad de Expression Listserve citing a Mexican journalist, Jacobo Zabludosky.

And now Radio Globo is broadcasting the same story, being picked up by a variety of Spanish language news sources in Mexico and Brazil.

Meanwhile, the State Department website confirms reports in the Honduran Press that beginning tomorrow, the Honduran Embassy will not issue new visas to any Hondurans applying for them.

[Update: The New York Times story on this action posted at 7:24 PM cites A U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity saying Washington was considering other steps though it was premature to disclose these. Can we hope there might be something to the Mexican journalist's report, below?]

[The NYT article cites Human Rights Watch as calling for more US economic sanctions calling for the Obama administration should directly target members of the de facto government by denying them access to the U.S. banking system and targeting private companies associated with these officials. Human Rights Watch spoke out this week after a group of scholars and activists published an open letter calling for them to take a firmer stand. See Adrienne Pine's letter thanking HRW for taking that action.]

Radio Globo reports that Ambassador Hugo Llorens has been ordered by the State Department not to return to Tegucigalpa.

So take this as either an actual breakthrough or a rumor that tells us what the world community thinks would be the most effective actions against the regime.

Update: Since the OAS commission has now come and gone without evident effect, the last rationale the US had for waiting to act has been removed. Adrienne Pine has published an important statement by 20 Liberal Party congress members who condemn the coup, and call for the signing of the San Jose Accord. These individuals are taking enormous risks, and one hopes the US will not leave them exposed for no reason.

Meanwhile, the police and military are reportedly meeting NOW with Canahuati-- which could be the break, the conversation about removing the one barrier to accepting the San Jose Accord, Micheletti. [Update: live reports on Radio Globo say Micheletti has tripled the guard around his house to more than 50.]

Here is what Zabludovsky said the US sanctions could be; Radio Globo claims the suspension of remittances, one of the main economic supports of Honduras even before the coup, will be in place tomorrow, without citing a source for this:

1. Desconocimiento total del presidente que resultase de las elecciones realizadas bajo el régimen de facto.

[Complete rejection of recognition of any president from elections carried out under the de facto regime]

2. Suspensión total de toda la ayuda económica que todavía Los Estados Unidos están aportando a Honduras.

[Total suspension all economic aid still being given by the US to Honduras]

3. Congelamiento de cuentas bancarias personales de cada uno, y de todos, los golpistas en Los Estados Unidos y en cualquier parte del mundo donde quiera que se hallan registradas.

[Freezing of bank accounts of each one, and of all, the golpistas in the US and in any part of the world where they might have been registered]

4. Congelamiento total del envió de todo tipo de remesas en dinero a Honduras.

[Freezing of all remittances of any type to Honduras]

5. Suspensión de todas las importaciones y exportaciones a Honduras.

[Suspension of all imports and exports to Honduras]

6. Retirar a Honduras del tratado preferencial para las exportaciones de sus productos, incluso de la producción maquilera.

[Removing from Honduras preferential trade status for the export of its products, including products from maquilas]

Update: El Heraldo is confirming today (8/25) that Ambassador Hugo Llorens has been recalled.

While State Department Waffles, Honduran University Members are Beaten

As news comes that the State Department has assured Senator Richard Lugar that they do not actually support President Zelaya (confirming the opinions of most of my Honduran correspondents), that they blame him for "provoking" the coup (recalling other forms of blaming the victim whose actions draw violent responses), and that they have no intention to use their economic leverage (reassuring the Micheletti regime that they can dig in and wait and eventually they will get away with their coup), the regime's threatened escalation of violence comes to fruition, unfolding as I write in the National University campus in Tegucigalpa.

Here, reports from multiple correspondents, echoed by Telesur and Tiempo (of Hondurs), note that the National Police are using tear gas, beatings, and shooting at students and faculty who were engaged in peaceful protest of the illegitimate regime that is stealing their freedoms.

Among those victimized by this violence: Julietta Castellano, Rector (equivalent to Chancellor) and respected symbol of the integrity of this institution. According to Olvin Rodriguez, member of the Junta Directiva (executive committee) of the university, as they were exiting with their hands up in response to police demands, they were set upon, beaten, and thrown to the ground. He writes that "Not even in the epoch of repression by the bloody General Alvarez Martinez in the 1980s was the autonomy of the university violated as it was today."

The reference is to the dictator who preceded the period of almost thirty years of constitutional rule destroyed in the coup of June 28. As Honduran commentators have argued, the damage being done to the fabric of civil society will not easily be repaired.

An email report from the scene sent to me at 1:45 describes a scene of horror:

A half hour ago, the police force and military of the dictatorial regime imposed on Honduras, has initiated a vandalistic offensive against the National Autonomous University of Honduras. With the pretext of dissolving a peaceful demonstration of resistance that the students were carrying out at the entry to the University in Tegucigalpa, they began to throw tear gas, and as the students fled to the interior of the university grounds, they have pursued them and continue their human hunt at this moment, with SHOTS. The Rector and members of the Junta Directiva of the University, who had come out to dialogue with the police and military, have been assaulted in their physical integrity, thrown on the ground, grabbed with blows.

There are wounded, the cruel repression continues in the present moments. Colleagues, students and administrators from within the University are calling us, anguished, they cannot exit, they are shooting at them, breaking in the windows and walls, the tear gas has entered the university halls, they feel they are suffocating and are afraid to come out and be shot with bullets.

Meanwhile, a second correspondent, whose father is among those trapped on the campus, writes that Radio Globo is reporting that at least three wounded have been transported by a Red Cross ambulance for medical care. These reports also say the Police Commander Somoza, supposedly in charge, disclaims any knowledge of whoever is giving orders to this contingent of police and military. Radio Globo reports that students have armed themselves with stones and are attacking the police and commandos, pushing them back, but that strong reinforcements are coming for the military.

It is imperative that the US State Department NOT BE ALLOWED to ignore these latest acts of violent repression by the Honduran regime. The State Department MUST DENOUNCE these actions, and must take action to punish the regime and induce it to cease its campaign of terror against its citizens.

Military in Distress: Statement of Honduran Officers

The Honduran blog Mimalapalabra posted a statement today, of necessity anonymous and thus no doubt open to dismissal and suspicion. But if the authors are, as they claim, members of the Armed Forces, what they have to say would be an important indication of dissent within the military. Almost every commentator, even a woman like me who is almost allergic to the idea of military having such importance, sees the Honduran Armed Forces as critical for any prospects of resolution of the constitutional crisis they helped create.

So, here is a translation of this statement:

Group of Senior and Subaltern Officers denounces politicization of the Armed Forces of Honduras



STATEMENT



We, a group of senior and subaltern officers (we do not give names for obvious reasons, and not due to cowardice) in the face of the situation in which the politicians in collusion with the joint command involved the Armed Forces, and that has eroded the good image that we had before the Honduran people, state and denounce the following:

• The Head of the Joint Chiefs, General Vásquez, politicized the institution, contravening the constitutional mandate to be apolitical.

• General Vásquez committed the Armed Forces in the beginning to aid Sr. Mel Zelaya and afterward changed political scope, in place of retiring his troops to their respective barracks and maintaining them on the periphery of the politicians who are only using them.

• It is mentioned that a group of businessmen collected 30 million Lempiras and doled it out to the group of commanders, something that goes against the decorum and values of the military, and we declare that the Armed Forces are not gendarmes of any elite economic group, rather we are with the people because the majority of its members, both officers as well as troops come from the entrails of the people, we are not a thoroughbred army.

• General Vásquez should have stepped down two years ago, but Sr. Mel Zelaya left him, infringing the laws in force, on that occasion he said "understood I accept Sr. President"; and now because he did not say again "understood", infringing the Law as he did two years ago, he sold to the highest bidder. A lack of principles as a person, there is something of betrayal in his actions, he has prejudiced two promotions in the succession of of command.

• Two years ago when Sr. Zelaya re-elected him; some weeks before various commanders were removed who were not in agreement with the continuity and when Don Mel brought together all the Military Commanders in the Casa Presidencial, the General sent some officers that if present were going to question the decision with Sr. Mel Zelaya on a mission outside of Tegucigalpa.

• General Vásquez has denaturalized the rank of General, raising to this rank officers that have had a black path in military life, but have been his admirers, without any operational capacity.

Example:

Promoting a friend, Retired General Gerónimo Pérez, an officer who in a state of inebriation wrecked two military cars and did not have responsibilities removed, made pregnant a student ensign in the Military Academy and influenced it so that they graduated her, now General Vásquez has him working on contract in the Defense College earning 30,000 Lempiras monthly.



General Fuentes Gonzales is a kleptomaniac officer that on one occasion, there being Commanders of the North American Military battalion, carrying out a civic action in the west of the country, left construction materials and some wood, and when they returned to get it he had already sold it, the North Americans recommended a dishonorable discharge and now he is a brand-new General.



General Cuéllar, an excellent person but as an officer never knew a frontier battalion, doesn't know what it is to patrol a frontier, has only been an invisible clerical worker, but is completely a general and hasn't sweated fatigued.



General Padget, a problem officer since he was a junior officer, graduated in Mexico and left a bad record there, with his failures of decorum (better you investigate).



General Cervantes, Prince, and counter-admiral Rodriguez, without negative commentaries about their private and military life, but they have not had the character as military to clarify things with the Head of the Joint Chiefs.

Sr. General Vásquez, when you said to Sr. Mel Zelaya that you would not carry out the order of the "cuarta" [urna], you should have presented your resignation, not changed your political camp, as if the Armed Forces existed to serve political groups. Better to resign, it is time, remember that in 1993 you also knew the cells of the P. C.

Why Promote Constitutional Reform? A Zelaya Government Text

The Honduran Armed Forces posted a 156 page long document including everything from a timeline to an FAQ that reached almost unequalled levels of the absurd: in response to the question, Was this novel in political history?, the Armed Forces replied with the to-them obvious parallel: the Supreme Court decision in the US Presidential election in 2000 designating George W. Bush as winner over Al Gore (p. 10).

You all remember when the Chief of Staff at the time kidnapped Gore and took him off to Costa Rica, right?

Nestled in this treasure trove, which overall reinforces my sense that the Armed Forces are very defensive, is a document (p. 7) described as

Propaganda material distributed by the Executive Power, called "Cuarta Urna, Peaceful Route to the Citizen's Revolution, a New Constitution!" A document that now establishes some aspects that were intended to be eliminated from the Constitution of the Republic.

The actual handout itself appears almost at the end of the 156 pages of reproduced legal cases and orders sent to the military, the basis on which they acted.

But this document is different: it is the one, actual, solid piece of evidence the military can offer showing what the Zelaya government was intending to promote, in the event that the public opinion poll on June 28 produced a majority in favor of a fourth ballot box in November.

Here's what it promotes; notice the entire absence of any discussion of term limits, continuing in office longer than his elected term, dissolving Congress, the Supreme Court, or the command of the Armed Forces, which elsewhere (p. 15) in the Armed Forces document they claim was the real goal of the exercise; instead, what the Zelaya government proposed was ensuring the rights of women, of the multiple ethnic groups now recognized in Honduras, and the expansion of human rights to include "third and fourth generation" rights-- in other words, bringing the Honduran constitution into conformity with international treaties, just as Minister of Culture Rodolfo Pastor Fasquelle previously noted:

Cuarta Urna
Peaceful Route to the Citizen's Revolution!
A New Constitution

The fourth ballot box is the democratic road to make it legally possible to convene a Constitutional Assembly that could write a new Constitution, to give Honduras a superior democracy, in which the people will not only freely elect their rulers and representatives at all levels of Government, but as well will participate actively in the fundamental decisions that affect their lives and exercise actual control over those who are in power in their name.

Among the momentous topics that should be included in the new Constitution we single out the following:

a) Social Control: establishment of recall referenda, so that the people will have the possibility of denying their confidence in the middle of their term, to those that have been elected and have betrayed them-- and of the Death Crusade! Censure and veto, for mayors, representatives, and the President.

b) Actual freedom of the press, which means equitable access to the media for all the social and political organizations and all the citizens, and that will impede the use of the ownership of the means of communication as an instrument of accumulation of economic and political power.

c) Economic liberty with social responsibility, that will guarantee private property with a social use and the social economy of the market, placing the human being at the center of the economy and rescuing public services for the people.

d) Authentic political liberty that will impede the monopoly of representation on the part of the current party members, who slow the actual participation of the citizens, whether party activists or not, in national politics. Election of representatives by electoral districts and separation of the dates of elections for Presidents, Representatives, and Mayors.

e) Renewal of confidence in those officials who have dignified their office, fulfilling it adequately for the citizens.

f) Popular consultation to guarantee that no ruler could snatch from the People their economic and social takings, because any decisions that menaced these takings only could be legalized by means of a Popular Consultation.

g) Constitutional obligation to aid the progress of Woman as central actor in the development of the country.

h) To grant priority to the individual rights, social, economic, and the rest that will be established, as well as the guarantees of a multicultural and pluri-ethnic society.

i) To incorporate the rights known constitutionally as "third and fourth generation rights" as constitutional rights.

j) To institute the Constitutional Tribunal.

The Armed Forces statement: a translation and commentary

Saturday I decided to hold off on adding a second post based on messages I was receiving that suggested some movement of the military.

Events, of course, overtook me, and the NY Times reported on Armed Forces Communique No. 7, a curious document posted on the website of the Honduran armed forces command. The NY Times article reported that unnamed "aides" to equally unnamed US Congress members assisted officers of the Honduran army in formulating the statement. The specific mention of coronels-- the younger generation, waiting to become the next set of high command-- suggests that Romeo Vasquez Velasquez' little adventure, and its negative effects on the reputation the army had previously earned for its abstention from political interference, was troubling to elements within the command structure.

The whole communiqué is worth a look:

ARMED FORCES OF HONDURAS
SECRETARY OF STATE OFFICE OF NATIONAL DEFENSE
OFFICE OF PUBLIC RELATIONS
COMMUNIQUE NO. 7

The Secretary of State Office of National Defense, in view of the latest suspected developments, communicates the following to national and international public opinion:



1. That the Armed Forces are respectful of the Constitution and of the Laws, whereby we reaffirm our subordination to civil authority in keeping with the principles of legality and due obedience.


2. That as an institution we back a solution to the problematic situation that spans our country, through a process of negotiation on the framework of the San Jose Accords. Likewise, we reiterate our unrestricted support for the results of the same, in conformity with our Constitution and other laws.


3. The Armed Forces as a national institution fulfills and will continue to fulfill the missions that the Constitution and the Laws of the Republic have indicated for it.


Comayaguela, M.D.C. 24 of July, 2009

Ostensibly, the audience addressed is "national and international public opinion"-- a telling phrase. The triggering event is expressed extremely vaguely-- in light of the "latest suspected developments". What might these be? there are two possible readings: one, the San Jose mediation itself, although here, the use of "suscitado" (suspected) makes little sense. Instead, this word and the vagueness of the phrase suggest the reference is to Zelaya's announced intention to return to Honduras: the Armed Forces want their position out in front of any military confrontation they will end up forced into.

For me, this is the rationale for the first and third points in the communiqué: the Armed Forces wants everyone to know that whatever they end up doing, it will be by the book. Which, they continue to protest, was what they thought they were doing June 28, and they resent being portrayed as authors of a military coup. From this perspective, it is worth pairing the Armed Forces statement with a brief news item reporting on a press conference by the high command of the National Police. (Extraordinary situation when both commands are engaging in aggressive press contacts, including the Radio Globo interview with Vasquez Velasquez discussed by other commentators.)

The short report in the Honduran paper, El Tiempo, cites the police chiefs as vowing to protect the physical safety of Zelaya and his escort:

Police guarantee physical safety of President Zelaya

In case the overthrown president, Manuel Zelaya, enters Honduras, the police authorities will guarantee the physical safety of himself and his escorts, in accord with a strategic plan being put into place.

The preceeding was made known yesterday in a press conference carried out at the Casa Presidencial by the police high command, made up of the general director of this corps, General Salomón Escoto Salinas; the national director of the Preventative Police, General Jose Luis Muñoz Licona; and the national director of Special Investigation Services, René Maradiaga Panchamé, among others.

In the same way, they advised that if the entry of Zelaya, who arrived yesterday from Nicaragua to the border zone with Honduras, were to be accomplished, they would carry out the judicial orders issued by the respective legal tribunal.

It would be good if it were certain that President Zelaya would not be in physical danger. But physical danger is not the only issue here. The police end by promising vaguely to "carry out the judicial orders issued by the respective legal tribunal". That, presumably, could mean the arrest warrant dated June 26, 2009, which authorized the Armed Forces to raid Zelaya's residence. That order was not addressed to the National Police-- constitutionally, the group who should have carried out any such arrest-- specifically because the requesting government minister did not trust the police. This recalls reports of police at the border with Nicaragua disclaiming receiving any arrest order and laughing at the idea of arresting President Zelaya. It is not entirely clear at this point what other warrant the Police, or the Armed Forces, might have in hand to implement.

So the Armed Forces statement does not necessarily mean that the critical breakthrough has happened, but together with other signs, is part of an emerging picture of reluctance by the military (police and Armed Forces) to be the fall guys for civilian incompetence. I read the Armed Forces statement as a warning to the civil government, to get back to the mediation and stop being so intransigent. It is in effect-- and as its inclusion in a numbered sequence of communiqués suggests-- the Armed Forces' expression of continued discomfort with the position in which they have been put by a civilian government that was so misguided as to expect the world community to accept a coup d'etat.

(On the question of why the coup plotters were so mistaken, the Honduran scholars I talked with in Costa Rica this week suggest that the coup group lacked anyone with real knowledge of contemporary world politics. In the absence of such a knowledgable person, they argued that Enrique Ortez Colindres-- notorious now for his racist remarks about President Obama-- was able to project an aura of confidence and knowledge, primarily through his facility as a speaker, albeit one whose ideas are both retrograde and uninformed.)

It is worth noting that Communique No. 7 is for the most part a revision of Communique No. 6, dated July 24. Item 1 is identical; Item 3 differs only by citing the specific sections of the Constitution that cover the mission of the Armed Forces.

In this communique, the second point is much less pointed:

2. That as a subordinated institution we support in a unanimous and unrestricted form the Government of the Republic, in the decisions and actions that it may take in the framework of its attributes for the peaceful solution of the problematic situation that spans our country, on the basis of the negotiations that are being realized on an international level by means of dialogue; in which sense we maintain ourselves firm in the defense of the rule of the Constitution of the Republic, our laws, and of the national sovereignty in all its manifestations.

Unlike the Communique that followed, this preceding document had two more numbered points: Number 4 asking the international and national communities to maintain their confidence in the Armed Forces; and Number 5 saying

We emphasize our commitment to respect and to have respected our constitution and the laws, more than any private interest or that of groups that intend to destabilize our country.

In other words, on Friday the Armed Forces was hinting that while supporting the ongoing dialogue, they were not going to feel obliged to support some private interest or group that might "destabilize" the country; by Saturday, they were endorsing the San Jose Accord specifically.

This was a major change in emphasis from Communique 5 of July 22, which appeared to disclaim any responsibility if unnamed "persons" were injured in the process of fomenting unrest.

In fact, the series of Communiques that started on June 30 with the Armed Forces' defense of their raid on the house of President Zelaya, clearly shows that the military are unhappy with the positions they have found themselves in as a result of their implication in the coup. The first three Communiques essentially justified actions taken by the army.

The tenor of these press releases changed radically with Communique 4, dated July 14, issued primarily to reject rumors of divisions within the Armed Forces. Item 1 read

That the Armed Forces maintain themselves solidly united and that we, its members, are immersed in the task of contributing to the Government of the Republic, to maintain internal order in the country without disregarding the other missions established by the Constitution of the Republic.

Item 4 reiterated

That the persons engaged in creating divisions in the Armed Forces are not going to achieve it because we are a hierarchicized institution, solidly united, and its members formed under the trilogy of honor, loyalty, and sacrifice.

Over the course of a little more than a week that followed, the Armed Forces' communiques have become increasingly pointed. From defending the regime they installed, they have moved to calling more and more openly for that regime to agree to a settlement like that proposed by Oscar Arias.

What will the next communique bring?

"The Military Coup and the Rupture of Constitutional Continuity" by Efrain Moncada Silva

In an editorial today in the Honduran newspaper La Tribuna, not noted for any support of President Zelaya, Efrain Moncada Silva, Minister of Government in the Zelaya administration, a constitutional lawyer and Professor of Law in the national university, provides the precise legal citation for the point that the National Police, not the army, has the legal role of arresting those indicted in Honduras.

(Perhaps not coincidentally, an article in Tiempo today quotes a spokesman for the Armed Forces saying "That is a decision on the part of the legal justice [system]" when asked whether they would accept the emerging suggestion that the decision to expatriate President Zelaya was the military's responsibility.)

While some may question his analysis due to his position in the Zelaya government, independent media sources confirm that Moncada offered Zelaya legal opinion that went against his goal of conducting the poll. That evidence of independence and his unquestioned credentials as an expert on Honduran Constitutional law should make even apologists for the coup d'etat stop and think. Here is my translation:

Whatever might be the qualification that some sectors try to give to the events of Sunday June 28, the international community, both regional and world-wide, as well as the light of our Constitution, treats it simply and categorically as a coup d'etat, that has produced a rupture in constitutional continuity of one of the powers of government of Honduras, the Executive Power, no matter that it was by means of an order of the Supreme Court of Justice directed to the Armed Forces and that the National Congress has named a substitute for the President of the Republic in undue application of constitutional Article 242.

Let's examine the facts with scientific objectivity, without prejudices or assumptions, and without subordination to personal or sectorial interests, nor to passions of political or other ilk.

In agreement with Article 306 of the Constitution the judicial organs shall require in necessary cases the aid of the police force for the completion of their legal rulings. Always supposing, without it being proved, that there had intervened the commission of some misdeed, it appertained to to the National Police to execute the legal rulings of the Judicial Power and not to the Armed Forces which, in agreement with Article 274 of the same Constitution, does not have any expertise related with the execution of legal rulings, laws, legal mandates, and legal decisions of the public officials and authorities, especially the Judicial Power, because its powers are expressly determined in the said Article 274. So in the violent apprehension of the President of the Republic, undoubtedly, various crimes were consummated, that sooner or later will have to be determined.

In addition, to expatriate the incumbent of the Executive violated his rights consigned in constitutional Article 102 that orders that no Honduran can be expatriated nor turned over to the authorities of a foreign State.

Moreover, the National Congress on naming the president of the same power as substitute for the incumbent of the Executive incorrectly interpreted and applied, twisting the letter and spirit of the cited Article 242 of the Constitution that requires the absolute lack of the President of the Republic, that is to say, when he should die or be totally incapacitated to exercise his office, situations that were not given in the case of President Zelaya. Thence the so-called "constitutional succession" of Sr. Micheletti has no constitutional validity.

In reality what there has been in Honduras is a military coup and a rupture of constitutional continuity, understanding that as the flow of the political-social dynamic in the form foreseen by the constitutional norms. On deposing the President of the Republic by force without having constitutional mechanisms that authorized that deed, and on naming a substitute without the standard assumptions of the cited Article 242, a political crisis was produced, regardless that the military has or has not occupied positions in one of the three branches of government.

In this moment of the crisis the important and urgent thing is to find a solution to restore constitutional order.