[R-G] Fwd: URGENT! Obama's First Coup d'Etat: Honduran President has been Kidnapped

[Anthony Fenton]

[POR FAVOR, AYUDA DIVULGAR ESTE ARTICULO EN INGLES, YA QUE NO HAY  
MUCHA INFORMACION CIRCULANDO EN INGLES SOBRE EL GOLPE EN HONDURAS]

OBAMA’S FIRST COUP D’ETAT
President Zelaya of Honduras has just been kidnapped
By Eva Golinger (evagolinger at hotmail.com or evagolinger at gmail.com)
28 June 2009


Caracas, Venezuela -  The text message that beeped on my cell phone  
this morning read “Alert, Zelaya has been kidnapped, coup d’etat  
underway in Honduras, spread the word.” It’s a rude awakening for a  
Sunday morning, especially for the millions of Hondurans that were  
preparing to exercise their sacred right to vote today for the first  
time on a consultative referendum concerning the future convening of a  
constitutional assembly to reform the constitution. Supposedly at the  
center of the controversary is today’s scheduled referendum, which is  
not a binding vote but merely an opinion poll to determine whether or  
not a majority of Hondurans desire to eventually enter into a process  
to modify their constitution.

Such an initiative has never taken place in the Central American  
nation, which has a very limited constitution that allows minimal  
participation by the people of Honduras in their political processes.  
The current constitution, written in 1982 during the height of the  
Reagan Administration’s dirty war in Central America, was designed to  
ensure those in power, both economic and political, would retain it  
with little interference from the people. Zelaya, elected in November  
2005 on the platform of Honduras’ Liberal Party, had proposed the  
opinion poll be conducted to determine if a majority of citizens  
agreed that constitutional reform was necessary. He was backed by a  
majority of labor unions and social movements in the country. If the  
poll had occured, depending on the results, a referendum would have  
been conducted during the upcoming elections in November to vote on  
convening a constitutional assembly. Nevertheless, today’s scheduled  
poll was not binding by law.

In fact, several days before the poll was to occur, Honduras’ Supreme  
Court ruled it illegal, upon request by the Congress, both of which  
are led by anti-Zelaya majorities and members of the ultra- 
conservative party, National Party of Honduras (PNH). This move led to  
massive protests in the streets in favor of President Zelaya. On June  
24, the president fired the head of the high military command, General  
Romeo Vásquez, after he refused to allow the military to distribute  
the electoral material for Sunday’s elections. General Romeo Vásquez  
held the material under tight military control, refusing to release it  
even to the president’s followers, stating that the scheduled  
referendum had been determined illegal by the Supreme Court and  
therefore he could not comply with the president’s order. As in the  
Unted States, the president of Honduras is Commander in Chief and has  
the final say on the military’s actions, and so he ordered the  
General’s removal. The Minister of Defense, Angel Edmundo Orellana,  
also resigned in response to this increasingly tense situation.

But the following day, Honduras’ Supreme Court reinstated General  
Romeo Vásquez to the high military command, ruling his firing as  
“unconstitutional’.  Thousands poured into the streets of Honduras’  
capital, Tegucigalpa, showing support for President Zelaya and  
evidencing their determination to ensure Sunday’s non-binding  
referendum would take place. On Friday, the president and a group of  
hundreds of supporters, marched to the nearby air base to collect the  
electoral material that had been previously held by the military. That  
evening, Zelaya gave a national press conference along with a group of  
politicians from different political parties and social movements,  
calling for unity and peace in the country.

As of Saturday, the situation in Honduras was reported as calm. But  
early Sunday morning, a group of approximately 60 armed soldiers  
entered the presidential residence and took Zelaya hostage. After  
several hours of confusion, reports surfaced claiming the president  
had been taken to a nearby air force base and flown to neighboring  
Costa Rica. No images have been seen of the president so far and it is  
unknown whether or not his life is still endangered.

President Zelaya’s wife, Xiomara Castro de Zelaya, speaking live on  
Telesur at approximately 10:00am Caracas time, denounced that in early  
hours of Sunday morning, the soldiers stormed their residence, firing  
shots throughout the house, beating and then taking the president. “It  
was an act of cowardness”, said the first lady, referring to the  
illegal kidnapping occuring during a time when no one would know or  
react until it was all over. Casto de Zelaya also called for the  
“preservation” of her husband’s life, indicating that she herself is  
unaware of his whereabouts. She claimed their lives are all still in  
“serious danger” and made a call for the international community to  
denounce this illegal coup d’etat and to act rapidly to reinstate  
constitutional order in the country, which includes the rescue and  
return of the democratically elected Zelaya.

Presidents Evo Morales of Bolivia and Hugo Chávez of Venezuela have  
both made public statements on Sunday morning condeming the coup  
d’etat in Honduras and calling on the international community to react  
to ensure democracy is restored and the constitutional president is  
reinstated. Last Wednesday, June 24, an extraordinary meeting of the  
member nations of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA),  
of which Honduras is a member, was convened in Venezuela to welcome  
Ecuador, Antigua & Barbados and St. Vincent to its ranks. During the  
meeting, which was attended by Honduras’ Foreign Minister, Patricia  
Rodas, a statement was read supporting President Zelaya and condenming  
any attempts to undermine his mandate and Honduras’ democratic  
processes.

Reports coming out of Honduras have informed that the public  
television channel, Canal 8, has been shut down by the coup forces.  
Just minutes ago, Telesur announced that the military in Honduras is  
shutting down all electricity throughout the country. Those television  
and radio stations still transmitting are not reporting the coup  
d’etat or the kidnapping of President Zelaya, according to Foreign  
Minister Patricia Rodas. “Telephones and electricity are being cut  
off”, confirmed Rodas just minutes ago via Telesur. “The media are  
showing cartoons and soap operas and are not informing the people of  
Honduras about what is happening”. The situation is eerily reminiscent  
of the April 2002 coup d’etat against President Chávez in Venezuela,  
when the media played a key role by first manipulating information to  
support the coup and then later blacking out all information when the  
people began protesting and eventually overcame and defeated the coup  
forces, rescuing Chávez (who had also been kidnapped by the military)  
and restoring constitutional order.

Honduras is a nation that has been the victim of dictatorships and  
massive U.S. intervention during the past century, including several  
military invasions. The last major U.S. government intervention in  
Honduras occured during the 1980s, when the Reagain Administration  
funded death squads and paramilitaries to eliminate any potential  
“communist threats” in Central America. At the time, John Negroponte,  
was the U.S. Ambassador in Honduras and was responsible for directly  
funding and training Honduran death squads that were responsable for  
thousands of disappeared and assassinated throughout the region.

On Friday, the Organization of American States (OAS), convened a  
special meeting to discuss the crisis in Honduras, later issuing a  
statement condeming the threats to democracy and authorizing a convoy  
of representatives to travel to OAS to investigate further.  
Nevertheless, on Friday, Assistant Secretary of State of the United  
States, Phillip J. Crowley, refused to clarify the U.S. government’s  
position in reference to the potential coup against President Zelaya,  
and instead issued a more ambiguous statement that implied  
Washington’s support for the opposition to the Honduran president.  
While most other Latin American governments had clearly indicated  
their adamant condemnation of the coup plans underway in Honduras and  
their solid support for Honduras’ constitutionally elected president,  
Manual Zelaya, the U.S. spokesman stated the following,  “We are  
concerned about the breakdown in the political dialogue among Honduran  
politicians over the proposed June 28 poll on constitutional reform.  
We urge all sides to seek a consensual democratic resolution in the  
current political impasse that adheres to the Honduran constitution  
and to Honduran laws consistent with the principles of the Inter- 
American Democratic Charter.”

As of 10:30am, Sunday morning, no further statements have been issued  
by the Washington concerning the military coup in Honduras. The  
Central American nation is highly dependent on the U.S. economy, which  
ensures one of its top sources of income, the monies sent from  
Hondurans working in the U.S. under the “temporary protected status”  
program that was implemented during Washington’s dirty war in the  
1980s as a result of massive immigration to U.S. territory to escape  
the war zone. Another major source of funding in Honduras is USAID,  
providing over US$ 50 millon annually for “democracy promotion”  
programs, which generally supports NGOs and political parties  
favorable to U.S. interests, as has been the case in Venezuela,  
Bolivia and other nations in the region. The Pentagon also maintains a  
military base in Honduras in Soto Cano, equipped with approximately  
500 troops and numerous air force combat planes and helicopters.

Foreign Minister Rodas has stated that she has repeatedly tried to  
make contact with the U.S. Ambassador in Honduras, Hugo Llorens, who  
has not responded to any of her calls thus far. The modus operandi of  
the coup makes clear that Washington is involved. Neither the Honduran  
military, which is majority trained by U.S. forces, nor the political  
and economic elite, would act to oust a democratically elected  
president without the backing and support of the U.S. government.  
President Zelaya has increasingly come under attack by the  
conservative forces in Honduras for his growing relationship with the  
ALBA countries, and particularly Venezuela and President Chávez. Many  
believe the coup has been executed as a method of ensuring Honduras  
does not continue to unify with the more leftist and socialist  
countries in Latin America.