Congressman Cesar Ham is a Zelaya Ally and Organizer of the Opinion Poll on a New Constitution

Correction: News reports translated by Narco News on Monday that Honduran political leader Cesar Ham had been assassinated appear not to be accurate. This report says otherwise, that Ham is alive and well. We apologize for any confusion caused by our first report, and share in the world's relief that the reports we initially translated were inaccurate.

They insist that leftist leader and honduran Cesar Ham is alive and safe
by Chevige Gonzalez Marco, Aporrea

Luther Castillo, coordinator of Honduran social movements, in an interview with the Cuban television program Mesa Redonda, denied that the leader of the Democratic Unification Party, Cesar Ham, has been assassinated.

Castillo also denied that Ham has been detained and said that he remains in a secure location, faced with the possibility of repression by the coup leaders.

Initial versions published by the Notimex Agency stated that Cesar Ham, congressman for the Democratic Unification Party of Honduras, had died yesterday when he was being arrested in his house, according to confirmations provided by alleged police sources.

With respect to the situation of the leaders of the Democratic Unification Party, an organization that was born out of the fusion of historically left forces in Honduras, Deputy Thomas Andino Mencias, stated that the his party's parliamentarians did not participate in the congressional session because they are being detained by the military for not approving the usurpation of the legislative branch.

Mencias argued that the Congress is usurping the Executive Branch because according to the Honduras Constitution this is an act classified as treason.

Honduran Military Reportedly Assassinated Leftist Presidential Candidate

Cesar Ham, presidential candidate and the head of Honduras' only registered leftist political party, the Democratic Unification of Honduras, is dead, reports Notimex.  He was killed by a squad of soldiers who arrived at his home this morning to arrest him. 

The military has rounded up many of Zelaya's allies within the government.  Chancellor Patricia Rodas remains kidnapped.

Honduran police confirmed Ham's death to Notimex.  The official version of events, as reported by Notimex, is that Ham confronted the military squad that came to his house with a gun, "and therefore he had to be killed."

Despite being from a different party, Ham was a close ally of ousted President Manuel Zelaya.  Ham's party, the Democratic Unification of Honduras, is Honduras' only registered leftist party.  Zelaya is from the conservative Liberal Party; he became a populist leftist after being elected.

Ham, at the time of his reported assassination, was a member of Congress.  He wholeheartedly supported President Zelaya's initiative to form a constitutional convention to write a new Constitution, and he was one of the main organizers of today's thwarted opinion poll that would have gauged public opinion on forming a constitutional convention.

Ham has come under fire this year from fellow members of Congress, with help from Honduras' right-wing media.  Gregorio Baca, a dissident member of Ham's party who opposed an alliance with Zelaya, accused Ham of receiving "millions of dollars" from President Zelaya in exchange for his support of a referendum on a new constitutional convention.  Right-wing newspaper El Heraldo accused Ham and his deputy Misael Castro of embezzling government money to pay for luxury cars.  Neither of the accusations were ever verified by a court of law.

This past March the Democratic Unification party chose him as its presidential candidate by a vote of 104-4.  The coup plotters had previously announced that the November 2009 elections would go on as planned.  If reports that Ham has been assasinated are true, it means that the only leftist candidate in the upcoming elections is now dead.