Behind the Coup Regime Curtain
By Al Giordano
D.R. 2009 Latuff, Special to The Narco News Bulletin.
Reading the international press wires from Honduras in recent days, too many give the impression that Honduras coup “president” Roberto Micheletti has lifted last Sunday’s decree that suspended constitutional rights of free speech, press, assembly, transit and due process.
No such thing has happened. The decree, in all its repressive brutality, is still in full force.
While a handful of far right wingnut US Congressmen visited the coup regime in Tegucigalpa yesterday blabbering about “democracy” and “freedom,” their favored regime's troops were busting up even the smallest nonviolent expressions of free speech a few blocks away in Tegucigalpa.
Here’s a ground-level report from yesterday by journalist (and Narco News contributor) Diego Osorno, who landed in Honduras this week as correspondent for the daily Milenio of Mexico City:
“One by one they gather until there are nineteen of them. If they become twenty, they would be violating the ‘State of Siege’ decree that has been law here in Honduras since last Sunday. That law punishes, with prison, all public demonstrations and criticisms of the de facto government.
“All of them are women, carring placards with grievances against Roberto Micheletti… This was a symbolic protest at one of the five barricades that the Honduran Army erected around the Brazilian embassy, where President Manuel Zelaya has refuge. Some of the nineteen women are farmers and others are students…
“Ten minutes later thirty police officers, who seemed to be looking for war, interrupted them. They carried firearms, tear gas grenade launchers, bulletproof vests, masks, shields and sticks to combat the modest demonstration.
“’Get out of here,’ the commander ordered.
“There are fewer than twenty of us, you can’t tell us to go,’ said one of the women…
“’Get out already, Señora, out of here.’
“A dozen of the police placed themselves behind the women and began to push them toward the avenue, recriminated for violating the ‘presidential decree,’ a euphemism for the restriction of civil rights throughout the country…”
Providing an example of what else these citizens in civil resistance are up against, the pro-coup media then takes the demonstrators’ attempt to remain within the coup decree’s 20-person limit on public assemblies, and portrays it as a sign that the resistance has lost steam. The daily Heraldo, for example, covered that same demonstration with these dishonest words:
“The security lines remain, and an important number of national and international journalists, and, of course, demonstrations, which are already almost insignificant for the number of participants.
“In yesterday’s case, in the morning hours, about ten members of feminist groups placed themselves in front of the Brazilian embassy, and the National Police asked them to voluntarily leave the area.”
The difference between those two conflicting news reports marks the distinction between a simulating media and authentic journalism. Because we already know the work of journalist Osorno, his faithfulness to the true facts, his attention to detail, his ability to count, and his long experience reporting from conflict zones such as the one outside the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa, it’s crystal clear to us which of those versions more accurately portrayed what happened.
The daily newspapers owned by the coup-plotting oligarchs - in the daily Heraldo’s case it is owned by Jorge Canahuati Larach, who also heads the same Latin American Business Council (CEAL, in its Spanish initials) that hired US lobbyist Lanny Davis to lie and spin in defense of the coup regime from Washington, DC – every day’s publication brings another sick joke: a new way of distorting the events on the ground. In today’s Heraldo the efforts by members of the civil resistance to stay within the twenty-person limit on public assemblies imposed by the coup dictatorship is thus portrayed as supposed evidence of dwindling opposition.
Got it? A regime limits public assemblies to less than twenty participants, and when participants in the civil resistance attempt to creatively work around that limit, the regime's simulating media portrays their obedience to the letter of the decree as reflective of an alleged lack of support.
And yet the mere existence and continuance of the decree indicates that public opposition to the coup regime is so wide and overwhelming to it that only by suspending basic freedoms is the regime able to hang on to power for a little bit longer.
Most of the international media isn’t much better. Headlines in recent days have implied that the totalitarian decree has already been lifted. BBC: “Honduras Thaw Paves Way for Talks.” AP: “Signs of thaw in Honduras standoff.” Fox: "Honduras Regime Says It Will Restore Rights.” These headlines and many others like them have been going on for five days now, and yet the decree remains in place. As with the doublespeak that shouts "the coup is not a coup," now we have the latest version: "the decree is not a decree." The sheer gullibility of the international media organizations that take dictation from a regime that has over more than three months demonstrated that it almost never does what it says it is doing provides yet another example of why journalism is in a crisis of credibility, and why its official outlets, having lost public trust, are increasingly an endangered species.
It’s possible that in the coming days, the coup regime may announce cancellation of the decree, in order to give one last dying gasp push to the illegitimate "elections" it has scheduled for November 29, but the smart reporters – in contrast to the dishonest or gullible ones - will look at the regime's deeds, not its hollow words, when assessing how to report the next media stunt.
Unless that announcement is accompanied by the immediate physical return of the transmitters and equipment of the TV and radio stations that the regime seized last Monday morning, the withdrawal of the police and military troops occupying those media offices, and the release of the political prisoners rounded up in the days since then, any announced cancellation of the decree will likewise be nothing but empty words.
Nothing suggests that the official media outlets will have learned by then to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. But – because you make it possible - authentic journalists will still be on the ground, breaking the information blockade, letting you know what is really happening behind the coup regime curtain.
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DeMint encouraged by Honduras trip
Submitted on October 3rd, 2009 by barbs (not verified)What country does DeMint live in that this is acceptable? He should be thrown out of office.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/61487-demint-encouraged...
The Honduran government is upholding the rule of law and supporting democracy, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) said after returning from a fact-finding trip to the country.
Off Topic / But On Indigenous Progress
Submitted on October 3rd, 2009 by Michael ChapmanLong time Field readers and Fieldhands may recall I wrote during the Presidential campaign in encouraging people to remain focused on the 'main game' of Australia's national apology to our indigenous peoples.
Today I attended a workshop and saw Will.I.am and Dipdive's latest: a Yes We Can Song treatment of our Prime Minister's speech.
Here's the link:
http://nomad.dipdive.com/#/~/videoplayer/0/1194/13590/~
BondiBeachViews
The BBC
Submitted on October 3rd, 2009 by Antony SchofieldI'm glad you highlighted the fact that the BBC is little, if any, better than most US news outlets in any of its reporting.
There seems to be a misperception among many in the US Left about the BBC: It is a state broadcaster, its board is made up of, among others, ex-heads of the intelligence services, right-wing politicians, and old-time aristocrats. It is about as impartial as Joseph Goebbels. Indeed, in the UK the BBC has been the main media outlet for the far-right British National Party.
Just as we rightly treat Iranian state media with suspicion, the same should also hold true for that from "our side" too.
from France
Submitted on October 3rd, 2009 by totoro (not verified)slightly off-topic maybe but it seems there's some crappy garbage-"journalism" on french newspaper Libération too (still considerered left wing for some obscure & probably only historical reasons, but already called the worst reaganian paper by Chomsky back in the 80s when torture & executions were routine in the americaS.)
I stopped buying their crap long ago and now most of the world news are on the paying domain on the web as well, but just in case someone can access to this :
http://www.liberation.fr/monde/0101594834-lula-piege-a-tegucigalpa
NYT
Submitted on October 3rd, 2009 by Joel WiensSurprisingly in sync with Al today
Micheletti's Latest
Submitted on October 3rd, 2009 by Joseph (not verified)Have you seen Micheletti's interview with Argentina's Clarin?
"Q: Was it corruption, the constituent assembly, or social change attempts that led to the coup?
A: We removed Zelaya because of his leftism and his corruption. He was a Liberal president like me, but became friends with Ortega, Chavez, Correa, and Morales.
Q: Excuse me?
A: He moved to the left, installed communists, it worried us."
http://www.clarin.com/diario/2009/09/30/elmundo/i-02008984.htm
Confirming what the Honduran military had already told us:
"Inestroza acknowledged that after 34 years in the military, he and many other longtime soldiers found Zelaya's allegiance to Chávez difficult to stomach. Although he calls Zelaya a 'leftist of lies' for his bourgeoisie upbringing, he admits he'd have a hard time taking orders from a leftist.
Memories of the 1980s fight against guerrilla insurgents are still fresh in Honduras. 'We fought the subversive movements here and we were the only country that did not have a fratricidal war like the others,' he said. 'It would be difficult for us, with our training, to have a relationship with a leftist government. That's impossible. I personally would have retired, because my thinking, my principles, would not have allowed me to participate in that.'"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&add...
BBC Credibility
Submitted on October 3rd, 2009 by Ryan Vaquero (not verified)Yes, amongst the middle-aged hip & informed in the United States, following the BBC (or, actually, just talking about it in shallow conversations about politics) is a sure way to let people know that you stand outside of the common cattle.
While I'm not a Mugabe apologist, one only needs to follow the British Imperial News Service's coverage of Zimbabwe to witness what the BBC is capable of in defending its monied and land-owner interests in the present day.
Your daily reports
Submitted on October 3rd, 2009 by JoAnn Witt (not verified)I very much appreciate your reports. I can't belong to all of the organizations, that I would like to, but I do maintain a site of needed informationsources: http://www.informationsources.us
Counterfeit journalism
Submitted on October 3rd, 2009 by Okke OrnsteinIt was already bad during the coup in Venezuela in 2001, but the behavior of the media during this Honduran affair this year is really setting new standards for sleaziness. I don't even do searches on Google news any more to get the latest about Honduras, because I just know I'll be led to these "news sources" that are blatantly falsifying the news.
It's some sort of rightwingish all-out effort to hold ground against a rising tide from below of authenticity, and it's more viciously and openly than I've seen in a long time.
And forget honest reporting for an established media outlet these days. Publications that sent me halfway across the world in the past and that I used to be able to write for on war and conflict without interference now tell me, when I pitch them, that they'll skip on Honduras but can you do a story on Chavez' bad policies please? So of the commercial media, we mostly have journalistic counterfeiters covering events.
Edmonds's Points
Submitted on October 4th, 2009 by karlof1 (not verified)In her deposition to an Ohio court, and in her interview with Phil Giraldi, FBI Whisleblower Sibel Edmonds. gagged by BushCo until now, demonstrtaes numerous times how BushCo officials would dictate news items to the WaPost and NYTimes for publication under their reporters's byline--Pure Butter Propaganda of the Totaolitarian sort. Those of us who make it a point to know how long such things have been goin' on.
The BBC, Redux
Submitted on October 4th, 2009 by Erin RosaI don't think it's a matter of whether the BBC is somehow better or more informed than any other mainstream outlet, but one can't deny the sheer reach the network has on news across the globe. Short wave radio, public access stations and more, for instance. I think it's a great way to check the pulse of mainstream international coverage around the world, sans the über ignorance and self-centered attidude of international reporting found in the Untied States.
just wondering
Submitted on October 4th, 2009 by Nancy MickenbeckerAm I the only person who has considered that Brazil's actions with regard to Zelaya and the coup in Honduras & the decision to hold the 2012 Olympics might not be unrelated?
@Nancy
Submitted on October 4th, 2009 by Robert Eletto (not verified)The selection of Rio de Janeiro to host the 2016 Olympics, and the role Brazil is playing in the Honduran Crisis may have common causes, but I think it's doubtful that they are directly linked.
In both cases we see Brazil making itself more visible and credible as an international "player". It has assumed a much tougher stance on the coup regime than the US - a sign that Latin American governments no longer need tacit US approval for positions they take in the international arena.
Also, Brazil's impressive economic growth and Lula's popularity with other leaders has made Brazil somewhat of a poster-boy for developing countries, despite its own shortcomings (income inequality is still high in Brazil, and environmental exploitation still affects much of the country).
The other BRIC countries can't take on that role as effectively: China has a notable authoritarian timbre, India has messy internal dynamics, and Russia has too much history going against it. Brazil, on the other hand, is making great strides economically and has balanced its relationship with left and right governments very well.
So I think we can say that the emergence of Brazil as an influential international actor is behind both its efforts to restore Zelaya in Honduras and its 2016 Olympic selection; I can't think of an argument directly linking the two, and I'd be surprised if someone could make it...
Also, consider the other cities it was going up against:
Chicago - the last two US Olympics were problematic; combine that with the sour taste leftover from Bush II and no one is looking to do the US any favors they don't have to.
Madrid - considering the 2012 games will be in London, and the 2014 games in Sochi, Russia, no one wanted to upset the rest of the world by having 3 games in a row in Europe.
Tokyo - Japan has already hosted the Olympics twice, and Beijing just hosted one across the water.
Rio, on the other hand, would be the first city in South America, the second in Latin America (the other being Mexico in 1968) and only the third south of the equator (Australia has hosted the games twice) in Olympic history.
I'm not even a fan of the olympics - they often LOSE moneys for cities and are usually accompanied by gentrification, amplified security, and fiscal myopia - but the logic of the Rio decision makes sense to me none the less.
Bric(s) Alliance and the Olympics
Submitted on October 7th, 2009 by Nancy Chester@ Robert Eletto
Great analysis on the choice of Rio de Janeiro for the Olympics. One additional thought as to why Chicago (or any American city) wasn't chosen that I have read from several sources is that the committee members raised the question that it is very hard for foreign visitors to enter the U.S. due to the post Patriot Act, "War on Terror" U.S. environment.
Regarding the BRIC Alliance or BRICS Alliance, does anyone know why the S for South Africa slips in and out of that alliance? I Googled "Brics Alliance" (without the quotes) and found a mixture, although there were more references to just the 4 (Brazil, Russia, India & China). Does anyone know what the story is on South Africa such as this 2005 reference from the India Daily?
Russia and China become part of strategic alliance – Putin now looks at BRICS alliance (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/1627.asp