Honduras' Coup Congress Cancels Five Basic Liberties

Here.

In case you're interested. Obviously you don't need my translation, but I did it anyway: http://angrywhitekid.blogs.com/weblog/2009/07/national-front-against-the-coup-détat-communique-2.html

Honduras Credit Rating May Be Cut on Political Risk, S&P Says

Here is a key nugget, and it's probably keeping the coup plotters and the businessmen who supported them awake at night:

The economy would be devastated should Central American neighbors extend a trade ban implemented after the coup, Roque Rivera, president of the Honduran banking association said yesterday. No U.S. banks have shut lines of credit with local lenders and it’s unlikely they will, Rivera said.

Because of its highways, ports in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific, Honduras is a major transit point for goods (produce, clothing) headed from the Caribbean, Mexico and Guatemala to El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. Will the coup plotters risk financial ruin to hold on to power? They will fold soon enough, or risk becoming a parriah like North Korea.

Its exactly midnight and I am sleepless. My country as I have known it has disappeared. I despise micheletti and all the ones behind and beside him. They keep trying to silence the people. But we WON'T.

O.K. Here is the situation guys  The Congress, "supposedly" acting upon the idea that Zelaya abrograted Constitutional law, was forced to depose him in order uphold the law. Then these thugs, coupled by their crony Michelleti decide to suspend 5 articles in the Constitution? Is that idiocy or what?

That in itself is reason enough to support the LEGITIMATE government of Zelaya. Los golpistas estan mas locos que una cabra! Their twisted reasoning is messed up, and demonstrates that their reason to knock out Zelaya has nothing to do with the law, but rather to grab power. WTF?

Actually, a lot of us DO need it.  Thanks!

Take a look at article 187 and stop cherry picking the Constitution:

ARTICULO 187.- El ejercicio de los derechos establecidos en los artículos 69, 71, 72, 78, 81, 84, 93, 99 y 103, podrán suspenderse en vaso de invasión del territorio nacional, perturbación grave de la paz, de epidemia o de cualquier otra calamidad general, por el Presidente de la República (…).

Article 72 for example is:
ARTICULO 72.- Es libre la emisión del pensamiento por cualquier medio de difusión, sin previa censura. Son responsables ante la ley los que abusen de este derecho y aquellos que por medios directos o indirectos restrinjan o impidan la comunicación y circulación de ideas y opiniones.

You can argue that this a deplorable decision, but you can say that they just ripped the constitution apart.

Vladimir - Oh, yawn. 160 Hondurans were arrested over the course of today just in the northern departments.

But as long as you're playing great constitutionalist, take another look at what appears above:

Article 81: "All persons have the right to circulate freely, leave, enter, and remain in national territory..."

The coup's first anti-constitutional act was, once it "arrested" the President, forcing him into a foreign land. His constitutional right to remain in national territory was violated, underscoring how totally unconstitutional every single act committed by the coup rulers once he was removed.

The whole show is an exercise in ripping up the Constitution.

Time to start the betting pool: To what country will Micheletti and his co-conspirators seek exile when it all shortly comes apart?

I bet Micheletti pulls a Fujimori and shacks up in Bergamo where he can kvetch to his cousins over wine and cheese. People with less name recognition maybe can get away with hopping over to Miami or Bogotá depending on what connections they have. But most will probably stay right where they are, don't you think?

So goes the story in this our third world country, Honduras, a pseudo socialist/humanist/populist (PDVSA financed) exploiting social injustice, misery, poverty and ignorance to gain grass roots and labor base support in order to rescind and replace the constitution, seize power and establish a pseudo socialist chavist/politburo-oligarchy regime. On the other hand, cold war/national-security-policy dinosaurs whom, despite three decades of democratization, inevitably fell into ‘coup’ temptation as soon as they had military power at their disposal.

Meanwhile A-H1N1 cases are on the rise, 400 km’s worth of levees and flood control channels rendered useless by May’s earthquake remain unrepaired amidst rain/hurricane season, crime and drug trafficking are rampant, global economic crisis is now very much local, poverty unabated…just can’t help but realize the crude and vulgar truth of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s irony…”If crap could be sold, the poor would have no anuses”.

What international community must realize is the pubescent state of our democracies and how precious and fragile they are. So the apes in congress and the goons in the military had a 70's flashback, of course it's a coup, of course it's illegal, so let's make an example out of that hole in central america; 7 million beaners with no oil or anything. What would the fallout be? I can just see some White House advisor's mouth watering.

Give the beaners a break!!! If the international community truly wants to uphold democratic values, justice and free societies in the region, they should think of the near 4 millions... under the poverty line here and use their immeasurable powers to ensure hope and welfare for them. Not outright condemnation and ultimatums, freezing of aid and funds, or what?...this is no ordinary country, its a 3rd world country, remember? People are 'really' starving here. Dying from amoebas, other 19th century plagues and AIDS and now AH1N1. My city alone has the highest per capita AIDS cases in the continent,

Mel Zelaya is a clown, an accommodated daddy's boy who never had to work (or study) for a living, playing socialist cowboy president whose epiphany was most likely reading or watching 'The Motorcycle Diaries'...masses are not moved to true social justice by the like.

A word of warning to the international community: armed or -to use the CIA tagged word- ‘terrorist movements’ sprout from hopelessness and find fertile grounds in misery, yes, not Ala or the Jihad.....4 millions under the poverty line....living off hand-outs from international aid and the crumbs the corrupt let through...so the crumbs will stop...if Mr. Mel is not put back in power in 72 hours. President Obama should see beyond his advisors’ drool...and see the hopelessness and misery in his back yard.

Maybe being backyardigans will helps us...not to fare like 3rd world countries elsewhere, in dire need of international community discerning and enlightment: Rwanda, Ethiopia, Somalia come to mind, left to rot, slaughter by the hundred thousands...

I am a man of faith...I know for a fact gray existence is a farce and so is death, human existence is either whitely lit or in pitch black darkness and they're both eternal and chosen in this life.

There will always be evil hearts and good hearts, ill will and good will, love and hate. So I pray to the God of love, good will and mercy, for light upon the hearts of men in power and good will for our third world country, Honduras.

"beaner" - Your comments are well thought out and well written. I don't share all your conclusions, but you are thinking various moves ahead on the chess board, and that's always valuable.

I did want to rebut one claim of yours, the one by which you see Zelaya and his allies:

"exploiting social injustice, misery, poverty and ignorance to gain grass roots and labor base support in order to rescind and replace the constitution, seize power and establish a pseudo socialist chavist/politburo-oligarchy regime."

That characterization is troubling because, first, it implies that there is something not legitimate about organizing "grass roots and labor" to rewrite the Constitution (even the coup plotters complain that the Constitution's fuzzy language on impeachment blocked that path for them, and I'm sure there are other areas in which the whole country agrees Honduras needs a new Constitution). The "grass roots and labor" are precisely the majority of the country's eight million people and the ones that have been blocked from authentic participation in the decisions of their government. It is long overdue that somebody organize them, and waiting for a "perfect messenger" would mean waiting another 171 years.

You seem to be laboring under a presumption (shared with that of the coup plotters) that a Constitutional Convention would inevitably lead to "a pseudo socialist chavist/politburo-oligarchy regime."

You're overstating that a bit, aren't you?

First of all, if its Venezuela-style government you're afraid of, there isn't an "oligarchy" feature to that government. That's why the oligarchs are so upset! (And it can't fairly be called a "politburo" system either, because it is surely not leadership by committee).

Second, it's not as if anyone can control a Constitutional Convention's results if all the sectors of society campaign and organize around it. But the attitude of the Honduran oligarchs (and wannabes) seems to be "we're not willing to cede any ground to those grassroots and labor citizens, so we won't even participate - in fact we'll hold a coup to block it from happening."

Micheletti's maneuver last night, to withdraw from the Carta Democratica of the OAS, now ensures that Washington will lower the boom and cut all aid. There goes 70 percent of the Honduran government's budget (I'll elaborate in another post). But "humanitarian" and "democracy promotion" funds will still be available, but not necessarily to the government. Smart use of good NGOs (if I were Via Campesina I'd begin recommending some) to distribute food and work tools to the poorest could in fact do more to help them self-organize than the aid put through the government historically.

But let me ask (since I'm about to write about it): With $2.3 billion of the government's $3.5 billion annual budget about to disappear, to where do you think the coup-meisters will turn to make up the difference? They've just gone rogue, and narco-traffickers need a new oasis. Careful before you line up with criminals.