By Al Giordano

“It is the people of Honduras who are going to resolve this crisis… The conscience of the Honduran people has awakened. We continue in our peaceful resistance.”

- Rafael Alegría, July 21, 2009

Today the clock counts down to zero on the 72-hour extension that official mediator and Costa Rican President Oscar Arias had announced for Honduran peace talks. There is nothing that indicates any breakthrough or agreement is possible.

When announcing that extension, Arias asked aloud, "What happens if one of those arms shoots a soldier? Or if a soldier shoots an armed civilian? There could be a civil war and bloodshed that the Honduran people do not deserve." That was a terribly naïve and distracting statement because, the fact is, a soldier has already shot and killed an unarmed civilian (Isis Obed Murillo on July 5). Arias has the scenario bass-ackwards.

Reuters reporters Simon Gardner and Esteban Israel filed a story on Monday titled, “Pressure grows on Honduras, violence feared.”

Threats of violence may temporarily keep violence invisible and in the realm of intimidation, censorship, and depravation of basic democratic rights (the coup regime has openly suspended the constitutional rights to free assembly, association, transit, due process and freedom from unwarranted invasion of one’s home, as its military occupied TV and radio stations), but violence, in latent form, is still violence.

The challenge should never be – as seems to be the priority of some up above – how to keep violence bottled up and hidden from view but, rather, how to disarm it.

The social movements that foment the civil resistance in Honduras against the coup – organizations of workers, farmers, students, ethnic and racial minorities, and for human rights – have demonstrated over the past 25 days that they “get” it.

As Jonathan Treat reported for Narco News from the highway blockade last Thursday, south of Tegucigalpa:

“The nonviolent action at the southern entrance to the city began as it did yesterday, with people gathering in the morning until several hundred people had convened. They then marched to a key spot on the highway where they will halt traffic. On the way, some bystanders shout insults at the marchers. One protestor responds by bending down and picking up some rocks. He is quickly surrounded with several leaders of the march, who remind him that the march was peaceful and insist that he puts down the stones…”

In other words, when they speak of “insurrection” – the right that is guaranteed by Article 3 of the Honduran Constitution against an “usurper government” that seizes the government by “force of weapons,” a legal definition that exactly describes the coup regime – the widespread interpretation by those organizing the insurrection is that it can and will be accomplished through nonviolent means. Considering that Honduran history has no great story or figure yet that casts the shadow of a Gandhi or a King or Cesar Chávez, this is a very huge development, historically speaking.

One North American native with more than two decades residing and raising his Honduran family in Honduras told Narco News yesterday, “I have NEVER seen so many people fired up in my 23 years in Honduras - I think a social revolution has been born – at last!”

Statements like those of US State Department spokesman Philip Crowley yesterday that seek to discourage the planned return of legitimate President Manuel Zelaya to his country (ask not for whom the woodshed tolls, Phil, it tolls for thee), are no more than transparent efforts to maintain a state of violence as long as it does not prick consciences. The fear is not of violence but that it becomes more visible.

There would obviously be nothing violent about a citizen walking across a border, or a bridge, or docking a boat, or landing in aircraft in Honduran territory. The only possibility for violence is if the coup regime commits it first, by attacking or otherwise attempting to deprive that citizen – in this case, the elected president of the nation – of his liberty.

The fear from above is that such an act by the coup regime would make the latent violence, in all its brutality, visible for the world to see. The psychological power of that elected president entering his homeland against the illegitimate regime’s objection – whether he arrives safely at the capital, or at his ranch in Olancho, or whether he is quickly kidnapped again and put in a prison cell – would of course galvanize the civil resistance and swell its ranks and thus its ability to more permanently shut down highways, factories and plantations, as well as the halls of the coup government.

The “fears” and preoccupations expressed from above – whether from Arias or from the State Department - are not that violence could occur: the entire foundation of the coup regime is rule by violence and threat of it. That is a classic developed world liberal misconception, as in Phil Ochs' song Love Me I’m a Liberal: “I’m all for the blacks and Hispanics, as long as they don’t move next door,” and they’re all for nonviolence as long as they don’t have to watch the sacrifice – and the repression it historically makes visible - that disarms the time bomb of violence.

A coup d’etat is violence incarnate, an atrocity and a crime against humanity. The only thing democratic about the Honduras coup, in a sense, is that it has democratized the violence and repression, now distributed across the board to every Honduran citizen.

The social movements in Honduras have demonstrated over the past 25 days that they have an actual plan to disarm the coup, more potent and pragmatic than that of external sanctions against a regime that can more than make up the shortfall through its dealings with narco-trafficking and ex-Cuban organized crime and terrorist networks (thus, Gorilla-in-Chief Micheletti’s public scoff at Secretary Clinton’s phone call threatening more sanctions on Monday). The Gallup poll and other indications have demonstrated that a plurality of Honduran citizens – 46 percent - opposes the coup and that only a small minority – 30 percent - approves of its regime. And those numbers, too - measured at the peak of the coup's control over information flow in the country - are suppressed by the shutdown of all critical media in Honduras during the days in early July when the survey was taken: an accurate poll today – now that Channel 36, Radio Globo, Radio Progreso and other independent media have retaken the airwaves through their own civil resistance - would very likely show greater opposition to the coup and shrunken support for it.

The hour approaches when international solidarity against the coup can best help the resistance by simply getting out of the way, allowing the Honduran people to reassert their democracy, and by accurately reporting and translating each step of their emerging history so that it does not occur in darkness.

Democracy can never be imposed from the outside or from above, not even by sanctions. The regular suggestions from some that if only full external sanctions would be applied “the coup would fall in a day” are naïve and inaccurate for the many reasons I’ve outlined and repeated already in previous posts. That’s a lesson I thought we all had learned already, but apparently not.

Democracy, however, can always be asserted from below, when an organized people stand up. That is the next chapter in Honduras, its best - and probably its only - hope.

Update: Arias' efforts to convene, today, eleventh hour last chance "talks," are officially not happening.

By Al Giordano

A reader writes:

I have been an admirer of your tireless work in getting otherwise un- or underreported news out. I have cited your publications and dispatches repeatedly on my former radio talk show…

This is why I was even more astounded when one of your reporters wrote something along the lines of: "Anyone who thinks Washington is behind the coup in Honduras is as hopelessly stuck in the Cold War as the bad guys themselves." That's a paraphrase, but I believe it correctly conveys the message.

As the evidence is uncovered by other investigative reporters and outlets, it looks as though your staff has quite a bit of egg to wash from your collective faces. Eva Golinger has brought to light a great deal of facts; the U$ admitted it was in on the planning discussions by the gorilas golpistas days--or more--before the coup; yesterday's (Monday, July 20) press conference by one Philip Crowley, mouthpiece for the U$ State Dept., is pretty much a second confession [link to that briefing transcript]. There are plenty more facts, data and logic behind accepting the knowledge that the U$ regime has backed and supported (if not instigated) yet another ouster of a democratic leader.

I think it would be in everyone's best interest if your staff were to come forward and admit this error. It would restore the credibility Narco News has enjoyed for years.

My response to the reader:

I have read every word Golinger and others have written, as well as every State Dept. briefing including the one you cite, and the facts used by you and some others to claim that this was "Obama's coup" do not even come close to proving that claim. There is a lot of slip of the tongue involved.

For example, you write:

"the U$ admitted it was in on the planning discussions by the gorilas golpistas days--or more--before the coup."

That's a misstatement and less than honest portrayal - a distortion - of what was said, which was, more correctly, that US officials knew that a coup was being discussed and tried to dissuade it from happening. What Golinger and some others are doing is using a set of facts to try and claim the opposite of what those facts clearly demonstrate to any honest appraiser that is not desperate to paint a picture from a different script.

The same with your citation of the State Dept. briefing by Crowley. US officials and Venezuelan officials routinely criticize each other and say bad things about each other. None of that proves anything about the US having organized a coup in Honduras.

To the contrary, I agree with Immanuel Wallerstein who has noted that this coup is a challenge to Obama, including from right wing interests in the United States and possibly - though not yet documented - some freelancers his own government, and it is a very inconvenient coup to him.

I have criticized some of the ways that Washington has behaved after the coup, but none of that proves its involvement as an organizer of the coup. The way that some are so desperate to refight the 2002 Venezuela coup all over again (of which I documented US involvement in the first days of it) does reflect a mirror of the Cold War mindset. If you don't like my saying it (and the words you paraphrase were mine, not that of anybody else here), tough luck: That's my informed opinion based on real and reported facts.

Narco News' credibility will survive intact whether you want it to or not. To the contrary, it would be a betrayal of our strict adherence to the facts to jump onto the "Obama coup theory" bandwagon simply to appease those of you who keep shouting that claim but have not at all proved it, and who use evidence that disproves it - see above – in order to claim that it is "proved." It's not rational on your part and it gives you a false geopolitical roadmap to base all other action on, which is a sure road to defeat in any organizing struggle.

My position is in fact closer to the stated views of Chávez (Obama as "prisoner of the empire") and Castro than those of some of their aspiring sycophants.

And to hear some of them talk, or watch some of them write, their view - that nothing could have happened without Washington's approval, and likewise that nothing can be undone unless Washington undoes it – is profoundly ignorant and even disrespectful toward the gains social movements have made over the past 12 years weakening Washington's power throughout the hemisphere. Their eyes are fixated on the circus up above and they're certainly not putting much time into reporting the struggle in Honduras from below, which has been our emphasis. They haven't absorbed the basics of Zapatismo 101 in that sense.

It's nakedly clear to me that some seem to think that repeating a falsehood over and over again somehow makes it true, or even if they know it's not true they think it proffers some kind of tactical advantage for pressuring Washington to do more against the coup.

If you're convinced that Obama co-plotted this coup, file some Freedom of Information Act requests and go out and prove it. Nobody's been able to do demonstrate that yet. If they do, then I'll surely issue a correction, but I don't think that they will, because that's not my interpretation of what has happened.

And, obviously, I don't care what people who don't adhere to the facts say or think about my credibility, which has been built over many years and will continue for many more. I've never cared about what others thought in the "situational ethics" of the game of "if I disagree with you, you have no credibility." Oh, snap! That's why I have credibility.

 

Al Giordano

Addendum: I really don't mean to pick on Golinger, I don't have any personal bone to pick there, nor do I believe that differing conclusions make for a rivalry - they don't - but in the link cited by the letter writer she includes this excerpt from yesterday's State Department briefing to claim that "the United States government has today stated it doesn't consider a coup has taken place":

"QUESTION: Have you ruled this as a coup d'état there legally --

MR. CROWLEY: No."

The operative word in the question was "legally" and as has been reported here and everywhere, the State Department has not yet ruled in or out whether it will determine that the coup in Honduras triggers the consequences of being defined, legally, as a "military coup." It is that definition that would trigger certain sanctions (ones that are already in place pending the final ruling). US officials have stated they are holding off on such a ruling, pending the talks in Costa Rica, whose 72-hour deadline set by mediator Oscar Arias clicks down to zero tomorrow.

The "no" is clearly to any alert observer an answer to the question of "have you ruled?" (or made a ruling). As in: No, the State Department has not made a ruling.

There's no way to read that accurately as evidence that "the United States government has today stated it doesn't consider a coup has taken place."

One can be harshly critical - as I am - of Secretary Clinton and the Obama administration for putting faith in talks that haven't resolved anything, that only serve as a stalling tactic by the coup regime, and that I and others foresaw would not likely bring an agreement, without distorting their gamble on those talks as somehow being proof of a non-existing denial that the coup happened (and continues to happen). Indeed, all the major US officials - Obama, Rice, Clinton, Shannon, Restrepo, Llorens - have used the word "coup" to describe it.

It is the legal definition that awaits a ruling as a tactic of holding a sword over the head of the talks. I don't like the talks. But it doesn't take a degree in rocket science to see the moves on the chess board for what they are.

Finally, that Washington knew that a coup was being plotted doesn't mean it was among the plotters. Hell, Narco News' Kristin Bricker reported that it was being plotted three days before it happened.

Everybody knew, including President Zelaya, that such moves were afoot. That doesn't make Zelaya a coup-plotter against himself, either. Duh.

My concern, always and forever, is to chart the most accurate road map. If others want to insist their maps are more accurate, I wish them well as they wander around the forest in circles. But that don't mean I'm going to follow them into the woods when I can see such gaping lacunas on the maps they have drawn.

Update: And now back to our regularly scheduled journalism...

Guess where Honduran coup General Romeo Vásquez Velásquez is scheduled to be this week?

Yup, the former car thief cum coup general is featured as some kind of "special guest" at this four day (July 22-25) event at the Miami Beach Convention Center. The event features speakers that call themselves "prophet," so I'm guessing it's a holy roller deal of some sort. Check out the video and if anyone can shed light on what this group - MIGAPartners - is about, please inform us in the comments section.

By Al Giordano

Strip away all the sensationalism, distortion, simulation, ideological axe-grinding, flotsam and jetsam of media coverage of events in Honduras over the past month and it still boils down to one central conflict:

The coup regime fears, and was imposed as a last line of defense against, “Citizen Power.”

Citizen Power – “Poder Ciudadano,” in Spanish, which was the credo on the posters and ads of Manuel Zelaya’s victorious 2005 presidential campaign – manifested itself this year in popular demands for a referendum on whether to write a new Honduran Constitution via democratically elected representatives to a constitutional convention.

It’s that simple, and the coup regime’s fear of authentic democracy is exactly why the failed “talks” in Costa Rica between the two sides have now ended without agreement on anything at all, as foreseen here and elsewhere.

That’s why the violent kidnapping of the president - accompanied by the military occupation of TV, radio and other independent media - took place on the dawn of an election day, Sunday, June 28, when the people of Honduras were going to vote in a nonbinding referendum on whether to have a vote in November over said constitutional convention, known as a constituent assembly in Honduras.

The hasty timing of the coup was intended to prevent the people from voting, and it speaks volumes of what the coupmongers believed the results of that referendum would have been, had the vote been allowed to happen. Their informed belief was that the referendum would have been approved and, even though it would be non-binding, that would have put to rest, once and for all, their claims to somehow speak for a majority of Honduran citizens.

After all, a much less risky strategy would have been to go out, the democratic way, and defeat the referendum at the polls. Lord knows they had the money to mount such a campaign. That the coup plotters did not even attempt to defeat it at the polls reveals the weak hand they are playing.

The question that was to be poised to voters – it bears repeating - was this one:

"Do you think that the November 2009 general elections should include a fourth ballot box in order to make a decision about the creation of a National Constitutional Assembly that would approve a new Constitution?"

And the coup plotters’ justification for the military putsch included the repeated claims that can be summed up as, “we had to do it this way because the constitution didn’t give us a clear enough path to remove the president legally.”

Got that? It translates as: “Yes, our Constitution is flawed, so flawed that we had to burn it, but any attempt to change it by democratic means is a threat that requires us to violate it in order to save it.”

The subsequent debates over the interpretation of many of the Honduran Constitution’s 375 articles and how they may or not may not apply to the situation – a loud discussion that has not, after 23 days, convinced a single nation of the world to recognize the coup regime as a somehow legitimate government, because the pro-coup arguments are that specious – have been intended to obscure the central point: that the entire reason for the timing of the coup was to prevent the Honduran people from speaking as a nation.

The popular demand for a new constitution has not gone away. Indeed, it remains a central requirement from the highly informed and increasingly politicized working and poor majority in Honduras.

Twenty-four-year-old Hortensia “Pichu” Zelaya, daughter of the legitimate President Manuel Zelaya, repeated that demand on Saturday at this anti-coup demonstration in Tegucigalpa:

She reminded that Zelaya’s 2005 presidential campaign revolved around the theme of a “fourth branch” of government it called “Poder Ciudadano,” or “Citizen Power.” In that campaign, contrary to much that has been written, the very thing the oligarchy fears – grassroots citizen participation in Honduras’ government, which throughout history has been controlled by the manipulations of the upper classes – was the central campaign promise, ratified by the voters at the polls.

“They are afraid of the people,” the presidential daughter said to the multitude. “A people without weapons. A people that comes in peace… A people that struggles… A people that no longer wants to be repressed… This people is tired of it, which is what we have demonstrated….”

Noting that social programs of the kind that her father instituted “are not enough,” Hortensia recounted: “President Zelaya discovered that if it is not enough, it will be enough to work with the people. That’s why we defend the non-binding poll of the public opinion, the Fourth Ballot Box, and why we want the National Constituent Assembly.”

The seven-point proposal last weekend by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias included the concept that a restored Zelaya presidency would somehow have to ignore the will of an organized citizenry to rewrite the nation’s constitution. The proposal was dead in the water because the grassroots bases in Honduras would never agree to that or abide by it.

And it’s a sign of the density and dishonesty of so many international media correspondents that they repeatedly boil down a concept as sweeping as a Constitutional Convention for Honduras and all it would entail – the democratic reformation of a government in each of its branches – to the sideshow possibility that it might or might not include an end to the single-term limit on the country’s presidents, depending on what the elected citizens decide and whether voters then ratify it.

They’ve tried to make it seem like the conflict is about whether Zelaya himself could run for reelection, even though the proposed Constitutional Convention – if approved on November 29 to happen sometime after that date, the same day a new president w ould be elected, and if it permitted reelection of presidents – would nonetheless happen too late to allow Zelaya himself to pursue it. See how badly they’ve mangled the real story out of Honduras?

The real story began and continues to be one of poder ciudadano: Citizen Power.

Which is why the inordinate focus on the circus up above – not only in the corporate media, but also among some colleagues of the left – so badly misses the point of what is occurring on the ground in Honduras.

It’s as if, for some, the past dozen years of struggle, sacrifice and multiple victories by Latin American social movements never happened, or as if they were merely symbolic, lacking in hard substance. But we have reported the real story, time and time again, here: Citizen Power in Latin America has considerably strengthened the role of Latin American peoples as their own subjects and no longer the objects of impermeable imperial rule from afar.

The analyses that assign all the responsibility for the coup’s success or failure to Washington are, in reality, quite dismissive of – and insulting to the people who organized - those victories from below and their consequences.

Immanuel Wallerstein, however, hits the nail on the head with this point:

“What about the United States? When the coup occurred, some of the raucous left commentators in the blogosphere called it ‘Obama's coup.’ That misses the point of what happened. Neither Zelaya nor his supporters on the street, nor indeed Chavez or Fidel Castro, have such a simplistic view. They all note the difference between Obama and the U.S. right (political leaders or military figures) and have expressed repeatedly a far more nuanced analysis.

“It seems quite clear that the last thing the Obama administration wanted was this coup. The coup has been an attempt to force Obama's hand.”

That’s not to say that efforts to unforce that hand in Washington aren’t worthy. We’ve done plenty of that, too. But to obsess upon a weakened empire that no longer has the absolute power to determine history in Latin American lands while also largely ignoring the struggle from below inside Honduras – a faux pas that most of the Washington-centric leftish analysis has committed – is to dismiss and disrespect the strides already made by organized peoples throughout this hemisphere.

As Narco News copublisher George Salzman noted in our comments section this weekend:

“If, as now appears not impossible, the Honduran Coup can be defeated by the large majority of ordinary people largely independently of the actions of the governments, that would be a greater victory for popular struggles than any other sequence of events.”

That is the authentic story from Honduras: the story written by its own people, from below.

And that’s why the “talks” in Costa Rica were a circus sideshow.

From here on out, it’s all about “Citizen Power,” the immediate history of the steps the people of Honduras take to organize their own freedom and a more authentic democracy. That’s been our focus here for the past month. And it will continue to be the central thrust of our reporting.

Update: Here's an important development in international solidarity with the popular movements of Honduras:

The International Transport Workers Federation has called upon its four-and-a-half million members in 656 labor unions worldwide (it includes Longshoremen, Teamsters and Seafarers among other union sectors in the US and throughout the world) to refuse to load or unload products from the 650 merchant ships that are registered under the Honduran flag for as long as the coup regime is in place.

Update II: A national coalition of social organizations in have set Friday, July 24, as the date of President Zelaya's return to Honduras and have called upon the citizenry to "organize itself" to receive him. The call is signed by the CUTH federation of labor unions, the Popular Bloc against the coup plus prominent Liberal Party members Carlos Eduardo Reina and Rasel Tomé, "at a place and time that will soon be announced."

Update III: More international solidarity:

(United Students Against Sweatshops hung this banner today on the building across the street from coup regime lobbyist Lanny Davis' office in Washington.)

By Al Giordano

On Thursday, we reported that soldiers of what is still a military coup in Honduras had surrounded the home of President Manuel Zelaya in the municipality of Catacamas, in the state of Olancho. Our source said at the time:

“The military has surrounded his home here in Catacamas...

Other homes of Zelayas' family members in Olancho are surrounded as well..

Military jets have been circling Catacamas today...

I saw the jets...

Helicopters as well...

The military has occupied roads leading to this area....”

As is evident from the photo of that home, above, it’s clearly a very nice home in comparison to most in poverty-imposed Honduras. In a developed world country it would be considered middle class. But it's not exactly the kind of mansion that is conjured by press reports of Zelaya as a wealthy rancher-turned-politician.

The coup regime’s obsession and paranoia over this modest house came in response to rumors last week that Zelaya – hunted by an illegitimate government that in one breath claims it has 18 criminal charges lined up to imprison him if he enters the country, but in the other breath was so afraid of the impact of his presence in national territory on the masses of Honduras that it wouldn’t allow his airplane to land on July 5 – was supposedly already in the country. (The day after the regime sicked the soldiers on Catacamas, Zelaya appeared in Managua, Nicaragua and held a press conference.)

In response to that militarized overreaction by the coup regime to mere rumors, the people of the small city of Catacamas (population 30,000) peacefully occupied Zelaya’s home to protect it from the soldiers.

A local farmer reported to Narco News last night:

“I just returned from President Manuel Zelayas' house. Some 1,500 supporters were there. The Military has checkpoints near Zelayas' home. Many supporters are afraid of the military...”

“The mood was positive at Zelayas' house. We clarified that Zelaya never said he was changing the Honduran Constitution so he could serve a second term. We ask the world to show us a written statement by Zelaya, or video footage of Zelaya stating he was changing the Constitution to serve consecutive terms. Such evidence does not exist.

“We sang and danced. We prayed for a peaceful solution. Many people spoke of how Micheletti tried to change the constitution in 1985... Many are tired of Micheletti refusing to step down. Patience is wearing thin.

"The leaders of the pro Zelaya movement here in Catacamas are being harassed. One was injured during a recent march in Telica, Olancho by a soldier. We are being watched. Regardless, we said it was better to die standing than to live on our knees. Many supporters are sleeping at Zelayas' house. To warn if soldiers try to occupy house again.

“I include a picture of President Manuel Zelayas' house. You will see that it is a simple house, in the Zelaya family many years.”

He also sent this photo, from yesterday, of the local citizens gathered to peacefully protect the house:

As an objective measurement of the strength of the civil resistance in that region it is impressive that, out of a population of 30,000, a full five percent, or 1,500 of the residents of the municipality, are volunteering as the night watchmen and women to alert the greater community if the coup military attempts to occupy it.

The contrast – on the yardsticks I often mention of unity, planning and discipline – is striking.

On one side is a coup regime that is so reactionary – not just politically, but operationally – that it panicked and sent out the troops to Catamacas over mere rumors that Zelaya had already returned to Honduras. (The daily announcements from outside Honduras that Zelaya will return "within hours" and such are a tactic to amplify the regime's panic and disorganization - the unqualified word "hours" could mean two hours or 200 hours!)

On the other side is a people who respond nonviolently, overcoming their fear of the physical harm that could come to them, that has already happened to many of them, to protect their elected president’s home.

While the negotiation circus continues up above – now focused on seven points outlined by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias that, in the educated opinion of this observer are highly unlikely to be agreed upon, to say the least – there is a more outcome-determinative struggle going on from below.

We have received many reports from other regions of Honduras that indicate the same level of unity, planning and discipline at play from the public and the same panicked overreaction from the coup regime.

After the initial week of the coup – now in Day 22 of Democracy Held Hostage in Honduras – when the coup regime attempted to simulate public support for it with faux-rallies and the military-imposed shutdown of all TV and radio stations that didn’t carry a one-sided pro-coup version of events, the regime and its supporters have lost any pretense of majority support for the coup.

Even the Gallup poll that showed a plurality of Hondurans opposed to the coup was taken while all critical media had been forced off the air. Now that Channel 36, Radio Globo, Radio Progreso and the Internet and Cable television are operational again, the anti-coup numbers have very likely grown as Hondurans have, at least for now, access to more information.

We also noticed, on Saturday, that TeleSur – whose correspondents were expelled from Honduras a week ago – has its live satellite coverage back up and running, as can be seen in this clip from yesterday:

You don’t need to know Spanish to see and hear the evident unity, planning and discipline of yesterday's anti-coup demonstration in the capital city of Tegucigalpa, or in the ranch and farmlands of Catacamas. And the same is happening everywhere in the country.

Update: One can see in that Telesur footage from yesterday some of the demonstrators carrying copies of the daily El Libertador, which is emerging as an exceptional alternative information source to the sniveling and serially dishonest pro-coup dailies La Prensa, El Heraldo and La Tribuna in Honduras:

The headline - Dictadura! - proclaims: "Dictatorship!"

The newspaper has also published the photographs of 48 individuals it tags as responsible for the coup d'etat:

That level of critical coverage simply was not seen from any newspaper in the early days of the coup. We'll try to get that report translated in the coming hours...

By Al Giordano

(Photo: July 15, US State Department photograph.)

As thousands of Honduran citizens peacefully blockaded the central highways of their nation yesterday, bringing its commerce under a coup regime to a halt, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met in Washington with her Canadian and Mexican counterparts.

At a joint appearance for the press with Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon and Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa Cantellano, Clinton’s prepared remarks included this paragraph on Honduras:

“We discussed a range of global issues that affect us as well as closer to home; particularly the political crisis in Honduras. We reaffirmed our commitment to restore constitutional and democratic order, and underscored our support for the dialogue process that was started by President Arias. We support a peaceful, negotiated resolution and urge other countries to play a positive role in achieving that outcome, and to refrain from any actions that could lead to violence.”

Had the Secretary urged all to “refrain from acts of violence,” that would have been standard boilerplate diplo-speak. But she twisted the concept when she said, “refrain from any actions that could lead to violence.”

Secretary Clinton’s advice, if heeded, would have deterred Mohandas K. Gandhi, in 1930, from launching his Salt March. The British Viceroy in India called it “a course of action which is clearly bound to involve violation of the law and danger to the public peace.” One abridged version of the story offered this summary of what happened:

“The non-violent satyagrahis did not defend themselves against the clubs of policemen, and many were killed instantly.  The world embraced the satyagrahis and their non-violence, and eventually enabled India to gain their freedom from Britain.”

Secretary Clinton’s advice, if taken, would have deterred African-American college students in Nashville (or in Jackson, Mississippi, in the photograph) from sitting down at the racially segregated lunch counters. The Nashville students did so in Woolworths, McClellan and Walgreens stores on February 27, 1960. One account summarizes what happened:

“Some were pulled from their seats and beaten and one was pushed down a flight of stairs. When police arrived, the white attackers fled and none were arrested. Police then ordered the demonstrators at all three locations to leave the stores. When the demonstrators refused to leave, they were arrested and loaded into police vehicles as onlookers applauded.”

Less than three months later, major stores in Nashville desegregated their lunch counters: one of the tangible victories for civil resistance that inspired the Civil Rights movement everywhere to push on to victory.

On the very same yesterday, Secretary Clinton’s boss, President Barack Obama spoke at the NAACP convention, an organization that participated in similar historic acts. He said, of the founders of American democracy:

“They also knew that here, in America, change would have to come from the people.  It would come from people protesting lynchings, rallying against violence, all those women who decided to walk instead of taking the bus, even though they were tired after a long day of doing somebody else's laundry, looking after somebody else's children.  (Applause.)  It would come from men and women of every age and faith, and every race and region -- taking Greyhounds on Freedom Rides; sitting down at Greensboro lunch counters; registering voters in rural Mississippi, knowing they would be harassed, knowing they would be beaten, knowing that some of them might never return.”

Secretary Clinton’s remarks yesterday directly contradicted those of the president. Had the Freedom Riders – mentioned by Obama - heeded Clinton’s advice, they never would have boarded their bus, as it was an action that “could lead to violence”:

“Two hours before the Trailways bus was scheduled to arrive in Birmingham, difficulty began in Anniston, Alabama. When they arrived the Klan was waiting. The Klan boarded the bus, beat the blacks sitting in the front and forced them to the back of the bus. The bus then proceeded with Klan members on board to Birmingham where they were beat by more Klansmen.

“The Greyhound bus was also stopped in Anniston by an angry mob. When the bus attempted to proceed to Birmingham, the Klan slashed the tires. The bus made it just outside of Anniston and then was forced to stop. The Klan had followed and with the bus stranded, they held the door closed and threw a firebomb into the bus. The riders escaped before the bus was fully engulfed in flames.”

Had those who the President remembered for “registering voters in Mississippi” followed Secretary Clinton’s advice, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner never would have done something so violence-provoking as signing up African-American voters in a segregation state, a work of community organizing for which they were assassinated.

The President, in his remarks last night, expressly acknowledged that the participants in those historic nonviolent struggles undertook their actions even though they could lead to violence, knowing that “they would be harassed, knowing they would be beaten, knowing that some of them might never return.”

Which brings us to Honduras in the present moment.

Yesterday, the social movements of Honduras demonstrated through peaceful blockades throughout the country the same power of nonviolent action that was utilized by those the US President praised at last night’s NAACP dinner.

Even after Honduras’ coup Dictator-for-20-Days Roberto Micheletti had told reporters, on Wednesday, that the demonstrators would be carrying guns (thus justifying his imposition anew of a military curfew upon the land), the country’s pro-democracy demonstrators demonstrated the unity, planning and discipline that marks all the struggles praised by Obama, above.

Even Honduras’ police forces, at the end of a day that successfully paralyzed the country under an illegitimate regime, had to admit it, according to the EFE news agency:

"The protests have been carried out in a peaceful manner, according to the leaders and spokesmen of the police who had warned about the possibility of disturbances."

And yet because their peaceful protest “could lead to violence” – not by the demonstrators, but by the regime that feels threatened by them enough to have already arrested 1,068 dissidents in the last twenty days according to the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in Honduras (Cofadeh, in its Spanish initials) – Secretary of State Clinton is doing untold damage with her public scolding that the standard to avoid is not violence itself, but “actions that could lead to violence.”

To set “actions that could lead to violence” as the standard by which actions should be judged is to spit on all the nonviolent organizers and movements mentioned by President Obama above, and also the brave pro-democracy multitudes in Honduras' civil resistance. It does so because it robs the power from the hands of the only authentic protagonists of this story – the Honduran people – and puts it in the hands of anyone that would do violence to them.

If the regime doesn’t like peaceful blockades, as it surely does not, Secretary Clinton’s statement gives it greater incentive to use violence against them because such reaction would then define the blockades as “actions that led to violence.”

It is akin to attempting to tie the hands of the plurality of Honduras citizens (according to the Gallup Poll) that want the coup regime ended.

It is aimed, especially, at Honduras’ elected but forcibly exiled President Manuel Zelaya and his vow to return to his country even under threat of imprisonment. (The regime had the opportunity to arrest him again on July 5, but had such fear of how the people would respond to such a blatant act of tyranny that it had to line up soldiers and trucks on the airstrip to prevent any plane from landing.)

Today, Friday, July 17, the peaceful blockades enter their second day. On the first day, they successfully shut down the country’s highways, east, west, north and south, and cut off the capital city and the country’s commercial centers.

As Dan Kovalic of the United Steelworkers Union in the US reported upon his recent return from Honduras with a delegation organized by School of the Americas Watch:

“Obama has made very strong statements against the coup, which frankly, I think, has made him a very popular figure amongst the social groups in Honduras who are calling for President Zelaya’s return, and with the average person in Honduras. But frankly he is seen as an enemy by the elites there who want the coup to continue. His statements have been heard down there, and he is definitely being seen as on the side of the return of President Zelaya and on the side of democracy. At the same time, there is some leeriness, given US past policy in Honduras – long-standing policy, in which we really treated Honduras as more or less a military outpost of the United States. There is some fear that other sectors of the US government and the US military may be more favorable to the coup. Also some of the statements that Hillary Clinton has made have been very vague and noncommittal in terms of whether she wants Zelaya to return or not.”

Secretary Clinton’s failure to grasp the difference between “acts of violence” and “actions that could lead to violence” put at risk all the goodwill that President Obama has garnered - unprecedented for a US president in recent decades - not just in Honduras but throughout the hemisphere of América.

And this was the worry, back in November of 2008 when Judge Abner Mikva and I and many others were responding to the initial rumors that Obama would name Clinton as Secretary of State. Back then I warned:

“And you might say that, ‘the next Secretary of State will have to follow the policies of the next president.’ In an ideal world, that would be true. But so much happens, day in, day out, in so many lands... so many daily attacks on dissidents, community organizers, and others who dare speak and act to improve their lives... that no US president could possibly micro-manage the situation and take preemptive action on each pending atrocity from the Oval Office. That's what a State Department is for: to handle the constant communications that are necessary with other governments.

“And if -- as the mass media seems to agree right now -- US President-elect Barack Obama is about to install someone as the next Secretary of State who has shown zero understanding of, much less passion and action for, human rights in Mexico, Colombia and elsewhere (except in isolated cases where the same mass media has turned a particular case into an international cause celébre), we're going to see more of the same terrible story happen over and over again.”

Well it’s happening now, in large part because Secretary Clinton apparently doesn’t understand the difference between “acts of violence” and “actions that could lead to violence.” She apparently doesn't even understand some of the words she so often uses like "smart power" and "soft power," because all who do get it today marvel at how the anti-coup citizenry of Honduras is utilizing them far more effectively than Washington right now.

Truth is, Secretary Clinton’s statement yesterday was itself one of those very actions she decried, “actions that could lead to violence,” and it suggests very strongly that she is fundamentally incapable of understanding, much less supporting, the very kinds of nonviolent action that, today, are the only alternative to civil war in Honduras, and often the only alternative to wars and repression all over the world.

The Secretary just doesn’t get it. And this is doing profound damage already to democracy in this hemisphere, including to the United States and the president's own stated goals for a new era in US-Latin America relations. While the entire hemisphere is moving forward, while Martin Luther King's "arc of the universe bends toward justice," oft quoted by President Obama, Secretary Clinton is evidently trying to bend that arc back the other way.

Update: Adding to the negative consequences of Secretary Clinton's statements are how easily they lend themselves to distortion by the pro-coup press in Honduras and elsewhere. The daily La Prensa in Tegucigalpa (yes, the same newspaper that photoshopped the blood out of the picture of assassinated youth Isis Obed Murillo last week) has just run the following headline: "Hillary Demands that Chávez Not Interfere in Honduras." Secretary Clinton made no mention of the Venezuelan president in her remarks. But they were vague enough, with enough wiggle room, to become the basis for that kind of headline from the corrupt and dishonest sector of the Honduran media. A certain ineptness is increasingly peeking through the mist at Foggy Bottom.

By Al Giordano

Juan Esteban Aristizábal Vásquez, a.k.a. the Latin Grammy award winning pop singer known as Juanes, almost got sucked into a trap by the business interests behind the Honduras coup d’etat: a “Concert for Peace” that had been scheduled for Saturday, July 26 in Tegucigalpa.

All day long members the pro-coup faction on the #Honduras Twitter feed (mainly a gaggle of ex-Cubans and ex-Venezuelans who type a lot about “communists” and “reds” in their zeal to defend the coup) were agog, thanking the Miami-based Colombian Juanes and also Spaniard pop star Alejandro Sanz and Colombian Carlos Vives, for lending themselves to the spectacle of “peace” under a repressive coup regime.

Back on July 6, the 36-year-old Juanes - a public ally in his native country of rightist President Alvaro Uribe - posted via Twitter: “Honduras, I am thinking a lot about you… get well soon… not one more painful tear, not one more drop of blood.”

It was reminiscent of the moment back in 2001 when Mexico’s two national television networks organized a “Concert for Peace” as counter-programming to the Zapatista caravan’s arrival in Mexico City, announcing that the Mexican pop groups Los Jaguares, Maná, and Carlos Santana would perform. Singer-songwriter Julieta Venegas denounced the charade and Santana told reporters he had never agreed to lend his name to any such venture. The polemic led to one scene, covered by this reporter, on the Zócalo (city square) of Puebla, Mexico, where 50,000 poblano youths, upon the mention of Los Jaguares and Maná, began chanting in unison, “culeros, culeeeeeroooos,” roughly translated as “asswipes.”

Well, back in Miami today, Juanes thought better of ending up as a prop in a similar spectacle, and cancelled the Honduras concert with some Twitter messages of his own that read, in succession:

Honduras, the Peace Without Borders concert that we’ve been talking about is not going to take place…

This, for various reasons… artists and production scheduled and of course political uncertainty…

Which do not guarantee a truly clean concert for us…

All of us are with the people of Honduras and our greatest desire is that civil society return to normality…

We have to avoid political manipulation from any sector. Peace Without Borders is a politically neutral organization…

And its only flag is peace. A hug.

And with that, the 17-time Latin Grammy award winning pop star extricated himself from the manipulation that the coup backers tried had to rope him into… as goes the concert, so goes the coup... a metaphor for what Honduran Civil Society is also doing today.