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Honduran Accord Solidifies Coup D'Etat Rule
On October 29, Honduran coup d'etat "president" Roberto Micheletti announced that: "....a few minutes ago I authorized my negotiating team to sign a final agreement"  To let Congress and the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) decide whether or not deposed President Manuel Zelaya may return to office and complete the remaining weeks of his term, expiring on January 27. If he does, will it matter? Zelaya is a wealthy businessman, a member of the right-wing Liberal Party (PL), a former National Congress Deputy from 1985 - 1998, a former PL Minster for Investment, and president from January 27, 2006 to when he was deposed on June 28. His 2005 presidential campaign was largely on a law-and-order platform with pledges that, if elected, he'd address Honduras' crime problem with more police programs against and reeducation ones for violent international and local street gang members. Zelaya also joined Venezuela's Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas (ALBA) based on fair, not one-sided "free" trade; complementarity, not competition; solidarity, not domination; cooperation, not exploitation; and respect for each nation's sovereign freedom from corporate control. According to supporters like Alejandra Fernandez, a Honduran student, he also: "raised the minimum wage, gave out free school lunches, provided milk for the babies and pensions for the elderly, distributed energy-saving light bulbs, decreased the price of public transportation, (and) made more scholarships available for students." In addition, he built roads and schools in rural areas. "That's why the elite classes can't stand him and why we want him back. This is really a class struggle." One the Resistance is detemined to win and hardliners aim to crush. On June 28, dozens of Honduran soldiers stormed Zelaya's residence at night, arrested him in his pajamas at gunpoint, and exiled him to Costa Rica in violation of the 1982 Constitution that states: "No Honduran may be expatriated nor delivered by the authorities to a foreign state," nor may a democratically elected leader be deposed. "We know there was a crime there. In the moment that we took him out of the country, in the way that he was taken out, there is a crime. Because of the circumstances of the moment this crime occurred, there is going to be a justification and cause for acquittal that will protect us." "No citizen that has already served as head of the Executive Branch can be President or Vice-President. Whoever violates this law or proposes its reform, as well as those that support such violation directly or indirectly, will immediately cease in their functions and will be unable to hold any public office for a period of 10 years." "It is not possible to reform, in any case, the preceding article, the present article, the constitutional articles referring to the form of government, to the national territory, to the presidential period, the prohibition to serve again as President of the Republic, the citizen who has performed under any title in consequence of which she/he cannot be President of the Republic in the subsequent period." "Do you think that the November 2009 general elections should include a fourth ballot box (the other three being for candidates) in order to make a decision about the creation of a National Constituent Assembly that would approve a new Constitution?" So is the military whose officers from captain on up have been trained for decades at the infamous School of the Americas (SOA), renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISEC), where they're taught the latest ways to kill, maim, torture, oppress, exterminate poor and indigenous people, overthrow democratically elected governments, assassinate targeted leaders, suppress popular resistance when it erupts, and work cooperatively with Washington to solidify hard-right rule, intolerant of progressive change - familiar tactics since June 28. The day before, the military set off a chain of events. Reports said Zelaya fired Joint Chiefs Head General Romeo Vasquez Velasquez for refusing to distribute ballot boxes. He denied it. Velasquez may have resigned on his own. So did Defense Minister Edmundo Orellana and several military commanders. Nonetheless, the CSJ and Congress called Velasquez's dismissal illegal. Military forces deployed around Tegucigalpa, surrounded the Presidential Palace, and took over the airport and borders in advance of the planned coup, made in Washington, of course, like numerous others for decades. Zelaya, nonetheless, ordered ballot boxes distributed. Congress recommended removing him. The Federal Prosecutor's Office announced that anyone setting up polling stations or promoting the referendum would be prosecuted. Anti-Zelaya forces urged a boycott. Right-wing media hype called the vote illegal, a ploy to re-elect Zelaya, a way to shift his conservative Liberal Party far-left, a scheme to solidify his Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) membership and let Chavez make Honduras socialist. In a pro forma June 29 pronouncement, the CSJ reinstated Velasquez. The Catholic Church backed the coup government. Months of terror followed, including: -- imposing military rule, martial law, and a state of siege;
-- deploying combat troops on city streets;
-- suspending civil liberties, including habeas, the right of assembly, free movement and free expression;
-- committing thousands of human rights violations;
-- thousands more illegal arrests;
-- dozens of killings, beatings, kidnappings, and nationwide intimidation;
-- according to the human rights NGO Comite de Familiares de Detenidos Desaparecidos en Honduras (Committee of Relatives of the Disappeared - COFADEH), torturing and sodomizing men and gang-raping women;
-- reactivating the infamous Battalion 316, the CIA-created death squads that disappeared, tortured, and exterminated regime opponents in the 1980s;
-- silencing the independent media; and
-- harassing and arresting Honduran and foreign journalists; at least one was murdered, Gabriel Fino Noreiga on July 3. Post-coup on Veneuela's TV Telesur, Zelaya called his ouster: a "kidnapping. An extortion of the Honduran democratic system. And I will ask the presidents of the Americas, including the US president - I want to hear the US Ambassador Hugo Llorens in Tegucigalpa if they are behind this, and if not, clear it up, because if the US is not behind this coup, they won't be able to stay there forty-eight hours." Zelaya was the latest, confirmed by the Obama administration's refusal to cut diplomatic ties, halt military aid, impose sanctions as US law requires, or call the ouster a coup. Announced Deal On October 30, New York Times writers Ginger Thompson and Elisabeth Malkin headlined, "Deal Set to Restore Ousted Honduran President." To what given the agreed on terms. On October 29, AP reported that: "opposing political factions resumed talks (today in hopes of reaching a deal) to end the power crisis that has paralyzed the country" since June 28. " Terms of the So-Called Agreement/Accord Signed on October 30, it's for Congress and the CSJ to approve it. Titled "Accord for National Reconciliation and the Strengthening of Democracy in Democracy," it's as Orwellian as "War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength." Post-coup, The Hill.com reported that the far-right Business Council of Latin America (CEAL) hired former Bill Clinton special counsel, Lanny Davis' firm, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, to lobby Congress and conduct a supportive PR campaign for its leaders. Lobbyist Bennett Ratcliff was enlisted to work with Davis, and according to an unnamed source in The New York Times, the Micheletti government hasn't made a move without first consulting him. These men, their associates, and legal staff prepared the Accord, the way business sectors craft all Washington legislation affecting them. It begins saying: "We, Honduran citizens, men and women, convinced of the need to strengthen the rule of law, protect our Constitution and the laws of our Republic, deepen democracy and ensure a climate of peace and tranquility for our people, have carried out an intense and frank process of political dialogue to seek a peaceful and negotiated solution to the crisis in which our country has been submerged in recent months." Terms include: 1. Forming a "National Unity and Reconciliation Government." Fact Check Only hardliners need apply, and if reinstated, Zelaya will finish his term as an impotent puppet head of state. 2. Renouncing "a Call for a National Constituent Assembly and Amending the Unamendable Articles of the Constitution."
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