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Ousted Leader Calls for Final Offensive in Honduras
TEGUCIGALPA - The stakes rose in Honduras Sunday after ousted leader Manuel Zelaya, holed up at Brazil's embassy in Tegucigalpa, called on his supporters for a final offensive -- and coup leaders respond by giving Brazil a harsh warning.
Supporters of ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya participate in a march in Tegucigalpa. The stakes rose in Honduras Sunday after Zelaya, holed up at Brazil's embassy in Tegucigalpa, called on his supporters for a final offensive -- and coup leaders respond by giving Brazil a harsh warning. Zelaya, who has been in the embassy since he made a surprise return almost one week ago, called on his supporters to converge on the capital on Monday, exactly three months after the coup.
"We're making a patriotic ... call to resistance across all national territory," Zelaya said Saturday in a statement handed to an AFP photographer inside the embassy.
He called on his supporters to peacefully march to the capital for a "final offensive against the de facto government."
Shortly after, the regime gave Brazil up to 10 days to define Zelaya's status in a statement read on national television.
It urged "that Mr. Zelaya immediately stop using the protection that Brazil's diplomatic mission gives him to instigate violence in Honduras."
The statement warned that "if that's not done, we'll be forced to take supplementary measures under international law," without elaborating.
The interim government -- which took over after Zelaya was ousted in late June at the height of a dispute over his plans to change the constitution -- promised not to attack the "integrity" of the embassy.
They are seeking to arrest Zelaya for violating the constitution.
The UN Security Council on Friday warned the interim Honduran regime headed by Roberto Micheletti not to harass the embassy, as Brazilian officials complained it was "under siege."
Several thousand Zelaya supporters took to the streets again Saturday, in a march on foot and in scores of cars, waving red flags, honking horns and calling for him to return to office.
Zelaya said Saturday that the regime had not responded to a call for dialogue which he made after returning to the country, but had replied "with more repression against the people."
"It's the only place in the world where there's an embassy under siege," said Francisco Catunda, the Brazilian charge d'affaires.
Most people inside the embassy were in good health, Catunda said, adding that one Brazilian diplomat told him he had smelled gas the previous day, after Zelaya accused the army of trying to poison him and some 60 people still inside the compound by pumping noxious gases into the building -- a charge roundly denied by Honduran officials.
Demonstrators have come daily to the embassy compound, which is surrounded by anti-riot police and soldiers, to show their support for the embattled head of state.
"Thanks, Brazil, for protecting Mel from this vile regime," one banner read, using Zelaya's popular nickname.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, at a meeting of African and South American leaders in Venezuela, cautioned against "backsliding" on democracy in Honduras and throughout Latin America.
"We fought hard to sweep military dictatorships into the trash can of history, we can not allow these kind of setbacks in our continent," he said.
As efforts to mediate struggled to get off the ground, European Union countries decided to send back their envoys who were withdrawn after the coup, but said that did not mean they recognized the interim regime.
A daytime curfew was lifted Thursday and airports reopened, allowing businesses to resume and providing relief to an increasingly frustrated public. A nighttime curfew remained in place.
The United Nations on Wednesday froze its technical support for a presidential vote scheduled for November.
Regime authorities still wish to carry out the vote, which they say is the best exit to the crisis.
"We're losing guarantees for free elections and in these conditions the people will question and fail to recognize the electoral process and its results," Zelaya said.
A police spokesman told AFP Wednesday that two people had been killed in pro-Zelaya protests since the start of the week, and rights groups have voiced concern about clampdowns on demonstrators and local media.
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12 Comments so far
Show AllObama's reaction: Yawn
The showdown will be in November.
" We fought hard to sweep our military dictatorships into the trash can of history". Too bad we cannot sweep our dictatorial, military,industrial,congressional, complex into the trash can of history! But of course the operative word is " fought ".
Lula is right on. This was a military coup, very similar to that which took place in Haiti a few years back. Stall, stall, stall until the populace is exhausted, then sneak back in, call it a democracy with your guy at the helm. It is unconscionable that the US, with an air force base in Honduras, has left the coup in power so long. One can only interpret this as the US State Dept. hoping the people will give-up, go home, and let the usurper, Micheletti, stay in power. After all, he is pro-business, the US has 150 companies doing business in Honduras, and that horrible Zelaya had the gall to raise the minimum wage to almost $300 a month. Imagine!! Aren't these wages still low enough for US corporations to make giant profits? I think so.
Al Giordano is at the scene, writing for Narco News Bulletin - established originally to report on the War on Drugs in Latin America. His exclusives are excellent, providing both historical context and an almost hour by hour update. See:
http://www.narconews.com/
Another excellent source of information is: http://www.rightsaction.org/
An excellent group of activists opposing Goldcorp and the mining in Central America that is poisoning so many people.
Check these out. Get informed, and let's lend popular support to the all-important, real democracy movement in Latin America.
I believe that Obama,
after being so thoroughly one-upped by Chavez
at the Trinidad and Tobago Summit
(La venas abiertas de América Latina),
decided to let Latin America
go fuck itself--
with the plan of taking everything off the board
afterwards
from the 7 military bases in Colombia.
First we must agree on the true condition of government:
(1) A democratic Republic that just needs a few more good politicians to work.
(2) A socialist leaning Republic and we should just let the tea party nuts take care of it.
(3) A capitalist Republic with excessive wealth, and democracy could never be a part of it.
As capitalism is legalized greed, next we must agree on the true condition of society:
(a) A society-absorbed people who prefer equality and given honest leadership would achieve greatness.
(b) A church-absorbed nation of believers and given spiritual leadership would achieve heaven on earth.
(c) A self-absorbed anti-social people, 60% with excessive wealth and woe to Obama if he dares change anything.
And so, as we all want more thinking we deserve more, thinking it stress unbearable if we miss any opportunity to take more, next, we must agree on what to do next:
(A) Except the fact that even though the majority feel they deserve to be rich, the majority must rule and friendly persuasion is our only hope of ending such an excessive wealth temptation.
(B) Get violent, get brutal and just see if Empire USA has the guts to nuke us.
(C) Realize that our self-absorbed majority is just that, an indifferent and isolated people. And so controlled by the rich, and so in love with seeking all pleasure, just get out there, get yelling and like scared little kittens they would start scrambling.
Vaya con Dios, Manuel.
Poet
This tear gag attack on the Brazilian embassy is an act of aggression and the UN should take this up promptly. Meantime, Brazil under Article 51 of the UN Charter probably has the right to take whatever action that it sees fit to protect its people from these coup gangsters. The US Government should be supporting the legitimate and democratic government of Honduras, and it isn't doing that. .
Huge kudos to Brazil and President Lula for standing with the Honduran people in their time of crisis.
Huge farts in the face of the USA and President Obama for standing against the Honduran people in their time of crisis.
Thanks to ontheres for the links. i used to read Narco News Bulletin but have not been there in some time.
Yes, it's great to read that the Brazilian president is holding firm against the military coup, and military dictatorships in South America! I hope he maintains this position, which is necessary for the health of nations. And it's odd that the pompous coup government thinks it has any recourse at all to international law. What a joke and laugh.
The police/military of Honduras look just like and are using the same equipment as the police/military used in Pittsburg this past week and that the IDF uses all the time in their occupided lands...made in America?
I encourage everyone who cares about Honduras or wants to see the U.S. act with a ethical foreign policy to at least consider the other side of this debate which until recently has been almost entirely ignored in the U.S. media. In particular, that the Honduran Supreme Court and Congress complied with their Constitution and were trying to prevent a dictatorship when they removed Zelaya from office. (Though they may have violated their laws by ejecting him from Honduras.)
To give you some idea of my politics, i went to several anti-war protests before the invasion of Iraq in 2003; i think Bush, Cheney and others from the Bush Administration should be tried for both treason and war crimes. I voted for Obama in the 2008 elections.
Despite my clearly left-wing politics, i vigorously oppose the position taken by the Obama Administration towards Honduras. The political support of Zelaya from the U.S. (as well as the OAS, UN, and EU and their constituent countries) is dubious at best in its legal justification, and is pushing Honduras towards civil war, not to mention causing immense suffering in one of the poorest countries in the world.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/25/world/americas/25honduras.html
http://schock.house.gov/UploadedFiles/Schock_CRS_Report_Honduras_FINAL.pdf
Imagine it's 1973 when Richard Nixon was forced from office because of the Watergate Scandal, where it's been revealed that he conspired to coverup attempts by his political operatives to illegally sabotage his opponents' campaigns. It has been an ugly, upsetting, and destabilizing struggle -- it was one of the most severe tests of the U.S. system of governance the U.S. ever faced. How would you then feel if at the moment, almost every other government in the world began applying immense political and economic pressure, insisting that Nixon be restored to office, even going so far as to protect him in their embassies in Washington D.C. while he called for revolt?
That is what is being done to Honduras right now.