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Honduras Suspends Civil Liberties
Honduras' interim leaders have suspended key civil liberties, empowering police and soldiers to break up "unauthorised" public meetings, arrest people without warrants and restrict the news media.
Honduras' ousted President Manuel Zelaya, holding up a copy of the Honduran Constitution, speaks during a press conference at the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa, Monday, Sept. 28, 2009. Honduras' interim government leaders have suspended constitutionally guaranteed civil liberties in a pre-emptive strike against widespread rebellion Monday, three months to the day since they ousted Zelaya in a military-backed coup. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix) The announcement came just hours after deposed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya called on supporters to stage mass marches today marking the three-month anniversary of the June 28 coup that ousted him. Mr Zelaya described the marches as "the final offensive" against the interim government.
President Zelaya, who surprised the world when he returned to Honduras last Monday and sought refuge in the Brazilian Embassy, is demanding he be reinstated to office, and has said that the government of interim President Roberto Micheletti "has to fall."
The government announced the decree in a nationwide broadcast, saying it was "to guarantee peace and public order in the country and due to the calls for insurrection that Mr. Zelaya has publicly made."
The measure empowers police and soldiers to arrest without a warrant "any person who poses a danger to his own life or those of others," although unlike martial law, it requires that anyone arrested be turned over to civilian prosecutors. The Honduran Constitution forbids arrest without warrants except where a criminal is caught in the act.
The measure also permits authorities to temporarily close news media outlets that "attack peace and public order."
The media restrictions appear aimed at pro-Zelaya radio and television stations that — while subject to brief raids immediately after the coup — had been allowed to operate freely, openly criticising the government and broadcasting Zelaya's statements.
But under yesterday's order, authorities may now "prevent the transmission by any spoken, written or televised means, of statements that attack peace and the public order, or which offend the human dignity of public officials, or attack the law."
The decree states that the country's national telecommunications commission, known as Conatel, is authorised "through police and the armed forces ... to immediately suspend any radio station, cable or television network whose programming does not comply with these regulations."
The interim government also Sunday expelled personnel from the Organization of American States looking to set up a mediation effort and gave Brazil a 10-day ultimatum to either hand over Zelaya or give him political asylum and get him out of the country.
OAS Special Adviser John Biehl told reporters in the capital, Tegucigalpa, that he and four other members of an advance team — including two Americans, a Canadian and a Colombian — were stopped by authorities after landing at the international airport Sunday. Biehl, who is Chilean, said he was later told he could stay, but the others were put on planes leaving the country.
Mr Biehl said he was in Honduras to set up a visit by OAS Secretary-General Jose Miguel Insulza, who he said would arrive "at the appropriate time."
Interim President Roberto Micheletti has previously said the OAS was welcome to come, but suggested that representatives begin arriving Monday. Foreign Minister Carlos Lopez said that the team's arrival didn't come "at the right time ... because we are in the middle of internal conversations."
Talks between Zelaya and Micheletti's representatives have produced no results.
A Micheletti spokesman warned Brazilian authorities Sunday to "immediately take measures to ensure that Mr. Zelaya stops using the protection offered by the diplomatic mission to instigate violence in Honduras."
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva immediately rejected the missive, saying his government "doesn't accept ultimatums from coup-plotters."
Mr Micheletti didn't specify what he would do after 10 days. He has said previously that he plans to arrest Zelaya, who faces treason and abuse of authority charges for ignoring court orders to drop plans for a referendum on rewriting the constitution.
Brazil - like the rest of the international community - recognizes Zelaya as Honduras' legitimate president, and says it wants to protect him.
The UN Security Council has issued a statement that "called upon the de facto government of Honduras to cease harassing the Brazilian Embassy."
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23 Comments so far
Show AllViva Zelaya ! Viva Lula !
If it is true as one poster claimed there was pictorial evidence that Micheletti pumped toxic gas into the Brazilian embassy, is this not an act of war and a war crime against civilians?
Where are all the Twitter heads on this one? and the mass twittering media?
Almost everything that the golpistas have done falls under the heading of crimes against humanity.
THings will either get very bloody very soon--more deaths--or else the business folks, who are losing millions every day the coup continues, will pull the plug on Pinochetti and bring back Zelaya in order to try to legitimize the elections planned for the end of November.
It could go either way. Pinochetti has even now kicked out the Mexican diplomatic corps--and we have a rightwing government! So things are way beyond irrational.
The fact that the entire coup is based on court rejection of a call for a referendum remains the nubbin. We're living through a period when globalized industry has its history of exploitation of people and the planet being documented with all of its frailities including denial of informed consent by virtually any means necessary.
The expansionism which depends on large scale marginalization (profit margin) of millions of people and ecological destruction is hitting the wall - it is patently unsustainable and that too is increasingly documented and reported.
The referendum and efforts like this are happening at diffferent levels all over the world - are humanity calling for a voice in developing scientifically and traditionally based alternatives to a drastically failed system.
Suspending civil liberties: looks like Micheletti dusted off the old textbook.
The sad part is that the US government has no moral authority to criticize these actions in light of our own suspensions of civil liberties and detentions without charge.
Wow, pretty soon they will be JUST LIKE THE USA
"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats
The crisis in Honduras began when the military refused to distribute ballot boxes for the opinion poll in a new Constitution. President Zelaya fired the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Romeo Orlando Vasquez Velasquez, who refused to step down. The heads of all branches of the Honduran armed forces quit in solidarity with Vasquez. Vasquez, however, refused to step down, bolstered by support in Congress and a Supreme Court ruling that reinstated him. Vasquez remains in control of the armed forces.
Vasquez, along with other military leaders, graduated from the United States' infamous School of the Americas (SOA). According to a School of the Americas Watch database compiled from information obtained from the US government, Vasquez studied in the SOA at least twice: once in 1976 and again in 1984.
The head of the Air Force, Gen. Luis Javier Prince Suazo, studied in the School of the Americas in 1996. The Air Force has been a central protagonist in the Honduran crisis. When the military refused to distribute the ballot boxes for the opinion poll, the ballot boxes were stored on an Air Force base until citizens accompanied by Zelaya rescued them. Zelaya reports that after soldiers kidnapped him, they took him to an Air Force base, where he was put on a plane and sent to Costa Rica.
Congressman Joseph Kennedy has stated, "The U.S. Army School of the Americas...is a school that has run more dictators than any other school in the history of the world."
The School of the Americas has a long, tortured history in Honduras. According to School of the Americas Watch, "In 1975, SOA Graduate General Juan Melgar Castro became the military dictator of Honduras. From 1980-1982 the dictatorial Honduran regime was headed by yet another SOA graduate, Policarpo Paz Garcia, who intensified repression and murder by Battalion 3-16, one of the most feared death squads in all of Latin America (founded by Honduran SOA graduates with the help of Argentine SOA graduates)."
Honduran Gen. Humberto Regalado Hernandez was inducted into the SOA's Hall of Fame. School of the Americas Watch notes that he was a four-time graduate. As head of the armed forces, he refused to take action against soldiers invovled in the Battalion 3-16 death squad.
School of the Americas Watch points out that this is not the first time the SOA has been involved in Latin American coups. "In April 2002, the democratically elected Chavez government of Venezuela was briefly overthrown, and the School of the Americas-trained [soldiers] Efrain Vasquez Velasco, ex-army commander, and Gen. Ramirez Poveda, were key players in the coup attempt."
"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats
The more time that passes, the more this looks like Obama's coup. The article begins:
"Honduras' interim leaders have suspended key civil liberties, empowering police and soldiers to break up "unauthorised" public meetings, arrest people without warrants and restrict the news media."
Now doesn't that sound exactly like Pittsburgh last week?
Boycott Chiquita. Tell your store why.
Joe
Institute for Public Accuracy posted this link with folks in Honduras
http://quotha.net:80/
Chavez refused to renew the license of one TV station that advocated his overthrow, and Chavez was solidly elected by the people of Venezuela. Most of the media, owned by the Venezuelan oligarchs, operates freely and continues to attack Chavez.
It's a different situation than in the United States, where the FCC has the sole authority to revoke a station's license, but you are incorrect in saying Chavez is shutting down TV stations. He acted legally in not renewing the charter of one TV station.
I guess if Fox News advocated the killing of Obama, the station should still get a license renewal. But I wouldn't shed any tears if it didn't happen.
-TIA
Above was a good idea---boycott Chiquita.
Additional steps could be mailing bananas to the Honduran embassy, if it is still here, and to the Chiquita corporate headquarters...
Have 2 witnesses or video as you load your fruit...just in case.
For the Hondurans...Remember Gandhi!
It seems as if Bush and mad dog Cheney has found a new hom. Seems like there type of Government.
Once again Obamas true face appears:
Lewis Anselm US Ambassador to the OAS: “The return of Zelaya absent an agreement is irresponsible and foolish … He should cease and desist from making wild allegations and from acting as though he were starring in an old movie,”
The coup has no incentive to reach an agreement. Obama says the US cannot lead everything in the world, yet Obama has no problem criticizing those (Brazil and Zelaya) that try to correct a wrong when the US stands idly by as a coup takes place by a Honduran military in which the US shares a base with.
What's that whirring sound I hear? Could it be the vigorous backpedalling of the Micheletti regime?
,,, empowering police and soldiers to break up "unauthorised" public meetings, arrest people without warrants and restrict the news media.
Gosh Batman! This is just like Detroit.
Or like Pittsburgh at the G-20.
Anyone note that Micheletti has,
"...empowered the "police and soldiers to arrest without a warrant "any person who poses a danger to his own life or those of others," although unlike martial law, it requires that anyone arrested be turned over to civilian prosecutors. The Honduran Constitution forbids arrest without warrants except where a criminal is caught in the act.
The measure also permits authorities to temporarily close news media outlets that "attack peace and public order."
Where is the Right wing and corporate disapproval here in America. They had no problem lambasting Chevaz for doing the same, but when their boy does it, well all is quiet and hush-hush.
Zelaya must be reinstated without conditions, and the United States, though trying to wait out the rest of his term in this limbo, must act by cutting completely all aid to Honduras and by pulling its diplomat from the embassy.
But of course, does anyone really doubt the US had wind of the coup and has tacitly supported it all along, and all that on the heels of that pretty speech Obama gave in May 2009 to our neighbors to the South about the US taking on a different attitude toward the region. The outcome here will prove if this new stance has any substance or if it is all prettified speechifying.
Long Live the United Fruit Company with the impetus for democracy always playing second banana.
PR for the de facto regime will now be provided by Chlopak, Leonard, Schechter and Associates: 1850 M Street NW, Suite 800 Washington, DC 20036 Phone: (202) 289-5900 Fax: (202) 289-4141, in case anyone wants to stop by or give them a ring to ask them exactly how they justify being the mouthpieces of a murderous military dictatorship. According to their web page, they also provide PR for American Red Cross, United Nations Foundation and Cornell University.
http://quotha.net:80/
CLSA is also ad agency for Hunt oil (remember the Peruvian Amazon in June?)
The National Propaganda Radio calls the junta "the de facto government of Honduras".
Good to see that Lula, who's come in for criticism, to speak unequivocally that his government "does not accept ultimatums from coup plotters".