When Honduran president Manuel Zelaya--who was rousted out of his bed
on Sunday morning by a detachment of armed soldiers and forced into
exile still in his pajamas--took office in early 2006, unionists,
peasant activists and reformers expected little of the center-right
politician, a rancher and member of the establishment Liberal Party.
Neither did the handful of elite Honduran families who, bankrolled by
foreign finance, control their country's media, banking, agricultural,
manufacturing and narcotics industries.
Thousands of
Hondurans are now in the streets to protest the coup d'etat in their
country. They have been met with tear gas, anti-riot rubber bullets,
tanks firing water mixed with chemicals, and clubs. Police have moved
in to break down barricades and soldiers used violence to push back
protesters at the presidential residence, leaving an unknown number
wounded.
Early on Sunday morning, troops stormed the presidential palace of Honduras
and kidnapped the president. Immediately eyes turned to the United
States, which for more than a century has backed friendly dictators and
cooked-up coups in Central America.
TEGUCIGALPA - Leftist Latin American leaders rallied
around ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya on Monday and tried to
thrash out a response to an army coup that sparked protests in the
impoverished nation and drew worldwide condemnation.
Pro-Zelaya demonstrators defied an overnight curfew and held a vigil
by the presidential palace in Tegucigalpa, while Venezuela's firebrand
President Hugo Chavez led talks with Zelaya and other allies in
neighboring Nicaragua.
While the world nervously watches the uprising in Iran, an even more
important uprising has been passing unnoticed - yet its outcome will
shape your fate, and mine.
In the depths of the Amazon rainforest, the poorest people in the world have
taken on the richest people in the world to defend a part of the ecosystem
none of us can live without. They had nothing but wooden spears and moral
force to defeat the oil companies - and, for today, they have won.
The
recent clash between indigenous peoples and Peruvian national police
sends a powerful message from the Amazon jungle straight to Washington:
The enormous social, political, and environmental costs of the
free-trade model are no longer acceptable.
On June 5,
World Environment Day, Amazon Indians were massacred by the government
of Alan Garcia in the latest chapter of a long war to take over common
lands-a war unleashed by the signing of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA)
between Peru and the United States.
SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras - After
heated debate, the 39th General Assembly of the Organisation of
American States (OAS) decided Wednesday to lift its 47-year suspension
of Cuba, without conditions.
At its meeting in Honduras, the
OAS sought to "fix an historic error" committed when socialist Cuba was
expelled in 1962 from the main forum for political cooperation in the
hemisphere as a result of pressure from the United States.
Marijuana and cocaine for personal use should be decriminalised because the "war on drugs" has been a disaster, according to some of Latin America's most powerful politicians and writers.
