Honduras Coup - Day 181 - December 25, 2009

• Disturbing the Peace of the Graveyard
  By Jane Guskin - mrzine.monthlyreview.org : December 25, 2009
  In Honduras, the right-wing elite and military high command, which have close ties to the extremist Catholic group Opus Dei, seem similarly committed to a graveyard peace. Last June 28 they toppled an elected president who in their eyes had bowed too far to pressure from progressive grassroots sectors. Already strong, the country's diverse social movements -- including indigenous, African-descended, unionists, and lesbian and gay activists -- responded to the coup by uniting and launching a coordinated nonviolent struggle from the streets.
  
  
• Honduras: Whitewashing the Coup
  By Tyler Shipley - coto2.wordpress.com : December 25, 2009
  Honduras has been long dominated by a handful of some ten to fifteen wealthy families. Everyone here knows their names – Facusse, Ferrari, Micheletti – and now they are scrawled on walls everywhere, next to accusations of golpista (coup-supporter) and asesino (assassin). These oligarchs used to be satisfied by controlling the economy and buying off the politicians, but they now increasingly insist upon exercising direct political control themselves, and their names show up more and more in congress, in the supreme court and now even in the executive branch.
  
  
• Elections in Latin America
  By weeksnotice.blogspot.com : December 25, 2009
  Abraham Lowenthal makes a great point about Latin American elections in an op-ed:
  

  Elections are worthwhile as a means of popular consultation and participation. They can and should also be important as a means of helping to achieve accountability, by comparing incumbents and their parties with the promises on which they were elected. Elections are important, and their regular occurrence in Latin America, rarely interrupted now by military intervention, is just cause for regional celebration. It is nonetheless important to recognize that elections alone -- however free, clean and fair -- are never enough to solve the hard questions that face most countries, questions often ignored or papered over during political campaigns.
  

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