Honduras Coup - Day 23 - July 20, 2009

• The implications of the coup in Honduras on Afro-descendants
  By TransAfrica Forum - sfbayview.com : July 20, 2009
  The Afro-Honduran NGO ODECO (Organization of Ethnic Community Development), a member of ONECA (Central American Black Organization), has submitted a formal complaint against Ortez Colindres to Attorney General Luis Alberto Rubí Ávila, reminding the state that his comments are contrary to their country's anti-discrimination laws and policies. / ODECO President Celeo Alvarez Casildo writes in the complaint: “The unfortunate and disrespectful statements made by 'Chancellor'Ortez Colindres are a real insult to humanity, especially to the Afro-descendant people he is calling 'negritos.' If the 'chancellor' dares to call the president of the first world power a 'negrito,' what treatment should be expected for the poor, Afro-Honduran on the ground?
  
  
• Honduran Coup reveals crisis of democracy in the United States as well
  By Tom Loudon - alainet.org : July 20, 2009
  Three weeks have passed since the military coup d'état in Honduras, yet the United States has failed to join the international community in issuing a clear denunciation of the illegal overthrow of the government of Honduras. Despite a statement by President Obama calling the coup illegal and recognizing Zelaya as the legitimate President, the U.S. State Department refuses to classify what occurred as a coup or to take decisive steps required by law including cutting off aid to the Micheletti government. The crisis of democracy in Honduras has unmasked a crisis in the United States as well.
  
  
• Breakdown of Mediation Leads to Stronger Pressures for U.S. Action
  By Laura Carlsen - americasmexico.blogspot.com : July 20, 2009
  The intransigence of the coup placed the nail in the coffin of efforts to mediate the conflict. On Sunday Zelaya called the talks "exhausted" and deemed the attitude of the Micheletti delegation "arrogant" and "disrespectful". Sec. General of the Organization of American States José Insulza responded, "We regret deeply the attitude of Micheletti." Insulza has led diplomatic efforts to return constitutional order in the country and reinstate Zelaya without bloodshed.
  
  
• Dept of State Agrees with Coup Regime in Honduras that "No Coup D'etat" Has Taken Place; Says Should Be a Lesson to Zelaya Not to Follow Venezuela
  By Eva Golinger - chavezcode.com : July 20, 2009
  The State Department finally concluded 3 weeks of ambiguity on its determination of whether or not a coup d'etat has taken place in Honduras. Despite the United Nations, European Union, Organization of American States and every Latin American nation clearly condemning the events as a coup d'etat, the United States government has today stated it doesn't consider a coup has taken place. The Obama administration joins only with the coup regime and its supporters (other coup leaders and/or executors of coups) in that determination.
  
  
• Bolivian Bishops Respond to President's Attacks
  By ZENIT - zenit.org : July 20, 2009
  Morales was speaking at events marking the 200th anniversary of the Bolivian capital. / He went on to say that "an archbishop in Honduras (is) supporting a dictatorship." / Morales continued saying that "when they cannot dominate us with law, then comes prayer, and when they can't humiliate or dominate us with prayer, then comes the gun."
  
  
• Bolivia's Morales Says Allies Should Boost Military Cooperation
  By Jonathan J. Levin - bloomberg.com : July 20, 2009
  Bolivian President Evo Morales urged his allies in Latin America to increase military cooperation after Honduran armed forces ousted that country's president. / Morales said members of the Alba trade bloc, which also includes Venezuela, Cuba, Ecuador and Nicaragua, should concentrate their efforts on issues involving armed forces, social movements and political parties.
  
  
• Converge on US Southern Command Headquarters
  in Solidarity with the People of Honduras
  By School of the Americas Watch - upsidedownworld.org : July 20, 2009
  When Your Only Tool is a Hammer, Every Problem Looks Like a Nail
  SOA/ WHINSEC & SouthCom's military-solutions-mindset is sowing the seeds for further repression of Latin American social movements with their rhetoric about "radical populism" overtaking the hemisphere. Over the last few years, military aid to Latin America has skyrocketed, and SouthCom definitions of terrorist threats expanded from "traditional terrorists" like gangs, paramilitaries and guerrilla groups to include "radical populists" whose only crimes include listening to their people and challenging the failed neoliberal model of development.
  
  
• EU suspends Honduras budgetary support payments
  By David Brunnstrom, Reuters - alertnet.org : July 20, 2009
  
  
• Over 55 Organizations and Scholars Call on Obama Administration
  to Warn Honduran Regime Against Further Violence
  By Latin American Experts - commondreams.org : July 20, 2009
  56 representatives of organizations and academic experts on Latin America and scholars issued the following statement today: The Obama administration's recent statements are endangering the lives of Hondurans, including the president Manuel Zelaya.
  
  
• Hondurans Intensify Protests after Zelaya Announced Return
  By Cuban News Agency - cubaweb.cu : July 20, 2009
  Protests were reinforced with a huge demonstration in front of the National Congress early on Monday while a meeting of the labor sector was called for later today to organize a general stoppage for next Thursday and Friday, the Bolivarian News Agency reported.
  
  
• Zelaya prepares return to Honduras as talks stall
  By The Associated Press - google.com : July 20, 2009
  Zelaya accused his opponents of "making a mockery" of Costa Rican President Oscar Arias' attempts to mediate an agreement and called for stronger international pressure on the government of Roberto Micheletti, the interim president sworn in by Honduras' congress after a June 28 coup.
  
  
• Obama's Bullish Behavior in Latin America
  By Nikolas Kozloff - counterpunch.org - trinicenter.com : July 20, 2009
  Liberals who have idealized Obama don't want to believe that their President is capable of bullish behavior towards Latin America. It was Bush, they say, who epitomized arrogant U.S.-style imperialism and not the new resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Recent events in Central America however force us to look at the Obama administration in a sobering new light. While it's unclear whether Obama had advance warning of an imminent military coup d'etat in Honduras the White House has not emerged from the Zelaya affair unsullied.
  
  
• Democra-Phobia: Fear of Citizen Power in Honduras
  By Al Giordano - narconews.com : July 20, 2009
  Strip away all the sensationalism, distortion, simulation, ideological axe-grinding, flotsam and jetsam of media coverage of events in Honduras over the past month and it still boils down to one central conflict: The coup regime fears, and was imposed as a last line of defense against, "Citizen Power."
  
  
• Cuban VP Warns Over Consequences of Honduras' Coup for Latin America
  By Cuban News Agency - cubanews.ain.cu : July 20, 2009
  Lazo, who led a Cuban delegation to the commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua, pointed out that the Honduran usurpers would not be able to survive if they were not counting on Washington's support, and he singled out American authorities as responsible for the military action.
  
  
• Cuba accuses US of supporting coup leaders
  By Press TV - presstv.ir : July 20, 2009
  Cuba accuses the US of 'providing military support' to the de facto government in Honduras that removed the country's elected leader Manuel Zelaya in a coup. / Speaking in Nicaragua, the Cuban Vice President Esteban Lazo said on Sunday that Havana demands that Washington 'cease its intervention' in Honduras' affairs.
  
  
• Obama's Rollback Strategy: Honduras, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan
  By Prof James Petras - australia.to : July 20, 2009
  The recent events in Honduras and Iran, which pit democratically elected regimes against pro-US military and civilian actors intent on overthrowing them can best be understood as part of a larger White House strategy designed to rollback the gains achieved by opposition government and movements during the Bush years.
  
  
• Iron Fist, Velvet Glove: Obama and Honduras
  By Richard Collie - koreatimes.co.kr : July 20, 2009
  Back in April, at the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad, U.S. President Barack Obama was handed a copy of Eduardo Galleano's alternative history of the Americas: "The Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent." / Who knows if Obama actually took the time to read the book, though judging by his current rhetoric, we can suspect that he did not.
  
  
• Transport Workers to Boycott Honduran Ships
  By Bruce Barnard - joc.com : July 20, 2009
  The International Transport Workers Federation called for a worldwide boycott of Honduran-flag merchant ships to protest the military coup in the Central American nation. / London-based ITF said its call for action "is likely to affect the loading and unloading of the 650 ships flying the Honduran flag."
  
  

Trinicenter.com reserves the right to publish your email responses in whole or part. If you are responding to a particular article, include the title and link to the article. If you would like your name withheld from publication, state this in your submission and supply a nom de plume.