Honduras Coup - Day 68 - September 03, 2009

• US Suspends some aid to Honduras;
  SOUTHCOM Commander confirms the plane that kidnapped Zelaya took off from the Soto Cano (US air base) in Honduras
  By Eva Golinger - chavezcode.com : September 03, 2009
  Ironically, the US seems to be "coming clean" in its own manipulative way regarding the coup in Honduras. SOUTHCOM Commander, General Douglas Fraser, confirmed today what many of us suspected from day one of the coup, that the airplane that forced President Zelaya into exile after kidnapping him violently on June 28th from his residence, actually took off for Costa Rica from the Soto Cano (Palmerola) military base, which has been occupied and run by the Pentagon since 1954 (actively since the early 1980s). Here is a link to an article translated (not perfectly) into English.
  
  
• Honduran coup has been far from bloodless
  By Dana Frank - mercurynews.com : September 03, 2009
  A myth has already taken root about the June 28 military coup in which Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was carted off to Costa Rica: that it's been a quiet, peaceful affair and hardly anyone's been hurt. Despite enormous evidence to the contrary, many commentators are now even referring to a "bloodless coup," or, worse, suggesting that Honduras is already such a violent country that any further violence is just normal.
  
  
• Honduras' day at the State Department and a hunch
  By hondurasoye.wordpress.com : September 03, 2009
  In the post just previous to this one, I stated that if President Zelaya was returned to the presidency, the US would hamstring him to keep him from doing something good for the people and that the US might accomplish this through conditions laid out in the $150 million IMF loan. I began to wonder under what circumstances the US might want to return him to the presidency and then the light bulb went off.
  
  
• Clock Ticks as U.S. Mulls Solution to Honduran Stalemate
  By pbs.org : September 03, 2009
  With less than three months until presidential elections in Honduras, the White House is running out of time to resolve a coup that resulted in the ouster of the nation's now deposed president, Manuel Zelaya. The dispute has also strained U.S.-Honduran ties.
  
  
  
  
• Honduran Aid Sleight of Hand: Like a Street Corner Shell Game
  By hondurasoye.wordpress.com : September 03, 2009
  The State Department's announcement today of the termination of certain assistance funding to Honduras as a result of the June 28 coup falls in the category of "too little, too late." The decision by the International Monetary Fund, announced a few days ago, to lend the coup government $160 million falls into the category of "do you think we are stupid?" Obviously, the US made sure that the IMF loan was made before it announced the termination of aid and the whole idea is to have the IMF loan cover for the money the US says it is terminating.
  
  
• UNASUR pushes forward with continental integration -as leaders express unease over Colombia-US military pact
  By Odeen Ishmael - upsidedownworld.org : September 03, 2009
  The inauguration of President Rafael Correa of Ecuador coincided with the holding of the third regular presidential summit of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) in Quito on August 10. In the days preceding this meeting, speculation was rife that the recent agreement by Colombia to allow the use of seven military bases by the US military would be a central issue. But though this matter was discussed, the final summit declaration made no mention of it since the Foreign Ministers at the preparatory meeting the day before did not reach agreement on a proposal by Venezuela and Bolivia to formally issue a condemnation of the plan.
  
  
• IMF: stop funding Honduras
  By Mark Weisbrot - guardian.co.uk : September 03, 2009
  By giving millions of dollars to Honduras, the IMF is supporting an illegitimate coup government the world doesn't recognise
  But it's looking more and more like the same old IMF on steroids. Last week the IMF disbursed $150m to the de facto government of Honduras, and it plans to disburse another $13.8m on 9 September. The de facto government has no legitimacy in the world. It took power on 28 June in a military coup, in which the elected President Manuel Zelaya was taken from his home at gunpoint and flown out of the country.
  
  
• U.S. Cuts Millions in Aid to Honduras in Support of Ousted Leader
  By pbs.org : September 03, 2009
  After meeting with exiled President Manuel Zelaya on Thursday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced the termination of millions of dollars in non-humanitarian aid to Honduras that had been suspended after Zelaya was deposed in June.
  
  
• "Make it Official-- It's a Coup"...
  By Nidia Diaz - granma.cu : September 03, 2009
  To date, despite the strong international opposition and resolutions of condemnation passed by important international bodies such as the United Nations, the Organization of American States (OAS) and other regional groups, more than a few have allowed themselves to be convinced by the mediation that Washington placed in the hands of Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, an action that was never accepted by the Honduran "gorilla" administration, despite the fact that it involved returning Zelaya to Honduras in as hobbled a form as was his enforced exile to neighboring San José.
  
  
• "Make it Official-- It's a Coup"...
  By hondurascoup2009.blogspot.com : September 03, 2009
  So says Howard L. Berman, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the US House of Representatives, in an op-ed published in the LA Times. Berman is among the group of US congress members who were sponsors of a resolution condemning the coup, which has definitely benefitted from the long summer recess of the US Congress.
  
  
• A sharp retort to U.S. military interference
  By Nidia Diaz - granma.cu : September 03, 2009
  The Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) categorically rejected the installation of U.S. bases on Colombian territory or the use of these bases by American troops, as President Alvaro Uribe insists, and demanded to see a copy of the agreement on the issue signed by the governments of Colombia and the United States.
  
  
• Cuba Expresses its Solidarity with the Honduran People
  By cubanews.ain.cu : September 03, 2009
  Cuban religious and social institutions expressed their solidarity with the Honduran people because of the coup d´état in the Central American country, in a ceremony held at the Evenezer Baptist church, in the municipality of Marianao.
  
  
• US ends some Honduras aid but does not find coup
  By Reuters - alertnet.org : September 03, 2009
  U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has decided to terminate some U.S. aid to Honduras but has not determined that a military coup took place on June 28 in the poor Central American nation, a source familiar with the decision said on Thursday.
  
  
• Honduras: economy could "quickly buckle"
  By WW4 Report - ww4report.com : September 03, 2009
  The Central American Bank for Economic Integration (BCIE) announced on Aug. 26 that it was freezing credits to Honduras as a result of a coup that removed Honduran president José Manuel Zelaya Rosales from power two months earlier, on June 28. The move is provisional, since the banks' governors are still considering whether to join the many multilateral agencies and foreign governments that have suspended financing for aid projects until Zelaya is returned to office.
  
  
• Ousted Honduran president recounts removal at ESIA
  By Madeleine O'Connor - gwhatchet.com : September 03, 2009
  Zelaya spoke to a lecture hall full of ambassadors, Honduran government officials, students and members of the media in Spanish. He gave a detailed account of his forced removal from power, where he was taken from his home at gunpoint and flown to Costa Rica.
  
  
• A Conversation with Honduras President Zelaya
  By c-spanarchives.org : September 03, 2009
  Deposed Honduran President Zelaya spoke about the political situation in Honduras and U.S.-backed efforts to negotiate a solution to the turmoil caused by a coup that had ousted him from power. He spoke about his plans to return and called on the United States to match its strong words of condemnation for the coup with actions.
  
  
• Takeover imminent of Honduras' Garifuna Community Hospital
  By Medical Education Cooperation with Cuba (MEDICC) - sfbayview.com : September 03, 2009
  Despite objections by local Garifuna communities, Honduras' de facto government is moving to take over the first and only Garifuna-managed hospital in the country, ousting its current staff. The facility – built by Dr. Luther Castillo, other Garifuna doctors, local architects and the communities themselves – is located in the remote coastal municipality of Iriona. [The Garifuna, descended from Africans who intermarried with native Arawak and Carib people, number about 600,000 on the Caribbean coast of Central America.]
  
  
• Teachers, Trade Unions on Strike
  By Prensa Latina - prensa-latina.cu : September 03, 2009
  Honduran trade unions and teacher training colleges are staging a new 48-hour strike, as part of the people's resistance unleashed in this nation after the June 28 military coup.
  
  
• To Defend Democracy, U.S. Must Call the Coup
  By Laura Carlsen - huffingtonpost.com : September 03, 2009
  Two months after Zelaya was forcibly exiled in an Armed Forces plane to Costa Rica, the de facto regime has outlived predictions amid unanimous international condemnation. Coup leader Roberto Micheletti told OAS Secretary General Jose Insulza, "We are not afraid of sanctions from anyone. We have concluded that this country can move forward without the help of you or other countries." Days later, Micheletti qualified that statement. He admitted that the one country that has the power to make the illegal regime feel the pain is the United States.
  
  
• De facto support for the de facto regime
  By mexfiles.net : September 03, 2009
  AID, the United States' Agency for International Development (read "agency for propping up U.S. client states") is still kicking in to support the de facto government as well, according to Peruvian and Cuban news reports.
  
  
• Zelaya's promise to return (again)
  By weeksnotice.blogspot.com : September 03, 2009
  After meetings in Washington, Mel Zelaya said that he was planning to return to Honduras if negotiations did not work out: "I am going to return to the country, to be with the people. I am organizing myself for this moment, which will come sooner rather than later."
  
  
• International banks suspend credit to Honduras: Zelaya's minister
  By english.people.com.cn : September 03, 2009
  The international organization of credit has suspended all financial aid to Honduras unless the country reestablishes constitutional order, the finance minister in exile said Wednesday. "There have made zero outlays; all the organizations have done the same, the aid for Honduras continues to be on standby till the constitutional order is reestablished," Rebeca Santos, who was accompanying the ousted President Manuel Zelaya to Washington, told local Radio Globo.
  
  

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