Coup in Honduras

Ctrl-F on the NY Times and BBC homepages right now returns zero results for "Honduras" despite the fact that the Honduran military has kidnaped the president of the country and flown him to Costa Rica.

The fact that he had been arrested and was being held outside of Tegucigalpa was a main headline yesterday on the BBC. Did not know he'd been flown to Costa Rica.

Here's the NY Times article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/world/americas/29honduras.html

LOL at this quote:

American officials began in the last few days to talk with Honduran government and military officials in an effort to head off a possible coup.

O RLY

“I am the president of Honduras,” he insisted at the airport in San José, Costa Rica, still wearing his pajamas

^^^ good first line for a novel.

doesn't this belong in quiddities and agonies of the ruling class - a rolling new york times thread

This is apparently the first apparently successful coup in Central America since the end of the Cold War. somewhat exciting.

When I was reading about Honduras in Spy School, I was struck by how the place seems like a total dump until you compare it to El Salvador or Guatemala.

exciting in a sucky way! I keep on telling myself that Latin America is done with this shit, but i'm overly optimistic.

in the ny post, the word coup is in scare quotes.

Good place for links and breaking news:

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/

yea this is fucked

but here's what our friends at the corner have to say:

Honduras's 'Mad' Mel Zelaya: Reckless & Dangerous [Ray Walser]

While the world wasn't looking, Honduras's left-leaning Pres. Manuel "Mel" Zelaya tried to trash every legal institution in his country In an attempt to open the door for re-election, Zelaya demanded a popular referendum. (Honduran presidents can't be re-elected, so Mel needs to change the constitution). When every institution from the Electoral Tribunal to the Supreme Court said no, "Mad" Mel stepped on the gas.

On Wednesday, he drove straight for the military, demanding they support his personal poll. The head of the armed forces objected to carrying out the illegal order. Zelaya fired him.

The next day, the Supreme Court ruled the firing unjustified. Zelaya fired back: "We will not obey the Supreme Court. The court which only imparts justice for the powerful, the rich, and the bankers, only causes problems for democracy."

Come hell or high water, el presidente was set on having his referendum. Then came Sunday, the 28th of June.

Congress, the courts, and the military joined forces to send "Mad" Mel packing. In a deliberate, bipartisan manner, they selected a new president to serve until regular elections in November.

Now, the Obama administration is in a pickle. Utopians in the administration believe the Organization of American States, Hugo Chávez, Fidel Castro, and the State Department can all work comfortably together to put Zelaya back in power and, thus, "defend democracy." But "Mad" Mel's penchant is for mob democracy. And realists fear a restoration to power would only produce vendetta politics and populism of the worst sort. A few souls in Washington are leery about promptly delivering Honduras into the eager hands of Hugo Chávez and company.

Warts and all, the U.S. should find a way to recognize that the new government of Honduras has preserved constitutional order and that Zelaya is the problem, not the solution.

Meanwhile my countrymen over here have got themselves in a real fine froth.

fucking cubans.

It's not a coup if you didn't like the guy anyway.

Honduras is now the most dangerous place in the world. More dangerous than Iraq or Afghanistan: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/10/08/prisoners_rule?page=full

Honduras’s products and people are entangled in a social crisis driving international pressure for an independent investigation into our Central American “trade partner’s” Banana Republic–style anti-labor tactics.

Several trade unionists have reportedly faced death threats in recent months amid rising labor and political tumult. In late August and early September, Tomás Membreño Pérez, a leader of the Union of Agroindustrial and Related Workers (STAS), affiliated with labor federation FESTAGRO, realized he was a marked man when he was tracked on the road by a car without plates and received anonymous social media messages that, according to the US-based International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF), “detailed his whereabouts and threatened to kill him, his wife, and his son for trying to organize workers.”...

Pressure is building on the White House to support an independent, UN-backed comprehensive corruption investigation through independent auditing body known as the Commission on Impunity (while Honduran officials are apparently promoting a government-controlled, much less independent investigative body instead). But if Kerry follows his predecessor as secretary of state, presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton—who we now know quietly facilitated the coup—the few voices of Honduran workers that manage to reach the United States may soon fade, as more activists are silenced for speaking out.

http://www.thenation.com/article/more-than-30-trade-unionists-have-been-killed-in-honduras-since-2009/

Jon Schwarz
‏@tinyrevolution
I hope reporters & Clinton fans use their Intense Concern for Latin Americans to find out who killed Berta Cáceres

Silvio Carrillo holds a creased black and white photo of a three-year-old girl, frowning at the camera and clutching a doll, and fights back the tears. The girl grew up to be his aunt, Berta Cáceres, a fearless human rights activist and heroine to indigenous people in Honduras. Last week, she was shot dead in her home, a day shy of her 45th birthday.

Cáceres had long complained of death threats from police, the army and landowners’ groups over her opposition to one of Central America’s biggest hydropower projects. She won the 2015 Goldman environmental prize, regarded as the world’s top award for grassroots environmental activism.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/09/berta-caceres-honduras-activist-murder-nephew-silvio-carrillo-interview

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/21/berta-caceres-name-honduran-military-hitlist-former-soldier

Berta Cáceres, the murdered environmental campaigner, appeared on a hitlist distributed to US-trained special forces units of the Honduran military months before her death, a former soldier has claimed.

Lists featuring the names and photographs of dozens of social and environmental activists were given to two elite units, with orders to eliminate each target, according to First Sergeant Rodrigo Cruz, 20.

Cruz’s unit commander, a 24-year-old lieutenant, deserted rather than comply with the order. Cruz – who asked to be identified by a pseudonym for fear of reprisal – followed suit, and fled to a neighbouring country. Several other members of the unit have disappeared and are feared dead.

that's completely terrifying

I met with CEOs to discuss the root causes of migration from Central America. We've secured over $1.2 billion from the private sector to invest in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. This will strengthen local economies and create new opportunities. https://t.co/pj1tpz56o1

— Vice President Kamala Harris (@VP) December 14, 2021

Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras? It's good to see the US government has, at long last, finally gotten around to intervening in the internal affairs of these three countries. I wonder what took them so long?