From Isis Obed to Walter Tróchez

[Downwinder]

http://www.quotha.net/node/654

[Peace Patriot]

1. Very interesting piece! Touches on the various kinds of liberation that have erupted in Honduras

as the result of the violent military ooup: liberation of art and artists, liberation of women, liberation of gays. It's as if the coup catapulted the country from the Middle Ages into a progressive future, which is now of course is being blockaded and hampered with brutal force. A deep cultural volcano has been unleashed in Honduras.

I can only express my outrage at the dead hand of the Obama administration, the State Department and the Pentagon, pressing down on the neck of this revolution. A hand without feeling or life--dry, crusted with the blood, dirty-fingered from handling money, nerveless, moved by greed and force. The junta uses the boot--or the machete, decapitating leftists. The US uses the dead hand that moves the money. It is sickening almost beyond belief. How can Reagan's reign of horror be returning? And yet, in the midst of it, LIFE springs up all over the country--rebellion, resistance, rebirth.

[Downwinder]

2. They say that, "Necessity is the mother of invention," and the U.S. and

the golpistas have created the necessity.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Hate crimes against gays on rise in Honduras

Posted on Monday, December 21, 2009
Hate crimes against gays on rise in Honduras

By Frances Robles | The Miami Herald
Walter Trochez spent a lot time at Honduras police stations and morgues: he was the HIV-positive gay activist who got the call every time a transgender sex worker was murdered on the streets of Honduras.

His phone rang often. Human rights advocates say up to 18 gay and transgender men have been killed nationwide — as many as the five prior years — in the nearly six months since a political crisis rocked the nation. Activists say the spike illustrates a breakdown in the rule of law in a country already known for hate crimes.

Trochez is now among the victims. Last week, just days after he escaped a six-hour kidnapping ordeal, an unknown assailant fired at him from a moving vehicle, silencing one of Honduras' most prominent voices in the gay community. Trochez had also become a leader in the "Resistance Movement" that demands the return of ousted president Manuel "Mel" Zelaya, raising questions about whether his murder was related to hate -- or politics.

The next day, the headless and castrated body of a transvestite was found on the highway near San Pedro Sula.

"Walter was afraid," said Reina Rivera, director of the Center for the Investigation and Promotion of Human Rights, known by its acronym in Spanish, CIPRODEH. "He was a leader in the Resistance, but we thought he was in a precarious situation because he was also HIV-positive and gay in a patriarchal, machista and homophobic society."

More:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/81019.html