Honduras: The Ghost of Pinochet

[Judi Lynn]

January 18, 2010
Honduras: The Ghost of Pinochet

Roberto Micheletti, the leader of the coup in Honduras against the legitimate President Manuel Zelaya, has been awarded a "life deputy" title, among other benefits, from his colleagues of the National Congress. This immediately brings to mind the events in Chile where the dictator Augusto Pinochet also tried to escape justice at the mercy of a permanent senate.

This isn’t, of course, the unhappy initiative of a confused parliamentarian, but an elaborate project of those involved in the coup of last June 28th.

They are trying to stop a government which ignored their plans and started taking measures to benefit the Honduran people. Among these measures was the granting of land to peasants, in order to make them productive, a project which has been reverted by using military force.

Last January 8th, a group of cooperative members were expelled brutally from the land they received from Zelaya´s government. Humanitarian organizations denounced this raid as it caused the death of at least three people and several disappeared.

But coup plotters, besides reversing the domestic measures, are also moving fast to finish the ties of cooperation and solidarity achieved by Honduras. In doing so, the deputies have decided to abandon the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of the Americas, ALBA, suddenly cutting all the agreements which represented significant achievements for the poorest Central American nation and one of the most backward countries of the continent.

Pinochet implemented the same diabolical manoeuvre in Chile. The Honduran oligarchs and their allies of the U.S. extreme right, are eliminating, one by one, all the achievements of Zelaya´s administration. At the same time, they are trying to cover their tracks and to coat themselves with a mantle of impunity, even twisting the laws of the country and the Constitution, through which they have tried to justify their abuses.

This is the sense in which the world should interpret the permanent seat granted to Micheletti, who will also receive the protection of the state and a lifetime salary, the amount of which has not been revealed yet. This means that the Honduran people not only tolerated Micheletti´s abuses for six months, now it has to keep him for life.

It’s also necessary to point out that this position of “life deputy” doesn’t exist today in the Honduran law. It doesn’t appear in the Constitution or in the electoral laws or specific ordinances about the structure and operation of the Congress. It is as unlawful as the coup itself.

More:
http://intellibriefs.blogspot.com/2010/01/honduras-ghost-of-pinochet.html

[Derechos]

1. New video on Honduras coup

http://www.witnessforpeace.org/article.php?id=877

[Judi Lynn]

4. Looking forward to watching this video you've made available, Derecho.

Will be back this afternoon, and definitely appreciate the link.

I've watched their news on Bolivia at various times, and they are great.

Welcome to D.U. :hi:

[Derechos]

5. Accord Reached to Let Honduran President Depart

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/21/world/americas/21honduras.html?ref=americas

[social_critic]

2. I thought they had elections and the Zelaya opponents won

So it seems Zelaya´s ideas weren´t so popular.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Take the time to do the reading, research necessary to know what you're trying to discuss.

Speculations, pot shots, conjectures are worthless. Real information you have to gather yourself, and understand is all that matters here, nothing less.

Do your homework, just as the real DU'ers have, and will always do. Opinion based on crap is worthless. You should know that.

Don't try to drag serious people into stupid efforts to explain what you have deliberately refused to learn.

We've been reading and discussing Honduras constantly since the day Zelaya was taken at gunpoint in the mdidle of the night by right-wing scum, the same people who are going to go on trial in a staged show trial soon, and will be given amnesty by the same corrupt fascist maggots who arranged and ordered the kidnapping.

DO your homework, don't drag in here spewing ignorant right-wing idiocy.