Reply #9: I'm beginning to wonder if some editor told a cub reporter at AFP: write a story that makes the

[Peace Patriot]

junta in Honduras look benign, cooperative, reasonable, ready to compromise; twist the facts if you have to; squeeze them, milk them, turn them upside down; but make it positive on the junta; we want "upbeat," we want an aura of legitimacy; orders from headquarters; be creative.

So, cub reporter, having written many an article with this purpose for her school newspaper at her exclusive girls' school in Switzerland--articles that fawn over the richest girls in the school, and tell how they work as volunteers for their multi-billionaire daddies' charities and how well they treat their ponies--puts her nose to the grindstone and researches everything, and comes up with how benign, cooperative, reasonable and ready to compromise the junta is, to agree that, if President Zelaya will 'renounce his claim to the crown', and if he will endorse coup-rigged elections, and if he agrees to amnesty all around (the junta will drop their ridiculous charges against him, and he will agree not to pursue any charges against the junta for murdering leftists, beating up, jailing and torturing political prisoners, destroying opposition media and ripping up the Constitution), and if he agrees not to pursue the overwhelming desire of the people of Honduras for fundamental reform (a constitutional convention), and if he will never again try to raise the minimum wage or lower the price of bus tickets for the poor, and if he will renounce Venezuela and all its works (universal free health care, etc.), then they will agree, a) not to kill him, and, b) to let some of his cabinet members hold some of the lesser positions in a "joint cabinet" run by one of their frontmen.

Thus: "Zelaya and Mitchetti Agree to Create Joint Cabinet." Notice that it is not a signed article. And all is sweetness and light in Honduras. The junta is being reasonable. It's just that communist Zelaya holding things up, insisting that he got elected or something, and must be restored to office, and that "amnesty" is out for torturing and killing "terrorists."

Cub reporter also knows to ignore reports (and photos) of the military's sniper tower outside the Brazilian embassy, the brutal clampdowns on TV/radio broadcasters who oppose the coup, the suspension of the Constitution and all civil rights which has not been lifted, the impossibility of a fair election, the broken bones of one of the leftist candidates beaten up by the junta police, and the stage of siege at the embassy, whereby Zelaya and his cabinet are living many "Zen moments" with the Honduran military peering in the windows and following their every movement, and Zelaya & co. never knowing if this moment will be their last. Such kind negotiators the juntaists are, to provide these lessons in mortality!

Well, we'll see if this "joint cabinet" business turns out to be anything. AFP is as bad as the Miami Hairball at times, on Latin American issues.