Declaration of Latin American Feminists Against the Coup D’Etat in Honduras

Declaration of Latin American Feminists Against the Coup D’Etat in Honduras

Translation: Machetera

July 2, 2009

We, the feminists and members of Venezuelan and Latin American women’s movements, who are committed to equity, equality, justice and peace for the people of our America, repudiate the conspiracy and coup d’etat in Honduras, which has broken the constitutional thread and legal order in a criminal manner, curtailing the people’s quest for greater participation and democracy.

The armed services working for shadowy interests and retrograde powers which oppose the emancipatory process of the Latin American people, have delivered a blow to the most basic principles of democracy: civic participation and the right of the people to decide their own destiny. This action of a violent minority has gone against not just the legitimate President of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, but also against the courageous Foreign Minister, Patricia Rodas, kidnapped from her home by masked soldiers. Intimidation and repression continue to be exercised against the people’s movements, through the cowardly use of weapons put in their hands by the Honduran people to defend their sovereignty, not to support creeping political ambitions.

These actions aim to push democracy and the Honduran people, and all of Latin America with them, back to the times of dictatorship, repression against the people and aggression against human rights. We call upon the Honduran armed forces to reconsider; to put themselves on the side of justice and the people and restore the constitutional thread, and their honor as soldiers who will not accept being used as an armed gang at the service of minority political interests.

At this moment, when the real importance of democracy and the rights of the people to exercise their will are decided, we are on the side of women and all the Honduran people.

Alba Carosio, Elizabeth Acosta, Luisana Gómez Rosado, Jessie Blanco, Isabel Zerpa, Yusmari Vargas, Asia Villegas, Carmen Hernández, Carmen Teresa García, María del Mar Álvarez de Lovera, Diana Ovalles, Marianela Tovar, Alicia Villegas, Esperanza Villegas, María Azcoaga, Reina Arratia, Elsa Rojas, Elizabeth Pinto, Sara Puentes, Ana Montenegro, Petra Rebeca Rivas, Germania Fernández F, Ana T. Gómez F. (la guara), Diana Cordero (Argentina), Juliana Boersner, Iraima Mogollón, Eugenia Correa (UNAM-México), Lesbia Quintero, María Centeno, Anyely Marín, (Venezuela), Ybelice Briceño (Venezuela), Elizabeth Cisneros (Venezuela), Martha Roldán (Argentina), Esther M. García-Wimmer (Venezuela), Margarita Ospino (Venezuela), Teresa Ontiveros (Venezuela), Maria Isabel Aliaga Castillo, (Venezuela), Iama La Rosa (Venezuela), Magdalena Leon T. (Ecuador), Anais Lopez (Venezuela), Daisy J. Barreto Ramos (Venezuela), Daisy J. Barreto Ramos (Venezuela), Mónica Mancera (Caracas-Venezuela), Géneroconclase (Venezuela), Ariadna Alzuru Mogollón (Venezuela), Elba Martinez Vargas (Venezuela/España), Emma Martínez, Ana Cauwel, Vicmar Morillo Gil, Maryluz Guillén (Venezuela), Patricia Protzel, Candelaria Alfonso Pérez, Nereida Carrión (Venezuela), Lody Auguste, Matilde Iturria, Marielisa Álvarez, Alma Margarita Oceguera Rodríguez (México), Livia Vargas González (Venezuela), Susi Pola Z (Rep. Dominicana), Luz Elena Langle Gomez (México), Francesca Gargallo ( México), Andrea D’Atri (Argentina), Pan y Rosas (Argentina), Perla Prigoshin (Argentina), Lesbia Muro Lozada, Gloria Elena Bernal (México), Bertha Olimpia Chete Hernández ( Guatemala ICW/Latina), Cecilia Castro, Anne Marie Corolian (Francia), Maria Griselda LLoveras Castera (Republica Dominicana), Mertxe Gómez Llanos (País Vasco), Daissy Marcano, Eglee Pietri. Paula García, Jenny Londoño López (Ecuador), Carmen Castro (España), Soledad González Montes (México), Ciudad de Mujeres, Marieva Caguaripano, Amaylin Riveros, Gabriela Malaguera (Venezuela), Mirtea Elizabeth Acuña Cepeda (México), Mónica Jasis (México), Adelaida Salas Salazar, Patricia Gual Gamboa, Maha Tabbakh Sarraf, sociación Civil La Casa del Encuentro Buenos Aires Argentina, Estela Fernández Hermosillo (México), Elvira Villarreal Torres (México), Dora Barrancos (Argentina), Viviana Caminos (Argentina), María Denis de Dávila, Silvia Lommi, Hanne Holst Molestina (Ecuador), Ma. de Lourdes Pérez Oseguera (México), Lourdes Contreras (Republica Dominicana), Rosa Montalvo Reinoso (Ecuador), Alejandra Arroyo (México), Leticia Burgos Ochoa (México), Beatriz Garrido ( Argentina), Carmen Julia Gómez Carrasco (Rep. Dominicana), Silvia Matus (México), Rosa López Machuca (México), Maru Romero (México), Lydia Manini (Argentina), Citlalli Esparza González (México), Maritza Mendoza R. (Venezuela), Yris Martin Marquez (Venezuela), Cecibel Mejia Pluas (Ecuador) , Lety Mendez (El Salvador), Rosa Eliza Valarezo Palacios (Ecuador), Charna Furman (Uruguay), María del Pilar Troya (Ecuador), Edith Silva Alzolar (Venezuela), María Guadalupe López García (México), Lesbianas en Patlatonalli (México), Coralia Saavedra ( Venezuela), Gloria Tello Sánchez (México), Monica Soto (México), Enith Flores, Gioconda Mota (Venezuela), Elena Rojo Almaraz (México), Mujeres Trabajando, Marcha Mundial de Mujeres, Ma. de Lourdes Pérez Oseguera (México), Josu Mozos Aranguren (Canadá), Aliva González (Venezuela), Edith Pineda Arvelo (Venezuela), Norma Mogrovejo Aquise (México), María Rosa Val (Argentina), Alexandra Martínez (Venezuela), Luisana Hernández Melo (Venezuela), Blanca Suárez San Román (México), Ma Elena Calderon Castillo (México), Marcela Castañeda (Argentina), Mercedes Romero Díaz (Venezuela), María Eugenia Villalón (Venezuela), Rosa M. Dumenjó i Martí (España), Empar Pineda (España), Carmen Alquegui Lanas (España), Eva Németh (Argentina), Paula Castello Starkoff (Argentina-Ecuador), Olga Lucía Roldán (Venezuela), María Emilia Durán García (Venezuela), Plataforma de Mujeres por la Legalización del Aborto (Venezuela), Violeta Cangas Montelongo (México), Micaela Fernández Darriba (Argentina), Nidia Graciela Fernandez (Argentina), Silvia Beatriz Oliveira (Argentina), Elizabeth Chacón de Gutierrez (Venezuela), Aura Tampoa (Venezuela), Mariaconcetta Patti (Argentina), Carmen Colazo (Argentina), Mevia Maria Carrazza-Meyi (Argentina), Magdalena Valdivieso (Chile-Venezuela), Loreto Fernández (Chile), Marisol Lander (Venezuela), Lelis Párez Sanchez (Venezuela), Alejandra Rodríguez (Venezuela), María Inés Gómez (México-Venezuela), Ximena Erazo (Chile), Mía Dragnic, Socióloga (Chile-Venezuela), M. Cecilia Martínez Parga (Chile), Carmen Mercedes de Romero, Lucy Mirtha Ketterer Romero (Chile), Soledad Aranguiz (Chile), Laura Salazar (Argentina), Marianella Yanes Oliveros (Venezuela), Pamela Kluts (Bélgica), Graciela Greco (Argentina), Patricia Silva Soto (Chile), Marcela D´Angelo (Argentina), Viviana D´Angelo (Argentina), Dulce Corina Fumero (Venezuela), Olga Morales (Argentina), Amalia Mauro (Chile), María Pagano (Argentina), Ismenia Amigo Alvarez (Chile), Singénero dedudas (España), Carmen Castro (España), Eliana Largo Vera (Chile), Jacqueline Clarac (Venezuela), Zita Martínez Parga (Chile), Yaneira Negrón (Venezuela), Ana Elisa Osorio (Venezuela), María Teresa Espinoza (Venezuela), Alejandra Ciriza (Argentina), Casa de la Mujer Azucena Villaflor (Argentina), Masaya Llavaneras Blanco (Venezuela), Paulina González Sánchez (Colombia), Juana Camargo (Panamá), Viviana Rovira (Argentina), Julia Agular (El Salvador), Juliana Francis Smith (Nicaragua), Laura A. González D’Orsi (Venezuela), Ariadne Lamont (México), Gladis Gómez (Uruguay), Rosa Melguizo (España), Magali Muñoz de Pimentel (Venezuela), Olga Uribe (Venezuela), Miriam Mussett (Venezuela), María Egilda Castellano A. (Venezuela), Norkys Balbás (Venezuela), Olga Esquivel Tapia (Chile), Clemirde Franco (Venezuela), Magali Mendes de Menezes (Brasil), Carmen Alida Soto Castellanos (Venezuela), Carmen Mercedes Pesquera (Venezuela),Ingrid Salcedo (Venezuela), Irene Le Maitre (Venezuela), Trinidad Escoriza Mateu (España), Elena Paredes (Venezuela), Katia Piñango Pinto (Venezuela)

To add your name to this communique, please send your name and country to the following email address: feministasenmovimiento (at) gmail (dot) com

Micheletti: First, get the cartoonist! And the baby!

These are the people the putschists in Honduras fear the most.  They fear them so much they put them at the top of the arrest list.

It’s Allan McDonald, a Honduran cartoonist, and his 17 month old daughter, who were arrested at 3 a.m. Monday morning and taken to a hotel where they shared their detention with two foreign journalists and the Venezuelan consul.  The Honduran military hasn’t gotten around to sports stadiums yet, apparently.  Hotel does not equal food, in case you were wondering.  McDonald and his daughter were given water, nothing else, during the nearly 24 hours they were under arrest.

Meanwhile back at McDonald’s house, in the best Nazi tradition, the military busied itself tearing the place apart and building a bonfire for all of McDonald’s cartoons and his art supplies.  The news report that appeared at YVKE Mundial (originally from hablahonduras.com) follows:

Honduran Cartoonist is Arrested and then Freed

Hablahonduras.com
Monday, June 29, 2009, 6:54 p.m.

Allan McDonald was detained along with his 17 month old daughter, Abril, at 3 a.m.  He was later freed and found safe and well at home, although under the surveillance of authorities.

Allan McDonald is a cartoonist who had shown his support for the opinion poll promoted by the government of Manuel Zelaya Rosales, through his cartoons published in the Diario el Heraldo de Honduras, Times and Rebelion.org.

Allan communicated with Verenice from a hotel where he found himself detained along with the Venezuelan consul and two female journalists from Spain and Chile, following the coup d’etat where a group of soldiers from the Honduran Armed Forces arrived at his house in Santa Lucia, some eight kilometers outside the capital city of Tegucigalpa.  The house was ransacked.  Later, all of his drawings and art materials were burned.  He was taken from his house along with his infant daughter, who after almost 24 hours had not eaten and had only been given water.  They were not allowed to bring any belongings or money, only his passport.

This Monday, June 29, they were freed and he is at home again, together with his daughter Abril, both safe and sound.  He says that international pressure, from Rebelion.org and the Catholic church of Spain, were decisive in his liberation.  He was told that he had been arrested due to the curfew, but did not know the whereabouts of the other journalists in detention with him.

Machetera is a member of Tlaxcala, the network of translators for linguistic diversity. This translation may be reprinted as long as the content remains unaltered, and the source, author, and translator are cited.

A desperate, drowning Honduran oligarchy

Micheletti Entered Through the Roof, Just Like Thieves Do

Luis Alvarenga, Rebelión
Translation: Machetera

The de facto President of Honduras, Micheletti, entered the Presidential Palace on Monday, not through the main doorway but through the rooftop, with the aid of a military helicopter.  He came in the way robbers do.  The loot was democracy.  It was stolen from Honduras this weekend.  Rightwing business and ranching interests, together with the military, took advantage of a referendum called by the legitimate president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, in order to justify what they had longed for, for some time: the re-taking of absolute power.

The justification for kidnapping a leader, humiliating him and sending him into exile, the justification for going after the officials of an elected government and for re-militarizing Honduras is disproportionate.  Calling a referendum is not an attempt on democracy, as the Honduran putschists maintain.  This referendum was a simple opinion poll, without a binding character.  It was no kind of threat to the state of law.  Nor did it imply a departure from the Constitution: rather, it left open the possibility that Honduran citizens might consider whether it would be pertinent to hold a vote at the end of the year about whether or not to convene a constitutional assembly.  If the rightwing had cared to act in a democratic manner, it could have questioned Zelaya’s poll through legal means.

But there’s nothing legal about this.  To speak of a referendum, for the Honduran rightwing, is to speak of the ghost that stalks the nightmares of the Latin American oligarchy: Chávez, just like Castro before him.  A perversely elementary kind of logic: Referendum = Chávez, just as Micheletti’s accusation, made when he was still head of the Honduran congress, was perversely elementary.  Micheletti said that Zelaya’s referendum would lead to parental rights being put in the hands of the State.  To paraphrase a certain fascist, we might put the following words in the mouths of Micheletti and the Honduran putschists: “When I hear the word referendum, I feel like reaching for my gun.”  As is plainly obvious, the justifications are weak, but it’s a well-known fact that Latin American putschists have relied more on the argument of weapons than the weapon of argument.

Zelaya’s crime was to start from a conservative position and then lurch to the left, and through these lurches, arrive at a position beyond the traditional left.  Zelaya’s crimes against the constitution and the laws of Honduras were, among others, joining ALBA, confronting rightwing business on the subject of corruption, approving social measures, encouraging literacy programs and medical cooperation with Cuba.  Of course all of this carries a high price.

The interesting thing in this case is that this coup is taking place in a international arena distinct from the military uprisings of prior decades, behind which was the commanding voice of a Kissinger or other similar puppeteer.  Obama’s government has refused to recognize the putschists.  The scene in Central America is also different, considering that in the past, any kind of military usurper would have felt himself in good company.  What will Micheletti say if he sticks his head out at the SICA (Central American Integration System) under the reproving stares of Funes, Colom, Ortega and Arias, as well as Zelaya himself?

We’ll see if the Central American and Latin American community of nations will have the same ability to influence a situation where constitutional order has been broken, such as UNASUR did in facing the separatist oligarchs in Bolivia.  This will be important in order to avoid the putschists’ consolidation of power and in preventing them from continuing to punish those who oppose them, such as has happened with the cartoonist Allan McDonald, kidnapped by the military from his house as I was finishing writing this piece.  The home of the artist, who continues in the best rebellious tradition of Latin American caricature, was ransacked by the military.  His work has been published in Honduran media and in Rebelión, and can also be seen at his website: http://www.allanmcdonald.com.

Just as in Nazi times, his drawings were thrown on a bonfire.  McDonald was kidnapped, it must be added, with his daughter, a 17 month old.  McDonald’s case may be being repeated every minute in Honduras, with citizens of the widest variety of occupations: Terror has returned.

These violations must cease immediately.  Micheletti and his accomplices have wanted to hide the obvious: they came in through the roof and are destroying everything.  It’s the same rapacious oligarchy that for forty years – just like the Salvadoran military and oligarchy – has exacerbated the worst sentiments with the poison of nationalism, sowing enmity between the two people who amount to more than they want to acknowledge.  But now, neither Salvadoran nor Honduran society is willing to die or to kill in order to defend the interests of these oligarchies.  And from there comes the necessity to resort to force, in contravention of all logic, legal imperatives, and even the international community.  It’s the desperate measure of a dead man walking who wants to drag everyone down with him.

Machetera is a member of Tlaxcala, the network of translators for linguistic diversity. This translation may be reprinted as long as the content remains unaltered, and the source, author, and translator are cited.

Zelaya’s deadly game

Honduras: Is it Written?

José Steinsleger, La Jornada

Translation: Machetera

During the 2005 presidential elections, in plain daylight, the candidate Porfirio Lobo (National Party, conservative, government official) visited Washington’s ambassador in Honduras and proposed that the vote counting be monitored.

“I acted with restraint. There was a proven tendency toward a winner,” commented Charles Ford. Head bowed, the president of the National Congress left the embassy, accepting the facts: the liberal Manuel Zelaya, rancher and director of a private bank, would be the new leader of the poorest country on the continent after Haiti. A national liberal, “corrupt politicians,” … who cares?

Landmarks of the Honduran 20th century: in 1924 a United Fruit soldier, Vicente Tosta, was proclaimed provisional president aboard the U.S. warship Milwaukee; in 1944, a tyrant, Tiburcio Carías Andino, was proclaimed the “only candidate of the illustrious patriot” Franklin D. Roosevelt, and to make a long story short, in the 1980’s, politicians and military officers turned Honduras into a huge base of military aggression against the people of El Salvador and the Nicaraguan Sandinistas.

Then came the turn of the century, and things continued on as before. Although not exactly as before: 80 percent poverty, the “successes” of semi-slavery in the U.S. maquiladoras, record numbers of child sexual exploitation, and execution at close range of children and teenagers criminalized as “gang members”. Just between 1998 and 2005, the Casa Alianza de Tegucigalpa counted at least 2,720 murders of young Hondurans, between 12 and 22 years old.

At the same time, the Honduran people began to organize: marches and huge demonstrations against unemployment and miserable pay, tax protests against institutional corruption and a combative solidarity of the people, towns and lost communities who closed ranks with the Cuban doctors being harassed by the “professional schools.” Lobo, Zelaya. Branches of the same tree. For the election, Lobo hired Mark Klugmann (ex-advisor to the Republican president Ronald Reagan) and Zelaya signed up with Ted Devine, strategist for John Kerry’s campaign. Honduran businessmen remained calm. Filing its nails, “democracy” breathed a sigh of relief: what a great free trade treaty we’ve got with the United States!

And suddenly…the commander ordered…no, wait, no commanders. “Throughout the top and to the right,” Zelaya began to distance himself from the beautiful people. And he made the great mistake of asking himself why, if in the tourism brochures, Honduras is compared to Switzerland, the per capita income of a Honduran is $2,793 a year while for a Swiss it is $53,352.

Zelaya reached the obvious conclusion: seven million Swiss, seven million Hondurans. Honduras isn’t Switzerland. What if we were to make a socially integrated republic, in tune with the great Latin American integration projects underway?

Later, the president committed various acts of “high treason:” he traveled to Cuba, met with Fidel, and said “I come from the homeland of Francisco de Morazán.” He traveled to Venezuela, met with Chavez, and said: “I come from the birthplace of the Bolivarian constitutionalist José Cecilio del Valle.” For the umpteenth time, a speech that didn’t fit with the leftist manual: “I’m liberal, but socialist…”

The Honduran oligarchy and petty bourgeoisie could smell through this discourse alone, that it was heading down a one-way street. Zelaya quickened the pace: Honduras entered the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), signed oil contracts with Venezuela, faced down the entire party machine, raised the minimum wage, and deepened his alliance with popular sectors. In all, he did everything that Washington, Madrid and the hallowed Vargas Llosa and his type can’t stand.

Less than a month ago, at the historic meeting of foreign ministers at the OAS (in San Pedro Sula), the Honduran president said what no leader may say under the Empire’s nose: “We must not leave this meeting without repairing the infamy [committed] against a people.” (He was speaking of Cuba, naturally.)

The beginning of the end. At 6 p.m. on Friday, June 15th, in the Satélite neighborhood on the outskirts of Tegucigalpa, the windshield of the car carrying Zelaya was shattered by gunfire. And yesterday, in the early morning, Zelaya was toppled by a coup d’etat. Just one day earlier, the genius who heads the OAS said to the Mexican newspaper Reforma, “Despite what may be seen (sic), today we have institutions. And although they are very fragile in places, a retreat of any kind is unthinkable.”

Machetera is a member of Tlaxcala, the network of translators for linguistic diversity. This translation may be reprinted as long as the content remains unaltered, and the source, author, translator and reviser are cited.  This article is also available at Tlaxcala.

Cuban ambassador targeted in Honduras

A curious detail has emerged from the coup underway in Honduras, thanks to the Cuban News Agency (and thanks to Magbana for pointing it out).

During a press conference at the venue of the Cuban Foreign Ministry (MINREX) in Havana, Rodriguez [Cuba's Foreign Minister] also condemned the military’s violation of the diplomatic immunity of Cuba’s Ambassador to Tegucigalpa Juan Carlos Hernandez, who was kidnapped and beaten along with Honduran Foreign Minister Patricia Rodas in the presence of the Venezuelan and Nicaraguan ambassadors.

Note that Rodriguez does not speak of the Venezuelan and Nicaraguan ambassadors being beaten.  Just the Cuban and the Honduran, in their “presence.”

Now, Marc Frank, reporting from Havana for Reuters has a slightly different version:

Earlier, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Honduran soldiers took away the Cuban ambassador and left the Venezuelan ambassador on the side of a road after beating him during the coup. The Cuban ambassador was later released.

But Marc Frank has a proven tendency to omit certain facts and fabricate others.  So back to ACN:

Speaking over the phone, Hernandez said that troops with hoods on, led by a major whose surname was Oceguera, forcibly took Rodas and him to a military base in Tegucigalpa while they beat and insulted him as he refused to leave the Honduran top diplomat alone.

(Machetera might have phrased that differently but you get the point.)

Hours later, he was released and, with the help of friends, returned to the Cuban embassy, where all the personnel remains firm, like the more than 480 compatriots, mainly doctors and nurses currently working in diverse areas of the Honduran geography protected by the people, Rodriguez Parrilla added…

The Cuban FM also held the Honduran military responsible for the life of his Honduran counterpart Patricia Rodas and the integrity of the Cuban embassy and its personnel.
He also urged the international press to be objective in these difficult moments.

Too late for the last one, it seems.  The internet is already awash in stories blaming Zelaya for his forced rendition:

• Reuters:  Zelaya, an ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, had provoked a political crisis after seeking to hold a consultitave vote on constitutional reforms that a court ruled was illegal.
• AFP: It was an ignominious ending for Manuel Zelaya, the towering Honduran president, who came to power in his impoverished Central American nation four years ago with a raft of big ideas.

It’s those big ideas that’ll get you, every time.

• AP: Soldiers ousted the democratically elected president of Honduras on Sunday and Congress named a successor, but the leftist ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez denounced what he called an illegal coup and vowed to stay in power.

Cheeky, cheeky.

Where is Luis Moreno when you need a resignation letter?

See, according to the former Assistant U.S. Ambassador in Haiti, Luis Moreno, it’s not that hard to get a president to sign a resignation letter.  You tell him what to write, and well, aside from threatening to slaughter a few hundred or maybe thousand citizens unless he signs it, you don’t really have to do all that much.  Then you go on to dictate your version to the stenographers at the Washington Post and repeat it to any bothersome U.S. citizens who show up at the embassy later to ask questions, shrugging your shoulders about the surprising nature of it all and pretending to be completely perplexed about it.

You should of course, have all this happen on the way to the airport, preferably in the middle of the night.  Typing a letter and dating it the THURSDAY before the forced rendition is clumsy, and will only add to suspicions that the letter is faked, which of course the kidnapped president is going to claim, when a letter magically turns up three days later with his three letter nickname forged upon it.

There is a much better view of the letter available here.

Aristide’s kidnappers come for Zelaya

If you’re just learning about the coup d’etat underway in Honduras, where at 6 a.m. this morning President Manuel Zelaya underwent a forced rendition by Honduran soldiers and was flown straight to Costa Rica, Machetera has very little to add.  Except this.  At his press conference today in Costa Rica, Zelaya spoke of entering a plane where all the shades were drawn and he was not permitted to lift any of them, the better to remain in the dark (literally) as to where he was or where he might be going.  Just like the 2004 kidnapping described by Haiti’s president, Jean Bertrand Aristide.  The one thing you have to say for the CIA is that it’s totally consistent – lack of imagination is its hallmark.

An early AP report speculated that Zelaya had been flown to Venezuela.  This of course is total stupidity.  Shame on the AP reporters who thought it up.  Of course he wouldn’t be flown to Venezuela, where the problem would have been immediately recognized and the kidnapping forcefully rejected.  Can you even imagine the phone call to Chávez?  A six year old would know better.  No.  He was flown to a country where they knew they wouldn’t even have to bother asking permission to land.  At the same press conference with Zelaya, when Costa Rican president Oscar Arias was asked if he had personally given landing permission, the look on his face was one of someone who is being forced to eat something particularly unpleasant.  No, he answered.  At no moment was he consulted.

Of course the new decider, Obama, is just a wee bit undecided about the whole thing…waiting to see how the whole thing “plays out” while Honduran military men are beating the hell out of the Cuban, Nicaraguan and Venezuelan ambassadors and Obama’s man in Honduras, Hugo Llorens, has his cellphone shut off.

More to come…

Posada-Carriles on the loose in Tehran

Quick, pop quiz.

1. The young Iranian woman in this photo stolen from Ernesto Hernández Busto’s blog (where as you might guess, he’s drooling over the possibility of his own color revolution in Cuba) is:

a. working class

b. professional class

c. trust-fund class

Pop Quiz Part II

2. The potbellied thug in the green Ku Klux Klan hood behind her is

a. Iranian

b. Something else

Back from the salt mine

It’s a difficult job, but somebody’s got to do it.

And unlike Ernesto Hernández Busto, those of us who lack a check from Langley have to find other ways of putting food on the table.  But now that Machetera’s bank account is stabilized again, she can turn her attention to things a little closer to her heart.  Like reminding everyone (in case you missed it) that Twitter’s co-founder, Jack Dorsey, was in Baghdad a month ago courtesy of the U.S. State Department, for talks on how to reconstruct the Iraqi information network destroyed by Iraq’s occupiers, and (conveniently) promote Twitter into the bargain. 

Fr. Gerry Jean-Juste’s mighty heart

Father Gerry Jean-Juste passed away yesterday.  I can think of few deaths, particularly of people I have never met personally, that have saddened me as much.  As Brian Concannon says, “we can honor Fr. Gerry, and keep him in our midst, by continuing his work for justice for Haitians in Haiti and in the U.S.”  Here’s a video interview with Fr. Gerry, posted at the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti website.  Check the IJDH website for further tributes – more are surely on the way.