The sordid history of Lewis Amselem, Deputy U.S. Permanent Representative to the OAS

In 1989, the Current U.S. Representative to the OAS Covered Up a Case of Torture in Guatemala

By Jean-Guy Allard

Translation: Machetera

Lewis Amselem, the head of the U.S. delegation to the Organization of American States (OAS), who called President Manuel Zelaya’s return to his country “irresponsible” and “foolish” was denounced years ago for having concealed the identities of individuals, one of whom was a U.S. national, who tortured and raped a U.S. nun in Guatemala.

On November 2, 1989, Dianna Ortiz was kidnapped, raped and tortured by members of Guatemalan security forces, supervised by a North American citizen.

Since then, Ortiz has tried, tirelessly, to get the U.S. government to reopen the files of all those who were victims of brutality in Guatemala during the period of the pro-USA dictatorships.

Silence as a cowardly means of intervention

How Many Deaths Does Obama Need in Honduras? – Español

By Atilio A. Boron

Translation: Machetera

Last Friday the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in Honduras (CODEH) issued a report blaming the de facto president of that country and putschist leader, Roberto Micheletti, for the more than 101 extrajudicial murders and summary executions perpetrated from June 28^th to the current date.  The CODEH was created on May 11, 1981, by a group of Honduran citizens concerned by the serious human rights violations that were taking place in that country when Ronald Reagan decided to make it a platform from which the White House could launch its offensive against the Sandinista revolution which had just triumphed in Nicaragua, and the Frente Farabundo Martí (FMLN) in El Salvador, which was gradually winning the struggle against the Salvadoran army and its U.S. “advisors.”  As will be recalled, Reagan put John Negroponte at the head of that operation, a man devoid of moral scruples who did not hesitate to organize death squads and involve himself in the arms and drugs trafficking of the Iran-Contra operation directed by Colonel Oliver North.  CODEH’s firm struggle and its uncompromising defense of human rights did not please the Honduran government which only granted this organization official legal status thirteen years after its creation, in November of 1994.

Tegucigalpa, City of Fury

photo: Glen Hartjes

Tegucigalpa, City of Fury – español

By Allan McDonald

Translation: Machetera

Sunrise.

I’ve gone through my memories with a firm step and stopped at history’s corner, under the olive-green traffic light, so that the rush of military tanks might pass.  And so, I’ve remembered my childhood of lost lights, when I played in that garden of dissected flowers, under the incandescent light of God’s eyes, and I’ve begun to see my plastic dolls, that came in the Corn Flakes cereal boxes in that unfashionable time, when playing with little soldiers was the joy of life.  Today, seeing them for real is life’s anguish, the horror of their dreadful devastating eyes, their breasts encased in metal shells, like mythological animals of a Neolithic era already passed over by end times’ paleontologists.

The city of Tegucigalpa is a concentration camp, a city mined by hatred, a large village tangled in the boots that destroy the greening of hope with every step, teaching that it must never grow again.  Still, the flower of resistance sprouts from the asphalt of their twisted steps.

On every sidewalk, every street, every alley, the force of struggle against this metal monster is on stampede, shining in the shirts of the misery of this Honduras; hatred and utopia reside in every weapon, the body of crime in every green shirt, tears of love in every eye in order to rescue the country from the fake orangutans from a phosphorescent forest of inglorious political fireflies.

The traffic light turns red; now it’s time to detain the rotten iron caravans and to stop the dinosaurs from history’s rubbish heap; now it’s time to switch on that dignified red light that will put an end to the fury unleashed by this metallic stable that smashes the hope which according to them exists because they are convinced that the whole country can be summed up in an M-16.

My plastic dolls have fallen in the garden, lost among the piles of leaves and winter’s dry swirling litter.  I run to where my father is, so that he might help me.  They are my only toys, and the old man, who is reading a novela by Honoré de Balzac, whispers in my ear, slowly, like a secret from a state without a president: “Leave them there, because the plastic may melt with the morning sun.”

Sunrise.

Allan McDonald and Machetera are members 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.

Micheletti’s newest U.S./Israeli toy

Photo Confirms the Use of Long Range Acoustic Devices (LRAD) by Micheletti’s Troops, Against Zelaya

By Jean-Guy Allard

Translation: Machetera

Shock troops for the Micheletti regime in Honduras have used Long Range Acoustic Devices (LRADs), which can cause permanent hearing damage and other trauma, against the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa where President Manuel Zelaya is.

This is confirmed by a picture taken by a photographer from the resistance, during the events which took place in the embassy’s surroundings this week.  The photo reveals the presence of an LRAD, manufactured in the United States, which is capable of emitting an acoustic beam – an obnoxious sound similar to that of a car alarm but quite a bit more intense – which can cause serious damage to the hearing of the people toward which it is pointed.

At 100 meters, according to experts, reception of the LRAD beam can be extremely painful.  At full capacity, the LRAD emits a 150 decibel sound wave.  In comparison, the Concorde supersonic jet, emitted 110 decibel sound waves when traveling at full speed.

LRAD weapons have been frequently used against native populations by U.S. occupation troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

According to a denunciation issued by President Zelaya, these weapons are designed to cause a state of nervousness and anxiety and were delivered to the Honduran Army by Israelis.

On Thursday, while stating that there are around a hundred supporters at the embassy with him, he added that they have been subjected to “bombardments with chemical products and ultrasound waves that provoke illness and make people very nervous.”

U.S. experts say that any sound volume greater than 90 decibels cause permanent damage.  The LRAD even provokes temporary vision loss, according to researchers.

More worrying still, the photo reveals a technician to the side of the LRAD operators, wearing a police helmet and a mask, directing an undefined apparatus toward the embassy.

This Friday, upon revealing that the Security Council had met to “deal with the situation at the Brazilian embassy” Argentina’s foreign minister, Jorge Taina, confirmed that the Brazilian embassy and others “such as our own, are suffering ultrasound attacks and other disturbances.”

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.

The boundless hypocrisy of the Inter-American Press Association

The Inter-American Press Association (IAPA) Feigns Unawareness That Its Own Members Were Behind the Honduran Coup – Español

By Jean-Guy Allard

Translation: Machetera

The Inter-American Press Association (IAPA) that bemoans the “limitations” on press freedom suffered by media opposed to the coup d’etat, avoids recalling that two of the main conspirators behind the coup which led to the expulsion of President Zelaya from Honduras are also its main (and practically only) Honduran members.

Associated for decades with the CIA and located in Miami, USA, the IAPA has issued “denunciations” of the electricity cutoffs to Channel 36 and Radio Globo, through which they are trying to give themselves a legitimate image.

The IAPA criticizes the climate of “instability and restrictions surrounding the press” in Honduras “in recent months,” which in some cases, it notes, has led to “self-censorship.”

Just as hypocritically as the other press organization corresponding to North American intelligence, Reporters Without Borders, which attributes a new “wave of censorship” to President Zelaya’s return, the IAPA acts as though it is completely unaware that its own members are those who fostered the Micheletti regime.

Carlos Roberto Flores Facussé, the former president of Honduras (1998-2001) and the owner of the La Tribuna newspaper, and Jorge Canahuati Larach, the billionaire owner of the La Prensa and El Heraldo newspapers are among the conspirators who brought about the coup.

For those who may be unaware, the IAPA which aims to represent press freedom in America is nothing more than the cartel made up of the largest proprietors of communications media on the continent.  Created in New York in 1950 through a U.S. intelligence operation, it was a pirate takeover of the legitimate pan-American organization created in Havana in 1943.

The IAPA is so closely linked to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that its headquarters in Miami is named after its founder, Jules Dubois, a CIA agent and former U.S. military intelligence colonel who died miserably in a Bogota hotel in 1966, under hazy circumstances.

Over the years, this association of press magnates intervened in UNESCO in order to defend the control of information by private business, participated in the dirty propaganda war against the democratic government of Salvador Allende, and kept quite silent during the coup against Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.  In the meantime, it has never missed an opportunity to attack Cuba.

A real network of magnates from the corporate press, the IAPA manipulates information far and wide across the continent, in parallel with its radio and television stations which pursue the same destabilizing objectives.  Through the servile collaboration of its providers, the press agencies, the IAPA continually expands its attacks against Latin American leaders which are then taken up by its media affiliates.

In Honduras, the television, radio, cable and Internet circuits are entirely in the hands of very few individuals: Rafael Ferrari, Miguel Andonie Fernández, Rodolfo Irías Navas – all of them, primary “shareholders” in the Micheletti coup.

These millionaire communication media barons are such business professionals that some, such as Rafael Ferrari, also have their tentacles in U.S. chain franchises such as Burger King, Dunkin’ Donuts and Pizza Hut.

Instead of dedicating itself to stopping cold the fascist impulses of its associates Flores Facussé and Canahuati Larach, the IAPA went so far as to organize a “meeting” in Caracas with the reactionary Venezuelan press, under the pretense of “discussing the situation of freedom of expression,” but really to attack President Hugo Chávez all over again.  The IAPA and Venezuelan Press Group held their meeting last Thursday and Friday in Caracas, in order to discuss the situation of freedom of expression throughout the continent.

The adjunct Secretary General of the Latin American Federation of Journalists (Felap), Nelson del Castillo, denounced this IAPA maneuver, pointing out that this mafia organization “has fathered the derailment of democratic processes, in the name of certain liberties, when the only intention is to violate the rights of the people and keep them in the most backward political, economic and social [state].”

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.

Viva la revoluxion!

Skip past all the Juanes we-are-the-worldness and go straight to this – it’s the best part of yesterday’s show in Havana.  And look, X Alfonso loves MJ too!  (There are higher res versions here and here, but they’ll take longer to load.)

In Mexico…I felt like a human being

This moving interview with Juan Almeida Bosque, one of the very few remaining Commandantes of the Cuban Revolution, who died a week ago last Friday, was filmed 33 years ago.  Subtitles are, unfortunately, a little bit complicated to master, so you’ll have to wait a bit for those.  In the meantime you can at least watch the video with an English transcript in hand (thanks to Manuel Talens for the Spanish transcription).  The emotion transcends any language barrier.  The song Almeida mentions: La Lupe, sung by Silvio Rodríguez, follows.

Almeida: Well, Santiago, I was a revolutionary who was committed to my movement.  We’d gotten out of Isla de Pinos and we continued in the same kinds of situations for which we’d attacked the Moncada and spent 22 months in the Isla de Pinos prison, and Fidel had left for Mexico along with another group of compañeros, Raúl and others, and I decided to rejoin my compañeros.  I took off on a boat; I’d talked with Yeyé and told her to help me get a passport – she worked in José Manuel Gutiérrez’s firm.  They asked me for a passport, I worked in various ways to come up with the money to go, I talked to my old man – he was the first to give me money so that I could go – other compañeros, and we put together some dollars and we left; compañero Darío López, the Gallego they called him, and another compañero who died in the landing, compañero Cabrera.

We left, and we arrived at Veracruz, and from Veracruz, we arrived by train in Mexico City, and, I’m going to tell you something frankly and I’m going to talk about something that I have experienced all my life, and it would be dishonorable if I didn’t say it: I felt for the first time, in Mexico, like a human being.  I’m going to explain what that means.  At that time, you remember how blacks lived here, in this country (Cuba).  If you went to a bar, they turned it into a Club, so you couldn’t go in.  All the limitations, the lessons, the relations, it was a tough situation.  And in Mexico, honestly, in a group of compañeros and there in the Mexican capital, I felt as though I could move around like a human being, I went to the places I’d longed to go.  It wasn’t like here, where you had to first think about where you were going and once you got there, whether they’d let me in.  That was one of the best moments that I felt in my life.  Emotional and transcendental moments?  Those I’ve had throughout this entire process.  I couldn’t tell you which has been the most transcendental for me, nor the most important; everything has been moving, I put my will into everything, I’ve left personal things behind, everything has been on behalf of the Revolution.  I gave my youth for the process and my old age, well, I’ll continue giving those years for the Revolution as well.

Interviewer: And this old age is hardly upon you…

Almeida: Well, no, but I’m not that young either, next year I’ll turn 50 already.

Interviewer: Before Moncada and the Granma, what kind of work did you do?

Almeida: I was a mason, I worked for awhile in a masonry, other times I built cement forms, but well, more or less that was my…

Interviewer: And you had a talent for music.

Almeida: Yes, but that I had since the age of 14; what happened was that I started to write verses, then I saw that nothing happened with the verses and so I put them to music, and with music still nothing happened, because I went to the radio stations at the time, the CMQ, with my piano pieces to see if they had any interest and nobody was interested.  So the revolutionary process had to take place for me to be known, for me to know myself (wide smile) as a composer.  The most emotional piece for me is the one to do with the gratitude that I explained to you, that made me feel like a human being; it was dedicated to a woman in Mexico, to Lupe…(opening chords).  There I talked about things to do with her, and the things that had influenced me to write that song in that country.  And now it is dedicated not just to that Mexican woman, but to all Mexican women.  And to Mexico.

La Lupe, performed by Silvio Rodríguez

Evo Morales rocks Leganés

Evo Morales Closes an Old Wound – The Bolivian President’s Speech at Leganés, Spain

Introduction by Manuel Talens – English translation by Machetera

In chapter XVII of the Historia General de las Indias (1554) [General History of the Indies], the cleric Francisco López de Gómara described how when Christopher Columbus returned from the continent that years later would be named America, he went from Palos to Barcelona, where the Catholic Kings could be found. “Although the road was long and filled with obstacles, he was very honored and well-known, because they came to see him for having discovered another world and having brought great wealth from there as well as new kinds and colors of differently dressed men.” Just six of those men, strangers to old Europe, had survived the voyage. “The six Indians were baptized, since the others didn’t make it to the court; and the king, the queen and the prince, don Juan, their son, were the godparents, personally authorizing Christ’s sanctified baptism for those first Christians from the Indies and the New World.”

These events took place in March, 1493, exactly 516 years and five months ago, the same period of time it took for a descendant of those unhappy human beings to repeat the same voyage, this time to undo the damage, and this time not as a voiceless captive, but as an articulate president of a republic that at last, has broken the last bonds of colonialism. Evo Morales, an indigenous Bolivian Aymaran, has returned the blow to the stepmother homeland, in the name of all his brothers who suffered and continue to suffer the latest consequences of that enterprise. That is, he has returned it without rancor, with arms extended, yet speaking the truth loudly and clearly before five thousand Latin Americans from practically all the republics and a good handful of Spanish enthusiasts as well. The place chosen for the speech was clearly symbolic: Leganés is not the court of aristocrats giving cover to the rancid monarchy which still rules in Spain, but a crowded working class city of 200,000, situated within Madrid’s industrial belt. Last Sunday, September 13^th, the municipality of Leganés made its modern bullring– La Cubierta – available to the Aymaran leader, so that he might speak as he wished. And speak he did; in a tone that was always respectful, but firm.

Meet Pepe Hernández, CANF’s terrorist president

CANF’s President Admits Having Carried Out CIA Missions

Francisco José “Pepe” Hernández, president of the Cuban American National Foundation, reiterates that “just like me,” his friend Luis Posada Carriles is no terrorist

Jean-Guy Allard

Translation: Machetera

For Francisco José “Pepe” Hernández, the head of the Cuban American National Foundation, Luis Posada Carriles is not a terrorist.  The terrorist Hernández, who strives to advise President Obama, made this statement in an extremely long interview distributed from Miami by the Associated Press, in which he also admitted to having worked in different parts of the world on behalf of the CIA.

Pepe Hernández directly arranged the plans to assassinate Cuba’s president in Panama, in the year 2000.

It’s the second time this year that Hernández has acknowledged his links with the torturer, murderer and drug trafficker who, along with Orlando Bosch, planned and ordered the mid-flight destruction of a Cuban airliner in 1976, causing the death of 73 people.

“Public opinion presents him [Posada Carriles] as a terrorist, and he isn’t one,” said Hernández.  “Just like me, I always wanted to topple the Cuban government, but not terrorize the Cuban people,” he said.

Armando Valladares and the “Axle of Evil”

Golly, look at the time.  It’s mid-September already and everybody’s handing out prizes.

The blocked Cuban blogger and her frightful husband Reinaldo Escobar are handing out NED Polish funded laptops in their first annual Eeyore Awards (don’t apply unless you’re a Cuban who only writes about Cuba as a dark and gloomy place); M.H. Lagarde and his illustrious jury are handing out smashed Juanes cds and U.S. Interests Section shortwave radios (batteries not included) for the best homophobic comments and unsigned death and torture threats, (among other things), so now it’s Machetera’s turn.

But before describing the prize, let’s announce September’s prizewinner, because really you just cannot make these things up, and Armando Valladares has been waiting awhile.

Not long after Machetera and Revolter published their exposé about just exactly what Otto Reich and his protegé, Robert Carmona-Borjas, have been working on in Honduras over the last couple of years, Machetera received the first of a chain of ongoing spams from Valladares.  The spams were sent from the same people who were for awhile emailing Machetera several times a day asking her if she would like to download some kind of Michael Jackson clipart, proving a) the spammer chosen by Valladares is relatively agnostic about his clients and b) Valladares is equally agnostic about the reprehensible practice of spamming.

Valladares, in case you do not know, is the mad (and I mean mad) Cuban bomber who faked paralysis in order to gain worldwide sympathy for his release from prison in Cuba.  But don’t take Machetera’s word for it.  Look what Fidel told Ignacio Ramonet about him, in the book so beautifully translated by Andrew Hurley: