Zero hour in Honduras

The gifted anthropologist and linguist, Adrienne Pine, has translated the latest dispatch from the Honduran Minister of Culture, Rodolfo Pastor Fasquelle.  Pine has been doing a lot of fine translations lately on events in Honduras, but her blog has many other interesting items too – check it out here.

The U.S. and the Coup: A Real Change of Course or a Just a Farce?

Rodolfo Pastor Fasquelle

Translation by Adrienne Pine

Kudos to the European Union, whom history will recognize for its consistent posture in suspending aid since the second day. We are moved by the solidarity of Mexico and of course that of all Latin America and the UN. Never before in history have all the nations of the world supported an overthrown government. Nonetheless, it escapes no one that the possible solution or the degeneration of the current predicament in Honduras depends on the policy of the United States, the only power with the material instruments to overcome the stubborn madness of the usurpers, if they wanted to use them. It would seem that a certain ambivalence is at play.

A modest proposal to bring the Pinochettis to their knees

What Obama Could Do in Honduras

By Atilio A. Borón

Translation: Machetera

In the face of the impasse currently taking place in Honduras, plenty of voices are rising up to denounce the White House’s weak response to the coup d’etat, which oscillates between verbal acknowledgments that Manuel Zelaya is the only legitimate president, and in contradiction, surreptitious validation of the coup through the presentation of an obedient spokesman for the empire, Oscar Arias, as a “mediator” in the conflict. By now, it’s evident that the categorical condemnation of the coup, formulated by the Secretary General of the OAS, José Miguel Insulza, was a break with this organization’s deplorable tradition and, just as surely, provoked Washington to quickly remove him from the scene, substituting the docile Costa Rican president in his place.

Oscar Arias’s upside-down world

Costa Rican President Oscar Arias had this to say following yesterday’s dog and pony “dialogue” at his house in San José.

“…I’ve said that words hurt as much as gunshots and that we should use respectful language.  I am content; the truth is that no Latin American can fail to feel satisfied after contributing a grain of sand so that the Honduran people might reconcile and that there be no bloodshed.”

Actually, gunshots are quite a bit more painful than words.  But maybe Arias gets his news photoshopped.  Or maybe he just doesn’t read.  He seemed pretty out of it at the joint press conference he did with Zelaya following the Honduran president’s surprise arrival in his country – asking to have the question repeated about whether he’d been informed beforehand about his unexpected guest.

Well, the rest of his speech is no better.  Go ahead and read it (“I believe the arguments from both sides are very convincing…”) and decide for yourself if Arias is really that stupid, or whether the Nobel Peace Prize is rigged, or both.  Afterwards, see the interview with the Costa Rican journalist who says Arias ain’t no mediator.

The hopelessly compromised Oscar Arias

“Oscar Arias is not qualified to be a mediator in the Honduran situation.”

Interview with Costa Rican journalist Carlos Salazar, by Chevige González Marcó

Translation: Machetera

July 8, 2009

After yesterday’s meeting between the Secretary of State for the Obama administration, Hillary Clinton, and President Manuel Zelaya, the news raced round the world.  It had to do with the announcement that the Costa Rican president, Oscar Arias as “mediator” of a dialogue between the constitutional Honduran government and the putschists headed by the dictator Micheletti.

In Costa Rica, various political movements and analysts doubt that Arias is the best person to facilitate the dialogue.  YVKE Mundial interviewed Carlos Salazar, coordinating editor of the digital newspaper Nuestro País de San José, in order to understand the reasons for the lack of confidence in the role that the Costa Rican president might play.

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…