After reading this article in http://hondurasweekly.com, I had to respond. I’m sick and tired of all the lies that went around the world about Honduras before the truth had a chance to get its boots on, but six months after Honduras restored constitutional order and the rule of law on June 28, 2009, we still have people repeating malicious lies about the very best of people. And by now, they have NO EXCUSE!
There is lie after lie in that article, and I’m going to spell them out. It’s pathetic, and it indicts the credibility of everything this guy has ever written!
He felt it fair game to throw names at the defenders of constitutional representative government in Honduras, so let us consider that he is also open to the same fair play. I had to wonder about what would drive a guy to wish the worst pestilence to afflict Latin America in a century, upon one of its poorest countries.
Maybe the pollution in southern California has rattled his mind circuits loose. Maybe it’s his vitriolic disdain for Honduran immigrants that he shows in this article , that drives him to wishing a Communist tyrant dictator upon Honduras, one that would finish off the poor in order to finish off poverty.
If he’s so worried about corruption in Honduras, why does he defend the most corrupt player in decades of Honduran presidential history? His self-representation as a “veteran journalist”, covering “politics, the military and human rights in Central America is a false flag cover.
A perusal of his articles and sponsors on the Web show a history of anti-democratic activism. Such relative morality claims that theft by the poor is caused by poverty (under cover of saying poverty causes crime), while theft by the rich is caused by wealth. The fact is crime is an affliction against the victims of poverty, it is not a reaction to it. Crime is caused by a combination of selfishness, envy, fear, and moral faults, and that applies to both the rich and the poor.
The article follows the pattern of so many posted during this last year by disinformation agents, the 5th column operatives who enter into the fray supporting allies of dictators and tyrants like Hugo Chavez, condemning the defenders of democracy like Roberto Micheletti, national hero of Honduras. The problem is that the defenders of tyrants seem to have sponsors with bottomless pockets.
Let’s get started on the REFUTATION LIST:
#1.
Manuel Zelaya was NOT flown out of the country in his pajamas, a fact revealed in the trial of military figures involved, where the court was shown visual evidence of Mr. Zelaya’s arrest and removal from the palace in full street-ready clothing. ..The pajamas was a cruel trick to play the myth for the cameras, and the world media rushed to play the fools. It is difficult to avoid the suspicion that Oscar Arias would be ignorant of the farce of the quick-change artist.
Insulza stopped talking about pajamas after his first visit to Honduras. Why? It is said in country, where the affected people who know what happened actually live, he was shown this visual display of Manuel Zelaya decked out and ready to go in his finest digs.
#2.
Mr. Z. was NOT “abducted”, he was arrested as ordered by the court for a long list of crimes, including corruption, treason, fraud, the theft of millions of dollars from the Central Bank by fraud, and many more. Charges were added later as more evidence kept coming to light, such as the theft of government funds.
#3.
The soldiers that arrested Manuel Zelaya acted under *orders of the Supreme Court of Honduras*. Those orders did NOT originate from General Romeo Vásquez Velásquez. The order was issued at the behest of the Attorney General of Honduras, for the long series of crimes committed by the auto-coup president Zelaya.
At this date, saying it was a /military/ coup borders on an insane suspension of thinking faculties.
The Congress removed him June 28, 2009 by a vote of 124-4. The Supreme Court justices said it a valid constitutional succession.
The Electoral Commission recognized the ex-president’s actions made him ineligible to be president for one day more.
The Human Rights Obundsman declared that the human rights of all parties were perfectly respected.
All possible legal and constitutional entities with jurisdiction in the matter by any stretch, all agree. There is no other legal entity to appeal the matter, and foreign interventionists do not count.
Look to Hugo Chavez’ attempted coup in 1992 in Venezuela to find a real bonafide “military coup” action.
#4.
“Everybody” did NOT call it a coup. Of course the international reaction from the powers-that-be actually did us the favor of exposing how much coordination there is among government leaders around the world and the officially accepted news agencies, even in repeating disinformation and acting against a people defending itself.
There were some shining lights of reason that shed brilliant light on the bankrupt attitudes like the above-mentioned “reporter”. The Wall Street Journal had a columnist that told the truth, and Greta of Fox News did some fair reporting.
Americans, Brits, others, living in Honduras told the truth to anybody who would listen. Americans who actually live in Honduras who had voted for Obama were having fits of confusion over his support for the strong-man dictator wannabe Zelaya. Brazilian Congressmen were surprised to find such strong support for the interim government among Brazilians resident in Honduras. No doubt part of Zelaya’s discomfort was the disdain held for him by Brazilians in that embassy.
A shining light of truth from Honduras was from a housewife who had started a blog about gardening in Honduras, after events carried her into carrying the banner for telling the truth, at her blog: www.lagringasblogicito.com.
Brazilians who live in Honduras are another group who defended Honduras and the champion of democracy Micheletti, to the surprise of Brazilian congressmen who visited Honduras.
#5.
It was not Micheletti who refused to return Mr. Zelaya to the presidency, it was HONDURAS protecting its constitutional order. Having been removed constitutionally in a vote in Congress based on multiple constitutional violations and crimes. Micheletti was not legally competent to overthrow the constitution any more than the ex-president who had attempted an auto-coup.
La Union Civica very properly awarded Micheletti with a plaque naming him “National Hero”, a title which had already claimed ubiquitous recognition among Hondurans. The admiration for this man is unequaled in Honduras, because he was shown to resist corruption. It was revealed that he was offered US$3 million to turn the presidency back over to Mr. Zelaya and of course refused to sell his country. Early release of funds to his government from international agencies –with a wink and a nod– in return for conceding an amnesty that was not in his legal purview to concede, also failed to entice him to betray his oath.
#6.
The elections in Honduras on November 29, 2009, were surely the cleanest elections Honduras has ever had. International organizations from around the world, dozens of countries, supervised these elections with thousands of representatives on the ground there, who declared them exemplary. Some of those I consider good friends of mine and of Honduras.
There were some enemies of representative government who refused to send their usual election observers, but nobody can deny that these elections were clean, fair, and accurate. Supporters of the opposition candidate Elvin Santos enthusiastically endorsed the results, delighted to show the world how it is done.
In fact, Honduras voted approval for Micheletti and endorsed the constitutional removal of Zelaya by just being there. Zelaya told them to boycott the vote, so they voted in greater numbers than ever, and greater percentages than ever. Dozens of them have told me their vote was a declaration that they were free.
Despite the efforts of the ex-president and would-be dictator-for-life Zelaya, the people spoke.
#7.
The supposed objections of nine Latin American countries to the election of Porfirio Lobo are pathetic. The candidates were selected long before June 28, 2009, while Zelaya was still president.
In Honduras, elections are organized and implemented by and independent agency of government, meaning they don’t answer to anybody else.
Zelaya’s plans to stay in office are exposed by the fact that he cut off operating funds from the Electoral Commission. This shows that he did NOT plan on having those elections.
#8.
No matter how many people want to ignorantly call the actions by the Supreme Court, the Congress, the Human Rights Obundsman, and the military a “coup”, the fact remains that it was NOT a coup.
Mel Zelaya was running his own coup-established presidency throughout 2009, by presidential decree.
..He had refused to submit a budget because Congress would have refused to fund his usurper fraudulent re-election ambitions.
..He collected and spent tax moneys on whim, supplemented toward the end of his dictatorship with stolen Central Bank cash, caught on video.
..He called for presidential re-election (find it on YouTube), a crime that the constitution he had sword to uphold defined as “treason”.
..He was reported as condemning “democracy”, claiming it never did Honduras any good. (Meaning of course his strong-man Chavez-clone dictatorship would, but don’t look at what it did to Venezuelans and Cubans).
#9.
..Fact: The “non-binding” language was a fraud to give leftist activists like Mr. Gutman a cover, and Zelaya even threw away the “non-binding” language on his official gazette entry on June 25, 2009.
His previous activities were enough grounds for removal, but precisely that act, of removing the “non-binding” language, and his removal of references to the November date, constituted the acts that irrefutably activated the clauses in the Constitution that constituted in and of themselves his removal from office. This was one of the base points for the vote in Congress to remove him from office.
#10.
Zelaya is caught on video advocating presidential re-election. The clause banning re-election, and banning even the promotion of presidential re-election, were activated, and do not require that he actually verbalize his own ambitions.
However, again, this “journalist” who has supposedly written about human rights and military issues in Central America, should know, that the Honduran people were not deceived by such semantical chicanery.
His contempt for the intelligence of the Honduran people in these assertions should be considered an outrage by every reader of hondurasweekly.
#11.
The president swore to uphold the current Honduran constitution, and by admission for the aforementioned activist, wanted to “gauge support for a redraft of the constitution”. The Honduran constitution, under which Manuel Zelaya was elected, restricts all constitutional initiatives to the Congress, not the presidency.
And why “guage support” if there is no plan afoot to engage an actual overthrow of the constitution, as Zelaya’s mentor Chavez did in Venezuela?
#12.
Of COURSE General Romeo Vasquez refused Zelaya’s illegal order to oversee the plebiscite, instead obeying the law, the constitution, and importantly in this case, Court orders to refuse participation in this illegal usurpation of powers.
#13.
So of course the firing of Romeo Vasquez was illegal, and the Supreme Court ordered him immediately reinstated.
IS A PRESIDENT SUPPOSED TO BE ABOVE THE LAW?
#14.
I love this snippet from the rant: “most members of Congress ganged up on Mr. Zelaya”. Cute turn of phrase. Especially since on June 25, 2005, Zelaya led his own gang to the warehouse and illegally broke in to fetch his illegal forms for his illegal referendum.
(For which referendum he had the results ready to go, it turns out, in a computer-filled office rented with the State Department funds)
#15.
Hondurans are not “happy” with the status quo, but they were not stupid this time around at least to fall for Zelaya’s claim to act for the poor. In fact, the poor people in Honduras know that he was robbing the funds from the department that handles social welfare payments.
For those who don’t know Honduras, Zelaya was/is one of the wealthiest landowners in Honduras. Most of the poor in Honduras were not fooled by socialist rants, neither are the indigenous minorities and small farmers. Well-funded activist organizations that claim to speak for them only speak for their patrons.
#16.
Even the self-named “Resistencia” in Honduras has publicly recognized the popular support for constitutional presidency of Roberto Micheletti.
This writer (me) has relatives who received payments to participate in the marches for Zelaya. The payments kept going up as weeks went by, because they couldn’t get enough people to join in.
The supporters of the interim government included the wealthiest and the poorest of Hondurans. Parents in the poorest of areas where some teachers went on strike and made them teach again by threatening to take over the education themselves, for example. Many teachers defied their union bosses.
Money was spread all over to buy support. By the Zelaya operatives.
#17.
All the claims about “civil liberties” do not carry verifiable details. For example, when the United Nations panel on civil rights visited Honduras, led by the representative of the Venezuelan government (hello?), there was a TV station that claimed they were shut down, off the air. This panel repeated the lie, *in spite of the fact they were broadcasting that very moment*.
Their harangues would have brought immediate closure in the United States or anywhere else, but Honduras let them broadcast. It was like a radio station in Watts calling on all blacks to hit the streets and burn stores and loot and wreak havoc, day after day.
The Honduran military and police are recognized by the citizens as heroes today.
#18.
This leftist activist writer, who claims to be a journalist in the area of human rights. who let slip his contempt for Latins in general by his repetition of the racist epithet of “banana republic”. The rest of his article was a bit more careful.
#19.
Arrest warrants were indeed issued for the top six military commanders, but they have been cleared of all charges.
..The grounds for charging them have nothing to do with Zelaya’s official removal, which occurred as an act of Congress on constitutional grounds. The charge relates to Constitution Article 102 that bans expatriation of any citizen. This is the one and only legal basis anyone has for claiming improper actions on June 28 by the military.
But the fact is that the military in several other places are charged with protecting the constitution, protecting public order, and protecting the citizens. The fact remains, as came out in court on this case, that they were faced with a choice between plans by Zelaya’s supporters, including intelligence of foreign operatives infiltrated, to agitate a mob of unknown numbers (and operatives) to break him out of any prison. Or failing that, to simply send a mob to force some violence against them.
Besides, if you were Zelaya and somebody asked you whether you preferred prison or exile, what would you say? Zelaya has certainly spoken with his actions. He does not want a fair trial.
#20.
Hondurans overwhelmingly opposed any amnesty at all. Zelaya opposed amnesty in negotiations in the agreement that HE SIGNED, it was kept out at his insistence.
Treason, murder, and gross human violations have been committed by Zelaya, his Chancellor Patricia Rodas, and a number of others, including corruption of power, embezzlement and much more.
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