More semantic juggling by Eduardo Stein

Pity poor Eduardo Stein, former Guatemalan Vice President saddled with leadership of the "Truth" Commission that no one in Honduras really believes will arrive at any truth.

As we previously noted, in his efforts to bend over backwards to please right-wing forces in Honduras that know they have everything to lose if even a shred of light is cast on the events leading up to and following the coup, Stein decided not to use the word "coup". Which is absurd on the face of it, as it begs the question: what is the event that triggered the need for a Truth Commission?

Now, courtesy of another excellent article by Marc Lacey in the New York Times, we have Eduardo Stein's own answer:

“In our minds and in the evidence we’ve gathered, it is clear that it was a forced expulsion of a president who had been elected by popular vote,” he said by telephone from Tegucigalpa. “What do you call that?”

Well, obviously-- coup. Or if you prefer the original Spanish, golpe de estado.

And that can be translated back into English as: irrelevancy. Which is what the Truth Commission has accomplished by not adopting the forthright term for the events of June 28, 2009.