Crying Wolf

El Heraldo headlined it "FONAC: Protests receive foreign influence," reporting on public statements given by the head of FONAC, the Foro Nacional de Covergencia de Honduras, Leonardo Villeda Bermudez.

Villeda Bermudez was referring to the protests by the teacher's union.

"There have been influences to sow anarchy in the country"

he said. He goes on to single out the way the protesters dress, wearing "Che" tee shirts and red and black bandanas, saying

"This is not from Hondurans, this comes from the outside"

Villeda Bermudez should have learned back in 1987 to temper his words, when his cries of "baby organ trafficking" cost him his government job.

On January 2, 1987, La Tribuna ran a story which quoted Leonardo Villeda Bermudez as indicating that there was traffic in baby organs, harvested for transplanting, in Honduras.

"Many families came forward to adopt children with physical defects. At first we thought they were decent people who loved children, but in time it was discovered that they wanted to sell them for body parts..."

(quoted in Tim Tate, "Trafficking in Children", in C. Moorhead, Ed. Betrayal: Child Exploitation in Today's World. Barrie and Jenkins, 1989, pp. 115)

He retracted the statement (El Heraldo 3 January 1987, La Tribuna 5 January 1987) and indicated he had merely heard unconfirmed rumors about such traffic, but the damage was done, and shortly thereafter President Azcona removed him. The Orlando Sentinel of January 10, 1987, quoted President Azcona's wife, Miriam de Azcona, as saying "We don't know why he said it because there's no documentation to support it."

Enough said.