Electoral coverage: Part one

At the New York Times, Elizabeth Malkin continues to provide some of the best informed coverage of Honduras in the English language media. Her story on the election lays out clearly the reasons many Hondurans are unhappy with this election, and think it is already stolen: the approval of re-election by a Supreme Court a majority of whose justices owe their office to the current president's actions when he was head of Congress; "reforms" of election processes that give that president's party more control over ballot counting; and the public and notorious evidence of corrupt practices by the same party in the last election.

Meanwhile, Reuters provides what purports to be a simple comparison of the proposed policies of the National Party and Alianza candidates for president. It's textbook example of how to make a selective case without seeming to have an opinion. Start with the characterization of Juan Orlando Hernández as US-friendly and approved by White House Chief of Staff John Kelly. The implication would be that Salvador Nasralla and the Alianza are somehow anti-US. That's not really the difference between the two parties: Honduran political parties all want good relations with the US. What the National Party provides, though, is a willing partner in militarization of policing in Honduras that some US policy makers think is a key to ending drug trafficking (or at least diminishing it). Hernández also has accepted US characterization of undocumented migration to the US as his country's problem, leading him to militarize the borders to stop people fleeing violence in the cities and drug-dominated areas.

Reuters pairs the pro-US characterization of Hernández with a description of the Alianza as supposedly dominated by former president Mel Zelaya, saying "many believe" Zelaya is the "true force" behind the Alianza. This echoes the line taken by the National Party in an attempt to discourage voters in Honduras from supporting the opposition. It ignores the reality that Salvador Nasralla is the Alianza candidate because his insurgent party, the Partido Anti-corrupcíon, ran strongly in the 2013 election. Nasralla leads his own political movement, and the fact that what were competing parties in 2013 have now joined forces is a testament to the common goals of Libre and PAC: removing power from the traditional parties seen as corrupt bastions of an oligarchy.

Reuters also reports that polls show Hérnandez leading. They don't identify the polls, or give a link. Three polling companies were approved to do polls by the Honduran electoral tribunal, a new practice that narrowed the data stream when compared to 2013. One of the approved companies is the consultant used by the National Party. Legally, none of them are allowed to poll after September, so any polls from these official sources would be stale. Private polling done by the parties might be available, but legally, they also cannot share any such information.

One effect of published claims that Hernández has an established lead, of course, is to give his election an aura of inevitability. That could hamper efforts already promised by both the Alianza and the Liberal Party (the traditional opposition, depleted in the wake of the 2009 coup and fourth in votes for presidency in 2013) to contest any hint of fraud.

There are already reports from Honduras of intimidation of poll watchers. Some international observers have been refused entry into the country.

TeleSur has a worthwhile infographic showing voting results based on exit polling. So far, Hernández is getting fewer votes than the last published polls, while the Liberal party candidate is drawing significantly more votes.

Obviously, we have no idea which parts of the country this exit polling reflects. But the present numbers show, again, the National Party falling far below a majority, with the number of votes going to the Alianza and Liberal parties together surpassing the National Party vote.

Because of Honduran law, a plurality of votes, no matter how low, will win the office. It will be important to watch how international media report the results: a minority win should not be portrayed as legitimating the National Party. And equally, the international press needs to cover what happens after this election, how complaints are treated, and not accept the deterioration of public trust as somehow inevitable.

Congressional Maneuvers

On the same day on which the National Party Congressional delegation announced it will let Juan Orlando Hernandez choose its Congressional leadership, the Congressional delegations of the Anti-Corruption Party, LIBRE, and PINU signed an accord to work together on certain projects in Congress.

Wilmer Velasquez, a National Party Member elected to Congress in November, told the Honduran press that the National Party Congressional Delegation had met and decided to let Juan Orlando Hernandez select its candidates for Congressional leadership. 

This is supposed to be a sign of unity, though he admitted there were several names being floated for president of Congress.  Velasquez told the press that Hernandez was in the best position to choose who was best for Honduras. 

Any nominees will still have to gain a majority of the votes of all Congress members.

At the same time, the Congressional delegations of the Partido Anticorrupción  (PAC), Libertad y Refundacion (LIBRE), and Partido Innovación y Unidad (PINU) came to a meeting organized by PAC's presidential candidate, Salvador Nasralla, and agreed to work together to achieve certain goals.  The full pact can be read here.

Election law changes are one of these goals. The allied parties will seek to mandate electronic voting to disrupt the traditional forms of election fraud. 

Also among the agreed-upon goals:

• a rollback of the tax package the current Congress just put into effect
• try to regulate the salaries of government employees 
• work to democratize the Congressional rules and reform the election law
• an overhaul the anti-corruption law

This does not mean they will always be working as a bloc with a combined roster of 51 members of Congress, but that they will work together on the specific issues agreed upon.  

Notably missing from either announcement was the Liberal Party, which declined to participate in the PAC sponsored meeting. 

Yani Rosenthal, current head of the Liberal Party Congressional Delegation (until January 20) said the party was between a rock and a hard place.  He faulted internal party decisions for the Liberal Party not having a clear position on the new Congressional leadership, citing Mauricio Villeda's call ordering Liberal Party Congressional Delegates not to participate in Congressional leadership discussions. 

Villeda's order came after twelve party members had held conversations with Juan Orlando Hernandez on the topic.  Rosenthal said that there were problems for the party no matter what it does.  If they ally with the National Party in Congress, for many that would be a death knell for the party.  An alliance that includes LIBRE would mean joining with a party that damaged the Liberal Party.  Another possibility would be to not ally with any party, but according to Rosenthal that, like all the other possibilities, would mean rejecting some of the current party values in order to maintain viability as a political party. 

Separately, Manuel Zelaya Rosales announced he was stepping down as coordinator of LIBRE as part of the separation of the Frente Nacional de Resistencia and LIBRE.  He has occupied this office since July 2010.  Zelaya will remain part of the Frente, and is part of LIBRE's new Congressional Delegation.

All of these moves are crystallizing the new political landscape in Honduras, against a background of furious legislative action by the current, National-party dominated, lame-duck congress, intended to give Juan Orlando Hernández as much as possible before he faces a Congress that will not automatically do what he wants.

Zelaya Case Update

The judge Claudio Aguilar of the Unified Criminal Court of Francisco Morazan has recused himself and his court from the case brought by the Public Prosecutor against Manuel Zelaya Rosales. The judge ruled that because Zelaya was representative to Parlacen, he was a high government official and that his court did not have jurisdiction as these cases under Honduran law must be tried by the Supreme Court.

This reading of Honduran law agrees with our analysis, that of the UCD, and others who were surprised the case was continuing to be heard in a lower level criminal court.

This effectively discards the motions for nullification placed by the public defenders he appointed for Zelaya.

A spokesperson for the court said that by the middle of next week the Supreme Court would appoint a judge to hear the case.

The public defenders said they would remain on the case.

Amnesty or Prosecution?

The press communique by Rodolfo Pastor Fasquelle that we translated has been getting some attention in the broader press. This is understandable because it shines light inside the dark room where negotiations have been underway to solve the problem that Jose Manuel Zelaya presents for Porfirio Lobo Sosa.

In the press communique, Pastor Fasquelle noted that the Lobo Sosa representative was unable to accept positions on which the Zelaya camp and OAS Secretary General Insulza were in agreement. One of the more substantive differences: despite abundant public rhetoric claiming that Zelaya can come back to Honduras any time without fear of persecution, the Lobo Sosa representative was demanding that he face prosecution on the remaining charges against him.

Just what those pending charges might be is somewhat unclear. The amnesty the Honduran Congress passed in January to protect participants in the coup also should extend to Zelaya, at least for those legal accusations covered by the law.

(Whether anyone should have amnesty is a separate issue; it is arguable that the damage widespread impunity does is not worth the marginal gain of voiding the most obvious political prosecutions.)

Amnesty was specifically granted for "political" crimes, but explicitly not for "common" crimes committed.

Which brings us to the interesting question of precisely what justice Humberto Palacios actually did. As reported by the Associated Press, Palacios dismissed two pending "abuse of power" charges because in his view they are covered by the amnesty. According to AP,

Zelaya still faces charges of fraud, usurping other institutions' powers and falsifying documents.

An exclusive interview with Palacios in Honduras' La Tribuna on July 23 examined the role of the judge. The interviewer worked very hard to insinuate that there was something funny going on in having the judge in the case, who was supposed to be on vacation, rule on the amnesty question.

So it is of more than a little interest that today's Heraldo carries a story saying that there is significant disagreement about how amnesty applies to Zelaya between two judges: Humberto Palacios and Elvira Meza.

As the story concisely puts it

One gave him the benefit of the amnesty, but another justice asserts that this is not legal.

According to Meza, Palacios acted irregularly, since the case was still in process (in the Court of Appeals, apparently before her). Hence this purported amnesty for abuse of authority is not, in fact, a fact. Again, quoting El Heraldo:

Elvira Meza declared without value or effect the judgment issued by Palacios, for which reason the orders of capture against the ex-officials remain in effect.

Needless to say, this contradiction undermines any attempt to spin the odd, independent, and now challenged action by one justice as somehow clearing the way for Zelaya to return to Honduras.

El Heraldo quotes a representative of the Public Persecutor who took the opportunity to reiterate that the justices are applying the congressional amnesty and that

In the same, justices were authorized to apply in their own office, or as well at the request on the parties (the Prosecutor or the defense) the amnesty that had been decreed for the political crimes in reference. He noted that the prosecutors should be aware that the amnesty applied only to the purely political crimes and not to those of corruption.

Translation: the Public Prosecutor still intends to try ex-President Zelaya while ignoring the actions of participants in the coup, by defining as "corruption" those charges he wishes to pursue.

Rigoberto Espinal Irias, described as the legal advisor of the Attorney General, has since tried to minimize the conflict between Palacios and Meza, saying it is part of "an internal problem". According to Espinal, judges can apply the amnesty to accusations of political crimes and those common crimes linked to political crimes.

Espinal Irias concludes that the amnesty was correctly applied to the accusations of a broader group of crimes than simply abuse of power: he would include crimes "against the form of government", treason, and abuse of authority. This effectively would wipe out the charges supposedly filed secretly by the Public Prosecutor on Friday June 26, 2009 (which, it has been argued, actually were filed later than the date they carry).

Espinal, like the others offering opinions, says that Zelaya and his officials must face charges of diversion of funds (for using government funds from another source to pay for costs of the cuarta urna after the armed forces kept the funds they were given for that purpose, then refused to undertake the activities for which the funds were approved).

Wonder if the AP, and venues like the Washington Post that eagerly published the original story, will print a follow-up acknowledging that Zelaya has not, in fact, been extended the amnesty so easily granted to all the actual perpetrators of the coup? We won't be holding our breath.

"Conversations in Washington by the Representative of Zelaya, Rodolfo Pastor F."

Vos el Soberano today posted a press release under the above title that reads as follows:

The Secretary General of the OAS, Jose Insulza, having solicited that he send his representative to talk with the OAS High Level Commission formed by the past Assembly of the organization to analyze the problem generated in Honduras by the coup d'Etat of 28-06-09, the ex-President Manuel Zelaya R. ordered me to present myself in Washington. There I attended two meetings between July 5 and 8, one meeting with the Commission as a whole and the other with the Juridical Commission of advisors, that had previously visited Honduras.

I explained our position in the meeting with the Commission of ambassadors, which is the same as the declarations of the OAS and of the authorities of almost all the governments represented in it, which is that, in Honduras on the 28th of June of 2009, there was produced a coup d'etat, underlining that, in it, there had participated in coordination the military, the Congress of that time (which accepted a falsified resignation before naming its president as Head of State), and the present Supreme Court that, in the days following the coup, generated a series of exculpatory documents for the military and a political persecution with a series of accusations against President Zelaya and against various cabinet ministers. We argued that for the present government to be able to be recognized in the assembly as the legitimate representative of our country, it would have to fulfill the demands subscribed to in the proposal of the OAS, and sustained in its democratic charter, otherwise leaving this crime unpunished as a disastrous precedent and abdication of the principles of the organization.

The conversations with Secretary Insulza coincided in

1. Arranging for the end of the judicial prosecution of ex-President Zelaya and his collaborators.

2. Commiting the present government to strengthen the Human Rights Prosecutor.

3. Proposing international accompaniment in the fight against impunity.

4. Enlargening the Truth Commission formed by the government, with a representative to be proposed by the opposition; and

5. Convening a broad National Dialogue, with genuine representation of the opposition and with an open agenda to study the right to the Constitutional Assembly process.

Secretary Insulza informed me without details that President Lobo had sent his own representative but he didn't accept that agreed to [above]. That they were additionally accusing the ex-President, of a payment for publicity and for the investment to finance the logistics of the poll about the Cuarta Urna, which had been indispensable in view of the fact that the military did not return the money they were given for that purpose, when they rebelled two days before the Coup. That is to say that the present government, elected without opposition, under a State of Emergency and without the observation of the OAS nor any official international organization demands that ex-President Zelaya should submit himself, for these accusations, to the justice of the perpetrators and sponsors of the coup that was carried out against him. That they would give him the grace to permit himself to defend himself outside the jail. Secretary Insulza did not explain what would be the proposal for international accompaniment for the struggle against the impunity that the Coup participants enjoy and explained that President Lobo wished that it would be the official Truth Commission itself that would incorporate a representative of the opposition.

It was expressed to the Secretary and the Commission our agreement that, by different procedures, the same end could be arrived at and that what worried us, above all, was the state of defenselessness of Hondurans against the everyday violations and crimes against humanity, certified by its own Commission on Human Rights, about which they were not ruling given that-- due to the complicity of the Public Prosecutor and the judiciary in the coup-- the conditions to put a brake on these abuses or deduce responsibilities did not exist. But he was reminded that the agreement was the end of persecution.

The jurists that have studied the accusations assured us that they have progressed in the discussion with the Prosecutor and the Court in Honduras, but they repeated that, for formality's sake, the President would have to present himself before this judiciary, to ask that it grant him amnesty, and submit himself to trial for the two remaining accusations. To them as well it was explained that the ex-President could submit himself to justice for any accusation made before the day of the coup or before any international judicial body that would offer the conditions of objectivity, but he would not humiliate himself before the court that had administered him the coup d'etat. Later, and at the end of our visit and in view of the fact that agreement had not advanced, we presented before the High Commission a Position Paper, prepared personally by ex-President Manuel Zelaya, today coordinator of the National Resistance Front, demanding that the OAS act in congruence with its Democratic Charter (whose substance is the right of the people), with its own reiterated declarations, and with its commitment not to recognize the government as long as the situation created by the coup is not reversed and full rights have not been restored.

Since then Secretary General Insulza has traveled throughout Latin America lobbying its governments to accept Honduras by majority vote, dismissing those that oppose it, and has lobbied recently in the meeting of SICA in El Salvador in which, despite the fact that the norms of the organization demand a total consensus, in the absence of a country and of three of the presidents, President Funes announced the reincorporation of Porfirio Lobo in the System and solicited, as had been announced many times that he would for pragmatism, the reincorporation of its representative in the OAS.

Refounding the Liberal Party

On July 14, Vos el Soberano published a brief note under the headline "When they expel the dictator then we can talk".

It reported the content of a message sent by ex-president José Manuel Zelaya Rosales to the Consejo Central Ejecutivo (Central Executive Committee) of the Liberal Party.

In it, Zelaya reportedly said he would talk with that group when it fulfills three requirements:

• when “the Central Committee announces against the Coup”

• when "They expel the dictator [Roberto Micheletti]”

• when “They demand justice for the intellectual and material authors of the 166 assassinations [by repressive organs of State on account of the Coup]. ”

Zelaya's communique was one response to a proposal by Elvin Santos Lozano, president of the Central Executive Committee (and father of the failed 2009 presidential candidate of the party), that Zelaya return to Honduras and rejoin the Liberal Party in order to unify it (and thus save it). Seems like a rough judgment on his own kid.

As an editorial by Radio Progreso, also available on Vos el Soberano, notes, Hondurans find themselves

with a situation unequalled in the political history of Honduras: a president who was overthrown by a coup d'Etat and sent into exile, and, after one year, is reclaimed by two antagonistic projects and political forces. The president that was proscribed, sent into exile and considered as the cause of the major division and polarization in the life of the country, now his return appears to be fundamental to the exit from the institutional stagnation in which we find ourselves and to make possible national reconciliation.

We have previously explained the outcome of the Tocoa Assembly of the Frente, in which Liberals in resistance were unable to seat additional delegates and withdrew from the provisional governance, explicitly without withdrawing from the Frente itself. This led to a curious sequence of actions by the Liberal Party itself.

Leadership of the Liberal Party came out shortly after the end of the Tocoa assembly of the Frente with an open invitation to the Liberals in resistance to reintegrate in the party. This explicitly included an invitation to Zelaya to return and organize a political "movement" within the party.

First, Marlon Lara, ex-campaign director for the party, currently second vice president of Congress, said the Tocoa meeting showed that the Liberals in Resistance should return to the party and contribute to its unification. Lara

exhorted them to collaborate with the initiative of the Consejo Central Ejecutivo to procure granitic unity of the party for which a commission will travel to the Dominican Republic to negotiate with the overthrown president Manuel Zelaya.

At about the same time, members of the Liberal Party held what was reported variously as a unity forum or a gathering of Zelaya supporters, the latter the way El Heraldo headlined their article. It was said to bring together "a part of the directorship of the Liberal resistance, ex-officials of the deposed president Zelaya, and presidential aspirants", implying that these are all categories of Liberal Party members with reasons to oppose the current governance of the party.

At this forum, Eduardo Maldonado, ex presidential contender, said that "the unity of his party passes by the return without conditions of ex president Manuel Zelaya." Esteban Handal Pérez, another "pre-candidate" for president, called for a special party convention to vote in new leadership.

Edmundo Orellana, who reportedly also participated,

insisted on the need for the authorities of his party to convene, as quickly as possible, internal elections (not primaries) to change all the authorities: central, departmental, and municipal.

As the article notes, the majority of those who would be removed from office belong to one of three major movements within the Liberal Party: those headed by Elvin Santos, Roberto Micheletti and Eduardo Maldonado. Maldonado volunteered to have the occupants of the two seats his movement controls on the Central Executive resign. No one from the Santos or Micheletti camp attended.

Also present and speaking at the forum: Jaime Rosenthal, perennial presidential aspirant and owner of El Tiempo.

According to La Tribuna, all the speakers called for the immediate and unconditional return of Zelaya, hoping he will take a place as a "standard-bearer" in the party, and most of the speakers at the forum endorsed a national constitutional assembly as a the only way to institute social and economic changes. The exceptions to the latter call: Jaime Rosenthal and Esteban Handal

As we write, the Central Executive Committee is reportedly writing a letter to ask whether Zelaya would receive a delegation to talk things over in the Dominican Republic. As reported by El Heraldo, "some political sectors" speculate that Zelaya will receive a delegation if the Central Executive Committee calls the "events of June 28" a coup:

The Central Executive [Committee] has not said if what occurred the 28th of June was or was not a coup d'Etat nor has it condemned nor applauded the situation of which Zelaya, member of the Liberal Party, was victim.

Elvin Santos Lozano ducked the question, saying that the Truth Commission will decide what happened. Not too promising in terms of meeting Zelaya's stated condition. And of course, no reference to the requirement that Roberto Micheletti, honored senior Liberal Party member, be expelled.

Tiempo, in its reporting on the forum by dissident Liberal Party members, underlined that members of the present Central Executive Committee "do not enjoy the sympathy and backing of the majority of the Liberals".

That was inadvertently underlined when presidential hopeful Handal helpfully predicted that the proposed commission to Zelaya would be a fiasco.

Victor Sierra, a director of the Liberal Party movement M-Lider (Movimiento Liberal Democrático Revolucionario), probably had the single most evocative comment.

As reported in Tiempo, he proposed to "refundar el Partido Liberal": refound the Liberal Party.

Now, where have we heard something like that before?

Edmundo Orellana: Return

On July 12, La Tribuna published a commentary by Edmundo Orellana on the topic of the possibility José Manuel Zelaya Rosales could return to Honduras.

Since that has now been framed as the first goal of the Frente de Resistencia, it is worth reviewing what this legal scholar reminds us about: the difficulties that stand in the way of this return.

Contrary to assertions that it is just a matter of buying a plane ticket, the events of the coup and de facto regime are substantial obstacles to resolution: Orellana notes that the Public Prosecutor insists on maintaining a legal case open that should have been covered by the amnesty passed by the National Congress. He notes that the judicial branch and much of the Legislature is still filled with coup participants. He reviews the aggression that Zelaya was personally subjected to, and suggests that without guarantees of security from the government, returning is not feasible.

Return

Edmundo Orellana

The return of ex-President Zelaya Rosales is the news of the moment. But the return to the homeland will not be easy.

He was expelled from his country after his home had been outraged with a raid outside the hours that the Constitution permits, accompanied by machine gun bursts, while his young son listened, hidden in fear of being victim of the bestial action, everything they did to reduce his father to impotence. All this operation, worthy of an episode of a formal war, was designed against a single man that barely three and a half years before had been voted by the Honduran people as their new President.

Later it was made known that the Public Prosecutor had filed an action against the President and that a judge named by the Supreme Court of Justice from among its members, after declaring the secrecy of the process, had issued an order of capture against him and to put it into effect ordered, against the Constitution of the Republic, that the Armed Forces carry it out, alleging that the police could be inclined toward the President, so that they would not be trustworthy. Nonetheless, they, immediately, displayed a persecution against those who protested in favor of the President with a cruelty that the population understood had been in the 80s. The accusations against the police for the violation of human rights of those who protested against the coup d'Etat came from the organizations that make up the inter-American system of Human Rights and surely our country will be newly condemned to the payment of large amounts of money in compensation to the victims, and those truly responsible will enjoy impunity.

The tortures to which President Zelaya, his family and those accompanying him in the Brazilian Embassy were subjected, using high-end technology, putting at risk the life of all those encountered there, stripped before the world the hatred that the conspirators had for Zelaya and the savagery of which the dictatorship and its accomplices was capable.

The National Congress, the system of justice and the organizations responsible for the national defense and public security participated directly in what today is an undeniable fact: a Coup d'Etat. Even the same Chief of State Lobo Sosa has admitted this and more than one functionary of his government has asked pardon for this crime against democracy, the Republic, and history.

The bias of the system is placed in evidence when it leaked out that of the prosecutions launched against the President only one, apparently, is still pending, and, despite the fact that it treats evidently of an act that, in any case, will end up benefited by the amnesty, they insist stubbornly on maintaining it in effect.

Very little has changed institutionally in the country since the President was overthrown. Only the Executive Power and part of the Legislative has been renewed. So that his return in these conditions does not offer any guarantee for his personal security and the tranquility of his family.

Nonetheless, his return is essential to commence national reconciliation. The very political stability of the country depends on the return to the country of Zelaya. It is, then, a question of State. It should guarantee, in consequence, that he will enjoy the protection that his situation so special demands. How to accomplish this, is the responsibility and priority of the first order of the present government.

The Resistance Front presents its Executive Committee

[On the road, so without comment, extracts from the recent post announcing the outcome of the National Assembly in Tocoa; please see the official website www.resistenciahonduras.net for more]:

....

This Assembly was composed of 56 delegates, men and women, from all the national territory who were present in the heart of the Valle de Aguan to show the unconditional support to the campesino movements that are confronted with the violence of the army and the businessmen, and at the same time to achieve a historic date in the struggle of the Honduran people.

With this Assembly there was installed the Provisional National Coordination as a first step in the consolidation of the FNRP as a political platform toward the refounding of the country. This space of direction is made up of the representatives elected in the distinct Departmental Assemblies that have been carried out in the last weeks across Honduras, creating in this way a new Democracy that is born and is developed from the base.

The Provisional National Coordination named an Executive Committee that will direct the destinies of this struggle against golpismo, the military regime, barbarity and injustice. The first office selected in a unanimous manner was that of Manuel Zelaya Rosales as Coordinator, recognizing in this way his leadership and putting him at the head of this project that seeks to leave behind the old political practices in which small groups were set above the interests of the impoverished majority.

There will accompany Zelaya in this Executive Committee recognized figures of the popular struggle: Juan Barahona and Carlos H. Reyes (Tegucigalpa), Will Paz (Colón), Leonel Amaya (Olancho), Lucía Granados (San Pedro Sula), Lilí Aguilar (Lempira), María Antonia Martínez (of the movement Feministas en Resistencia), Porfirio Amador (Choluteca), Jaime Rodríguez and Edgardo Casaña (of the Federación de Organizaciones Magistrados de Honduras FOMH), Juan Chinchilla (Juventud Bajo Aguan), Víctor Petit (Comayagua), Teresa Reyes (Organización Fraternal Negra de Honduras Ofraneh), José Luis Baquedano (Confederación Unitaria de Trabajadores de Honduras CUTH). There only remains pending the man or woman representing the indigenous Lenca population.

...

The immediate objectives expressed by the Assembly are the return of Manuel Zelaya to the country together with all the persons obliged to go into exile, the development of the work of organization and political formation in all the country, the strengthening of our means of communication to defeat the lies elaborated by the golpistas and collaborators, and to initiate the collective construction of what will be the National Constituent Assembly that for the first time in our history will be Participatory, Popular, and truly Democratic.

Reactions to the National Assembly of the FNRP: From Mel on down

There are so many statements now reflecting, from different perspectives, on the Tocoa Assembly that it would be overwhelming to translate them all.

But one deserves a full translation:

From the desk of the Constitutional President (2006-2010) Jose Manuel Zelaya.

People and Comrades:

I am verifying the contents of the communique and of the first resolutions of the Assembly of the Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular, that was carried out in Colón this weekend. On first impression it seems good to me that the force to advance was encountered in its own decisions. I have asked Xiomara, my wife, that she present herself tomorrow to the Directorship of the FNRP to speak with Carlos H. Reyes, Juan Barahona, Rafael Alegría and the rest of the comrades, to know the scope of the proposal and so tomorrow itself it will be possible to communicate my acceptance as Liberal-Pro Socialista to integrate in the General Coordination of the Executive Committee of the Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular.

MEL Z RD 11 de julio de 2010.

In this brief note, Manuel Zelaya effectively supports the actions of the FNRP and the leadership of the sectors that resisted pressure to seat a larger than agreed on number of Liberal Party delegates.

Statements like that of Ollantay Itzamna reiterate that this was a critical achievement in the quest to change the fundamental system, that confirmed "the extreme unction of the moribund 'dedocrátic' system of bipartisanship in Honduras".

The first image is of the administration of the Last Rites of Roman Catholicism, given here to the hand-picking of delegates misrepresented as "democratic" (dedo= finger, which substitutes for hand in the Spanish equivalent to the English figure of speech; so "dedocratic" is approximately "handpickedocrat").

Ollantay Itzamna adds that the naming of Manuel Zelaya Rosales as National Coordinator of the Frente is

also another strategic ratification of popular sentiment. In the Honduran conjuncture, Zelaya is an undeniable national/popular leader. But, this nomination is a sociopolitical strategy. The FNRP needs to articulate to all the cells of the resistance dispersed across the country, and so to construct a sociopolitical hegemony on a national level. And this difficult task, against time, only can be done with a strong and evident national leader. Here we have the strategic reason for the nomination of Compañero Zelaya, but this is not to say that the FNRP is completed in Manuel Zelaya Rosales.

In some ways, the statement by Zelaya negates a curious side comment in the report of the withdrawal of the Liberals in Resistance, when Carlos Reina said

before withdrawing, that in taking this decision he had the endorsement of the deposed Honduran president, José Manuel Zelaya Rosales, who had been consulted by [the Liberals in Resistance] by telephone from the Dominican Republic, where he remains exiled since the past 27th of January.

In context, that seemed almost as a claim of patronage, a reclaiming of Mel from the Frente in general.

That some such claim was perceived is made explicit in the response to the assembly by Luis Mendez, described as a "poet in resistance". After rehearsing the details of the attempt to swell the ranks of the delegates with extra appointees recommended by Liberals in resistance, Mendez says that

It is lamentable but the thing is that Carlos Eduardo Reina and the rest that don't add up to ten have the economic resources to move bars, and money to bring a national commission of Liberals in Resistance to the Dominican Republic (as they proposed at the Assembly of Tocoa), and expound to our ex-president Manuel Zelaya Rosales the developments for which they withdrew from the national conduct of the FNRP... well, if they have the economic resources that would be very much their own affair, but we, we do not go to Santo Domingo, but, we go to the villages, to the hamlets, to form the collectives, to accompany to the town fronts, there is where the construction of popular power will be given.

And, without doubt, we expect comrade Manuel Zelaya will personally join the Executive Committee of the FNRP as one of the principal leaders of the movement and it is certain that we can invite the Apparition, there, to where Saint Thomas was the one to say to us: TODAY IS NOT AS BEFORE COMRADES, today we have new visions.

The religious nature of this imagery, again, is somewhat startling, but like the metaphor of extreme unction, it shifts the register from mere politics as usual to redemption, to revelation, and to fervor.

Zelaya, by accepting his appointed role in the FNRP, affirms the new movement as something more than the politics of the past.

The Frente and the Liberal Party

As the previous posts should indicate, there was considerable tension around the assembly of the FNRP that was held in Tocoa this weekend.

Under the headline Second Day of the National Assembly: the debates and the wager on the unity of the FNRP continue, Vos el Soberano provides a report that starts with the following quote:

"Before being a Liberal I am of the people and the Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular, that is the future.”

Ubodoro Arriaga Izaguirre, Delegate from the Department of La Paz to the First National Assembly of the FNRP.

While that tells the whole story in a nutshell, the report goes on to specify what happened:

Liberal leaders withdrew from the National Assembly of the FNRP on not succeeding in impose their delegates named outside the Departmental Assemblies of the Resistance.

Specifically cited as speaking for the Liberal Party were Carlos Eduardo Reina, Orfilia de Mejía and Rasel Tome, who "took the floor to explain to the departmental delegates their reasons to self-exclude themselves". According to this report they clarified that they "do not renounce" the FNRP, just participating in the provisional National Coordination to be elected today.

On the one hand, this is not that different from what COPINH and the Feminists in Resistance did. But timing is everything. Making a principled statement in advance that you are not interested in being part of a formal structure you consider dubious, and withdrawing when things don't go your way, are as different as, well, making a principled stand and saving face.

Reporting describes an unsuccessful attempt to install 29 extra delegates representing Liberals in Resistance over and above those elected on a state by state basis:

Yesterday, in hours of the afternoon and night, the leaders of the sector called Liberals in Resistance tried by every means to impose and inscribe 29 delegates in addition to those elected in departmental assemblies of the Resistance...

The trigger for rejection by the departmental delegates was, according to this report, an attempt to appoint the ex mayor of Tocoa, Adán Fúnez. The latter participated in open resistance to the coup up until one week before the November election, when, Vos el Soberano (citing news reports in El Heraldo) says

with the intention of relecting himself in office, he appeared in a center of the golpista sector of the Liberal Party to ask, publicly and on bended knee, pardon for having participated in the activities of the Resistance.

One can see why he was an unwelcome person. It is almost unbelievable that experienced party politicians would have such a tin ear as to think this would go down without choking.

Rasel Tome is given the principal responsibility for the attempted to expand delegates:

Within hours of yesterday it was possible to confirm that Rasel Tome had unilaterally ordered his sympathizers to expand the departmental delegates from two incumbents and an alternate to four incumbents and an alternate (two additional hand-picked delegates) against the decision of the last Assembly of the Resistance celebrated in Siguatepeque that established the number of delegates at 56 for logistical and budgetary reasons.

The report emphasizes that with the departure of the Liberal leaders, debate continued, underlining that the FNRP is not about winning traditional elections:

the political wager of the FNRP will not be the electoral processes, so as not to continue accepting elections Honduras-style, and it was decided that the fundamental task of the moment is the installation of the National Constituent Assembly with the conditions that the popular movement proposes.

In addition, it was made clear that the guarantors of this political process unleashed by the coup d'Etat are not the political parties, but the popular and social movement.

Undoubtedly there will be political analysts willing to argue that the activists of the Frente are being unrealistic and should have trimmed their ambitious project to fit into the goals of the Liberal Party faction.

But the message the Frente is conveying is that politics in Honduras is completely broken: if the system is dysfunctional, taking it over will not help.

Getting at the Truth of the Coup: Tiempo coverage of new documentary

Honduras' Tiempo today published an extraordinary article: extraordinary because it promotes a documentary, Detras del Golpe, that opens up a Pandora's box about the conspiracy that led to the coup d'Etat against President José Manuel Zelaya.

It sketches in connections that lead to the right wing in the US and Venezuela. These involve a very messy set of legal proceedings concerning practices in the Honduran phone company (Hondutel). This case has been used by opponents of Zelaya to discredit him and his administration. The principal figures in this story are Roberto Carmona, a Venezuelan who participated in the abortive coup against Hugo Chavez, and Otto Reich, US Subsecretary of State for Latin American Affairs under George Bush.

The story is so complicated that we hesitate to even open up this topic; but that makes it even more remarkable that a Honduran newspaper not only advertised that this documentary exists, but gave such a complete account of what it brings to light. Here are some highlights from the Tiempo coverage:

A new documentary about the coup d'Etat in Honduras opens up the participation of Otto Reich and Roberto Carmona Borjas in the conspiracy that ended with the overthrow of the constitutional president Manuel Zelaya, on 28-6-2009....

[The documentary cites Carmona and Reich denying they have any contacts]

"Carmona Borjas is a public figure in Honduras because supposedly he has an NGO that is called the Arcadia Foundation...Incorporated in July of 2007, specifically for the media campaign against the government of Manuel Zelaya" [quoting Venezuelan lawyer and investigator Arturo J. Viscarra]...

"The interest of the lawyer Carmona in Honduras is very unusual, because it is not known why a Venezuelan golpista lawyer, that has gone into exile for participating in a coup [in Venezuela], reappears afterward in Honduras speaking about corruption in the state communications business (Hondutel)", noted Viscarra.

"Roberto Carmona begins a relationship with Hondutel through a business in Miami 'LD Telecommunications'. He signs a contract for a type of service. There is a dispute about money because he wants to blackmail Hondutel, but he doesn't get away with it, so then a plan is born to destabilize the government of Zelaya accusing it of corruption in Hondutel" added the investigator.

In an interview for the documentary Carmona argues "what I did was represent the business to be able to ascertain the facts about corruption in Hondutel, that was what permitted me to open the door to bring proceedings, to be able to see how a contract for telecommunications was made"....

According to Patricia Rodas, ex-chancellor of the government of Manuel Zelaya, "the day of the coup Robert Carmona was already in Honduras staying in the hotel zone San Martin [in Tegucigalpa]. Staying in a room under another name, he was directing the operations of the coup".

The documentary includes a communication kept up between Robert Carmona and a Honduran official in which they reach an agreement on the media campaign that would be carried out.... [This Honduran official is interviewed and initially denies the documented contact but later confirms it]

The conspiracy of Reich and Carmona is confirmed in interviews with Manuel Zelaya and Rodolfo Pastor, ex charge d'affaires of the Honduran Embassy in the US.

"Robert Carmona, is the lawyer for Otto Reich, when Reich went to Honduras to sign a contract with Hondutel to arrange a telephone company, Carmona was his representative" asserted Zelaya.

"They were interested in having Hondutel opened for private investment. First they made a friendly approach, in which they even proposed a deal, when president Zelaya did not accept the proposals, then they began to attack him, from that moment you have a systematic attack on the part of Otto Reich and Carmona and the supposed Arcadia Foundation that was dedicated to make accusations of corruption" affirmed Pastor....

For her part, Bertha Oliva opines that "we do believe that Otto Reich did have a great deal of participation in the coup. He made visits before, during, and after the coup, never publicized, they were closed door".

Rodolfo Pastor notes that "he was here after the coup, both in Congress as well as present in the events where he tried to whitewash the coup, personally and with representatives"....

The supporters of the coup d'Etat have represented it as a home-grown reaction. But what has long been rumor in Honduras, and is explored in this documentary, is the role of right-wing individuals and organizations, with a mixture of ideological and economic motives to change the direction of Honduras. While there is little hope that the official "truth commission" will pursue these connections, until they are out in the open, they will be part of what divides Honduras and fuels suspicions about the coup d'Etat.

The documentary is important for that reason; but even more so, the willingness of a newspaper like Tiempo to publish these arguments.

OAS Commission Named

We mentioned in a previous post that the OAS had not yet formed the commission to report on the evolution of the situation in Honduras since Lobo Sosa took office. Now it has.

The commission will consist of high level representatives from all of the Central American countries (Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama), Peru, Ecuador, the United States, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, and Jamaica, according to EFE.

According to Jose Miguel Insulza, Secretary General of the OAS, there are two major themes voiced by those who oppose Honduras's readmission to the OAS. The first of these is a desire for Manuel Zelaya Rosales to be able to return to Honduras with all of his rights intact. The other is for an improvement in human rights conditions in Honduras.

Insulza revealed today that he had met privately with Zelaya on Friday, and with Lobo Sosa on Monday to communicate to each of them his ideas for a possible solution to these problems. He indicated that there was no disagreement between Zelaya and Lobo Sosa but "many things still had to be worked out and solidifying them is going to be held up a bit."

The working group of the commission, he emphasized, is not negotiating with either side:

"Our mission is not to achieve an accord between the two parties. There are other political actors in Honduras also and we aren't organizing a kind of national accord...What we have to do is find the conditions under which all the countries are in agreement for the return of Honduras to the OAS."

Insulza noted that no country has rejected the proposals that he presented to Lobo Sosa and Zelaya.

No date has been set for the commission to travel to Honduras. The working group of the commission has already had meetings with representatives of both Zelaya and Lobo Sosa. Wednesday, Insulza met with Arturo Corrales, for Lobo Sosa, and Rodolfo Pastor Fasquelle, representing Zelaya, on the topic of completing all the points of the Tegucigalpa/San Jose accords.

Meanwhile, Lobo Sosa is getting flak within Honduras for even talking to Jose Miguel Insulza.

Today the president of the Consejo Hondureño de la Empresa Privada (COHEP), Santiago Ruiz, asked Lobo Sosa to "stop playing Insulza's game." Ruiz said

"I believe that he is playing Jose Miguel Insulza's game; if there's one thing Hondurans have recovered it's our dignity and we have to maintain it, working with those that already recognize us."

Ruiz had harsh words for Insulza, who he accused of "damaging Honduran interests," and of "not worrying about trampling on millions of Hondurans who are voiceless."

"We should not continue in this game of satisfying the outsiders who have harmed us and made the Honduran people uncertain," Ruiz concluded.

If anyone thought this was going to be easy, Ruiz's comments should be a wake up call. What if Porfirio Lobo Sosa agrees to OAS conditions and cannot find enough support at home to follow through?

A Year of Suspension

On July 5, 2009, the Organization of American States adopted a resolution suspending Honduras's right to participate in that body.

That resolution stated that "a coup d'etat against the constitutional government" had "produced an unconstitutional alteration of the democratic order." The OAS reaffirmed the principal of non-intervention in the internal affairs of other states, but also noted that a suspended member of the OAS continues to be bound by the organization's charter and treaty obligations.

The resolution made reference to Articles 20 and 21 of the Inter-American Democratic Charter which urges the OAS member states to take diplomatic actions to restore the democratic order, and authorizes the suspension of the member state when those diplomatic actions fail.

Article 21 notes that although suspended, the suspended member "shall continue to fulfill all its obligations to the Organization, in particular, its human rights obligations." The same clauses require the active member states to maintain diplomatic initiatives to restore democracy in the suspended state.

Article 22 of the Charter covers reincorporation after suspension, "once the situation that led to the suspension has been resolved". This requires that two-thirds of the member countries agree it is resolved.

There was vigorous debate in June in the OAS meeting in Lima, Peru, between OAS members who believe the Honduran situation is resolved, and those who believe more needs to be done. The one thing that was clear at that meeting is that there is not currently the required two-thirds support for readmission.

Instead, the OAS voted to appoint a commission to deliver a report on the state of democracy and human rights in Honduras, with a report due July 30th. At the time, the OAS press release said

All Member States present in Lima agreed that "the situation in Honduras is a matter of concern for all," and that they "need more information on the current status of the political process in Honduras."

This commission should have been appointed several weeks ago according to statements Jose Miguel Insulza made at the time. It still has not been appointed or begun its work. It is not clear what such a commission can do that has not already been accomplished by the several reports of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and it seems very clear that there is little scope for the OAS to change the conditions that make many member states dubious about simply reintegrating Honduras, unrepentant about the coup d'Etat.

We've debated what the international community could do to make a real difference in Honduras, and rejected many ideas. Here's the little that survived that debate:

(1) Recognize the Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular as a legitimate civil (not political) voice and respond to their initiatives as representatives of a civil organization, and as the opposition to the coup and its continued consequences. Stop treating the coup as a having been a confrontation between the traditional political parties in Honduras. Without involving the Frente, there can be no reconciliation.

(2) Stop treating President Zelaya's return as the sole or most important necessary step in reconciliation. His continued exile is a symptom of larger problems, including continued political persecution of coup opponents by the courts and public prosecutor. Recognize that many Hondurans have left the country for their own safety and security, and that Zelaya, while certainly a powerful symbol, is not the only one, nor is he the sole leader of the opposition.

(3) Fund the Honduran Human Rights Platform and its alternative truth commission. Its budget would be a tiny amount compared to what the international community gives to Honduras every year, and it has more of a chance of actually bringing some light onto the human rights issues in Honduras than the official truth and reconciliation commission, which can't even say the word "coup".

We would like to have said, demand that Porfirio Lobo Sosa formally acknowledge that there was a coup, demand that the Honduran Congress retract its vote illegally installing Roberto Micheletti as "president", but these are things that only Honduran leaders could do, if they had the will to do so.

What seems self-evident is that the international community entirely failed, throughout the months of the de facto regime, to communicate to Honduran political leaders the real seriousness of what they had done, and the fact that it could not be overlooked or easily put behind. The mixed messages sent by the US were especially destructive to any firm international rebuke to Honduras. The control of most news media in Honduras by coup supporters guarantees even today that Honduran press will spin every international statement until black is white, and a refusal to readmit the country to the OAS is a step toward readmission.

Maybe there is no hope of countering this propaganda. But if those behind the 2009 coup don't get the message that it really was unacceptable in the contemporary world, there will be no reason for them to ignore this weapon in future political conflicts.

Contextualizing the Roland Valenzuela interview: Congress and Ambassador Llorens, June 22-28, 2009

What are the facts that Roland Valenzuela claimed, in an interview now circulating in Honduras, were established by a dossier of papers left by mistake in a Tegucigalpa hotel?

• that a group of businessmen in Dubai for a trade fair used the opportunity to conspire together;

• that they enlisted a former military attaché as their go between, and set out to enlist key players in their plot;

• that the plotters hired a lobbying firm to help them defame Zelaya (note that the lobbying firm is not said to have been party to the coup plot per se-- they were a tool, not an author);

• that Marcia Villeda faked Zelaya's signature on the "resignation" letter;

• finally, we get to the explosive allegation about Llorens being sent a draft of a decree removing Zelaya from office, signed by a group of individuals who at the time were congress members.

Reading this, I and others have wondered, why would the conspirators have sent a decree to the US ambassador?

I think we can unravel at least this last point.

The reporting on the interview quotes Valenzuela as saying

that the decree sent to the ambassador carried the signature of the congress members Ricardo Rodriguez, Liberal party member and present Sub Procurador of the Republic, Toribio Aguilera Coello, PINU member presently congress member, Rolando Dubon Buezo, Nacional party member and still congressman, Rigoberto Chan Castillo, Nacional party member now secretary of Congress and Gabo Alfredo Jalil Mejia who served as Minister of Defense in the Micheletti regime.

The list of names jogged my memory. On June 26, 2009, Honduran newspapers published stories about the events of the previous evening, which I watched unfold live on television on the north coast. Several of these people were prominent in the television and newspaper coverage.

Rabidly anti-Zelaya La Prensa titled its story that day "They investigate the actions of president Zelaya".

The lead sentence read

While rumors of a disqualification of president Manuel Zelaya Rosales grow like froth, the National Congress maintained steadfast the motion the actions of the leader should be investigated and his administration should be approved or disapproved with urgency.

[Mientras los rumores de una inhabilitación del presidente Manuel Zelaya Rosales crecían como la espuma, el Congreso Nacional mantenía firme la moción para que fueran investigadas las actuaciones del mandatario y de urgencia aprobar o improbar su administración. ]

The reporter for the newspaper repeated that the confrontation over the June 28 cuarta urna survey had motivated "the benches of Congress to lobby for an initiative that would disqualify Zelaya" [Esto motivó a que las bancadas del Congreso cabildearan una iniciativa para inhabilitar a Zelaya].

"Improbar" and "inhabilitar" refer to legal actions congress considered.

The first (equivalent to censure) it did have authority to do. The second, which was apparently the actual step desired by the congressional leadership, ceased to be a power of Congress when the constitution was reformed to remove impunity from prosecution that high officials had enjoyed. Under the present constitution, any high government official accused of crimes is tried by the Supreme Court, and removal from office is one of the possible punishments after a guilty verdict.

Toribio Aguilera is quoted as saying he had not participated in negotiations or dialogues, presumably from the context, about a removal of Zelaya:

"First there should be decreed a state of emergency and if the dialogue is exhausted, proceed to suspension"

[“Primero debería decretarse un estado de emergencia y si se agota el dialogo proceder a la suspensión”.]

"Suspension", presumably of Zelaya as president, was again actually not a power of Congress. Declaring a state of emergency would, of course, become the primary tool of control of the de facto regime.

Aguilera was one member of a committee appointed by congress that also included Emilio Cabrera and Antonio Rivera (in other places, the membership is given as Ricardo Rodríguez, Rigoberto Chang Castillo, Toribio Aguilera, Enrique Rodríguez y Will Bustillo). Rodriguez, Aguilera, and Chang Castillo are three of those who were named by Valenzuela as authors of the document he saw that was intended for Hugo Llorens.

This committee was charged with producing a report on Zelaya's actions and drafting a resolution for Congress to consider. The committee had been interviewed on live television when Congress went into continuous session the previous day, when they stated that they expected to finish their work within hours. On Friday morning, press reports said

they solicited more time to study other documents on which they would solidly base their decision

[solicitaron más tiempo para estudiar otra documentación en la cual fundamentar sólidamente su decisión]

The overlap between the membership of this Congressional committee and the individuals Valenzuela says signed the decree sent to Llorens for comments makes it almost certain that it is the product of this committee that Valenzuela was describing; a decree that would have had congress censuring Zelaya (which it legally could do) but going beyond its constitutional authority to suspend or disqualify him from office.

The article in La Prensa gives a hint of what the congressional strategy to get around this awkward fact was:

Failing to recognize that the Constitution of the Republic gives power to the Legislature to be able to remove a President if he presents an inability to govern, Zelaya said "the Congreso Nacional cannot disqualify me."

[Desconociendo que la Constitución de la República le da poder al Legislativo para que pueda quitar a un Presidente si presenta incapacidad para gobernar, Zelaya dijo: “el Congreso Nacional no puede inhabilitarme.”]

The apparent reference to a president unable to govern is to the part of the constitution aimed at allowing succession in office when a president was incapacitated (for instance, medically).

Marvin Ponce, congress member of the Unificación Democrática (UD) party said after congress approved censure that this was

"an evident demonstration of the interest of Congress in committing a technical coup d'Etat and overthrowing president Zelaya."

"If the National Congress wants to commit a coup d'Etat, say so clearly. I imagine that the commission named by the Junta Directiva [of Congress], that will investigate the President will present a report declaring him disqualified, to then name Micheletti as President of the Republic."

[“una evidente muestra del interés del Congreso de dar un golpe técnico de Estado y derrocar al presidente Zelaya”.

“Si el Congreso Nacional quiere dar un golpe de Estado, que lo diga claramente. Me imagino que la comisión nombrada por la Junta Directiva, que investigará al Presidente dará un informe que lo declarará inhabilitado, para luego nombrar a Micheletti como Presidente de la República”.]

Rigoberto Chang Castillo was quoted as saying

"we do not have intention to commit a coup d'Etat, we do not have the weapons nor the warlike capacity and the Armed Forces are not for that."

[“no tenemos intención de golpe de Estado, no tenemos armas ni capacidad bélica y las FFAA no están para eso.”]

How did Chang Castillo know the position of the Armed Forces on committing a coup on June 26?

Marvin Ponce, speaking on June 26, 2009, ends up sounding eerily prescient:

"Micheletti does not have the popularity in his party nor among the people and in place of calming the situation, we will be entering a series of convulsions that could cause blood to be spilled."

[“Micheletti no tiene la popularidad de su partido ni la del pueblo y en lugar de calmar la situación, estaríamos entrando a una serie de convulsiones que podrían causar derramamiento de sangre”.]

Unfortunately, the Honduran Congress, having started on its route to remove Zelaya, did not stop when it discovered it could not do so legally. The military coup Chang Castillo said could not happen happened. And the outcomes foreseen by Ponce also happened.

What Roland Valenzuela seems to have told us is that the committee of the National Congress charged with preparing a decree to remove Zelaya from office sent a copy of their draft decree to the US Ambassador for his comments. This does not tell us whether Llorens received this document, if he read it, or if he offered comments on it.

Certainly, the interview Llorens gave El Heraldo on June 27, 2009, shows no hint of possible knowledge of the coup that would take place mere hours later. On June 24, Zelaya cabinet minister Patricia Rodas was quoted as saying that she had spoken with Ambassador Llorens and asked him to abstain from interference in the internal affairs of Honduras.

Ambassador Llorens was definitely speaking with Honduran politicians during this week, and those contacts were clearly not just with the Zelaya administration. On the same day that Rodas was interviewed saying she had asked him to abstain from interfering, La Tribuna published an interview with Llorens in which he is quoted as saying

"as a friend of Honduras, I have urged the leaders of the nation to engage in dialogue and that they find a way to resolve their differences on the basis of discussion and the law.'

[“como amigo de Honduras, he instado a los líderes de la nación para que dialoguen y que busquen una forma de arreglar sus diferencias a base del diálogo y las leyes”.]

The implication of his remarks, in which he singled out the congress and Armed Forces as institutions for positive comment, seemed at the time to be giving them backing against the executive branch. Re-reading these remarks now, one can only find his assurance about the Armed Forces bitterly ironic, and his statement that he would not entertain any stories curious:

"I think that the Armed Forces will do what is correct and this will be resolved by the Honduran vocation of doing things with tolerance and within the law, democracy is not exempt from problems, but the reality is that no one is going to come to me with any story, I entered as an agent of diplomacy in the time of the military dictators and totalitarianism."

[“Creo que las Fuerzas Armadas van hacer lo que es correcto y esto se va a resolver por la vocación hondureña de hacer las cosas con la tolerancia y dentro de la ley, la democracia no está exenta de los problemas, pero la realidad es que a mí nadie me va a venir con ningún cuento, yo entré como agente de la diplomacia en la época de las dictaduras militares y el totalitarismo”.]

On June 26, Patricia Rodas worried openly about the power elite contacting Llorens, commenting that while Ambassador Llorens

"abstained from expressing opinions on the internal affairs of our country, we should not forget that powerful groups continue pressuring him so that together they can articulate plans against our country and our people."

["se abstuvo de opinar de los asuntos internos de nuestro país, no olvidemos que lo grupos de poder siguen presionándolo para que juntos puedan articular planes en contra de nuestro país y de nuestro pueblo".]

The implication that powerful groups in Honduras could succeed in enlisting the US Ambassador in their schemes may seem far-fetched from a position outside Honduras. Yet the existence of a draft copy of the decree through which the Honduran Congress intended to remove President Zelaya from office, intended for Ambassador Llorens, indicates a degree of communication between the authors of the coup and the US representative that is giving those suspicious of the role of the US support for their worst doubts.

Honduran suspicions of US complicity in the coup (part two)

The second story posted today stemming from the interview with Roland Valenzuela, now circulating by email and on the internet, cites the mechanism by which Valenzuela said he gained access to papers from the planning of the coup:

The coup d'Etat was planned by Honduran businessmen in an Arab emirate

The assassinated ex minister, Roland Valenzuela, for the ousted president Manuel Zelaya, denounced, on "San Pedro Sula by Night", that the coup d'Etat in Honduras was planned by a group of six Honduran businessmen, who coincided in attending a fair in Dubai, one of the seven Arab emirates.

They met in a bar in a hotel and decided that they had to remove Zelaya: "we cannot bear him any more". Just when the Cuarta Urna started to be pushed, a menace to them, since Zelaya sought a constitutional assembly to convert into law the economic and social measures of his government, in order to protect them.

The "articulator", the coordinator of the coup d'Etat, Jackeline Sandoval, graduated with honors from West Point, and trained afterwards in the US Rangers, forgot a dossier of papers in the Hotel Plaza San Martin, that contained various drafts with precise details of how the Coup would occur.

The dossier was delivered, by "a common citizen who to me is a hero", said Valenzuela, in a recorded copy of the radio program, of almost two hours duration that is circulating on the Internet.

They paid four million dollars to a "powerful lobbyist", someone who promotes political proposals, last name Smith, to misinform about Zelaya through accusations to the Pentagon, the CIA, and the FBI, and to predispose the government of the US. Smith and partners contacted the coordinator of the coup.

Valenzuela commented that those groups, that had sworn an oath to kill Zelaya, would be listening and would say "how does this hayseed [hijuelmaíz] know so much, I don't know if they will kill me right now when I leave [the Radio]", he said, laughing.

The ambassador Hugo Llorens and the US

Among other papers, is the draft of the decree to remove Zelaya, with the number of the Act, dated the 28th of June 2009, signed by Ricardo Rodriguez, José Toribio Aguilera, Rolando Dubón Bueso, Rigoberto Chang Castillo and Gabo Alfredo Jalil Mejía; who address Hugo Llorens, telling him that some corrections are lacking but that "your opinion requires immediate attention".

"what does ambassador Llorens have to do meddling in those matters... giving opinions on a draft that is, nothing less, than the draft of the removal of President Zelaya. This love so great that Llorens had for Zelaya, after not liking him, always called my attention", Valenzuela opined.

He accused the US: "the coup was not reversed because, they betrayed us". Zelaya never was restored because the US assured Micheletti "hold on, hold on, stay there, because we are not going to remove you", he asserted.

"Hillary Clinton swore to Zelaya that they were going to restore him", but at the same time turned over control of the situation to Oscar Arias, who Valenzuela called "the clerk of the gringos".

There is also a communique of the international community, in which "they report that the rule of law was persistently broken" by Zelaya, that "he was attributed, de facto, the supremacy of all the powers of State".

He said that in the sheet, there was a "little list" of the people that were in the meeting, and a set of "untrue accusations" against Zelaya, with observations and corrections that were considered necessary for the proposed plan. Jackeline Sandoval delivered to each person involved which were their tasks and what they should do, or say.

"Call Marcia Villeda so that she obtains those documents" said one of the annotations read by Valenzuela. She "faked the signature" on a supposed resignation of Zelaya and afterwords "they declared her innocent" in a court, he explained.

When Zelaya decided to carry out the Cuarta Urna, the businessmen had a meeting in Dubai and discussed that he wanted the constitutional assembly to convert into law the discounts on fuels. For Valenzuela this had been the motive.

They convince the Armed Forces of Honduras

The conspirators went in search of the Armed Forces, which was the final shield of defense of President Zelaya, that had "remained loyal" to the president, he said.

Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, who was at the time in the Hotel Christopher Columbus in Trujillo, "seemed like a child running from one side to the other showing the plans for the Cuarta Urna to the President", Valenzuela observed. "Suddently, he radically changed his position".

The golpistas acted divided

The only "lying excuse" that they had to kidnap the President was the Cuarta Urna. One golpista group said that there was no way "to touch the president, there are not processes yet, they haven't done what needs to be done, they haven't fulfilled the plan that we made, they are going to reverse the coup", they complained to the other group.

Micheletti persisted and "convinced the Armed Forces, with a perverse connection". Those involved "are the men that command in this country", Rafael Ferrari, media baron, "became ill and went to the US, but left instructions for Renato Alvarez and Edgardo Melgar [journalists] so that they would dedicate themselves to blowing up flowerpots at Mel, and follow the instructions of Billy Joya".

He said that "the golpistas did not follow the scheme that the hawks gave them, the procedure that the American ambassador accepted". Carlos Flores, also golpista, followed the proposal of the US, he was the first to show solidarity with president Zelaya and his wife Xiomara, and to say to him that he "had nothing to do with the coup".

According to Valenzuela those pressing for the coup were "a chuña faction, those that came from below and were desperate to divvy up power".

"The are going to have me killed for this", Roland Valenzuela then said.

He asserted that there is a group of hitman to assassinate Zelaya. That the order in the coup "was to kill him, pretend that the presidential guard resisted, that there was a shoot-out and a shot hit him. But, a man that was opposed" when the elite guard arrived to take away the president, sent 500 soldiers so that "600 eyes would see what happened".

Valenzuela mentioned, in the interview, that he did not go out to march with the Resistance, because he feared that they would kill him in the street, because it fell to him to do "private things, alone" to push for the return and the restitution of Zalaya.

With the Constituyente, Zelaya sought to convert into law the social conquests pushed ahead

Valenzuela mentioned seven measures of the government of Zelaya that produced the discontent and caused the various powerful groups to unite against him.

Among others, the order to lower the prices of the basic shopping cart, the regulation and pressures by the DEI [income tax agency] for the dispensations to fast food franchises, that introduced products like a consumer shop, and sold them in other places.

The measures to adjust the price of fuels, Petro Caribe that provoked the revolt of the transnationals. He told that one of the importers said to the president: "if I stop importation of fuels, president, you will not last even 24 hours more in your position". Valenzuela said that he pushed that businessman, and insulted them.

Zelaya had concluded that the measures achieved in his government could only be protected by "turning them into law", and for that the constitutional assembly was needed, that led him to push for a popular poll, known as the Cuarta Urna. Because, as he said, "in the Congress we have no power. The Court, the Tribunal Superior de Cuentas, 'are owned"".

The role of the Commission of Truth and reconciliation

The "commission of the lie" intends to say that "they committed the coup against president Zelaya because he provoked it", Valenzuela concluded.

Roland Valenzuela, close collaborator and friend of Zelaya, was assassinated by a bullet in the back, by another businessman, Carlos Yacamán Meza, in the bar of a hotel, the 16th of [June] or 2010. The Police initially hid the name of the person that killed him in order not to "hinder the investigations".

Honduran suspicions of US complicity in the coup (part one)

Adrienne Pine on quotha.com provides links to new articles on the website of the Frente de Resistencia, along with audio links and emails circulating that relate to suspicions of US foreknowledge about the coup d'etat of June 28, 2009.

This is the kind of discussion that US commentators routinely reject out of hand as too fantastic to be given any attention.

But in my experience, the Hondurans who are taking these questions seriously are not impressionable: they include a wide range of highly educated people who find it hard to credit that the US was taken entirely by surprise and had no knowledge of the planned coup in time to intervene. This leads to the conclusion that the US did know, and chose to look the other way or even actively endorse the coup.

Concretely, people point to the various meetings Ambassador Hugo Llorens had with parties to the coup in the weeks leading up to June 28. The fact that the plane that illegally carried Manuel Zelaya to Costa Rica landed at Palmerola (Soto Cano) air base, where US forces are stationed, without encountering any reaction, is seen as particularly suspicious.

The current stories come from a new source: ex-Zelaya minister Rolando Valenzuela, who was fatally shot on June 17. The death has been reported as resulting from an argument of a personal nature with Carlos Yacaman, now being sought for the crime.

Shortly before his death, Valenzuela gave an interview to a San Pedro Sula radio station. And that is what has inspired the current return to the nagging question of what Hugo Llorens knew, and when he knew it.

Here are our translations of the first of two articles posted by the FNRP; the second will follow in its own blog post.

Regardless of how likely readers think it is that US officials were part of the planning of the coup, or knew in advance, we would underline that what matters here is that Hondurans in resistance have so much distrust of the US. There is a reason why the US-supplied map to put the coup behind is viewed skeptically: it is called history.

North American ambassador did know about the coup and was part of the conspiracy

The North American ambassador accredited to Tegucigalpa, Hugo Llorens, did know about the coup d'Etat against Manuel Zelaya Rosales, the ex-minister of the Zelaya administration, Roland Valenzuela, revealed days before his death, in an interview broadcast by the journalist Ernesto Alonso Rojas, in a local radio station of the city of San Pedro Sula.

Fifteen days after the assassination of the ex-minister of the National Program of Sustainable Development (PRONADERA), at the hands of the businessman Carlos Yacaman Meza, the interview has circulated on different networks on the Internet, in which he signals in a clear way that the North American ambassador participated directly in the planning of the coup d'Etat and expressed his fear that he could be assassinated for the interview.

The interview, taped the first of May and broadcast by Radio Internacional of San Pedro Sula, regained importance after President Zelaya accused the US of forming part of the coup d'Etat, and Ambassador Llorens appeared denying his participation.

But Valenzuela related in detail how the Ambassador did participate in the coup and how the 10th of June of 2009, the then-president of the National Congress Roberto Micheletti, converted into dictator the 28th of the same month, sent the draft of the decree that would remove Zelaya from office to the North American ambassador to ask his opinion.

According to the story of the ill-fated ex-minister, despite the fact that it was still the 10th of June, the decree carried the date the 28th of June, with the following message for the ambassador, "Ambassador Llorens, this is the decree that Micheletti delivered to me, some opinions are lacking but it requires your immediate opinion."

Valenzuela pointed out as well that the decree sent to the ambassador carried the signature of the congress members Ricardo Rodriguez, Liberal party member and present Sub Procurador of the Republic, Toribio Aguilera Coello, PINU member presently congress member, Rolando Dubon Buezo, Nacional party member and still congressman, Rigoberto Chan Castillo, Nacional party member now secretary of Congress and Gabo Alfredo Jalil Mejia who served as Minister of Defense in the Micheletti regime.

In accord with the interview the person who supposedly sent the decree to the North American ambassador was Jacqueline Foglia Sandoval, a Honduran ex-military, graduate of West Point, who served as attaché of defense in the Honduran embassy in Washington, and as a member of COHEP (Honduran Council of Private Enterprise), among other organizations.

"What did ambassador Llorens have to do walking around, getting involved in the internal affairs of Honduras, giving opinions on a draft document that is the removal of president Zelaya" the ex minister asked in the conversation with the journalist Rojas.

Hillary Clinton promised to restore Zelaya

Valenzuela went further by affirming that the North American Secretary of State promised Zelaya to restore him in power on the first visit that he made to Washington after being overthrown.

"Hillary Clinton on the first visit of president Zelaya swore to president Zelaya that they were going to restore him and afterward they went looking for a position so that the dictatorship could perpetuate itself in power".

Valenzuela affirmed that the restitution of President Zelaya did not happen, "because the gringos betrayed us, because the gringos always betray us... they play a role, saying to us that they are going to aid us and on the other hand they say to Micheletti, hang on, Micheletti, hang on, we aren't going to remove you".

They never restored Zelaya.

Who is Jacqueline Foglia Sandoval

Foglia is singled out by Valenzuela, as the person charged with coordinating and operating the coup d'Etat, "she is the one that coordinated what would be delivered to each one of those that served as executors of the coup, what they should do and say, and what they wanted them to declare", and proposed as an example what she said to the then-Procurador General of the Republic, Rosa América Miranda de Galo.

"Attorney this is the cuarta urna decree, it is published now, you have to declare it illegal".

The 11th of May of 2009, the Court of Administrative Disputes in Tegucigalpa, declared the petition to nullify the survey of the 28th of June presented by the Special Attorney Against Corruption, Henry Salgado, admissable. Three days later the Procuradora General, Rosa América Miranda, cleared it at trial, leaving defenseless the government of President Manuel Zelaya Rosales.

Foglia Sandoval also is singled out in the report "The Facts Speak for Themselves" of the Commissioner of Human Rights, Leo Valladares Lanza, of being part of the battalion 3-16, which in the 1980s was in charge of assassinations and disappearances of Hondurans.

Enjoying the luxury of Dubai the overthrow of Zelaya started

The ill-fated minister revealed how six major businessmen came together at a fair in the city of Dubai, in the bar of a hotel, saying that "Zelaya has to be removed, we cannot support him anymore".

According to the declarations of Valenzuela the conspiracy to remove President Zelaya began in the capital of the United Arab Emirates, in the distant Middle East, immediately after the project of the cuarta urna was announced.

A group of businessmen that were participating in an international fair, who Valenzuela did not identify, decided in that meeting that they were going to remove Zelaya from power and then they articulated and paid a lobbyist in Washington, identified only with the last name of Smith, to begin to discredit the government of Zelaya, a job that cost them four million dollars.

Perhaps Valenzuela was referring to the firm of lobbyists Smith, Dawson and Andrews with its headquarters in Washington.

According to the story, it was in the same reunion that the decided to name Jacqueline Foglia as the coordinator and person in charge of logistics to prepare the overthrow of Zelaya.

Marcia Villeda faked the signature of president Zelaya

In one part of the interview, Valenzuela mentions how the coup d'Etat was planned in congress and in one of the many meetings of the conspiracy, the then and present congress member Marcia Facusse de Villeda was ordered to obtain documents for the accusations against Zelaya.

And about the falsification of president Zelaya, Valenzuela said without subterfuge that it was Marcia Facusse de Villeda who was charged with faking the signature of the president.

In the extensive interview that Valenzuela gave days before his death, he confessed that when Zelaya named him as minister of Pronadera, he knew nothing about agriculture; he criticized the role of the fuel transnationals, the system of administration of justice, as well as the role of personages such as Carlos Flores, who he singled out as involved directly in the coup d'Etat.

Valenzuela will not be able to testify before the Truth Commission because of his assassination in cold blood, in the city of San Pedro Sula, but without knowing his declarations it will be a good contribution to the knowledge of the truth, although now, Valenzuela is dead.

Rodolfo Pastor Fasquelle on justice and the return (or not) of Mel Zelaya

From Vos el Soberano:

Coup, cut, and action: A telenovela called "The Humbug"

Rodolfo Pastor Fasquelle

Today the most recent episode of the local soap opera "The Humbug" was transmitted. The Attorney General Rubí, protege and sidekick of Carlos Flores Facussé and politically chosen in Congress weeks before the coup, under intense international pressure-- always "the interference!", as Leitzelar and the bards lament--announced with bass drum and cymbal, that he would file away the political proceedings brought against ex President Zelaya after the coup and would graciously permit him to defend himself in liberty against allegations of administrative offenses, that were also the means and pretexts of the coup, before the Court that justified and endorsed the coup, equally chosen among the friends of Flores Facussé by the golpista Congress. Do we have to applaud? Laugh? or cry, as is customary with the soap opera genre?

In theory there is not much to fear. Indeed this is the same Court that only a few days ago (after the coup, pardon me if I insist on the chronology, that is the methodological recourse of my trade) just concluded giving a final dismissal to ex-President Callejas, accused by the conservative US senator Jesse Helms of being in his time "the most corrupt in Latin America" and against who the Attorney, even in the hands of the National Party, kept the charges pending for twelve years! But who had to be rewarded.

We are dealing with a transformation, to a very different Rubí from the one that has declared again and again that he would have to detain and jail ex President Zelaya the moment he arrived in Honduras. And in effect I have an ambivalent feeling because all my adult life I have dreamed about how to construct a country where the powerful would be responsible before the law and
what's justice? My stomach turns at the statement of ex Ambassador Arcos, noting that in Honduras justice is a serpent that only bites the barefoot.

The announcement by Rubí is a new step on the turn that is observed, for months, in the strategy of Lobo and the USA, that are "flexing" their positions with respect to the return of the ex president to the country. And it provides a new trap, of those of which the political field is full. A friend revealed to me a couple of months ago in Honduras, explaining to me that it deals with generating the impression that the conditions for his return have already been established in the country and that "if Mel does not return, it is because he doesn't want to", even if Lobo is not in any condition to absolutely guarantee anything with respect to his security. Under the supposition that this would be enough for the -- meantime, inadmissable-- readmission of the country to the OAS and SICA. And without committing himself in the least to confront the actual situation of insecurity and political persecution that obtains against the opposition.

Although I do not wish to label as "military", thus excusing the prominence of the political and business partners of the conspiracy, the President of the USA, his Foreign Minister, his ambassador and the spokespeople of the State Department have labeled what occurred in Honduras as a "coup d'Etat". That is to say as a rupture of the legal order, a crime against institutionality and the Honduran citizenry. Thus it has been labeled as well by the UN, the OAS, SICA, and it has been recognized repeatedly as well by President Lobo himself and other national actors, accomplices who want to feign candor and objectivity. (Let alone the Resistance in which we locate ourselves for distinct reasons, with cell phones and multicolored flags with an undetermined number-- because we don't want to tell-- of citizens.) And it has been recognized by all those organizations, that have certified and documented many (although not all) of the abuses of human rights and crimes against humanity: illegal detentions, tortures, and assassinations of members of the opposition and their relatives, with the goal of intimidating and silencing it. They were also recognized as abuses, the day before yesterday by the Washington Office for Latin America (WOLA), abuses that there is no way to stop while the apparatus of justice is devoted to covering them up or justifying them.

This actual situation of Honduras will not be remedied in the least with the return (yearned for by many) of ex President Zelaya. Of course Mel should submit himself to justice, and to all the accusations that can be sustained; it comforts me-- serving him-- that he has never refused that and that, only under pressure and for the sake of social peace, accepted the false amnesty that was offered in the San Jose-Tegucigalpa Accord. But the recognition that there was a coup d'Etat and of the present situation derived from it, obliges that all the facts be investigated, so that their perpetrators-- as well-- give an account of their respective responsibilities before Justice. Not by a commission named by the lone wolf that will reveal the facts in ten years nor before the golpista Court. Power, like love, comes to an end; put it in the script.

That is to say that everyone should submit themselves to justice before a trustworthy, objective judicial institution, that cannot be the same Honduran Court since it pronounced in favor of, and even legitimated the coup with an illegal order, when it came about that the Congress would not accept the supposed "resignation of the President with all his ministers" and whose magistrates-- of the Court-- therefore would have to be themselves investigated and indicted for those crimes, which are "treason against the nation", indefeasible. And so that the magistrates and the golpista Fiscal and their other partners and accomplices submit themselves to justice, it is critical to remove them from their offices and immunities, as have to be removed as well, to ensure respect for citizenship and to respond, the police and military commanders directly implicated in the action of the coup and of the repression. The situation is not insurmountable, but the Resistance is more than its head and will not stop until it attains its goal and should be patient.

Ex President Zelaya of course will not fall into this trap. Because the operation of the makeup is transparent and because it is his obligation to continue demanding a correction of the irreversible wrong. The dominant class of Honduras has to learn to be responsible. The situation of the country is no wonder and does not just affect the man in the street. The USA has to reconsider its role in the soap opera to rectify it, in the historical record. Already enough to mourn and to repent.