Live from Honduras
By Circles Robinson, photos Luis Miranda
HAVANA TIMES, July 8 — A friend of mine is in Honduras reporting on the situation in the streets 10 days after a military coup deposed President Manuel Zelaya and installed a de-facto government, unanimously repudiated by the United Nations and the Organization of American States.
Luis Miranda reports that while not the over 200,000 people demonstrating for Zelaya’s return as on Sunday, somewhere between 10 and 15 thousand marched Tuesday headed by Zelaya’s wife Xiomara, who came out of hiding.
He notes that demonstrations continue throughout the country, with roadblocks and university takeovers. It was announced on Tuesday in Washington that Zelaya and coup leader Roberto Micheletti will meet on Thursday with mediator Costa Rican President Oscar Arias in San Jose.
“The march in Tegucigalpa began at the Pedagogical University and passed by important points of the capital: the private business headquarters, the US embassy, and ending at the Public Ministry where there were moments of tension with the Army and Police guarding the building,” said Miranda.
The protesting population demanded the resignation of the Supreme Court justices that supported the coup and criticized the soldiers “for protecting the assassins.”
“At the precise moment we were in front of the Public Ministry, and just before the march was to break up, we could hear on the loud speakers the words of President Mel Zelaya live from Washington. He had concluded his meeting with Hillary Clinton and said he had accepted her proposal for a “dialogue” with Micheletti mediated by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias.”
The announcement from Zelaya drew mixed reactions. “Some demonstrators felt deception, believing that sitting down with the coup leader would partially legitimatize him,” said Miranda.
Meanwhile, Micheletti said he would “not negotiate a return of Zelaya to the presidency.”
“Several civic organizations are aware that their struggle goes beyond the return or no of President Zelaya, and are awaiting developments,” said the eye witness from Tegucigalpa, Honduras.
Those demonstrators are right, who do not want Zelaya to negotiate with the coupsters in any way whatsoever. They understand that this whole exercise has been — and is — intended to derail the possibility of a Constituent Assembly: the whole point and goal of the coup in the first place. And allowing the OAS — and now Arias, and behind him the U.S. régime — to set the agenda now, is setting up the masses of Honduras to be out-maneuvered yet again by these professional con-artist bourgeois politicos.
Better for Zelaya to be arrested at the border without pre-conditions, than this. And so this is where leadership is strongly required, of course.Fidel and Raúl Castro and Hugo Chávez put their lives on the line for what they believe in. Their victory was complete, or nearly so, when they avoided death and defeat. What can we say of Mel Zelaya so far..?
Interestingly, the Honduran Constitution of 1982 does provide for loss of citizenship for those who “incite, promote or aid in the continuation or re-election of the President” http://pdba.georgetown.edu/Constitutions/Honduras/hond05.html (article 42):
ARTICULO 42.- La calidad de ciudadano se pierde:
5. Por incitar, promover o apoyar el continuismo o la reelección del Presidente de la República; y,
Further, Article 239 indicates that anyone who has held the office of chief executive cannot be president or vice president and anyone who proposes reform to that prohibition can be barred from holding public office for ten years:
ARTICULO 239.- El ciudadano que haya desempeñado la titularidad del Poder Ejecutivo no podrá ser Presidente o Vicepresidente de la República.
El que quebrante esta disposición o proponga su reforma, así como aquellos que lo apoyen directa o indirectamente, cesarán de inmediato en el desempeño de sus respectivos cargos y quedarán…