Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #995 supplement, June 30, 2009
1. Resistance on Day 2 of the Coup
2. Resistance Grows on Day 3
3. Zelaya, the Referendum and the Social Movements
4. Links to alternative sources
ISSN#: 1084‑922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com . It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/
*1. Resistance on Day 2 of the Coup
Despite a 9pm to 6am curfew, Hondurans protesting a June 28 military coup against President José Manuel (“Mel”) Zelaya Rosales remained outside the Presidential House in Tegucigalpa the night of June 28-29. In the afternoon of June 29 heavily armed soldiers using shields dispersed most of the demonstrators in a few minutes; some youths remained and some threw stones, but they fled after the soldiers began firing in the air. Protesters a few blocks away weren’t “so peaceful,” according to a local leader. Youths there had erected barricades and were burning tires; they hurled rocks and bottles at the soldiers, who used tear gas and rubber bullets on the crowd but were forced to retreat at least three times. The military said 15 soldiers and 15 officers were injured in the Tegucigalpa confrontations, which lasted about two hours; protest organizers reported 276 injured on their side. (La Jornada (Mexico) 6/30/09 from correspondent ; BBC 6/29/09; AFP 6/30/09)
A student at the protests told the Mexican daily La Jornada that more people would have been out in the streets except that “the majority think President Zelaya resigned. The media have been kidnapped, and we, the people, have been too,” she added. The de facto government had taken independent radio stations off the air, along with television networks like the US-based CNN and the Venezuela-based TeleSUR. Radio América, one of the remaining local stations, didn’t report the protests—it simply advised motorists to avoid certain roads, without explaining that they were blocked by protesters. “I’m not interested in having communism here,” the student added. “I’m a student, I love peace and I’m a Christian. But I can’t be complicitous in this robbery.“
With the news blacked out nationwide and electricity interrupted in different areas, it was difficult for reporters to determine what was happening outside the capital. Grassroots organizations said protesters were marching and blocking roads in Colón and Atlántida departments. Some 10,000 campesinos were reportedly trying to get to Tegucigalpa from Olancho, Zelaya’s home region, but were stopped at military roadblocks. There were also unconfirmed reports of military battalions that were refusing to support the coup. (LJ 6/29/09; Milenio (Mexico) 8/29/09 from Notimex)
Labor activists driving in the middle of the day on June 29 near San Pedro Sula, the country’s second largest city, said there were protests against the coup in every town they passed, and that that progressive forces had captured the Puente de la Democracia in the city of El Progreso and had liberated the independent station Radio Progreso. Another activist reported that 15,000 people demonstrated in San Pedro Sula and that there were protests in El Progreso and La Lima. (Personal communications to the Update)
*2. Resistance Grows on Day 3
The French wire service AFP reported that the protests grew on June 30 as all three of the country’s labor federations joined with organizations of campesinos, youth, the unemployed, street vendors, lesbians and gays, and other sectors in an open-ended general strike that the groups said they would maintain until Zelaya was returned to power. [The teachers’ unions had started the strike on June 29; see Update #995]. Organizers said at least 10,000 people were taking part in pro-Zelaya protests in the capital, as well as in other protests around the country; AFP put the number of demonstrators in Tegucigalpa at 2,000. A legislative deputy from the lefitist Democratic Unification of Honduras (UPH), Marvin Ponde, said thousands of anti-coup protesters trying to come to the capital by bus had been stopped at military roadblocks. They had set out from Santa Bárbara in the northwest; Danlí, Juticalpa and Catacamas in the east; and Choluteca in the south.
Violent clashes clashes were reported outside the Presidential House and in other parts of Tegucigalpa, where protesters erected barricades and battled security forces with rocks and bottles; the number of injuries was unknown. Similar actions reportedly took place in other cities.
Supporters of the de facto government held their own demonstration in the capital’s Parque Central, with an attendance of 10,000, according to organizers. (AFP 6/30/09, English and Spanish; Diario Colatino (El Salvador) 6/30/09 from PL; El Universal (Mexico) 6/30/09)
*3. Zelaya, the Referendum and the Social Movements
Zelaya is a business owner who was elected president in November 2005 as the candidate of the centrist Liberal Party of Honduras (PLH), which along with the National Party of Honduras (PNH) has led the coup against him. Despite his conservative background, “[t]he grassroots movement has been Zelaya’s fundamental ally and has remained firm in its rejection of the coup,” members of the Honduran Black Fraternal Organization (OFRANEH) told the Brazil-based Adital grassroots news service. (Adital 6/29/09)
“You have to understand that Honduras’ political class is extremely backwards,” Rafael Alegría, the local leader of the international group Vía Campesina (“Campesino Way”) explained to La Jornada on June 29. “What Zelaya has done has just been little reforms. He isn’t a socialist or a revolutionary, but these reforms, which didn’t harm the oligarchy at all, have been enough for them to attack him furiously.” Another reason for grassroots opposition to the coup, according to the OFRANEH members, is “a tremendous aversion to the armed forces in Honduras. Not many people forget that 20 years ago the soldiers controlled things from cement factories to food production to their own bank. For many, their return to power implies an historic step back that will have incalculable consequences for the country.” (Adital 6/29/09; LJ 6/30/09)
The military and the de facto government say the coup was necessary to keep Zelaya from holding a nonbinding referendum on June 28 about rewriting the Constitution. US media have generally repeated without qualification the claim that the referendum would clear the way for Zelaya to extend his term, which ends Jan. 27, 2010, by eliminating the 1982 Constitution’s provision that presidents can only serve one four-year term.
The referendum would in fact have simply asked voters whether the Nov. 29 general elections--for the president, three vice presidents, 128 legislative deputies and 298 municipal governments--should also include a “fourth ballot box” to elect a Constituent Assembly to write a new Constitution. For Zelaya to extend his term, the Constituent Assembly would have to meet, approve a Constitution and have it ratified by the voters before the president turns over power to his successor on Jan. 27. Zelaya has denied that he would seek to stay in office past January, although he said he might try to run again in the future if the Constitution was changed to permit reelection. His government claimed that 400,000 people signed the petitions to initiate the referendum. (The Nation (US) 6/30/09; El Nuevo Herald (Miami) 6/25/09 from EFE; EFE 6/27/09) [Honduras’ total population is about 7.5 million.]
According to the Honduras correspondent of the Argentine daily Clarín, the coup supporters say that if the referendum had passed, Zelaya was going to cancel the presidential elections, extend his term, close down the Congress and seize power “in the best style of [Venezuelan president Hugo] Chávez.” "None of this [scenario] could be confirmed,” the correspondent remarked. (Clarín 6/30/09)
The Chicago-based People's Weekly World reported on its website that Zelaya “had been building relationships with the [UDH], the only leftwing party registered to participate in Honduran national elections. Most observers expected Zelaya to swing his support to Democratic Unification candidate César Ham [Peña]” in the November elections. (PWW 6/29/09)
The National Police told the Mexican wire service Notimex on June 28 that Ham was killed that morning when he resisted arrest [see Update #995]. The report was false. He fled the country, saying there was an arrest order for him and Marcos Burgos, head of the government’s Permanent Commission on Contingencies (COPECO). On the evening of June 29 the two men landed at El Salvador’s Comalapa airport for a connecting flight to Nicaragua. They thanked El Salvador’s leftist Farabundo Martí Front for National Liberation (FMLN) and Salvadoran president Mauricio Funes for their help. (Prensa Gráfica (El Salvador) 6/29/09)
Correction: Following our source, in Update #995 we incorrectly called the teachers’ union federation “the Front of Teachers Organizations (FOM).” The correct name is Federation of Teachers Organizations of Honduras (FOMH).
*4. Links to alternative sources on the Coup
Honduras: will coup d'etat stand?
http://www.ww4report.com/node/7507
Zelaya Says He Will Return to Honduras on Thursday
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/kristin-bricker/2009/06/zelaya-says-he-will-return-honduras-thursday
Honduras: countdown to confrontation?
http://ww4report.com/node/7513
Honduras' First Full Day Under Coup Rule
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/kristin-bricker/2009/06/honduras-first-full-day-under-coup-rule
Latin American Nations Begin Economic and Political Blockade Against Coup Government
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/kristin-bricker/2009/06/latin-american-nations-begin-economic-and-political-blockade-agains
Honduran Coup Turns Violent, Sanctions Imposed
https://nacla.org/node/5955
Honduras: Protests Continue as Obama, Regional Leaders Respond
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1946/68/
Honduras: Old Coup Strategy, Different Stage
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1938/1/
Showdown in Honduras: The Rise, Repression and Uncertain Future of the Coup
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1941/1/
Take Action: Stand in Solidarity with the People of Honduras
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1947/1/
Coup in Honduras: President Zelaya Ousted by Military
https://nacla.org/
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream andalternative sources:
http://americas.irc-online.org/
http://nacla.org/articles
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
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