Fiesta Cívica
77, 47, 62, 35. Sounds like a combination lock, doesn’t it? But these are the claims for voter participation in yesterday’s election. I’d love to believe 62 percent of registered voters did vote, and know that the 35 percent number is an invention. But should voter participation really have been 47 percent, it would be the lowest turnout in any election in Honduran History.
My sister and brother in law hosted a party tonight to celebrate elections in Honduras. We even had a vote, in which Elvin Santos won by a landslide 78%. We also had a null vote, for Carlos Pavón.
We are quite anxious, since the National Electoral Tribunal needed to have given preliminary results two hours ago. Also, Resistance media are reporting mass abstentionism, and those who believe them will never believe otherwise, even when presented with evidence to the contrary.
May the results be known soon!
Image by Alexander Steffler, used with a Creative Commons License
What has been left of the past five months of fracas? Bitter division, and the resurrection of the cold war in Central America. Also greater skepticism and awareness of the people. Who is largely responsible for this? The leaders of the ALBA nations, and their ringmaster Hugo Chavez. Also, the media who have reported their lies as truth, either honestly, out of ignorance, or deceitfully, to further their agendas. But also responsible are the fearless voices that dared contradict the general opinion, risking their credibility and reputations. We shouldn’t lose what good may have come through this.
Deposed Honduran president Manuel Zelaya claims this Sunday’s election is “spurious” because of a “state of repression, with censoring of media opposing the regime, and a biased electoral tribunal”. All this is misdirection. Zelaya isn’t even on the ballot.
Who is the alleged “repression” against? Against supporters of Zelaya. Do these supporters want an election? No. Why is the election invalid if those who are being “repressed” don’t even want an election? In fact, the Honduran Constitution (Spanish PDF, or English Translation) states very clearly in article 4 that “the infringement of this standard {alternation of the executive branch} constitutes the crime of treason.” Article 37 states that citizens have the right to elect and be elected. According to Article 42, proponents of the boycott can also be stripped of their citizenship, and be charged as criminals. Yes, they would be political prisoners, unfortunately, but the Constitution is the law of the land. The article states that citizenship is lost “by restricting freedom of suffrage, adulterating electoral documents or using fraudulent means to circumvent the will of the people;” among other reasons.
This clause means that when Zelaya admitted (see above video) that he won the presidential election through fraud, he could also have been stripped of his Honduran citizenship because he used fraudulent means to circumvent the will of the people. In this case, Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo, who is the likely winner of Sunday’s elections, should have been elected president four years ago. Curiously it was on channel 36, with Esdras Amado Lopez, where Zelaya confessed his fraud.
What media are the government allegedly “censoring”? Cholusat, Channel 36 and Radio Globo. Are any of these media in favor of a presidential candidate? No, they are against the whole elections. Again, they are breaking the law in calling for a boycott, according to Article 4 of the Constitution. The government is justified in shutting them down. But of course, they can’t, because of world opinion, and they shouldn’t, because it is counterproductive and unnecessary. Would the elections be any different whether these media operate or not? They have no effect on the election, except stoking the furnace of international sanctions against Honduras.
Zelaya’s third charge is that the Supreme Electoral Tribunal is biased. In favor of whom are they biased? In favor of any of the 6 (now 5) presidential candidates? No. If they are “biased”, they are “biased” against the proponents of electoral boycott. Where is the bias that makes the elections spurious?
If we apply reason to Zelaya’s accusations we see they are only buzzwords designed to make journalists’ ears tingle, and tickle their self-importance in upholding a cause that is worthy in their eyes, and hide their outright bias and in some cases, perhaps, incompetence. The result is a misinformed and anodized public that will consume whatever agenda the news media throw at them, and rabidly defend their puppeteer’s wishes. Then they sip their lattes and feel like the intellectual saviors of the world.
But many nations are supporting the Honduran election. Even Oscar Arias is calling for all nations to recognize them, “if everything goes well”. Surprisingly, Obama, whose “coup” verbal misfire landed the US in the company of Castro and Chavez, has written Brazilian president Lula da Silva, asking him to influence Iran, and also recognize the Honduran elections. Da Silva rejected the letter. The US, Costa Rica, Panama and Peru have expressed their support of a transparent electoral process in Honduras, and will recognize their results
Of course Zelaya will cry fraud even before the results are anounced. But who would the fraud be in favor of, or who would it be against?
A recent Examiner article proposes that Micheletti deserves a Nobel Peace Prize, and has a slide show of pictures from the official campaign closings.
OMG, I have a tin foil hat on and a paper bag over my head now because Google Street View has my house on their database. Members of the resistencia will now know where to send their thank you notes.
I live in an apartment behind the Ficus trees.
Evo Morales, Fidel Castro, and Hugo Chavez, Image by Josh, Creative Commons license
Mary O’Grady wrote another brilliant article, entitled The End of Bolivian Democracy, about President Evo Morales, and Bolivian elections in December. In it she provides a chilling scenario of what could have happened to Honduras, and it makes me mourn for the Bolivian people, the poorest in South America. Bolivia voted against a Constitutional Assembly, but Morales used force to lock out the opposition delegates and plow his constitutional mangling through.
I had lost hope that I would be able to vote from outside Honduras, as the Honduran ambassador to Mexico is staunchly pro-Zelaya. The Honduran Consulates in Mexico and the US are boycotting the election. The consul (named Patricia by the way) has seemingly leaned heavily on the press to publish Zelaya propaganda as truth. I had an email discussion with a reporter last week, who published an interview with Zelaya without disclaimer. The result is that now Mexicans believe Zelaya’s false statistics about deaths, violence and repression. Their death toll, 104. The true death toll, three…four if we include the murder of Micheletti’s nephew, Enzo. If we give some margin of error, the number would still be no more than 12.
But La Gringa wrote today in her blogicito, that the Honduran Supreme Electoral Tribunal has offices in the US, and will be allowing Hondurans living in the US to vote. Sadly, there are no options in Mexico. I am considering making the trip to Houston to vote. But, there is a caveat. Only those who have registered their new home address can vote. I haven’t, and am not very optimistic that it could be changed in time for Sunday. I will call them, hopefully I will be able to.
Zelaya's Resignation Letter
I suppose it was in the works a week or so before Zelaya “rescued” the ballots amigo Hugo flew to him. The media talk those days was that Zelaya was becoming mentally incompetent to govern, and that Congress was considering asking him to resign on those grounds. The letter above focuses on his creating national conflict and his eroding of his political base before mentioning his health.
Zelaya had already violated article 239 in private by saying that in 2010 Honduras would be governed by a Constitutional assembly with the intent on changing the protected reelection clauses, and on Thursday June 25, the date of this letter, publicly. That day, while confiscating the poll material, he said to Telesur reporters that in 2010 a Constitutional Assembly would govern Honduras, but did not mention reelection. Everyone knew his true ideas, the media complained loudly, but didn’t have Zelaya on the record admitting reelection was his intent.
But months before, he had published retroactively dated articles in the national Gazette calling for the a “referendum” to call for a National Constitutional Assembly. All Hugo Chavez’s ALBA nations had tried, and some succeeded, in creating those assemblies and rewriting their constitutions. When the Honduran Supreme Court pointed out to him that only Congress could call for a referendum, and ruled it unconstitutional, he changed the word to “survey” and published it again. That was the first public proof of his intent, but only lawyers read the Gazette. The Supreme Court again ruled the survey unconstitutional. Some time after his article was published, the Supreme Court drafted a secret document, dated June 2, accusing Zelaya of treason, abuse of authority, usurpation of functions among other things.
After the ballot revolt on Thursday June 25, Zelaya fired the chief of the armed forces, and when Congress reinstated him on Friday, defied Congress and the Supreme Court. He called their opposition a coup, with a loud Hugo Chavez seeding the international media with the word “coup”. That night, June 26, there were already dozens of YouTube videos of Telesur coverage of a coup that did not exist. Zelaya hadn’t been deposed yet.
It seems the Congress and the Supreme Court thought they could convince Zelaya to relent, but when he plowed on, they changed strategy. Saturday, when Zelaya publicly stated that only God and the Virgin of Suyapa could stop the referendum, Congress and the Supreme Court declared the survey illegal again, and asked the people not to vote.
When Sunday June 28, the day of the survey/referendum, dawned, they arrested Zelaya based on Article 239. But since Congress had to rush to action, and already had that letter handy, I think they gave that letter for Zelaya to sign before he was flown out of the country. He had no choice but to sign it. Coercion is the only thing that could make it invalid
On the way to out though, looking for a country to grant him asylum, he must have talked to Hugo Chávez, who probably saw that Zelaya in Venezuela or Nicaragua wouldn’t garner public support, and sent him to Costa Rica instead, because he could count on Nobel Peace Prize winner Oscar Arias, a closet supporter of constitutional reform, to harbor him. He had a sympathetic CNN team waiting for him in San Jose, baited to make him the victim in the eyes of the world. Especially jarring was the line, much parroted later on, that he was only conducting a non-binding survey.
With the image of Zelaya in pajamas beside Arias, Chávez even succeeded in fooling Obama to give a shoot-from-the-hip condemnation of the removal of Zelaya, which plagued everyone until last week. His ambassador, and advisers knew better. Thomas Shannon had been in Honduras during that final week. Obama must reign his tongue…he has gotten into trouble several times already by trusting his own opinion before he is briefed. Or maybe he was briefed…years ago he had written a strong condemnation about the US involvement in Grenada.
On Tuesday June 30th, the Court made the secret document public, a description of it can now be read on their website in their press release, (Google translation) explaining their legal grounds for removing him. Could this document have been drafted later and dated retroactively? Maybe, but given all the legal process the press release describes, I find it very unnecessary and unlikely.
In short, I think the letter was not fake, but might be legally void because of coercion.
Libertad para {¿manchar?} el pueblo
Esdras Amado Lopez complained today that someone is creating interference with his media, Channel 36 and Cholusat, by transmitting western movies and other content in the same frequency. Reuters has issued a report about this.
Whoever is doing this is doing more damage than good. Even with the incendiary and patently false content Cholusat and Channel 36 discharge into the Honduran airwaves, they should not be able to claim anyone is impeding their freedom to address the Honduran public. Although I would rather watch Osama Bin Laden than them.
UPDATE: Thursday Nov 26, 12:39 am
It is becoming increasingly clear that Esdras Amado López is faking this and other government “repression” against his news media in order to get international news media to give Roberto Micheletti bad press. Today, the channel shows an TV color test pattern and the words: “Interfieren Señal de canal 36 para impedir que informemos.” Translation: “{They’re} interfering channel 36’s signal to stop us from informing”. La Gringa writes in her blogicito, that immediately before this image came up, López stated that he would take the channel off the air “in protest”.
As the trend for smaller, cheaper, more portable computers drives on, Google is preparing to replace Microsoft as the software company for the world. The concept of the browser as an operating system has been a dream since the early nineties.
I remember a conversation with a Costa Rican friend, Juan Manuel Brenes, where he made the prediction, 15 years ago, that someday, the operating system would disappear, to be replaced by the browser. Since then, many in the computer industry have dreamed of a “cloud computer”.
Google is very near achieving that goal. Most surprising of all is the news that they are borrowing the Apple business model of selling the computer hardware with the software pre-installed. Microsoft does largely the same thing but still provides copies of Windows to install on old machines.
But, users would not be able to download Google’s operating system, called Chrome OS, and install it on their computers. The reasoning behind it? The operating system would not be stored in each computer, but in the internet itself. Any upgrades will happen in a server farm somewhere in the arctic tundra. Applications would be hosted on the internet and accessed as services. All data would be stored in servers, not your own computer.
This has several implications for privacy, and also for graphics performance. Most graphically intense applications have long since moved to game consoles, or the Mac OS. Apple would not lose much of it’s market share; the big loser in this would be Microsoft, because Windows is what powers cheap netbooks and most business machines, which only need scheduling and office software.
With Chrome OS, Google could easily become a larger giant by far than Microsoft ever dreamed of being.
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