Photo by insulza

The Honduran Congress is currently in recess because of the November elections, since most lawmakers are in full campaign for their reelection. The media have reported the president of Congress saying that there is no deadline for the vote. Sounds like the Congress is trying to at least wait until after the election before tackling Zelaya’s restitution, which makes it very unlikely in my opinion, that it will ever take place.

This is a dangerous game. Insulza is already angry at this, according to a report La Gringa published in her blog. But the United States has said that it will recognize the elections in Honduras no matter what the Honduran Congress should decide. It appears Micheletti has the upper hand, and the US is happy with that. Chávez’s silence in very curious.

Francisco Morazán, La Ceiba Central Park

While there’s plenty to praise in Clinton’s message to Honduras on our independence day, she used a phrase that brings it all down to ashes. She hopes the spirit of Francisco Morazán will “return your nation to a democratic path…”.

Morazán was a general who defended the president of Honduras, Dionisio de Herrera, in the war during the breakup of the Federal Republic of Central America. He later became president of Central America for two terms, fighting several battles, even against Honduran forces, but was unsuccessful in keeping the 5 nations that comprised the republic together.

I’m glad she read up on Morazán, but I resent the implication that the Supreme Court, Congress and our military acted undemocratically in preventing Manuel Zelaya from replacing our constitution.

I’m marching today at the international anti-Chávez demonstrations. Look up your city at nomaschavez.org, and join us. If it were not for Chávez, Zelaya would still be president, curiously. It was his rhetoric the provoked the opposition to do what they did. When it was happening I though Chávez was doing it on purpose with Zelaya to provoke a self-coup.

If it were not for Chávez, Obama would have been more successful in forging friendship with Latin America. If it were not for Chávez, Fidel and Ahmadinejad would be friendless. If it were not for Chávez, there would be freedom of speech in Venezuela. El Salvador and Nicaragua would not have former guerilla organizations, the FMLN and the Sandinistas ruling them.

So I’m marching against him.

I doubt there will be many people in Monterrey’s march, especially since there has been a lot of rain lately. But I’m marching anyway.

The way forward is clear. Hondurans need to tighten their belts and vote en masse. Once the election is over, I doubt the US will make another Taiwan out of us. But if it does, so be it.

The alternative, would be a socialist Honduras. If this occurs, I’d probably renounce my Honduran citizenship and become a Mexican. I wouldn’t seek, I think, to immigrate to the US, I’d probably never get over the anger enough to recite the pledge of allegiance with a clear conscience.

While in Washington D.C., “His excellancy” (their typo, not mine) Manuel Zelaya will speak at George Washington University, the Alma Mater of Colin Powell and Jackqueline Kennedy Onassis. His topic: “Returning Honduras to Democracy and Constitutional Order”. This statement makes me see red, especially when I hear Oscar Arias or Obama repeat it or anyone imply that there is no democracy or constitutional order in Honduras.

The Honduran Constitution and our democracy have never been stronger.

Couldn’t democracy be defined as the rule of law combined with the will of the people? Who writes the laws? The Congress. Who interprets them? The Supreme Court. Who votes? The people.

If Congress and the Supreme court did not approve a referendum, and Zelaya disobeyed them, they had every Constitutional right and duty to remove him. The people have every right and duty to vote this November, but Zelaya, and the OAS want to stop them. Millions of Hondurans would erupt with anger if the US were to attack our elections together with them.

Isn’t it enough that the pro-Zelaya party is vandalizing the billboards that bear Liberal Party or Nationalist Party candidates? Normally I’d call the unsightly and ubiquitous signs visual pollution, but now, the presence of these signs and billboards show we are still free.

Those who attack our elections attack our freedom and democracy.

Image by Cissey Ye, used with a Creative Commons license

Is this more misreporting or is Micheletti really offering to resign?

Disgusting. Insulza has invited Zelaya to address the OAS again. This clearly shows how unwilling Insulza is to change his views, and reveals this week’s OAS chancellors misison as a meaningless charade.

Nevertheless, in his report before the OAS today, he at least expressed understanding of the single unacceptable clause in the San Jose Accord: the return of Zelaya as president. “No one we spoke with was neutral or in favor of this” he said. He also remarked that Micheletti’s view was that Zelaya was no longer president when he was exiled to Costa Rica, and his admission of this as the wrong thing to do.

Image from El Proceso Digital

Although slightly inaccurate about why article 239 kicks in (it’s because of a suggestion of reelection, not for any modification of the constitution), this is a nifty presentation of the events this year in Honduras.

This video critisizes Obama more than I think he deserves. Obama isn’t afraid of a coup in the US, but maybe in socialist Latin America? I am yet unconvinced by allegations that Obama is a socialist, but that might change if he veers only a little bit more to the left regarding Honduras.

This graph of the recipients of Mel Zelaya’s 2009 publicity budget of 1.42 million dollars is from a recent entry in La Gringa’s Blogicito. The most important part is the lower right hand corner, which has a photocopy of the latest cashed check for, 2.5 million Lempiras (+-132 thousand dollars), made out to Esdras Amado Lopez from Zelaya’s government.

Why is this important? Because Esdras Amado Lopez’s and Eduardo Maldonado’s TV stations, who recieved more than half of Zelaya’s budget, were the ones shut down on June 28th. International human rights organizations, acting on mass Venezuelan media attention, have condemned Micheletti’s decision to temporarily shut down these media. But Micheletti’s defense is: “these channels were branches of Manuel Zelaya’s government.”.

Should we join the Venezuelan news sources in condemning Micheletti, when their hero, Hugo Chávez, is guilty of the permanent shutdown of Radio Caracas Television, scores of radio stations, and arbitrarily delays to renew licenses to all opposition media?

The Colombian Senate has passed a resolution to approve a referendum to see whether their constitution should be modified. Their goal: to allow popular president Alvaro Uribe to be reelected. At this, the opposition left the senate and boycotted the vote, which I have always held as an idiotic thing to do in a democracy. This allowed the 102-member body to pass the resolution with 56 votes in favor and two against.

This is terrible news for Latin America; it does not matter whether Uribe’s government is left or right-leaning. The “will of the people” that socialists everywhere use as their mantle, is fickle and easily swayed. The people must be protected from their government, and also from their own foolishness.

Term limits are a very wise thing to have in a constitution. An incumbent president is very hard to defeat. Should he or she be corrupt, and not above fraud to remain in power, they become almost impossible to defeat. Then the opposition is weakened, and democracy becomes a farce, as it was in the Soviet Union, and is in Cuba, and to a lesser degree, in Venezuela. Communist nations always held elections and had an active legislature; the difference was that only the ruling party was allowed to participate.

Now the supporters of Chávez and Zelaya can gleefully pounce on their opponents and call us hypocrites. Some have already begun pointing out the Wall Street Journal and Anastasia O’Grady’s silence on the issue. She has been one of the brave few journalists to publicly approve the decisions of the Honduran Congress and Supreme Court in removing Manuel Zelaya.

I hope those who have defended Honduras would join me in speaking out, judiciously defending democracy even against presidents who may be worthy of reelection, to protect us from present and future autocrats unworthy of it. We must silence our critics by speaking more wisely than they do.

Image by Daniel Horacio Agostini, used with a Creative Commons license

A few days ago I said, incorrectly, that only Chávez could have both the financial means and the motive to finance the violence in Honduras. But, as my fellow blogger, La Gringa, pointed out, the FARC are a very credible alternative. Also, Wall Street Journal columnist Mary Anastasia O’Grady claims to have in her possession evidence that the FARC is financing the opposition to Micheletti’s interim government. Now President Micheletti is saying the same thing.

The FARC, a communist guerrilla organization in Colombia, have a financial stake in having socialist ALBA states along the drug route from Colombia to the USA. During Zelaya’s presidency, every few months, a Venezuelan aircraft carrying tons of cocaine would crash in a remote Honduran jungle, or in a banana plantation.

Although I have no data, the number of crashes seem to suggest that many planes would go by undetected, flying low, under the radar, at night. Flying low is dangerous, and in a rural third-world country, flying low at nighttime is triply so. Honduras is mountainous; tall structures and cables don’t have flashing warning lights, but bright orange spheres, that are visible only by daylight.

FARC also has the millions of dollars necessary to finance people to abandon their rural homes, travel to the capital and burn down buildings, and stir violence. Reports are saying people are being paid a thousand lempiras, given food and lodging to participate in the disturbances. FARC is a terrorist organization, unlike Cháez, who is merely an autocrat; they are very well versed in stirring opposition. Zelaya, through Chávez, could easily obtain their help.

Image by Camilo Rueda Lopez, used with a Creative Commons license.