An article published in the Honduran Proceso Digital online newspaper today says that Porfirio Lobo Sosa will be holding a meeting Monday between different government offices to discuss the wave of attacks, many fatal, on journalists in Honduras.
As the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) noted in a report published this week, in March alone, five journalists were killed. This makes March 2010 the most deadly month ever for Honduran journalists, according to Thelma Mejía reporting on the IPS website. The CPJ says that this has "led to widespread self-censorship in the local media".
Independent and informed media point to the coup as triggering an increase in repression of media, including acts of extreme violence. Mejía writes that "local and international human rights groups warn that since the Jun. 28, 2009 coup that overthrew then president Manuel Zelaya, the wave of repression targeting the movement against the coup, as well as journalists, has not let up."
The Proceso Digital article instead takes the curious approach of tracing the beginning of violence against journalists back to 2007, mentioning a series of incidents in April 2008, the recovery of remains of a missing journalist in March 2009, and another death in April 2009. Even when citing the death of Gabriel Fino in July 2009, after the coup d'etat, Proceso Digital manages not to so much as mention the coup and its aftermath as a context.
CPJ reporting at the time of the death of Fino, a local radio reporter on the Atlantic coast and contributor to national programs, noted no specific motive had been identified; nor has any progress been reported in the succeeding months. Spanish language coverage at the time rejected any political motivation for Fino's death, with some stories suggesting it might have related to his reporting on drug trafficking. Nonetheless, a report by Daniel Kovalik published July 22, 2009 in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette identified Fino as "openly opposed to the coup", and numerous stories pointed out that the general repression of the press by the de facto regime created an unsafe atmosphere for reporters.
As Mejía notes in her IPS article, that atmosphere continues today. And so does murkiness about the motivations for these killings. This encourages US media outlets like the Los Angeles Times to present a distorted "fair and balanced" suggestion that "both the extreme right, long the dominant power in Honduras, and the extreme left would have reasons for sowing fear", citing Honduran law professor Leo Valladares. While Jose Osman Lopez, president of the Committee for Free Expression in Honduras, is quoted as saying "the killings of the journalists are part of a wider deterioration in human rights that has especially hurt opponents of the coup and belied talk of reconciliation", the impression left with the reader is that there might be anti-journalist violence by supporters of the resistance as much as by the repressive right wing.
The quote from Valladares is especially misleading, as this former commissioner of human rights has been a clear voice against violence and repression by the de facto regime installed after the coup d'Etat. In a widely reproduced interview from November 2009, Valladares made clear his support for mobilization in defense of human rights, and his condemnation of the right-wing coup that took over Honduras. In October, he was quoted in press coverage of repression as saying "all the actions of the de facto government have been nothing more than another strategy to cut off the voices that denounce human rights [violations]."
There are reasons to suspect that at least some of the recent surge in assassinations of journalists might be related to continuing repression of dissent. Many of those killed come from the north coast, where the conflict between the campesinos seeking land rights in the Bajo Aguan and private landowners, their security forces, and complicit media and police forces, continues to be heated.
This March, José Bayardo Mairena, a radio reporter, died while driving from Catacamas to Juticalpa,Olancho, as did another reporter accompanying him, Manuel Juarez. CPJ characterizes Bayardo Mairena as a "veteran journalist" who "handled general assignments that included coverage of organized crime and a land dispute in the Aguán region". Not included in the mainstream Honduran press coverage was the information that Bayardo Mairena "strongly questioned the coup d'etat carried out June 28, 2009. He also had systematically denounced the constant human rights violations carried out by the army and police against citizens in resistance on the radio station in Olancho where he worked".
Previously murdered was Nahúm Palacios Arteaga, of Channel 5 TV and Radio Tocoa in Tocoa, Atlántida, also reporting on the Aguan struggle. CPJ's report on Palacios correctly recalls that in June 2009, he "had been threatened by members of the military for his critical coverage of the coup" with his home and office raided and equipment confiscated. Despite a request in summer 2009 for protection for Palacios by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, none was provided.
Also killed in March on the Atlantic coast was David Meza Montesinos, a radio journalist on reporter La Ceiba station El Patio and a correspondent for RadioAmerica , described by CPJ as covering drug trafficking and organized crime. His death has been attributed to drug traffickers.
So where does the insinuation of "extreme leftwing" violence against journalists come from? One attack that has been linked, with great drama but no evidence, to the Honduran resistance, by radio personality Karol Cabrera, who survived it. Joseph Hernández Ochoa, the fifth journalist killed in March, died in the attack in Tegucigalpa. CPJ reported that Hernández Ochoa hosted an entertainment program on Tegucigalpa TV station Channel 51, and it was widely assumed that the principal target was Cabrera. Cabrera, who worked as a presenter on state-owned Canal 8 for the Micheletti regime, accused "Zelaya militants" of the attack on her, a charge she previously made in the unfortunate death of her daughter, a death investigators associated instead with acquaintance gang violence. In the more recent attack, the parents of Hernández Ochoa have actually accused Cabrera of engineering it to eliminate him.
The two attacks on Karol Cabrera, and her unsubstantiated claims that they were the work of opponents of the coup d'Etat, are the only reported examples of violence against journalists that have even been imputed, unconvincingly, to the progressive movement in Honduras. But leave it to the fair and balanced media in the US not only to give these claims equal weight, but to fail to provide the context that makes it clear that there is a pattern to the journalistic bloodbath of March.
That pattern points to the contested terrain of the north coast, where reporters seeking to spread real news put their lives in danger, in an atmosphere of violent repression fostered by the regime of the golpe de estado of 2009 and continuing under the Lobo Sosa administration.
Fuente: hondurasculturepolitics.blogspot.com
.
As the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) noted in a report published this week, in March alone, five journalists were killed. This makes March 2010 the most deadly month ever for Honduran journalists, according to Thelma Mejía reporting on the IPS website. The CPJ says that this has "led to widespread self-censorship in the local media".
Independent and informed media point to the coup as triggering an increase in repression of media, including acts of extreme violence. Mejía writes that "local and international human rights groups warn that since the Jun. 28, 2009 coup that overthrew then president Manuel Zelaya, the wave of repression targeting the movement against the coup, as well as journalists, has not let up."
The Proceso Digital article instead takes the curious approach of tracing the beginning of violence against journalists back to 2007, mentioning a series of incidents in April 2008, the recovery of remains of a missing journalist in March 2009, and another death in April 2009. Even when citing the death of Gabriel Fino in July 2009, after the coup d'etat, Proceso Digital manages not to so much as mention the coup and its aftermath as a context.
CPJ reporting at the time of the death of Fino, a local radio reporter on the Atlantic coast and contributor to national programs, noted no specific motive had been identified; nor has any progress been reported in the succeeding months. Spanish language coverage at the time rejected any political motivation for Fino's death, with some stories suggesting it might have related to his reporting on drug trafficking. Nonetheless, a report by Daniel Kovalik published July 22, 2009 in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette identified Fino as "openly opposed to the coup", and numerous stories pointed out that the general repression of the press by the de facto regime created an unsafe atmosphere for reporters.
As Mejía notes in her IPS article, that atmosphere continues today. And so does murkiness about the motivations for these killings. This encourages US media outlets like the Los Angeles Times to present a distorted "fair and balanced" suggestion that "both the extreme right, long the dominant power in Honduras, and the extreme left would have reasons for sowing fear", citing Honduran law professor Leo Valladares. While Jose Osman Lopez, president of the Committee for Free Expression in Honduras, is quoted as saying "the killings of the journalists are part of a wider deterioration in human rights that has especially hurt opponents of the coup and belied talk of reconciliation", the impression left with the reader is that there might be anti-journalist violence by supporters of the resistance as much as by the repressive right wing.
The quote from Valladares is especially misleading, as this former commissioner of human rights has been a clear voice against violence and repression by the de facto regime installed after the coup d'Etat. In a widely reproduced interview from November 2009, Valladares made clear his support for mobilization in defense of human rights, and his condemnation of the right-wing coup that took over Honduras. In October, he was quoted in press coverage of repression as saying "all the actions of the de facto government have been nothing more than another strategy to cut off the voices that denounce human rights [violations]."
There are reasons to suspect that at least some of the recent surge in assassinations of journalists might be related to continuing repression of dissent. Many of those killed come from the north coast, where the conflict between the campesinos seeking land rights in the Bajo Aguan and private landowners, their security forces, and complicit media and police forces, continues to be heated.
This March, José Bayardo Mairena, a radio reporter, died while driving from Catacamas to Juticalpa,
Previously murdered was Nahúm Palacios Arteaga, of Channel 5 TV and Radio Tocoa in Tocoa, Atlántida, also reporting on the Aguan struggle. CPJ's report on Palacios correctly recalls that in June 2009, he "had been threatened by members of the military for his critical coverage of the coup" with his home and office raided and equipment confiscated. Despite a request in summer 2009 for protection for Palacios by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, none was provided.
Also killed in March on the Atlantic coast was David Meza Montesinos, a radio journalist on reporter La Ceiba station El Patio and a correspondent for Radio
So where does the insinuation of "extreme leftwing" violence against journalists come from? One attack that has been linked, with great drama but no evidence, to the Honduran resistance, by radio personality Karol Cabrera, who survived it. Joseph Hernández Ochoa, the fifth journalist killed in March, died in the attack in Tegucigalpa. CPJ reported that Hernández Ochoa hosted an entertainment program on Tegucigalpa TV station Channel 51, and it was widely assumed that the principal target was Cabrera. Cabrera, who worked as a presenter on state-owned Canal 8 for the Micheletti regime, accused "Zelaya militants" of the attack on her, a charge she previously made in the unfortunate death of her daughter, a death investigators associated instead with acquaintance gang violence. In the more recent attack, the parents of Hernández Ochoa have actually accused Cabrera of engineering it to eliminate him.
The two attacks on Karol Cabrera, and her unsubstantiated claims that they were the work of opponents of the coup d'Etat, are the only reported examples of violence against journalists that have even been imputed, unconvincingly, to the progressive movement in Honduras. But leave it to the fair and balanced media in the US not only to give these claims equal weight, but to fail to provide the context that makes it clear that there is a pattern to the journalistic bloodbath of March.
That pattern points to the contested terrain of the north coast, where reporters seeking to spread real news put their lives in danger, in an atmosphere of violent repression fostered by the regime of the golpe de estado of 2009 and continuing under the Lobo Sosa administration.
Fuente: hondurasculturepolitics.blogspot.com
.
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