ASESINATOS DE PERIODISTAS EN HONDURAS

Comunicado del Observatorio Internacional sobre la situación de Derechos Humanos en Honduras (OISDHHN)

El OISDHHN expresa su más enérgica condena por los asesinatos de tres periodistas en Honduras en la primera quincena de marzo.

El pasado domingo, 14 de marzo, a las 11 de la noche fue asesinado el periodista Nahúm Palacios, quien fue director del Canal 5 de televisión en el Aguán. Según fuentes policiales, los criminales le asestaron casi treinta balazos de AK-47 antes de que llegara a su vivienda en el barrio Los Pinos de Tocoa, mientras conducía su vehículo. La persona que le acompañaba fue gravemente herida.

Desde el golpe de Estado el 28 de junio del 2009, Nahúm Palacios había sido víctima de múltiples amenazas y atropellos por parte de los militares de la zona, en particular por el mismo Capitán Tercero de la Base Naval de Castilla, quien además ordenó la detención de cuatro miembros de Televisora del Aguan, Canal 5, tal como fue documentado posteriormente en el informe que entregamos el 7 de agosto del 2009 a la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos.

La Comisión Interamericana, por su parte, exigió al Estado hondureño decretar medidas cautelares de protección a favor del periodista Palacios. En su informe del 20 de enero del 2010, la CIDH hizo referencia explícita al caso de Nahúm Palacios y el Canal 5 en los siguientes términos: “En el departamento de Colón, al menos dos canales fueron obligados a cortar su transmisión por varios días.

Tal fue lo que sucedió con el Canal La Cumbre y Televisora de Aguán, Canal 5. Nahúm Palacios, director de Canal 5, relató a la CIDH que el 28 de junio ’varios miembros de las Fuerzas Armadas ingresaron al canal’ y lo ‘obligaron a cortar la transmisión’".

Durante los últimos días, Palacios transmitió vasta información sobre el conflicto agrario en el Bajo Aguán, desvirtuando con datos veraces la fuerte campaña en otros medios de comunicación y sectores políticos influyentes que intenta deslegitimar y criminalizar las luchas campesinas por la tierra en la zona.

El 11 de marzo fue asesinado David Meza Montecinos, reportero de Radio El Patio de La Ceiba, corresponsal de Radio América y del Noticiero Abriendo Brecha. Su ejecución ocurrió en similares circunstancias que la de Palacios.

Asimismo, el 2 de marzo hombres que se conducían en motocicleta dispararon en más de cuarenta ocasiones contra Joseph Ochoa, quien viajaba junto a la comunicadora, Karol Cabrera, quién salió herida del ataque.

Las muertes violentas de los periodistas se suman a otras dos acaecidas durante el mes de febrero: el señor Julio Funes Benítez, sindicalista y líder del Frente de Resistencia contra el golpe de Estado en su comunidad, y la señora Claudia Brizuela, hija del dirigente sindical y social Pedro Brizuela.

Estos hechos demuestran que la situación de derechos humanos en Honduras no solo sigue siendo grave, sino que las controvertidas elecciones celebradas para consumar el golpe de Estado no han terminado con la impunidad.

Adicionalmente, en el caso de Nahúm Palacios, se evidencia que las medidas cautelares para protegerlo no fueron efectivas debido a que el Estado no las ejecutó correctamente por negligencia o complicidad.

Para la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos “Honduras debe adoptar medidas urgentes para garantizar los derechos a la vida, integridad personal y libertad personal. Todas las personas sin distinción deben estar igualmente protegidas en el ejercicio de sus derechos a la libertad de expresión, reunión y participación política”.

Ante la trascendencia de los hechos denunciados, el Observatorio hace un llamado a la Fiscalía Especial de Derechos Humanos de Honduras y a la Dirección Nacional de Investigación Criminal para que de inmediato los investiguen, identifiquen a sus responsables y se haga justicia.

La comunidad internacional debe condenar enérgicamente estos hechos y exigir a las autoridades hondureñas acciones concretas que demuestren el compromiso estatal con el respeto, la garantía y la protección de los derechos humanos. El Poder Judicial debe garantizar que las personas cuenten con las garantías judiciales que les permitan conocer la verdad de los hechos, y obtener justicia por las violaciones de derechos humanos cometidas. Asimismo, Honduras debe implementar las medidas de protección a favor de los beneficiarios de medidas cautelares así como de todas aquellas personas que se encuentran en situación de riesgo.

Federación Internacional de Derechos Humanos (FIDH) Centro por la Justicia y el Derecho Internacional (CEJIL)

Iniciativa de Copenhaguen para Centroamérica y México (CIFCA) FIAN Internacional

Instituto de Estudios Políticos sobre América Latina y África (IEPALA-España)

Consultoría para los Derechos Humanos y el Desplazamiento (CODHESColombia)

Solidaridad Mundial - Bélgica

Instituto de Derechos Humanos de la Universidad Centroamericana “José Simeón Cañas” (IDHUCA-El Salvador)

Südwind (Austria) Centro de Políticas Públicas y Derechos Humanos – Perú EQUIDAD

Para más información contacte: Martin Wolpold-Bosien, wolpold-bosien@fian.org

Marcia Aguiluz, maguiluz@cejil.org

Luis Guillermo Pérez, LuisG.Perez@cifcaeu.org

Dos nuevos asesinatos en el conflicto del Aguán

José Antonio Cardoza de 50 y José Concepción Carias ambos de 50 años aproximadamente fueron asesinados al medio día de ayer, por individuos no identificados que les dispararon con escopeta, cuando se dirigían a su casa, después de terminar su jornada de trabajo en el cultivo de frijoles, en la comunidad de Carbonales, Bonito Oriental en el departamento de Colón.

Los dos campesinos eran dirigentes de la Empresa Asociativa Brisas de Cohdefor, quienes habrían estado recibiendo amenazas de muerte por parte de un supuesto dueño de las tierras, Carlos Díaz, quien se hace representar por un apoderado legal, dijeron a funcionarios del Instituto Nacional Agrario (INA) en Tocoa, Colón, el viernes 12 de marzo. En el INA les recomendaron hacer del conocimiento de la Fiscalía del Ministerio, Público.

Unas 25 familias ocupan y habitan desde hace unos 4 años unas 60 hectáreas, propiedad que antes fueron de la Corporación Hondureña de Desarrollo Forestal (Cohdefor).

En el contexto del conflicto agrario en el Aguán, los terratenientes de la zona han arreciado la represión, amenazas e intimidaciones contra las familias campesinas que ocupan tierras en litigio, dos nuevas víctimas suma a la lista de asesinatos.

Fuente: Comun-Noticias

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HONDURAS: POLL PROPOSED BY RESISTANCE CHALLENGES REGIME

Written by Peter Lackowski

Wednesday, 17 March 2010 08:18

Rafael Alegria "On June 28 (2010) we are going to hold a great poll of our people which is going to express our judgment, massively, in favor of a democratic and participatory constitutional constituent assembly in our country," said Rafael Alegría of the National Front of Popular Resistance, earlier this March. The poll is planned for the one year anniversary of a similar non-binding opinion poll that President Manuel Zelaya wanted to hold to determine whether a majority of Hondurans wanted a referendum on a new constitution to be included in last November's election. The nation's oligarchic press expressed their horror that this was similar to what had happened in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador. Those nations have established new constitutions that are more favorable toward the rights, participation, and interests of the popular classes. The Honduran legislative and judicial branches also opposed Zelaya's initiative, and the army deported him to Costa Rica. In response, a massive movement of labor, human rights organizations, indigenous peoples, gays, community organizers, and virtually every progressive in Honduras came together and began organizing resistance to the illegal regime. The de facto government that replaced Zelaya went ahead with the elections scheduled for November 29, 2009, but according to Alegría, "The Resistance considers the current regime to be the continuation of the de facto regime of (dictator Roberto) Micheletti. Up to now there has been no reform, it is the same scheme." This bold announcement indicates a new stage in the struggle to establish democracy in Honduras. Alegría expressed determination to go forward with a vote on a constitutional constituent assembly, saying that those who oppose it might resort to their usual tactics, "to repress, murder, and imprison our people, but nothing and no one is going to stop this initiative of the Resistance..." Alegría went on to denounce the intervention of United States Ambassador Hugo Llorens, who is "dedicating himself to establishing a famous dialogue with the businessmen, with the leaders of the Liberal Party, with other sectors, in order to weaken the Resistance." Commenting on the fact that the European Union has recognized the government of President Porfirio Lobo, Alegría said, "They are looking after their own interests, they want to sign a free trade treaty with Central America, and Honduras is important to them." The objective of the great powers, he said, is "to get control of our natural resources, the wealth of our country." According to Alegría, "If there is something that is positive about the coup, it is that our people have awakened, they have social and political consciousness, and they want to get rid of the oligarchic power structure." He insisted, "We are going forward with the reformation and refoundation of our country." Planning Meeting From March 12 through 14 about 1000 activists attended a meeting in La Esperanza, including delegates from all the movements that make up the resistance. Giorgio Trucchi provides a report on the conference at kaosenlared.net. In the words of Bertha Cáceres, national coordinator of COPINH, the indigenous rights organization that hosted the gathering, "To refound Honduras means to get together and think and dream about what we want our country to be, and to structure the process for achieving this objective...It is a complex process that must touch all aspects and areas of national life, at the individual and collective levels. A path of economic and political transformation that confronts the culture of domination, that benefits our people and that leads to a Honduran constitution with justice, humanity, solidarity, sovereignty, self determination, and equality." After a serious debate the various sections of a new constitution were laid out. A committee to direct the National Constituent Assembly was nominated, and Bertha Oliva of the Committee of Families of disappeared Detainees in Honduras (COFADEH) was elected to lead this group. Carlos H. Reyes, President of STIBYS, the beverage workers' union, commented that there were 20 working groups that analyzed different things to be included in the constitution, such as political forms, the economic model, human rights, the rights of indigenous and Afro-Caribbean peoples, labor, gender, etc. "We are going to work very hard for the next two and a half months to get to a poll next June 28th, the date of the coup. We have not yet determined what form it will take, but we know that it will be an instrument that will not only serve to count the people who support the constituent assembly process, but also to further the process of uniting us, of mobilizing and organizing," said Reyes. Reyes pointed out that the people who made the coup know perfectly well that the National Front of Popular Resistance (FNRP) has succeeded in maintaining and strengthening the unity among social and political organizations with the objective of taking power. For this reason they have increased selective violence against members of the Resistance as well as strategies to break up their unity. Bertha Cáceres concluded the meeting by expressing the need to continue the process of reflection and construction. She noted that it had been a rich learning experience for those who participated, and she expressed her appreciation of the presence and participation of the women delegates. In her concluding remarks, Bertha Cáceres reaffirmed the assembly’s commitment to “keep the process of reflection and construction open.” “It needs to be emphasized,” she said, “that this meeting for the refoundation of Honduras has no closing ceremony.” Burlington, VT resident Peter Lackowski recently returned from a Rights Action human rights delegation in Honduras. http://upsidedownworld.org/main/honduras-archives-46/2406-honduran-resistance-challenges-regime

Fuente: elquinceavopaso.blogspot.com

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WHO IS OTTO REICH?

Click here to read about his latest visit earlier this Month to Pepe Lobo

Let’s check the program, or the Otto Reich Associates web site. After working in USAID from 1981 to 1983, he went on to work for the State Department until his post as US Ambassador to Venezuela ended in 1989. From 1989 to 2001 he went into the private sector “advising clients on international government relations, market access and strategic planning.”

In 2001 President Bush named him Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere, post which he held during the failed April 11, 2002 coup attempt against Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Later in 2002, he became special Envoy for Western Hemisphere Initiatives, reporting to Condoleezza Rice in the National Security Council.

He left government service in June 2004, shortly after the February 2004 coup , backed by the U.S., France and Canada, ousted Haitian president Jean Bertrand Aristide.

Since June 2004 he returned to his work as a consultant to multinational corporations, but doing what? He advises corporations on developing defensive political strategy to “reduce expropriation exposure”, identifying and securing foreign investment and privatization opportunities in Latin America and provides “non-litigious resolution involving commercial and investment disputes for major US corporations which had exhausted the judicial process”.

So how does he do this? His web site is full of photos of himself with Bush administration officials and John McCain. It is influence he is selling.

His name constantly surfaced in reports surrounding the coup in Honduras, especially related to a “corruption” scandal in the state owned telephone company Hondutel, a scandal that has provided political cover for coup. He was reported to make frequent trips and regularly consult with key figures around the coup. And let’s face it, there was a marked rise in the incidence of presidents being forced into airplanes during his last stint in the State Department.

Who are his clients? Past clients include, AT&T, Verizon, Mobil Oil, Lockheed Martin, among others. But, his page notes that he will not disclose current clients.

These “experts” that testify in Congress, and, well, probably the Congress members themselves, should wear racecar driver style jumpsuits that clue us in to their sponsors.

DENOUNCING CORRUPTION?

Otto Reich’s name first came up in association with the Honduran coup because of an association he maintains with a non profit foundation in Washington, DC, the Arcadia Foundation, which according to a Mexican newspaper report, later picked up by Honduran press in 2007, released an enigmatic report with accusations of corruption against Zelaya administration Hondutel executives. Though former Hondutel executives are now being imprisoned, the Honduran judicial system has been so clearly corrupt during and after the coup that the possibility of fair trails seems remote.

Last week, Romeo Vasquez Velasquez, the Honduran General that materially and intellectually authored the June 28, 2009 coup (and who, over a decade ago, was jailed for participation in an organized crime network for auto theft), has been named head of the national telephone company Hondutel, some of Otto Reich former (and current?) clients might have a better chance at buying up the company.

A refreshing highlight of the hearing was the guest performance of Rep Dan Burton (of the Helms-Burton Act) who stopped by to throw in a pitch for helping 14 U.S. businesses which had been ‘de facto expropriated’ in Honduras recover their money, like, as he pointed out, he had been able to do for companies that had invested in Nicaragua. The only company he bothered to name was a cement company that - previous to Zelaya’s election in 2005 - was forced out of the Honduran market.

At least Burton’s agenda is out in the open. A race car jump suit is in order for him not only for his current corporate ‘clients’, but also because he was involved in a 1995 scandal in which he was accused of demanding a $5,000 contribution from a lobbyist for the government of Pakistan, and threatening the lobbyist to make sure none of his friends or colleagues would meet with him if he didn’t come up with the money.

The most vocal fan of the Honduran coup was Minority Chair Connie Mack of South Florida. His district alone gives some clues to where his backing comes from.

Fuente: elquinceavopaso.blogspot.com

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El nombramiento de Romeo Vásquez en la Gerencia de Hondutel, ¡Premio a la incondicionalidad!

Juan Antonio Martínez H. Fue acertada la apreciación publicada en nuestro anterior artículo, “La misma mona en diferente rama”, cuando asumimos que sólo faltaba por confirmar el nombramiento de Romeo Vásquez Velásquez en la Gerencia de Hondutel como insistentemente se rumoreaba , para completar la nómina de los principales golpistas, incrustada en la estructura administrativa del presente gobierno que rectora Porfirio Lobo.

Este nombramiento, hecho público el día de ayer, es el corolario de otra “brillante jugada” de don Pepe en su ajedrez político, para premiar con creces, la participación protagónica que tuvo el referido oficial, en el golpe de Estado del 28 de junio anterior, al igual que lo hizo con Vilma Morales, Arturo Corrales, Mirna Castro y otras figuras relevantes de la pasada “dictadura constitucional”. Lo que evidencia claramente, que este régimen es la continuidad del anterior, en una versión maquillada.

No es como, candorosamente lo afirmó Juan Ramón Martínez, en su artículo “El castigo de los constitucionalistas”, donde da a entender que la destitución del general Romeo Vásquez Velázquez de su cargo como comandante del Estado Mayor Conjunto de las FF.AA., es una sanción para una persona que, desobedeciendo a Zelaya, tuvo que hacer lo que hizo en defensa de la Constitución de la República y que, dicha medida “tiene un discreto sabor a venganza rural”.

Ni tampoco, la destitución del aludido oficial obedeció a un condicionamiento para restablecer las relaciones con la comunidad internacional y los organismos de crédito, como falsamente se ha venido especulando, más bien la acción del presidente Lobo fue una jugada de distracción, mientras más naciones se sumaban a la lista de las que reconocían su gobierno como legítimo. Y, cuando negó, en su momento, que Romeo era el elegido para la gerencia de Hondutel, solamente fue un burdo remedo de la antífrasis, que es un modo de expresar lo contrario de lo que se piensa.

Sean cual fueren las motivaciones que tuvo el presidente Lobo para premiar la incondicionalidad de Romeo al grupo elitista que planificó y ejecutó el golpe en contra de la institucionalidad democrática de la nación, la noticia de su nombramiento en la gerencia de Hondutel, generó un sentimiento de frustración, amargura e impotencia entre los hondureños, que ven en esta decisión, una burla a los anhelos de justicia para los mártires de la democracia que cayeron víctimas de la fiera represión militar, atribuida a Vásquez Velázquez.

Ahora más que nunca queda claro, que Lobo jugó muy bien su guión en la comedia golpista, por un lado, alentando a los dirigentes, en especial a su candidato presidencial, al ritual suicida del “harakiri”, es decir autodestruirse conspirando contra los mismos liberales y por otra parte, empujando la solidaridad de su partido a la conspiración, pero sin dejar ver su rostro, en otras palabras, “tira la piedra y esconde la garra”. Ahora, igualmente, juega a que la comunidad internacional reconozca su gobierno y a la vez, con el consabido cuento de la conciliación, llena su gobierno de golpistas.

Pero con el nombramiento del general Romeo, la estrategia política de don Porfirio Lobo raya en el cinismo; por un lado sonriéndole a las naciones democráticas del mundo, con su carita de inocente criatura como diciendo “mamá yo no fui” y por el otro, arropando con un manto de impunidad a los autores materiales del golpe militar y no sólo eso, premiándolos con las mejores posiciones burocráticas, por haber contribuido, directa o indirectamente, a allanarle el camino a Casa Presidencial.

Piensa don Porfirio que, con estas acciones, difuminará la controversia y que su gobierno se prestigiará con la aureola de reconciliación, que a toda costa quiere imprimirle, sin importarle que todavía esté fresco, en la memoria del pueblo hondureño, la salvaje represión golpista que propició la pérdida de vidas, la tortura, las violaciones a los derechos humanos y atentados contra la libertad de prensa y locomoción.

Y más aun, esa barbarie post golpista en la que navegó por siete meses la dictadura micheletista, tuvo su sustento en las acciones represivas del ejército y los cuerpos de seguridad, bajo la responsabilidad directa de la persona, hoy premiada por el señor Presidente, con la Gerencia de Hondutel. Medalla que lucirá radiante en su traje civil, mientras no salgan a la luz las conclusiones de la Comisión de la Verdad, si es que de verdad, don Porfirio la conformará, y no sea un ardid más de distracción más, mientras logra su objetivo esencial, que es el reconocimiento universal de su gobierno.

San Pedro Sula, Marzo del 2010

Fuente. tiempo.hn

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¿Es una posibilidad el socialismo?

Aníbal Delgado Fiallos, 18 de marzo de 2010

En Honduras hemos tenido poca discusión ideológica; quienes han pretendido teorizar, lo han hecho no para fundamentar sus tesis o combatir con ánimo constructivo las contrarias, sino para ponderar con exageración, deformar, tergiversar.

Esto revela poca vocación de estudio o de actualización teórica y pobre repetición de argumentos expuestos en folletines vacíos de rigor científico o en conferencias secas de academia.

Se nos anuncia que la historia ha llegado a su fin; que la competencia ideológica ha cesado porque el acaecer mundial ha consolidado un sistema social capaz de prevalecer a través de las edades; que la sociedad humana por fin ha logrado liquidar las fuentes de la guerra, y mientras se parlotea sobre democracia, se proclama como éxito el mundo unipolar: “un solo poder, un solo centro de fuerza y un solo centro de toma de decisiones”.

Esa verbosidad irradiada desde el centro ideológico unipolar, repetida y remachada como para penetrar hasta el tuétano, tiene en Francis Fukuyama, autor de “Fin de la historia y el último hombre”, a su profeta y en el Consenso de Washington su carta de navegar por las aguas del ciclo económico.

En este marco nuestros escritores insisten en que el socialismo es un régimen social difunto desde la caída del muro de Berlín; como tal, arguyen, es un sistema sin nada que ofrecer porque significó destrucción y desesperanza; así, lo único sensato es someternos a la lógica de este capitalismo que nos lleva de crisis en crisis: una condena que a pocos alegra y a muchos angustia. ¿Seremos acaso los condenados de la tierra?

Ni fin de la historia, ni fin de las ideologías, mucho menos fin del socialismo; si en Europa del Este cayó un régimen que intoxicó las ideas fundamentales del socialismo para dar vida a Estados autoritarios incapaces de resolver problemas fundamentales de las sociedades, ello no significa que la esencia de este paradigma sea esa; mucho de lo que en el siglo XX se realizó en su nombre está lejos de su esencia verdadera.

Yo creo, entonces, que el socialismo sigue siendo una posibilidad concreta para nuestros pueblos, que no es cierto que esta posibilidad sea siniestra y amenace los sueños de libertad y bienestar porque no se trata, como explica el padre Casaldáliga, de “repetir ensayos que han significado decepción, violencia, dictadura, pobreza y muerte”, sino de un socialismo nuevo.

Mariátegui, el gran sudamericano, decía por su parte que el socialismo no será calco ni copia, sino creación heroica de los pueblos.

A esto y no a sostener un sistema de injusticias, hay que apostarle.

Fuente: laprensa.hn

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MASSIVE DEMAND FOR A NEW CONSTITUTION IN HONDURAS

The Honduran National Popular Resistance Front is a massive and mobilized movement. It has representatives from almost every village, town and neighborhood in Honduras and has sustained massive protests, at times of around 500,000 people, since the June 28, 2009 coup. Their demand is a truly representative Constitutional Convention.

The proposal for the drafting of a new constitution in Honduras was not new, it had appeared in previous administrations. Zelaya had no intention of extending his presidency.
The proposal was to hold a national survey in the form of a balloting process asking if Hondurans wanted a chance to vote, in a non-binding poll during the November 27, 2009 presidential elections, voicing their opinion on whether it would be a good idea to host a constitutional convention. Then, if the new congress decided to call a constitutional convention, Zelaya would already have turned over the presidency to the newly elected president.
What scared the established power structures in Honduras, and the Washington pundits who represent their interests, was not changes to term limits, it was the fact that the call for the new constitution was coming from a massive, broad alliance of the social movement, and that their demands were centered around the need for a constitution that would protect Honduran national assets, natural resources, telephone and electric systems, against privatization, and possibly even facilitate nationalization of concessions already granted, for instance mining concessions that are destroying the lives of communities surrounding mines.
But it appears that not even a military coup, and not even massive violent repression that has claimed anywhere from a couple dozen victims to a couple hundred victims, depending on the source, is able to stop the Honduran people from demanding a new Constitution, a new charter for their nation.

March 12 through 15, hundreds of representatives of organizations of indigenous peoples, campesinos, academics, unionists, feminists, artists, lawyers, gatheried in La Esperanza, Honduras, bringing their own blankets and food, to create proposals for a Constitutional Convention that will take into account the demands of the population.

This proposal is not a communist or Islamic ploy. It does not come from hatred of the United States. It is the natural, logical fruit of decades of work to build up real forces for democracy, organizations of people who are interested in defending their own fundamental human rights.

The Honduran people have seen that the Constitutional framework that was put in place by a U.S. backed, military dominated government in 1981 is not sufficient to guarantee those rights.

Fuente: elquinceavopaso.blogspot.com

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WHAT ARE THE REAL THREATS TO DEMOCRACY IN THE AMERICAS?: A HONDURAN CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION & THE NEW "COLD WAR" OF THE U.S.A.

• RIGHTS ACTION INFORMATION: Annie Bird, Washington DC, annie@rightsaction.org, 202-470-6075; Grahame Russell, Connecticut, info@rightsaction.org, 860-352-2448
• Please re-distribute & re-publish this information all around
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WHAT ARE THE REAL THREATS TO DEMOCRACY IN THE AMERICAS?:A HONDURAN CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION & THE NEW "COLD WAR" OF THE U.S.A.By Annie Bird, Rights Action, March 2010

On March 10, the U.S. House Sub Committee on the Western Hemisphere held a hearing to chart the course of their agenda in Western Hemisphere over the coming year.

On March 12-15, the National Popular Resistance Front in Honduras (FNRP) held a national meeting to pave the way for a Honduran Constitutional Convention, even in the wake of last June’s military coup and constant killings of FNRP activists.

What does a meeting in Washington, of men who influence or control the strongest military and covert operations network in the world, have to do with a meeting of a non-violent social justice movement made up of campesinos, indigenous, and impoverished peoples who have throughout the history of their nation been denied their fundamental democratic right to have a voice in the policies of their nation? Everything.

THE CAST OF CHARACTERS ON THE HILL IN WASHINGTON

In a House of Representatives hearing room, a crowd of about two hundred people, mostly congressional staffers with a scattering of Latin American ambassadors, press, lobbyist and NGO observers, gathered to watch as three, and at times four, congressmen voiced their opinions and listened to the testimony of the new Deputy Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere, Arturo Valenzuela, and three “independent experts” including former State Department official and “consultant” Otto Reich.

What emerged was a disturbing portrait of the foreign policy agenda that the pundits of big business are selling to US policy makers and the press.

Their new ‘Axis of Evil’ consists of a growing partnership between Iran and the Venezuela – Ecuador – Nicaragua alliance, which is “gaining influence” on other nations in the U.S.’s “Front Yard” (they carefully avoided saying “back yard”), even with key regional partners like Brazil.

Honduras plays a big role in this drama as the ‘brave little nation’ that ‘stood up to Chavez’ by pulling their elected president out of bed at gunpoint and sending him into exile.

The problem with this narrative is that it completely distorts reality in order to advance the interests of transnational corporations.

Déjà vu? Yes, you have been there before. They are trying to relive the “cold war” in Latin America, the good old days when the so-called National Security Doctrine provided the cover necessary to topple governments, and torture and massacre anyone who attempted to defend their fundamental rights when those rights got in the way of economic interests. In Central America alone it cost about 400,000 lives in the 1970s and 80s.

This is not to say that every congressperson on the Western Hemisphere Sub Committee of the International Relations Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives buys this argument or is advancing it, but the complete absence of a voice to clearly contradict this very dangerous narrative is frightening.

CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGES IN LATIN AMERICA

The ludicrous argument advanced in favor of militarily tossing Honduras’ elected president onto an airstrip in Costa Rica is that the army was ‘defending the constitution’.

The line being spun in Washington, repeated in the March 10 hearing, is that the drafting of new constitutions in the region is part of a trend (or ‘Cuban backed conspiracy’, depending who is speaking) in which ‘populist’ governments get themselves elected then ‘take down democracy from within’ by rewriting constitutions to allow themselves to be reelected.

Yes, Constitutions are being rewritten in Latin America, as they have been constantly through history. Constitutional law in Latin America is just not the same as in the United States, just as the charters of nations in Europe are different.

In Latin America, constitutional law is an evolving body of law that reflects the changing political context, at times progressive- promoting a growing body of human rights and democratic principals, and at times restrictive, limiting rights and debilitating democratic governance. Honduras has had sixteen constitutions, El Salvador fifteen, and Guatemala ten.

This year the Dominican Republic adopted a new constitution, last year Bolivia did and the year before Ecuador. Venezuela’s new constitution was adopted in 1999. These are the countries which have been breaking with transnational business, re-nationalizing resources that over the past decades had been privatized and in the process straining relations with the United States and Canada.

Though much focus has been placed on Presidential term limits, changes to term limit restrictions are not what has differentiated the newest constitutions. Term limit changes have occurred in the region through amendments to the constitutions, like the 2007 amendment in Venezuela, and 2005 amendment in Colombia.

What does distinguish this new generation of constitutions is a strong focus on defending social and economic rights, the rights of indigenous peoples, collective rights, promoting national control over natural resources and strategic industries and services.

Fuente: elquinceavopaso.blogspot.com

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Journalists and Social Communicators in Honduras receive death threats through their cellphones

DINA MEZA

Other social communicators have also been victims of threats

Threats against journalists continued this weekend, through calls on their cell phones. Delia Mejia who hosts the live show Morazán Vive, in La Voz del Occidente, a station that broadcasts from Santa Rosa de Copan, reported to the Committee of Relatives of Detained and Disappeared in Honduras, COFADEH, that since last year she receives death threats by phone and on Monday they reactivated them by sending a death threat against a journalist.

Her cell phone is 9992 - 6505, which was advertised as a contact point for the resistance program, the National Resistance Front, which airs from Monday to Sunday on Radio Globo and where they advertise the activities of this organization and spreads the actions of Honduran people on the road to a refoundation of Honduras.

Mejia reported that she participated in the II Meeting for Refoundation of Honduras, which took place from March 12 to 14 in La Esperanza, Intibucá, so she switched off her device and reactivated it until four o'clock, which already had a voicemail with a death threat against journalist Felix Molina, who leads the program of the Resistance.

"Tell Felix Molina to come and speak to the Juticalpa Resistance so we can shut his mouth," that means, possibly through an attempt against his life.

Mejia explained that it was obvious that the man who left the message covered his mouth to prevent his voice from being identified, as when using a handkerchief to avoid sensing the clarity and tone of voice.

Molina complained on air on Sunday March 14 , when transmitting the program Resistance from La Esperanza, Intibucá, that he no longer wanted to continue receiving threats, that he expected contributions from listeners, referring to threatening messages that he was probably getting on his cell phone already explained above .

On Monday March 15 she continued to receive strange calls, at least four, and when she returned one of them to the phone number from which it was made, a woman answered and said she had never called and that she lives in another part of the country, according to what Mejia denounced to COFADEH.

Other social communicators have also been victims of threats, such is the case of Salomon Orellana and Misael Carcamo, who have received death threats via phone and mensajitos(text messages). Both run a radio program called "Dando en el Clavo," (Hitting the Nail)which airs on Radio Católica "Santa Rosa", also in Santa Rosa de Copan, every Saturday from 8:00 to 10:00. The program is aimed at promoting democratic values and respect for human rights. Of course, both people have publicly demonstrated against the coup.

Fuente: elquinceavopaso.blogspot.com