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July 24, 2009
Protesters confront police and army, July 4. Photo by James Rodríguez.Update, July 24, 2009 -- Today, Honduras has been totally paralysed by a general strike, and Honduran resistance activists and protesters are chanting.
Zelaya - get used to it. The people are rising up
(it rhymes in Spanish).
Also common is the resistenCia, resistenCia, resistenCia, el pueblo unido jamas sera vencido (people united will never be overcome) and so on...
This afternoon Zelaya crossed over the frontier at Las Manos north of Esteli. He stood technically just inside Honduran territory, having crossed the chain separating the two countries in the "neutral" strip between them. Zelaya remained there for about two hours, hoping to meet up with members of his family and others who were trying to join him.
On his walk over he received phone calls from presidents Lula of Brazil and Lugo of Paraguay, and many others. He seemed to be glued to the phone or else responding to reporters questions, taking time to occasionally sip water and juice. At times he was seen gazing at high points, no doubt on the lookout for snipers. Reporters at one point sounded a sniper alert, but the suspect disappeared in seconds, it seems.
The Honduran president did not attempt to clear the immigration offices, although he spoke with the offficial in charge. Reporters pointed out a place where they had seen a sniper, but no attempts on Zelaya's person took place. He was not arrested, and he said he placed phone calls to top advisors of the high command of the armed forces, the real de facto government or junta of the country that controls ``Goriletti]'' and other "cabinet" stooges like marionettes.
Thousands of Zelaya's supporters have been trapped at roadblocks along the roads going south from Tegucigalpa, including his wife, his daughter and his mother. They were trying to join him at the border. Two people at an army roadblock just north of the Las Manos border crossing were injured by trooper gunfire. Most of the army roadblocks are in the Paraiso Department (province), one of them at Danli, where Zelaya's family were held up.
Several hundred Hondurans got to join him by entering Nicaragua at other points and then meeting him at the chain separating the Nicaraguan side of the neutral strip between the two territories. At that point Zelaya crossed back into Nicaragua, along with members of his team. They will stay overnight in Las Manos and re-enter their country tomorrow by the same approach.
It gets dark in Las Manos just after 6 pm. TeleSur showed a few minutes ago video of demonstrators sleeping on the road, and a wall of soliders with their protective shields and helmuts still stationed and ready to stop any who try to move closer to the border.
The coup junta established a longer period of curfew, now running from noon to 4 am. Hence, those who are still in the streets or roads protesting are technically in violation of the decree.
This will in all likelihood be repeated tomorrow morning, in roughly a similar drama and maneuvering, on both sides. But tomorrow we expect greater numbers of resistance activists to hit the streets and roads, and also a greater display of military strength. The army will feel emboldened by Hillary Clinton's attack on Zelaya (see below), but also more nervous because of the evident strength of the pro-Zelaya forces.
Leaders of the National Resistance Front Against the Coup interviewed by TeleSur said that protests grew throughout the day in most parts of the country and were much larger than the few pro-coup demonstrations. TeleSur showed video of the pro-coup action in the industrial centre of San Pedro de Sula, where it appeared to have drawn upwards of 1500 people -- a size which the head of the resistance front said was miniscule.
Most media within Honduras have blocked any news of Zelaya's presence. However, Radio el Globa did carry news, and El Salvadoran and Nicaraguan radio reaches fairly deep into the country. As well TeleSur can be seen via the internet, and cell phones are common, even among poor people. Hence, what the Cubans call Radio Bemba is no doubt airing loud and clear across the country, as news goes by word of mouth even into remote areas.
US Secretary of States Hilliary Clinton made a last ditch attempt to dissuade Zelaya from crossing the border, saying that his plan was "reckless". Zelaya's foreign minister Patricia Rodas responded to Clinton on TeleSur. She mocked the US State Department position of treating the coup leaders as equals of the deposed president. The ``golpistas'' (coup makers, coupsters), she reminded Clinton, are the reckless party, the side who refused to even discuss the mediation document put forward by Costa Rica's President Oscar Arias, and the cabal that resorted to arms and massive repression against the population. All Zelaya is doing is attempting to exercise his constitutional rights, and to create the conditions for a real dialogue between the army high command and the elected government of the country, which has universal international recognition and majority support in the country. It's a pity that Clinton's remarks could not have been repeated in English and made available on the major US networks because she demolished the Clinton-Obama charade, although she did not mention Obama in the same breath as the former senator from New York.
The ability of Zelaya's team, and of the Resistance Front leaders, to sustain their determination to keep their protests peaceful and free of bloodshed is a sign of the growing maturity of the mass movement. Over the past month the army has on too many occasions fired bullets into protest actions, as they did again today on the road to Danli. It takes considerable and considered discipline and sophistication not to fall for the traps being set by such provocations, and not to become enraged and respond in kind.
Meanwhile, some signs of a weakening of the once solid Latin American front against the coup registered by the unanimous vote in the OAS appeared during the Mercosur summit today.
Venezuela attempted to have Zelaya invited in order to strengthen Latin America's resolve to take more concrete measures to sanction the military regime and show the US an example of what really could be done where there is a will to do it. But Brazil's President Lula blocked this, at which point Chavez chose not attend. Despite this, strong statements were made again against the coup, especially by Argentina's Kirschner and Bolivia's Morales, and Fernando Lugo, Paraguay's newly elected president.
Last night William Grigsby, director of Managua's Radio La Primerisima and of its flagship program of political analysis Sin Fronteras [without borders], told his listeners that he was aware of significant signs that both Mexico and Brazil, as well as Chile, have softened their stand on the coup, in the sense that they will try to block any concrete measures against Honduras' regime aimed at returning Zelaya to power, such as suspension of trade and economic relations.
Evo Morales made a strong intervention calling on Latin American countries to unite to expel all US bases from South America and the Caribbean. He argued that if the coup in Honduras is allowed to stand every other Latin American government will be in danger of army-led coups, and pointed to the danger of having their high commands trained by the Pentagon. Of course, he specifically denounced the announcement of four new US bases for Colombia, a direct threat to his own revolution, and to Venezuela, Ecuador and Nicaragua [with whom Colombia has a historic dispute following its seizure of the San Andres islands. The US grranted them to Colombia as compensation for ripping out the province of Panama from Colombia in order to secure the Panama Canal].
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