2009.09.23_fuera golpistas!

Demonstrators united outside the Brazilian embassy today in Buenos Aires, in solidarity with demonstrators at the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, where Zelaya has been granted refuge. Congressman Edgardo Depetri, of President Cristina Fernandez's Victory Front party, and Nora Cortiñas, from Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo (an association of Argentine mothers whose children "disappeared" during the Dirty War) both said a lot of things I didn't understand. Nevertheless, the messages today were unequivocal: end the repression, return Zelaya to power, and nice call, Brazil.



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Since democratically-elected Zelaya was ousted and forced into exile by Roberto Micheletti's coup regime on June 28th of this year, Honduras has seen the longest protest movement in the country's history, accompanied by... wait for it... brutal repression. When Zelaya sneaked back into Honduras on Monday, the de facto state was quick to intensify repressive measures. Zelaya has called for dialogue; Micheletti has called for a crackdown. A curfew was imposed, electricity and water were cut off, military checkpoints were installed, and local international airports were closed. When a demonstration of thousands was broken up at the Brazilian embassy yesterday, mass arbitrary arrests and police beatings ensued; at least two adults and one child were killed; and transmission interruptions and power outages were used to prevent Radio Globo and TV channel 36 from broadcasting. All this to "protect tranquility, life and goods of civilians," maintains Micheletti. The situation is precarious, but Zelaya has promised, "Starting from now nothing will force me to leave; return to the power or death." How exactly Zelaya made it home is a secret, but the feat does suggest that not all of the armed forces are pleased with and ready to submit to the illegal coup regime.

For more information on the situation in Honduras now and since the June coup, see today's Amnesty International report.