I mentioned the names of Hugo Llorens, Robert Blau, Stephen McFarland and Robert Callahan, Yankee ambassadors to Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua appointed by Bush in the months of July and August 2008; the four pursued the line of John Negroponte and Otto Reich, two characters with an ominous history.

I then indicated that the Yankee base at Soto Cano had provided the main backup to the coup and that “the idea of a peace initiative from Costa Rica was transmitted to the president of that country from the State Department when Obama was in Moscow and he was declaring at a Russian university that the only president of Honduras was Manuel Zelaya,” and added: “With the Costa Rica meeting, the authority of the UN, the OAS and the other institutions that committed their support to the people of Honduras is being questioned.” “The only correct thing to do at this moment is to demand that the government of the United States ceases its intervention, stops giving military aid to the coup and pulls out its Task Force from Honduras.”

The US response to the coup d’etat in that Central American country has been to strike an agreement with the government of Colombia in order to set up seven military bases similar to that of Soto Cano in that sister nation thus menacing Venezuela, Brazil and every other people in South America.

At a critical moment, when the tragedy of the climate change and the international economic crisis are under discussion at a UN summit conference of heads of States, the putschists in Honduras are threatening the immunity of the Brazilian Embassy where President Zelaya, his family and a group of followers were forced to seek sanctuary.

The fact is that the government of Brazil had absolutely nothing to do with the situation created there.

Consequently, it is inadmissible –actually inconceivable– that the Brazilian Embassy may be assaulted by the fascist government, unless it intends to commit suicide dragging the country to a direct intervention of foreign forces, –as it was the case in Haiti which would mean the intervention of Yankee troops under the UN flag. Honduras is not a remote isolated country in the Caribbean. An intervention in Honduras with foreign forces would unleash a conflict in Central America and bring political chaos to the entire Latin American region.

The heroic struggle of the Honduran people during almost 90 days of ceaseless battle has placed the fascist pro-Yankee government, which is crushing unarmed men and women, in a critical situation.

We have seen the emergence of a new conscience among the Honduran people. Legions of social fighters have gained experience in that battle. Zelaya delivered on his promise to return. He is entitled to his position in the government and to preside over the elections. New and admirable cadres are outstanding in the combative social movements; they are capable of leading that people through the hazardous journey ahead of the peoples of Our America. A Revolution is in the making there.

The current session of the United Nations General Assembly can be a historic one depending on its rights and/or wrongs.

The world leaders have presented very interesting and complex subjects, which reflect the enormity of the tasks facing humanity and the little time available.

Fidel Castro Ruz
September 24, 2009
1:23 PM

The post A Revolution in the Making appeared first on Reflections of Fidel.

He wasn’t communicating with international opinion in Morse Code. He was speaking in front of the TV cameras that were transmitting his image and all the details of the human face that tends to have as many variables as a person’s fingerprints. Any intent to lie can be easily discovered. I was observing him carefully.

Among those watching the television, the great majority knew that Honduras had had a coup d’état. That medium gave information about the speeches made at the OAS, the UN, the SICA (Central American Integration System), the NAM Summit and other forums; they had seen the violations, the assaults and the repression inflicted on the people engaged in activities that brought together hundreds of thousands of people protesting against the coup.

The strangest thing was that when Arias was laying out his new peace proposal, he wasn’t delusional; he believed what he was saying.

Even though very few in Honduras were able to see the images, in the rest of the world many did see them and they also saw when he proposed the famous 7 points on July 18th. They knew that the first of them said, verbatim: “The legitimate restitution of José Manuel Zelaya Rosales to the presidency of the Republic of Honduras until the end of the constitutional term for which he was elected…”

Everyone wanted to know what the mediator would be saying yesterday afternoon. The acknowledgment of the rights of the constitutional president of Honduras, with the powers reduced almost to zero in the first proposal, was relegated to sixth place in the second Arias plan, where the phrase “to legitimate the restitution” is not even being used.

Many honest people are amazed and they perhaps attribute what he said yesterday to some dark maneuvers of his. Perhaps I am one of the few in the world that understands that there was an auto-suggestive element rather than a deliberate intent in the words of the Nobel Peace Laureate. I noticed that especially when Arias, using special emphasis and labored phrasing on account of the emotion, spoke about the multitude of messages that presidents and world leaders, moved by his initiative, had sent him. It’s what was going through his mind; he doesn’t even realize that other Nobel Peace Laureates, honest and modest individuals such as Rigoberta Menchú and Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, are outraged by what has happened in Honduras.

Without any shadow of a doubt, a large part of the civilian governments of Latin America, the ones who knew that Zelaya had approved the first Arias plan and were confident in the good sense of the perpetrators of the coup and their Yankee allies, breathed in relief; that lasted only 72 hours.

Seen from a different angle, and returning to the things that prevail in the real world, where the dominant empire exists and almost 200 sovereign states have to wrestle with all kinds of conflicts and political, economic, environmental, religious and other interests, the only thing missing is to award the brilliant Yankee way of thinking of Oscar Arias, trying to gain some time, strengthen the coup, and dishearten the international bodies that supported Zelaya.

On the 30th anniversary of the triumph of the Sandinista Revolution, Daniel Ortega, bitterly remembering Arias’ role in the first Esquipulas Treaty, declared before a huge crowd of Nicaraguan patriots: “The Yankees know him well, that’s why they chose him to be the mediator in Honduras”. At that same event, Rigoberta Menchú, of indigenous descent, condemned the coup.

If the measures agreed to at the foreign ministers meeting in Washington would be merely fulfilled, the coup d’état would not have been able to survive the non-violent resistance of the Honduran people.

Now the perpetrators of the coup are already moving around in the oligarchic spheres of Latin America, some of which, from high state positions, no longer blush when they speak of their sympathies for the coup and imperialism goes fishing in the choppy waters of the river that is Latin America. Exactly what the United States wanted with the peace initiative, while it accelerated negotiations to surround Bolivar’s homeland with military bases.

We must be fair, and while we await the last word of the people of Honduras, we should demand a Nobel Prize for Mrs. Clinton.

Fidel Castro Ruz
July 23, 2009
2:30 p.m.

The post A Nobel Prize for Mrs. Clinton appeared first on Reflections of Fidel.

The efforts of the empire were set in motion during the Clinton administration and in the following years in the plan to impose the FTA on all the countries of Latin America via the so-called Summits of the Americas.

The intention of committing the hemisphere to a free trade agreement fell through. The economies in other parts of the world grew at a good clip and the dollar lost its exclusive hegemony as the privileged currency. The brutal world financial crisis complicated the situation. Under those circumstances, the military coup was produced in Honduras, one of the poorest countries in the hemisphere.

In the wake of two weeks of growing popular struggle, the United States maneuvered to gain time. The Department of State appointed Oscar Arias, president of Costa Rica, to the task of helping along the military coup in Honduras, besieged by the vigorous but peaceful pressure exerted by the people. Never had such a similar event in Latin America received such a response.

In US calculations, the fact that Arias held the title of Nobel laureate for peace held some weight.

The real Oscar Arias story indicates that the man we are dealing with is a neo-liberal politician, talented and with a gift for words, extremely calculating and a faithful ally of the United States.

From the first years of the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, the government of the United States used Costa Rica and apportioned it resources to present it as a showcase of the social advances that could be achieved under capitalism.

That Central American country was used as an imperialist base for the piratical attacks against Cuba. Thousands of Cuban technicians and university graduates were stolen away from our people who were already being submitted to a cruel blockade, in order to provide their services in Costa Rica. Relations between Costa Rica and Cuba have been restored in recent times; it was one of the two last countries in the hemisphere to do so, something that is of satisfaction for us, but in spite of that I must express what I am thinking at this historic moment for our America.

Arias, originally from the wealthy and leading class in Costa Rica, studied law and economics at a university in his country and later studied and graduated as master in political sciences from the English University of Essex where he finally graduated as Doctor of Political Sciences. Having such academic laurels, President José Figueres Ferrer of the National Liberation Party appointed him as advisor in 1970, at the age of 30, and shortly after he was appointed Minister of Planning, a position ratified by the next president Daniel Oduber. In 1978, he enters Congress as Deputy for that party. He ascends to secretary general in 1979 and is president for the first time in 1986.

Years before the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, an armed movement of the national bourgeoisie of Costa Rica, under the leadership of José Figueres Ferrer, father of President Figueres Olsen, had eliminated the small coup-perpetrating army of that country and his struggle gained the sympathies of the Cubans. When we were fighting in the Sierra Maestra against the Batista tyranny, we received some weapons and ammunition from the Liberation Party created by Figueres Ferrer, but he was too much of a friend to the Yankees and he soon broke with us. It cannot be forgotten that the OAS meeting in San José Costa Rica gave rise to the First Declaration of Havana in 1960.

All of Central America suffered for more than 150 years and, since the days of the filibusterer William Walker who made himself president of Nicaragua in 1856, is still suffering the problem of United States interventionism which has been a constant, even though the heroic people of Nicaragua have now attained an independence that they are ready to defend right up to their last breath. Any support from Costa Rica is unheard of since it was achieved, even though there was a government in that country which, on the eve of the victory in 1979, saw fit to show solidarity with the Sandinista National Liberation Front.

When Nicaragua was being drained of its life blood in Reagan’s dirty war, Guatemala and El Salvador had also paid a high price in human lives due to the US interventionist policy that provided money, weapons, schools and indoctrination to the repressive troops. Daniel told us about how the Yankees finally promoted formulae that put an end to the revolutionary resistance of Guatemala and El Salvador.

On many occasions, Daniel had bitterly commented to me that Arias, following US instructions, had excluded Nicaragua from the peace negotiations. He only met with the governments of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala to impose treaties on Nicaragua. Therefore he was expressing great gratitude to Vinicio Cerezo. He also told me that the first treaty signed in the convent of Esquipulas, Guatemala on August 7, 1987, after two days of intense conversations among the five Central American presidents. I have never publicly spoken about that.

But this time, while commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Sandinista victory on July 19, 1979, Daniel explained it all with impressive clarity, as he did with all subjects throughout his speech that was heard by hundreds of thousands of people and broadcast on radio and television. I use his exact words: “The Yankees appointed him as mediator. We have deep sympathies with the people of Costa Rica, but I cannot forget, in those tough years the president of Costa Rica called together the Central American presidents and he didn’t invite us…”

“But the other Central American presidents were more sensible and they told him: There can be no peace plan here if Nicaragua isn’t present. In the name of historical truth, the president had the fortitude to break the isolation the Yankees had imposed on Central America – where they had forbidden the presidents to talk with the president of Nicaragua and they wanted a military solution, they wanted to finish Nicaragua off, finish off its revolution, with a war – , the man who took that courageous step was President Vinicius Cerezo of Guatemala. That is the true story.”

Right away he added: “The Yankees came running to find President Oscar Arias, because they already know him! They want to find a way to gain some time, so that the perpetrators of the coup begin to make demands that are unacceptable. Who has ever heard of a coup negotiating with the people from whom it is ripping away their constitutional rights? Those rights cannot be negotiated; one simply has to reinstate President Manuel Zelaya, just as the ALBA, Rio Group, SICA, OAS and United Nations treaties stated.

“We want peaceful solutions in our countries. The battle being fought by the people of Honduras at this time is a non-violent battle, in order to avoid more pain than that which has already been inflicted on Honduras”, concluded Daniel, verbatim.

Because of the dirty war ordered by Reagan and which in part – he told me – was funded by drugs sent to the United States, more than 60,000 persons lost their lives and 5,800 more were made invalid. Reagan’s dirty war gave rise to the destruction and abandonment of 300 schools and 25 health centres; 150 teachers were murdered. The toll rose to tens of billions of dollars. Nicaragua only had 3.5 million inhabitants, it stopped receiving the fuel that the USSR was sending them and the economy became unsustainable. It called elections and even had them earlier, and it respected what the people decided, those people who had lost all hope for holding on to the gains of the Revolution. Nearly 17 years later, the Sandinistas returned to the government in victory; just two days ago they were celebrating the 30th anniversary of the first victory.

On Saturday, July 18th, the Nobel Laureate proposed 7 points of the personal peace initiative that was detracting from the authority of the UN and OAS decisions and was tantamount to an act of renunciation by Manuel Zelaya that took away sympathies and weakened poplar support. The constitutional president sent what he described as an ultimatum for the coup, which his representatives were to present, announcing at the same time his return to Honduras on Sunday, July 19th via any department of that country.

Around noon on that Sunday, a giant Sandinista demonstration takes place, with historical denunciations of US policy. They were truths that could be nothing other than tremendously significant.

The worst of the matter is that the United States was running into resistance for its sweetening maneuver from the coup government. It would still need to be pinpointed at what moment the Department of State sends their strong message to Micheletti, and whether the military chiefs were warned about the positions of the US government.

What is real is that for whoever would be closely following the events, Micheletti was against peace on Monday. His representative in San José, Carlos López Contreras, had declared that the Arias proposal could not be discussed because the first point, the one dealing with Zelaya’s reinstatement, was not negotiable. The civilian government of the coup had taken its role seriously and did not even realize that Zelaya, divested of his authority, would not represent any risk to the oligarchy and would suffer a politically hard blow if he accepted the proposal made by the president of Costa Rica.

That very same Sunday the 19th, when Arias is asking for another 72 hours to explain his position, Mrs. Clinton is speaking on the phone with Micheletti and sustains what the spokesperson Philip Crowley describes as a “tough phone call”. Some day we shall know what she said to him, but it would be enough just to see Micheletti’s face when he spoke at a meeting of his government on Monday July 20th: he really looked like a kid in kindergarten who had been scolded by his teacher. I was able to see the images and hear the speeches at the meeting on Telesur. Other images broadcast were those of the OAS representatives making their speeches in the heart of that institution, committing themselves to await the last word of the Nobel Laureate on Wednesday. Did they or didn’t they know what Mrs.Clinton had said to Micheletti? Maybe they did, maybe they didn’t. Perhaps some of them, not all of them, knew. Men, institutions and concepts had turned into instruments of the high-handed and arrogant policy of Washington. Never had a speech in the heart of the OAS shone with such dignity as the brief but brave words at that meeting spoken by Roy Chaderton, the Venezuelan ambassador.

Tomorrow the stony image of Oscar Arias will appear, explaining that they have drawn up such and such a solution to avoid violence. I think that even Arias himself has fallen into the great trap set up by the Department of State. Let’s see what he does tomorrow.

Nevertheless, the people of Honduras are the ones who will have the last word. Representatives of the social organizations and the new forces are not the instruments of anyone, inside or outside the country. They know the needs and suffering of the people, their awareness and their mettle have multiplied; many citizens who were indolent have joined the cause; the very members of the traditional parties who are honest and who believe in freedom, justice and human dignity will judge their leaders on the position they will adopt at this historical moment.

We still do not know what the attitude of the military will be when faced with the Yankee ultimata, and what messages will get to the officers; there is only one patriotic and honourable point of reference: loyalty to the people who have heroically stood up to the tear gas bombs, the blows and the shooting.

Without anybody being able to be sure about what the final whim of the empire will be, whether Zelaya returns legally or illegally as a result of the final decisions adopted, without a doubt Hondurans will give him a grand welcome because it will be a measure of the victory that they have already won with their struggles. Let nobody doubt that only the Honduran people will be able to build their own history!

Fidel Castro Ruz
July 21, 2009
8:55 p.m.

The post The 30th Sandinista anniversary and the San José proposal appeared first on Reflections of Fidel.

World public opinion learned about what was happening in that country through the images broadcast by international television, basically Telesur, which without losing a single second, faithfully broadcast each one of the events happening in Honduras, the speeches made and the unanimous agreements of the international bodies against the coup.

The world could watch the blows that rained down on men and women, the thousands of tear gas bombs thrown into the crowd, the rude gestures with weapons of war and the shots intended to intimidate, wound or murder citizens.

The idea that the US ambassador in Tegucigalpa, Hugo Llorens, didn’t know about or discouraged the coup is absolutely false. He knew about it, just like the American military advisors who didn’t stop for a minute in their training of Honduran troops.

Today we know that the idea to promote a peace process from Costa Rica arose from the offices of the State Department, in order to contribute to the strengthening of the military coup.

The coup was conceived and organized by unscrupulous characters on the far-right, who were officials in the confidence of George W. Bush and had been promoted by him.

All of them, without exception, have a thick file of activities against Cuba. Hugo Lorens, the ambassador in Honduras since the middle of 2008, is a Cuban-American. He is part of the group of aggressive US ambassadors in Central America, made up of Robert Blau, the ambassador in El Salvador, Stephen McFarland in Guatemala and Robert Callahan in Nicaragua, all appointed by Bush in the months of July and August of 2008.

The four of them follow the line of Otto Reich and John Negroponte who, together with Oliver North, were responsible for the dirty war against Nicaragua and the death squads in Central America that cost the peoples of the region tens of thousands of lives.

Negroponte was Bush’s representative at the United Nations, the US intelligence tsar, and finally under-secretary of State. Both he and Otto Reich, using different routes, were behind the coup in Honduras.

The base at Soto Cano in that country, home to the Joint Task Force-Bravo of the US Armed Forces, is the main point of support for the coup d’état in Honduras.

The United States has the dismal plan to create five more military bases around Venezuela, with the excuse of replacing the one in Manta, Ecuador.

The absurd adventure of the coup d’état in Honduras has created a really complicated situation in Central America that cannot be resolved with trickery, deceit and lies.

Every day we learn about new details in the US implication in that action that will also have serious repercussions in all of Latin America.

The idea of a peace initiative from Costa Rica was transmitted to the president of that country from the State Department when Obama was in Moscow and he was declaring at a Russian university that the only president of Honduras was Manuel Zelaya.

The perpetrators of the coup were in a predicament. The initiative transmitted to Costa Rica was seeking the goal of saving them. It is clear that every day of delay has a cost for the constitutional president and tends to dilute the extraordinary international support he has received. The Yankee manoeuvre does not increase the possibilities for peace, just the opposite, it decreases them, and the danger of violence grows, since the peoples of our America will never resign themselves to the fate that has been programmed for them.

With the Costa Rica meeting, the authority of the UN, the OAS and the other institutions that committed their support to the people of Honduras is being questioned.

When Micheletti, the de facto president, yesterday announced that he is willing to step down from his position if Zelaya resigns, I already knew that the State Department and the military in the coup had agreed to replace him and send him again to Congress as part of the maneuver.

The only correct thing to do at this moment is to demand that the government of the United States ceases its intervention, stops giving military aid to the coup and pulls out its Task Force from Honduras.

What they want to demand from the Honduran people in the name of peace is to deny all the principles for which all the nations of this hemisphere have fought.

“Respect for the rights of others means peace”, said Juárez.

Fidel Castro Ruz
July 16, 2009
1:12 p.m.

The post What should be demanded from the United States appeared first on Reflections of Fidel.

When US President Barack Obama — while on a trip to Moscow to discuss vital topics on the subject of nuclear weapons — was declaring that the only constitutional president of Honduras was Manuel Zelaya, the ultra right-wing and the hawks in Washington were making manoeuvres for Zelaya to negotiate a humiliating pardon for the illegalities attributed to him by the perpetrators of the coup.

It was obvious that before his people and the world such an act would be tantamount to his disappearance from the political stage.

It is a proven fact that when Zelaya announced he would be returning on July 5th, he had decided to fulfill his promise to share the brutal repression of the coup with his people.

Travelling with the president was Miguel d’Escoto, the president pro tempore of the UN General Assembly, along with Patricia Rodas, the Honduran foreign minister, a Telesur journalist and others, a total of 9 persons. Zelaya maintained his decision to land. I know for a fact that in mid-flight, when they were nearing Tegucigalpa, he was informed from the ground about Telesur broadcasting the moment when the enormous mass of people awaiting him outside of the airport was being attacked by soldiers with tear gas and automatic rifles fire.

His immediate reaction was to request that they took up altitude in order to denounce the events on Telesur and to demand of the commanding officers of those troops that they ceased the repression. Then he informed them that he would carry on with the landing. The high command then ordered the landing strip to be blocked. In a matter of seconds, motorized transport vehicles were obstructing the runway.

The Falcon jet made three passes, at a low altitude, over the airport. Specialists explain that the tensest and most dangerous moment for pilots is when fast, small planes — like the one carrying the president — reduce speed for touchdown. That’s why I think that attempt to return to Honduras was audacious and brave.

If they wanted to put him on trial for alleged constitutional crimes, why not allow him to land?

Zelaya knows that it was not only the Constitution of Honduras what was at stake, but also the right of the peoples of Latin America to elect the people who govern them.

Today Honduras is not just a country occupied by a coup, but it is also a country occupied by the armed forces of the United States.

The military base at Soto Cano, also known by its name of Palmerola — located less than 100 kilometres from Tegucigalpa and reactivated in 1981 under the Ronald Reagan administration — was used by Colonel Oliver North when he was running the dirty war against Nicaragua, and from there the US government directed the attacks against the Salvadoran and Guatemalan revolutionaries that cost tens of thousands of lives.

That is the location of the US Joint Task Force-Bravo — made up of personnel from the three forces — that occupies 85 percent of the area of the base. Eva Golinger reveals its role in an article published on Rebelión web site on July 2, 2009, entitled “The US military base in Honduras at the centre of the coup”. She explains that “the Constitution of Honduras does not legally allow for foreign military presence in the country.”

A ‘handshake-like’ agreement between Washington and Honduras authorizes the important and strategic presence of hundreds of US soldiers on the base, under a ‘semi-permanent’ deal. The agreement was reached in 1954 as part of the military aid the United States was offering Honduras “the third poorest country in the hemisphere.” She adds that “the agreement that allows the military presence of the United States in the Central American country can be removed with no notice given”.

Soto Cano is also home of the Aviation Academy of Honduras. The components of the US military task force are partly made up of Honduran soldiers.

What is the objective of the military base, the planes, the helicopters and the US task force in Honduras? Without any doubt they are only adequate for use in Central America. The war on drug trafficking does not require those weapons.

If President Zelaya is not returned to his position, a wave of coups threatens to sweep away many Latin American governments, or these will be at the mercy of the ultra right-wing military, educated in the security doctrine of the School of the Americas, experts in torture, psychological warfare and terror. The authority of many civilian governments in Central and South America will become weakened. Those dark days are not very far back in time. The military perpetrators of the coup would not even pay any attention to the civilian administration of the United States. It can be very negative for a president who wants to improve that country’s image, like Barack Obama does. The Pentagon formally obeys the civilian power. The legions have not yet taken over control of the empire as they did in Rome.

It would not be understandable for Zelaya to now admit to stalling maneuvers that would wear out the considerable social forces that support him and only lead to an irreparable attrition.

The illegally overthrown president does not seek power, but he defends a principle, and as Marti said: “One just principle from the depths of a cave can be mightier than an army.”

Fidel Castro Ruz
July 10, 2009
6:15 pm

The post The Coup Dies or Constitutions Die appeared first on Reflections of Fidel.

Two paragraphs before I had indicated that: “The situation that might result from whatever occurs in that country will be a test for the OAS and the current US administration.”

The prehistoric Inter-American institution met in Washington the following day and in a halfhearted and spiritless resolution promised to immediately make the necessary efforts to bring about harmony between the contending parties; that is, a negotiation between the putschists and the Constitutional President of Honduras.

The high ranking military chief who was still in command of the Honduran Armed Forces was making public statements different from the President’s position while recognizing his authority in a merely formal way.

The putschists needed barely anything else from the OAS. They couldn’t care less for the presence of a large number of international observers who had traveled to that country to bear witness to a referendum and who had been talking with Zelaya until late into the night. Today, before dawn, they launched on the President’s home about 200 well-trained and equipped professional troops who roughly set aside the members of the Guard of Honor and kidnapped Zelaya –who was sleeping at the moment– taking him to an air base and forcibly putting him on a plane to Costa Rica. At 8:30 a.m. we learned from Telesur of the assault on the Presidential House and the kidnapping. The President was unable to attend the initial activity related to the referendum that was to take place this Sunday and his whereabouts were unknown.

The official television channel was silenced. They wanted to prevent the early spread of the news of the treacherous action through Telesur and Cubavision Internacional, which were reporting the events. Therefore, they first suspended the broadcasting centers and then cut off electricity to the entire country. At the moment, the Supreme Court and the Congress involved in the conspiracy had yet to make public the decisions that justified the plot. They first carried out the indescribable military coup and then legalized it.

The people woke up to a fait accompli and started to react with growing indignation. Zelaya’s destination was unknown. Three hours later the people’s reaction was such that we could see women punching soldiers with their fists and the latter’s weapons falling off their hands as they were nervous and confused. At the beginning, their movements resembled a strange combat with ghosts; later, they tried to cover Telesur’s cameras with their hands and nervously aimed their guns at the reporters. Sometimes, when the people advanced the troops stepped back. At this point, armored vehicles carrying cannons and machineguns were sent in as the people fearlessly discussed with the crews of the armored vehicles. The people’s reaction was amazing.

Approximately at 2:00 in the afternoon, a tamed majority in Congress –in coordination with the putschists– toppled Zelaya, the Constitutional President of Honduras, and appointed a new head of State announcing to the world that the former had resigned and showing a forged signature. A few minutes later, from an airport in Costa Rica, Zelaya related everything that had happened and categorically refuted the news about his resignation. The plotters had placed themselves in a ridiculous situation in the eyes of the world.

Many other things happened today. Cubavision took all of its time to expose the coup and keep our people informed.

Some events were purely fascist in nature and even if expected they are still astonishing.

Honduran Foreign Minister Patricia Rodas was the putschists’ main target, second only to Zelaya. Another detachment was sent to her residence. She was brave and determined, and she acted quickly; she did not waste time and started denouncing the coup in every way possible. Our ambassador contacted Patricia to learn about the situation; other ambassadors did likewise. At a given moment, she asked the diplomatic representatives of Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba to meet with her since she was being fiercely hounded and required diplomatic protection. Our ambassador, who from the first moments was authorized to offer the minister all the constitutional and legal support, proceeded to visit her in her own residence.

When the diplomats were already in her house, the putschist command sent Major Oceguera to put her under arrest. The diplomats stood between the woman and the officer and claimed she was under diplomatic protection and could only be moved accompanied by them. Oceguera discussed with them in a respectful fashion. A few minutes later, 12 or 15 men in uniform and covering their faces with ski masks rushed into the house. The three ambassadors embraced Patricia but the masked men using force managed to separate the Venezuelan and Nicaraguan ambassadors; Hernandez held her so strongly by one arm that the masked men dragged them both to a van and drove to an air base where they finally separated him and took her away. As he was there in custody, Bruno, who had news of the kidnapping called him to the cell phone; one of the masked men tried to violently snatch the phone out of his hands and the Cuban ambassador, who had already been punched in Patricia’s home, shouted: “Don’t push me, cojones!” I don’t remember if the term was ever used by Cervantes, but there is no doubt that ambassador Juan Carlos Hernandez has enriched our language.

Later, he was abandoned in a road far from the Cuban mission not before being warned that something worse could happen to him if he talked. “Nothing can be worse than death,” he answered with dignity, “and still I’m not afraid of you.” Then people from the area helped him to return to the embassy and from there he immediately called Bruno again.

There is no way to negotiate with that putschist high command. They must be asked to abdicate while other younger officers, uninvolved with the oligarchy, take charge of the military command; otherwise, there will never be in Honduras a government “of the people, by the people and for the people.”

There is no hope for the cornered and isolated putschists if the problem is faced with determination.

Even Mrs. Clinton stated this afternoon that Zelaya is the only President of Honduras and the Honduran putschists can’t even breathe without the support of the United States of America.

Zelaya, a man who was in his pyjamas just a few hours ago, will be recognized by the world as the only Constitutional President of Honduras.

Fidel Castro Ruz
June 28, 2009
6:14 PM.

The post A Suicidal Mistake appeared first on Reflections of Fidel.

It was impressive to see him on Telesur, haranguing the people of Honduras. He energetically denounced the blatantly reactionary attempt to prevent an important popular referendum. That is the “democracy” that imperialism defends. Zelaya has not committed the slightest violation of the law. He did not engage in any act of force. He is the president and commander-general of the Armed Forces of Honduras. What is happening there will be a test for the OAS and for the current United States administration.

Yesterday a meeting of the ALBA took place in Maracay, in the Venezuelan state of Aragua. The Latin American and Caribbean leaders who spoke there shone out both for their eloquence and for their dignity.

Today I was listening to the solid arguments of President Hugo Chávez, denouncing the coup action on Venezolana de Televisión.

We do not know what will happen tonight or tomorrow in Honduras, but the brave conduct of Zelaya will go down in history.

His words reminded us of the speech by President Salvador Allende as warplanes bombarded the Presidential Palace, where he heroically died on September 11, 1973. This time we were seeing another Latin American president entering an air base with his people to demand the ballots for a popular referendum, spuriously confiscated.

That is how a president and a commander-general acts.

The people of Honduras will never forget that gesture!

Fidel Castro Ruz
June 25, 2009
8:15 p.m.

The post A gesture that will not be forgotten appeared first on Reflections of Fidel.