Day 114, HONDURAS COUP RESISTANCE – “THE HONDURAN RESISTANCE - A NEW HOPE IS BORN”
(October 19, 2009, Honduras Coup Alert#82)
WITHOUT QUESTION, the global movement for “another world is possible, and necessary” – and particularly in the Latin American movement – are better off because of the awe-inspiring peaceful struggle of the Honduran people’s pro-democracy, anti-coup movement.
BELOW: an article by Honduran doctor Juan Almendares: “The Honduran Resistance – A New Hope Is Born”.  Dr. Almendares is as qualified as anyone to write about this “new hope”.  He has been an outspoken, in the streets leader for human rights and the creation of a just and caring society in Honduras for over 50 years, perhaps as many as 100s of years.  In the 1980s, Dr. Almendares was illegally jailed and tortured for his public denunciations of the US-backed military-oligarchic regime – the precursor to this military-oligarchic regime.
NEEDED:  MONEY FOR THE PRO-DEMOCRACY MOVEMENT
Without question, it is the Honduran people’s movement, with support from the people’s “international community”, that is holding this oligarchic-military (and its Honduran and international backers) to a stand-off.  To donate tax-deductible funds to the National Front Against the Coup pro-democracy movement in Honduras – see below.
NEEDED:  DELEGATIONS, HUMAN RIGHTS OBSERVERS, JOURNALISTS
The Honduran people’s movement continues to call for international delegations, human rights accompaniers and journalists to go to Honduras to observe and bear witness to their peaceful pro-democracy movement.

FOR INTERVIEWS & MORE INFORMATION:

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THE HONDURAN RESISTANCE: A NEW HOPE IS BORN
By Dr. Juan Almendares, October 2009
The military coup in Honduras of 28 June, 2009, has been stripped of its democratic facade. The watchwords of the ‘de facto regime’, that have emerged from the violence, are: "God, Law and Order".
The regime has openly adopted the methods of Stroessner, the late dictator of Paraguay, on declaring a State of Emergency - in reality a State of Siege - that aims to suppress all resistance and silence all opposition. It has closed down Radio Globo and CHOLUSAT SUR, two principal media houses that have continuously and valiantly provided news on the real situation in Honduras.
The legitimate president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya Rosales, together with his family and associates, have been subjected to physical and psychological torture; and for all practical purposes deprived of their liberty in the embassy of Brazil, in violation of international treaties.
International pressure has forced the de facto regime to dialogue with President Zelaya. But this is a solipsistic dialogue that is being prolonged cynically and endlessly, with the aim of legitimising the forthcoming [November 29th] `presidential elections´ being conducted by the illegal regime under their `democracy´.
The country is divided between the coup forces and the anti-coup forces. The two sides have completely different and antagonistic philosophies, discourses, practices and methods.
"GOD, LAW AND ORDER"
The golpista (coup) philosophy assumes that it is the owner of reality, by right, and by inheritance. This 'reality' is fixed and immutable.  It is established and sanctified by the god of the powerful and the theology of armed and violent oppression; a reality in which the gilded world of the rich is in confrontation with the oppressive world of the poor and with those who have no right to justice and to love.
The golpistas´ conception of the world is based on an a-historical, ontological vision; one in which the social being has no place and the people do not exist.
It is this frame of reference which justified the military coup that aborted the holding of a non-binding poll - the "Fourth Ballot" - in which the people were to be asked their opinion on the installation of a National Constituent Assembly.
The golpista ideology holds that the "Constitution is God." It's advisors and practitioners are disciples of the Pentagon's 'School of the Americas' and of the extreme right in the United States and Latin America.
The epistemology underlying the vision of the golpistas is one that totally ignores the potential of the people as subjects, capable of understanding and changing social reality.
Knowledge and education are a function of the market and of capital accumulation. The regime´s assumptions of its own validity and political legitimacy go along with a kind of legal formalism in which the law is completely separate from social life.
This view is not only perverse but false, for it flagrantly distorts the truth. It denies that a military coup took place, falsifies records and ignores the systematic violations of human rights and corruption.
The method of the golpistas is to promote a "syndrome of attrition and of physical, mental and political exhaustion". The strategy seeks to defeat the opposition by means of irregular warfare; media, religious and military terrorism; detentions, beatings and torture. It includes assassinations of leaders, teachers, artists, youth and women - femicide has increased by 60 percent.
The economic cost of the military coup, in the first three months, has been over $800 million, implying a loss of nearly $30 million a day.
A GIANT HAS AWOKEN
But in the face of all this pain and suffering a giant has awoken; a new hope has been born. The Honduran people has rediscovered itself. Moved by its dreams of freedom, it acts in defiance of those who have hitherto sought to shut it out from the making of history.
The myths of media power have been shattered. The powerful, with their technology of manipulation, have failed to deceive the people. The walls of silence have collapsed. Charcoal burners, the colours of the earth, have served as tools for the working people and artists in the making of their own history: in writing, painting, dancing, acting, singing the poetry of freedom; confronting tanks, shrapnel, toxic gases and treacherous daggers with shouts of pain and anger: "!Golpistas! Golpistas!".
NATIONAL FRONT AGAINST THE COUP
A people have been born, a new hope, in the form of the National Front Against the Military Coup. Its objectives are organized mobilization to struggle against injustice, to build political power through genuine participation of the citizenry in the National Constituent Assembly and to profoundly transform the Constitution of the Republic.
Its principles are based on "Non-Violence". It has sustained over one hundred days of heroic marches under the sun and the rain of bullets, beatings, stabbings and the terror of noxious gases.
However, in a country still under military occupation by the United States, where the cowardly Honduran armed forces and police spend huge amounts of money at the expense of hunger and disease of children and environmental destruction by multinational corporations; they will never extinguish the courage and the voices of nonviolence shouting in every corner of Honduras: 'Long Live the Resistance!'
The martyrdom and heroism of the Honduran Resistance is a call to all peoples of the world for no more military coups and no more military bases in Latin America.
It is a call for human and world peace; for respect for the dignity of our peoples and for their history; for social and environmental justice in the heart of Mother Earth.
The path of hope and liberation, in the face of crimes against humanity, is through full consolidation of the Resistance as a nonviolent political, cultural and spiritual force that builds and leads the taking of power.
No change that is genuinely democratic can occur if it excludes the National Front Against the Coup as the largest and most significant political force in Honduras. It is the most indisputable historical fact of our present and of the future; a force with which the people dream and are constructing the dawn of a new day for our country.
Juan Almendares, Tegucigalpa, October, 2009
juan.almendares@gmail.com
http://www.movimientomadretierra.org/
www.dignidaddelospueblos.hazblog.com
http://dignidaddelospueblos.wordpress.com/
Landline: 504-237-5700; Cell-phone 504-9985-4150
(Google translation revised by Norman Girvan)
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WHAT TO DO
MAKE TAX-DEDUCTIBLE DONATIONS
to support Honduran organizations and people working with the National Front Against the Coup.  Make check to “rights action” and mail to:
UNITED STATES:  Box 50887, Washington DC, 20091-0887
CANADA:  552-351 Queen St. E, Toronto ON, M5A-1T8
CREDIT-CARD DONATIONS:  http://rightsaction.org/contributions.htm
For foundations and institutional donors, Rights Action can (upon request) provide a full proposal of which organizations and people we are channeling funds to and supporting.
WATCH A 2-PART “FAULT LINES” NEWS REPORT ABOUT HONDURAS:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYY4vj9ROC0&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upMu_oR2YUU&NR=1
AMERICANS & CANADIANS should contact our members of congress, senators & members of parliament every day, day after day, send copies of this information, and demand:
Public and unconditional support for the return of the constitutional government of President Zelaya
Unequivocal pressures from international community for regime to relinquish power
No recognition of the November 2009 elections, that candidates from the dominant Nationalist and Liberal parties are campaigning for, even as the country is militarized and repression is widespread
Suspension of all international funds and loans to the regime, and targeted economic, military and diplomatic sanctions against the coup plotters and perpetrators
Application of international and national justice against the coup plotters and perpetrators
Reparations to the victims of harms and damages (including loss of life, torture, rape) committed by regime
SPEAKING TOURS: “RESISTANCE TO MILITARY COUPS & GOLD MINING DEVASTATION IN HONDURAS & GUATEMALA”
In November, Grahame Russell with Rights Action will be giving public presentations in the north-east USA, showing slides and short documentaries and speaking about the on-going pro-democracy, anti coup movement in Honduras and about indigenous and community resistance to Goldcorp Inc.’s open-pit, cyanide leach mines in Guatemala and Honduras.  Grahame Russell (info@rightsaction.org) in north-east USA
Thank-you for your on-going support for our work and for this amazing struggle.

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