UNREST IN HONDURAS: Soldiers occupy hospital

Source: Agence France Presse

Aug 7, 2009
UNREST IN HONDURAS
Soldiers occupy hospital

TEGUCIGALPA - SOLDIERS occupied state hospitals in an increasingly tense Honduras on Thursday as health workers declared an indefinite strike calling for the return of ousted President Manuel Zelaya.

As the political stalemate dragged on more than one month after the military coup, foreign diplomats meanwhile met with the defiant interim leaders in a bid to seek a negotiated end to the crisis.

A day after police fired tear gas and water cannons at some 3,000 student Zelaya supporters, hospital workers told AFP they were on an indefinite strike.

'All the hospitals are militarized but the stoppage will continue,' said Elvin Canales, a union leader at a hospital in the east of the capital Tegucigalpa.

Around 8,000 health workers went on strike this week, in a move affecting 28 hospitals and more than 1,000 health centers across the impoverished Central American nation.

Most of the country's 50,000 teachers have maintained strikes since the June 28 ouster of Mr Zelaya, which followed a dispute with courts, Congress and the military over his plans to change the constitution.


Read more: http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/World/Story/STIStory_413694.html

Now the media is talking about Hillary going to Kenya to destroy evidence that Obama was born there.

academic exercise

the other right wingers? Did Sec Clinton get or give wrong advice in what looks like taking a side with Micheletti. Obviously, Reich and a contingent was in contact with Michelletti and said we would stand off or support them. If Reich led something on his own that is out of favor with the administration, he should be arrested and all the other CIA people who authorized this. State and Intelligence? What is going on with the U.S.

A good housecleaning is in order. IMHO

wonder what obama and clinton who do if it' gov. was overturned

And the students, and all the other progressive sectors behind Zelaya. I guess that puts me at some distance from our State Department.

and things like why did the space shuttle blow up on that cold morning?
Why didn't they cancel? What was Bush doing in Honduras?

Who got the $100 million dollars?

Past crimes enable current illegal political activity.

Naturally, our government would be supporting the other side. No to bases in Columbia, no to the School of Americas & no to the phony "war on drugs"!

Honduran Coup Government Continues Attack On The Poor With Plan To Seize Indigenous Hospital
Posted: August 7, 2009 01:17 PM

Dr. Luther Castillo, who was named "Honduran Doctor of the Year" in 2007 by Rotary International, has just sent out an alert through the non-profit group MEDICC, that he and his staff at the Indigenous Garifuna Community Hospital have received an order from the de facto Honduran government to leave the Hospital and discontinue their work there. The government has announced that it is downgrading the standing of the hospital and will be taking over with "new management."

In the meantime, the de facto government has stopped paying the salary of the staff - which includes locally-trained nurses and 10 physicians - and will no longer guarantee medicines or vital supplies. In spite of this, the Hospital staff have vowed to stay and continue their work, serving the poor in the Garifuna indigenous region of Ionia and surrounding area.

As Dr. Luther Castillo explained to MEDICC, "We will not abandon our people. These are the poorest of the poor, the invisible poor. They are the real victims of the coup." The coup government has made Dr. Castillo's ability to continue his work on behalf of the poor particularly difficult, putting out a warrant for his arrest and capture right after the coup. Yet, Dr. Castillo perseveres.

This act on the part of the Honduran de facto government shows its true intentions in carrying out the coup against President Zelaya - to roll back the modest social reforms Zelaya put in place to alleviate the suffering of the poor in that country.

As MEDICC explains, the Garifuna Community Hospital opened in December of 2007 under an agreement with the government of President Zelaya and in accordance with an International Labor Organization covenant that supports locally-managed health services for indigenous and tribal peoples. According to Dr. Castillo, the hospital has treated 175,000 cases since that time, providing such services as birthing, surgeries, hospitalization, dental care, laboratory tests and other outreach and prevention services. Now, the de facto Honduran government is threatening the lives of the poor in the Ionia coastal department and surrounding area by its move to oust the staff of this hospital.

More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-kovalik/honduran-coup-government_b_254033.html

Now, the coup government is attempting to roll back Zelaya's modest reforms, threatening the lives of the poor living on the margins in the process. As Dr. Castillo explains, the current actions of the coup government with respect to the Gardifuna Community Hospital threaten to "condemn to death many of our old people, and stop all outreach and prevention services."

In the end, condemning the poor and the vulnerable to further marginalization, and even death, is part of the plan of the current regime in Honduras, for they intend not only to attack Zelaya himself, but also, and maybe even primarily, those who support him. And, Zelaya finds most of his support among the poor who, according to U.S. AID, make up 65% of the Honduran population.

This calls to mind the words of the repressive Guatemalan general, Rios Montt, who once explained his philosophy of fighting the insurgency in Guatemala as follows: "The guerrilla is the fish. The people are the sea. If you cannot catch the fish, you have to drain the sea." Carrying out this philosophy, Montt carried out death squad activities against the Guatemalan people, killing thousands of Guatemalans, most of them indigenous, in the process.

In the case of Honduras, the coup government, with such individuals as Billy Joya at the helm - Joya, who ran death squad activities in the 1980's quite similar to those directed by Rios Montt in Guatemala, is now the "special security adviser" to the Honduran coup government - similarly wants to drain Honduras of the sea of Zelaya supporters to prevent Zelaya and his modest reform government, or any other reform government for that matter, from ever returning.

~~~~~~~~~Why IS it our own corporate whores are not leaking one bleeping WORD about this? Silly question, of course. Poor people don't matter.