Uruguay disavows de facto Honduran ambassadress

Source: Xinhua

Uruguay disavows de facto Honduran ambassadress
2009-08-29 12:18:50

MONTEVIDEO, Aug. 28 (Xinhua) -- The Uruguayan government disavowed on Friday de facto Honduran ambassadress Carmen Eleonora Ortez Willams for not representing the legitimate government of ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya.

The Uruguayan Foreign Ministry announced its decision on Friday, which was based on an official declaration signed on June 28, saying the Uruguayan government would not recognize any government "which could rupture the democratic legitimate institutions."

The decision also mentioned the resolution of the Extraordinary General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS) on July 4, which suspended Honduras' membership of the regional body.

Uruguay said the country has refused to recognize Ortez as "the ambassadress representing the legitimate government of Honduras." 　


Read more: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-08/29/content_11962502.htm

of these right wing reactionaries, left over from the Cold War.

nt

to Uruguay. Now if only Washington would do the same.

Honduras coup representative forced to quit fisheries seminar
28 August 2009

A representative of the Honduran military regime was forced to leave a fisheries seminar in Brazil this week amid fierce protests from the trade union movement.

The presence of Honduran government representative, Marco Antonio Calderón, and Marco Polo Micheletti - brother of Roberto Micheletti - at the International Labour Organization (ILO) work in fisheries convention on 25 August, prompted outrage among trade union delegates. Last June, Roberto Micheletti ousted the democratically elected Honduran government led by Manuel Zelaya.

During the convention, Omar Suarez, representing workers in the fisheries sector and general secretary of Argentine ITF-affiliated union Sindicato de Obreros Maritimos Unidos expressed anger that Calderón and Marco Polo Micheletti had been allowed to attend the event. This especially as Honduras had been suspended from the Organization of American States following the military coup. Suarez reminded delegates of the suffering of the workers and civil society during military coups, including the murder of trade unionists for defending human and union rights. He argued that a notable example was during the military regime in his own country, Argentina.

In response, Micheletti, who was representing employers at the seminar, stated that these were lies and that they did not reflect the reality in Honduras.

Gerardo Corres, an Argentine government representative backed Suarez’s stance expressing dissatisfaction over the presence of Calderón.

Calderón left the room. Meanwhile, Micheletti was forced to withdraw his comments.

Antonio Fritz, ITF Americas regional secretary read a strongly-worded statement supported by the Trade Union Confederation of the Americas, expressing solidarity with the workers and the whole of civil society in Honduras who were fighting to remove the dictator and reinstate democracy.

He said: “Roberto Micheletti is trying to create ‘yellow’ unions to present the image that he represents workers too. Meanwhile, Honduran people and workers are continuously being repressed in the streets for demanding the return of democracy and for ignoring the illegal elections that Micheletti intends to hold”.

http://www.itfglobal.org/news-online/index.cfm/newsdetail/3676?frmSessionLanguage=ENG

Incredible, ain't it? There are actually labor unions in Latin America. Who woulda thunk it, in our 'Alice in Wonderland' corpo media delusion?

Glad to see labor activism and solidarity. The hit on Zelaya was a hit on his raising the minimum wage, raising teachers' salaries, providing school lunches, lowering the price of bus tickets for the poor, granting land title to peasant farmers and other such material benefits for workers and the poor, as well as a hit on his collaborating with unions and grass roots groups on fundamental reform in Honduras--the constitutional referendum. If Reich-wing elites and US militarists can overturn beneficial policies and good leaders at gunpoint, in Honduras, no Latin American country is safe, and we know that the next thing that happens is union leaders getting tortured, murdered and 'disappeared.' This is already happening in Honduras and Peru, and on a large scale in Colombia--wherever the US "war on drugs" goes as the enforcer of "free trade for the rich." Zelaya thought that fairness could be accomplished with the US military in the country. He was wrong about that. I think we will find out that the Pentagon was a major player in the Honduran junta, not only acting as the enforcer of Corporate Rule but also protecting their "asset"--the US military base at Soto Cano--for their oil war plans in South America. It will take long term labor and grass roots organizing to put that situation right--to rid Honduras of the Pentagon's control and establish true democracy. If there is hope of it occurring in time--to help prevent Oil War II--the people of Honduras need all the help they can get from labor unions and grass roots political and human rights groups elsewhere. And it looks like the labor unions in Brazil are well aware of this.

We never hear about it here, but Brazil's oil is also on the Pentagon's target list--along with Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and probably Cuba (big oil find there). Brazil's president, Lula da Silva (a former steelworker) has said so, publicly, on several occasions. In fact it was Brazil that proposed that South America form a "common defense," in the context of their new "common market," UNASUR, after the Bushwhacks reconstituted the US 4th Fleet (mothballed since WW II) in the Caribbean. Da Silva is acting strongly to ensure Brazilian control of their newly discovered vast oil reserves and use of the oil revenues to end poverty in Brazil. Although Brazil is not a US client state like Honduras--which made the rightwing coup in Honduras easy--it could happen to Brazil as well. This is another reason to cheer strong Brazilian and other labor activism on the Honduran coup. Ecuador's president, Rafael Correa, has said, "After Zelaya, I'm next" (based on South American and Ecuadoran intelligence). US/Colombia's psyops/disinformationists have been working on Ecuador for almost two years--trying to paint Correa as a "terrorist-lover" and dropping ten 500 lb US "smart bombs" on Ecuador to slaughter a FARC guerrilla camp just inside Ecuador's border, partly as a test-run of US/Colombian military systems. Ecuador's northern oil region is right on Colombia's border (another reason that the US is acquiring seven new military bases in Colombia). Ecuador, as the next target, makes strategic sense and has been well-prepped by the war planners. With the US military base in Honduras secured by the rightwing coup, seven new US military bases in Colombia, the 4th Fleet in the Caribbean, and Ecuador's oil reserves captured and its democracy destroyed, the US oil war machine will be ready to take on Venezuela and Brazil.

There is increasing evidence that this is the US plan for its second oil war (--Plan B, since China and Russia apparently stood in the way of the Bushwhacks nuking Iran to gets its oil). Labor rights would be the first casualty of a US putsch in Brazil. I'm sure that Brazil's labor unions understand the importance of the Honduran coup to Brazil's and South America's future. Labor unions have been a key factor, all over Latin America, in the struggle against US domination, and the struggle for decent government and for Latin American integration (collective assertion of economic strength).