Honduran abuses rampant after coup - rights groups

Source: Reuters

Honduran abuses rampant after coup - rights groups
Tue Oct 13, 2009 2:32am BST
By Frank Jack Daniel

TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - Suspicious deaths. Beatings. Random police shootings. Life under the de facto government of Honduras at times feels uncannily like Latin America's dark past of military rule.

In the three months since soldiers overthrew leftist President Manuel Zelaya and marched him out of the country in his pajamas, international and Honduran human rights groups say security forces have committed a litany of abuses. They link at least 10 deaths to de facto rule under Roberto Micheletti, who was named president after the June 28 coup. The government admits three people have died in protests.

Amnesty International said in September that Honduras risks spiralling into a state of lawlessness where police and military act with no regard for rights. Repression of protests against the coup increased after Zelaya slipped back into the country on Sept 21, took refuge in the Brazilian embassy and called his backers onto the streets.

Honduran human rights group Cofadeh said it had numerous reports of police firing guns in poor areas of Tegucigalpa. Some shootings occurred during night-time curfews enforced by Micheletti.

Unemployed Angel Manuel Osorto broke the curfew to go out to borrow money for medical treatment for his pregnant wife and his 13-year-old son Angel David was hit in the lower back when a policeman fired a pistol from a motorbike.


Read more: http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKN1215128220091013?rpc=401&

Posted: October 12, 2009 08:10 PM
Xenophobia and Racism in the Honduran Crisis

The political crisis has brought out the worst of Honduras. The media has already documented many of the country's ills since June: the reliance on the military to address internal political problems and the sharp polarization with Cold War echoes as well as political violence, repression and censorship. One nasty phenomenon, however, has slipped under the radar: the frightening nationalist sentiment, xenophobia and racism that have been on display since June 28--the day of the coup. Hondurans on both sides of this crisis have continually failed to recognize that substantial domestic support exists for both Manuel Zelaya and Roberto Micheletti, and that these domestic forces are willing and able to mobilize themselves. They have proceeded by first defining "us"--the true Hondurans who "love their country"--and then using racial and national markers to identify a blameworthy "them."

Since the coup, Hondurans have been crying for leadership from "people who really love their country." Honduran politicians, media pundits and radio-show callers have repeated this banal phrase ad nauseum. They suggest that "true" Hondurans would never have gotten into this mess and that love of country is sufficient to ward off political crisis. That both Micheletti and Zelaya supporters utter this phrase reveals the patent absurdity of such arguments. People with widely divergent interests can all profess to "love their country." Democratic politics is about aggregating and balancing interests and developing representative institutions to mediate these interests and protect citizens' rights; it is not about who can be the loudest cheerleader for the nation.

Unfortunately, these "love of country" statements are not simply vacuous. In addition to being unhelpful, nationalist rhetoric since June 28 has gone hand-in-hand with troubling expressions of xenophobia and racism.

Xenophobia has plagued the rhetoric of both the Micheletti and the Zelaya camps. On Micheletti's side, condemnation of outside influences and a rejection of multilateralism has become commonplace after the international community's condemnation of the coup. This is bad news, but it's not quite xenophobia. Instead, xenophobia has reared its ugly head in the continuous references to "outside agitators"-- Cubans, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans, and Colombians (from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC)--stirring up the Zelaya supporters. The Honduran Right claims that their country has been infiltrated by Leftist, Communist and Marxist (any Cold War adjective will do, actually) rabble-rousers from all of these nations.

These phantom foreigners have taken the blame for organizing violence and funding insurrection. Some even blame them for the wave of pro-Zelaya graffiti that's gone up throughout Tegucigalpa. As one Micheletti supporter told me, "Hondurans have never put up graffiti like this. It's being done by people from those other countries." Meanwhile, first-hand experience at pro-Zelaya protests reveals that it's primarily adolescent Hondurans putting up the graffiti.

Perhaps the nastiest case of such "othering" came when the de facto government stripped Catholic priest Father Andrés Tamayo of his citizenship. Tamayo, a naturalized Honduran citizen born in El Salvador, has been an outspoken Zelaya supporter while the historically conservative church sided with Micheletti. The response from the Right: he's Salvadoran, he's not one of us.

More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-altschuler/xenophobia-and-racism-in_b_318054.html

He seems to think everthing is just fine there.