Coup General: "We're Going After the Protest Leaders"

(as reported by Al Giordano on the road in Honduras)

Concerning the civil resistance to this violent rightwing coup, General Vasquez had this to say: "'They lie and they lie and they lie forty times until it becomes the truth when they call us golpistas (coup mongers). Saying that we're golpistas is a strategy. They call us 'assassins.' It's an effort to demoralize the troops. When they do this, they are committing a crime, first and foremost, that of defamation. We're going to go after them. They are acting with impunity.'"

Gee, citizens of a country--for whom military generals work--don't have the right to call those generals anything they want to. That's a new one! The military decides what is acceptable political speech!

This general sent troops to shoot up President Zelaya's house, roust him out of bed at gunpoint and put him on a plane with blackened windows to another country. The coup government then declared martial law, and began roughing up and arresting reporters--even Associated Pukes reporters (--don't they know who their friends are?)--and shutting down opposition and neutral TV/radio stations, and began arresting over 1,000 political prisoners (whose fate is still unknown here--don't know what people know about it in Honduras), At least ten political activists are dead because of the use of live ammunition by the military and the police against peaceful protesters, and hundreds are wounded.

And the people of Honduras dare to call the generals "golpistas"! What nerve! But he'll fix 'em! "We"--the generals--are "going after" "them"--the people of Honduras--for the crime of free speech and for their terrible graffiti.

If it wasn't clear before--to uninformed persons and lurkers--who these generals are, and what this coup is about, from these fascists' point of view*, the Hondurans generals have crystallized it perfectly.

Listen to this:

"Comandante General Miguel Angel García Padget of the Armed Forces said that the coup was necessary to stop 'socialism and communism dressed as democracy.' He referred to the right wing authoritarian governments that preceded the Latin American wave of center-left electoral victories as 'the true democracies.'"--(Al Giordano reporting)

If people freely choose socialism, or communism--or even ask for a raise in the minimum wage (a Zelaya measure)--they are not democratic! Unless they choose to be looted blind by the rich and the corporate, unless they bend over for global corporate predators--and unless they worship the generals and don't call them bad names--they are not citizens!

"Ever since the political crisis in Honduras began, persons that don't deserve to be called citizens have been dedicated to cover the capital city walls with graffiti."--post at the Honduran military web site.

NOT citizens!

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*(I think we're looking at "Project For A New American Century, Part II," frankly--another corporate oil war, this time in South America. The Honduran generals want their US taxpayer funded booty, and a docile, 'pacified' population of sheep to lord it over. The fascists who claim to be the government want to run Honduras for corporate predators like Chiquita, skim off the top of "free trade" and war booty, remain an oligarchy and take no responsibility for anyone else in their country--for schools and medical care for the poor majority, for decent pay and decent jobs, for local development, for public participation, for real democracy. They're headed for Miami. They're Gucci buyers, like the rich elite in Venezuela. But the larger hidden purposes behind this coup--the ones devised in Washington DC--are something else again, and I believe the coup is part of a war plan.)