Roberto Sosa, Presente! In Honduras, the Walls Are Talking.

Roberto Sosa, Presente! In Honduras, the Walls Are Talking.
By Roberto Sosa in the November 2009 issue

Editor's Note: Roberto Sosa, the most prominent poet in Honduras, died on Monday, May 23. Here is the cover story he wrote for The Progressive in November 2009.

At 5:30 a.m. on Sunday, June -28 (Black June), under the light of the first star of dawn, I woke from a sound sleep to a barrage of gunshots. Soon Radio Globo broke the story that the president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya Rosales, had been abducted, taken to Toncontín Airport in the capital, Tegucigalpa, and transported, still in his pajamas, to San José, Costa Rica. We later learned that the navy plane carrying him landed at another airfield before it left Honduras—the U.S. military base in Palmerola. Upon landing there, Zelaya managed to record a message in which he named those responsible for the military coup—which his abductors refer to as “a presidential succession.”

Mel, as Manuel Zelaya is affectionately known to the Honduran people, had suffered a coup d’état with malice aforethought. When I realized what had happened, my mind was flooded with images of the ’80s. Hit lists, disappearances, harassment of dissidents (threats, firings, seizure of wages), and the grisly operations of the death squad Battalion 3-16 ordered by professional criminals like Gustavo Alvarez Martínez and Billy Joya, masters of programmed assassination.

In that lost decade my poetry had been branded subversive and anti-military. At the National Autonomous University of Honduras, I became the object of many abuses. My salary was withheld for an entire year, at the end of which I was fired and forced to sign a document saying that I would never again teach a course there.

The harassment was the work of one Oswaldo Ramos Soto, otherwise known as Rata Gorda (Fat Rat).

http://www.progressive.org/sosa1109.html

http://www.hondudiariohn.com.nyud.net:8090/H/sites/default/files/imagecache/Foto_Interior_Noticias/100_4816.JPG

Saw it written he was once a presidential candidate. Coup supporter, of COURSE.

~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~

http://farm3.static.flickr.com.nyud.net:8090/2568/4093616584_3c04ef6f0c.jpg

Roberto Sosa

From El Libertador:

... impossible to forget.

Sosa was a poet, journalist, anthologist, essayist, among others. Has been considered one of the most emblematic writers of the country, died today (Monday May 23, 2011) of a heart attack at a private clinic.

More:
http://www.ellibertador.hn/

~~~~~
Poet Roberto Sosa died in Honduras at 82
The writer died of a heart attack.

~snip~
Directed numerous literary magazines and art galleries, and was professor of Spanish at the National Autonomous University. He also served as professor of literature and writer based in Upper Montclair College in New Jersey.

In 1968 he received the Adonais Prize for Poetry of Spain for his work "The poor,''thus becoming the first Latin American to win the award.

His book "A World for All''was divided in 1971 the Casa de las Americas Prize in Cuba and in 1990 France awarded him the rank of Knight in the Order of Arts and Letters.

Among his prolific works include "Caligramas''," Wall''(1966), "Inland Sea''(1967)," armed Prose''(1981), "Military Secret''(1985)," Until the sun Today''(1987), "The Complete Works''and" personal Anthology''(1990), "loose Mask''(1994) and" The tears of things''(1995), translated into German, Chinese, French , English, Italian, Japanese and Russian.

http://www.eluniversal.com/2011/05/23/muere-poeta-roberto-sosa-en-honduras-a-los-82-aos.shtml

Thanks, EFerrari, for posting this information. I wish he had been able to see the end of Honduran fascism. He does know, however, even the worst regimes in Honduras CAN be overcome, with time.

qepd


mvs

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