New repression in Honduras

A NEW raft of repressive measures has been unleashed on the population of Honduras in the run-up to the phoney elections being staged by the military coup regime on Sunday.

The Narco News website has published what it terms the 'greatest hits' from this week’s barrage of decrees.

Decree PCM-M-029-2009

“Due to growing internal threats,” the Armed Forces will be deployed, in support of the National Police, to guard polling places, the custody and transport of ballots (before and after they are utilized by voters), and 5,000 members of the military reserve were deputized beginning on November 13.

Decree PCM-M-030-2009

This decree declares a “State of Emergency” nationwide, and places the regime’s “Secretary of State” inside the military command to oversee all activities related to the November 29 “elections.” This decree pretty much erases the previous order that the quasi-independent Supreme Electoral Tribunal would exclusively be in command of the Armed Forces in the month prior to the “election.” In other words, not even the window dressing added to give the vote a gloss of pseudo-independence could be tolerated by regime leader Roberto Micheletti, who has now placed a member of his Simian Council at that helm.

Decree PCM-M-031-2009

The November 29 “elections are under threat by groups that try to block their development with threats of all kinds, creating fear and disorder in the general population.” Therefore, says the decree, a nationwide ban on bearing all types of firearms went into effect on Monday, November 23, “until ordered otherwise.” (Memo to self: Make sure to write the National Rifle Association about Senator Jim DeMint's efforts in Honduras.)

Order number 2169-2009 of the Secretary of Government and Justice

“The conduct of Mr. José Andrés Tamayo Cortez is incongruent with constituional precepts and secondary laws of the Honduran State… that justify his characterization as UNWORTHY to have Honduran nationality and is ordered to be expelled to his country of origin.”

Executive Order 124-2009 authorizes the coup regime's media regulating organization CONATEL to close any media at will.

Narco News gave this message to the regime: "Dear Mr. Micheletti, members of his Simian Council, and all who back his anti-democracy coup: Have fun with your mock “elections” on Sunday.

"The only thing more interesting than the week to come – and there still may be some big surprises about to unfold from the ground level – is going to be the week afterward, as you enter your next squalid series of tantrums upon the realization that not even your own populace believes that your “election” was legitimate or worthy of respect. Your game of electoral make-believe will resolve nothing."

Resistance steps up in Honduras

HONDURAN resistance fighters have responded to the trickery of the USA-backed military coup regime by launching an attack on a senior establishment figure.

Associated Press reported that gunmen ambushed a convoy carrying Honduras' top prosecutor Attorney General Luis Alberto Rubi, though neither he nor his bodyguards were harmed.

After the right-wing military coup in June, it was Rubi who filed criminal charges against ousted President Manuel Zelaya.

The USA has widely been suspected of secretly being behind June's coup against a populist leader who had allied himself with Huge Chavez and the Latin American anti-imperialists.

On the surface, though, Washington had given the impression that it was working for the restoration of the democratically elected Zelaya, who has been under siege in the Brazilian embassy since being smuggled back into the country in September.

This culminated in a much-heralded "solution" to the crisis, which Zelaya rejected when it emerged it did not involve him returning to power as president or even any of his suppporters joining the cabinet.

Meanwhile, the chief US negotiator in producing the agreement in the capital Tegucigalpa, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Thomas Shannon, clarified that Zelaya’s return to office is not a precondition for Washington recognizing an election on November 29 as legitimate. Rather, the mere signing of the accord legitimized the elections.

Reported the World Socialist Web Site on November 9: "This position was confirmed in the action of US Senator Jim DeMint, a South Carolina Republican and member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who dropped his opposition to the Obama administration’s nomination of Arturo Valenzuela to become assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs, replacing Shannon, who is to become US ambassador to Brazil.

"DeMint, a right-wing Republican and fervent backer of the Honduran coup regime, had held up the nominations as an act of protest against what he saw as the Obama administration’s support for Zelaya’s return to power.

"In announcing his shift on the nominations last Thursday, DeMint stated on the floor of the Senate that he was “happy to report the Obama administration has finally reversed its misguided Honduran policy and will fully recognize the November 29 election.

"DeMint continued, 'Secretary Clinton and Assistant Secretary Shannon have assured me that the US will recognize the outcome of the Honduran elections regardless of whether Manuel Zelaya is reinstated. I take our administration at their word that they will now side with the Honduran people and end their focus on the disgraced Zelaya'."

In the face of this betrayal, it is little wonder if the Honduran people are forced into armed resistance to the US-backed military regime.