September 2009
Opponents of the Honduran dictatorship dispersed by tear gas in police attack on demonstrators outside the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa on the morning of September 22.
(Photo: Reuters)
Yesterday, September 21, President Manuel
Zelaya
Rosales returned to Honduras, 86 days after he was ousted in a
civilian-military
coup, kidnapped from his home at gunpoint and expelled from the
country. The de
facto regime installed by the coup plotters, headed by the puppet
“president”
Roberto Micheletti, was evidently caught by surprise by Zelaya’s
return.
Hundreds of opponents of the coup rushed to the Brazilian embassy where
he is
staying in order to greet him and to form a human barrier against the
military.
The regime declared a 24 hour curfew, to which the population paid no
heed.
Beginning at 4 a.m. this morning, the
notorious Cobra
riot police brutally attacked the unarmed demonstrators with tear gas,
injuring
many and reportedly killing two with live ammunition, according to
Indymedia.
Electricity and water have been cut off in the neighborhood, and police
are forcing
residents from their homes. Hundreds of anti-coup demonstrators are
being
detained on roads to prevent them from reaching the Honduran capital.
Opponents
of the coup have issued an “urgent international appeal for solidarity
and to
DEMAND that the repression cease immediately.”
Radio Liberada in Tegucigalpa reported at 10
a.m.
local time that a football stadium and baseball stadium next door are
being
used as jails, and people are being tortured there. The radio recalled
the use
of the National Stadium in Santiago, Chile as a concentration camp and
torture
center during the Pinochet coup of 11 September 1973. Radio Globo, also
in
Tegucigalpa, reports that the area around the Brazilian embassy is
basically
deserted, with military and police sharpshooters posted on the
surrounding
rooftops with orders to shoot to kill if Zelaya should come out.
Elsewhere in
the city, many explosions have been heard near the airport.
Radio stations in San Pedro Sula and El
Progreso have
been seized by the military.
The working people, peasants, indigenous and
garífuna
populations of Honduras have courageously resisted the coup plotters
from the
beginning. Teachers immediately went on strike, which has continued to
this
day, and two striking teachers were assassinated. Unions have led the
resistance, calling two national work stoppages at the end of July and
again in
August. Hundreds of thousands have demonstrated in Tegucigalpa in
opposition to
the dictatorship and demanding the return of Zelaya. But Radio Globo
reports that
among those demonstrating outside the Brazilian embassy, Zelaya’s call
for
“dialogue” with the coup plotters was not popular.
The Organization of American States hailed
Zelaya’s
“courageous act,” while U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton called
for the
usurpers and Zelaya to “find common ground.” This tacit recognition of
the coup
regime has characterized U.S. policy ever since June 28. In fact, high
State
Department officials were up to their necks in discussions with the
plotters
before the coup on how to “legally” oust Zelaya, due to his ties to
Washington’s
nemesis, Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez. This is the policy of the
entire U.S.
government, of President Barack Obama.
We call for urgent international solidarity
with the
Honduran working people resisting the coup and denunciation of U.S.
support for
the plotters. For a general strike and workers self-defense against the
repression!
Yankee imperialism, go to hell! No phony “dialogue” with the assassins
– For
workers action to crush the coup plotters! Fight for a workers and
peasants
government, in a Central American Federation of workers republics!
Internationalist
Group/
League for the Fourth International
22
September 2009, 12 noon