Pastors for Peace: Not a Victory; It's a US State Dept. Manipulation

[roody]

Pastors for Peace: Not a Victory; It’s a US State Dept. Manipulation!
2009 OCTOBER 30

Thanks to IFCO/Pastors for Peace for calling it like it is.

IFCO / Pastors for Peace
An update from IFCO/Pastors for Peace:
our response to the Honduras “agreement”:

This is not a victory; it’s a US State Department manipulation!

In our view, the agreement signed today is neither a victory for President Zelaya, nor for the people of Honduras.

● Any agreement that restores President Zelaya to office without giving him control over the military — the same military that carried out the coup! — is a victory for the coup forces, or an outright trap.

● While the two parties have signed an agreement, the demands of the Honduran people — for a constitutional assembly and the restoration of democracy and constitutional law — have not been addressed.

● The agreement does not create space for free and fair elections. In fact it directly aligns the coup military with the Supreme Electoral Commission appointed by Micheletti. (This same Supreme Electoral Commission was just invited to Washington, DC last week by right-wing Cuban-American Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), where they testified to Congress that “nothing has changed” in Honduras since the coup.)

● The agreement has not ended the repression and human rights violations; and it remains to be seen whether repression will intensify in the days to come.

The struggle continues! Today’s complicated and convoluted news is not a victory, but a temporary setback. We will be sending more analysis and action alerts as the situation develops; stay tuned!

http://hondurasoye.wordpress.com/2009/10/30/pastors-for-peace-not-a-victory-its-a-us-state-dept

[EFerrari]

1. Thank goodness for Pastors for Peace.

No one paying attention can possibly believe the "official" story.

I don't salute Obama or Hillary. I know a low down dirty trick when I see one.

No justice, no peace.

[roody]

2. Luis Barrios is a P4P.

Rev. Luis Barrios, SOA Watch Prisoner of Conscience

Rev. Luis Barrios is speaking to communities about the School of the Americas and the SOA graduate led military coup in Honduras. He also talks about his experience crossing the line at Ft. Benning, being convicted of trespassing and becoming a prisoner of conscience. The Rev. Luis Barrios, Ph.D., is a professor at John Jay College in New York. He is also the chair of the Department of Latin American & Latina/o Studies. Since 1988, Dr. Barrios is a columnist of El Diario La Prensa in New York City, one of the oldest Spanish newspapers in the United States. In addition, Rev. Barrios is an associate priest at St. Mary's Episcopal Church in West Harlem, New York City. He is an active member of IFCO-Pastor for Peace Board of Director.


He crossed the line last year at Fort Benning and spent some time in prison.

http://www.soaw.org/article.php?id=1752

[roody]

3. Lucius Walker Subpoenaed

Rev. Dr. Lucius Walker Subpoenaed in New York Investigation Surrounding High School Students' Trip to Cuba

Rev. Dr. Lucius Walker of IFCO and Pastors For Peace speaking at MLK Day in Detroit. He has been subpoenaed in an investigation over New York's Beacon High School delegation that traveled to Cuba in 2007. (Photo: Abayomi Azikiwe).
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos The New York Daily News

Judge orders rev to fess up on Beacon School's Cuba trip

BY CARRIE MELAGO
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Wednesday, January 23rd 2008, 4:00 AM

The religious leader who helped organize a Manhattan school's controversial trip to Cuba must speak to investigators, a judge has ruled.

The Rev. Lucius Walker was ordered to comply with a subpoena regarding the Beacon School's spring break trip to Cuba with his group, the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization.

Schools investigator Richard Condon is probing the role of the school and a teacher in the planning of the 10-day trip, which appears to have violated travel restrictions.

Walker has repeatedly refused to speak with investigators about the April trip. His attorney, Palyn Hung of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said Tuesday that Walker hadn't decided whether to appeal.

---snip---

http://panafricannews.blogspot.com/2008/01/rev-dr-lucius-walker-subpoenaed-in-new.html

http://www.flickr.com/photos/53911892@N00/2214126547/

[Peace Patriot]

4. Some questions...

"Any agreement that restores President Zelaya to office without giving him control over the military — the same military that carried out the coup! — is a victory for the coup forces, or an outright trap."

It is standard procedure, in the Honduran Constitution, for the military to be placed at the disposal of the Electoral Council during elections. I don't think this is a special provision of the Junta/Zelaya agreement against Zelaya--but I'm not sure. I haven't read the agreement, so I don't know how broad it might be. There was a dispute, where Zelalya fired a Honduran general who disobeyed him--on the Fourth Ballot issue--so it's possible that the provision is targeted at Zelaya. But it may just be a reiteration of election procedures. I'm not saying that anything about this agreement is right. It is an infuriating agreement in many ways; maybe the best Zelaya could do, to get the hell out of the embassy, but still--the man was robbed of four months in office, and so were the people who voted for him, and the coming election is, indeed, a sham. Reform has been successfully delayed (but it will come--it must).

I didn't know that Mitcheletti had appointed the Electoral Council, but does it really matter? The media has been shut down. The left has been beaten up, murdered, tortured, raped, tear-gassed, and denied the most basic civil rights, for four months. And the supposed two frontrunners for president both supported the coup. They might as well have the Junta run the election, for all it means. It is the most meaningless election that ever was. And I hope it is massively boycotted. Besides doing that, the forces of reform need to regroup. Obviously the Honduran elite is not going to reform itself, nor be forced to reform by the US. It was silly to expect that the US would. Our own elite is as corrupt as it can be. However, I don't think Zelaya getting freed from his embassy prison, and the coup stepping back and the establishment of at least cosmetic and temporary civil rights are bad things. They create some space for organizing and planning. It's good not to be getting your head bashed in for a while--even just four weeks. That might be a benefit of the coup's election behind on stage.

It's also good to alert people to the sham nature of the election, and also, I think, to the struggle within the imperial realm between peaceful and violent US policy in Latin America. Does Obama's stated policy of peace, respect and cooperation have any chance at all? I am worried about the left's tendency to call this "Obama's coup," and I am suspicious of this anonymous leak to the (putrid) NYT about Shannon's phone calls with the coupsters prior to the coup. How clever of the Bushwhacks, eh? I'm not saying Obama has reacted well to the coup--he hasn't. But I'm also very alert to treachery and backstabbing by those who want war, not peace, in Latin America.

[Bacchus39]

5. Zelaya agreed to it n/t

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