Judi Lynn
Judi Lynn's JournalThe Hidden Script of US Militarization in Honduras
Weekend Edition July 3-5, 2015
Strange Deployment
The Hidden Script of US Militarization in Honduras
by LAURA V. NATERA
On June 2, the United States announced that 180 Marines would be deployed to Honduras as a preventative measure primarily concerning the upcoming hurricane season. Both the U.S. Marines and the White House affirmed that the military mobilization will be temporary and that its functions will only be to protect local citizens in the case of a natural disaster.[1]
Regional specialists, however, fear that the presence of sophisticated U.S. military and surveillance equipment, as well as the sheer number of Marines that the United States brought to the Soto Cano Base Area in Palmerola, signal that this mobilization is the beginning of a new round of expansion of the United States presence in Central America reminiscent of Washington’s practices during the 1980s. These assumptions are based on how the United States has supported the new Honduran government, despite it being established by the illegitimate removal of former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya from office by military troops on the 28 of June 2009.
Countries in the Americas have been continually skeptical about both the 2009 coup d’état and the statements made by President Barack Obama regarding this issue. In fact, according to the journalist Michael Parenti, certain indicators suggest that the 2009 Honduran coup was sponsored by the United States[2] , especially after former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton admitted in her book Hard Choices “that she used the power of her office to make sure that Zelaya would not return to office”.[3] It was later revealed that the cadre of influential lobbyists hired to galvanize support in Washington for the coup have strong ties to both Hillary and Bill Clinton.[4] Additionally, many Latin Americans have made historic links between the United States and the movement that overthrew President Zelaya in 2009 when, unlike his regional counterparts, President Obama shied away from promptly denouncing the military coup in Honduras.
On the other hand, according to a 2009 column written by Noel Brinkerhoff for AllGov, many of the accusations of past U.S. complicity with the military movement in Honduras are based on the fact that, at that moment and still today, a large segment of the Honduran military receives U.S. training.[5] This suggests that the military coup that overthrew President Zelaya would not have succeeded if the United States had not conferred the adequate training. However, what is most disquieting about this situation is that, despite knowing how extensively U.S. military training affects the behavior of Honduran troops, the United States agreed to continue providing strategic help to the Honduran armed forces. The United States thus continues to be targeted with accusations regarding its implication and degree of participation in the 2008 coup that overthrew President Zelaya, most notably since the plane carrying Zelaya out of the country stopped at and was refueled at the U.S. military base at Palmerola. U.S. authorities, however, insist that they had no knowledge of Zelaya being on the plane.[6]
More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/07/03/the-hidden-script-of-us-militarization-in-honduras/
Land & Rights Watch: 3 killings every 2 weeks due to land conflicts and struggles
#NoLandNoLife | Land & Rights Watch: 3 killings every 2 weeks due to land conflicts and struggles
Published: 01 Jul 2015
Short URL: http://farmlandgrab.org/25087
Posted by: Danica Castillo
- See more at: http://farmlandgrab.org/post/view/25087#sthash.dX8dfZi2.dpuf
From January to June 2015, there have been about 56 cases of human rights violations related to land conflicts and struggles in Asia and Latin America, with around 510 victims. The victims are mostly indigenous peoples (461 victims or 90% of the total) while the remaining are land activists/community leaders and farmers and agricultural workers.
The data are from the Land & Rights Watch (LR Watch), the latest initiative of PAN Asia Pacific (PANAP) to closely monitor and expose human rights abuses against communities opposing land and resource grabbing.
Of the total number of cases, 31 are killings that claimed 36 victims while 6 cases are frustrated killings with 20 victims.
This means that 6 are killed every month - or three every two weeks - among members of indigenous and farming communities as well land activists in Asia and Latin America - in the context of land struggles and conflicts in the first half of 2015.
Most of the killings happened in the Philippines with 15 victims, followed by Honduras (5 victims); Colombia (4); Brazil (3); Indonesia, Pakistan and Mexico (2 each); Thailand Guatemala, and Peru (1 each).
Other common cases are threats and harassment (5 cases, 5 victims); arbitrary arrest and detention (4 cases, 9 victims); and trumped up charges (4 cases, 80 victims).
Overall, most of the human rights violations happened in the Philippines where 21 cases and 384 victims have been monitored. Honduras came in second with 13 cases and 90 victims.
- See more at: http://farmlandgrab.org/post/view/25087#sthash.dX8dfZi2.dpuf
National Plutocrat Radio
National Plutocrat Radio
Corporate One-Percenters dominate NPR affiliates' boards
By Aldo Guerrero
Jul 02 2015
For a public radio service, NPR is notoriously known for its lack of diversity within its staff, audience and guests invited onto their shows—problems that NPR has itself acknowledged (6/30/14).
A new FAIR study finds that NPR’s diversity problem also extends into the board of trustees of its most popular member stations: Two out of three board members are male, and nearly three out of four are non-Latino whites. Fully three out of every four trustees of the top NPR affiliates belong to the corporate elite.
FAIR studied the governing boards of the eight most-listened-to NPR affiliate stations, based on Arbitron ratings (Cision, 2/13/13). The stations and their broadcast regions are KQED (San Francisco), WAMU (Washington, DC), WNYC (New York City), KPCC (Los Angeles), WHYY (Philadelphia), WBUR (Boston), WABE (Atlanta) and WBEZ (Chicago). (Two top-rated public stations, KUSC in Los Angeles and WETA in Arlington, Va., were not included in the study because they mainly play classical music rather than having a news/talk format.) Board members were coded by occupation, ethnicity and gender.
Out of the 259 total board members, 194—or 75 percent—have corporate backgrounds. Many of these board members are executives in banks, investment firms, consulting companies and corporate law firms. Some of the elite corporations include Verizon, Bank of America and Citigroup.
More:
http://fair.org/home/national-plutocrat-radio/
The Bolivian town that banned alcohol for a month to stop assaults and sexual abuse
The Bolivian town that banned alcohol for a month to stop assaults and sexual abuse
Video: Vigilantes would shoot firecrackers to warn bars to shut down
Kiran Moodley
Wednesday 01 July 2015
After three minors were raped in less than one week, the residents of a small town of cocoa farmers in Bolivia decided to take the law into their own hands.
With a strong distrust of local law enforcement and a huge amount of anger at the dominance of drug traffickers and car-smugglers in their town, neighbourhood leaders from La Asunta imposed a month-long ban on alcohol and a 10pm curfew for people under 18.
"This has gotten out of hand. The police can't do anything so we've decided to take our own measures and we've called for complying with a 30-day dry law," said Jorge Mendoza, a neighborhood leader in the town some 60 miles (100 kilometers) northeast of La Paz, the capital.
With the law taking place throughout June, Juan Carlos Coche, another member of the neighbour watch group, said the policy had been a success and there had been a clear drop in alcohol consumption, robberies, assaults and sexual abuses.
More:
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/the-bolivian-town-that-banned-alcohol-for-a-month-to-stop-assaults-and-sexual-abuse-10357173.html
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