Honduran Congressman Cesar Ham murdered by rightwing coup?

[Peace Patriot]

Anybody have confirmation of this?

The Narcosphere report says "if confirmed..." (and its Notimex link goes nowhere):

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/kristin-bricker/2009/06/honduran-military-reportedly-assassinated-leftist-presidential-cand

Congr Ham was the ONLY leftist presidential candidate going into the November election. Zelaya was term limited (not running) and, in any case, represented a conservative political party. (Zelaya made a left turn, politically, after becoming president.) Ham was a prime political mover on the advisory referendum (popular vote on whether to re-write the Honduran Constitution) that was aborted by the rightwing military coup yesterday.

I presume that the report of Congr Ham's murder is true, since we have the probably lying report of the local police that he "had a gun" and "therefore he had to be killed." But those are the Notimex quotes that I can't track.

So far the only report I can track is from this highly distorted Associated Pukes article on the situation. It attributes the report of Congr Ham's murder to a group called "Freedom of Expression":

"Some of Zelaya's Cabinet members were detained by soldiers or police following his ouster, according to former government official Armando Sarmiento. And the rights group Freedom of Expression said leftist legislator Cesar Ham had died in a shootout with soldiers trying to detain him."
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,529354,00.html
and here
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090629/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_honduras_coup

Here are a bunch of Google hits mostly reports about Congr's Ham's death (mostly repeats of the same report):
http://www.google.com/search?q=cesar+ham+honduras&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

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The most obvious thing to ask about the rightwing military coup in Honduras yesterday is: Why kidnap and terrorize the president and others over an advisory vote? And what are we to make of all the obvious and elaborate prep for the coup--the phony resignation document, the airplane with blacked out windows to fly him to Costa Rica, the shutdown of media and electricity? To stop people from voting in what was nothing more than an opinion poll?!

It doesn't add up. The coup was long in preparation. Zelaya had warning, and thought that the U.S. had stopped it. The U.S. knew about it, and is now saying that the coupsters stopped taking their phone calls. Zelaya had given no cause for this rough treatment and ouster. If he broke some law, in proceeding with an advisory vote referendum, there are proper legal ways of dealing that (--not shooting up the president's house, dragging him out in the middle of the night and flying him to another country!). What did the RW fear about this advisory vote? The Associated Pukes promote the "talking point" that Zelaya is unpopular. I'm beginning to view that as a RW "talking point" (not real, false polls) because, obviously, the poor laborers and farmers (the majority of Hondurans) were about to endorse the idea of re-writing the Constitution--the outgoing president Zelaya's idea. They want change. They vocally supported Zelaya and his political leftward trend. If Zelaya is truly unpopular, why bring the international community down on your head with this violent, illegal, undemocratic coup? Why not let the advisory vote occur, ignore its results and wait out the end of Zelaya's term (this year)?

The Honduran military, fat with U.S. dollars, and long in cahoots with the likes of John Negroponte, is very powerful and permeates Honduran society, propping up the rich rightwing elite (very similar to Colombia, in this respect). (Our "war on drugs" billions are used to kill and oppress leftists and prevent democracy.) They don't need to DO violent coups, unless...

If the coupsters murdered Congr Ham, as reported, then it becomes clearer what this RW military coup is all about. It has nothing at all to do with anything improper or illegal that Zelaya did, with regard to the referendum, and has everything to do with eliminating the leftist candidate who might have succeeded him on a platform of re-writing the (Reagan/Negroponte-written) Constitution to re-balance the power situation in Honduras away from the rich elite (and its military) and toward the poor majority. It is that long term prospect that they were trying to head off. No one else was killed that we know of yet.

Whether or not a congressman was shot and killed by this coup is important in itself. But who this congressman was may be key to the entire event. I find it odd that I cannot get confirmation and there has been no follow-up (and no word from Zelaya that I know of--Congressman Ham was a political ally of his).

[magbana]

1. This whole coup is a great opportunity for the RWers to clean house.

Ham, apparently assassinated by police, had two strikes against him: he's a leftist and he's black. Race is a wicked sword in Latin America.

[Peace Patriot]

3. Don't you think it's odd that Congressman Ham's death has not been confirmed,

and no word from Zelaya or the congressman's family, friends, supporters (that I know of)? Also, you'd think it would have been mentioned at the OAS and ALBA meetings, and/or by neighboring leaders.

It's quite possible, of course, that news has been suppressed, and it can't be confirmed.

[magbana]

4. i sense that Zelaya, and the ALBA gang are limiting comments

specifically to the act of the coup and in good time the issue of Ham will be dealt with.

[Peace Patriot]

2. Note: I will be off the grid today, but will check back into DU tonight.

I would appreciate any thoughts, esp. confirmation (or better yet, NOT) re: Congressman Ham's murder.

[Peace Patriot]

5. For anyone who doesn't yet know, Congressman Ham's allies say he is alive and

in hiding. NarcoNews has issued a correction. They were victims of a false police report (with quotes and everything) from another news source called Notimex (--I don't know Notimex at all). NarcoNews is generally very reliable, but everyone is handicapped (even AP, whose reporters were arrested!) by the rightwing coup/military shutdown of news reporting.

I am greatly relieved to hear Congressman Ham is alive, and I wonder why the police (and/or the coupsters) would put out this a false report. To foster a climate of fear? Could be just malicious rumor-mongering, but it smells like psyops. Or, maybe they were trying to get him to use his cell phone?