Leftist LatAm Bloc Rejects Honduras Election

[cal04]

Source: Associated Press

Leaders of a bloc of leftist Latin American governments urged the international community Saturday to reject the presidential election planned by Honduras' interim government next month.

The leaders of the Boliviarian Alternative group also denounced Colombia's plan to give the U.S. military expanded use of bases in that South American nation, calling it a threat to the region's security.

In a joint statement issued at the end of the two-day ALBA meeting, the leaders criticized the coup-installed government in Honduras and urged the world's nations to continue pressing for the reinstatement of ousted President Manuel Zelaya.

''No electoral process held under the coup-installed government, or the authorities that emerge from it, can be recognized by the international community,'' the statement said. It added that ''it is fundamental to drive a diplomatic offensive and to promote forceful actions for the total re-establishment of the constitutional'' order in Honduras.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/10/18/world/AP-LT-Bolivia-Leftist-Bloc.html

[Joe Chi Minh]

1. Say it ain't so.....

[EFerrari]

2. This is misdirection. The leftist Hilary Clinton, lol, has already said

we will not recognize the results if Zelaya is not restored. So has the leftist OAS, EU and iirc, UN.

[Joe Chi Minh]

3. Ah, those pesky lefties! Can't live with them, AND YOU CERTAINLY CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT THEM!

[L. Coyote]

5. They all have "leftist" government features, a Constitution and rule of Law!

Pesky that, ain't it :rofl: gets in the way of old-fashioned rule by royal inheritance and oligarchiness :rofl:

[EFerrari]

7. Somebody forgot to tell the AP -- who seems to be shilling

for the upcoming illegitimate election by trying to marginalize its opponents as Commies. :)

[Judi Lynn]

12. They've been getting stranger every year. Reuters, too, but AP takes the prize.

On edit:
Throw in Agence France-Presse, and the New York Times, and the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times. What news source is even LEFT which is conscientious any more? Does anyone remember journalistic integrity?

So damned awful.

[L. Coyote]

4. REC + Previous LATEST thread:

Zelaya aide: Honduran coup talks have broken down
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4107197

[L. Coyote]

6. ALBA leaders voice support for ousted Honduran president

ALBA leaders voice support for ousted Honduran president, oppose U.S. military base in L. America
2009-10-18 20:32:02 - http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-10/18/content_12264237.htm


LIMA, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- The seventh Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) summit concluded on Saturday in Cochabamba, Bolivia, with resolute support for ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya and opposition to U.S. military bases in Latin America .... the leaders and representatives from nine participating countries called for the reinstatement of Zelaya, and asserted that they would reject any government elected by the presidential election next month .... that no election held under the coup-installed government nor the authorities that emerge from it will be recognized by the international community.

The statement said the U.S military bases in Latin America and the Caribbean raised suspicion among people in the region, calling it a threat to regional peace and democracy.

Latin America and the Caribbean were a peaceful region and would not allow foreign military forces and bases to exist, it added.

.... The summit also decided that the next ALBA summit be held in Cuba in December. ........

[L. Coyote]

8. LA: Opinion = How Obama can earn his Nobel Peace Prize

Opinion - http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/commentary/la-oe-nobel18-2-2009oct18,0,174864.htmlstory

How Obama can earn his Nobel Peace Prize
If it's too early for President Obama to deserve the award, what can he do to make himself worthy? A variety of experts weigh in.

October 18, 2009
Many people, including the president himself, were surprised this month when the Nobel committee awarded the peace prize to Barack Obama. His critics -- as well as some supporters -- questioned whether he deserved it. It was too soon, they said; he'd done too little. We posed a question to a variety of experts: What should the president do to earn the prize?

Build a legacy in America's backyard
Ariel Dorfman

Of all the regions in a dangerous and intractable world, forgotten Latin America might paradoxically offer Barack Obama the best opportunity to influence events so that the "hope for the future" embodied in his Nobel Peace Prize becomes a reality.

Building on his creative engagement with Latin America after the George W. Bush years of blindness and neglect, there is much the president can accomplish immediately. Lifting the senseless blockade against Cuba, followed by full diplomatic relations, would be a good beginning. Another sore spot is Honduras, where the United States has not done enough to isolate and punish the de facto government, which came to power through a coup against the country's elected president. And Obama should rethink his approach to hemispheric security (canceling, for instance, Plan Colombia) as a way of defusing tensions in a Latin America threatened by a new arms race.

The U.S., one of the largest Spanish-speaking countries in the world, could also send a signal of friendship to Latin America by legalizing the situation of millions of undocumented Latino workers.

On another front, presidents Alvaro Uribe of Colombia and Felipe Calderon of Mexico, seconded by Brazil's Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, have valiantly opened up a tentative conversation about the failed "war on drugs." ............

.............

[L. Coyote]

9. Meanwhile, on the Far Right in Miami, the Pinocheletti Media ... (e-mail this author)

Zelaya's `Resistance' losing steam as vote nears
Supporters of ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya say the waning attention to their rallies underscores a new urgency for their mission.
BY FRANCES ROBLES - http://www.miamiherald.com/1506/story/1288048.html?storylink=omni_popular
[email protected]

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras -- Wendy Elizabeth Avila died from complications of asthma after being doused with tear gas .....

More than three months after Zelaya was toppled in a military-backed coup, his supporters have yet to mobilize in the kind of numbers required to force change. As teachers, taxi drivers, union members and peasants hold frequent rallies and caravans around the capital, de facto President Roberto Micheletti has succeeded in quashing their movement and staying in power. He has said that he plans to leave office after the Nov. 29 presidential elections.

``The Resistance'' -- as Zelaya supporters are called -- acknowledge that they never managed to paralyze the nation, despite claims that most workers are on their side. Its leaders say the months that dragged underscore a new urgency for their mission and say Zelaya followers are poised to start fighting dirty, including calling for a general strike or taking up arms.

[Judi Lynn]

11. Undoubtedly you remember this story: U.S. Paid 10 Journalists for Anti-Castro Reports

U.S. Paid 10 Journalists for Anti-Castro Reports

By ABBY GOODNOUGH
Published: September 9, 2006

MIAMI, Sept. 8 — The Bush administration’s Office of Cuba Broadcasting paid 10 journalists here to provide commentary on Radio and TV Martí, which transmit to Cuba government broadcasts critical of Fidel Castro, a spokesman for the office said Friday.

The group included three journalists at El Nuevo Herald, the Spanish-language sister newspaper of The Miami Herald, which fired them Thursday after learning of the relationship. Pablo Alfonso, who reports on Cuba for El Nuevo Herald, received the largest payment, almost $175,000 since 2001.

Other journalists have been found to accept money from the Bush administration, including Armstrong Williams, a commentator and talk-show host who received $240,000 to promote its education initiatives. But while the Castro regime has long alleged that some Cuban-American reporters in Miami were paid by the government, the revelation on Friday, reported in The Miami Herald, was the first evidence of that.

In addition to Mr. Alfonso, the journalists who received payment include Wilfredo Cancio Isla, who writes for El Nuevo Herald and received about $15,000 since 2001; Olga Connor, a freelance reporter for the newspaper who received about $71,000; and Juan Manuel Cao, a reporter for Channel 41 who got $11,000 this year from TV Martí, according to The Miami Herald, which learned of the payments through a Freedom of Information Request.

When Mr. Cao followed Mr. Castro to Argentina this summer and asked him why Cuba was not letting one of its political dissidents leave, Mr. Castro called him a “mercenary” and asked who was paying him.

Mr. Cao refused to comment Friday except to say on Channel 41 that he believed the Cuban government knew in advance about the article in The Miami Herald. Most of the other journalists could not be reached. Ninoska Perez-Castellón, a commentator on the popular Radio Mambí station here, said she had received a total of $1,550 from the government to do 10 episodes of a documentary-style show on TV Martí called “Atrévete a Soñar,” or “Dare to Dream,” and saw nothing wrong with it. Her employer has always known about the arrangement, she added.

More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/09/washington/09cuba.html

Clearly they didn't spotlight ALL the propagandists at the Miami Herald. Frances Robles has been a complete stinker a long, long time.

[L. Coyote]

14. Yes, the few we know about and the many still getting paid, no doubt with our tax money too

6. US LIES: Journalist Quit Iraqi Media Project = $96M Propaganda Project
Before you believe ANYTHING AT ALL in the way of Iraq news, read "Assault on Reason" and these:
INSTALLING DEMOCRACY NOW! USG-seized IRAQ media ....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=2860396&mesg_id=2860567

[David__77]

15. The resistance should definitely be planning for more actice measures.

Sometimes non-peaceful self-defense is a necessity. The people of Honduras have a right to defend their sovereignty against fascism. An ill-planned insurgency would be a mistake, but certainly the FSLN (in 1979, not 2009) provides a positive example of how to topple a fascist oligarchy.

[flamingdem]

10. k n r

[L. Coyote]

13. ALBA Strengthens Trade Alliance, Ratifies Struggle Against the “Empire”

ALBA Strengthens Trade Alliance, Ratifies Struggle Against the “Empire”
Latin American Herald Tribune
http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=345794&CategoryId=12394


In the political arena, Chavez said at the end of the meeting that the bloc is progressing towards the “exorcism of imperial doctrine” in their countries in order to “recover the liberating doctrine of Bolivar.”

In this area, the chief resolution was for ALBA to impose new trade and migratory sanctions on the government of Roberto Micheletti in Honduras, where the bloc demands the unconditional reinstatement of deposed President Manuel Zelaya.

The regional group also asked the Colombian government in its final statement “to reconsider the installation” of U.S. military bases and demanded that the territory occupied by the United States at Guantanamo be returned to Cuba.

ALBA reaffirmed its request that the U.S. economic, trade and financial embargo against Cuba end “unconditionally, unilaterally and immediately.”

The declaration of the 7th summit proposes the founding of a “Permanent Committee for the Sovereignty and Defense of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America ALBA-TCP,”

...........

In the statement, the countries of the group accuse “imperialism and rightist forces” in the region of having reacted “with the coup d’etat in Honduras and the installation of military bases in Colombia” to impede “the progress and growth of progressive forces and ideas in Latin America and the Caribbean.”

During the meeting, Chavez insisted that a “defensive military alliance” be created to face “threats from the empire.” .....................

[David__77]

16. ALBA is a good nationalist and democratic bloc.

It is not a leftist bloc or a socialist bloc by any means. It is much more similar to the Non-Aligned Movement prior to its effective obsolescence.

[L. Coyote]

17. NEXT thread:

In Honduras, OAS probes human rights violations
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4109716