Honduran Oligarchy: “The War is Against Chavez”

The Honduran de facto government and private media insist on denying the coup d'etat and say that they accept the mediation of Costa Rican president Oscar Arias, but exclude any conversation over the return of Zelaya to the presidency. At the same time they sustain that they are the spearhead of a "war" against the "dictatorship of Hugo Chavez."

The daily newspapers, Heraldo, Tribuna and La Prensa, lead the way in defending the coup d'etat and repeat, almost in the same words, the accusation against the Venezuelan president for his supposed interference. They also promote the withdrawal of Honduras from the ALBA accords, because they claim, "it has only benefited the left."

The headlines of these newspapers and the declarations of the current leaders of the State are a copy of the anti-communist manual of the press campaigns in the decades of the sixties and seventies in the last century.

With contrived arguments, the Honduran media promotes a campaign accusing the Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez of interfering in the country and provoking the confrontations last Sunday near the surrounds of the Tegulcigalpa International Airport, when 200 000 people waited for the return of the constitutional president.

By extension, they sustain that the UN and the OAS are manipulated by Chavez, and that the presidents of Argentina, Cristina Fernández, of Paraguay, Fernando Lugo, of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega and the Honduran president himself, Manuel Zelaya, also obey the orders of the Venezuelan president.

Even the highest authorities of the Catholic Church have joined the campaign.

The Honduran oligarchs continue ignoring the demand of the people for a return to institutionality and to allow Zelaya to finish his term. "We have communicated with president Arias to tell him that we are prepared for any dialogue, always and when it is not for the return of president Zelaya, but rather when it is to hand him over to the justice tribunals," Roberto Micheletti, the defacto president, said. He insisted, "we are not going to negotiate anything, we are going to dialogue."

"We are clear that everything that has happened here was within the framework of the law and the Constitution of the Republic, here what there was, was a constitutional situation," the dictator concluded.

At the same time, the de facto president continued naming new authorities in the cabinet and substituting governors and mayors.

Legislator, Mauricio Reconco, of the Liberal Party, defended the legality of the overthrow of Zelaya, "we know what was done was best, if not we would have been in a worse situation," he said. Immediately he went on to attack Chavez, "in this moment we are seeing internationally that Honduras has shown it is a country that has put a block the path of Hugo Chavez. The war is no longer against ex-president Zelaya, but against Hugo Chavez."

"It is lamentable that in organisations such as the UN and the OAS, Hugo Chavez continues have strength and power, he has chess pieces - such as these presidents, Correa, Lugo, Kirchner, Mel Zelaya and Daniel Ortega - who he manouvres at his whim," he concluded.

Cardinal Oscar Andrés Rodríguez, after defending the coup d'etat and critising the protests calling for the return of the constitutional president, attacked the Venezuelan president;

"We totally reject the interference of the Venezuelan president, we are a small but sovereign country, since he came to insult us in the month of August, that Mister has been trying to put his hands in here, he should leave us in peace, he should dedicate himself to governing his own country". 

Meanwhile, the rightwing movement Generation for Change, continues holding mobilizations in support of the coup, as they did previously against president Zelaya, and they repeat the same arguments of the old rulers. Luis Colindres, one of the youth leaders said during an event on Tuesday, that a dictatorial system exists in Venezuela, and that "if Zelaya Rosales returns the same thing could happen in our country."

The Retired Officials of the Armed Forces Association mobilized together with the "youth" of the Generation for Change. At the same time as they defended what they claimed was a legal presidential substitution, they criticised the OAS, which they considered to be biased in favor of Zelaya and through a communiqué condemned the intervention in internal affairs by said organization.