Venezuelan Foreign Minister: Latin America has to Guarantee the Defeat of the Coup in Honduras

Venezuelan foreign
minister, Nicolás Maduro Moros, said Sunday, from Miraflores Presidential
Palace, that Latin America must guarantee the defeat of the coup d'etat against
the President of Honduras Manuel Zelaya and try those responsible.

"Latin America has to
guarantee the defeat of this coup d'etat and also has to demand, without
conditions, the reestablishment of President Manuel Zelaya and ensure justice
is done to the fullest extent so that the rabid ultra-right gets a clear
message, that they cannot take swipes at the democratic processes that the
people are carrying forward," Foreign Minister Maduro expressed.

Minister Maduro said
that it is clear that those responsible for this military coup, "those who have
not shown their faces, but who will be discovered in the end, should be
submitted to international justice for violating the democratic Charter and the
constitutional rights of the Honduran people."

"Sooner or later," the
Venezuelan foreign minister indicated, "the people accompanied by the
governments of Latin America and the Caribbean are going to defeat this coup,
fomented by these fascists who kidnapped president Zelaya, and his principle
collaborators and who continue to hold captive the [Honduran] foreign minister
Patricia Rodas."

The Venezuelan
diplomat announced that today had been a day of intense consultation in order
to convoke various international scenarios, where the situation could be
analyzed, among those, a meeting of member countries of the Rio Group, "we have
direct contact with the foreign ministers from Central America and of the
Bolivarian Alliance for Our Americas (ALBA), as well as diverse political and
social actors in Honduras. We know that the people remain in the streets in a
very valiant manner, resisting, confronting this coup d'etat that is a direct
expression of the oligarchy and [private] media."

He stressed that a
Venezuelan commission has been activated in Costa Rica supporting the president
of Honduras Manuel Zelaya, "we are in contact for the convocation of this
Presidential Summit in Managua that is going to coincide with the summit of the
System of Central American Integration (SICA)."

The Venezuelan foreign
minister emphasized that the media is justifying the coup, "today they [the
media] awoke in silence so that no one would be informed [of the coup]. It was
[the Venezuelan-based] Telesur, that broke the media dictatorship, the media
dictators of the Honduran oligarchy and the continental oligarchy tried to
impose silence."

"We remain in contact
with, we have spoken recently with a senator from Chile and with other
parliamentarians who are observers in the poll [in Honduras], and they told us
that people continue voting until late afternoon hours as a form of expression
and of support for the democracy of president Zelaya," he said.

He pointed out that there is a large concentration in front of the
Honduran presidential palace, "the rumours are running that they are going to
decree a state of siege, but the people of Honduras are disposed to confront
all the measures that this rookie dictatorship aims to impose."

Translated for Venezuelanalysis.com by Kiraz Janicke