Update at long last…. October 9, 2009

Our delegation’s final report, which I will be translating into Spanish shortly….

7th International Witness Delegation to Honduras
19 – 26 September, 2009

On Monday, September 21, 2009, this delegation was en route to points North and West of Tegucigalpa on the first day of a planned three-day period outside the capital. Halfway to San Pedro Sula, a Honduran among us received a call from a friend who said that President Manuel Zelaya had returned to Honduras and was inside the UN building. We turned around and headed back to Tegucigalpa, where we spent the next handful of days trying to respond to the unfolding political drama and its impacts on Hondurans. What follows is a summary of the information and impressions we collected.

Political Update
Indeed, forcibly removed President Manuel Zelaya had returned to Honduras clandestinely, but had made his surprise appearance in the Brazilian Embassy, not the UN building. As word of his return spread like wildfire through the country, thousands upon thousands of people gathered in front of the embassy to greet him. Cheering, singing, chanting, and
waving flags, the crowd was confident, relieved, jubilant. Trucks crawled through the dense gathering to hand out water; people standing in the strong sun cheerfully sprayed each other. Young men sat in the branches of every sturdy tree in sight, hoping for views over the embassy wall. When Zelaya appeared, the crowd exploded in cheers, then began to sing the national anthem. Inside the embassy walls, Zelaya stood with his hand on his heart.
Early that afternoon, the coup regime that had taken control by force on June 28th denied Zelaya’s presence in the country, claiming that it was really an actor from a television satire. When denial was no longer possible, the de facto government called for calm, claiming that Zelaya’s return would have no impact on the administration. Meanwhile, members of Zelaya’s cabinet and some leaders of the anti-coup resistance were allowed into the Brazilian
embassy to be with the elected president. Over the following days the coup regime held tighter to its illegitimate power, remaining unwilling to negotiate and increasingly relying on police and military forces to repress and terrorize the Honduran people on the streets and in their homes. The de facto government also violated international law in its treatment of those inside the Brazilian embassy, withholding food and water, using noise terrorism, and releasing a toxic nerve gas into the building.
After an attempt to dialogue, Manuel Zelaya declared the coup regime insincere in its negotiations, and seems to be holding out for his unconditional return as the elected president of Honduras. The international community is nearly unanimous in its support for such an unconditional return; Latin American heads of state in particular are extremely
concerned for the precedent set by this Honduran coup. The U.N., as well as individual nations, have withdrawn their support and recognition for the Honduran elections coming up in November under the coup regime, as popular groups in Honduras have declared that they would boycott any elections held by the current administration. Even the IMF has
declared the Zelaya administration the only legitimate receptor of its funds.
United States President Barack Obama did not mention Honduras in his address to the United Nations General Assembly this week, and only the United States has left its ambassador in Honduras. The U.S. State Department has not declared the Honduran coup a military coup under its Foreign Service Law 7008, and the rhetoric of Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton has been weak at best.
The United States’ position is to support the Arias negotiations, facilitated by the president of Costa Rica, which would allow for a highly conditioned return of Manuel Zelaya to office. Though the Arias Agreement would let the coup regime off the hook for the crimes it has committed, de facto president Roberto Micheletti has rejected the proposal. Though the US
Ambassador to Honduras, Hugo Llorens, says that he is working hard to pressure the coup regime to accept the Arias Agreement, many Honduras we spoke to firmly believe that the Micheletti government would not be so brazen were it not for the continued support of certain elements within the United States government. Former ambassador John Negroponte is said to have visited Honduras and met with members of the political/business/military elite weeks before the coup.
Throughout the remainder of our time in Honduras, Zelaya and some members of his administration/supporters remained inside the Brazilian Embassy with the clear support of the Brazilian government: Any democratic government would do the same, said president Lula. The coup regime military cordoned off a six-block radius around the embassy with a
solid line of soldiers. These presences – Zelaya in the embassy, soldiers out of their barracks – are the immediate context for what we saw and heard in the streets of Tegucigalpa throughout the week.

Repression and Terror
The coup government illegally implemented a nationwide curfew at 4pm the afternoon of Zelaya’s appearance, the 21st, and left it in place until 10am on the 23rd – only to reinstate it again at 4pm the same day. Police and military patrolled the streets to enforce it. During that long 42-hour stretch of curfew, people were essentially trapped in their homes, unable to work. For the majority of Hondurans, who are poor, this house-arrest had devastating
consequences, as most survive by working every day and eating with what they earn. People called into television and radio stations to report that they had no food in their homes, and that the water had been cut off in certain neighborhoods. One woman reported that her diabetic mother had run out of insulin and had no way to get more. Though it may have weakened them physically, many people who may not have been otherwise very outspoken
denounced the curfew and the regime that had implemented it.
Other anti-coup resisters bravely defied the curfew on many occasions, starting with the night of Zelaya’s appearance at the Brazilian Embassy. A crowd of people camped out in the street in front of the embassy that night, determined to show their support for his return, and to keep an eye out for his safety. The vigil was an all-night celebration surrounded by police forces, who didn’t act until early morning. At about 5:30am on the 22nd, police
attacked the peaceful gathering with tear gas and their batons. People tried to flee, leaving behind shoes and purses, and many were detained by the police after being beaten with batons. As people fled, some neighbors opened up their homes to offer refuge. Later the police would go door to door to search them out for detainment.
The attack on the embassy is just one example of violent repression of peaceful gatherings that has frequently occurred in post-coup Honduras. The repression of nonviolent protest with tear/pepper gas, batons, and bullets; the detainment of protesters; and in some cases the criminal charges (sedition, terrorism, illicit protesting) against those gathered reflect an
increasing criminalization of social protest. Because of the all-day curfew imposed on the 22nd, leaders of the organized resistance who announce the place and time of daily marches and protests (there has been an act of public
resistance every day in Tegucigalpa since the coup) called upon resisters to organize protests in their neighborhoods. All over the city that night, people stepped out their front doors to join their neighbors in the street, singing and chanting, blowing whistles, sometimes lighting tires on fire. In some areas, the police cracked down strongly on these neighborhood protests, again with tear/pepper gas, batons, and bullets. We took the testimony of people
with terrible baton markings, and heard of hundreds detained. On the 22nd, police used the Chochi Sosa baseball stadium to hold the detained, and one small police precinct that two members of our group visited on the 24th had held 137 people between the hours of midnight and 6am. Even the police logbook noted some had been beaten. Despite the strong repression, people continued to protest in their neighborhoods after dark.

ONE FAMILY’S STORY FROM THE EMBASSY ATTACK
A 43 year-old man dressed in neat gray slacks and a button-down shirt told us that he had attended the afternoon celebration of Zelaya’s return at the Brazilian Embassy with his wife and his six year-old daughter. Once the curfew was implemented, they decided to stay the night with the crowd, thinking it would be safer than getting caught violating curfew on the way home. He spent part of the night resting stretched out on his back with his daughter curled up on his chest. When the police attacked, the family fled.
They ran to an upscale hotel, the Maya, where they stopped out on the front patio, thinking they could go into the lobby if the police pursued them. The police did pursue them, but as the family turned to enter the building, one of the security guards blocked the door with his baton and told the police that they were not guests at the hotel. The police ordered the family to leave. Moving to obey, the man turned his back to the police to pick up his daughter. With his daughter’s head resting on his left shoulder, a policeman beat the man’s right shoulder with his baton. Three days later, the mark of
the baton on his skin still showed deep red. He told us that his daughter now tells him that the police are bad because they hurt him. He and his wife respond by saying that her parents love her very much

ONE STORY FROM THE NEIGHBORHOODS
Twenty-four year-old Eric was out on the street in his own neighborhood on
Tuesday night, nonviolently demonstrating, when the police attacked. Eric’s back is a web of deep red welts from police batons, and he has one particularly bad bruise – deep purples and reds – on his side torso, below his ribcage. He was hit on the head, too, and has a wound on his knee from falling hard to the pavement. He and a nineteen year-old were detained. At the police station, officers made them lay their hands flat on a chair, then beat their hands with batons. Eric’s were notably swollen, and he had one finger in a home-made splint. Eric and his neighbor were released after a couple hours of this treatment, and only after one of the officers recognized him. The officer had been Eric’s student in a computer course. More than once during the week, members of this delegation accompanied Honduran human rights advocates to detention centers and visited health clinics/hospitals to take
testimonies of those detained and beaten by police and military forces. What we saw there, as well as information we received from Honduran lawyers and human rights advocates, betray a terribly disproportionate use of violence: over and over, again and again, we heard stories of nonviolent protesters being attacked with tear/pepper gas, beaten with iron batons (or, in some cases, batons with nails in the ends), detained for hours, and in many cases
tortured during detainment. There have also been cases of disappearances. Lawyers report that the detained are being moved repeatedly between police posts so that they’re unfindable, and note that this creates ripe conditions for disappearing people. In addition we heard disturbing stories of ex-members of secret battalion 3-16 pointing out leaders of the resistance in the poor neighborhoods to the police. Batallion 3-16 was responsible for more than 200 disappearances and torture of activists during the 1980s. We also heard concern from human rights advocates about the link between Billy Joya, former Batallion 3-16 member and security advisor to coup leader Micheletti, and Colombian paramilitary groups belonging to the AUC.
Throughout it all, access to reliable information remains key to the ability of Hondurans to know what’s happening in their country and respond accordingly. The coup regime has waged a war on independent media – and the people’s right to information — since it forced its way into power, shutting down many of the radio and television stations, and threatening independent journalists. This week they seemed to go after internet sites as well, since the
official site of the National Front of Resistance Against the Coup in Honduras (the Frente), was often corrupted. Dr. Juan Almendares, a torture survivor and well-respected human rights advocate, described what’s happening in Honduras as a sort of intentionally-imposed “wasting syndrome,” in which the Honduran people are worn down, terrified, and deprived while the
coup regime waits out the clock.

The Resistance
The Frente is a loosely-knit umbrella of organized groups, and it has been the heart of the resistance against the coup. Over and over this week, we heard Hondurans comment of the diversity of the Frente: it’s composed of farmers, feminists, artists, trade unionists, lawyers, environmentalists, political parties, indigenous peoples, gays & lesbians, intellectuals, and base Christian communities – to name just those who were organized prior to the coup.
The surge of neighborhood resistance seems to indicate an increase in more autonomous and spontaneous instances of non-compliance with the coup regime, and an increase in the general population’s disgust with the regime.
We heard again and again that the people’s resistance movement represents the possibility for true democracy in Honduras that has implications far beyond the realm of electoral politics. There’s a great surge of energy among the organized grassroots, and an emerging politicization among those unaffiliated until now. The diversity of people coming together in resistance reflect a great diversity of visions of social justice. Each group in the resistance puzzle believes in its right to have a say in the transformation of society for the better. That’s why, while the return of Manuel Zelaya is the first step to the return of constitutionality and rule of law in Honduras, many say that what they’re really struggling for is the constitutional assembly that Zelaya had been prepared to facilitate before June 28th.

The Constituyente
Often, when we asked Hondurans to discuss the coup that took place three months ago, they began their stories way back, with the political and social context of Honduras. They described poverty – Honduras is the second-poorest in the hemisphere, after Haiti. They described a country in which twelve percent of the population controls eighty percent of its wealth, that twelve percent often being descendents of the wealthy oligarchy that has
controlled Honduras since the Spanish conquest five hundred years ago. Dr. Juan Almendares began by simply stating that Honduras is an occupied country – occupied, because of the pervasive presence of U.S. military and corporate presence. They also described the electoral political system as essentially broken, favorable to a few elite, and unable to offer any real hope to most Hondurans. That’s why, for the marginalized majority, the return of Manuel Zelaya to the presidential office is just the beginning. His return would allow for the legitimization of the elections scheduled for November, but grassroots groups hope his return will also lead to a constituyente, a constitutional assembly that they’ve been struggling to realize for years. They hope that different sectors of the population will have a hand in writing a new constitution for Honduras, one that offers more promise to the poor through measures such as land reform with financing and technical assistance for small farmers. So many people we talked to clarified that their resistance to the coup is not just about the return of Manuel Zelaya to
office, but about broad-based social transformation.

The Church
We were unable to keep to our original itinerary to visit Catholic communities in Progresso, San Pedro Sula, and Santa Rosa de Copan. But we did speak with staff members of Caritas who confirmed for us that the early statement by Cardenal Rodriguez in support of the coup had a devastating impact on the credibility of the church and the work of Caritas with the poor and with other social sectors. They mentioned that the archdiocese had made no statements regarding human rights violations that had occurred since the coup, and that no human rights office existed in the archdiocese. We were unable to meet with the Cardenal, who was in Rome, nor were we able to meet
with Bishop Santos, from Santa Rosa. We did, however, receive the statement of Bishop Santos and the diocesan clergy of Santa Rosa de Copan which was issued on September 24, denouncing the coup and the human rights violations that had occurred during the week we were in Honduras.

Inspirations
Throughout the week, this group drew inspiration and encouragement from the Hondurans around us. Members of the Resistance are self-critical. They know that they have much to do to deepen and expand their grassroots organizing so that at every stage there are increasingly more people participating in building a better Honduras. We were inspired by the diversity of the resistance movement, its struggle for social change,
and its commitment to nonviolence. We were inspired by people in neighborhoods like Hato de Enmedio, by their courage and determination to voice their dissent in the face of violent repression. We were inspired by the human rights defenders and lawyers working long hours without pay to document abuses and release the detained. We were inspired by the hope and courage of experienced activists and advocates as well as that of the very young. We were inspired by the ninety days of struggle carried out by Hondurans, who have been out in the streets in nonviolent resistance every single day since the coup on June 28th.

Recommendations (for the short term)
• The United States government should firmly support the unconditional return of elected President Manuel Zelaya to office – U.S. citizens should call the State Department and their congressional representatives to demand so.
• The OAS/Inter American Commission on Human Rights and other international human rights groups should maintain a permanent presence in Honduras until constitutionality is restored
• Honduran medical and legal teams need support from international colleagues
• Non-governmental human rights groups (like COFADEH) need financial support
• Catholics should urge Cardenal Rodriguez to speak out against the military
and police repression of the people, and to call for the unconditional return of President Zelaya to office and the restitution of constitutional order.

One Story About Parents and Children
Four members of this delegation were out during curfew on the 22nd, on their way to the public hospital to take testimonies. Also in the car for the ride was a woman desperate to find her fourteen year-old son, Daniel Davíd, who had been to the protest and was now missing. One delegate in the car called his wife in the United States at the end of the day, to tell her about the missing Daniel Davíd. The couple has two sons, whose names are Daniel and David. They were struck by the chance encounter, and strengthened their resolve to advocate for the Honduran people, for their safety and access to justice. It’s what they would want for their own sons.

Who We Are
This delegation is composed of eight residents of the United States: men and women, young and old, experienced in and relatively new to the world of Central American solidarity work.
Scott Wright, Epica, Pax Christi
Marvin Pinto, Guatemalan Education Action Project (GEAP), Los Angeles
Bill Obrien, Exec. Director of Harriet Tubman Center for Organizing
(www.tubmanorganizing.org in Detroit) and Board Member of Posibilidad “Jim Harney PRESENTE!” (www.posibilidad.org)
Nick Carroll, long time supporter of Quixote Center
Art Kubick, Professor Emeritus, Rivier College, Nashua, NH
Kate DiMercurio, Essence Institute, Lifeworks Community
Patty Adams: Quixote Center Honduras Accompaniment Project
Sydney Frey: Quixote Center Honduras Accompaniment Project

And this September 28, 2009

(Thanks Sydney for finding these links) – a great piece with photos and video of the repression.

this is a really great article summing up the last couple of days September 28, 2009

http://americasmexico.blogspot.com/2009/09/sound-and-fury-of-honduran-coup.html

We are working on finishing our group’s final report and then I will get that all out to you.

P.S. – today is first day with my level 6 English class!

end of the day, energy down September 24, 2009

must sleep. info tomorrow.

p.s. travel to Managua September 24, 2009

Because of the favorable conditions today, I took a chance and called the bus station which as of yesterday was not running buses and had no idea when they would be able to start again. With all of our fingers crossed they have confirmed me on a bus to Managua this Saturday afternoon. As long as the curfew doesn’t come back, I’ll be able to make it home.

What we know today September 24, 2009

1. There is no longer a curfew. Thank God.
2. This is probably due to the fact that human rights observers from the OAS yesterday asked to be allowed into the country to do an urgent investigation. They were granted permission. Thank God.
3. Brazilian President Lula Da Silva made the announcement that any further provocation against the Brazilian Embassy will be considered an act of war.

And a note which most people on the ground take to be true, but because I did not meet the woman in question I cannot prove as fact. Take it as you will. Yesterday there was supposed to be a White March (which is what the call the march in support of the coup regime because of the fact that most of the supporters are politicians or business people with economic interests, etc.). In most of these marches or demonstrations (which are few in comparison with resistance marches and demonstrations), some regular citizens are paid a full days work to attend and participate. A man called the local television station to report that he was with a woman who had been paid to go to the demonstration in front of the embassy along with many others, and that as soon as they arrived they were being provoked and encouraged to break into the embassy. This would not be surprising, but because I did not personally speak to this woman, take it with a grain of salt.

and lastly the two important facts that i didn’t share in my frustration September 23, 2009

Today the curfew was lifted from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The reasons for this are debatable but I think it is fair to say that the people were suffering and to prolong such suffering and unconstitutional behavior would draw unwanted international attention on a larger scale. The lines at the supermarkets were out of control, people were waiting for hours and hours to get food to feed their families. There was also a resistance march of which I have video that I will add when I get home with my cable. There you will see just how positive and peaceful this massive group was. Shortly after I took that video a few blocks away the people were violently repressed again by the COBRA, regular police, and military. Anyone in groups of 5 or more were being detained on the grounds that they might possibly be plotting to act aggressively against the armed police/military. There is video coverage of all of this on the cholusatsur website. At the same time on the street where we were stationed police and military trucks were frequently heading in the direction of the embassy. One of these trucks stopped, and a member of my delegation witnessed a police step down from the truck and beat an unarmed citizen in the street with a club – at most provoked by jeering. I could go on and on, but you get the point. So YES Micheletti is a hero for lifting the illegal country-wide seige for 6 hours. And now, we are once again trapped in our houses. I should mention that in order for a curfew to be legal, the legislature must approve it’s imposition, which has not happened in any of these curfews. and the second thing: YES protesters have also thrown rocks and burned tires, in their frustration this should not be a surprise. But it what world does rock throwing merit being pistol whipped up to being shot or killed?

Thank you and goodnight.

trying to be calm and reasonable but finding it difficult to be passionless and 100% objective and unemotional September 23, 2009

After having received some criticism about biased reporting, I am only sending these tweets because for those of you who speak Spanish you will see that when they have hard evidence they tell you when some one has been certifiably wounded or killed, and if they do not have the hard evidence they say REPORTS OF x,y,z. I had assumed that as informed adults we were all capable of understanding the difference. However, I apologize to those who feel that by publishing this information I am giving light to only one side of the story. Here is, in general words, though without exaggeration, the story that the coup regime is producing “We are protecting the people with the curfew [from what I ask? themselves, as peaceable and united as they have been?], we are not threatening the autonomy of the Brazilian embassy [which is clear when you cut off water and electricity and do not allow food to be brought it and have hundreds of armed police and military stationed outside] and we will not even speak of the hundreds and hundreds of detained, wounded, and dead citizens because we have no excuse to offer you, oh and Zelaya is best friends with Chavez “un instrumento del diablo/ an instrument of the devil” [even though the entire congress and legislature had to sign off on all agreements made with Chavez and still has not reversed any of these treaties or agreements and conveniently nor returned the 100 tractors given to the pueblos of Honduras among many other favorable outcomes of these agreements, nor have they denounced every other member of the legislature or congress who passed these treaties]” PUNTO. I’m sorry, but I have listened to the coup radio stations and I have watched their television broadcasting, and they choose only to comment on the divisive nature of Zelaya’s return and ignore their own role in this conflict (of course as much could be said of the resistance, so don’t worry I realize this) and not once have they shown coverage of what is happening in the streets. Why? Because what you will see is the positive energy of the people marching in the streets and gathering in support of THEIR CHOSEN PRESIDENT whom they democratically elected. Then you will see these people attacked with tear gas, pepper gas, and not infrequently beaten with clubs (not only the legal wooden clubs of police but metal clubs as well as wooden clubs with nails inserted into them to do maximum damage). You will see these same police and military entering illegally into private homes to aggressively pull out protesters and detain them ABSOLUTELY 100% ILLEGALLY. I am sorry that I have to be so blunt and so forceful, but when I am confronted with comments and questions about the veracity of my reports I cannot sit by without a firm response. I report what I personally see and hear, I report what can be corroborated and what other members of my delegation have seen and heard. Yes, I also report what I am told by the members of the human rights organizations here who have first hand accounts as well as the lawyers. Believe what you want, but please could you then explain to me why any 46 year old woman such as the one below deserves to be brutalized like this? And if that isn’t enough, this morning one of the lawyers we spoke to told us of a family. They had peaceably assembled outside of the embassy. When the police began to advance they tried to leave. Their belongings were taken from them. They tried to get into their car and leave, when police broke the windows injuring their 5 year old daughter in the process. They then pulled their 8 year old daughter out of the car with such force that she was left with a broken arm. Say what you will about the parents. But you cannot tell me that those little girls deserved that. Clearly this is a very emotional time for me right now, but despite that, I am not being a crazy left wing reactionary brainwashed by the resistencia. Please, if you STILL find fault in the information that I am conveying to you, comment on this post and open a conversation.

p.s. after that rant, here are the latest frente tweets

1. Reprimen a vecinos del barrio Morazán de Tegucigalpa.about 2 hours ago from web
2. URGENTE: GRAVE REPRESIÓN CONTRA LA MOVILIACIÓN DE LA RESISTENCIA EN TEGUCIGALPAabout 4 hours ago from web
3. Jairo López, Presidente el Sindicato de Trabajadores del INFOP, ha sido gravemente herido de un disparo en la cabeza de parte de la policíaabout 6 hours ago from web
4. Presidente del Sindicato del INFOP. Gravemente herido de bala militar en la cabeza al organizar pobladores de la Col. Arturo Quezada.about 8 hours ago from web
5. Dispositivo acústico de largo alcance que provoca daños irreparables en el oido fue el utilizado por golpistas contra la embajada de Brasil.about 9 hours ago from web
6. Fuera del aire en Tegucigalpa Canal 36 y Radio Globo. En el momento donde miles de personas desafian al régimen golpista en nueva marcha.about 9 hours ago from web
7. Ya se congregan miles de personas en la Universidad Pedagógica. La Resistencia no se detiene.about 11 hours ago from web
8. 23 de septiembre: El pueblo se prepara para marchar, la oligarquía trata de intimidarlo con retenes, helicópteros y amenazar de los medios.about 14 hours ago from web
9. Constantemente están llegando reportes de violaciones de derechos humanos: torturas, detenciones ilegales y hasta muertos.

Direct from Patty and Syd’s blog September 23, 2009

Our delegation was in the COFADE office today be present and as useful as we could be and taking testimonies. The following are testimonies taken by Patty and Syd with photos of the injuries.
Repression at the Embassy

Here is another testimony taken by a member of our International Witness Delegation.

Lilian, a 46-year old resident of Tegucigalpa, was in the region of the Brazilian Embassy yesterday, along with hundreds of others, celebrating democratically-elected president Mel Zelaya’s return. At about 5:30am, members of the police and military came to displace the assembly.

They used tanks to surround the area and began firing tear gas and live bullets into the crowd in an attempt to concentrate people in one area. At that time, Lilian was vomiting from the strong effects of the tear gas. She quickly found herself alone in front of the embassy.

What the military did then, “instead of helping me or at least ignoring me,” Lilian said, was to beat her at least 20 times with clubs. They were also shouting things like “You’re from the Resistance aren’t you, you son of a bitch…Call the Resistance to come help you now.”

The photos show the effects of those beatings, including severe bruising on her leg, arm, and wrist.
Brazo Golpeado // Beaten Arm

Brazo Golpeado // Beaten Arm

Beaten Leg // Pierna Golpeada

Mano golpeada // Bruised hand

One Story from September 22, 2009

Twenty-four year-old Eric was participating in his Tegucigalpa neighborhood’s protest last night when the nonviolent gathering was attacked by police. He was beaten with police batons before being detained for two hours along with a nineteen year-old compañero.

Police continued to beat Eric after he was detained. “They made us put our hands flat on chairs so they could beat them,” he said. He heard police talking among themselves about killing them.

Eric and the other young man were released after one officer recognized Eric, as he had been the officer’s teacher in a computer course.

The pictures below show the baton marks on Eric’s back, his swollen hands and taped finger, and a wound on his knee from when the police pushed him to the ground.

Eric’s story is not atypical under the current state of siege in Honduras. The curfew has been lifted from 10am to 5pm today, Wednesday 23 September, so people are able to circulate, but it seems that the continued strategy of the coup regime is strong violent repression in hopes of crushing the people’s resistance. Nevertheless, people continue marching.

Abrasion on arm // Lesion en el brazo

Back with marks of beating // Espalda golpeada

Severe bruising on back // Golpe fuerte en la espalda

Beaten hand // Mano golpeado
Abrasions on legs from being pushed down // Lesiones en las piernas de haber sido empujado

If you know nothing else know this September 23, 2009

The curfew has been extended again. But you need to realize that this is far more than an inconvenience, it is something that could and probably will result in deaths and illnesses among a whole host of other emotional and financial problems. To begin with, this curfew started two days ago at 4 pm, and by 4 pm today this city will have experienced 48 hours of isolation within their homes. Right now the most pressing issue lies in the fact that people DO NOT HAVE FOOD enough in their homes to last them more than one day – many people here buy their food daily either because it will spoil if they stock up for a few days or because they don’t have the money to buy food ahead of time or both (a practice which I have taken up in Managua for similar reasons). After one day of not being allowed out of their houses, many people were already facing food shortages, but after two, it will be much worse and much more widespread. Aside from that, in some parts of the city we have heard that the water has been cut for over a day. When people are trapped in their houses without food and water you cannot conceivably label that as a measure to maintain democracy. Water is necessary to survive and frankly the lack of water will cause extremely unsanitary living conditions. Beyond the lack of food and water these people are losing patience because most of them must work every day in order to earn enough money to barely scrape by. And let’s not forget the fact that there are many people in Tegucigalpa who must take certain medications and do not have them in their houses – we heard a report from a woman whose diabetic mother had not had her insulin for three days and they were turned back by police when they tried to find a pharmacy to get her medication. This is one case, but many other fall ill every day for various reasons and cannot get the medical attention they need. Which brings up the issue that we say yesterday in the Hospital Escuela which is that the lack of food is not just an issue in private homes, but EVERYWHERE, including the largest public hospital in Tegucigalpa where as of yesterday at 2:30 not one patient had been served lunch nor many of the medical staff. This will continue today. Next, throughout the city it has been confirmed that the police has brought in machines which emit a piercing high frequency noise meant ONLY to terrorize the population. Even with earplugs you cannot block out the sound. Aside from the general psychological effects of this action, when prolonged it leads (as you would imagine) to painful headaches.

If you ignore all of the other human rights abuses taking place in the streets against peaceful protesters, this curfew alone can and must be viewed as an extreme affront to the human rights of every single citizen of Tegucigalpa and Honduras – whether they choose to be actively involved in the resistance or not. This is a state of siege. And as my brother so aptly mentioned yesterday – why can’t we call this terrorism when it is perpetrated by the state on its people?

Anyone who has not called or written to their congress people and the state department, please please take the time to do so now – this struggle is far from over and we need your help.

WHEN YOU CALL this is what we are asking for:

That the White House and State Department denounce the rampant and uncontrolled violence and multiple violation of human rights by the Honduran police and military
Demand that the coup government immediately lift the state of emergency and send all military personnel back to their barracks.
The US needs to implement immediate and drastic trade and economic sanctions; freeze bank accounts of those involved in the coup and freeze Honduran reserves which are held by the U.S. Treasury.

PHOTOS from the hospital yesterday of people who were badly beaten outside of the embassy:

for being outside of the embassy this man received excessive beatings from a police baton as well as a badly broken arm

one of a couple of head wounds this man received also for being present outside of the embassy