Roberto
Micheletti, the leader of the coup in Honduras against
the legitimate President Manuel Zelaya, has been awarded
a "life deputy" title, among other benefits, from his
colleagues of the National Congress. This immediately
brings to mind the events in Chile where the dictator
Augusto Pinochet also tried to escape justice at the
mercy of a permanent senate.
This isn’t,
of course, the unhappy initiative of a confused
parliamentarian, but an elaborate project of those
involved in the coup of last June 28th.
They are
trying to stop a government which ignored their plans
and started taking measures to benefit the Honduran
people. Among these measures was the granting of land to
peasants, in order to make them productive, a project
which has been reverted by using military force.
Last January
8th, a group of cooperative members were expelled
brutally from the land they received from Zelaya´s
government. Humanitarian organizations denounced this
raid as it caused the death of at least three people and
several disappeared.
But coup
plotters, besides reversing the domestic measures, are
also moving fast to finish the ties of cooperation and
solidarity achieved by Honduras. In doing so, the
deputies have decided to abandon the Bolivarian Alliance
for the Peoples of the Americas, ALBA, suddenly cutting
all the agreements which represented significant
achievements for the poorest Central American nation and
one of the most backward countries of the continent.
Pinochet
implemented the same diabolical manoeuvre in Chile. The
Honduran oligarchs and their allies of the U.S. extreme
right, are eliminating, one by one, all the achievements
of Zelaya´s administration. At the same time, they are
trying to cover their tracks and to coat themselves with
a mantle of impunity, even twisting the laws of the
country and the Constitution, through which they have
tried to justify their abuses.
This is the sense in which the world should interpret
the permanent seat granted to Micheletti, who will also
receive the protection of the state and a lifetime
salary, the amount of which has not been revealed yet.
This means that the Honduran people not only tolerated
Micheletti´s abuses for six months, now it has to keep
him for life.
It’s also necessary to point out that this position of
“life deputy” doesn’t exist today in the Honduran law.
It doesn’t appear in the Constitution or in the
electoral laws or specific ordinances about the
structure and operation of the Congress. It is as
unlawful as the coup itself.
On the other
hand, the military leaders, the executive arm of the
coup, are trying to find a different solution. As known,
the Attorney General lodged an appeal before the Supreme
Court for a group of six generals to be investigated for
the assault on the presidential residence, the arrest by
force of the President and his deportation.
But the
Attorney General has been really careful with the
classification of the crimes committed on that day and
in the subsequent months.
The text of the Attorney General states the six generals
are guilty of abuse of authority, when in fact they
should be judged for treason, violation of the
Constitution, murder, torture, disappearances and other
crimes against humanity.
The
defendants, among who are the highest-ranking commanders
of the armed forces, have already claimed innocence,
arguing that they were merely executing a warrant issued
by the Supreme Court itself, which now tries to
prosecute them for misdemeanours.
There’s a
new actor in this whole invention of impunity. The
decrepit Organization of American States, unable to
reverse the coup because it suited the interests of
their leaders in Washington, is already advocating for
the normalizing of the relations with Honduras after
Porfirio Lobo´s takeover. Thus, it joins the laundering
operation of a crime which consequences will remain for
long time in the country, and threaten the entire region.
It seems now
that the ghost of Pinochet reappears in Tegucigalpa.
This should be a clear warning for all the Latin
American and Caribbean peoples to be really careful in
order to avoid all the risks this reality represents for
their freedom and sovereignty.
