This is going to be somewhat a catch-all Honduras diary for events over the past few days.
First, the headline. In an interview with the Argentine newspaper "El Clarin", coup president Micheletti gave up on the coup apologists' main defense, that Zelaya was unconstitutionally trying to extend his term. (An argument that lacks some logic, as Zelaya's constitutional reform would have happened after his term was over.) Instead, it was because he "went left, put in communists."
Second, the situation. Micheletti has "backed away from" his Monday suspension of constitutional rights - but has not actually retracted it, and raids on opposition media continue. He seems to be trying to thread the needle between the coup penumbra of businesspeople and politicians, and the hard core in the supreme court and the army. If so, he's failing; several media have reported that various parts of the original coup coalition are looking for a way to back down, and that the US ambassador is encouraging it. Below the fold there's some criticism but overall this is an encouraging development.
Finally, an update and an action item on the Bush appointee who gave a big plum to the coup on Monday: he's directly complicit with genocide and rape. More on all three items below the fold.
1. The Micheletti interview:
If you can read Spanish, the whole thing is really worth it (like the older interview where the military lawyer admitted a crime), but here are a few choice bits:
Your regime is totally isolated, even the IMF.
And so we should give up on our dignity? In Argentina, didn't you go to war in the Falklands for dignity, without caring about outside pressure?
It was a military dictatorship.
Whatever. National dignity exists. Would y'all have let Zelaya do what he did?
Bringing down a president is a coup d'etat.
...(the only thing we did wrong was to exile him... misunderstands the reporter's reference to legal impeachments in other countries as a reference to the evils of leftists and says "the only one who did the right thing was Lula, he changed course"...)
Was it the corruption, the Constitutional Convention, or the attempt at social change that brought the coup?
We kicked Zelaya out for his leftism and corruption. He was president, as a Liberal [Party member], like me. But he made friends with Daniel Ortega, Chávez, Correa, Evo Morales.
Pardon?
He went left, he put in all Communist people, we got worried.
2. Cracks in the coup
The coalition is coming apart, and people are looking for a way out. As the local bishop - who's been sympathetic to the coup without fully embracing it - is trying to extend the dialog to actual protestors (a very good thing - might help limit the unhelpful two-way amnesties that the leaders would negotiate among themselves), Hugo Llorens, the US ambassador, has been meeting with business and political leaders to try to find a way to end the coup, and people are starting to talk. That includes ridiculous proposals - for instance, a businessman's proposal that would accept Zelaya's restoral if Zelaya later stands trial (OK by me, see if Zelaya accepts); Micheletti gets to be a "lifetime congressman" (huh?); and 3 of the most right-wing governments in the hemisphere -- Colombia, Mexico, and Canada -- get to send troops to ensure Zelaya doesn't try anything funny (wow, a proposal that is a total nonstarter with both the military AND the protestors! That's a winner!). Still, the fact that this is getting out in the media suggests that the coup's days are numbered. Time is short before the November elections, but if Zelaya can be credibly restored, this is a major diplomatic... er... coup... for basically the rest of the world, including Obama and Clinton.
3. The old lizards
On Monday, not long after the golpistas shut down the two biggest opposition media, Lew Anselem, US temporary representative to the OAS, was insulting saying Zelaya "should stop acting as though he were starring in an old movie." This was a PR handout to the coup government at precisely the wrong movement. Turns out Anselm, a holdover Bush appointee whose replacement is being held up by Republicans, is not new at this stuff. According to Al Giordano at NarcoNews, he was the military contact in the Guatemalan embassy in 1988-1992. That was the tail end of the era of atrocities in Guatemala, and he was there providing supplies to the military (Giordano doesn't provide documents on this, but I'll see what I can dig up - there's some good declassified stuff, including one doc I've seen framed on the wall of Rights Action in Guatemala city, from that era). He also spread vicious rumors that a raped and tortured US nun had gotten her hundreds of cigarrette burns in a lesbian tryst (!!!!).
So, how can we get his head on a platter? Let's take that discussion down to comments.
There's already been a bit of a nudge-nudge wink-wink he-doesn't-really-speak-for-us statement from Tuesday's US State Department press briefing:
QUESTION: I would like to come back to the statement by your ambassador to OAS yesterday about Honduras. He said that Zelaya’s return to his country had been foolish and irresponsible. It seems that this statement has raised some questions, especially because Zelaya is still under siege in the embassy.
MR. CROWLEY: Who said that? I’m sorry.
QUESTION: Sorry?
MR. CROWLEY: Who made that statement yesterday?
QUESTION: Your – I mean the U.S. ambassador to the OAS.
MR. CROWLEY: Sure. Lew Amselem.
QUESTION: Lewis Amselem.
MR. CROWLEY: Mm-hmm.
That doesn't cut it, in my book. He should be deputy vice-consul to Antarctica, not getting archly undercut by "Mm-hmm."