Honduras first lady leads fight for Zelaya return

[Bacchus39]

some interesting info on the whereabouts of the first lady, or former first lady, right after the expulsion of Zelaya.


Honduras first lady leads fight for Zelaya return

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090709/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_honduras_coup

.. AP – Xiomara Castro de Zelaya, wife of Honduras' ousted President Manuel Zelaya, center, greets supporters … . Slideshow:Honduran president ousted . Play Video Barack Obama Video:High hopes for Obama in Ghana Reuters . Play Video Barack Obama Video:Obama In Italy for G-8 Summit ABC News .By WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press Writer Will Weissert, Associated Press Writer – 30 mins ago
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – Honduras' first lady has emerged as the public face of the movement to restore President Manuel Zelaya to power, a role she took against her husband's wishes and despite her continuing fears for her safety.

Xiomara Castro told The Associated Press on Wednesday that she was so afraid the Honduran military would shoot her on sight after soldiers whisked Zelaya out of the country in his pajamas, she fled to the U.S. Embassy.

Though she still sleeps in hiding, she vowed to take to the streets daily in protest of the June 28 coup that ousted her husband. The family of a pro-Zelaya demonstrator slain by soldiers on Sunday urged her to get involved — over Zelaya's objections.

"He told me that my presence could cause more problems, more persecution on the family. But I insisted," Castro said, while trudging up a steep road with 3,000 Zelaya supporters, who blocked traffic on a route connecting the capital of Tegucigalpa with a highway to Nicaragua. "I consider our presence here as like having the president himself here, like feeling that the president is standing firm."

Zelaya arrived in Costa Rica late Wednesday to meet with Nobel laureate Oscar Arias, that country's president, who is leading negotiations to end the Honduran political crisis.

The ousted Honduran leader immediately set up a hard line ahead of Thursday's talks, telling reporters at the airport that he plans to "listen to the de facto goverment explain how they plan to leave." He said he wasn't in Costa Rica to negotiate because doing so "would be like inviting to dialogue someone who violated your family."

Micheletti, who has said that Zelaya's return to power is not negotiable, said Wednesday that a commission will represent Honduras in Costa Rica. He didn't say if he would be part of that delegation.

"In two days there could be a solution or it could be two months, and we still don't have one," Arias said in the Costa Rican capital.

But even as the two sides planned to meet, Castro said she couldn't disclose where she is staying for fear of members of the Honduran political establishment — people she recently counted as friends.

Zelaya and Micheletti both hail from the Liberal Party. Castro was a longtime friend of Micheletti's wife, whose name is nearly identical: Siomara Castro.

The morning of the coup, Castro said she and her teenage son Hector sneaked to the U.S. embassy, then stayed there until the attorney general's office said no charges would be filed against Zelaya family members.

The pair then headed to the residence of U.S. Ambassador Hugo Llorens.

Castro remained out of sight for nine days after the coup. But she came out of hiding at the request of the family of Isis Obed Murillo Mencia, 19, a protester from Zelaya's home state of Olancho who was shot by soldiers at the airport Sunday during Zelaya's unsuccessful attempt to return.

Castro said she would like to return to her home, but refused to say if she had left the ambassador's residence. But she also said if anyone had wanted to harm her, they would have done so during the coup.

"I know that Romeo Vasquez had the opportunity to kill me and he didn't do so," she said, referring to the head of the Honduran armed forces. Zelaya fired Vasquez after he refused to carry out the military's election duties for a referendum Zelaya had planned the day he was deposed. The Supreme Court ruled it was illegal, setting the stage for the coup.

Arias, negotiating at the behest of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, has a proven record of resolving international crises, winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987 for his role in mediating civil wars in Central America.

"We are going to give them both equal treatment," Arias said of the two men claiming to be president of Honduras.

Meanwhile, Venezuelan Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said his country would cancel oil shipments to Honduras. Zelaya was an ally of that country's president, Hugo Chavez, who had supplied Honduras crude on 25-year credit.

Ramirez said Venezuela can't provide oil "to a dictatorship, and especially not to a small group of businessmen who led a coup."

Zelaya's supporters claim Honduras' wealthy class backed the military uprising because Zelaya's policies favored the poor, including his raising of the minimum wage.

The United Nations, the Organization of American States and governments around the world insist Zelaya is Honduras' rightful president. The country's Congress says it legally made Micheletti, former head of the legislature, interim president.

Marching in a white cowboy hat with a red ribbon reading "Victory for the People: Zelaya," Castro said she spoke briefly to her husband the morning of the coup and then again four days later. But their first lengthy talk came Tuesday, when a radio station put them in touch and aired the conversation.

"In these times of tension, the only thing that we know is we are more united than ever," said Zelaya, brushing off rumors that the couple was close to separating before the coup.

"Today we are a fractured family because (Zelaya is) in one place and my kids are in another and I'm in another," she added. "But all of this has strengthened us."

[Peace Patriot]

1. "We are going to give them both equal treatment." --Oscar Arias

That is not a good sign. They are dealing with a rightwing military COUP. You don't give "equal treatment"--whatever that means--to illegal usurpers and oppressors who removed President Zelaya at gunpoint, suspended Constitutional civil rights, declared martial law and aimed US-funded rifles and Zelaya supporters and opened fire on them, killing a young man and wounding others--and all over a simple ADVISORY referendum on GENERAL Constitutional reform!

Granted it is not an easy situation to resolve, with the violent usurpers still in power, and Arias may have just been using soothing language to get things started. But all along Zelaya has asserted the dignity of his elected position, and has acted with courage as the legitimate representative of his people. The coupsters have actively tried to tear him down, and have denied and tried to destroy his legitimacy, by contriving absurd legal arguments and charges--that he committed treason, for instance. He did nothing of the kind. It is they who committed treason. They really have no right to sit at the table where the future of Honduras is determined. They only have power, not legitimacy. And they are sitting at that table by action of the US government, which has been funding these rightwing operatives in Honduras to the tune of $49 million dollars--US taxpayer dollars--through the USAID-NED and the International Puke Institute (discovered by Eva Gollinger in FOIA requests), not to mention multi-millions in military funding. (And we don't know the extent of the funding of rightwing tools in Honduras--or anywhere else--given the Bushwhacks' secretiveness, and the secretiveness of our secret government.)

I am reminded of the Bushwhack-instigated attempted coup in Bolivia this last September, wherein the rich, white separatist minority try to secede from the national government of Evo Morales and take Bolivia's oil/gas reserves with them. Michele Batchelet convened UNASUR--the new South American 'common market' formalized only last summer. And she did not invite the coupsters to that meeting. Batchelet and the leaders of Brazil and Argentina told them, in no uncertain terms, that they had no right to attend. Brazil and Argentina--Bolivia's chief gas customers-- also told them that they would not trade with a separatist state. UNASUR then unanimously voted to support Evo Morales government, and sent a delegation to Bolivia to help investigate the coupsters' machine-gunning of 30 unarmed peasants, and to insure a smooth and peaceful election on Bolivia's new Constitution.

That situation, too, was about Constitutional reform. However, although the coupsters were planning to assassinate Morales, and trashed government buildings and seized an airport in their region--preventing Morales' plane from landing, at one point (interesting parallel)-- they never gained the levers of power of the national government, nor did they succeed in ousting or killing Morales. So their neighbors and other members of UNASUR did not have to figure out what to do with an illegitimate coup government.

[Bacchus39]

2. Peace Patriot the Supreme Court, the Supreme Elections Tribunal, and the Congress

all supported the removal from office of Zelaya. Not forced at gun point mind you, but his removal from office. So let me ask you this, do you think those institutions have a role in the government and have that authority. You may not agree with that PP, but its the decision of Honduras following their democratic system. You seem to be among those who think the president, the strong man, is the only one that matters in Latin America.

yeah, PP the Bolivian thing was more the work of apparent assassins than a coup. the Supreme Court and Congress and Election Tribunal didn't move to remove Morales.

[flamingdem]

3. Agreed but there is something people here may not realize

but the Hondurans do realize and it's that Honduras is extremely polarized.

Who said so?

Rigoberto Menchu the Nobel prize winner who went as a witness to Honduras from Guatemala and Honduran resistance leaders via telephone on Pacifica Radio.

Both said it is a complex situation and very divided.