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Scenes From The Other Coup
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Al Giordano posts this footage from yesterday's ousting of Honduran president Zelaya and writes:
You don't need to understand Spanish (and through much of the footage, the audio is too low to hear anyway) to grasp the courage of the photographers and rank-and-file citizens denouncing the troops to their faces. In one scene, a woman beats on every soldier that passes her on their way into the presidential palace. In another, people walk right up to military tanks and surround them.
I'm struck by the similarities in the streets of Honduras to images we've seen this month from the streets of Iran. It's hard to fathom how some folks have opposite reactions - sympathetic to one people, hostile to another, based on rigid ideologies - but what I see is the same human phenomenon in both places: people in rebellion, yearning to breathe free against authoritarian and illegitimate regimes.
Giordano has been all over the story; track his coverage here. Over at Global Voices, Leonidas Mejia compiled some commentary from the Honduran bloggers and assesses the situation - which seems to have centered on a constitutional crisis:
Honduras is going through one of its most difficult moments of its political history. Honduran President Manuel Zelaya removed General Romeo Vquez Velásquez as Chief of the Armed Forces [es] and accepted the resignation of Defense Minister Edmundo Orellana Mercado. The announcement was made after meeting with military leaders of the armed forces to seek protection of the polls for the referendum that has been promoted by the executive branch to be held on Sunday, June 28, 2009. This referendum will decide whether or not a Constituent Assembly is convened in order to write a new Constitution.
General Vázquez Velazquez found himself in a difficult situation, because the request or order of the President as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, contrasted with the conclusion reached by both the National Congress and the Supreme Court, that the referendum is illegal.
La Gringa's Blogicito digs deeper.
-- CB
