Julie Webb-Pullman: Whitewash in Washington

Not satisfied with abducting the legitimate President, attacking members of diplomatic missions, illegally taking over the political administration, and opening fire on and killing and injuring unarmed protestors, the Honduras Hooligans are now taking their message to Washington, holding a press conference to try to convince the world that they’re actually not so bad after all.

The poor babies think they’ve been given a raw deal, that they “haven’t been given the chance to give their side” of the story. Funny that they’ve closed down the media in their own country so that their own citizens don’t get to hear any side of any story! Funnier still that they should only decide explanations are necessary AFTER shoving the barrel of a gun into the faces of all and sundry! Funniest of all that they couldn’t just wait until the elections in November, and give their ‘side of the story’ in the election campaign!

Who do they think might want to hear the lame excuses of thugs who resorted to violence to impose their will on the rest of the populace? The citizens of a democratic country?!

These members of ‘congress’ and the ‘business sector’ have obviously applied so much spin they’re flailing around dizzy with their own lack of success, so here are a few quick pointers to help them regain their bearings – given their recent idiotic behaviour it is not unreasonable to assume they cannot count past three.

1. Democracies elect their presidents through free and fair elections, like the people of Honduras elected Manuel Zelaya. They do not install them at the end of a gun.
2. Democracies utilise their justice systems to call alleged wrongdoers to account, charging them with the offences they are alleged to have committed, and observing due process in the subsequent judicial process. They do not use their military to seize and expel them from the country, or to jail or shoot them.
3. Democracies respect the wishes of the majority, and the economic and political system the majority choose to implement. They do not ‘enable’ small self-interested groups to impose through force their own preferred political and/or economic model on people who have, or may, choose differently.

So as they hold forth in the heart of democracy it would bode them well to remember that at this point in time, the only people shown to have committed any illegal acts, the only people shown to have breached the Honduras Constitution, the only people shown to have breached international law, are those in the de facto government of Micheletti.

And no amount of whitewash can cover up their underlying racism, most succinctly revealed by pseudo-foreign minister, Enrique Ortez Colindres, last week: “The (US) president of the republic, with all due respect to the little black man ('negrito') , doesn’t know where Tegucigalpa is.”

That’s the kind of style that’s going to win as many hearts and minds in Washington as it has in Honduras! Not hard to see why Zelaya is so popular.....

Julie Webb-Pullman (click to view previous articles) is a New Zealand based freelance writer who has reported about - and on occasion from - Central America for Scoop since 2003. Send Feedback to julie@scoop.co.nz

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