The errors of democracy are corrected, not with Coups, but with more democracy.
Opening comments by Victor Meza
(Excerpted)
Guaymuras Dialogues
October 7, 2009
Tegucigalpa, Honduras
The reasons why this meeting is occurring are reasons which concern the history and present of our country and are reasons that point out the drama and tragedy that Honduran society has lived for many years now. Over 30 years ago, Honduras began to build a slow, difficult, disarticulated process of transition towards democracy. A transition that has its beginning in the authoritarian governments which imposed an undemocratic and military culture in the collective imagination for two decades. This process of building institutional democracy has been a difficult, torturous, almost Cesarean effort, with peaks and troughs, with impasses and setbacks but overall, with a trend to the better.
For over three decades now, Honduran society has been able to go about building democratic institutions, but clearly we were not able to build at the same time, in parallel measure, a democratic culture. Clearly, we have a deficit of values, spirit, style, and customs that might allow us to live together, in a civilized manner, in democracy.
The new legal architecture, the institutional architecture of this nascent democracy of ours, to be strong, to withstand the onslaught of political regression, has to be strengthened by a culture of democracy, a kind of mortar that gives consistency and robustness to the institutional architecture of the country. The current crisis, the crisis that we are now experiencing and the reason we are gathered today, is the strongest evidence that we were not capable of building that political culture that democracy demands and is also the most obvious proof that both political regression and the authoritarian temptation are no longer just threats and risks but have become a sad and real nightmare.
But we are here to look ahead, and as they say, every crisis contains the seed of a new opportunity. And so, perhaps this crisis opens the door for us to see the new Honduras, to feel those previously subterranean energies of Honduran society, to find those new and labyrinthine scenarios in which moves a new citizenry with an enthusiasm that is more participatory, more active; a more vigilant citizenry, more critical, better informed and more purposeful. That citizenry is now in the streets of this country.
But to discover this hidden energy of Honduran society, to use its new vitality, and its spirit of transformation and reform, we must turn the only mechanism that democracy makes available to us. The errors of democracy, as is often said, are corrected with more democracy. They are not corrected with Coups.
.....
In conclusion, let us use Dialogue to look and to find, soon, an exit out of this dark tunnel, this infinite chaos, this state of bewilderment and anguish, uncertainty and fear in which today we find ourselves, all of us, Honduran women and men, for having allowed barbarism to end up imposing itself above civilization.
Thank you very much
_______
Version Espanol
Los errores de la democracia se corrigen, no con Golpes, pero solo con mas democracia.
Intervencion de Victor Meza en la mesa de Dialogo
Dialogos Guaymuras
Tegucigalpa, Honduras
7 de Octubre de 2009
Las razones por las cuales esta reunión se esta produciendo son razones que conciernan a la historia y al presente de nuestro país y son razones que apuntan al drama y la tragedia que la sociedad hondureña ha vivido desde ya hace muchos anos. Desde hace mas de 30 anos que honduras empezó a construir un lento, difícil, de articulado proceso de transición hacia la democracia. Una transición que arranca desde gobiernos autoritarios que impusieron una cultura antidemocratica y castrense en el imaginario colectivo durante dos décadas. Este proceso de construccion de institutionalidad democrática ha sido un proceso cesáreante, difícil, torturoso con altibajos, con estancamientos, y retrocesos pero en general ha tenido una trascendencia ascendente.
A lo largo de tres décadas, la sociedad hondureña ha podido ir construyendo institucionalidad democrática, pero es evidente que no fuimos capaces de construir al mismo tiempo y de manera paralela cultura democrática. Es evidente que tenemos un déficit de valores, de espíritu, de estilo, de costumbres, para convivir civilazadamente en democracia.
La nueva architectura jurídica, de architectura institutional, de esta nasciente democracia nuestra, para ser fuerte, para poder resistir los embates de la involución política tiene que estar fortalecida por la cultura democrática, una especie de argamasa que le da consistencia y solidez a la architectura institutucional del país. La crisis actual, la crisis por la que estamos pasando y la crisis por la cual estamos hoy reunidos es la prueba mas contundente de que no fuimos capaces de construir esa cultura política que la democracia reclama y es la prueba mas evidente además que la involución política y la tentación autoritaria ya no son solamente amenazas y riesgos pero ya que se han convertido en una triste y real pesadilla.
Pero estamos aquí para ver hacia adelante, y como suele decirse, toda crisis contiene siempre la semilla de una nueva oportunidad. Y por lo tanto, esta crisis quizás nos abre la puerta para conocer la nueva Honduras, para palpar esas energías subterráneas de la sociedad Hondureña, para conocer esos escenarios laberinticos y novedosos en los que se mueve con un afín mas participativo, mas activo, una nueva ciudadania, una ciudadania mas vigilante, mas critica, mejor informada y mas propositiva. Esa ciudadania esta hoy en las calles del país.
Pero para descubrir esa energía oculta de la sociedad hondureña, para aprovechar su nueva vitalidad , y su espirito de transformación y reforma, tenemos que acudir a los propios mechanismos que la democracia nos pone a disposicion publica. Los errores de la democracia, como ya es un decir, se corrigen con mas democracia, no se corrigen con golpes de estado.
...
Utilicemos el dialogo para buscar y encontrar pronto la salida de este oscuro túnel, de este infinito caos, de este estado de desconcierto y angustia, de incertidumbre, temor en lo cual hoy nos encontramos todos los Hondureños y Hondureñas por haber permitido que la barbarie terminara imponiéndose sobre la civilizacion.
Muchas Gracias
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Friday, October 9, 2009
Intervención de Víctor Meza en la mesa de diálogo
Victor Meza delivered an amazing address at the beginning of the Guaymuras Dialogue. Part one is here:
Part two is here:
Part two is here:
Sunday, September 27, 2009
English Translation of Tegucigalpa, City of Fury by Allan McDonald
Waking Up
by Allan McDonald
I have crossed my memories with a firm stride and I have stopped in the corner of history, underneath the olive green traffic light, so that the military tanks pass quickly through. There, I have remembered my childhood of forgotten lights, when I played in that garden of dried-up flowers, under the incandescent light of the eyes of God, and I began to see, once again, my plastic figures, the ones that came out of the box of Cornflakes, in a time when playing with my toy soldiers was the great joy of life. Today, seeing them for real is now the greatest anguish, the horror of their devastating eyes of fright and the metal shell on their chests, like mythological animals from a neolithic era already picked through by the paleontologists of the end of the world.
The city of Tegucigalpa is a concentration camp, a city mined with hatred, a people tangled up with boots that destroy the seedling of hope with each step and take delight in their never growing again. But, even with all that, the flower of resistance grows through the cracks in the asphalt of their crooked steps.
In each sidewalk, in each street, in each alleyway, stampedes the force of the fight against this shiny metal monster, polished with the shirts of the misery of this Honduras. In each rifle there is hatred and utopia, in each green t-shirt there is the corpus delicti, in each eye are the tears of a love which seeks to rescue the country from the orangutans falsified in a phospherescent jungle of political fireflies without glory.
The light turns red, it's time that the caravans of rotting iron come to a halt and the dinosaurs of the universal dustbin of history stop as well. It is time to turn on that worthy red light that will put an end to the unbridled fury of this metallic cavalry that crushes whatever hope that according to them still exists, simply because they are convinced that the whole country can be reduced to an M-16.
My plastic soldiers have fallen in the garden; and have gotten lost in the brush and swirling, dry winter winds. I run over to where my dad is, so he can help me find them. They are my only toys and the old man, who is reading a novella by Honoré de Balzac, speaks softly in my ear, slowly, as he were telling me a state secret, but of a country with no president: "Leave them there, the plastic melts in the morning sun".
Waking Up
by Allan McDonald
I have crossed my memories with a firm stride and I have stopped in the corner of history, underneath the olive green traffic light, so that the military tanks pass quickly through. There, I have remembered my childhood of forgotten lights, when I played in that garden of dried-up flowers, under the incandescent light of the eyes of God, and I began to see, once again, my plastic figures, the ones that came out of the box of Cornflakes, in a time when playing with my toy soldiers was the great joy of life. Today, seeing them for real is now the greatest anguish, the horror of their devastating eyes of fright and the metal shell on their chests, like mythological animals from a neolithic era already picked through by the paleontologists of the end of the world.
The city of Tegucigalpa is a concentration camp, a city mined with hatred, a people tangled up with boots that destroy the seedling of hope with each step and take delight in their never growing again. But, even with all that, the flower of resistance grows through the cracks in the asphalt of their crooked steps.
In each sidewalk, in each street, in each alleyway, stampedes the force of the fight against this shiny metal monster, polished with the shirts of the misery of this Honduras. In each rifle there is hatred and utopia, in each green t-shirt there is the corpus delicti, in each eye are the tears of a love which seeks to rescue the country from the orangutans falsified in a phospherescent jungle of political fireflies without glory.
The light turns red, it's time that the caravans of rotting iron come to a halt and the dinosaurs of the universal dustbin of history stop as well. It is time to turn on that worthy red light that will put an end to the unbridled fury of this metallic cavalry that crushes whatever hope that according to them still exists, simply because they are convinced that the whole country can be reduced to an M-16.
My plastic soldiers have fallen in the garden; and have gotten lost in the brush and swirling, dry winter winds. I run over to where my dad is, so he can help me find them. They are my only toys and the old man, who is reading a novella by Honoré de Balzac, speaks softly in my ear, slowly, as he were telling me a state secret, but of a country with no president: "Leave them there, the plastic melts in the morning sun".
Waking Up
Original:
Tegucigalpa, la ciudad de la furia
Allan McDonald
Amanece.
He cruzado mis recuerdos con paso firme y me he detenido en la esquina de la historia, bajo el semáforo de color verde olivo, para que pasaran raudo los tanques militares. Entonces, he recordado mi infancia de luces perdidas, cuando jugaba en aquel jardín de flores disecadas, bajo la luz incandescente de los ojos de Dios, y me he puesto a ver mis muñecos de plástico, que salían en los cereales de Cornflakes de una época pasada de moda, en la que jugar con soldaditos era la alegría de la vida. Hoy, verlos de verdad es la angustia de la vida, el horror de sus ojos demoledores de espanto y ese caparazón de metal en sus pechos, como animales mitológicos de una era neolítica ya superada por los paleontólogos del fin del mundo.
La ciudad de Tegucigalpa es un campo de concentración, una ciudad minada de odios, un pueblón enmarañado de botas que destruyen la hierba de la esperanza en cada paso y se ensañan en que nunca más vuelva a crecer. Aunque la flor de la resistencia crezca en el asfalto de sus pasos torcidos.
En cada acera, en cada calle, en cada callejón, va en estampida la fuerza de la lucha contra ese monstruo de metal brillante, lustrado con las camisas de la miseria de esta Honduras; en cada carabina cabe el odio y la utopía, en cada camiseta verde cabe el cuerpo del delito, en cada ojo está la lágrima de amor por rescatar el país de los orangutanes falsificados de una selva fosforescente de luciérnagas políticas sin gloria.
El semáforo se pone rojo, ya es hora de que se detengan las caravanas de hierro podrido y se paren los dinosaurios del basurero universal de la historia, ya va siendo hora de encender esa luz del rojo digno que pondrá fin a la furia desbocada de esta caballeriza metálica que aplasta una esperanza según ellos existente, pues están convencidos de que todo el país se resume en un M-16.
Mis muñecos de plástico se han caído en el jardín, se extravían entre la maleza de hojarasca y remolinos secos del invierno. Corro a donde mi papá, para que me auxilie. Son mis únicos juguetes y el viejo, que está leyendo un librito de Honoré de Balzac, me dice en el oído, despacito, como un secreto de Estado sin presidente: “Déjelos allí, que el plástico se derrite con el sol de la mañana”.
Amanece.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
English Translation of Fifty Days of Coup Lies
Fifty Days of Coup Lies blessed by Cardinal Oscar Rodríguez
by Juan Antonio Mejía Guerra
Movement for Dignity and Justice
National Front of Resistance Against the Coup d'état in Honduras
August 16, 2009
The Honduran national resistance exceeds fifty days of continuous struggle against the coup. With eight people dead, hundreds injured and thousands of people in the streets and squares of the resistance, the Honduran population remain more united and stronger than ever, demanding a return to democratic order. Confronted with the resistance, the coup forces, which also have fifty days, but of lies, harassing, beating and killing people. And among the most odious liars is the golpista Cardinal Oscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga, whose lies we intend to reveal in this essay.
The Spanish daily La Vanguardia published on July 13 an interview with Cardinal Oscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga, with the title "I'm not a golpista Cardinal". The daily Tiempo de Honduras reproduced it in full in its Saturday edition on the 8th of August. The statements made by Cardinal Rodriguez are so remote from reality so as to be dangerous to the Honduran people, since he is in some ways the real voice of the oligarchy and the main moral legitimacy of the coup perpetrated by the oligarchs, politicians and military, in collusion with sectors of the Republican wing of the United States of America and a sector of the Church known as Opus Dei. Hence, the outrage and the need to deny publicly, nationally and internationally, the fallacies of this man and to lay bare his real intentions.
For this reason, although we recognize that the interview with the Spanish newspaper is a bit long, we will proceed carefully, teasing out paragraph by paragraph, what the Cardinal has said and contrast that with the true reality for which the vast mass of poor Hondurans struggle and sacrifice every day
together with their leaders, the majority Christian men and women who have not sold their conscience to any of the powers involved in the assault on the State of Honduras.
Lie No. 1
Cardinal Rodriguez:
"I understand that those have painted the words 'Cardinal Golpista' are not Honduran. That's very clear "
Those who have painted all the graffiti on the walls he walls with messages like "Cardinal Golpista," and shouted at the top of their lungs slogans such as "Cardinal Golpista, out" are Honduran men and women who are deeply outraged because Mr Oscar Rodriguez has used his status to manipulate the religious consciences of the citizenry. Jesus never sided with the powerful but always with the poor and vulnerable, and in his fleeting encounters with the rich he called them urgently to share their property and sign their names in the gospel of love and justice.
With this phrase quoted verbatim from the Cardinal, in addition to lying, he is also supporting very subtly but clearly the accusation by the coup leaders that the demonstrations are being led by foreigners, mainly Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, which is not true. The demonstrations are full of people proudly Catracha; poor, barefoot, people who more often than not do not have enough to buy a bag of water. Grassroots organizations have to perform consistently support campaigns, asking everyday people to provide space in their homes to house compatriots who have come from different sectors of the country to join the protest campaigns, and donate food and other supplies to protesters so they do not die of hunger and cold. In contrast, the government coup that blesses Cardinal Rodriguez has even declared curfews for 24 hours and followed up for 7 consecutive days in some regions so that the demonstrators coming from the interior of the country die of hunger, thirst and cold on the roads and forests helpless. Cardinal Rodriguez, who should be an advocate of life that the Creator has given us, has not said a word in defense of the life of this tough and humble people whose access to food is a universally recognized human right regardless of any situation or conflict, but by adhering to the Oligarch's line, he accuses the defenders of democracy of not being Honduran, in a blatant attempt to distort, in favor of the oligarchy, the perception of the reality of what is happening in Honduras.
Lie No. 2
Cardinal Rodriguez:
"I am not a Golpista. It doesn't bother me that they accuse me of being one, because if Jesus, who was the son of God, was accused of everything, what can not be said of a human being? It is unjust that by carrying out the duty of my conscience they call me Golpista."
Cardinal Rodriguez is right to say you do not mind if they call you Golpista, because actually you are, although you baptize with another, more elegant name the sanctimonious prigs of the Opus Dei who assaulted the Honduras State, calling it "constitutional succession." What you shouldn't do, Cardinal Rodriguez, is to use your status as prince of the Church to justify the coup and then later, defend yourself from accusations made against you by resorting to the false accusations that were made once upon a time by the oppressors of that age against Jesus Christ. In the case of Jesus, the accusations were false while those directed against the Cardinal are true and are confirmed with the least intellectual effort possible.
And that Cardinal Rodriguez tries to compare himself to Jesus brings up another of his perversions: The Lord Jesus never spoke to the poor from the media belonging to his Roman oppressors, the cardinal aired his communique on a full media roadblock, using the medium imposed by the coup president, and radio channels reserved exclusively for the coup government. No opponent of the de facto regime has spoken on a full media roadblock like that. But you know that already, Mr. Cardinal Rodriguez?
Mr. Rodriguez can fulfill his duty of conscience on the side of the oligarchs, and others have a duty to respect his opinion, but what he can not do is side with those who are violating the social order and say that he speaks in the name of the God of life.
Lie No. 3
Cardinal Rodriguez:
"I am the first to reject the coup d'etat."
This blunt statement reveals the double standard that the Cardinal tries to employ in order to rescue his international image as a future candidate for Pope.
On the one hand, within Honduras he legitimizes the coup actions taken by his brethren of the Opus Dei through his speeches and his well trained auxiliary bishops of the archdiocese, or simply being silent when he sees he can not do otherwise for the benefit of their allies. For example, the silence that he has kept in the face of the innocent dead killed by the police and military, for the sole crime of traveling to the airport or the border to wait for the president who they had elected once upon a time. On the other hand, outside of Honduras, he has chosen to airbrush his image to make it more in tune with the reaction of the rest of the world, a world has opposed the coup and has asked for an early, safe and immediate return of president Zelaya. That's why he doesn't even blush when he says before the international press that he is against the coup.
In reality, Cardinal Rodriguez defends the idea that we have a 'constitutional substitution' a legal construct that doesn't exist either in our constitution or in any other of the world, a term that does not appear in any dictionary of political science or law. The Cardinal is no longer fooling anyone.
Lie No. 4
Cardinal Rodriguez:
"All over the Internet, it's rumored that I'm eating with the rich. Another lie. No photographer is going to the poor villages I visit often because it is not news.. "
No other pastor, Catholic, Episcopal and Evangelical, appears so many times in the society pages of newspapers as the Honduran Cardinal, baptizing or marrying sons and daughters of important families, celebrating the birthday of this or that businessman, playing the flute in some family tea, and so on. In the newspapers there are more 'society stories' featuring our Cardinal than any 'Christian reflections' he might make. Does Rome know this? The Honduran Catholic faithful is well aware of this, for sure.
It is also probably true that the photographers did not accompany the Cardinal to poor villages, but not because this is not news. Some photographers will not do so simply because the money they make does not allow for them to be making these trips. By the way, they are paid so little for their effort from the same media conglomerates that are now, with a few exceptions, actively supporting the coup. Other journalists may be able to afford the costs in order to get themselves to the village where the Cardinal is going, but would get there late, because the Cardinal often travels to remote villages by helicopters belonging to these self-same entrepreneurs or to the Honduran Air Force. And these devices are unlikely to have space for a reporter interested in how the poor live or survive in Honduras
Lie No. 5
Cardinal Rodriguez:
"This is a poor country where politics has done so much harm ..."
Fact is that Honduras has been impoverished by bad economic decisions and policies but in any case it is not Politics that has caused so much evil. It is the politicians who act as nominees of the various economic groups who have been ordered to destroy this nation which deserves better. Cardinal Rodriguez should read St. Thomas to realize how important the political life is both people and the societies in which they live.
The poor men and women of Honduras have come to realize that, as well as the danger is implied in leaving all of the political work in the hands of bandits dressed as congressmen and military leaders, who have never looked out for the common good but solely for selfish interests of the oligarchs. The coup has brought about the painful awakening of the Honduran people, who no longer believe in traditional parties, or political merchants, or in the khaki-colored traitors to the ideals which Fransisco Morazan had of a sovereign homeland under the rule of law.
After the Coup on June 28, the Honduran people have taken to the streets to demand the restoration of the democratic order, but their cry has not been been heard by those that organized the coup. Their throats have been suffocated by the gases of the military and the police, and their lives are being taken by the bullets and the knives of psychopaths masquerading as presidential advisers of the de facto government. Meanwhile, the international community has taken the position that "President Zelaya must return, but not yet' or "the president must be reinstated, but this is not the time."
After fifty days of unwavering fight, the people and their organizations, working for a return to a politics that is real and true, are asking not only for a return of President Zelaya; no, what they want goes beyond his return, beyond even the referendum on the fourth urn. If during these fifty days of fighting they have been denied the right to restore the powers of the State, the people find themselves obliged to carry out popular and peaceful uprising towards a true revolution that will put our homeland on a new foundation.
The people have discovered the importance of politics now that the time has come to build the common good founded upon a society of solidarity, fairness, inclusiveness and fraternity; so much so that it is prepared to construct from within their own organizations and does not seem willing to rely on political technocrats and servile military traitors. This is the new politics of the people who obviously will not be blessed by the cardinal and his angels of Opus Dei, who will soon attack them with same words that the oligarchy uses.
Lie No. 6
Cardinal Rodriguez:
"The announcement of the Episcopal Conference put emphasis on the search for peace."
The peace for which Cardinal Rodriguez searches is the peace of submission, the peace of the paralyzing terror of the military planes and helicopters which flew continually over the major cities on the day of the coup. The Honduran people are tired once and for all of the false peace that allows the poor to die while the oligarchs and those who serve them live it up on the the lap of luxury.
Cardinal Rodriguez was wrong in believing that with his siren song he could put to sleep those dreams that we Hondurans who love our country have. Honduras is a country pillaged by multinational companies, ripped apart by the oligarchs, misled by their politicians and pastors but sincerely loved from deep inside the hearts of the poor and humble. From this love flows the unstoppable energy of this people that has said 'Enough, Already!'.
Lie No. 7
Cardinal Rodriguez:
"In times of confusion it is difficult to find documents to help understand the truth. Until Thursday after the departure of Zelaya did we get the original documents. All of us went to look for them, all that we could find. And when we convened a plenary meeting of the Episcopal Conference to draft the statement, all the Bishops signed."
Cardinal Rodriguez shows us how convinced he really is of all the lies put out by those in the Opus Dei who helped promulgate the coup. To his credit, he does admit that that he didn't have access to any document 'that would help to understand the truth' that the oligarchs wanted to impose, accusing President Zelaya of being corrupt, a traitor to the constitution, and so on. And he had no access to these documents simply because these documents never existed before this coup, nor was there any legal determination or court verdict that would lead to a impeachment of President Zelaya. The Cardinal acknowledged that it was not until Thursday, July 2, four days after the coup, which he finally had access to documents which found President Zelaya guilty, and those were precisely the false documents invented and manufactured by the coup supporters ex post to justify what they had done.
It is difficult to understand how a person with normally such a lucid intelligence and candidate for the throne of Peter did not realize in time what the coup plotters were doing in order to make the coup look like a 'constitutional succession'. Well, let me point it out. First, the day of the coup they cynically dared to read in the Congress a letter of resignation that supposedly President Zelaya had left. Nobody believed it, of course, except the Cardinal, who, on national TV said that Zelaya was no longer president when he was captured, for the simple reason that he had already 'resigned'. Second, they manufactured an arrest warrant that no one believed (and for doing this, the US took away the visa of the judge who signed it) Only the Cardinal believes that this arrest warrant was issued before June 28. Finally, those who plotted the coup came up with at least 18 indictments against President Zelaya and said that would give a warrant to Interpol for his arrest. Interpol, of course, rejected their orders because they didn't make any sense. But then, Micheletti and his attorney general show up saying that the Zelaya will be captured upon arrival. Meanwhile President Zelaya makes two attempts to enter Honduras, and they not only fail to catch him but do not allow him to enter. But the cardinal swears that these allegations are true and justify the coup.
What nonsense!
Lie No. 8
Cardinal Rodriguez:
"I wasn't the one who put together the statement. All the bishops together decided on what position we would take. All of us. "
In Honduras, we are very aware of the political career of Cardinal Rodriguez and the rest of bishops, and we know why, with sufficient certainty, that the bishops' statement of commitment to the Coup as read by Cardinal Rodríguez is the work of him and not the collective bishops. And the striking absence of solidarity from the Cardinal to try again and again to blame the other bishops in this action that can only be the product of his mind.
The bishops of Honduras, while it's true that they could never be called 'revolutionary priests', neither can it be said that they have spent their lives permanently and servilely in bed with the oligarchs. Their pastoral duties have kept on balance faithful to the Gospel while at the same time avoiding clash with the powers of the country. Further still, it is certain that with respect to the political crisis in Honduras before the coup, many of them did not agree fully with the actions of President Zelaya, but from the normal discrepancies to actually blessing the coup, well, that is a perverse and abysmal distance that the bishops of various dioceses never travelled. And not only have they not travelled that distance, but some of them have even come out since then, and from their diocese condemned the coup.
Monsignor Angel Garachana, bishop of the San Pedro Sula, the industrial city of Honduras, without confrontation has set himself to serve God's poor and humble. Bishops Raul Corriveau, Juan Luis Giason and Guido Plante are all wise and humble in character. Perhaps because they are missionaries to Honduras from other countries, they don't say that much about the situation here, but neither are they docile to the dictates of the oligarchy, and they don't lack critical intelligence when it comes to objective and serious reflection on the reality in their respective dioceses. Monsignor Mauro, of the Diocese of Olancho, with his attitude of naive and easygoing gringo is always fearful of ideology but in practice is a man who fights for his people, especially the young people, peasants and women organized in the various communities. Monsignor Luis Santos preaches in a region where are located the poorest of the poor living alongside the grand landowning and coffee families. In this context, he has set up the largest evangelistic program in Honduras, focused on the basic ecclesiastical communities and has done this by reconciling the different interests and calling for all, rich and poor, to believe in the life of the community.
Monsignor Solé, bishop of the peasants and of the black peoples and Misquito Indians is neither a man who will form pacts with the oligarchy or large-scale drug dealers who are so common in his diocese. He is a man who serves God, and is characterized by his humility and his closeness to the poor. These bishops are not the ultimate in perfection, and perhaps as Christians we should expect a little more prophetic words and actions coming from them, but if we understand the Church to be 'the People of God' they are not and never will be traitors to that Church.
In contrast to this galaxy of pastors is Cardinal Oscar Andrés Rodríguez and his two auxiliary bishops of the archdiocese of Tegucigalpa, Juan Pineda and Darwin Andino. Precisely during the three month period preceding the coup, the media, largely owned by entrepreneurs who now support the coup, developed an ongoing campaign filled with lies and harassment of the government of President Zelaya and grassroots organizations. In this campaign, Cardinal Rodríguez was conspicuously absent, but his auxiliary bishops were constantly, one another one in the newspapers and evening news shows defending and blessing the lies of politicians and businessmen in the coup against President Zelaya and his administration. The silence of Cardinal was suspect because he always likes to be in the media and this time, while he remained silent, his assistants were letting loose against the democratically elected president. It is also important to emphasize that during these months, no other bishop in the country was given to so morally legitimize, from the oligarch's media empire, the slander that was discharged against the Executive branch and the popular leaders who supported him.
For these reasons we know, without fear of error, that the delivery of the Church to the Honduran oligarchy is not the work and grace of the bishops but Honduran Cardinal Rodriguez and his assistants. Beyond any document signed by the episcopal conference that Cardinal Rodriguez goes around showing international journalists for the sole purpose of laying the blame off onto the other bishops, we are sufficiently clear about the praxis of our pastors and we will not allow the Cardinal Rodriguez to dirty their names. With the same cynicism that Cardinal Rodriguez is now denying that there was coup he could also, in order to regain his status as a candidate for Pope say to the international media that he was the victim of the mistaken understanding of the Honduran bishops. The perversion of Cardinal Rodriguez seems to have no limits.
Could Cardinal Rodríguez have fooled the other Bishops by present them with false documents indicting President Zelaya to get them to support the coup? Could Cardinal Rodriguez have used the shield the Episcopal Conference provided in order to support the coup supporters belong to Opus Dei? Could Cardinal Rodríguez, after coming out in favor of the coup, try to silence the other bishops and have just he and his assistants speak just he did with the superiors of the various religious orders and congregations with a presence in Honduras, by asking them to refrain from making statements on the current crisis and just let the bishops take care of it.
Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez and the auxiliary bishops Darwin Andino and Juan Pineda make up the 'trio of shame and indignity' and they have tried to sell the glory of the Honduran Church to the grand oligarchs of the nation, guided by the prominent figures of Opus Dei who participated in the coup and have now become central figures themselves. These pseudo-pastors should know that the Church in Honduras is not for sale nor has it been delivered in a political marriage to the entrepreneurs of both Arabic and creole descendants who now are our coup rulers.
Lie No. 9
Cardinal Rodriguez
"The documents prove that the institutions (which participated in the coup] operated properly and complied with the Constitution."
Again the Cardinal is lying here, perversely so. The text of the Constitution shows conclusively that the charter of the nation of Honduras was violated with premeditation, treachery and advantage by the Judiciary, Congress, Public Ministry, the National Human Rights Commissioner and the tragic Armed Forces that planned and executed the coup. To prove it, it is necessary to first look at the following constitutional articles:
1. Violation of Article 242 of the Constitution. This article concerns the permanent absence of the President of the Republic. It says that "if the absence of the President is absolute, the Vice-President shall take over the reins of the executive branch for the remaining time. But if the absence of the Vice-President is also absolute, the duties of the Executive shall be exercised by the President of Congress, or, failing that, by the President of the Supreme Court, in the time remaining to complete the constitutionally-appointed term."
It is clear that the article refers to a complete absence of the president. But President Zelaya's absence was not in any way absolute. On June 28, he did not leave power, but rather, he was taken out of power by the military that raided his home in the middle of the night, capturing and transporting him out of the country. The letter of resignation with which the vile deputies sought to create the justification for the absolute absence was not believed by anyone and was immediately denied by President Zelaya in exile. But the Cardinal accepts this lie propagated by the coup supporters in order to try to justify the taking over of the Presidency as a 'democratic succession'. The Cardinal must have lied to the bishops and is now lying to the Honduran people and the international community by saying that the coup was carried out under the Constitution. This constitutional article shows otherwise.
2. Violation of Article 99 of the Constitution. "Homes are inviolable. No entry or search may take place without the consent of the person living there or by resolution of the corresponding authority. (...). Except for emergencies, private homes can not be entered from six in the evening to six in the morning.
The house of President Zelaya was violated by the military, who overcame the presidential guard and forcibly penetrated it. The bullet holes are still visible on the walls inside the house. The assault occurred at 5 am, when the law condones entry between 6 am and 6pm. Does this not violate this article of the Constitution? According to Cardinal Rodriguez; no, it does not.
3. Violation of Article 102 of the Constitution. "No Honduran may be expatriated or delivered by the authorities to a foreign state."
President Zelaya was captured and taken away in an aircraft belonging to the Honduran Air Force. He was taken in his pajamas to the city of San Jose, Republic of Costa Rica, where he was abandoned on the tarmac at Juan Santamaria Airport. In the face of such an insult to the law and the dignity of a man chosen by a majority of the Honduran people as its president, Cardinal Rodriguez still has the nerve to say that "the institutions operated properly and complied with the Constitution"?
4. Violation of Article 84 of the Constitution. "No one shall be arrested or detained except by written order of a qualified authority issued within the corresponding legal framework and for reasons previously established in the law (...) The arrested or detained should be informed immediately and clearly of their rights and the facts alleged against him, and moreover, the authority must permit communication concerning his arrest to a family member or person of his choice ".
The military that captured Zelaya did not have any search warrant or arrest warrant issued by a qualified court. In addition, the law mandates that any arrests are to be carried out by the police, not the army. According to President Zelaya's account, the soldiers who captured him did not submit any warrant nor was he even informed as to what was what was happening and was not allowed contact with his family. The court order that the coup supporters have now presented has been created after the fact, and no one believes that President Zelaya had submitted this letter of resignation from the presidency. Only Cardinal Rodriguez believes that this warrant proceeded in a timely manner.
Lie No. 10
Cardinal Rodriguez
"The Constitution says very clearly that if the head of state were to propose a change in order to continue in office, he immediately ceases to hold that office. That means that when Zelaya was captured by the Army, he was no longer President. He had ceased being president.
At no time did President Zelaya say publicly that he wanted to be reelected as President nor is there mention that has ever done so privately. However, if the Cardinal Rodriguez or any other authority were sure of that claim, they should immediately have initiated impeachment hearings leading to the conviction and ouster of President Zelaya. This never happened. President Zelaya called for a non-binding referendum to see if there was support for a fourth ballot box in the upcoming elections for the purposes of organizing a constitutional assembly in 2010, after he would have left office.
Article 89 of the Constitution is clear: "Everyone is innocent until proven guilty by the qualified authority. But Cardinal Rodriguez condemns President Zelaya before he is convicted by any court and, indeed, before it had even brought up formal charges against him.
If there never was a formal accusation against President Zelaya in the courts, there could not have been any convictions, so his arrest and capture are in no way legal. Only Cardinal Rodriguez dares to say in this interview that "when Zelaya was captured by the Army he was no longer President of the Republic," ie, that he had been ousted before he was even charged and convicted in a trial.
Lie No. 11
Cardinal Rodriguez
"In order to bring peace to the country, it would be wiser and more patriotic that Zelaya refrains from returning right away."
Why does it always have to be the poor who always give in and lose? The people, elected by Manuel Zelaya as President, must now give up their rights in order to satisfy the coup whims of the 10 families that own Honduras. In what kind of justice does Cardinal Rodriguez place his faith? While the whole world condemns the coup and demands justice for the Honduran people by returning to power the man that they themselves chose, the Cardinal demands that this man not return to rule and moreover, makes him responsible for any future blood bath. Cardinal Rodriguez forgets that any weapons that kill are in the hands of those whom he supports. If the call of Cardinal Rodriguez had been motivated by a sincere concern for the people, that call should have been made to those that sponsored this coup and his brethren in the Opus Dei.
Lie No. 12
Cardinal Rodriguez
"How can you ask of us that we accept the return of someone who has stolen with such impunity?"
Another big lie of the Cardinal and the oligarchy is the much vaunted 'looting of state coffers'. After robbing the State for the last fifty days, the coffers of the Central Bank of Honduras have provided financial resources to funnel over 300 million Lempiras to municipalities, repairing levees, and to pay salaries on the exact day, July 20, to all government personnel with an estimated sum of fifteen hundred million Lempiras.
If it were true that President Zelaya had bankrupted the country, what the coup makers would have found would be only debts. Despite the withdrawal of aid from multilateral agencies to the coup government, so far it has not needed to devalue the currency or even postpone domestic payments, etc.. We, therefore, are facing a stubborn lie, repeated by the Cardinal, and that reality is now showing itself to be a lie. The state, far from having been looted, was strengthened, yes, strengthened in favor of the people, not the bankers and businessmen and for this, they never forgave President Zelaya.
However, the one who has looted the state coffers is Cardinal Rodriguez himself. According to Executive Order No. 046-2001, signed by coup supporter and also former president Carlos Roberto Flores, Cardinal Rodríguez receives monthly, since 2001, the amount of L100,000 Lempiras monthly, which come straight out the president's budget. Both former President Flores and Cardinal Rodríguez violated the Constitution they now claim to defend because it demands separation between church and state. For this reason, Cardinal Rodriguez has has had charges filed against him in the Public Ministry by the Broad Movement for Dignity and Justice to have him return what he looted from the State and face the corresponding civil and criminal charges.
Lie No. 13
Cardinal Rodriguez:
"The military was wrong to send him to Costa Rica. But there is an explanation relating to military law. Zelaya and his people stormed the airbase.
Where would Zelaya have been held safely? The Islands are full of tourists. And that would have represented a violation of all human rights ".
You cannot argue that the transfer abroad of President Zelaya in a military aircraft was based upon the legal principle of 'State of Necessity, since the President
was in no danger within his own home, nor did he represent a flight risk, simply because he did not even know that he was about to be taken. Nor is it true that "his people stormed the airbase". The president himself, in his capacity as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, went to pick up the ballot boxes at the Air Force warehouse. And he brought people along seeing as how the Armed Forces had disobeyed his original order to help distribute the ballot boxes across the country.
BY WAY OF CONCLUSION:
The claims of the Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez
What happened in Honduras was a coup and it is foolish to deny it. A basic reading of the Honduran Constitution demonstrates it without a
doubt; the majority of Hondurans, and the rest of the international community understand it that way. The coup is only denied by a sector of the Honduran oligarchy, the coup supporters of Opus Dei and the far right in Latin America and the United States of America.
The coup which occurred on June 28 has plunged the country into an unprecedented crisis in which, as always, the most vulnerable sectors are bearing the brunt. The eight people killed in the various manifestations have been people opposed to the coup and were killed by snipers and assassins who kill just as did the death squads in the eighties, one of whose leaders wanted by international justice, Mr Billy Joya, now serves as presidential adviser for the coup government which Cardinal Rodriguez defends. Hundreds of thousands of people who are intermittently engaged in demonstrations across the country do so without receiving anything in return but the satisfaction that comes from being on the side of justice. The wounded and imprisoned, numbering in the hundreds, have been attacked for defending democratic institutions and the right of insurrection that the Constitution provides.
Mr. Oscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga has brought disrespect to his ecclesiastical position by joining the coup and attacking the Honduran people and their democratic institutions, taking sides in a situation so critical for Honduran society at a time when the Church elsewhere in the world often plays the role of mediator, comforting and unifying society. But here he is, heretically offending the faith in the God of Life that he says he proclaims in order to allay himself with the forces of Death. And, there they are, our brothers, killed in cold blood by military assassins legitimated by the word, equally assassin, of Cardinal Rodriguez.
Honduras, one of the poorest and humblest countries of our planet, is now in a foxhole where love, truth and justice face the evils of this world blessed by the 'Cardinal Golpista' Oscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga.
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See the blog post at Hermano Juancito for background info.
Spanish Version
by Juan Antonio Mejía Guerra
Movement for Dignity and Justice
National Front of Resistance Against the Coup d'état in Honduras
August 16, 2009
The Honduran national resistance exceeds fifty days of continuous struggle against the coup. With eight people dead, hundreds injured and thousands of people in the streets and squares of the resistance, the Honduran population remain more united and stronger than ever, demanding a return to democratic order. Confronted with the resistance, the coup forces, which also have fifty days, but of lies, harassing, beating and killing people. And among the most odious liars is the golpista Cardinal Oscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga, whose lies we intend to reveal in this essay.
The Spanish daily La Vanguardia published on July 13 an interview with Cardinal Oscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga, with the title "I'm not a golpista Cardinal". The daily Tiempo de Honduras reproduced it in full in its Saturday edition on the 8th of August. The statements made by Cardinal Rodriguez are so remote from reality so as to be dangerous to the Honduran people, since he is in some ways the real voice of the oligarchy and the main moral legitimacy of the coup perpetrated by the oligarchs, politicians and military, in collusion with sectors of the Republican wing of the United States of America and a sector of the Church known as Opus Dei. Hence, the outrage and the need to deny publicly, nationally and internationally, the fallacies of this man and to lay bare his real intentions.
For this reason, although we recognize that the interview with the Spanish newspaper is a bit long, we will proceed carefully, teasing out paragraph by paragraph, what the Cardinal has said and contrast that with the true reality for which the vast mass of poor Hondurans struggle and sacrifice every day
together with their leaders, the majority Christian men and women who have not sold their conscience to any of the powers involved in the assault on the State of Honduras.
Lie No. 1
Cardinal Rodriguez:
"I understand that those have painted the words 'Cardinal Golpista' are not Honduran. That's very clear "
Those who have painted all the graffiti on the walls he walls with messages like "Cardinal Golpista," and shouted at the top of their lungs slogans such as "Cardinal Golpista, out" are Honduran men and women who are deeply outraged because Mr Oscar Rodriguez has used his status to manipulate the religious consciences of the citizenry. Jesus never sided with the powerful but always with the poor and vulnerable, and in his fleeting encounters with the rich he called them urgently to share their property and sign their names in the gospel of love and justice.
With this phrase quoted verbatim from the Cardinal, in addition to lying, he is also supporting very subtly but clearly the accusation by the coup leaders that the demonstrations are being led by foreigners, mainly Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, which is not true. The demonstrations are full of people proudly Catracha; poor, barefoot, people who more often than not do not have enough to buy a bag of water. Grassroots organizations have to perform consistently support campaigns, asking everyday people to provide space in their homes to house compatriots who have come from different sectors of the country to join the protest campaigns, and donate food and other supplies to protesters so they do not die of hunger and cold. In contrast, the government coup that blesses Cardinal Rodriguez has even declared curfews for 24 hours and followed up for 7 consecutive days in some regions so that the demonstrators coming from the interior of the country die of hunger, thirst and cold on the roads and forests helpless. Cardinal Rodriguez, who should be an advocate of life that the Creator has given us, has not said a word in defense of the life of this tough and humble people whose access to food is a universally recognized human right regardless of any situation or conflict, but by adhering to the Oligarch's line, he accuses the defenders of democracy of not being Honduran, in a blatant attempt to distort, in favor of the oligarchy, the perception of the reality of what is happening in Honduras.
Lie No. 2
Cardinal Rodriguez:
"I am not a Golpista. It doesn't bother me that they accuse me of being one, because if Jesus, who was the son of God, was accused of everything, what can not be said of a human being? It is unjust that by carrying out the duty of my conscience they call me Golpista."
Cardinal Rodriguez is right to say you do not mind if they call you Golpista, because actually you are, although you baptize with another, more elegant name the sanctimonious prigs of the Opus Dei who assaulted the Honduras State, calling it "constitutional succession." What you shouldn't do, Cardinal Rodriguez, is to use your status as prince of the Church to justify the coup and then later, defend yourself from accusations made against you by resorting to the false accusations that were made once upon a time by the oppressors of that age against Jesus Christ. In the case of Jesus, the accusations were false while those directed against the Cardinal are true and are confirmed with the least intellectual effort possible.
And that Cardinal Rodriguez tries to compare himself to Jesus brings up another of his perversions: The Lord Jesus never spoke to the poor from the media belonging to his Roman oppressors, the cardinal aired his communique on a full media roadblock, using the medium imposed by the coup president, and radio channels reserved exclusively for the coup government. No opponent of the de facto regime has spoken on a full media roadblock like that. But you know that already, Mr. Cardinal Rodriguez?
Mr. Rodriguez can fulfill his duty of conscience on the side of the oligarchs, and others have a duty to respect his opinion, but what he can not do is side with those who are violating the social order and say that he speaks in the name of the God of life.
Lie No. 3
Cardinal Rodriguez:
"I am the first to reject the coup d'etat."
This blunt statement reveals the double standard that the Cardinal tries to employ in order to rescue his international image as a future candidate for Pope.
On the one hand, within Honduras he legitimizes the coup actions taken by his brethren of the Opus Dei through his speeches and his well trained auxiliary bishops of the archdiocese, or simply being silent when he sees he can not do otherwise for the benefit of their allies. For example, the silence that he has kept in the face of the innocent dead killed by the police and military, for the sole crime of traveling to the airport or the border to wait for the president who they had elected once upon a time. On the other hand, outside of Honduras, he has chosen to airbrush his image to make it more in tune with the reaction of the rest of the world, a world has opposed the coup and has asked for an early, safe and immediate return of president Zelaya. That's why he doesn't even blush when he says before the international press that he is against the coup.
In reality, Cardinal Rodriguez defends the idea that we have a 'constitutional substitution' a legal construct that doesn't exist either in our constitution or in any other of the world, a term that does not appear in any dictionary of political science or law. The Cardinal is no longer fooling anyone.
Lie No. 4
Cardinal Rodriguez:
"All over the Internet, it's rumored that I'm eating with the rich. Another lie. No photographer is going to the poor villages I visit often because it is not news.. "
No other pastor, Catholic, Episcopal and Evangelical, appears so many times in the society pages of newspapers as the Honduran Cardinal, baptizing or marrying sons and daughters of important families, celebrating the birthday of this or that businessman, playing the flute in some family tea, and so on. In the newspapers there are more 'society stories' featuring our Cardinal than any 'Christian reflections' he might make. Does Rome know this? The Honduran Catholic faithful is well aware of this, for sure.
It is also probably true that the photographers did not accompany the Cardinal to poor villages, but not because this is not news. Some photographers will not do so simply because the money they make does not allow for them to be making these trips. By the way, they are paid so little for their effort from the same media conglomerates that are now, with a few exceptions, actively supporting the coup. Other journalists may be able to afford the costs in order to get themselves to the village where the Cardinal is going, but would get there late, because the Cardinal often travels to remote villages by helicopters belonging to these self-same entrepreneurs or to the Honduran Air Force. And these devices are unlikely to have space for a reporter interested in how the poor live or survive in Honduras
Lie No. 5
Cardinal Rodriguez:
"This is a poor country where politics has done so much harm ..."
Fact is that Honduras has been impoverished by bad economic decisions and policies but in any case it is not Politics that has caused so much evil. It is the politicians who act as nominees of the various economic groups who have been ordered to destroy this nation which deserves better. Cardinal Rodriguez should read St. Thomas to realize how important the political life is both people and the societies in which they live.
The poor men and women of Honduras have come to realize that, as well as the danger is implied in leaving all of the political work in the hands of bandits dressed as congressmen and military leaders, who have never looked out for the common good but solely for selfish interests of the oligarchs. The coup has brought about the painful awakening of the Honduran people, who no longer believe in traditional parties, or political merchants, or in the khaki-colored traitors to the ideals which Fransisco Morazan had of a sovereign homeland under the rule of law.
After the Coup on June 28, the Honduran people have taken to the streets to demand the restoration of the democratic order, but their cry has not been been heard by those that organized the coup. Their throats have been suffocated by the gases of the military and the police, and their lives are being taken by the bullets and the knives of psychopaths masquerading as presidential advisers of the de facto government. Meanwhile, the international community has taken the position that "President Zelaya must return, but not yet' or "the president must be reinstated, but this is not the time."
After fifty days of unwavering fight, the people and their organizations, working for a return to a politics that is real and true, are asking not only for a return of President Zelaya; no, what they want goes beyond his return, beyond even the referendum on the fourth urn. If during these fifty days of fighting they have been denied the right to restore the powers of the State, the people find themselves obliged to carry out popular and peaceful uprising towards a true revolution that will put our homeland on a new foundation.
The people have discovered the importance of politics now that the time has come to build the common good founded upon a society of solidarity, fairness, inclusiveness and fraternity; so much so that it is prepared to construct from within their own organizations and does not seem willing to rely on political technocrats and servile military traitors. This is the new politics of the people who obviously will not be blessed by the cardinal and his angels of Opus Dei, who will soon attack them with same words that the oligarchy uses.
Lie No. 6
Cardinal Rodriguez:
"The announcement of the Episcopal Conference put emphasis on the search for peace."
The peace for which Cardinal Rodriguez searches is the peace of submission, the peace of the paralyzing terror of the military planes and helicopters which flew continually over the major cities on the day of the coup. The Honduran people are tired once and for all of the false peace that allows the poor to die while the oligarchs and those who serve them live it up on the the lap of luxury.
Cardinal Rodriguez was wrong in believing that with his siren song he could put to sleep those dreams that we Hondurans who love our country have. Honduras is a country pillaged by multinational companies, ripped apart by the oligarchs, misled by their politicians and pastors but sincerely loved from deep inside the hearts of the poor and humble. From this love flows the unstoppable energy of this people that has said 'Enough, Already!'.
Lie No. 7
Cardinal Rodriguez:
"In times of confusion it is difficult to find documents to help understand the truth. Until Thursday after the departure of Zelaya did we get the original documents. All of us went to look for them, all that we could find. And when we convened a plenary meeting of the Episcopal Conference to draft the statement, all the Bishops signed."
Cardinal Rodriguez shows us how convinced he really is of all the lies put out by those in the Opus Dei who helped promulgate the coup. To his credit, he does admit that that he didn't have access to any document 'that would help to understand the truth' that the oligarchs wanted to impose, accusing President Zelaya of being corrupt, a traitor to the constitution, and so on. And he had no access to these documents simply because these documents never existed before this coup, nor was there any legal determination or court verdict that would lead to a impeachment of President Zelaya. The Cardinal acknowledged that it was not until Thursday, July 2, four days after the coup, which he finally had access to documents which found President Zelaya guilty, and those were precisely the false documents invented and manufactured by the coup supporters ex post to justify what they had done.
It is difficult to understand how a person with normally such a lucid intelligence and candidate for the throne of Peter did not realize in time what the coup plotters were doing in order to make the coup look like a 'constitutional succession'. Well, let me point it out. First, the day of the coup they cynically dared to read in the Congress a letter of resignation that supposedly President Zelaya had left. Nobody believed it, of course, except the Cardinal, who, on national TV said that Zelaya was no longer president when he was captured, for the simple reason that he had already 'resigned'. Second, they manufactured an arrest warrant that no one believed (and for doing this, the US took away the visa of the judge who signed it) Only the Cardinal believes that this arrest warrant was issued before June 28. Finally, those who plotted the coup came up with at least 18 indictments against President Zelaya and said that would give a warrant to Interpol for his arrest. Interpol, of course, rejected their orders because they didn't make any sense. But then, Micheletti and his attorney general show up saying that the Zelaya will be captured upon arrival. Meanwhile President Zelaya makes two attempts to enter Honduras, and they not only fail to catch him but do not allow him to enter. But the cardinal swears that these allegations are true and justify the coup.
What nonsense!
Lie No. 8
Cardinal Rodriguez:
"I wasn't the one who put together the statement. All the bishops together decided on what position we would take. All of us. "
In Honduras, we are very aware of the political career of Cardinal Rodriguez and the rest of bishops, and we know why, with sufficient certainty, that the bishops' statement of commitment to the Coup as read by Cardinal Rodríguez is the work of him and not the collective bishops. And the striking absence of solidarity from the Cardinal to try again and again to blame the other bishops in this action that can only be the product of his mind.
The bishops of Honduras, while it's true that they could never be called 'revolutionary priests', neither can it be said that they have spent their lives permanently and servilely in bed with the oligarchs. Their pastoral duties have kept on balance faithful to the Gospel while at the same time avoiding clash with the powers of the country. Further still, it is certain that with respect to the political crisis in Honduras before the coup, many of them did not agree fully with the actions of President Zelaya, but from the normal discrepancies to actually blessing the coup, well, that is a perverse and abysmal distance that the bishops of various dioceses never travelled. And not only have they not travelled that distance, but some of them have even come out since then, and from their diocese condemned the coup.
Monsignor Angel Garachana, bishop of the San Pedro Sula, the industrial city of Honduras, without confrontation has set himself to serve God's poor and humble. Bishops Raul Corriveau, Juan Luis Giason and Guido Plante are all wise and humble in character. Perhaps because they are missionaries to Honduras from other countries, they don't say that much about the situation here, but neither are they docile to the dictates of the oligarchy, and they don't lack critical intelligence when it comes to objective and serious reflection on the reality in their respective dioceses. Monsignor Mauro, of the Diocese of Olancho, with his attitude of naive and easygoing gringo is always fearful of ideology but in practice is a man who fights for his people, especially the young people, peasants and women organized in the various communities. Monsignor Luis Santos preaches in a region where are located the poorest of the poor living alongside the grand landowning and coffee families. In this context, he has set up the largest evangelistic program in Honduras, focused on the basic ecclesiastical communities and has done this by reconciling the different interests and calling for all, rich and poor, to believe in the life of the community.
Monsignor Solé, bishop of the peasants and of the black peoples and Misquito Indians is neither a man who will form pacts with the oligarchy or large-scale drug dealers who are so common in his diocese. He is a man who serves God, and is characterized by his humility and his closeness to the poor. These bishops are not the ultimate in perfection, and perhaps as Christians we should expect a little more prophetic words and actions coming from them, but if we understand the Church to be 'the People of God' they are not and never will be traitors to that Church.
In contrast to this galaxy of pastors is Cardinal Oscar Andrés Rodríguez and his two auxiliary bishops of the archdiocese of Tegucigalpa, Juan Pineda and Darwin Andino. Precisely during the three month period preceding the coup, the media, largely owned by entrepreneurs who now support the coup, developed an ongoing campaign filled with lies and harassment of the government of President Zelaya and grassroots organizations. In this campaign, Cardinal Rodríguez was conspicuously absent, but his auxiliary bishops were constantly, one another one in the newspapers and evening news shows defending and blessing the lies of politicians and businessmen in the coup against President Zelaya and his administration. The silence of Cardinal was suspect because he always likes to be in the media and this time, while he remained silent, his assistants were letting loose against the democratically elected president. It is also important to emphasize that during these months, no other bishop in the country was given to so morally legitimize, from the oligarch's media empire, the slander that was discharged against the Executive branch and the popular leaders who supported him.
For these reasons we know, without fear of error, that the delivery of the Church to the Honduran oligarchy is not the work and grace of the bishops but Honduran Cardinal Rodriguez and his assistants. Beyond any document signed by the episcopal conference that Cardinal Rodriguez goes around showing international journalists for the sole purpose of laying the blame off onto the other bishops, we are sufficiently clear about the praxis of our pastors and we will not allow the Cardinal Rodriguez to dirty their names. With the same cynicism that Cardinal Rodriguez is now denying that there was coup he could also, in order to regain his status as a candidate for Pope say to the international media that he was the victim of the mistaken understanding of the Honduran bishops. The perversion of Cardinal Rodriguez seems to have no limits.
Could Cardinal Rodríguez have fooled the other Bishops by present them with false documents indicting President Zelaya to get them to support the coup? Could Cardinal Rodriguez have used the shield the Episcopal Conference provided in order to support the coup supporters belong to Opus Dei? Could Cardinal Rodríguez, after coming out in favor of the coup, try to silence the other bishops and have just he and his assistants speak just he did with the superiors of the various religious orders and congregations with a presence in Honduras, by asking them to refrain from making statements on the current crisis and just let the bishops take care of it.
Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez and the auxiliary bishops Darwin Andino and Juan Pineda make up the 'trio of shame and indignity' and they have tried to sell the glory of the Honduran Church to the grand oligarchs of the nation, guided by the prominent figures of Opus Dei who participated in the coup and have now become central figures themselves. These pseudo-pastors should know that the Church in Honduras is not for sale nor has it been delivered in a political marriage to the entrepreneurs of both Arabic and creole descendants who now are our coup rulers.
Lie No. 9
Cardinal Rodriguez
"The documents prove that the institutions (which participated in the coup] operated properly and complied with the Constitution."
Again the Cardinal is lying here, perversely so. The text of the Constitution shows conclusively that the charter of the nation of Honduras was violated with premeditation, treachery and advantage by the Judiciary, Congress, Public Ministry, the National Human Rights Commissioner and the tragic Armed Forces that planned and executed the coup. To prove it, it is necessary to first look at the following constitutional articles:
1. Violation of Article 242 of the Constitution. This article concerns the permanent absence of the President of the Republic. It says that "if the absence of the President is absolute, the Vice-President shall take over the reins of the executive branch for the remaining time. But if the absence of the Vice-President is also absolute, the duties of the Executive shall be exercised by the President of Congress, or, failing that, by the President of the Supreme Court, in the time remaining to complete the constitutionally-appointed term."
It is clear that the article refers to a complete absence of the president. But President Zelaya's absence was not in any way absolute. On June 28, he did not leave power, but rather, he was taken out of power by the military that raided his home in the middle of the night, capturing and transporting him out of the country. The letter of resignation with which the vile deputies sought to create the justification for the absolute absence was not believed by anyone and was immediately denied by President Zelaya in exile. But the Cardinal accepts this lie propagated by the coup supporters in order to try to justify the taking over of the Presidency as a 'democratic succession'. The Cardinal must have lied to the bishops and is now lying to the Honduran people and the international community by saying that the coup was carried out under the Constitution. This constitutional article shows otherwise.
2. Violation of Article 99 of the Constitution. "Homes are inviolable. No entry or search may take place without the consent of the person living there or by resolution of the corresponding authority. (...). Except for emergencies, private homes can not be entered from six in the evening to six in the morning.
The house of President Zelaya was violated by the military, who overcame the presidential guard and forcibly penetrated it. The bullet holes are still visible on the walls inside the house. The assault occurred at 5 am, when the law condones entry between 6 am and 6pm. Does this not violate this article of the Constitution? According to Cardinal Rodriguez; no, it does not.
3. Violation of Article 102 of the Constitution. "No Honduran may be expatriated or delivered by the authorities to a foreign state."
President Zelaya was captured and taken away in an aircraft belonging to the Honduran Air Force. He was taken in his pajamas to the city of San Jose, Republic of Costa Rica, where he was abandoned on the tarmac at Juan Santamaria Airport. In the face of such an insult to the law and the dignity of a man chosen by a majority of the Honduran people as its president, Cardinal Rodriguez still has the nerve to say that "the institutions operated properly and complied with the Constitution"?
4. Violation of Article 84 of the Constitution. "No one shall be arrested or detained except by written order of a qualified authority issued within the corresponding legal framework and for reasons previously established in the law (...) The arrested or detained should be informed immediately and clearly of their rights and the facts alleged against him, and moreover, the authority must permit communication concerning his arrest to a family member or person of his choice ".
The military that captured Zelaya did not have any search warrant or arrest warrant issued by a qualified court. In addition, the law mandates that any arrests are to be carried out by the police, not the army. According to President Zelaya's account, the soldiers who captured him did not submit any warrant nor was he even informed as to what was what was happening and was not allowed contact with his family. The court order that the coup supporters have now presented has been created after the fact, and no one believes that President Zelaya had submitted this letter of resignation from the presidency. Only Cardinal Rodriguez believes that this warrant proceeded in a timely manner.
Lie No. 10
Cardinal Rodriguez
"The Constitution says very clearly that if the head of state were to propose a change in order to continue in office, he immediately ceases to hold that office. That means that when Zelaya was captured by the Army, he was no longer President. He had ceased being president.
At no time did President Zelaya say publicly that he wanted to be reelected as President nor is there mention that has ever done so privately. However, if the Cardinal Rodriguez or any other authority were sure of that claim, they should immediately have initiated impeachment hearings leading to the conviction and ouster of President Zelaya. This never happened. President Zelaya called for a non-binding referendum to see if there was support for a fourth ballot box in the upcoming elections for the purposes of organizing a constitutional assembly in 2010, after he would have left office.
Article 89 of the Constitution is clear: "Everyone is innocent until proven guilty by the qualified authority. But Cardinal Rodriguez condemns President Zelaya before he is convicted by any court and, indeed, before it had even brought up formal charges against him.
If there never was a formal accusation against President Zelaya in the courts, there could not have been any convictions, so his arrest and capture are in no way legal. Only Cardinal Rodriguez dares to say in this interview that "when Zelaya was captured by the Army he was no longer President of the Republic," ie, that he had been ousted before he was even charged and convicted in a trial.
Lie No. 11
Cardinal Rodriguez
"In order to bring peace to the country, it would be wiser and more patriotic that Zelaya refrains from returning right away."
Why does it always have to be the poor who always give in and lose? The people, elected by Manuel Zelaya as President, must now give up their rights in order to satisfy the coup whims of the 10 families that own Honduras. In what kind of justice does Cardinal Rodriguez place his faith? While the whole world condemns the coup and demands justice for the Honduran people by returning to power the man that they themselves chose, the Cardinal demands that this man not return to rule and moreover, makes him responsible for any future blood bath. Cardinal Rodriguez forgets that any weapons that kill are in the hands of those whom he supports. If the call of Cardinal Rodriguez had been motivated by a sincere concern for the people, that call should have been made to those that sponsored this coup and his brethren in the Opus Dei.
Lie No. 12
Cardinal Rodriguez
"How can you ask of us that we accept the return of someone who has stolen with such impunity?"
Another big lie of the Cardinal and the oligarchy is the much vaunted 'looting of state coffers'. After robbing the State for the last fifty days, the coffers of the Central Bank of Honduras have provided financial resources to funnel over 300 million Lempiras to municipalities, repairing levees, and to pay salaries on the exact day, July 20, to all government personnel with an estimated sum of fifteen hundred million Lempiras.
If it were true that President Zelaya had bankrupted the country, what the coup makers would have found would be only debts. Despite the withdrawal of aid from multilateral agencies to the coup government, so far it has not needed to devalue the currency or even postpone domestic payments, etc.. We, therefore, are facing a stubborn lie, repeated by the Cardinal, and that reality is now showing itself to be a lie. The state, far from having been looted, was strengthened, yes, strengthened in favor of the people, not the bankers and businessmen and for this, they never forgave President Zelaya.
However, the one who has looted the state coffers is Cardinal Rodriguez himself. According to Executive Order No. 046-2001, signed by coup supporter and also former president Carlos Roberto Flores, Cardinal Rodríguez receives monthly, since 2001, the amount of L100,000 Lempiras monthly, which come straight out the president's budget. Both former President Flores and Cardinal Rodríguez violated the Constitution they now claim to defend because it demands separation between church and state. For this reason, Cardinal Rodriguez has has had charges filed against him in the Public Ministry by the Broad Movement for Dignity and Justice to have him return what he looted from the State and face the corresponding civil and criminal charges.
Lie No. 13
Cardinal Rodriguez:
"The military was wrong to send him to Costa Rica. But there is an explanation relating to military law. Zelaya and his people stormed the airbase.
Where would Zelaya have been held safely? The Islands are full of tourists. And that would have represented a violation of all human rights ".
You cannot argue that the transfer abroad of President Zelaya in a military aircraft was based upon the legal principle of 'State of Necessity, since the President
was in no danger within his own home, nor did he represent a flight risk, simply because he did not even know that he was about to be taken. Nor is it true that "his people stormed the airbase". The president himself, in his capacity as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, went to pick up the ballot boxes at the Air Force warehouse. And he brought people along seeing as how the Armed Forces had disobeyed his original order to help distribute the ballot boxes across the country.
BY WAY OF CONCLUSION:
The claims of the Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez
What happened in Honduras was a coup and it is foolish to deny it. A basic reading of the Honduran Constitution demonstrates it without a
doubt; the majority of Hondurans, and the rest of the international community understand it that way. The coup is only denied by a sector of the Honduran oligarchy, the coup supporters of Opus Dei and the far right in Latin America and the United States of America.
The coup which occurred on June 28 has plunged the country into an unprecedented crisis in which, as always, the most vulnerable sectors are bearing the brunt. The eight people killed in the various manifestations have been people opposed to the coup and were killed by snipers and assassins who kill just as did the death squads in the eighties, one of whose leaders wanted by international justice, Mr Billy Joya, now serves as presidential adviser for the coup government which Cardinal Rodriguez defends. Hundreds of thousands of people who are intermittently engaged in demonstrations across the country do so without receiving anything in return but the satisfaction that comes from being on the side of justice. The wounded and imprisoned, numbering in the hundreds, have been attacked for defending democratic institutions and the right of insurrection that the Constitution provides.
Mr. Oscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga has brought disrespect to his ecclesiastical position by joining the coup and attacking the Honduran people and their democratic institutions, taking sides in a situation so critical for Honduran society at a time when the Church elsewhere in the world often plays the role of mediator, comforting and unifying society. But here he is, heretically offending the faith in the God of Life that he says he proclaims in order to allay himself with the forces of Death. And, there they are, our brothers, killed in cold blood by military assassins legitimated by the word, equally assassin, of Cardinal Rodriguez.
Honduras, one of the poorest and humblest countries of our planet, is now in a foxhole where love, truth and justice face the evils of this world blessed by the 'Cardinal Golpista' Oscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga.
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See the blog post at Hermano Juancito for background info.
Spanish Version
Saturday, August 15, 2009
English Translation of Golpe de Estado by Allan McDonald
Dialogue on the Coup:
Jesus the carpenter with his holiness Reverend Eminence, Cardinal Oscar Andrés Rodríguez.
by Allan McDonald
- Good morning your eminence, can I speak with you for a couple of minutes?
- Sure, what's up boy? Hurry up though, I don't have much time.
- Sorry Reverend holiness, just wanted to ask; How are you? ... If you're doing okay after son many Romans, so many Jew running loose in these humble lands of Our Father..
- Look, they're only a handful of troublemakers out there, screaming like crazy, poor devils ...
But they're our children as well ...
Yours, I never got married ....
Tell me your eminence, how can you sleep thinking about all the blood..
What blood?, It's just tinted water, like the tears they put on the virgin for the faithful ...
But eminence, why are you not more humble and accept that all this is simply barbaric, killing people just to maintain the fatal pride of a couple rich guys... don't you think that hurts the people ....
They're a mob, don't you think, Jesus. That's the way they want it, besides they're all communists ...
No eminence, I was accused of the same, and here I am, a poor man who came down from the cross, only to come here. I have been walking here from my lost Heaven . I walked the entire Honduras, looking for you ...
You were looking for me where I'm not really hanging out, that's why..
I thought I could find you in Juan's house, the Bricklayer. I went to Martita's, who runs the little corner store, then I went to the market, various neighborhoods on the outskirts of San Pedro Sula, I went to Choloma, and Cortés, the train lines to Baracoa, in the banana plantations of La Lima, in the huts of Guarumo 2, Tacamiche and on the banks of the river Ulúa, and nothing, nobody gave me a clue as to where you were ... I went to Choluteca, and the sad little park next to Mercedes, I sat down to watch the afternoon go by, asked for you and no one knew anything, no address, nothing.. Some drunk guy told me to go over by the brothels of Monjarás and nothing.. I went to Nacaome and I thought I'd find you in that hell of a heat, but I didn't find you there either ...
But Jesus! Why did you look for me in brothels.. I don't hang out in those places, much less in the houses of all those people you mentioned, they're complete riff-raff.. They don't even eat three square meals a day, they're uneducated people who do not even have internet.
Forgive me your eminence, it's just that I thought I could perhaps find you there.. to talk about these these things, but in my desperation to find a place, I went to Copan. The Chorti don't even know who you are, and in the Montana de la Flor, they told me if I wanted to find you,better I should say a little prayer. In Olancho, in every village and every town, they told me that they know nothing about you, only when they see you on TV. Oh and a child told me that he has seen though, but in the magazines of high society, but my simplicity and my Poverty don't allow me to buy such magazines. Well, at last, here in Tegucigalpa I meet up with your sanctified and consecrated Eminence..
Oh, and how did you find me, in the end...
In the heart of Tegucigalpa is the cathedral, I wanted to enter, but with these rags I have on, they threw me up against the wall, a group of riot police, and then, they threw me out.. They said that they didn't want any garbage in there; moreover, my beard scared them and they pulled out their guns.. They treated me as if I were a terrorist.. My poverty suggested that I was some sort of subversive..But a policeman, who I suppose felt sorry for me, told me to look for you in this mansion.. Nice garden, nice trees..
Ah yes, the cost of my sacrifice for the faith..
Yes, your holiness and eminence, your house is very nice, seems like Eden, paradise..
Ah yes.. Well, tell me, what can I do for you? Remember that, because of all my important and various commitments, I don't have all the time in the world..
I only want to know that you're well, because it worries me when one of my brothers has problems..
Jesus, by God, I don't have any problems. Outside there are over 20 soldiers watching out for me..
Yes, your holiness, but there's something else. How is your spirit? It seems broken, ripped apart..
No, Jesus, my spirit is stronger than the banks which kindly finance the constitutional transition.. Moreover, I am a man of faith, strength and love, my roots are in the power of the spirit and not the weak foundations of the poor, who are reeling in their delusions of democracy ....
So, Why was there a coup d'etat? Your eminence ...
What coup?, It was a constitutional succession ...
Well, whatever it was..
Hmmm ... well, not to make the story too long, Zelaya wanted to violate the untouchable articles in the constitution .... That is why he gave him his lesson and took him out of the country to avoid bloodshed ...
Cardinal, but ... for you is the constitution more sacred than the bible? You have violated the untouchable verses of the Bible and the commandments, and here you are, nobody has taken you out of this mansion and these gardens, rather, they protect you..
What verses, which commandment? ...
Thou shalt not kill. You have killed with your silence and given your blessing to this repression. Thou shalt not bear false witness. You have lied in the name the church. You have even made the Virgin of Honduras, captain of the armed forces ... You've sown hatred in those who are out there, fighting for a fair and dignified country, you should have been there, in the fight ...
Wait Jesus, you're not going to tell me what to do ... Moreover, I am also a man of divine word, nobody comes to the Father except through the power of the gun, so ... We want to evangelize this rabble with democratic methods of the bayonets and make it clear who is the Caesar and the lepers of misery..
Holiness, don't you think that you've refused to follow the footsteps of Our Father?, Or those of your own brethren, like the one with whom you share your name, Oscar Arnulfo Romero, who struggled with his people in the darkest hours of El Salvador ....Or those of your brethren here, like Father Melo, Father Tamayo, Father Milla ...
And look how that turned out for Romero, walking around like the Redeemer in the private property of El Salvador, buried in the sand. And those old guys over here have left behind the Word of God and faith in the divine conviction of prayer to wander around like rioters, encouraging the rebellion.. Don't they know that Brotherhood is in the Church? They've traded divine paradise for a simple Utopiaof the people.
Perhaps holiness that is indeed the task of the shepherd who protects his sheep ...
Those are red and black sheep, they must be sacrificed ...
So many, just for the golden calf of the masters ...
Look, if you come here to insult me, you'd better leave ... guards!
No holiness, I can leave this mansion, you can throw me out, but I'll never leave your shadows, your failed purple conscience, nor your crucifix that you look upon with bronze tears .,,
Not bronze, gold..Look at these rings, do you want to try them on..
No thanks, It's not good for me, I'm allergic to gold earned by the sweat of the brow of others ...
Well, you want something to eat? Come, here at my table, we can share something ...
No, your holiness, I'm still full from the Last Supper. Share it, make burritos out of it. You can make more than a thousand out of that banquet. Give it to the people who are marching under the hot sun, hungry, poor. Your assistant said they were being financed to do it. They're not. Or you can go out into the street, like Moses, and open up that sea of blood and help peace to cross through.. Or, like Noah, you can build the Ark of Sanity and pack in all these power-crazed animals ... Your eminence can defend this country from the flood of anger and ambition ...
Look Jesus, you should get going, you don't seem very grateful, even when I invite you in to the house of God ...
I was not invited, I have come to look for you and this is not the house of God, this is a nest of snakes, God is not here, God is in the street, fighting, because it hurts him that these people are denied three times, that the Just are condemned and Barrabas is rewarded..
I go where I came from, that electric gate, huge, but very small for your eminence, remember, that will be the only gate that you'll see in life that large. The other gates that you find will be very small, even that of heaven.
Well, have a nice day your eminence and read Isaiah 55.8
God bless you ...
Original version in Spanish here.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Translation of Hombre de Hule, by Allan McDonald
Rubber Man
For April.by Allan McDonald
Before, when life was not yet in fashion, and the world was simply a road of drab brown stones, those were the years of the olive green jeep, Garduna chocolates, the Alliance for Progress which came to us as powdered milk for the poor children in my school, those were the fabulous '80s, the years when I would leave my house to fly kites against the wind that ran rampant through the sky, and listened to the older folks speak of a certain Custodio, a man of steel tempered by the heroism of openly taking the military to task and being the defender, the handkerchief moist with the tears of a wounded democracy in that green era.
Time evaporated like a sunrise and we survived, like crabs on a beach of dead Pelicans, all of us who crossed the border of hope trying to arrive at the decade of the '90s.
I had just turned 17, cartoonist and already working in the newspaper, publishing my daily cartoon, as always, and my humor page every Saturday, believing persistently that the destiny of rebellion points us toward the utopia of a better county. I have always thought that, always. And then one memorable afternoon, one of those so memorable that you store it away in the warehouse of the soul so that it can never be forgotten, I found myself walking through Barrio Los Dolores, on my way to the archives of the Committee for the Defense of Human Right, CODEH, which in those days was located there, where the shouts of frustrated market vendors mixed with the prayers of the church nearby, that other market of dried-out crucifixes.
I entered CODEH, and asked for help regarding some research I was doing on old cartoons. Looking through the yellowing papers, dust and light that seemed a storehouse of memories, I suddenly came face to face with Dr. Ramon Custodio, the legendary old man, with his mustache, like a leaf tangled up in the roots of its own tree, woven deeply into the skin of his battle-seasoned face. His being seemed centered on the movement of his hands that were tucked into his gray pants pockets, his white guayaberaand his middle-aged hair flying like a suicidal seagull. He stuck his hand out. "Hey there, young man," he said, "I've been hoping to meet you for while now, say hello, share a coffee and talk about your job ...". His words were tired, yet full of sincerity. We sat, talking about the difficult things going on in the country, the confusing transition from the political crisis to the economic one. Those were the years of Callejas, of corruption throughout the country. It seemed odd to him that, me still being only a teenage, in the year 1990, we could talk like in those tales of old men and young kids. Saying goodbye, using the excuse of a made-up appointment, the Doctor put his hand on my shoulder and spoke the difficult words of a kind grandfather to his troublemaking grandson. I will never forget them:
"Look Son, do you have kids?" I said no. Imagining my emotional lapses in the midst of a lost heart, I could never even dream of having one of my own. "Look, today you are a good cartoonist, strong, rebellious, but tomorrow, when you have your own children, you're going to forget about all this, and you'll think about normal things, about how to feed your kids, you'll see.". He turned around and disappeared into the artificial light, between the dust and the papers which flew about like a forgotten carousel.
It's been almost 20 years since the day that I met with Don Ramon Custodio, and life went on for each of us, him doing his things and me, mine. I drew him a couple of times when he launched his independent candidacy for the Presidency. He failed to collect the necessary signatures to get on the ballot, a pantomime of democracy deemed necessary to enter the circus. Then I saw him one day in Technicolor in the Congress, raising his right hand in front of the group of flunkies that had picked him as the new National Commissioner on Human Rights, the class that detested him, that hated him, that had even put a price on his head; they were now giving him the prize of that which the Doctor knew better even by memory, than by that of touch.
Today, there are no words, no excuses, no curious young men, nor learned doctors. Today, in this de facto country, we are now face to face in the street, each with the peace of his dignity weighed down, those of us who march in the light of victory of true democracy of both struggles and noble acts to defend a lost patria and those who shut themselves in their offices with fine mahogany desks, with drawers full of the moist dust of nostalgia fallen into disuse and the photo of our elected president taken down, ripped off the wall with servility, and with a new photo up, this time our spurious one. Behind is the flag, blue and white, hanging humbly on its pole, that simple flag which wraps itself around both the blind and the dumb, the lepers and the heroes who have fallen, face-forward, to the somber riot of resentment.
And now, there's the doctor on TV, all channels roadblocked with his press conference. He looks out, he whose face no longer even appears in the files of the CIA, saying that the dead don't exist, that the army uses only rubber bullets, that the innocence of the Men of Honor is evident, that perhaps it was a clumsy revolutionary type, someone who believes in that pale promise of Patria that shot a communist bullet and killed the young man at the airport.. You see friends, me, who has never touched a gun, who has never put up a photo of any president behind my desk, who has always drawn face-forward, I got up, scared, and ran to the crib of of young daughter, the girl that the doctor talked about 20 years ago, my little April. I covered her with my hands, I hugged her, I sang her a lullaby, I covered her eyes so that she would not see the man who I had so deeply admired and tell her that the doctor had once said: "Look, young man, when you have children, you'll see things differently", and it's true, I do think differently, with my daughter as counterweight, I should be rebellious, and I should have dignity until the end, so as not to become that man of rubber, no longer of steel, and that when the years go by, and my April begins to fly kites, she will think of me, as the the man who did not betray her. It will rain on her that day, and she will not feel sad. And by then, my daughter will have a new country..
Allan McDonald
The Original is Here.
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