Los golpistas y sus falaces declaraciones

From: Rosa Maria

On TV, Honduran Generals Explain Their Role in Coup

Rodrigo Abd/Associated Press
As rain fell, Honduran police officers blocked a road last week in Jacagalpa, near Nicaragua.

By GINGER THOMPSON
Published: August 4, 2009

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — For the past month, a steady drumbeat of government images on the airwaves and on front pages has tried to convey to Hondurans that this country has not experienced a military coup.

On Tuesday, however, television viewers could have been forgiven for thinking that is exactly what had happened.

The five generals at the head of the Honduran armed forces made a rare appearance on national television to explain their role in the ouster in late June of President Manuel Zelaya, and to respond to charges that they acted in defense of the country’s elite.

In language that often veered into confessional, they repeated that they did not act to take sides in the political fight that had polarized the country, but out of obedience to the law. And they said they were confident that history would judge them as patriots for their actions.

The more they spoke, however, the more they showed how concerned they were that their image had been damaged by their actions, and the clearer it became that they continued to play a leading role in Honduran politics, nearly three decades since the end of military rule.

“They call us golpistas,” said Gen. Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, the head of the armed forces, using the Spanish word to describe leaders of a coup. “If that’s what we were, we would have called a national emergency and detained all of those who are out there causing trouble.”

Yet troubles have mounted for the military since troops detained Mr. Zelaya and loaded him onto a plane leaving the country five weeks ago. He was detained on charges that he was trying to change the Constitution in order to extend his time in power.

Military officials have been feeling increasingly isolated, as those who support Mr. Zelaya accuse them of being traitors and those who support the de facto regime, led by Roberto Micheletti, distance themselves from the decision to expel the president.

“In the end, there is a chance that the civilians will all kiss and make up, and the military is going to be held as the bad guys,” said a high-ranking official in the defense ministry, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the military’s position. “These guys are worried. They are worried about going to jail.”

On Tuesday morning, the military defended itself. For an hour and a half, the five camouflage-clad generals said their actions were aimed at defending the Constitution from a president who threatened to do away with it. Seated on a darkened set, the generals described themselves as men of humble beginnings, and said that as such, they would never act against the most vulnerable.

The program on which they appeared, “Face to Face,” was broadcast as international pressure continued to mount on the de facto government of Roberto Micheletti to allow Mr. Zelaya to return to power. The latest criticism came from Felipe Calderón, the president of Mexico, which Mr. Zelaya visited Tuesday.

During the visit, Mr. Zelaya said he was prepared to sign a proposed agreement forged after two rounds of negotiations mediated by President Óscar Arias of Costa Rica. The agreement would let Mr. Zelaya return to the presidency, but with significantly limited powers.

Mr. Micheletti, however, with staunch backing from this country’s business leaders, its religious community and its two major political parties, has refused to accept Mr. Arias’s plan, saying that the only way he would allow Mr. Zelaya back into the country was to face charges.

Gabo Jalil, the vice minister of defense in the de facto government, said in an interview that international human rights groups have made baseless accusations that the military is using “death squad” strategies against Mr. Micheletti’s opponents.

At the same time, another defense ministry official said, the officers responsible for the decision to load Mr. Zelaya onto a plane to Costa Rica on June 28 could face charges of abusing their authority because their orders were to present the ousted president for trial.

Edmundo Orellana, who was defense minister under Mr. Zelaya, cautioned against viewing the military as victims. He said he worried that the generals’ appearance on Tuesday signaled that the military, emboldened by its move against Mr. Zelaya, had decided to take more of a leading role in a government that had no legal international standing and only tenuous control of its institutions at home.

As the crisis continues, the government’s most important offices and public hospitals are under military guard. The military is posted at checkpoints along highways across the country. And it has been deployed to help the police manage the pro-Zelaya protests that have disrupted daily life in this country.

“They are the cornerstone of the government,” Mr. Orellana said of the military. “Without their support the whole thing collapses, and Micheletti knows it.”

The generals expressed regret Tuesday about two protesters who had been killed, but dismissed accusations that they were “assassins” as part of a strategy to tarnish their image. Though the military had once been considered a repressive tool of Washington’s campaign against communism, the officers said it had evolved into the country’s second- most-trusted institution, after the Catholic Church.

The generals said that in ousting Mr. Zelaya, they did not act in the interests of any “oligarchy.” Mr. Zelaya, they said, had become a threat to Honduran democracy, not only because he had disobeyed court orders, but also because he had allied Honduras with President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela.

As if taking a page from a cold war playbook, Gen. Miguel Ángel Garcia Padget said the military had disrupted Mr. Chávez’s plans to spread socialism across the region. “Central America was not the objective of this communism disguised as democracy,” he said. “This socialism, communism, Chávismo, we could call it, was headed to the heart of the United States.”