They're torturing me, Honduras' Manuel Zelaya claims
Honduras' fallen leadt `er told The Miami Herald he is being subjected to mind-altering gas and radiation -- and that Israeli mercenaries' are planning to assassinate him.
TEGUCIGALPA -- It's been 89 days since Manuel Zelaya was booted from power. He's sleeping on chairs, and he claims his throat is sore from toxic gases and ``Israeli mercenaries'' are torturing him with high-frequency radiation.

``We are being threatened with death,'' he said in an interview with The Miami Herald, adding that mercenaries were likely to storm the embassy where he has been holed up since Monday and assassinate him.

``I prefer to march on my feet than to live on my knees before a military dictatorship,'' Zelaya said in a series of back-to-back interviews.

Zelaya was deposed at gunpoint on June 28 and slipped back into his country on Monday, just two days before he was scheduled to speak before the United Nations. He sought refuge at the Brazilian Embassy, where Zelaya said he is being subjected to toxic gases and radiation that alter his physical and mental state.

Witnesses said that for a short time Tuesday morning, soldiers used a device that looked like a large satellite dish to emit a loud shrill noise.

Honduran police spokesman Orlin Cerrato said he knew nothing of any radiation devices being used against the former president.

``He says there are mercenaries against him? Using some kind of apparatus?'' Cerrato said. ``No, no, no, no. Sincerely: no. The only elements surrounding that embassy are police and military, and they have no such apparatus.''

Police responded to reports of looting throughout the city Tuesday night. Civil disturbances subsided Wednesday afternoon, when a crush of people rushed grocery stores and gas stations in the capital.

Israeli government sources in Miami said they could not confirm the presence of any ``Israelis mercenaries'' in Honduras.

Zelaya, 56, is at the embassy with his family and other supporters, without a change of clothes or toothpaste. The power and water were turned back on, and the U.N. brought in some food. Photos showed Zelaya, his trademark cowboy hat across his face, napping on a few chairs he had pushed together.

``Look at the shape he's in -- sleeping on chairs,'' de facto President Roberto Micheletti told a local TV news station.

Micheletti took Zelaya's place after the military, executing a Supreme Court arrest warrant, burst into Zelaya's house and forced him into exile. The country's military, congress, Supreme Court and economic leaders have backed the ouster, arguing that Zelaya was bent on conducting an illegal plebiscite that they feared would ultimately lead to his reelection.

Micheletti said he was prepared to meet with Zelaya and a delegation from the Organization of American States, but only to discuss one topic: November elections.

On Wednesday, the U.N. cut off all technical aid that would have supported and given credibility to that presidential race. Conditions do not exist for credible elections, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said.

``I proposed dialogue, and they answered with bullets, bombs, a state of siege and by closing the airport,'' Zelaya said.

Zelaya told The Herald that Washington should be taking a stronger stance against the elite economic interests that ``financed and benefited'' from the coup that ousted him three months ago.

If President Barack Obama hit Honduras with commercial sanctions or suspended free-trade agreements, the coup ``would last just five minutes.''

The Obama administration suspended economic aid to Honduras and withdrew the visas of members of the current administration.

About 75 percent of Honduras' commerce depends on the United States, Zelaya said. And because powerful economic forces were behind Zelaya's ouster, Obama should hit those forces where it hurts most, Zelaya said.

``I have told this to Obama, to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to the U.S. Embassy here and anyone else who will listen,'' Zelaya said. ``They know how to act. Until now, they have been very prudent.''

With Micheletti showing a new willingness to talk with the OAS, and the U.N. Security Council set to meet to discuss the embassy situation soon, it isn't the moment for more penalties, the U.S. State Department said.

``Right now, when there are openings for dialogue, is not the time to announce new sanctions,'' a State Department official said.

Dates for the OAS visit, which could include emissaries from 10 countries, are being worked out, the official said.

Spokesman Ian Kelly said the U.N. Security Council meeting came at the request of the Brazilian government. No date has been set for the meeting.

``In general, we continue to work with our partners in the U.N. and the OAS to come up with means to promote a dialogue and defuse the tensions, of course with the ultimate goal of resolving the crisis,'' State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said at a media briefing in Washington. ``And we're continuing our consultations with our partners in the region, and enlisting wherever we can their assistance in this process.''

The U.S. Embassy here spent the day denying rumors that Zelaya planned to move to American grounds. The rumor may have started because U.S. Embassy vehicles were used to evacuate Zelaya supporters who left the Brazilian Embassy willingly Tuesday.

``The embassy has been turned into a bunker for Zelaya,'' Assistant Foreign Minister Martha Lorena Alvarado de Casco told The Herald. ``He's turned it into his headquarters, and he is using it to call for insurrection.''

Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim told CNN en Español that his government asked Zelaya to tone down his rhetoric while he remains an embassy guest.

``The word `death' should not even be mentioned,'' he said.

Rioting broke out in various parts of the capital Tuesday night, and lines hundreds deep formed at supermarkets when desperate shoppers scrambled to buy food after a round-the-clock curfew was briefly lifted.

``I have no food in my house,'' said Patti Vásquez, a housewife who, after two hours, still had not reached the front doors of a supermarket in an upscale shopping mall. ``I need to get milk and juice and eggs.''

Zelaya says he has no plans to leave the embassy anytime soon.

. ``I am the president the people of Honduras chose,'' Zelaya said. ``A country can't have two presidents -- just one.''

THE OPPENHEIMER REPORT
Fate of Honduras crisis will hinge on riots
By Andres Oppenheimer
aoppenheimer@MiamiHerald.com

Diplomats see three possible outcomes of the bizarre political crisis in Honduras, a country with two leaders -- one in control, the other powerless but recognized by the world community -- since ousted President Manuel Zelaya's brazen return earlier this week.

The final outcome will ultimately depend on whether Zelaya, who took refuge at the Brazilian Embassy in the Honduran capital, can muster enough support on the streets to turn the country ungovernable, and trigger a greater international intervention to prevent more violence and reinstate him.

``In the end, it will depend on which of the two presidents has more pawns,'' one well-placed Latin American ambassador said, using a chess analogy. ``If there are big riots and deaths, the United States and Latin American countries will be more likely to step up their pressure for Zelaya's return to office.''

POSSIBILITIES

Here are the most likely scenarios for what's likely to happen in Honduras:

• Scenario 1: Chaos followed by U.N. intervention. Zelaya supporters take to the streets, provoking an even greater repression from the de facto government of President Roberto Micheletti. There are several dead and wounded. Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez claims that there is a U.S.-backed ``genocide'' against the Honduran people.

Micheletti's government decides to force Zelaya out of the embassy to arrest him, invoking a Supreme Court ruling that ordered Zelaya's arrest before he was ousted June 28, citing his violation of constitutional rules that barred him from running for re-election.

In addition to cutting water and electricity to the Brazilian Embassy, the Micheletti government forces Zelaya out of the building by bombarding it with heavy-metal rock music, much like the United States successfully did when former Panamanian strongman Manuel A. Noriega took refuge at the Vatican Embassy in Panama in 1990.

Brazil calls on the United Nations Security Council to intervene in the Honduran crisis. Unlike the Organization of American States, the United Nations can send peace troops to a country when its Security Council determines that there is a risk of regional violence. Much like in Haiti in 1994, when the Security Council authorized a multinational force to restore ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, U.N. peace troops descend on Honduras to bring back Zelaya and supervise the November elections.

• Scenario 2: Short-lived chaos, followed by elections. Zelaya remains inside the Brazilian Embassy, and -- despite scattered incidents of violence by his supporters -- the Micheletti government manages to restore order. After a few days of commotion, the Honduran crisis fades from the headlines.

Washington and Latin American countries begin pondering whether to accept the results of the Nov. 29 elections convened by the Micheletti government. Several countries begin to make the point that most of Latin America's current democracies were born from elections called by dictatorships. In addition, they argue that the Honduran coup was not a traditional military coup because its leaders never intended to stay in power.

``The idea could gain ground that this is a new kind of coup, a `corrective coup,' which doesn't seek to remain in power for many years, but rather to block [an illegal] presidential action,'' said Dante Caputo, a special adviser to OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza.

• Scenario 3: A government of national unity. Under growing international pressure, Micheletti and Zelaya start negotiating a coalition government with some kind of Zelaya representation in power, that gives everybody a face-saving way out. The new national unity government, based on a proposal by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, will supervise the November elections.

LIKELY TO FADE AWAY

My opinion: As an eternal optimist, I think we will see something close to the third scenario. Perhaps prompted by the threat of a U.N. intervention, the Micheletti government is likely to accept a dialogue aimed at ensuring internat-

ional recognition of the

November election's

outcome.

Barring that, the winner of the November elections may convene new elections, under international supervision, to solve the crisis.

Either way, as often happens, this crisis is likely to fade away from the headlines soon. Neither Zelaya nor Micheletti are deep-thinking statesmen, nor charismatic leaders. I would be surprised if many of us will remember their names a few years down the road -- let alone miss them.

Zeleya is delusional, and of course the immature and inexperienced Obama supports him!

Zelaya is Kaput

I don't understand why Americans think the rule of law applies only to rules they agree with. Coup de etats are illegal changes of government, even if the majority of the population supports the coup. This is the same thought process ( if you can call it thinking), by those "real Americans" who think they can change what the MAJORITY of Voters voted for. The same Americans who criticize Venezuelans, Bolivians and Ecuadorans for democraticly electing would be" Presidents for life", have nothing but praise for the removal of an elected government. Theres a name for people like this, they're called hipocrites.

Obama's Man in Honduras Sees Jewish Conspiracy

Anyone who's been following this story should have noted by now the major difference between Manuel Zelaya, the ousted former president, and Roberto Micheletti, the current president. It isn't that Zelaya is a communist and Micheletti a liberal democrat (though that much seems clear). No, the real difference seems to be that Zelaya is a delusional megalomaniac -- with the full support of the Obama administration. The Miami Herald gets the interview and Zelaya uses it to accuse Israeli mercenaries of trying to kill him with toxic gas and radiation:

It's been 89 days since Manuel Zelaya was booted from power. He's sleeping on chairs, and he claims his throat is sore from toxic gases and "Israeli mercenaries'' are torturing him with high-frequency radiation.

"We are being threatened with death,'' he said in an interview with The Miami Herald, adding that mercenaries were likely to storm the embassy where he has been holed up since Monday and assassinate him.

"I prefer to march on my feet than to live on my knees before a military dictatorship,'' Zelaya said in a series of back-to-back interviews.

Zelaya was deposed at gunpoint on June 28 and slipped back into his country on Monday, just two days before he was scheduled to speak before the United Nations. He sought refuge at the Brazilian Embassy, where Zelaya said he is being subjected to toxic gases and radiation that alter his physical and mental state.

So how long until J Street puts out a statement condemning the Israeli government for meddling in Honduras?

You don't have to like empyt shirts like Zelya, Chavez et al.. I've got no use for these wind bag populist who claim to be the savour of the poor and end up doing nothing for them, nothing of any real substance. If the Honduran people are realy tired of him vote him out, if he can fool the people into giving him another term beyond the constituional dictates, then shame on them. I cannot support illegal activity because it suits my needs.

Talk like a communist, walk like a democrat. That has been the paradoxical strategy pursued by Latin America's new radical left — at least until now. Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez will gush effusively in the presence of Fidel Castro one moment, then just as earnestly he'll remind the world that he submits to the kind of free elections and free speech that Castro and his brother, Cuban President Raúl Castro, still forbid.But in recent months, Chávez and his allies from Argentina to Nicaragua have taken steps that critics say make them walk too Cuban for comfort — especially when it comes to independent media, an institution critical to the region's modernization. Chávez's socialist Bolivarian Revolution recently revoked the broadcast licenses of 32 private radio stations and two television stations — it plans to take more off the air soon — and just passed a sweeping and often vague new education law outlawing media material that "produces terror in children" or "goes against the values of the Venezuelan people." (Read about why the Hollywood left loves Hugo Chávez.)

In Argentina, President Cristina Fernández is about to win a measure that will drastically reduce the number of licenses for privately owned media while ratcheting up the presence of state-owned broadcasters. The Miami-based Inter American Press Association (IAPA), while acknowledging that press freedom still exists in Bolivia, warned recently of an increasingly "dangerous climate" for media under President Evo Morales. Ecuador's national assembly is debating a bill that would give President Rafael Correa's government — which recently trumpeted the creation of "revolutionary defense committees" that opponents call Cuban-style organs for spying on citizens — control over even private media content. In Nicaragua, President Daniel Ortega wants to require all private media to employ only reporters affiliated with the journalism guild controlled by his Sandinista Party. Anyone else caught practicing the profession in Nicaragua would be considered illegal and subject to criminal punishment. (Read about Obama's challenges in Latin America.)

Are the heirs of Che Guevara discarding their democratic credentials for authoritarian fiat? Are they going Cuban in response to economic difficulties that could loosen their holds on power? The left hardly owns the market on intimidating the press in Latin America today, as evidenced by media-averse conservatives like Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and the Honduran coup leaders who ousted President Manuel Zelaya this summer. But "President Chávez and his bloc of allies all want to consolidate power, neutralize any opposition and remain in office beyond their elected terms," says Robert Rivard, editor of the San Antonio Express-News and chair of the IAPA committee on freedom of expression, which held an emergency forum in Caracas over the weekend. "They probably can't gain the kind of grip on their respective countries without passing laws to legitimize their moves and limit independent media."

Andrés Eloy Ruiz, a humanities professor at Caracas' Central University and a spokesman for the Venezuelan education law that contains the new media rules, calls that nonsense. "This is not a 'Cuban' law," he says. Ruiz dismisses charges that the measure, which for the first time mandates bilingual education for indigenous children but also demands classrooms based on Bolivarian principles, will impose socialist instruction in schools. "There are no private schools or media in Cuba, but we guarantee their rights here," he adds. "We're simply requiring them to be responsible. The terrorist opposition wants to sow fear in our population."

Chávez's opponents say the law's reference to irresponsible media is just code for anything he deems unacceptable — especially if it's printed or broadcast by media not aligned with his government. Last month, dozens of Chávez supporters attacked the Caracas studios of the Globovisión TV network, a loud critic of his regime, throwing tear gas and injuring three people. Chávez, who has threatened to revoke Globovisión's license, condemned the assault and its leader was arrested. But a week later, 12 journalists passing out leaflets criticizing the education law were hospitalized after being beaten by people identified as Chavistas.

Aides to Chávez — who is up for re-election in 2012 and won a referendum this year that eliminates presidential term limits — say the broadcast licenses are being withdrawn for technical reasons. And they remind critics that Globovisión, whose anti-Chávez fare is often more politically gratuitous than journalistically professional, openly backed a 2002 coup attempt against Chávez (as did the RCTV network, whose license Chávez revoked in 2007). Chávez backers also insist the moves are meant to reduce Venezuela's traditional media monopolies and oligopolies.

Chávez does allow more media criticism than his detractors acknowledge. But he has a history of handing annulled private broadcast permits to state or state-supporter media instead of to the kind of unbiased outlets that his fiercely polarized society needs. Argentina's increasingly unpopular Fernández, whose Peronist Party lost its majority in recent congressional elections, is also playing the anti-monopoly card — especially against her arch foe, the Clarín media conglomerate, whose directors she calls "multimedia generals" comparable to the right-wing military generals who ousted then President Isabel Perón in 1976. Fernández's new law would allow private media only a third of all broadcast licenses while granting state and nonprofit outlets the other two-thirds, forcing giants like Clarín to sell off chunks of their media assets. The bill looks set to win final passage next week in Congress, where the Peronists are enjoying their final weeks at the helm.

Fernández, to her credit, rejects the kind of criminalization of libel and other media misbehavior that is built into Venezuela's law. But opponents call her law a desperate gambit to recoup her waning clout and win re-election in 2011 for herself or her husband and predecessor, former President Néstor Kirchner. Adrián Ventura, a columnist for the Buenos Aires daily La Nación, wrote last week that Fernandez "has started to unveil a true systematic policy of violation of freedom of expression. We are on the same road" as Venezuela.

Ecuador's Correa, who won a new four-year term this year after scoring a revamped constitution that permits presidential re-election, introduced an Orwellian-sounding bill last week that would make his government the regulator of all media content. That includes the opinions of "all who practice mass communications," said the measure's congressional sponsor, Rolando Panchana. On Sept. 18, Correa moved to shut down the TV network Teleamazonas, which he insists is conspiring to overthrow him, and which he charges broadcast a recording of him without his permission.

What worries Correa foes just as much are his new neighborhood defense committees, which they say are designed after Cuba's notorious committees for the defense of the revolution, or CDRs. Doris Soliz, Correa's Minister of Citizen Participation, denies that the Ecuadorian committees "are the CDRs of Cuba" and insists they won't "diverge from our democratic path" or promote "spying among Ecuadorians." But after his inauguration last month, Correa said he wanted to see one "in every home, in every neighborhood" to "be prepared for those who want to destabilize" his socialist revolution.

Nicaragua's erstwhile Marxist Ortega, who calls his journalist critics "the children of Goebbels" after Hitler propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels, was the subject of a special report over the summer by the New York City–based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) for his government's harassment of independent media. His bill would force every journalist to be licensed and signed up with the Sandinista-controlled Nicaraguan Journalists Association, an obscure guild to which only about 20% of reporters in the country now belong.

But even the Sandinista leadership in the National Assembly appears to be backing away from the bill. Indeed, says the CPJ report, Ortega's antimedia animosity "is unusual in the region." And given how things seem to be going in the region, that's saying a lot.

Those accusations are maybe true.

In 2004, white mercenary Afrikaans of South Africa were payed to kill haitians in Cité Soleil.

hogwash