European HR Court condemns Spain for not investigating tortures

It refers to the case of Basque citizen Mikel San Argimiro who was arrested, held incommunicado and (allegedly, most likely) tortured for five days by the Guardia Civil (militarized police corps) in 2002. The sentence condemns Spain to pay 23,000 euros for the fault of investigating the denounces of torture. The sentence is likely to establish a precedent in the matter because Spain almost systematically does not investigate torture while in detention.

The forensic report in San Argimiro's torture case established the first day that he had many lesions, which were dismissed as they could be "compatible with the development of the arrest and the maneuvers of immobilization". This same argument was held by the state attorney in the case of Igor Portu and Mattin Sarasola, which, in an exceptional development, resulted in the accusation of several policemen (Guardia Civil again) which will be judged in a month. 

In the second day of arrest the forensic physician reported new lesions without attributing them to any particular cause. Four days later, after being sent to prison, another physician found a broken rib.

The European tribunal cannot judge the existence of not of torture, because there is no investigation but can judge that not investigating it is a serious fault, a breach of article 3 of the European Covenant on Human Rights forbidding torture.

There is a long list of similar cases involving Basques as victims; next in line are the well known cases of Unai Romano, whose photos with the face totally deformed by the beatings caused a tremendous impact, and Martxelo Otamendi, director of Basque language newspaper Egunkaria, which is one of the most aggravating cases of persecution against freedom of speech and linguistic diversity. 

 Unai Romano before and after his arrest

In the past the European tribunal has only ruled against Spain in few occasions, one involving Catalan nationalists, tortured in the context of the Olympic Games of 1992, the other two affect Basque victims: nationalist MP Miguel Castells, who was deprived of parliamentary immunity, judged and sent to prison for a crime of opinion (denouncing that the death squads of the 1980s were not being investigated) and the other happened last year, when Strasbourg condemned Spain to pay 170,000 euros to Mikel Iribarren, who was almost killed by a rubber bullet shot at short distance against his face. 

Hopefully this sentence will help to at least contain a bit the systematic impunity of police torture.

Source: Gara.

Child soldier's confession under torture is legal evidence for USA

The outrageous case of Guantanamo Nazi prison, which has not yet been dismantled by Barack Obama in spite of his electoral promises, goes one step further as Omar Khadr is going to face a farce trial under his military captors who took him from Afghanistan when he was 15 years old.

The accusation, for which he could face a life sentence, is to throw a grenade killing a US soldier, in the context of the US/NATO invasion of Afghanistan in 2002, of more than questionable legitimacy itself.

The only evidence: his own confession, obtained under the system of torture that is well known to operate in the colonial base in Cuba.

Under international law, child soldiers are to be considered victims.

Under any sensible law as well, confession obtained under tortures or possible tortures cannot be evidence. Otherwise it is going back to the times of the Inquisition.

However the military tribunal that is to judge Omar Khadr has accepted this only piece of "evidence" as valid. Khadr is however still hopeful that justice will prevail and rejects to enter a plea bargain.

The young Omar Khadr, now 23, has seen some of the best years of his life wasted in one of the worst prisons on Earth.

While he initially cooperated with his captors, he is now set not to accept the impositions of the farce trial and may even dismiss his military attorney out of lack of faith on the system.

The world doesn't get it, so it might work if the world sees the US sentencing a child to life in prison, it might show the world how unfair and sham this process is. And if the world doesn't see all this, to what world am I being released to? A world of hate ... and discrimination.

I hate to say this but he is damn right. It may cost him dearly but it is on this kind of fearless heroism that justice is built upon.

Source: Al Jazeera


____________

Update (Aug 13): Daphne Eviatar reports at the Huffington Post on the first day of the farce-trial which was suspended indefinitely (or for 30 days, not fully clear) after the defense lawyer suddenly collapsed while interrogating a witness.

It is interesting the report on the actual facts that seem to transpire in the trial: Omar Khadr was not just a minor at the time of the alleged "crime" (fighting in a war, defending his country from a foreign invasion if anything) but there is absolutely no evidence that he even fought at all. There are reports that the person who threw the grenade, killing a US soldier, was someone else and that Khadr did not even participate in the combat at all, where he had been brought by his father in a clear case of parental coercion.

They also report that he was shot in the back twice in spite of being unarmed, (i.e. a civilian minor) surviving almost miraculously. Daphne Eviatar asks: who is the real war criminal here?

Video: Basque police violence and arbitrary arrests in the General Strike of June 29

This video showing the actuation of the Basque Autonomous Police, Ertzaintza, against union pickets illustrates well how is the reality of police control and who exerts most violence in our daily lives, hidden behind masks so not be pointed at when they go back to their homes.

It's nothing that surprises me at all, as we have been suffering this systematic police harassment since I have memory and before, even before the Ertzaintza was created.

But maybe for readers from other socio-political contexts, where human rights are not just an empty word, this may be revealing.



The immediate source for this video is Spanish alternative news site La Haine, however I imagine it is a small part of the many sequences filmed on the day of the General Strike that were never broadcasted by any TV and that have been generously donated to the public domain by some anonymous worker tired of so much hypocrisy.

Even the Red Cross calls for the end of the Gaza blockade

It surprised me very much because the policy of the Red Cross is not to make public declarations in order to preserve their neutrality and keep the cooperation with all governments and other combatant forces.

It just underlines how dire and in violation of all humanitarian and even war law is the situation in Gaza, often compared with the Nazi concentration camps and the Warsaw ghetto.

The whole of Gaza's civilian population is being punished for acts for which they bear no responsibility. The closure therefore constitutes a collective punishment imposed in clear violation of Israel's obligations under international humanitarian law, declared the ICRC.

Source: BBC.

Morong 43: health professionals under the Inquisition in Philippines

There is today an interesting article at La Haine (in Spanish, an English version can be read here), by James Petras and Robin Eastman-Abaya, on the kind of Colombian-like violence and oligarchic terrorism that dominates the Filipino political landscape, where votes are forced by the means of institutional terror by a handful of feudal lords (and ladies, as President Macapagal).

A particular focus is the inquisitorial forgery of the case against 43 physicians and nurses that were arrested at a professional meeting in the locality of Morong, where they were discussing a plan for intervention in case of epidemic after the disaster caused by typhoon Ketsana.

They were rounded up and brought to a military camp where they were tortured. They are (gratuitously) accused of belonging to the guerrilla New People's Army.

The decane of the College of Physicians of the University of Philippines described the arrests, tortures and accusations as part of a pattern of terrorism against physicians comitted to the rural areas, where the situation is generally awful.

The issue has been covered in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet however the mainstream press has ignored the matter completely, because Gloria Macapagal and her terror regime are a key ally of the Empire in the area.

Arizona boycotted for racist law

The new racist law of Arizona (SB1070), as you may know, allows citizens to denounce policemen if they do not stop and identify potential illegal immigrants, that is in practical terms: anyone who looks Hispanic, but holds no provision to guarantee the human rights of these people nor to allow them to denounce police or the state for abuses. It basically makes sure that police will be pressed hard to treat all Hispanic people as potential criminals or otherwise be reported to their bosses by the local nazis.

It has been globally condemned as a racist law and has been denounced that way in pan-American forums such as the OAS and within the USA itself.

In fact, what is happening is that Arizona is becoming the focus of a widespread boycott, what seems to bother the governor of the state, Jan Bewer, and is harming the hostery business, which has reported significant falls in customers since the law was pushed ahead. But really if not being blond with bright blue eyes and speaking broken English with a nasal accent while spitting "chew" on the floor makes your suspicious to the state police, who may even arrest you for no reason... it's clear that it's better not to go to Arizona, just in case.

Hostery industrials have detached themselves from the racist law. Debbie Johnson gremial speaker for the industry in Arizona, said: "I would like to tell to all the people who is angry for the law that we did not support it. Many of our workers are Hispanic and we respect them".

Even the City of Los Angeles is pondering the possibility of boycotting Arizona. Public servants of San Francisco, another major Californian city, already decided to suspend all cooperation with Arizona except in health and police. Both city governments have asked citizens not to consume any product with Arizonan origin.

Signatures are already being gathered in order to get a referendum on the law. Paradoxically, Arizona has some unusual democratic provisions in its constitution allowing the citizens to call for referendums easily.

Source: La Haine[es].

Switzerland: prison guards let a prisoner die laughing

From Rebelión[es].

The guards of the Swiss prison of Bochuz, Vaud, Switzerland, let a prisoner die after he had set fire to his mattress. For hours they ignored him, making insulting commentaries and clear statements in favor of letting him die. They even prevented a rescue team from accessing arguing they were too few to control the prison.

Even more painfully, the prisoner, Skander Vogt, aged just 30, had been sentenced in 1999 to only 20 months of prison for minor crimes but had been kept arrested on a clause of the Swiss law that allows indefinite prison for those estimated to "compromise public security". Go figure: sentenced to 20 months (here you would not even go to prison at all) and jailed for 11 years!

Vogt had in the past climbed once to the prison roof demanding a dentist because he had a terrible tooth ache and the prison would not provide him one. He was held in isolation and would not be allowed to leave his cell unless fully chained. His only consolation a radio had been conficated by prison authorities the day before he set fire to the mattress in protest.

They let him die laughing.

What kind of democracy is this? What happened to this person's most basic human rights?

10 Basque prisoner rights militants arrested. Three attorneys among them. Two hospitalized after detention.

Ten Basque citizens related with the movement of support to prisoners were arrested yesterday by the Guardia Civil (military police) in Biscay and Gipuzkoa. Among them there are three attorneys, who were captured in their workplaces, and a teacher who had been "warned" in a previous irregular arrest and was taken at gunpoint before her young pupils.

Two of the arrested, Erramun Landa and Saioa Agirre, were brought tonight to the Basurto Hospital at Bilbao, what makes the usual suspicions of tortures more than likely. Erramun Landa, professor at the University of the Basque Country, is said to have a serious chronic illness, reason why the family has presented a demand of habeas corpus.

List of the arrested:

• Arantxa Zulueta, attorney. Arrested at her office in Bilbao.
• Naia Zurrriarain, former prisoner and co-worker of Zulueta. Arrested in the same office.
• Two attorneys (unknown identities yet) arrested at Hernani.
• José Luis Gallastegi, in charge of the fishing section of workers' union LAB and also former prisoner. Arrested at his office in Lekeitio.
  
• Erramun Landa, professor of Arts and famous painter. Arrested in Bilbao.
• Saioa Agirre, teacher. Arrested at her classroom in Sopela before all her young pupils. She had been "warned" by the Spanish police in a previous irregular detention and interrogation in the mountains.
  
• Juan Mari Jauregi. Arrested at his home in Donostia (San Sebastian).
• Asier Etxabe. Arrested in Donostia as well (no further details known yet).
• Joxe Domingo Aizpurua, former prisoner. Arrested in Usurbil. The police beat two of his nephews in the event.

In most of the cases, the police did not show any arrest order. Only the case of Agirre was exceptional in this sense because she resisted arrest until such order was shown.

The operation was ordered by the judge of the Spanish Inquisition (Audiencia Nacional) Fernando Grande-Marlaska. All prisoners are incommunicated. While the procedure is under secrecy, official sources had no problem filtering the contents of it to the press and even making public declarations. According to these the ten arrested are accused of "belonging" or "collaborating" with ETA.

However, considering the nature of the arrests, most political and social organizations in the Basque Country have denounced them as a political operation meant to damage the possible negotiation process demanded by Basque society and international actors.

Teachers and students protested at the University against the arrests

Several protests took place during searchs and in other contexts. Basque autonomous police charged violently against those concentrated in Lekeitio.

Source: Gara[es] (link 1, link 2, link 3, link 4).

Update (Apr 20): five of the arrested, plus another one later captured by French Police, have been left free, though in some cases the state attorney keeps the accusations. The people still arrested are the attorneys Jon Enparantza, Arantza Zulueta and Iker Sarriegi, along with Naia Zurriarain and Saioa Agirre.

Nothing is known yet of the declarations nor the state of the prisoners after five days in isolation in the infamous dungeons of the Spanish police.

The apparent lack of real substance of the accusation is underlined by the case of the only person arrested in French territory, David Plá, who was freed without charges after the French authorities saw no basis for the Spanish accusation. (Source).

Update (Apr 20): the arrested denounced threats of tortures, specifically the following techniques: "the bag" (axfisiation with a plastic bag), "the bathtube" (waterboarding), electrodes and beatings. The women among them also denounced sexual abuses. Gallastegi also denounced being forced to keep forced positions and make sit ups (source).

Malalai Joya denounces occupation of Afghanistan

There is a very interesting interview at Voltaire Net with this Afghan MP who was suspended for her progressive views and opposition to imperialist occupation and talibanization under it.

Some excerpts follow:

The aim of the war was never to create democracy and justice nor to uproot the terrorist groups. The war’s only purpose has been to perpetuate the occupation, install military bases and safeguard the takeover of a region that has substantial natural resources.

...

Look at the UN bombardments. In May 2009 in my own province more than 150 civilians were killed.

...

The base text [of the Afghan Constitution] might very well declare equality between men and women but the country is ruled by Sharia law. The so-called democracy of the official Constitution is systematically flouted. It’s only there as a token to attract international aid, which is then usually embezzled.

Today Afghanistan is a country where women – often girls as young as 14 or 15 years – fleeing their conjugal home to escape extreme violence, are considered criminal and are imprisoned. Yes, there’s an increase in the number of girls returning to school, but the records don’t take into account the girls who have to leave school again, due to threats to their safety and pressure from their families to get married.

Suicide has become the ultimate weapon of desperate young women, who are aware that there are alternatives but know that they will never have the right to them.

...

All of the troops must leave and the militia of the warlords must be dismantled. Democracy can’t be established by an occupying force that does nothing more than spread out and strengthen the Talibanization of my country.

...

Democratic parties and associations are more often than not fighting in secret. Let’s not forget that the Constitution bans the existence of all non-religious parties whose frame of reference does not include the Qur’an.

...

There are so many faceless heroes and heroines. Their battle is in their towns and villages. Why does no single western leader recognise the existence of a progressive movement that could emerge and play a role?

SourceForge boycotts Cuba!

I am outraged to find out that the supposedly main Open Source repository SourceForge.net dares to discriminate countries such as Cuba or Syria in following the abusive unilateral sanctions of the Helms-Burton law.

From the terms and conditions page:

Users residing in countries on the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control sanction list, including Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria, may not post Content to, or access Content available through, SourceForge.net.

From the cryptographic software hosting page:

At time of this writing, cryptographic software may not legally, knowingly be exported to Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Sudan or Syria.

The logical thing to do is to migrate that service to some other country where that stupid law does not apply. But seemingly that is not something that has gone through the brains of the promoters of SF.

Notice that such discrimination has nothing to do with any human rights sensitivity, as countries with much worse human rights records, such as Saudi Arabia, Israel, Egypt, Morocco or Colombia are not listed at all.

I came to know because the Brazilian public telecom company, SERPRO, has removed itself from this repository precisely because of the boycott to Cuba. Personally I will make my best from now on not collaborate with SF, not even downloading anything from its imperialist computers, until such arbitrary restrictions are removed.

Basques fill the streets to claim human rights for prisoners

A unitary march, backed by several political parties from all the Basque Country, filled the streets of Bilbao a few hours ago to claim that the human rights of Basque prisoners are respected.

"Basque prisoners to the Basque Country" reads the banner.

The demonstration had originally been called by the human rights organization Etxerat ("back home") that demands minimal guarantees for those Basques imprisoned for political crimes, who are typically scattered through all the Spanish geography, denied their legal rights as prisoners, applied chain-sentences that often amount to a life in prison and prevented to get any sort of the humanitarian exemptions considered in the law when severely ill. However the Spanish tribunals forbade that demonstration but Basque parties have managed to show some degree of unity and called another one instead, that was finally tolerated.

The demonstration was called by the Basque Nationalist Left, Aralar, Eusko Alkartasuna (Basque Solidarity), Abertzaleen Batasuna (Patriots' Unity) and Alternatiba (Alternative).

Source: Gara.

Israel admits organ theft from Palestinian corpses

After the clownish actuation of the pathetic neonazi Zionist minister of foreign affairs, Russian-born Avigador Liebermann, Israel had finally to admit that the Swedish newspapers who denounced organ theft to victims of political murders by the Israeli Army is for real.

Read more at Al Jazeera (again NATO propaganda media, aka "free press", like BBC seem to silence the matter).

Political terror rules Russia

Interesting interview today in Gara newspaper (in Spanish) to Svetlana Gannushkina, speaker of the human rights NGO Memorial, honored with a Sajarov price, on the terrible situation in Chechnya and Russia in general. Some excerpts:

Political murders are the norm, not the exception.

We are witnessing a Chechenization of all Russia.

Svetlana Gannushkina (Memorial)

On Chechnya:

[Razman Kadirov] and his men do whatever they want. There is no law. And fear has become part of the Chechnyan mentality. It is what happened in the times of Stalin, of Hitler, of Mussolini: people begin to love their oppressors and fear each other, just like in the old times.

In Chechnya we can't even speak of corruption as such. The term "corruption" means a collaboration between the political power and criminal organizations. In Chechnya there is no difference at all between the political and the criminal power: they are the same thing.

On the murder of Natalia Estemirova:

They went then to ask the neighbors and a woman said that at 9am they had brought Natalia into a car by force, while she cried she was being kidnapped. See how is fear that this woman, who knew Natalia and her work, did not dare to call anybody, not even Natalia's daughter, whom she also knew personally.

At the Kremlin:

Recently several representatives of human rights organizations were received by President Medvedev. We told him about the murders and he compared them to common crime. We don't say that the life one person is more valuable than other's, but political murders reveal the situation of society. The difference is huge because these reveal that power is allied with the criminals. And not just murders: the fact that they create false evidence like weapons or drugs in order to inculpate you, something that doesn't just happen in Chechnya but in all Russia, shows that something is very much rotten. It destroys all institutions and the legal system.

Multitudes support Egunkaria

Freezing temperatures did not stop Basques from pouring to the streets in support of the language and freedom of speech. An image is worth a thousand words:

Top representatives from nearly all sectors of Basque society were there:

• former Lehendakariak (presidents of the Basque autonomous region): Carlos Garaikoetxea and J.A. Ardanza
• Basque Nationalist Party, president of the Central Basque Committee: I. Urkullu,
• Nationalist Left: Jone Goirizelaia and Rufi Etxeberria
• Minor parties: Eusko Alkartasuna's secretary general Pello Urizar, United Left's coordinator Mikel Arana, Aralar's vice-coordinator Jon Abril
• Workers' unions: ELA's secretary general A. Muñoz, LAB's secretary general Ainhoa Etxaide (other unions, like the pro-Spanish Comisiones Obreras, the teachers' union EILAS, farmer's union EHNE and transport workers' union HIRU, etc. also supported the demo)
  
• Representatives of the Basque culture: Kontseilua's secretary general Xabier Mendiguren, Basque School's Confederation's president Koldo Tellitu, Basque Bertsolari Union's president Iñaki Murua, well-known writers Kirmen Uribe and Angel Lertxundi - among others

Basque language newspaper Egunkaria was clausurated in 2003 on made-up accusations of collaborating with ETA, in spite of the government having dropped the case out of shame, the trial began a few days ago after the the judge in charge admitted the private accusation of two fascist organizations, showing who does in fact rule Spain: Franco's ghost.

Source: Gara.

Aminatu won! She's back in West Sahara.

Sahrawi human rights activist Aminatu Haidar, who has fought a brave nonviolent struggle for 33 days, with the only weapon of hunger strike, is reported to have arrived to her home in El Aaiun (West Sahara).

She has arrived accompanied by her sister Leila and the doctor who attended her at Canary Islands. Supporters were waiting for her at the ariport and the Moroccan occupation authorities returned her passport after arrival.

Her return has caused demonstrations of happiness and support in the Sahrawi capital, where people went to the streets chanting Long live the Sahrawi People, out with Morocco. Occupation police forces attacked them and cut access to the Haidar home. The Committee for the Defense of the Right of Self-Determination of the West Saharan People (CODAPSO by its Spanish acronym) denounced Moroccan police for arbitrary arrests and violence against demonstrators.

Before leaving for Sahara, Aminatu Haidar declared that this is a victory for International Law, for Human Rights, for international justice and for the Sahrawi cause.

Aminatu Haidar when leaving the hospital for the airplane that would bring her back home

24 hours before leaving Lanzarote, she had willingly gone to hospital, as her health was already very poor and was suffering of stomach pains and dehydration.

Source: Gara (link 1, link 2).

UN trying to find a solution for Haidar

The Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon, has met the Moroccan foreign minister in an attempt to solve the situation of Sahrawi human rights activist Aminatu Haidar, illegally expelled to Spain in November and since then in hunger strike in demand of her right to return to West Sahara, largely occupied by Morocco since 1975.

Ban Ki-Moon also talked by phone with the Spanish foreign minister. The responsability of this Kafkian situation lays on both the shoulders of Morocco, who could not legally expel her or deprive her of the Moroccan nationality, and on those of Spain, who could not accept her, being an illegal immigrant who has not asked for any sort of polytical assylum.

Source: Swissinfo (found via Hala Bedi Irratia).

Al Jazeera also has a report and video on the situation of Haidar, who is holding her hunger strike at the Tenerife Airport bus station, needing already help and a wheelchair for something as basic as going to the toilet.

POLISARIO Front warns that if Aminatu Haidar dies, the truce is over

Aminatu Haidar is a Sahrawi citizen and human rights activist who was expelled from the territory occupied by Morocco to Canary Islands (Spain) after she wrote down in her police file that her country of residence is Sahara (meaning West Sahara or the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, as is officially recognized by many countries).

Since then she has mantained a hunger strike for more than 20 days and her life now is at increased risk. However she refuses to be hospitalized on fear of Spanish manipulations or forced feeding. She has also rejected the offer of political assylum by Spain and demands to be returned to Moroccan-administered territory.

I have several times thought of covering the matter but, with so many things going on, I have failed to do it until now.

Aminatu Haidar is known as the Sahrawi Gandhi

Anyhow, the case is that the POLISARIO Front (acronym of Frente POpular para la LIberación de SAguía el Hamra y RÍO de Oro, names of the former Spanish provinces in West Sahara) has declared that if Aminatu Haidar dies, they will abandon their long standing UN-sponsored truce, that has given no results besides diplomatic blah-blah, and return to armed struggle. It was none less that Taleb Omar, leader of the Front and Prime Minister of the disputed Republic who made this warning to the Spanish state news station RNE, so it is something that must be taken very very seriously.

Oddly enough, Taleb Omar demands that the Law of Foreigners is strictly applied in this case, which would result in Haidar being expelled to Morocco immediatly (and Morocco would have to accept her because of the bilateral treaties on this matter). He had very rough words for Spain, which is accused again of being accomplice of the Moroccan tyranny (also a privileged ally of the USA and France) and compared disfavorably the role of Spain in the Sahrawi case with that of Portugal in the similar case of East Timor, where the former metropolis had a proactive commitment to the independence of its ex-colony.

Source: Rebelión.

Israeli Apartheid: real and with legal implications worldwide

Similarly to the previous report by a South African committee, this new paper by Luciana Coconi ratifies the idea that what happens in Palestine has no other name than Apartheid, which is a crime against humankind and therefore Israeli officials and collaborators of all sorts can be prosecuted internationally anywhere on Earth.

The paper, titled Apartheid against the Palestinian people, has been published by ACSUR and is available in English, Spanish and Catalan (direct link to English PDF here).
.

Sahrawis could face death penalty

Seven Sahrawi citizens are being subject in Morocco to military trials for "treason". Their crime, to meet with the refugees at the Tindouf camps in Algeria and therefore having contact with the Polisario Front.

They were originally kidnapped by the occupation forces upon their return to West Sahara. Other five people were similary kidnapped but abandoned then in the desert.

The seven activists are jailed in the infamous high security prison of Salé, near Rabat. They are being accused of "attack against territorial integrity, against national security and meeting the enemy, and could even face the death penalty.

Morocco is an authoritarian regime where the monarch's power is absolute. It is, together with Swaziland, the last monarchy of Africa. In the 1970s, Morocco annexed unilaterally the former Spanish colony of West Sahara against the will of the people, sparking the continuity of the anti-colonialist guerrilla. The annexation is not recognized internationally and Morocco is in fact an occupying power.

Source: Rebelión.
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Interview with Manuel Zelaya

A whole month has passed since the return of the constitutional President Manuel Zelaya to Honduras, where he is still refuged in the Brazilian embassy. With this occasion, there is an interview with Mel, as the president is popularly known in his country, in Basque newspaper Gara that I am translating here:

Gara: After a month since your return to Honduras, which is the current situation?

Zelaya: Honduras is living an unprecedented struggle. It is the first time that in our country an action of this nature is being carried on to revert a coup d'êtat. Today we are fighting to ammend, to rectify, the error they comitted. All this constitutes a challenge to us and the International Community.

G: In what stage are the negotiations now?

Z: They are paralyzed, suspended. They have been obstructed by Micheletti and the de facto regime. With this boycott and this obstruction to dialog, they have become a totalitarian regime that is challenging all Humankind. They are a clone of the regime that Idi Amin established in Uganda or that of Mobutu in Congo. That same thing is what they are applying in Central America these days.

G: Do you believe that the fact of blocking the negotiations could be a strategy by the coupists to gain time until elections?

Z: What they are doing is insulting the intelligence of the whole World, because it is not possible that all countries of planet Earth are wrong and they are right.

G: If the coupists do not present any other proposal, what decision will you make?

Z: We will continue in our determination of fighting for justice. In this we are being supported by all societies, all the governments and the Honduran people. We know that reason and truth accompany us, so we are spiritually calm.

G: Have you thought of any alternative to revert this situation?

Z: The struggle that is happening in Honduras has several fronts: national, international, political, social, economical, technological, juridical... At this moment we are working in all those fronts to try to produce an exit to this situation.

G: Do you think that the International Community has done all they could?

Z: I think that they have done up to where they could. Now there is still another stretch to be transited and I do hope that they will keep the support for the government of this country.

G: The USA condemned the coup but later qualified of "irresponsible" your decision of returning to Honduras and did not even raise this issue in the 64th Assembly of the United Nations. What do you think of their position?

Z: Those are isolated incidents of some officers that do not correlate with their official position of reverting the coup. I am in agreement with the stand of President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton.

G: Do you believe that the coup in Honduras can set up a precedent and favor that a similar situation could happen elsewhere in Latin America?

Z: Yes. Just with the coup having resisted more than 100 days, it is already causing serious weaknesses in the American democratic system. This happens precisely because of the impotence of international organizations like the OAS or United Nations when faced with an act of force that violates the state of rights, the Democratic Charter of the OAS, the United Nations' Charter and the International Declaration of Human Rights.

Faced with the impotence of international organizations, this coup is actually weakening the image of Latin American democracy. If this coup would be legitimized by means of the electoral fraud that is being prepared, with repression and media suppression, we would be at the doors of the death of Latin American democracy.

G: One of your delegates at the negotiation table, Víctor Meza, alerted that the failure of negotiations could lead to a "social conflict". Do you share this idea?

Z: If you review the social and economical indicators, and those related to social conflict, you will notice that there is already a social conflict. There is in fact a major and widespread social conflict because of the coup. All that is being suffered already by Honduras and all Central America.

G: Do you believe that the level of confrontation will grow if no agreement is reached?

Z: If there is no solution to the problem, it is clear that the level of unhappiness among the people towards the military regime that now appoints the presidents will grow more and more.

G: How do you evaluate the struggle kept by the people in these 116 of resistence?

Z: Extraordinary. It has always been a utopy for Hondurans that the people gets organized, that the people manifests itself and acquires a consciousness of its rights. Now we are living all that in our flesh.

G: Nicaraguan President, Daniel Ortega, said that the Honduran people is acquiring weapons for their struggle. What do you tell him?

Z: The resistence of the Honduran people is a peaceful resistence, and that has been demonstrated in all these more than one hundred days: there is not a single casualty among the military nor the policemen, no resister has been captured having weapons. It rather happens the opposite: more than 89 soldiers with plain clothes have been captured among civilians making violent actions.

The Honduran resistence is peaceful. If there is any expression out of these parameters, it will be particular individuals or groups but they are outside of the terms in which we are defining the struggle, peacefully and democratically through active nonviolence: public demonstrations, strikes... but not armed movements. We oppose radically armed movements and that is why we have not asked for blue helmets nor any military intervention in Honduras.

Our triumph will be to defeat the troops that disrupted the democratic process in a pacific manner. If we could not achieve this, we would keep struggling until achieving some day our main victory: to know that ethical and peaceful struggles can defeat armies and violence.

G: How many people has died at the hands of the police and the army?

Z: More than 100 people have been murdered in these days. We have the names and we have the evidence. But, besides, there are more than 3000 arrested and more than 600 have required hospitalization: people who have been beaten, and even tortured and raped.

G: This last Sunday the High Commissioner of the UN arrived to Tegucigalpa to investigate the human rights' violations since the coup. Have they already contacted you?

Z: We have kept occasional contact but we have not met yet. But of course that we will meet.

G: Do you expect that the investigation ends up with a strong enough report?

Z: Yes. All their declarations have been coherent with reality and have been strong in the condemnation of the regime. Because here they went from a coup to a dictatorial regime that decrees measures against the human rights of the people, that suppresses liberties and media.

G: After a month living in the Brazilian embassy, how do you feel?

Z: In spite of all the tension that we are living through, I have a strong spirit and keep my consciousness standing. I am peaceful, spiritually optimistic and a democrat. But also I have much faith in my formation and that is why I am in politics: because I believe that it is a path that creates strength and hope. We have to stand up through all that path until the societies from the various parts of the World make their rights to be respected.
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