Argentina Defence Official Believes the Honduran Army is Under Unbearable Pressure

[magbana]

Source: Buenos Aires Herald

BUENOS AIRES HERALD: Honduras army under unbearable pressure
Posted by: "Fred Feldman" [e-mail]
Sun Jul 12, 2009 9:32 am (PDT)


http://www.buenosairesherald.com/BreakingNews/ViewPrint...

Honduran situation
Argentina Defence official believes the Honduran Army is under unbearable
pressure

Argentine Undersecretary of Defence and former Ambassador in Tegucigalpa
(2004/2007) Alfredo Forti believes that the Honduran Army is undergoing an
unbearable pressure and that many of its officers fear that the outcome
following the coup d'etat of June 28 could be a blood bath, said in an
interview with a local newspaper.

"Some Colonels have been transmitting abroad messages saying that they are
on the limit of enduring the pressure they are under and that they believe
the time will come when they will have to depart from their present
position, because otherwise there could be a blood bath", said Forti.

"These are expressions of a fracture within the Armed services. I do not
know if it is because there are Constitutionalist officers or if they simply
realize that it is a lost situation and are trying to find a way out", added
Forti.

The former Ambassador explained that in order to understand the June 28 coup
d'etat, the profound links between big business and politics in Honduras
should be taken into account.

"The business class has an almost monopolistic control over many sectors of
the economy, and at the same time, a very strong influence over the two
traditional political forces, the Liberal and National parties", he said.

According to Forti, Zelaya (a Liberal Party member) tried to implement a
series of measures that entailed a structural reform affecting the interests
and privileges of many of these groups.

"The first consequence was that Zelaya was forsaken by his own Liberal party
and lost his majority in Congress. The other big party (the National party)
was already in the opposition. This opposition Congress representing
business interests chose the present Supreme Court. They all belong to the
same sector. In Honduras the election of judges is made respecting almost
exactly the percentage of political affiliations in Congress. It explains
why that same Congress also appointed the Attorney General. There is a
complete coordination between the Attorney General, the judiciary and
Congress. Together with the military, they all staged the coup d'etat",
Forti said.

The Undersecretary said that "from the Argentine Defence ministry we condemn
the Honduran episode. We are concerned that it may set a sort of precedent
that could be repeated in the future in some other country".

Read more: http://www.buenosairesherald.com/BreakingNews/ViewPrint...

---

A very dangerous situation appears to be brewing.

[Joe Chi Minh]

1. As if the Latin American people haven't suffered enough. Not often I've felt sorry for

Latin American military leaders, either.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Hoping most dearly the leaders of the military will finally put the interests of the country first,

and return the government the people have already chosen, through their votes.

If only they'll look for the RIGHT actions to take, rather than what's safest for their careers.

Thank you, magbana.

[bemildred]

3. And worst of all, the bloodbath might include them.

Good reason to think it over.

[Flaneur]

4. Hmm, does the "blood bath" refer to possible fighting WITHIN the military?

Or to the military possibly massacring civilian coup opponents?

[provis99]

6. several army battalions are refusing to take orders from the military dictators

It very well could be a bloodbath within the military.

[bertman]

5. Let's hope the military is having second thoughts about propping up a dictator who is

bought and sold by corporate interests.

[Judi Lynn]

7. Reminder of who the men are who led the coup:

Published on Wednesday, July 1, 2009 by Facing South
Honduran Coup Shines Spotlight on Controversial U.S. Military Training School
by Chris Kromm

Before the torture debates about Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, there was the School of Americas -- a U.S. military training school in Fort Benning, Georgia, which has trained some of the worst human rights abusers in Latin America.

As Facing South reported yesterday, two of the leaders of the Honduran coup -- General Romeo Vasquez Velasquez, leader of the armed forces, and Gen. Luis Javier Prince Suazo, head of the Air Force which transported the president to Costa Rica -- were trained at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, formerly known as the School of the Americas.

The Honduran coup leaders are just two of over 60,000 Latin American graduates of the school, which since 1984 has been headquartered at Fort Benning, Georgia. The SOA Watch database lists 3,566 graduates of the school from Honduras alone.

As watchdog groups like School of Americas Watch have documented, many of the school's trainees have been directly linked to death squads, killings of clergy and other aid workers, kidnappings and other gross violations of human rights.

The School of Americas/WHISC has also been linked to torture. In 1996, Dana Priest of The Washington Post broke the story about use of training manuals at the school that taught students many controversial techniques:

U.S. Army intelligence manuals used to train Latin American military officers at an Army school from 1982 to 1991 advocated executions, torture, blackmail and other forms of coercion against insurgents, Pentagon documents released yesterday show.
Used in courses at the U.S. Army's School of the Americas, the manual says that to recruit and control informants, counterintelligence agents could use "fear, payment of bounties for enemy dead, beatings, false imprisonment, executions and the use of truth serum," according to a secret Defense Department summary of the manuals compiled during a 1992 investigation of the instructional material and also released yesterday.

General Romeo Vasquez Velasquez, widely credited with spearheading this week's military coup, appears to have been trained at SOA when torture was part of the curriculum.

More:
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/07/01-7