Honduras leader says country ready to ‘go to war’ as riots flare
Published: June 29, 2009
Updated 7 months ago
Updated (below): Interim president appears to threaten Venezuela; U.S. not calling military-led takeover a “coup”
Clashes flared Monday between Honduran troops and demonstrators protesting the ousting of President Manuel Zelaya leaving several people injured, an AFP photographer said.
“There are riots, police are cracking down … heard shooting. There are some injured,” the photographer said.
“Some 1,500 protesters, some of them masked and carrying sticks, taunted solders and burned tires just outside the gates of the presidential palace in a face-off with security forces,” reported Reuters.
Television images showed demonstrators throwing rocks at police, who responded with a wave of tear gas. The gunshots were reported near the presidential palace.
“Protesters ransacked a Pizza Hut restaurant near the palace and injured customers,” reported Bloomberg. “They threw rocks, broke the door and rushed into the restaurant, said Hever Raudales, an employee.”
Zelaya was ousted from power by the Honduran military on Sunday and whisked away to Costa Rica, sparking international outcry and calls for him to be returned to power.
But within hours Congress had appointed its speaker Roberto Micheletti as interim president until the current presidential term ends in January.
Micheletti, after coming under stern criticism from Venezuela President Hugo Chavez, said, “Nobody scares us,” warning Honduras is prepared to “go to war” if “this gentlemen” interferes, according to the Telegraph.
The Honduran military has “smothered” media since the takeover, Reuters reported. Radio and television news broadcasts were cut off by soldiers.
President Obama condemned the ousting of the country’s president as “illegal,” although U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters that the government has not yet decided to call it a “coup.”
“The Obama administration and members of the Organization of American States had worked for weeks to try to avert any moves to overthrow President Zelaya,” reported The Wall Street Journal.
This is a breaking news update… More soon…
With AFP.
13 comments
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Do you believe the coup in Honduras was backed by the CIA?
http://www.youpolls.com/details.asp?pid=5631
.
We had a republican coup of our own and no other country came in ..
Pray for war. Pray they slaughter each other. Pray they wipe each other off the map. Otherwise they will eventually come here and become a new scary international GANG like MS-13.
(if you wear a mask and are throwing rocks at the police, pleeze do not whine to me when you get your ass shot off)
Why don’t you pieces of shit Honduras, Iran and N. Korea get together with Donald Trump and WWE mogul Vince McMahon and stage some fucking cage fight to DEATH, get your money and GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE.
Seroiusly-Honduras was a launch pad for “ollie” north’s illegal war and after all these years wanted a democracy, but the CIA will have no part of it. Thanks, dick cheney for running your secret government.
Alllllll right!!! MORE dick-waving and testosterone-ing in a NEW place! Whooooo-hoooo! Gee, maybe Switzerland can invade Norway and with any luck at all, New Zealand will call out Belgium. Whoooppeeee!!!
Push the red buttons…EVERYONE! The roaches are waiting and they are a whole lot more sane than the cancer on the planet named humans!!!
How long before Congress issues another ’stern’, non-binding resolution?
How long before the neo-cons, like Krauthammer, start swinging their dicks around, whining for Obama to step in? You know, those morons who snivel “we’re not the world’s police!” in one breath, and pout, “that’s not democratic, what about the people!” in another?
So Obama is siding with the Liberal (on a relative, not absolute basis) overthrown president Zelaya of Honduras, and not with the right-wing military dictatorship that overthrew him. Now that’s a change.
But doesn’t history teach us that it is probable the US government aided or even orchestrated this? We’ve aided/orchestrated this coup d’etat scenario numerous times in Central America and elsewhere, always supplanting a democratically-elected Liberal government with a right-wing military dictator, never the other way around.
So, is this just deep, deep subterfuge: The Plutocracy told Obama to publicly side with the Liberal, and Clinton to do the same while concurrently our beloved CIA carried out the familiar and dirty deed, this to fully establish Obama/Clinton’s bona fides with Liberal Americans? It smells like Plute spirit.
I’ll hope for the improbability: that both Obama and Clinton are truly supportive of the Liberal overthrown president of Honduras. If that were to be true it would represent a major change in US politics, a very positive one. But as I said before, this hope is, unfortunately, historically improbable.
It would be nice of some of you idiots who post here actually knew what you were talking about. Just repeat the talking points, oh, yea, you are so fucking smart Fox Knews, whatever they want to make up and then you spew out. Jesus, use your god given brain, it’s there for a reason you fools.
How does one attain ‘interim president’ status? That would be a job I wouldn’t mind applying for. You know, just to sort things out.
I think it is a crock of s#%t that the MSM talked non-stop about iran’s election for two weeks,but, not one word about a military coup in Honderas. Talk about a bias MSM, this proves the US was involved. Otherwise the MSM would be talking about this non-stop , like they did for Iran. It proves the US was behind this. It couldn’t be more obvious.
one Trident submarine. one trident II missile. 11 MIRVs and it’s miller time ten minutes later.
He’s only the ‘New President’ because they’re saying so in the media.
A failure of Democracy in our own hemisphere, oh my, what would Iranians think?
“The gunshots were reported near the presidential palace.” - What, no speculation disguised as ‘fact’ as to who fired the shots?
“Honduras is prepared to “go to war”” - Yeah, unless they’re shooting bananas at each other, I doubt that.
“The Obama administration and members of the Organization of American States had worked for weeks to try to avert any moves to overthrow President Zelaya,” - Oh, apparently the whole world wasn’t watching.