Coup in Honduras: the return of the gorillas or the tactics of attrition?

by iosaf Fri Jul 03, 2009 00:31

I too really liked how Hugo Chavez described them as "gorillas". But as I wrote in the extensive comments to a short article which has been convering the Honduran coup d'etat(s) before they merited global atttention - the first days of coup d'etats are the longest nights.

We are now most definitely in the longest nights when the usurpers suspend human rights and the constitution on a nightly basis thus allowing them to disappear whomever they wish, perhaps in pyjamas like they almost disappeared Zelaya.

But what is most important for us in social movements, I address this to José Antonio the writer of this piece and contributor to IMC Ireland as much as all readers - is not the game of two lost presidents but the campaign to free political prisoners & expose properly the interest groups who planned the first coup, are believed to have promoted the second coup and are actively engaged in consoliditating the third coup.

I refer to three different coups because that's what I see.

I refer to two lost presidents because neither Zelaya nor the usurper Micheletti have any useful political future now beyond November 2009.

This coup (& / or) regime change (&/or) market manipulation of cash crops, pharmoceuticals or military industrial complex toys has now gone geopolitically beyond the script of either its condemnation or justification. We knew at first this meant more than Honduras and the Hondurans. But how many of us have now realised it means more than just the threat to "traditionally poor Americans" constitutionalism but also is a threat to "medicare poor Americans from the America we don't prefix with either South, North or Latin?

my prediction and ongoing coverage of this story can be read at this link :-
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/92883

If you look really carefully at this iconic image of hard to see colors - you note that all the chaps are lifting the same flag.

by Pepe Fri Jul 03, 2009 13:03

The term gorilla is not an invention of Chavez, but a widespread term used to describe in Latin America the military dictatorships of the '60s and '70s. Therefore the title makes sense if you know that history behind: are we going back to the dictatorships in the style of Pinochet or is this more like the Haitian case in 1991 a tactic of attrition? Whatever the case the most important thing is not to let the defence of the "rule of law" discourse obscure the fact that what we are witnessing is class struggle exacerbated by a rancid oligarchy hostile to the mildest reform.

by iosaf Fri Jul 03, 2009 13:36

I reckon it's more like Haiti - The gorillas aren't in sunglasses this time.

& I wrote that there are clear parallels to Haiti and the removal of Aristide yesterday in a comment to the other article. In fact all over the left people are linking those parallels and dotting dots which go back to the "southern brigade" of American military co-operation run out of the Pentagon. http://www.indymedia.ie/article/92883

by pat c Fri Jul 03, 2009 13:52

"The Gorillas are among us" was a book on the Pinochet coup, written by Juan Prieto and published by Pluto Press.

Maybe we need a Simian Bolivar Brigade to deal with these Gorillas.