Honduras Newspaper Impressed that Daughter of Pinochet Backs Coup

international | anti-war / imperialism | news report

Friday July 10, 2009 17:56

by Al Giordano, General Joe, and jamie

Pinochet coup of 36 years ago as a heroic act?

"No, it's not parody. Rather, it's instructive of the state of mind of the coup defenders. (You can see it in repeated online comments on Twitter and elsewhere attacking Organization of American States chairman Jose Miguel Insulza because he was part of the elected Allende government before Allende was assassinated by Pinochet's forces.) They see the Pinochet coup of 36 years ago as a heroic act, and long for the bad old days when they could simply stamp out democratic will by rounding all dissenters into a stadium and assassinating more than 3,000 in a single week, which is what happened after September 11, 1973 in Santiago de Chile.
It is another proof positive that they are trying to start that ball rolling all over again throughout the hemisphere. And it demonstrates exactly why not a single government in América or in the entire world recognizes their illegitimate regime."

Honduras Newspaper Impressed that Daughter of Pinochet Backs Coup
by Al Giordano, General Joe, and jamie
Friday Jul 10th, 2009 9:46 AM
"No, it's not parody. Rather, it's instructive of the state of mind of the coup defenders. (You can see it in repeated online comments on Twitter and elsewhere attacking Organization of American States chairman Jose Miguel Insulza because he was part of the elected Allende government before Allende was assassinated by Pinochet's forces.) They see the Pinochet coup of 36 years ago as a heroic act, and long for the bad old days when they could simply stamp out democratic will by rounding all dissenters into a stadium and assassinating more than 3,000 in a single week, which is what happened after September 11, 1973 in Santiago de Chile.
It is another proof positive that they are trying to start that ball rolling all over again throughout the hemisphere. And it demonstrates exactly why not a single government in América or in the entire world recognizes their illegitimate regime."
Honduras Newspaper Impressed that Daughter of Pinochet Backs Coup
Posted by Al Giordano - July 10, 2009 at 9:08 am
By Al Giordano

Here in the newsroom, we wondered if the website of the daily El Heraldo in Honduras (part of the same newspaper chain as La Prensa, which now enjoys the infamy of having photoshopped the blood out of the iconic photo of assassinated teenager Isis Obed Murillo) had been hacked by creative coup opponents.
But, apparently not: the newspaper (part of the Inter American Press Association) published a story yesterday titled: Pinochet's Daughter: "Zelaya Attempted a Coup."
I don't know what is weirder: that a pro-coup newspaper would think that quoting the daughter of the Chilean military general, Augusto Pinochet, somehow adds to its already bombastic portrayal of a military coup as a legal or "constitutional" action, or that Ms. Lucia Pinochet Hiriart (in the photo, above) has a constituency among the coup-defenders to the extent that she would be making public statements in praise of it, and those statements would somehow be newsworthy.
It was her father, the disgraced General Pinochet, who fomented the bloody 1973 military coup against the elected government of President Salvador Allende in Chile, which launched a dark era of similar authoritarian coups in countries throughout Latin America.
But there she is, Ms. Pinochet, instructing the Honduran people:
"The one that wanted to cause a coup was (elected Honduran President Manuel) Zelaya... Right now, he's the victim, but he is no victim...."
No, it's not parody. Rather, it's instructive of the state of mind of the coup defenders. (You can see it in repeated online comments on Twitter and elsewhere attacking Organization of American States chairman Jose Miguel Insulza because he was part of the elected Allende government before Allende was assassinated by Pinochet's forces.) They see the Pinochet coup of 36 years ago as a heroic act, and long for the bad old days when they could simply stamp out democratic will by rounding all dissenters into a stadium and assassinating more than 3,000 in a single week, which is what happened after September 11, 1973 in Santiago de Chile.
It is another proof positive that they are trying to start that ball rolling all over again throughout the hemisphere. And it demonstrates exactly why not a single government in América or in the entire world recognizes their illegitimate regime.

_____

Please spread widely all over the world. Al, General Joe, and jamie

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Comments (3 of 3)

We must live in darker times now because they are coming out from under their rocks.

by iosaf

Sat Jul 11, 2009 15:13

Shortly before Pinochet died and the last time his daughter was doing the rounds, I wrote an article entitlde "Pinochet given Bail to vindicate the existence of Hell." http://www.indymedia.ie/article/80021 in the update comments to that article which occured thereafter I posted an image of some young Chileans giving the fascist salute over his open coffin as it lay in state. I also remember how his grandson had given the oratory as a military officer cadet and spoken of the duty of the military to save their state and patria from the threat of subversive beliefs - you know the ones; commies, condoms, abortion, social welfare and poor peasants thinking that they might as well sell their own cocaine, bananas, coffee, tobacco, soya and so on themselves instead of relying on Captain Del Monte.

The grandson was expelled from the military academy a few days later in what was seen by the Latin American right (and surely we now see it is a far far right from even our own European perspectives) as an unfair bit of vengance The democratically elected Chilean regime simply said his simultaneous approval of both the coup of his grand-dad and any coup any other gorilla might launch in the future was unconstitutional and unacceptable.

But the damn daughter never went away. & so here we read that she's backing the coup d'etat in Honduras. Of course she is. In Spain there is a very popular satirical weekly cartoon magazine called "Jeuves" which has launched many spin-off characters including "martinez the fascist" ( http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mart%C3%ADnez_el_facha c/f http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mart%C3%ADnez_el_facha ) Martinez harks back to Franco's day and amongst his weekly challanges to support our era's right wing in a covert way with often hilarious results (hiding Berlusconi's girlies and so on) there has been a special guest star appearance of Pinochet's daughter.

We ought laugh if it were not so bloody unfunny.

There is more to Honduras than an exiled president missing his family.

There are over 2000 political prisoners.

No surprise...

by Pepe

Sat Jul 11, 2009 18:00

Although most of the international organisations have condemned the coup (with various degrees of strength, some as the US only doing it half-heartedly), it is no wonder that the most reactionary and disgusting of the Latin American gorillas align with the dictator Micheletti as he represents the same neanderthal putschist that once ruled Latin America, but who are still lurking in the shadows. In the current context it is important to, on the one hand, denounce the coup by all means necessary (particularly in the face of the European media that somehow justifies it by saying that Mr Zelaya was trying to change the constitution -coruiously enough, this same media is largely silent in the face of the Colombian president that change the constitution to suit his re-election through parliamentary fraud when the people rejected in referendum his amendments), and on the other, support the resistance in Honduras in their struggle whatever form it takes.

The dictators should not be allowed to get out with an amnesty (as we did in Chile), and should not be allowed to form "national unity governments". They just should be stamped out from the face of earth full stop, and we should not expect for Obama, Barroso, Insulza and Co. to the job, it is the people on the streets, in the shanty towns, in the countryside and in the workplaces that will do it by force. If they come to power by force, by force they have to be kicked out. This is the only moral option left to the people -not dialogue with the Gorillas.

But didn't the protesters at the airport last weekend chant about blue helmets?

Sat Jul 11, 2009 19:52

Pepe raises what should have been a general topic from the outset : that of intervention. In my article & updated comments on the coup which started before its realisation, I mentioned two causes for war which are legally classified as casus belli and casus foederis the first is simply whenever a state presents a good reason for war, like its diplomats being roughed up or its legations violated. The second is when alliances come into play. The first was covered the morning of the coup by the treatment of the Venezuelan and Cuban diplomats to Honduras and the second was and is covered by Honduran membership of ALBA. ( exact comment :
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/92883?&condense_comment...54828 )
But somewhere between the rhetoric of Chavez at the beginning, and the response of the White House under Obama and Clinton who naturally would have turned for consultation on this to their back yard Pentagon & now hoy en dia

The real mechanisms which lead to and justify intervention have been succesfully sidestepped by the Honduran rogue regime. The only thing their crew of internet vandals succeeded in was at end in raising awareness of a possible Chavez intervention.

So it's time, if you're into that sort of thing, to read the resolutions of the UN and OAS again & see them for what they really were.

a piece of paper like Munich

The protesters who went to the airport to welcome Zelaya last weekend chanted that they wanted blue helmets, which any Irish person knows are worn by UN troops. Were they really asking for Haiti?

Are we ready to give them another Haiti? I, for one, am not really convinced that blue helmets help much. But I don't want to slight the work done by the first woman only UN contigent who picked up the pieces after an African state's coup d'etats, civil war, quantum barbarity and wholescale rape c/f "women's liberation arrives in Liberia http://www.indymedia.ie/article/80747?&condense_comment...false

Oh we may talk about one president in a cowboy hat far from his home, business and family
&
Oh we may utter the filthy name of Pinochet's daughter who still holds on to all the gold

- but we are not talking enough about the political prisoners in Honduras.

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Honduras Newspaper Impressed that Daughter of Pinochet Backs Coup

Comments (3 of 3)