Update on the coup in Honduras - Grahame Russel, on the spot

Grahame Russel, human rights lawyer and spokesperson for Rights Action is in Honduras updating us regularly on the process of the coup there. He talks about the massive outpouring of popular support for the legitimate President 'Mel' Zelaya and the belief among the mass of the people that his return is critical to the future of Honduras. Police who tried to occupy the exiled President's home were forced to withdraw when confronted with a mobilisation of people.

Popout

Original audio source (RussellHonduras19_Jul_2009.mp3)

Anti-Mining activist murdered - El Salvador (CISPES reports)

Alexis, spokesperson for CISPES (Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador) tells us the story of Marcelo Rivera, a community activist who led the movement to stop Pacific Rim mining company from despoiling the countryside near a number of peasant communities in El Salvador. The manner of his death suggest involvement of elements of the ARENA party, and the local police strangely reluctant to investigate the circumstances of his disappearance and murder.

Popout

Original audio source (Alexis18_Jul_2009.mp3)

Honduras Coup - Grahame Russel, eyewitness report on brute force.

Grahame Russel, human rights lawyer is in Honduras getting the real story out. The military coup, backed by the oligarchy and elite business community, has been universally condemned, but unlike Tehran the huge houtpouring of popular repudiation of the coup masters and the military, doesn't seem to be making the headlines in mainstream media.

Grahame was present last Sunday when the President of Honduras tried to fly in to return to his country after being bundled out of his residence last week by the military and put on a flight to Costa Rica. Somewhere between one hundred thousand and two hudnred thousand demonstrators turned up at the airport to see the Presidential plane land. Two were shot by the military and another four wounded. After the military placed trucks on the runway and fired shots at the plane after a low pass over the runway the landing was aborted.

He will try again on Wednesday (Thursday Australian time). The Honduran people are mobilised, the biggest outpouring of popular power in this country since the 1950s. Honduras is diplomatically isolated, although the US is slow to take decisive action.

Popout

Original audio source (GrahameRusselHonduras07_July.mp3)

Coup in Honduras - eyewitness report

Sun, 5 July 2009

Coup in Honduras - eyewitness report

17 Mb mono 37 mins

Toni covers the Honduran coup. He was there, invited as an international observer, by the Honduran government, to be an observer to a constitutionally legal poll as to whether the Honduran people wanted to have a body to study constitutional reform included in the elections of next November. The results of this study would later be put to a popular referendum.

Contrary to mistaken references in the anglo/western media that the coup was triggered by fears that he was seeking extra time in the Presidency, Zelaya was not seeking this, and had not even put his name down as a Presidencial candidate. He was actually looking forward to retirement.

Toni tracks the amazement of observers when an armed military coup interrupted the poll, and they went to the Presidential Palace, in the middle of a military media blackout, to discover that there was a mobilisation of people trying to prevent the coup non violently.

This was the script set out for the next week of events in Honduras.

Direct download: Honduras.mp3
Category: Latin Radical -- posted at: 5:24 AM

Chiapas - Blitz on Human Rights: Julie Webb reports

7.4Mb. 100kbps mono. 12 mins

Julie Webb, journalist for "Scoop" gives us an update on the increasingly tense situation in Chiapas, particularly the harassment of the Human Rights organisation Fray Bartholome de las Casas, by Mexican government security and paramilitary forces. Chiapas peasants are living on land that the neo-conservative 'developers' want to get their hands on, and human rights organisations like 'Fray Barta' is often the only thing standing between them and outright pillage.

Popout

Original audio source (JulieChiapas22_Jun_2009.mp3)

New Salvadoran President straight talking breaks protocol. Report from CISPES

Alexis was one of those of the CISPES delegation to see the first 'leftist' President of El Salvador take the Presidential sash after a clearly won electoral victory over the 20 year right wing corrupt regime. It was a regime, closely allied with the US Republican Party, that was founded by the author of the notorious Death Squads of the 1970s and 1980s.

The FMLN has shown a patience and tolerance above and beyond the call of duty to demonstrate its commitment as a truly democratic party to serve the people. These were people who were its base, and support during a 12 year 'civil war'.

The presence of virtually all the dignitaries of Latin America, as well as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was a tribute to that expression of popular support. Probably not much said in the mainstream 'anglo media', but to Salvadorans, and Latin America in general it was a 'date with history'.

The Americas are changing, and Alexis gives us an eyewitness account of the significance of this event in San Salvador. Not only for the dignitaries, but for the people who came to the stadium to support this initiative for a long awaited change.

Musical bands who were for many years 'illegal' arrived to pay a Latin American tribute to this 'date with history', when the popular new President arrived to address his supporters at the stadium, before the formal cocktail parties of the evening with foreign dignatories.

Popout

Original audio source (Alexis_Cispeswebversion.mp3)