New Developments in Honduras?

Two stations critical of the coup regime were attacked yesterday.

""Assailants force two Honduran broadcasters off the air
New York, August 25, 2009--Masked assailants on Monday stormed a radio station and a television outlet critical of the country's interim government, forcing the broadcasters off the air in the latest attack on the Honduran media. The Committee to Protect Journalists called on Honduran authorities to ensure that all journalists can work safely in an increasingly polarized and violent environment.

At 8 p.m., eight individuals wearing ski masks forced their way into the Tegucigalpa offices shared by Radio Globo and Canal 36, local press reports said. The assailants threatened the guards and sprayed acid on broadcasting equipment, effectively taking both stations off the air, according to local and international press reports. The attackers fled in several cars without license plates. No injuries were reported.

As of 6 a.m. today, Radio Globo could be heard again in limited parts of Tegucigalpa, local press reports said. Canal 36 remained off the air as of Tuesday afternoon. Both broadcasters had been airing a concert in support of ousted President Manuel Zelaya at the time of the attack. Their editorial positions support Zelaya, according to local press reports.""

Radio Globo is reporting just a while ago that there may be new developments in attempts to get the coup government to accept the San Jose accords:

""Update II: Radio Globo reporter Eduardo Maldonado is reporting, live, his eye-witness account of members of the Honduran military brass and the top chiefs of the National Police who recently arrived a building near Morazan Boulevard in Tegucigalpa and are meeting inside "on the third floor." The radio is also reporting that the Catholic Church hierarchy and various Chambers of Commerce have determined to back the San José solution of reinstating Zelaya to the presidency "regardless of the stance of the Micheletti government." Looks like the visa suspension is peeling away some inner layers of the coup onion rather rapidly. Something's up. And we're here monitoring the situation. Developing..."""

If the military, the Catholic hierarchy, and Chambers of Commerce decide that the Arias accords should be accepted the coup leaders may be in trouble. Meanwhile some in the Honduran resistance have decided that they should get on with the job and that it may be better for them if there is no negotiated solution with Zelaya returning.

""And although Zelaya himself has agreed to the twelve-point deal known as the Arias Plan - one in which he would return as president but with vastly reduced powers - this US-backed "solution," because it fails to address the popular yearning for a new Constitution, leaves the more-organized-than-ever-before Honduran social movements without an attainable institutional path to accomplish their most coveted grail.

That's why, increasingly, at the grassroots level, the people and their organizers express that they, too, quietly prefer that the coup regime of the gorilla Micheletti and his Simian Council continues to reject the Arias Plan. "I hope it doesn't happen," Padre Fausto Milla of Santa Rosa de Copán told us yesterday (see the related report by Belén Fernández from that outpost along the Guatemala border). A consensus is emerging down below that the more direct paths to revert this abortion of a coup will become clearer once the nonsense cooked up above, via San José and Washington, will be recognized by all as fundamentally flawed since its conception. Plan Arias is already stillborn.""

Well it may not be stillborn but it is on life support. Perhaps the Roman Catholic Church, the military and the chambers of commerce can still save the accords.

This position makes sense since even if Zelaya does return it will be as a lame duck president who will not have the power to help push social change and it will legitimate the presidential elections in November. There will be absolutely no push to make the necessary consitutional changes to bring about substantial social change in Honduras. The continued organisation at the grass roots level rather than concentration upon what is happening at the top of the political hierarchy seems a sensible priority.

UPDATE : The OAS delegation has come and gone without achieving anything. This is not surprising. However, as I have reported in this post there seem to be some divisions in Honduras among coup supporters with many supporting the Arias accords. Insulza , the head of the OAS, claims that although the time period for negotiations is fast running out there is still a possibllity of a negotiated solution. MaybeInsulza is thinking of the meetings that are reported in this article.