On the ground in Libya: ‘NATO is destroying our country’

NATO bombs Benghazi, Libya

COTO BREAKING NEWS: Eyewitness account describes the evidence that NATO’s invasion of Libya constitutes multiple war crimes. This is a military coup which the Libyans will resist for as long as they live.  For more info, see Lindauer’s recent piece, Going Rogue: NATO War Crimes in Libya.

By Joanna Moriarty

TRIPOLI:  We have so much documentation that it make your head spin. We spoke with 250 rebels who were released by the Tribal Leaders with the blessings of Ghadafi, the stories they tell of the atrocities that they did are horrifying we have them on tape. We also have many rebels that are documented admitting all the atrocities that they themselves committed. But, here is one truth that is irrefutable – the 2000 tribes of Libya are the actual government here, if anyone does not know this then they do not know Libya.

These tribal leaders released 150 rebel prisoners 3 weeks ago, 10 days later another 250 were released. There were about 20 foreigners that witnessed this magnificent show of forgiveness, we have this on tape. There is another release of 200 prisoners in these coming days.

One Year After Coup, Honduras Still in Crisis; Is the US Enabling?

Pro-democracy demonstrators clash with police on September 23, 2009, in the capital of Tegucigalpa.

Jeremy Kryt July 7, 2010 HuffingtonPost

A year after a military coup toppled the democratically-elected government, a “horrifying” human rights crisis continues amidst economic and environmental decay. Is the U.S. enabling this repression with taxpayer dollars?

One year ago last week, on June 28, 2009, the Honduran special forces – led by U.S.-trained officers, wearing U.S.-issue uniforms and armed with U.S.-made M16s – attacked the home of president Manuel Zelaya, kidnapped him in his pajamas, and after a quick stop at the local U.S. airbase, flew him off to Costa Rica in exile. Honduras hasn’t been the same since.

“[It’s] a totally different country since the coup,” says Dr. Adrienne Pine, a Central American expert at American University in Washington, D.C. In an exclusive interview, Dr. Pine, who was in the capital of Tegucigalpa as an international observer last week, described conditions in the new Honduras as being “horrifying.”

“We’ve now reached a point where it’s like we’ve returned to the 1980’s, when death squads killed several hundred people and effectively ended the Leftist movement in Honduras at the time,” says Pine, who spent Monday marching with about 200,000 pro-democracy demonstrators in the capital. She believes a heavy presence of foreign observers and reporters was the only reason the police and soldiers, who shadowed the marchers at all times, did not attack as they have in the past. “What we’re seeing now is that they’re using the same repressive strategies [as in the ’80’s],” she says. “Even the same people are in charge.”

US Backs Illegal Elections in Honduras, Betraying Process to Restore Constitutional Order

By Tom Loudon

After five months of political chaos in Honduras, repeated attempts to reach a negotiated agreement for restoration of constitutional order have failed due to the defiant recalcitrance of the Roberto Micheletti coup regime and the complicity of the State Department. Given this impasse and the deepening human rights crisis, it is widely recognized that conditions for holding free, fair and transparent elections on November 29, just days from now, do not exist.

Crisis in Honduras: 100 Days of Resistance

Avi Lewis traveled to Honduras only days after Zelaya smuggled himself into the country and only 100 days after the country experienced only the second coup in Central America since the end of the Cold War. In this 24-minute Fault Lines program for Al Jazeera English, he chronicles how social movements are mobilizing in the streets, standing up to repression not just to bring their president back, but to re-found their nation on more equal terms.

Zelaya calls for Honduras election boycott

By School of the Americas Watch

SOA Watch is extremely concerned about the situation in Honduras, where SOA graduates overthrew the democratically elected government on June 28, 2009. An agreement that was brokered last week between representatives of President Zelaya and the coup regime was supposed to “return the holder of executive power to its pre-June 28 state” but it turns out it was just another stalling tactic by the coup regime. Read a statement from Honduran President Manuel Zelaya below.

Zelaya and Coup Regime Agree to Resolution

By School of the Americas Watch

Latin America awoke yesterday to two extraordinary announcements that will impact the region for years to come; one in Honduras producing tentative hope, and the other in Colombia, sowing widespread concern and fear. Together they reflect the dual nature of the Obama Administration´s approach to Latin America. 

G20 Sound Cannons Can’t Stop the Public Voice

By Rady Ananda

This three-minute YouTube by Al Jazeera captures some of the concerns of those G20 protesters whom global elites brutalized with rubber bullets and sound cannons, despite our inalienable rights to assemble peacefully and state our piece.

One local Pittsburgh TV station also caught on film what some of our intelligent youth have to say, two days before the military and local police attacked marchers,

Honduras: Lessons from the Coup, or, Why Are We in Honduras Anyhow?

By John Lamperti

The June 28 military coup that overthrew the legitimate government of Honduras was a shock. When the Central American wars of the 1980s finally ended, the region seemed on a path toward electoral democracy at last. The military’s ouster of President Zelaya, followed by the suspension of civil liberties and repression of non-violent protests, looks like a return to the bad old days when coups were the rule and real elections the rare exception.