Honduras coup leaders shut main airport

Move aimed at preventing ousted leader Manuel Zelaya from returning following previous military blockade on runway
By Rory Carroll, guardian.co.uk, July 6, 2009

Coup leaders in Honduras shut the country's main airport today to block President Manuel Zelaya making another attempted return a day after military vehicles prevented his jet from landing.

The interim government, increasingly isolated and beleaguered, banned all flights for 24 hours to try to keep the exiled leader out and to dampen fresh protests by his supporters.

Zelaya promised yesterday to make another attempted return from neighbouring El Salvador today or tomorrow but US officials suggested he may instead fly to Washington for talks with the Obama administration and Latin American diplomats.

The Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa, remained tense. Zelaya's supporters promised to mobilise fresh demonstrations despite bloody clashes with security forces yesterday. Soldiers opened fire on a crowd marching towards the airport, killing at least two, the first fatalities in the eight-day-old crisis.

Hospitals admitted many more people with gunshot wounds and staff told reporters there was an increasing number of victims shot by the military during the nightly curfew.

Zelaya, speaking at a news conference in El Salvador, appealed to the army to avoid further casualties. "I call on the armed forces of Honduras to lower their rifles."

The leftist leader was flanked by the presidents of El Salvador, Argentina, Paraguay and Ecuador and the secretary-general of the Organisation of American States (OAS), Jose Miguel Insulza. "I am risking myself personally to resolve the problems without violence."

He urged the United Nations, the OAS and European Union to "do something with this repressive regime".

The interim government, which took power on 28 June after soldiers seized Zelaya in his pyjamas and bundled him into exile, slightly softened its position and said it wanted to negotiate with the OAS. But it ruled out Zelaya's return to power. "We will be here until the country calms down," said the interim president, Roberto Micheletti. "We are the authentic representatives of the people."

The coup was supported by those Hondurans who feared Zelaya's leftist agenda and alliance with Venezuela's president Hugo Chávez. But the new government has been denounced internationally. The OAS suspended Honduras, the World Bank froze lending, the EU recalled its ambassadors and the US cut diplomatic and military contacts.

The impoverished coffee-exporter of 7 million people has become dangerously polarised between the poor and working class, who tend to support Zelaya for his social programmes, and the middle class and institutions such as congress, the Catholic church and the military who consider him a dangerous radical who wanted to perpetuate himself in power.

From a clandestine location, Rodolfo Pastor Fasquel, who was culture minister in the ousted government, told the BBC that Honduras risked sliding into civil war.

"It is a terrible situation, a dangerous impasse. In the 1970s we had groups of guerrillas but they were always isolated, the country never felt in danger of civil war. Today there is the risk because both sides have a wide social base, they are completely polarised and they have weapons and resources."

The interim government said if Zelaya did manage to return he would be arrested for 18 alleged criminal acts including treason and corruption.

The OAS suspension will complicate Honduras' access to multilateral loans but so far its economy, heavily dependent on coffee exports, aid and remittances, has not suffered trade sanctions.

The interim government said it was prepared to hunker down until November when a presidential election would select a new leader - under the constitution Zelaya cannot run for a second term - and supposedly end the crisis.

Zelaya Confirms Meeting Today In Washington With Secretary Of State Hillary Clinton

Day 8: Update 10PM: Zelaya Arrives To El Salvador; Confirms Meeting Tomorrow In Washington With Secretary Of State Hillary Clinton
By Eva Golinger, Postcards from the Revolution, July 5, 2009

President Zelaya has arrived safely to San Salvador, reuniting with the heads of state from Argentina, Ecuador and Paraguay, and OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza. They are expected to meet tonight and discuss alternatives to President Zelaya's return to Honduras, after his first attempt was thwarted by the coup forces that impeded his landing in the Tegucigalpa airport by placing army vehicles and personnel on the runway.

A confirmed meeting is taking place tomorrow in Washington, D.C., between President Zelaya and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Zelaya is expected to fly early tomorrow to the US capital. Clinton will most likely seek to negotiate some kind of agreement between the coup forces and President Zelaya in order to ensure his safe return and reinstate constitutional order.

Nevertheless, there are many concerns that Washington is looking to support its allies in Honduras, primarily those in the business and military sector who have been heavily involved in this coup, while trying to "save face" and project a "positive" non-interventionist image of Obama in Latin America. However, many question the late response by the Obama administration to the military coup, now a week in the making, and the outright lack of condemnation by Obama and Clinton regarding human rights violations committed by the coup government and repression of press freedoms. No comment has been made by Washington regarding the forced national curfew imposed by the coup government, which is now from 6pm through 6am, the suspension of constitutional rights, the censoring of media outlets not favorable to the coup, the detaining and persecution of journalists and members of Zelaya's cabinet and family, and the dead and wounded at the hands of the coup military forces. There are also questions regarding Washington's ambiguity to the coup, refusing to initially classify the events as a coup d'etat under US law, which would require immediate suspension of economic and military aid to Honduras.

No deal should be cut with the coup forces in Honduras, and by no means should Zelaya or the people of Honduras permit "early elections", which is one of the "ways out" that Clinton may push for tomorrow.

***************
From SOA Watch:

It remains vital that people in the U.S. keep maximum pressure on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and on President Barack Obama urge them to take action for the unconditional reinstatement of Honduran President Zelaya.

Call Hillary Clinton's office at 202-647-5548.
Call the White House at 202-456-1111

Click here to send a message to the State Department and to President Obama.

And click here to send message to media, UN, etc.

Day 7: Coup Government In Honduras Withdraws From OAS

By Eva Golinger, Postcards from the Revolution, July 4, 2009

Well, it's official! The Organization of American States (OAS) doesn't need to bother suspending Honduras from the OAS because the coup government has decided it is withdrawing from the most important regional body in the Americas. Roberto Micheletti, the dictator who was sworn in as de facto president in Honduras on Sunday, after the democratically elected president Manuel Zelaya was kidnapped at gunpoint by masked soldiers and forced into exile, has said, "to hell with you OAS", "we don't need you either!" During Secretary General of the OAS, Jose Miguel Insulza's visit to the Central American nation to hand deliver the 72-hour ultimatum demanding the coup government step down or face suspension (the most severe sanction the OAS can impose), coup leader Roberto Micheletti gave a speech before supporters and later issued a formal statement withdrawing Honduras from the OAS, declaring, "we don't have to respond to anybody, we are a sovereign nation". The OAS visit was intended to reach some kind of dialogue or solution to the crisis in Honduras since the coup occurred on early Sunday morning, yet the coup government held tight to its position of power.

On Saturday, the OAS will convene a new meeting to review the results of its failure in Honduras and the decision of the coup government to defiantly ignore the regional body's intentions to resolve the conflict peacefully (if that is even possible at this point). Several presidents, such as Cristina Fernandez of Argentina and Rafael Correa of Ecuador will travel to Washington for the special OAS follow up meeting to the Honduran crisis.

President Zelaya had hoped to return Saturday to his elected post, yet the situation in his country, post-coup, is more complicated than originally imagined. Hondurans supporting Zelaya marched cross the nation to the capital, Tegucigalpa, on Friday to send a message to the OAS General Secretary that they are waiting for their legitimate president to return.

If the Obama administration doesn't formally sanction the coup government in Honduras and suspend all relations, as every other country around the world has done so far, a terrible precedent will be set in the hemisphere, allowing for coups that produce "friendly" results for Washington. The United States is pleased with the outcome of Sunday's coup, which deposed a leftist president aligned with countries like Venezuela, Cuba and Bolivia, but at the same time is not happy with the method - a military coup- to achieve the end goal. However, if Washington continues without firmly condemning the coup government's actions and withdrawal from the OAS, Obama will lose all credibility in Latin America.

Honduras rejects OAS appeal to restore president

By WILL WEISSERT and MARCOS ALEMAN, AP, Yahoo! News, July 4, 2009

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – Honduras rebuffed a personal appeal from the Americas' top international diplomat Friday, refusing to reinstate President Manuel Zelaya and setting the stage for a dramatic showdown if the ousted leader returns to reclaim power this weekend.

Jose Miguel Insulza, who heads the Organization of American States, said the hemispheric body would decide Saturday whether to suspend Honduras, a move that could lead to further sanctions against one of the Latin Americas' poorest countries and encourage other organizations and countries to halt aid and loans.

The OAS chief had flown to Honduras Friday to demand that the interim government restore Zelaya before a Saturday morning deadline. Zelaya was ousted in a military-backed coup Sunday and flown into exile, but the world community has rallied around him to demand his return to office.

"We wanted to ask that this situation be reversed," Insulza told a news conference in the Honduran capital after meeting with Supreme Court President Jorge Rivas, the attorney general and other political leaders. "Unfortunately, one must say that there appears to be no willingness to do this."

Insulza said Honduran officials gave him documents showing that charges are pending or have been brought against Zelaya, charges they say justified the coup. The military-backed ouster came after Zelaya pushed for a referendum on constitutional reform that the Supreme Court, the attorney general and Congress had all said was illegal.

Earlier Friday, Honduras' Supreme Court, which authorized Sunday's coup, said it wouldn't agree to restore the toppled leftist leader despite Insulza's demands.

"Insulza asked Honduras to reinstate Zelaya, but the president of the court categorically answered that there is an arrest warrant for him," said court spokesman Danilo Izaguirre.

"Now the OAS has to decide what it will do," Izaguirre said.

Insulza had conceded before traveling to Honduras that his mission was unlikely to succeed, saying: "It will be very hard to turn things around in a couple of days."

During the trip, the diplomat also met with the two main candidates in Honduras' Nov. 29 elections, as well with the leftist Popular Block, an umbrella group of farm, labor and student groups that largely supports Zelaya.

But he said he would not see Roberto Micheletti, whom Congress named president after Zelaya's ouster, in order to avoid legitimizing the government.

Micheletti's foreign minister, Enrique Ortez, said that Insulza "can negotiate all he wants, except for Zelaya's situation."

"That is not negotiable because he cannot return to Honduras, and if he does he will be arrested and tried," Ortez said.

Zelaya, who was traveling in Central America, planned to return to Honduras on Sunday, according to Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega. Zelaya has said he would be traveling with Insulza and the presidents of Argentina and Ecuador.

Honduras' interim government has said it will arrest Zelaya if he returns, setting up a potentially volatile showdown.

Contrary to assertions by the Micheletti government, Interpol on Friday released a statement saying it had not received any request to issue an arrest warrant for Zelaya.

Micheletti led a raucous chant of "Democracy!" before a giant crowd waving blue-and-white Honduran flags in front of the palace that Micheletti has occupied since Zelaya was seized by soldiers. He pledged to stand firm in the face of the international pressure.

"I am the president of all Hondurans," he proclaimed.

A rival rally by thousands of Zelaya backers marched to the offices of the OAS. Marchers carried a banner with a picture of Zelaya and the words: "Mel our friend, the people are with you!"

Despite feared violence, the two groups did not clash. Police helicopters circled overhead and dozens of soldiers and police guarded the palace.

Micheletti's supporters say the army was justified in ousting Zelaya — on orders of Congress and the Supreme Court — because he had called a referendum which they claim he intended to use to extend his rule. Zelaya denies that and has said he will no longer press for constitutional changes.

Nations around the world have promised to shun Micheletti and the nation already is suffering economic reprisals.

Neighboring countries have imposed trade blockades, major lenders have cut aid, the Obama administration has halted joint military operations and all European Union ambassadors have abandoned the Honduran capital.

If the OAS does suspend Honduras, Insulza said a government led by a new Honduran president after elections in November would not be automatically reinstated into the organization.

"It is not by any means automatic," Insulza said. "To eliminate a suspension, it should be unanimous decision, and it is not so obvious that it would be."

On Friday, the U.S. Embassy in Honduras issued a statement expressing "deep concern over restrictions imposed on certain fundamental rights" by Micheletti's government, including a curfew in force since Sunday, and "reports of intimidation and censorship against certain individuals and media outlets."

Micheletti's government is so eager to find a friend that it announced it had been recognized by Israel and Italy — surprising the governments of those countries. Italy withdrew its ambassador to protest the coup, and Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said: "All rumors about Israeli recognition of the new president are wholly unfounded."

Micheletti asked Nobel Peace laureate Rigoberta Menchu to help mediate the conflict, and she arrived in Tegucigalpa on Friday.

"I come to try to talk with anyone who wants to listen to search for peace for this country," she said.
___

Associated Press writers contributing to this report included Freddy Cuevas in Tegucigalpa; Bert Wilkinson in Georgetown, Guyana; Filadelfo Aleman in Managua, Nicaragua; Angela Charlton in Paris and Mark Lavie in Jerusalem.

Officials investigate Argentina bomb threat as pilot claims Air France Flight 447 was blown out of the sky by terrorists

By Peter Allen, Ian Sparks and David Williams, Mail Online, June 3, 2009

Investigators are examining a bomb threat called in on a flight from Buenos Aires to Paris just days before Flight 447 disappeared over the Atlantic ocean, it has been revealed.

Aviation authorities are examining the possibility of a link between the threat to the Buenos Aires flight and the mysterious disappearance of Flight 447 with 228 people on board, a source has claimed.

Meanwhile an Air France pilot said it was 'highly likely' the jet was blown out of the sky by a bomb.

The long-haul captain said he believed Flight 447 was the victim of terrorist attack. No terrorist group has yet come forward to claim responsibility for such an attack, but the French government - baffled by the disappearance of the aircraft - has not ruled such an attack out.

Speaking under condition of anonymity to Le Figaro newspaper the pilot said: 'It is highly likely a bomb went off on board.

'I have flown these jets for Air France for more than ten years, and the chances of an electrical fault seem unfeasible to me.'

Ezeiza International Airport officials in Buenos Aires delayed an Air France flight from the city to Paris on the evening of May 27 after the bomb threat was called in.

Federal Police and airport safety officers inspected the plane and it was cleared for take-off, Argentine media reported. The search lasted about an hour and a half, and passengers were not evacuated from the plane.

Just four days later, Flight 447 dropped out of the sky so quickly that pilots did not even have time to make a Mayday call.

All 228 on board are believed to have perished.

‘Investigations are in process to see if the Argentina bomb threat was linked to what happened with the Brazil flight,’ said an Air France source.

‘Terrorism cannot be ruled out as we search for the reason for this tragedy.’

Investigators found debris from the wreckage of the doomed plane floating in the Atlantic yesterday - including a life jacket and a plane seat.

Now it's a race against time for the Brazilian Air Force to reach the crash site before the remaining debris sinks into the ocean - taking any chance of discovering what happened to Flight 447 with it.

They are desperate to recover the plane’s two black-box flight recorders which are now likely to be at the bottom of the ocean. They emit location signals for only 30 days.

But officials said there was virtually no chance of finding any of the 228 crew and passengers, including five Britons.

Distraught relatives who had prayed for a miracle gave up hope as experts were certain that all aboard died on the flight, which left Rio de Janeiro on Sunday night bound for Paris.

'I just want to find my son's body so that he can have a dignified burial,' said Aldair Gomes, the father of Marcelo Parente, who was the head of the Rio mayor's cabinet.

So far no bodies have been sighted on flyovers by the air force, which spotted evidence of the catastrophe yesterday, allowing the navy to mount a retrieval operation.

'The ships are equipped to arrive and pick up pieces of the Airbus,' Nogueira said.

'Each ship has two divers on board and smaller ships to throw into the ocean to try and get pieces.'

Helicopters would then be used to take wreckage of the Airbus A330 from the ships to a base on the Brazilian archipelago of Fernando de Noronha, 430 miles (700 km) from the crash site.

Today armed forces spokesman Christophe Prazuck said that the French army had no doubt that the debris belonged to the stricken plane.

Authorities are at a complete loss to explain why the four-year-old Airbus disappeared 400 miles off Brazil without issuing a Mayday.

A former Air France pilot said the aircraft might have hit a military jet or a plane used by drug smugglers.

‘Anything could have happened. Maybe a collision with another aircraft, maybe a military aircraft, maybe a drugs-smuggling aircraft which nobody reports missing,’ said Cedric Maniez.

Herve Morin, France’s defence minister, admitted last night there was ‘no evidence whatsoever’.

He added: ‘We cannot, by definition, exclude a terrorist attack, because terrorism is the main threat for all Western democracies.’

But it was significant that no terror group had claimed responsibility, he said.

The last radio message from Flight AF447 as it cruised at 522mph between Rio de Janeiro and Paris early on Monday reported heavy turbulence.

This raises the possibility of a catastrophic lightning strike – even though planes are built to withstand one.

‘It would be very unusual to have all the communications systems fail at once,’ said David Gleave, of Aviation Safety Investigations, a UK-based airport and air traffic control risk management consultancy.

‘That would tend to indicate that something catastrophic happened.’

An automatic message sent from the plane just before it disappeared said that it was losing pressure and had experienced an electrical failure.

French officials said bad weather was making the search difficult, with heavy cloud forcing planes to fly low over the water, limiting their line of vision.

A plane seat, a life jacket, metallic debris and signs of fuel were found by Brazilian military pilots yesterday about 410 miles north of the Brazilian island of Fernando de Noronha, roughly along the jet’s flightpath.

Investigators have confirmed they were from Flight 447.

There were no signs of life in two sightings of debris about 35 miles apart, Brazilian air force spokesman Jorge Amaral said.

‘The locations where the objects were found are toward the right of the point where the last signal of the plane was emitted,’ Mr Amaral said.

‘That suggests that it might have tried to make a turn, maybe to return to Fernando de Noronha, but that is just a hypothesis.’

Mr Amaral said authorities will not be able to confirm that the debris is from the plane until they can retrieve some of it from the ocean. Ships are not expected to arrive in the area until later today.

Air France is considered to be one of the world’s safest airlines and its A330 is one of the most secure passenger jets.

Jean-Louis Borloo, the French minister overseeing transportation, said: ‘There really had to be a succession of extraordinary events to be able to explain this situation.’

The chance of finding survivors was ‘very very small, even non-existent’, Mr Borloo added.

The five Britons, including an 11-year-old boy, were among passengers who numbered 61 French citizens, 58 Brazilians, 26 Germans, nine Chinese and nine Italians.

The 12-member crew included three pilots.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1190307/Pilot-claims-Air-France-Flight-447-blown-sky-terrorists-officials-investigate-Argentina-bomb-threat.html

Another Air France plane got bomb threat

UPI, June 3, 2009

PARIS, June 3 (UPI) -- Aviation authorities said an Air France Buenos Aires-to-Paris flight was was grounded temporarily because of a bomb threat that turned out to be false.

Officials at Buenos Aires' Ezeiza International Airport delayed an Air France flight from the Argentine city to Paris May 27 after the bomb threat was called in, The Daily Mail reported Wednesday.

Federal police and airport safety officers inspected the plane and cleared it for take-off, Argentine media reported. The search lasted about 90 minutes, and passengers were not evacuated from the aircraft.

Air France Flight 447, with 216 passengers and 12 crew members, went off radar about three hours after departing Rio de Janeiro for Paris Monday. French investigators said wreckage presumably from the plane was found in the Atlantic off the northeastern coast of Brazil.

Argentina seeks ex-navy officer in US

LAURA WIDES-MUNOZ, AP, March 6, 2008

MIAMI - A former Argentine navy lieutenant wanted for his alleged role in a 1972 massacre of 16 leftist guerrillas is now heading a medical personnel supply company that has contracts with the U.S. Defense Department.

A lawyer for Roberto Guillermo Bravo, 65, said Thursday his client denies the massacre charges and will fight extradition.

"Anything that he did while he was in the Argentinean military was done in a legal manner, and he was not involved in any execution-style killings," said attorney Neal Sonnett.

Bravo's Miami-based company, RGB Group Inc., places workers in positions in the health care and security industries. Its Web site lists numerous federal agencies as "satisfied clients,' including the Army, the Marines, the Federal Bureau of Prisons and the Department of Health and Human Services.

"The RGB Group is a company that the Defense Department does business with," Pentagon spokesman Chris Isleib said. "These are serious allegations, and we are taking a hard look at them."

Since last month, an Argentine federal judge has been seeking Bravo and two others on charges of torture, homicide, attempted homicide and illegal detentions in the so-called "Trelew Massacre."

Nineteen guerrillas were allegedly machine-gunned in their cells at a military base days after being recaptured following a prison break. Three prisoners survived the attack and reported the crime.

Four former Argentine naval officers suspected in the case were detained last month, including retired officer Carlos Marandino, who flew voluntarily from the United States to Argentina to surrender in the federal investigation.

Also captured recently was Luis Emilio Sosa, 73, accused of commanding the naval force that recaptured the guerrillas.

Argentina was marked in the 1970s by leftist guerrilla violence and counterattacks by military forces and death squads as a prelude to a 1976 military coup. Official records show nearly 13,000 people died or disappeared under the dictatorship. Human rights groups put the toll closer to 30,000.

Bravo came to the U.S. shortly after the incident as a military attache and later became an American citizen, Sonnett said. He said Bravo would be willing to answer questions from Argentine judicial officials if they travel to the U.S.
___

Associated Press Writer Oscar Serrat contributed to this report from Buenos Aires, Argentina.