The field: Electoral Fraud Proved in Honduras: More than 50 Percent Did Not Vote

While most international news organizations took obedient dictation of the Honduras coup regime's claims of more than 62 percent voter participation in the November 29 "elections," authentic journalist Jesse Freeston did what real reporters are supposed to do: He went directly to the source, asked questions, took notes, and videotaped the evidence.

Freeston today publishes this bombshell report, above, on The Real News that documents definitively that Honduras electoral officials knowingly lied about their claims of more than 60 percent voter turnout. The hard results in possession of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE, in its Spanish initials) demonstrate only 49.2 percent turnout: That means that a majority - more than 50 percent - of Honduran citizens abstained in the "elections" that the National Front Against the Coup d'Etat had called unfair, unfree and placed under boycott.

The hard numbers show that abstention - and by inference, the Resistance - was the winner in the November 29 vote.

Usually, electoral fraud is committed to change the outcome between candidates in an election. It is not yet known whether the stuffing of official results with claims of 62 percent voter turnout (about 25 percent higher than the actual 49 percent participation) was also used to change the results of presidential, congressional or municipal contests.

The real question all along was well known to be: How many Hondurans would vote? And how many Hondurans would not? In the coup regime's zeal to legitimize this electoral farce it invented a number - 62 - and claimed that to be the percent of participation in the November 29 vote. Journalist Freeston walks the viewer, step by step, through the post-electoral claims by presidential candidate Pepe Lobo (declared winner of the mock elections), members of the Honduran Congress, diplomats from the United States, Canada, Costa Rica and other countries, and international corporate newspaper editorials, all of which cited the "more than 60 percent turnout" to label the "elections" as free, fair and transparent.

He then goes inside the vote counting rooms at the Supreme Electoral Tribunal in Tegucigalpa, camera in hand, and videotapes the real numbers from computer screens and paper print-outs: 49.2 percent turnout. He also conducts an interview with Leonardo Ramírez Pareda, the official responsible for counting the votes, who in a moment of frankness (perhaps unaware of what his bosses were claiming outside the room to the press) says, matter of factly, that the participation was at 49 percent. All of this evidence is on camera, and it is now known to the world, thanks to the journalist gumshoe work of Freeston and The Real News.

The 49.2 percent turnout count, Freeston notes, is very close to the independent count of the US-financed "Hagamos Democracía" organization, which works under the auspices of the National Democratic Institute (NDI) of the US State Department's National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Freeston notes that the NDI withheld its own count information from its press release lauding the the "elections" as a success.

The work that Freeston did to bring you, and all Hondurans and citizens of the world, these facts was something that any reporter for AP, Reuters, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal or any other media could have done, but did not do: report the real facts that were available on the ground even as the Supreme Electoral Tribunal still has not - eight days after the "elections" - released the official town by town "results" which make a lie of its chairman's election night claims of 62 percent turnout.

Logic would dictate that the same governments and media organizations that, in the days since, have cited the false turnout numbers as the reason to consider the Honduras "elections" free, fair and transparent, and therefore recognize their "results," now must withdraw that recognition. Some have been played as fools, once again, by an anti-democratic coup regime. Others are willing participants in the dishonest charade.

Freeston's report is a game changer inside Honduras and outside of it as well. It will shortly be translated to Spanish and other languages (as will this written summary of it). The real facts will be distributed far and wide by the Honduran resistance and by pro-democracy voices everywhere on earth. The conclusion is based on hard data and therefore undeniable: The Honduras coup regime cooked the "results" of the November 29 "elections" with knowing falsehood. The real results reveal that abstention and the Resistance-called boycott of the electoral theater won the majority two Sundays ago. The elections are therefore absolutely illegitimate, cannot be recognized, and neither can their "results." And authentically freedom-loving peoples of Honduras and the world will never adhere to them, abide by them, respect them or acknowledge them.

The coup d'etat unleashed last June 28 now has led to a situation where the incoming government that is slated to take power on January 27, 2010 enjoys no more legitimacy or legality than the present coup regime. The Honduras people are without a democratically elected government, and will continue to be without one for some time to come. And any other country's government, or media, that continues to claim to recognize them as legitimate reveals itself to be complicit in the theft of democracy.

Now, kind readers, do your part: break the information blockade, distribute Freeston's video report far and wide, translate it into your own languages, and wave it in the faces of any government official or media organization that attempts to repeat the big lie of majority participation in the Honduras vote last week. They are the usurpers of democracy. And you are its last, best hope.

Obama's Magical Surrealism in Honduras

By Bob Ostertag

"I've heard many in this room say that they will not recognize the elections in Honduras. I'm not trying to be a wiseguy, but what does that mean? What does that mean in the real world, not in the world of magical realism?" - W. Lewis Amselem, Obama administration's representative to the Organization of American States

W-w-w-w-hat?!?! An American diplomat actually said that?!? In a meeting of the Organization of American States? Who is president now? Didn't Ronald Reagan die?

A little context: this was said at the OAS during a discussion of upcoming elections in Honduras. All the Latin American countries were announcing that they will not recognize the elections as valid because the current government, the one that will organize the elections, came to power through a military coup. The United States was isolated as the only government in the Americas ready to recognize the election. And Obama's representative decided that might be a good time to ridicule all the Latin American democracies for thinking that their refusal to recognize a government which come to power through military coups mattered.

Well gee, Mr. Amselem, why would it matter whether elections are recognized by the international community? As I recall, there were just elections in Iran and Afghanistan. What does it really matter whether other countries in the region recognize the regime of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which is widely believed to have won the elections through massive electoral fraud? Does it matter who does and doesn't recognize the elections of the American-backed regime in Afghanistan, which was accused of electoral fraud on a similar scale? How about Zimbabwe, which has been teetering on the edge of catastrophe since similarly questionable elections? What exactly was your point, Mr. Amselem? Was it that democracy doesn't mean anything? Or was it that it doesn't matter what Latin American governments do? Or was it that small countries that have neither oil, nukes or terrorists don't matter? We could use a little clarification here.

Just what in the heck is going on in the Obama-Clinton State Department? As the New York Times reported today, the Obama administration's announcement of its policy regarding the upcoming Honduran elections "was celebrated by Republicans as a "reversal" of the administration's policy [and] ignited a storm of criticism from Mr. Obama's allies at home and across Latin America." Just like Hillary's reversal on the administration's position concerning Jewish settlements in Palestinian territories is being celebrated by the Israeli right wing and may trigger the collapse of the Palestinian Authority.

Mr. President, you have some very urgent work to do. First, you need to demand W. Lewis Amselem's head on a pike, now. Just to show that you are at least paying attention.

Beyond that, it is going to be tough. You have dithered on the Honduras coup for half a year, and the elections are just weeks away. Here's an idea: start over. Announce that you are very sorry, but as a way of preparing your State Department for work in Latin America, you asked your diplomatic corps to take some time off to immerse themselves in magical realist literature, and they became so engrossed they simply lost track of time. No one noticed that a year had gone by since your election. But now everyone is ready to put down their novels and return to the real world, in which no one would ever imagine that a government led by Barack Obama would stand as the only government in the western hemisphere supporting coups in Latin America.

Golpistas' version of democracy: Finger lickin' good

Since taking power in June, the de facto regime in Honduras has once and again violated the rights of the Honduran citizens who have repudiated the coup. The military and police, also known as the fourth branch of the golpista government, have disregarded the true purpose of their existence by choosing to protect those who demonstrate their support for the ruling class while moving to repress those who don't.

Clashes between anti-coup demonstrators and military and polices forces have left several dead and hundreds injured, media outlets opposing the regime have been shut down, and individual rights have been suspended. A climate of fear and insecurity reigns in the country.

In the meantime, Micheletti and his gang have proceeded to block any kind of agreement that would reinstate Zelaya and are pushing for elections to take place at the end of November. They have called the elections the only solution to take Honduras out of the hole, but when basic freedoms have been taken off the table, it is hard to imagine that the outcome will represent the will of the people, ironically making the ballot box a tool for the demise of democracy. And even though the Carter Center ,the UN, and the EU have determined that conditions have not been met for elections to take place in a fair manner, the golpistas have threatened candidates who have considered withdrawing their candidacy with throwing them in jail.

But the irony doesn't end there. It lies also in the fact that what the golpistas took as an excuse to remove a democratically elected president was Zelaya's call for Hondurans to express their opinion by polling them on June 28th. Zelaya advocated "democracia participativa" a system that would include all those willing to participate in deciding the fate of the country. The elections on November 29th would be a golpista-engineered version of that. But with the golpista-alligned military controlling the resources allotted for the elections, the new system can only be called "dedocracia manipulativa." Need a translation? Dedo means finger, and that's what the golpistas are giving the Honduran people.

Part 1: 100 days since the coup d'etat that ousted Manuel Zelaya, Fault Lines travels to Honduras and finds resistance and repression in the streets

Part 2: 100 days since the coup d'etat that ousted Manuel Zelaya, Fault Lines travels to Honduras and finds resistance and repression in the streets

DeMint's Fashion Sense: sweatshops in, democracy out

Last week, a group of Republican lawmakers traveled to post-coup Honduras to take part in something they called a "fact-finding mission." Leading the group was South Carolina junior senator, and outspoken critic of official U.S. policy toward the coup, Jim DeMint. Upon his return to the United States, DeMint released the following statement:

"After visiting Tegucigalpa last week and meeting with a cross section of leaders from Honduras's government, business community, and civil society, I can report there is no chaos there."

Even if you don't see eye to eye with the senator on most other things, it would be hard to disagree with DeMint on this one. Micheletti and pals have done a great job at thwarting dissent by suspending civil liberties, closing radio and TV stations critical of the coup, and using military repression to make sure Hondurans, especially those in the capital city, can no longer exercise their freedom of speech.

Obviously that's not the connection DeMint wants you to make. By saying that there's no chaos in Honduras, DeMint wants us to think that democracy has triumphed and that Hondurans are happier with Zelaya gone. The truth of the matter is that if it were truly about democracy, both DeMint's and Micheletti's words would reflect what a recent poll made public by a government certified polling company actually shows: an overwhelming opposition to the coup and even lower support for Micheletti himself. Oh, and that more than half of Hondurans support Zelaya's return to power.

Thus, in lieu of true love for democracy, the real intention behind DeMint's trip has to reside elsewhere. Reading his op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal, it seems like DeMint's journey to Central America had more in common with a PR campaign than with a "fact-finding mission." DeMint pretty much echoed Micheletti's assurance to foreign investors: come back, everything is normal in Honduras. You see, like Micheletti, when DeMint says "let's defend democracy" he really means "business."

So what business interests would be so important to make DeMint defy his Senate committe's leadership by choosing Honduras as his destination in his first trip ever to Latin America? After taking a look at what happened in Honduras it's really hard to miss the connection:

In 2008, after labor unions and international corporations failed to reach an agreement on minimum wage, Zelaya issued a decree that raised it by 60% (from US$1.15 per hour to US$1.85). This cut into the profits of the international corporations that have set shop in Honduras since the implementation of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), including the infamous sweatshops that rely on cheap labor to turn million-dollar profits. In order to counteract Zelaya's actions, they did what greedy corporations with plenty of cash do to third world country democracies: they staged a coup. In spite of claiming that Zelaya was legally removed because he violated the constitution by trying to extend presidential terms to stay in power, the regime installed after the coup has failed to convince anyone of this nonsense and therefore has not been recognized by any country in the world. In an unprecedented move, both the UN and OAS unanimously condemned the coup. In the face of mounting international pressure, the situation proved too chaotic for the companies (both in Honduras and the U.S.) to deal with the political hot potato (and the ensuing economic loss) on their own, thus raising the need for an political ally in Washington.

So, who in Washington...
1. Has been a staunch supporter of CAFTA,
2. Is the top recipient of campaign contributions by the textile industry,
3. Has been clear in establishing a strong connection between the two, and
4. Has recenlty anounced his bid for reelection?

You got it, James W. DeMint.

You see, even political figures with bad suits can every now and then make true fashion statements.

Hondurans Jailed for Demonstrating

Golpistas suspend constitutional rights of the Honduran people to "defend" democracy.