HONDURAS, 2009. LEGACY OF A COUP UNDER THE SHADOW, EPISODE 7, PART 2

[Judi Lynn]

(There is a podcast in this link. I just saw this episode today for the first time, and discovered the other episodes are available, as well. What they can do for anyone is provide an excellent review of US policy toward the Americas South of the border as it really happened, not as it was portrayed through the US corporate media. The people of the Americas are very keenly aware of what has been happening all these years, unless they identify with the predator class in each country. )

The list of the other podcasts in the series is linked at the bottom of this post.


Police occupy the National Institute of Agrarian Reform in Tegucigalpa on September 30, 2009. Photo by YURI CORTEZ/AFP via Getty Images

POSTED IN UNDER THE SHADOW

HONDURAS, 2009. LEGACY OF A COUP | UNDER THE SHADOW, EPISODE 7, PART 2

Honduras’s return to democracy after the 2009 U.S.-backed coup is a heroic story of popular resistance.

In June 2009, Honduras faced a devastating coup that shattered the country’s fragile democracy and sunk the country into violence, repression, and a decade-long narco-dictatorship.

But the people fought back.

In this continuation of Episode 7, host Michael Fox looks at the fallout of the 2009 coup in Honduras, walking from 2009 into the present. He takes us to Tegucigalpa to dive into the fraudulent U.S.-backed elections that ushered in a narco-dictatorship, and also the resistance movement that, after years of struggle, ultimately did what it set out to do: remove the dictatorship and return democracy to Honduras.

This is Part 2 of a two-part episode looking at the 2009 coup in Honduras and the aftermath.

Under the Shadow is a new investigative narrative podcast series that walks back in time, telling the story of the past by visiting momentous places in the present.

In each episode, host Michael Fox takes us to a location where something historic happened — a landmark of revolutionary struggle or foreign intervention. Today, it might look like a random street corner, a church, a mall, a monument, or a museum. But every place he takes us was once the site of history-making events that shook countries, impacted lives, and left deep marks on the world.

Hosted by Latin America-based journalist Michael Fox.

This podcast is produced in partnership between The Real News Network and NACLA.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

TRANSCRIPT
Michael Fox: Hi, I’m your host, Michael Fox.

Two things I want to say before we get started. First, today’s episode is Part 2 of Episode 7, where we look at the 2009 US-backed coup in Honduras. We ended up breaking this episode into two parts because there’s just so much to dig into here. If you haven’t listened to Part 1 yet, I suggest you go back and do that first. It’ll set the scene for everything we dive into today.

Second, many portions of today’s episode deal with harsh themes from the years following the 2009 coup in Honduras. If you’re sensitive to this, or you’re in the room with small children, you might want to consider another time to listen. OK. Here’s the show…

So the Brazilian embassy is down this this side street in this residential neighborhood, kind of a northern Tegucigalpa. You can tell that this is a spot with many embassies here because literally the street just adjacent to it is the Republic of Panama, and this one we’ve got Balboa Street, but on my Google Maps it actually says Brazil Brazil St.

And then these two-story buildings kind of go back. It’s behind this gate. So it almost looks like a gated gated neighborhood. Many of the, you know, it’s tree lined streets. Pretty, Quaint. You tell this has been kind of an upscale. Section of Tegucigalpa for a long time. Cars rumble back and forth. There’s a Chinese restaurant right here. That can actually smell the Chinese food from where I’m standing. Just half a block away from the Brazilian embassy behind this fence. And it was here that Manuel Zelaya was was holed up. For months.

Four months total. Back in late 2009, there was a constant line of state security forces outside the embassy. Meanwhile, Zelaya, his wife, Xiomara Castro, and their daughter lived in the cramped two-story home, alongside four dozen embassy workers.

It’s really wild being here because a lot of the different episodes that I’ve been working on are things that happened way in the past. But right here, was the 2009 was the coup against Manuel Zelaya. I remember this moment. I was following what was happening very, very closely from Brazil. Had friends on the ground. And so it’s really strange to be here now and to see this up close and be thinking of this as history, because it’s so present. It’s still so present, right?

Zelaya arrived at the Brazilian Embassy in September 2009, returning from exile in Costa Rica. The calculation at the time was that Zelaya’s return would keep the spotlight on Honduras and the internationally condemned coup that removed him from power three months earlier.

More:
https://therealnews.com/honduras-2009-legacy-of-a-coup-under-the-shadow-episode-7-part-2

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Under the Shadow

A podcast on US intervention and revolutionary resistance in Latin America, and all the ghosts that still linger, from independent journalist Michael Fox. Co-produced by The Real News Network and NACLA (North American Congress on Latin America).

https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/under-the-shadow--5958129

[Judi Lynn]

1. Just heard of this astounding atrocity in Colombia by the colossal U.S. United Fruit Company in 1929:

Was listening to one of the podcast episodes in this series, "Under the Shadow" and heard about this evil atrocity perpetrated by the United Fruit Company (later renamed the Chiquita Banana company) and was surprised to see this entry at Wikipedia!

I will be looking for MORE information on this, repeatedly:

The Banana Massacre (Spanish: Matanza/Masacre de las bananeras[1]) was a massacre of workers of the United Fruit Company, now Chiquita, that occurred between December 5 and 6, 1928 in the town of Ciénaga near Santa Marta, Colombia. A strike began on November 12, 1928, when the workers ceased to work until the company would reach an agreement with them to grant them dignified working conditions.[2] After several weeks with no agreement, in which the United Fruit Company refused to negotiate with the workers, the conservative government of Miguel Abadía Méndez sent the Colombian Army in against the strikers, resulting in the massacre of 47 to 2,000 people.

U.S. officials in Colombia and United Fruit representatives portrayed the workers' strike as "communist" with a "subversive tendency" in telegrams to Frank B. Kellogg, the United States Secretary of State.[3] The Colombian government was also compelled to work for the interests of the company, considering they could cut off trade of Colombian bananas with significant markets such as the United States and Europe.[4]

Gabriel García Márquez depicted a fictional version of the massacre in his novel One Hundred Years of Solitude, as did Álvaro Cepeda Samudio in his La Casa Grande. Although García Márquez references the number of dead as around three thousand, the actual number of dead workers is unknown.

Strike
The workers of the banana plantations in Colombia went on strike on November 12, 1928. The workers made nine demands from the United Fruit Company:

Stop their practice of hiring through sub-contractors
Mandatory collective insurance
Compensation for work accidents
Hygienic dormitories and 6-day work weeks
Increase in daily pay for workers who earned less than 100 pesos per month
Weekly wage
Abolition of office stores
Abolition of payment through coupons rather than money
Improvement of hospital services[2]
The strike turned into the largest labor movement ever witnessed in the country until then. Radical members of the Liberal Party, as well as members of the Socialist and Communist Parties, participated.[5]

The workers wanted to be recognized as employees, and demanded the implementation of the Colombian legal framework of the 1920s.[6]

Massacre
An army regiment from Bogotá was dispatched by the government to deal with the strikers, which it deemed to be subversive. Whether these troops were sent in at the behest of the United Fruit Company did not at first clearly emerge.

Three hundred soldiers were sent from Antioquia to Magdalena. There were no soldiers from Magdalena involved because General Cortés Vargas, the army-appointed military chief of the banana zone in charge of controlling the situation, did not believe they would be able to take effective actions, as they might be related to the plantation workers.[2]

The troops set up their machine guns on the roofs of the low buildings at the corners of the main square, closed off the access streets,[7] and, after issuing a five-minute warning that people should leave,[1] opened fire into a dense Sunday crowd of workers and their families, including children. The people had gathered after Sunday Mass[7] to wait for an anticipated address from the governor.[8]

Number of people dead
General Cortés Vargas, who commanded the troops during the massacre, took responsibility for 47 casualties. In reality, the exact number of casualties has never been confirmed. Herrera Soto, co-author of a comprehensive and detailed study of the 1928 strike, has put together various estimates given by contemporaries and historians, ranging from 47 to as high as 2,000.[1] According to Congressman Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, the killed strikers were thrown into the sea.[1] Other sources claim that the bodies were buried in mass graves.[2]

Among the survivors was Luis Vicente Gámez, later a famous local figure, who survived by hiding under a bridge for three days. Every year after the massacre he delivered a memorial service over the radio.

The press has reported different numbers of deaths and different opinions about the events that took place that night. The conclusion is that there is no agreed-on story, but rather diverse variations depending on the source they come from. The American press provided biased information on the strike.[2] The Colombian press was also biased depending on the political alignment of the publication. For example, the Bogotá-based newspaper El Tiempo stated that the workers were within their rights in wanting to improve their conditions. However, since the newspaper was politically conservative, they also noted that they did not agree with the strike.[2]

Official U.S. telegrams
Telegram from Bogotá Embassy to the U.S. Secretary of State, Frank B. Kellogg, dated December 5, 1928, stated:

I have been following Santa Marta fruit strike through United Fruit Company representative here; also through Minister of Foreign Affairs who on Saturday told me government would send additional troops and would arrest all strike leaders and transport them to a prison in Cartagena; that government would give adequate protection to American interests involved.[3]

More:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_Massacre

[Easterncedar]

2. Thanks. Bookmarking for when I'm sturdier.

[Marcus IM]

3. Some of us were onto the US Dept of State's involvement at the time it was happening.

But, that was back in the day when we could actually discuss bad policies by Dems here on DU.

I'd have some comments ... but I'd be shown the door out of the "big tent".