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TeleSur interview with Honduran President Manuel
Zelaya
A CubaNews
translation by Greg McDonald.
Edited by Walter Lippmann.
The Captain of
Zelaya's plane, in communication with Telesur:
Good afternoon. For your information, we have made two passes over the
airport tarmac, which is being guarded by soldiers and their vehicles.
We have requested permission to land, indicating that we have on board
the President of the General Assembly of the UN, and they have
threatened to intercept us. We are proceeding to an alternate
destination which we will not disclose for reasons of security.
Declaration of President Manuel Zelaya:
Here they are preventing us from landing and they have positioned
obstacles on the tarmac and thus have hindered the landing, and also the
operator said we would be intercepted directly by the Air Force. Faced
with this situation we will have to continue planning with the rest of
the members of the OAS to find a solution because we are unable to
approach the tarmac. There is a total opposition with obstacles and two
cars blocking the entrance to the runway.
I am doing everything in my power, I am in the cockpit with the two
pilots who have done everything humanly possible to approach the runway.
If I had a parachute I would jump out of the plane, but the pilots are
unable to land due to the obstacles on the tarmac. We have decided to
proceed with our plans to pursue other methods to enter the country, if
we cannot we will try again tomorrow, but our interest is to enter the
country. The people have been unable to break through the military
encirclement because if they had been able to they would have cleared
the runway of obstacles.
This situation in Honduras is barbaric and I denounce it before the
international community Among our governments there should be someone to
restore order among this armed group which stands against the nation,
there has to be a government capable of restoring order in the world to
channel multinational forces.
Today I have received calls from some well-known personalities and in a
few minutes we will be relaying our next plan of action. The pilots have
said that we cannot land because that may cause our plane to crash. We
want to land on the airport runway, with respect and tolerance.
Telesur Correspondent: What have you asked of Obama?
Manuel Zelaya:
Specifically, the strongest government in economic issues, in aspects of
the strength of the dollar, for us, is the United States. If they want
to coexist with persons involved with military coups, democracy in
America is finished. If the presidents of America are willing to permit
this because they are under orders of a military official, for a farce
or infraction, then democracy will have been converted into a huge farce
and a show. With this in mind I implore the powers who have economic and
commercial influence to take measures against these crimes which are
being committed by powers of society backed by barbarism and terror as
in Honduras.
I am on the side of the people,...I seek to return to the country to
restore calm. Those people should know that they cannot run an army like
the Honduran one or a people that is capable of rebelling. Today
Honduras is a social force opposed to the de facto regime that, in order
to maintain its privileges, is willing to keep the people marginalized
and in extreme poverty.
To the nations of the world, we need to find an immediate response. In
these moments I am going to speak with the Presidents of South America.
Even though we have indicated that the President of the General Assembly
of the UN is accompanying us they have not opened the airport and they
have said our plane should leave immediately or it will be intercepted.
That will not keep us from doing what we need to do to put an end to the
sacrifices being made by our people. This is the injustice that is
occurring today in Honduras.
Time: 7:57 PM: Telephone contact with Abraham Istillarte
I want to say that I was with President Zelaya and we had some difficult
moments in the air, at the point of landing we flew over the tarmac. It
was full of military vehicles and the President was in direct
communication with the pilots. At this moment we are landing in Managua.
Declaration of President Zelaya:
I spoke with all the Presidents together in El Salvador, with President
Correa, President Kirchner and the Secretary-General of the OAS, and
they said they wanted me to come to the airport in El Salvador to try to
coordinate our efforts, which were unsuccessful today due to the
repression.
I am with Miguel D'Escoto who has witnessed the situation in Honduras,
the climate of terror which exists in the country and the United Nations
should do something, the governments of Europe, the United States; today
they killed some people unnecessarily because the people were
demonstrating peacefully.
We are at the airport in Managua and I am going to speak with the other
Presidents to coordinate with them our next plans, we mourn along with
the families of all the people who were wounded and killed. We wish this
had not happened and that the people would not have needed to make such
a sacrifice because the de facto regime resorted to the use of force.
We need to find an immediate solution to the problem created by the
authors of the coup in Honduras. I am coming to Washington and I did not
believe they would put barriers on the runway, we thought the people
would be able to overcome these barriers, the people were cut short, and
when the military opened fire they were at the point of entering in
order to remove the obstacles from the tarmac. The pilots said they were
unable to land due to these obstacles. If there had been a way to land,
by the Holy Mother, by God, I would have done so.
I have to find a way to enter the country and return it to peace (...)
it is not possible that this group continues repressing the people. No
one in the entire world will be able to stop the process of
transformation which has begun in Honduras. The Police, or the Army, has
stained their honor by massacring demonstrators (...)
The right to demonstrate peacefully is universal, the right to strike is
universal, to have a demonstration in the streets is a universal right.
Do you know what I did as President? I would leave the house to meet the
demonstration. My government has not been repressive, what happens is
when you have a more open government you are accused of populism, of
seeking to divide social classes (...) when a President draws near to
the people he has to face criticism from the oligarchy.
The reforms in favor of participative democracy in America are in
danger. The poverty of our countries is based in the passivity of the
people, the process of citizen's participation has been placed at risk.
We have at a turn a more fascist and criminal right-wing than has
existed in the past, a right has groupoed itself into a conspiracy, a
plot. I feel that President Obama is making reforms that some people
find unacceptable...Today the world should pay attention because the
extreme right is reunifying in order to impose another system in order
to impede the people from becoming involved in a process of change. My
process is linked to to the principles of citizen participation. This
was my campaign slogan, and the first law I approved dealt with this
issue. We were trying to give more power to the people and this provoked
the coup...i am the only President elected by the will of the people,
and no one, only God, will be able to stop us from struggling for the
sacred rights of society. These imposters will have to leave their posts
because they were not chosen by the people.
I believe that Europeans and Emericans, who have boasted about their
democratic system, cannot allow that democracy fall just because the
right-wing organizes itself and finds support among the military. The
presidents of the world cannot sleep or better they should sleep with
their bags packed because Armies are capable of taking them by force and
sending them to another country in order to initiate a reign of terror.
All of humanity needs to mobilize. The world needs to create a just
international and economic order that will permit the participation of
the people.
Dictatorship lasted for thirty years in Honduras, sixteen years with a
tyranny like Tiburcio that affected thousands and thousands. If the
dictators like Somoza, Stroessner, the dictators like Pinochet, who
sacrificed the people of Chile, return to power, then the democrats
should regroup and say to these new Atillas and despots that the nature
of the world is not one of weapons and force, but of peace, reason and
not violence. I do not predict violence, my people are peaceful but
these Misters have confused tolerance and humility with arrogance and
pride and that is helping them to turn Honduras into a hell, one in
which God should punish them immediately.
These Misters will not be able to govern Honduras. For Micheletti's
part, he needs to convince himself that one enters the Presidential
House through the front door, elected by the people (..) he should leave
because he has shamed Honduras. I call on the OAS to reestablish the
mechanisms tonight and tomorrow in order to return to peace. The
president is the one person capable of calming the country because he is
the chosen leader of the people. I call on the Catholic Church, the
Cardinal, to rectify his position, to love the Honduran people instead
of these elites who impose their own criteria on the Hondurans. I know
he is a sane and saintly person. I will continue to struggle for what I
have believed, I will not surrender to anyone with fixed bayonets. The
Cardinal has not spoken of the humiliation to me and my family. They
should leave this usurpation of power behind, not to give it to me
because being or not being President I continue as the same person.
The people are indignant seeing the repression and the use of force by
this regime. Today the young people know what it is to struggle, to
confront, the Armed forces, who I called upon not to raise their rifles
against the people... or better, to turn their weapons and do what
Morazan ordered, to repress the conservatives, not the people. They are
making a huge mistake that today has cost human life. The people have
the power to denounce these acts in front of the international
community. I have struggled for changes that the country deserves and
because of those changes I have suffered a coup and they have killed
people.
Commentator: I have been informed that the presidents are waiting
for you at the airport in San Salvador...
President Manuel Zelaya:
I say to the Presidents, who are leaders, that I am leaving at once to
meet with them. I am twenty minutes from El Salvador. I thank you for
this discussion and I am going to El Salvador to see how I will be able
to arrive in Honduras.
In Olancho everyone is carrying a pistol and I ask that they not resort
to arms, let the soldiers carry their weapons and act how we need to in
this moment. I am a person with sufficient capacity to be able to
forgive but neither history nor the people are going to be so forgiving.
I hope that we would be able to see no more deaths in Honduras.
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