2009

The situation in Honduras has only worsened since the coup on June 28th when the Honduran military rousted President Manuel Zelaya from his bed, and flew him to Costa Rica in his pajamas.

“Money for the victims, money for the displaced. No more money for murder and waste!” Chanted the crowd gathered outside the White House on Monday, June 29th. Inside, Colombian President Uribe was trying to get the same approval from President Obama that he received from the Bush Administration, and activists from around the city came to make sure that he would not get it. Attracting media attention and stopping traffic, they exposed the human rights abuses committed by the Colombian military and demanded that the U.S. change its policies to support victims of the ongoing violence.

Military vehicles with machine guns rolled through the streets of Tegucigalpa, Honduras as the Honduran military ousted President Jose Manuel Zelaya yesterday, June 28.  This marks the first military coup in Honduras in thirty years and brings back ugly memories of darker times for democracy in Latin America.

As President Uribe visits the White House, the scandal regarding the Colombian intelligence agency Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad (DAS) is widening daily. According to Colombia’s Attorney General, over the last seven years the DAS systematically and without warrants tapped the phones and email of Colombia’s major human rights groups, prominent journalists, members of the Supreme Court (including the chief justice and the judge in charge of the parapolitics investigation), opposition politicians, and the main labor federation. Not only did DAS personnel spy on their targets, they spied on their families. This includes taking photos of their children, investigating their homes, their finances, and their daily routines. DAS even wrote a detailed manual of spying methods for personnel to follow.