You're confusing me with someone else, methinks.Originally Posted by Houngan
Although I think that armed resistance by Juan and others wouldn't necessarily be the right move with the current threat level. If they were to stop peacefully resisting and begin fighting back with guns, the military is just going to throw all restraint out the window and hit them hard, and they'll be able to call them terrorists and crap.
Yeah. The right tools for this fight are informational in nature, and maybe some gas masks.
Definitely. I say we take up a collection for both and then send some care packages.
If I weren't broke, I would. All I can do is try to spread awareness, support the one person I know involved in the struggle, write letters to Congresscritters, and offer any support my technical skills or those of the people I know can do.
I'm broke, but if there's shit I could donate I will. Juan, I'm not kidding, what's useful? GSM cell phones, old digital cameras, memory cards, prepaid phone cards, etc?
Get a list together of stuff that you guys find useful and necessary that's hard to get ahold of right now and let's see if the same forum that sent Jpinard $2k worth of gaming equipment can send you some shit to fight for your freedom.
If Juan can develop a paypal button to click somewhere, I'd be happy to click on it.
Awesome guys, but I am actually making a point of not asking for money directly.
See, the resistance doesn't exist legally, so it can't have a bank account. Therefore, we have personal bank accounts for people that receive donations.
Now, I know and trust these people, but I can't ask anyone to donate money to someone's personal bank account.
It's great that you guys ask tho :)
So the regime has turned the negotiations on their head and going back on everything they agreed on. Granted, Zelaya's negotiators are IDIOTS and they signed a very, very bad document. Actually, the National Resistance front saw this and DID warn them them, to no avail.
Today, a bunch of candidates to presidency, congress and local authority have announced they will not participate it what is obviously a mockery of an election.
This is not good. The past few months have been really taxing for us, and nobody wants the prospect of spending FOUR YEARS in resistance, not recognizing the new goverment and having to carry on like this for so long would surely make the movement crack in more than one way.
We are fast running out of options tho. Oh, and armed resistance? NOT an option at the moment. Like, at all. First, it would create a bloodshed we at least do not want. Second, the army would do exactly what someone else mentioned above and just come down like a hammer on civilians, use the "guerrilla" excuse to capture, kill or dissapear anyone who is opposed to the coup, no matter if they weren't linked to said armed movement at all. It's just inviting disaster.
Okay, but what if I were to set up a paypal and cut you money orders or something? Barring that, surely there's some dry goods that would be useful to you guys. Seriously, let's make this happen. What do you guys need, what's hard to get ahold of down there that we can get easily and cheaply?
A good analysis of just what happened with the agreement, by Robert White
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6565
If only we had nonlethal remote controlled robots that Qt3 could deploy and control from our PCs and consoles, shooting beanbags and nets and such.
BIG bomb just exploded somewhere in Tegucigalpa, trying to find more info.
We think it's them (the golpistas) doing this to justify really dropping the hammer on us, will post again as soon as I get more info.
oh shit.
Stay safe, man. Sorry it didn't pan out as we'd all hoped. :(
I can't find any coverage of this incident but it seems like there have been random bombings or attempted ones in the capital before. Two separate reports, which I won't link to because I'm unsure of the sources, from last week alone. One was a grenade attack on a radio station, golpista sympathizers are suspected, and another on some insurance office, government opponents are suspected in that one. According to questionable sources in both cases.
From Proceso Digital (golpista media)
On friday morning, authorities recognize that something strange happened, but have no clue about what it was, and they only say they are investigating the event.La mañana de este viernes, las autoridades reconocen que algo raro pasó, pero no tienen indicios de que, y se limitan a decir que investigan lo sucedido.
..El portavoz dijo que una de las hipótesis a investigar es que se trataba de un atentado contra las bodegas electorales
... Spokesman said one of the hiphotesys is that it was an attack against a wharehouse containing electoral ballots.
So I come home late from a meeting. As i drive trough the narror corridor that leads to my house I notice 4 guys just standing there, at my door.
My first reaction was to speed right thru them, but they are blocking the way. Corridor is very narrow so I can't turn the motorcycle around. I am trapped.
I stopped the byke and got down, took my helmet out and gripped it strongly on my hand as I FURIOUSLY think "do I have anything, anything I can use as a weapon?". I am trembling, but I am trying not to show it. I am cursing myself for not being more careful.
So I get down and look at them. I am not taking out the keys to my house, fuck them. One of them steps up to me and says "good night, (my name)".
"I don't know you, leave me the fuck alone"
He smiles. I swear guys, he smiles this creepy smile and says "you really should think about your family, you know? why do you hate Honduras? (I swear he actually says that), do you not love your country?"
"I love my country yes, people like you are just dicks shitting all over it".
The other 3 guys come closer, and I see the guns on their belts. My back is almost touching the door now. I am nearly pissing myself at this point.
The first guys goes on "you know your brother (his name) is so young, be a shame if anything happened to him right? and your sister (her name), she's 23 right? such a DELICIOUS little thing"
He said that last part in a way that both made me shiver and at the same time turned on all the "screw caution, fuck this fucker up in the face" lights in my body. I hated this right there with every single cell in my brain.
My neighbors are starting to show up at this point. They are clearly worried, but yet they are coming out of their houses.
"all of you FUCKERS GET BACK INSIDE!" yells one of the guys.
My neighbors just stand there, unsure what do do. To be honest, I get no "courage" injection from their prescense. I am no hero, I am just scared out of my mind.
"you think you can do whatever you want, but you can't" I say, not really believing it "fuck you, you are trash".
He puts a hand on my chest and pushes me against the door "stop writing bullshit and we won't have to visit you anymore".
and with that, they walk out. They have their guns out. One of my neighbors comes to me and I realize I am in tears. "take it easy" he says. He helps me open the door cause I can't fucking seem to be able to use the keys. "It will pass" he says.
I don't know.
Hey man....
I don't really know what to say here, I'm sorry I can't be any help. I'm glad you didn't do anything that might have jeopardized your life or make the situation for your family and friends any harder, but man... just saying "stay safe" seems hollow from where I'm sitting.
I can only pray and hope that you're kept safe. You're the doing the right thing there.
People can be disgusting, vile animals. Fuck those guys.
Stay strong, Juan. We are all thinking about you and the people of Honduras.
Well, you know, it's allright, I mean, I WAS in a histerical fit after that for a while. When I told my girl about it over the phone I coudn't resist the starwars joke "they didn't even asked me anything".
But it was more show than anything else. truth is, it scares me a lot. But yet, what should I do right?
My god.... I'm not much of the praying sort these days, but I'll send a few your way anyway. May the Lord be with you, sir.
I don't know how to respond properly to your valor, Juan. You no doubt understand the situation far better than anyone here can do.
But as a gesture of support, such as it is, this is my opinion, weak as it may be.
Honestly, I think the appropriate response is to back down and even to lay low for a while.
You are evidently on a list somewhere, and someone thought it was worth enough of their time to research you and scare you. Possibly one of your neighbors has informed on you, too.
You can be somewhat pleased that you have done enough good work that someone thought this evil action was needful to do. Perhaps you have done enough such good work with no personal reward whatsoever that you can reasonably and morally afford to take a little time off from it for a while. At the same time, there is some faint solace in the understanding that the situation is such that these evil scumbags felt they couldn't just commit any gross attack on you or your family -- because it's certainly not any great sense of morality or ethics that is stopping them.
The problem is that these jackbooted scumbags themselves probably feel no great restraint; it's only their superior scumbag who is ordering scare tactics but no outright violence. These bastards who ambushed you would probably shoot you with no qualms at all.
I think that in conditions like these, a full-scale revolution is justified, but that's not something you can do yourself in a personal confrontation, and without massive organization, it would be self-destructive in any event. So both personal pragmatism and prudence as well as consideration of the greatest good for the greatest number dictates a more cautious and non-confrontational approach.
Last edited by Miramon; 11-19-2009 at 10:36 AM. Reason: Fixed a stupid typo
Well, the thing is, I am as non-confrontational as can be. I write stuff, that's it. I write articles on an almost daily basis and distribute them.
Clearly, that's enough for them.
I am not the only one by far, as a lot of people are suffering much worse intimidation tactics, getting worse as the elections approach.
Edit: Miramon, I appreciate the advice and believe me, with friends and family we've talked about this, a lot.
Thing is, I truly believe in that saying, the one about evil triumphant because good men do nothing. Sounds cheesy, I guess. Now I might be in the wrong on this whole thing, but I believe I am right, can't back down because others are going thru worse and they aren't backing down either. As I said above, I really am no hero at all, I have this attachment to sex, booze, games and breathing in general, but fuck them if they think they will make us stop demanding BASIC rights because some thugs are telling us to.
Last edited by Juan Rayo; 11-19-2009 at 08:58 AM.
Are you kiddin' me? Ideas are the most dangerous thing of all.
God bless you, Juan.
Juan's absolutely right. "Backing down & laying low" is not the appropriate response at all. It's an understandable response, and one that I fear I myself might choose if I were in his place. But the morally correct thing to do is exactly what Juan is doing.
Juan, I sincerely wish you the best, and I'm sorry that a good man like you has to face this shit.
This. My God. Except in another sense I'm glad your country has good men like you that can face it.
I don't even know what to say. I could say "stay safe" but I think you're well past that point now. Just be careful. Maybe see if you can get vulnerable family members out of the country somehow? This sounds like a potentially very bad, very bad, situation. My thoughts are with you, man.
Thank you all.
One of the things that's making them use this tactics is, I believe, the fact that we've been working a lot with the candidates for the upcoming elections in every lvl.
As a results, tons of candidates of Partido Liberal, Pinu-SD are dropping out, announcing they will not dignify an election held under duress and with the levels of repression we've suffered.
The independent candidate (a distant third in every poll, but still, third in polls made by the same polling companies that belong to the same media owners that are the same bankers that supported the coup) dropped out, and the leftist UD betrayed the resistance by announcing they will participate, but their members are dropping from the elections as well.
That's gonna be one lonely, lonely leftist party headquarters on election day.
Basically, everyone who speaks against elections held in the current conditions is being branded an enemy of the state by the regime, and there is a LOT of people under charges of treason for speaking their minds.
We believe participation will be historically low, and we also believe regime is not above rigging the results to make it appear as if everyone and their dogs voted. It's all getting very tense, as the election draws near.
Queried the Carter Center about monitoring for open elections:
We are concerned about the social effects of the Honduran political crisis and are closely following up the developments and monitoring the human rights situation surrounding the elections. We will not send an observation mission for the November 29 elections. The Carter Center clearly established that it would only consider the possibility of sending a mission if a political agreement is reached before the elections.
I'm not sure what that means in this context.
H.
It means they will only send observers if they think it will be a fair election to begin with, and if they are given some reasonable assurances for their safety and access. The theoretical idea is that their prestige is such that their decision not to come somehow throws the election into disrepute.
Juan needs to donate his balls of steel to science when he dies at the ripe old age of 140.
I'm not gonna say stop writing, but maybe start using a pseudonym or something?
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