Our friend, Ana LucÃa Lardizabal de Hawit, 2008 Barista Champion of Honduras, wrote me an email today regarding Ken’s post about the coup in Honduras from a few days ago. Here is what she has to say about the situation from an on-the-ground perspective ¦
Hello Sarah. I hope you are well! I am sending a message because I couldn ´t figure out how to post a comment on Barista Magazine ´s blog!
I saw your post regarding the œcoup in our country, and wanted to give you my comments:
So many aspects of what is being put out to the world are just plain wrong, and do not reflect what is really happening in our country, as you know, there are always two sides to every story, to give you a for instance:
Yesterday on national tv a very humble peasent from the border area near El Salvador said it wih impressive eloquence ¦. œ ¦we desperately want Zelaya back, but we want him back in a prison cell. I am a simple man who only went 3 years to school and even I know that we were used and robbed by Mel Zelaya. He robbed us of the funds sent to us by international organisms, robbed us of our dignity and used us to his own benefit ¦
I won ´t bore you with the story but I think that it is important that the international community be made aware that the vast majority of the country is delighted by what we see as the legal removal from office of an unlawful citizen.
Zelaya’s irreverence and disrispect to all of society and the legal institutions of our country was just totally out of order.
As you may know, Honduras is a duly structured republic, with legal institutions that guarantee a law abidding society. Our country’s future can not be decided on a whim by one man. What happened here, is that one man: Zelaya, wanted to change the constitution according to his wishes, with no respect to what people want for our country.
This is not the way we do things here, this is not Cuba or Venezuela, where unfortunately that has been imposed by their governments as the norm.
Zelaya received not one, but many legal orders from the Supreme Court which he disobeyed, insulted the military, Congress, and anyone and everyone who manifested a different opinion. He used tax funds to promote his ilegal activity, paid thousands of people to go out on the streets and promote his agenda, people who were so simple that one question on tv was all it took to prompt them into saying how much and by whom they were paid.
During the last 6 months, he and his cabinet have been fully commited to pursuing an agenda of a popular vote which was a mirror of the actings of Hugo Chavez to ensure his continuity in power.
Hondurans do not want to become the next casualty of comunism, that is why he was taken out of our country.
Now, we do understand that no one will back us in our intent to preserve our contry ´s freedom and dignity, at least not initially. But the UN and the OEA know the actual truth, and a couple of months from now when this is no longer news, Manuel Zelaya will hopefuly be were he belongs, in prison.
Besides isolated events where people have not manifested but rather acted as violent mobs, the country is at peace. Unfortunately, this is what sells on tv, CNN has mostly showed the unruly, the mobs. Have you asked yourself what is best for our country?
Reality is that nowadays you are free to travel through our streets and from city to city without any fear of being assaulted (some reporters have not been so lucky as they covered the mobs and got a scare ¦)
The coffee producing regions are at peace and working normally. The ports of export are also working normally.
There was a massive demonstration today in my city -San Pedro Sula- which passed right in front of Cafeteo, our coffee shop, with not a single instance of violence or any kind of disruption.
We are a peaceful nation, that on a daily basis confronts the hardships faced by all third world countries, and getting a biased portrayal by the international news media is not helping us.
We know the actual government -which we fully recognize as legitimate- might not be perfect, but we are proud of the fact that the Congress, Military and Supreme Court took the steps and gathered the courage to face international condemnation in doing what was right for the country.
As a sign carried today in the manifestation read œCNN, investigate, investigate, investigate!! There is much truth in this matter that has still to be revealed to the world.
As you can tell, I am very passionate about my country, and hope to have given you some insight on what is really going on in Honduras, from a perspective of someone who is not in politics, nor in media.
Best Regards and take care,
Ana LucÃa
Ana LucÃa, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts on the matter, and for giving us a better understanding of what is going on in Honduras. Take care, my friend!
