RAJ got the scoop:

Congress of the United States

An Open Letter to the Congress of Honduras
October 2, 2009

His Excellency José Ángel Saavedra
President of the Congress of Honduras

Your Excellency:

It is with profound respect that the undersigned members of the U.S. Congress write to you and the members of the Honduran Congress to share our views on the difficult events currently underway in your country.  We understand that you have received visitors from our Congress who represent the minority party, the Republican Party, who have expressed views that differ markedly from those of President Obama's administration and the Democratic majoritly party in the U.S. Congress.  What unites the persons signing this letter is that we are all members of the majority Democratic Party, we support the Obama Administration's efforts in Honduras, and that we each have a deep and longstanding interest and admiration for Latin America and for Honduras.

We believe that the coup against President Zelaya was unconstitutional; the absence of a legitimate president, the violation of human rights and the curtailment of civil liberties are unacceptable; and these conditions make the holding of free and fair elections next November in Honduras impossible.

We call upon the de facto government of Honduras to restore constitutional order and respect freedom of expression and internationally-recognized human rights.  We urge the Michelleti de facto government to permit the restoration of Manuel Zelaya to the presidency as outlined in the San José Accords.  We call upon all parties to resolve this conflict peacefully.

The United States government has one position, which has been a repeated call for dialogue between both sides, and support for the San José Accords, as proposed by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias.  We will continue to encourage the U.S. administration to work multilaterally with our allies in the region.  Should the de facto government continue to stall, we will encourage our government to not recognize your upcoming elections.

We know full well the weight of your task in this fast-moving scenario,, as your Constitutional responsibilities are very similar to ours.  We thought it important that you be aware of our views on these critical issues since you are the authors of the laws that govern your country and guardians of the rule of law in Honduras.  Count on us to assist in any way we can.

Sincerely,
James P. McGovern, Bill Delahunt, Janice D. Schakowsky, Sam Farr,  Gregory W. Meeks, Xavier Becerra

In the Old Testament, Absalom Amselem rebelled against his father mother, King David Queen Hillary.  In the end, Absolom Amselem got his head tangled up in the branches, and King David's Queen Hillary's soldiers finished him off.

Man, was I wrong.  I commented yesterday that the remarks made at the OAS meeting by Acting Ambassador to the OAS, Lewis Amselem, was upholding US State Department's commitment to the San José Accord. 

"Zelaya's return to Honduras is irresponsible and foolish and it doesn't serve to the interest of the people nor those who seek the restoration of democratic order in Honduras." "Everything will be better if all parties refrain from provoking and inciting violence."

"The president should stop acting as though he were starring in an old movie."

(note: I haven't found Amselem's exact quotes - seems like every news site is twisting them around a bit - so take the above as a paraphrase.)

Since State wants Zelaya to be reinstated, how could such comments be appropriate?  What was I thinking?  Was it simply a slip of the tongue on Amselem's part - expressing personal opinion rather that official State Department policy?

The devil is in the details.  While we are getting so excited about the statements quoted above - Zelaya supporters are miffed inside and outside of Hunduras (foolish translates into idiota in Spanish), and the Golpistas and the U.S. rightwing are running with the story - Amselem said something far more important that directly conflicts with Clinton's policy, and has caused the State Department to do some damage control.  From RAJ:

I can parse a statement from the US State Department as an American, and I can parse the same statement the way a Honduran does. I have to think that the State Department can do both parsings as well. Ian Kelly's (State Department Spokesperson) statement yesterday basically ignored Anselem's vulgarities yesterday. Anselem's actually suggested in the OAS session that the US would recognize the results of the November 29 elections, whether or not anything changes in Honduras, and was part of a faction that included Canada, Panama, and Columbia that took that position and blocked an OAS resolution to not recognized the results. We aligned ourselves with the right wing governments of Latin America. The State Department and the Obama White House have not repudiated Anselem's actions in the OAS.

Note: There is some discepency regarding the reporting of countries who obstructed the consensus at the OAS meeting.  The vote was taken in a closed session, and I don't know where RAJ obtained this particuar list of OAS members.

The OAS meeting was held to form a consensus on officially denouncing the November election in Honduras.  Secretary Clinton has already announced the the U.S. will not recognize the election unless Zelaya is returned to power (via the San José Accord).  So what is Amselem doing?  Who is Lewis Amselem?

Deputy U.S. Permanent Representative

W. Lewis Amselem, Deputy Chief of Mission

W. Lewis Amselem

Lewis Amselem assumed the duties of Deputy U.S. Permanent Representative to the Organization of American States in July 2008. He is currently serving as Acting U.S. Permanent Representative.

Prior to his designation as Deputy U.S. Permanent Representative, Mr. Amselem served as Foreign Policy Advisor at the United States Southern Command, Miami, Florida, since August 2006.  In that capacity, he provided assistance and expert advice to the Commander on issues involving SOUTHCOM's mission as it relates to the formulation and execution of foreign policy.

Mr. Amselem came to SOUTHCOM after serving as Deputy Chief of Mission in Jakarta, Indonesia (2003-2006).  A career member of the Senior Foreign Service with the rank of Minister-Counselor (FE-MC), Mr. Amselem joined the Foreign Service in 1978.

He served as Vice-Consul and Labor officer in Georgetown, Guyana (1978-80), followed by a tour in Islamabad, Pakistan as Refugee Officer (1981-83).  He returned to the Department of State as Pakistan Country Affairs Officer (1983-85).

From 1985-88, he was the Executive Officer for the Third Committee at the US Mission to the UN in New York, and a member of several US delegations to the Human Rights Commission in Geneva and the Commission on the Status of Women in Vienna.  He went to Guatemala as the Embassy Political-Military Officer (1988-92), and to La Paz, Bolivia (1992-95) as Counselor for Political Affairs.

In Washington (1995-97) he served in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs as Deputy Director and then acting Director of the Office of International Security and Peacekeeping.  He became Counselor for Political and Economic Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Panama (1997-2000) and Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy in Colombo, Sri Lanka (2000-2003).

Mr. Amselem holds three Department of State Superior Honor Awards, and two Meritorious Honor Awards.  He received the 1991 Director General's Award for Reporting for his coverage of the political-military and human rights situation in Guatemala.

Mr. Amselem graduated from the University of California with BA in Political Science in 1974 and earned an MA in International Relations from Brandeis University in 1976.  He speaks near native Spanish and has facility in Portuguese.  He is married to Mirentxu Salegui of San Sebastian Spain; they have four children.

A Bush appointment.  President Obama has appointed Carmen Lomellin as Ambassador to the OAS on September 14, and she has not yet been confirmed.  So Amselem is temporarily filling in the gap.  There is some clamor going on in the Left that he sports neocon bona fides, but I haven't seen those yet.  But Amselem's claim to infamy comes from his diplomatic post in Guatemala, which is cited above as Embassy Political-Military Officer (1988-92).  I'm not sure how this works out, but historical sources say Amselem was also the Human Rights Oficer.  At any rate, Amselem was named as the source of a very vicious claim against a victim of arrest and torture by the Guatemalan authorities, Ursaline nun Dianna Ortiz.

Dianna Ortiz is an Ursuline nun from New Mexico who journeyed to Guatemala in the early 1980s as a missionary, teaching Mayan children in the highlands. After months of receiving threats, Ortiz was abducted and brutally raped by armed men in November 1989. One of the men overseeing the torture appeared to be American. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights concluded that: "Sister Ortiz was placed under surveillance and threatened, then kidnapped and tortured, and that agents of the government of Guatemala were responsible for these crimes. . . including violating Dianna Ortiz's rights to 'humane treatment, personal liberty, a fair trial, privacy, freedom of conscience and of religion, freedom of association and judicial protection.'" Ortiz's ordeal did not end with her escape. Her torment continued as she sought answers from the U.S. government about the identity of her torturers in her unrelenting quest for justice. Ortiz's raw honesty and capacity to articulate the agony she suffered compelled the United States to declassify long-secret files on Guatemala, and shed light on some of the darkest moments of Guatemalan history and American foreign policy.

You may not want to read what follows this biographical introduction, just as a warning.  Ortiz memoirs bring us face to face with extremes of human depravity - things we would rather think fantastic than real.  That said, there are a couple of paragraphs that are very relevant to this blog:

 

Two months later, after a U.S. doctor had counted 111 cigarette burns on my back alone, the story changed. In January 1990, the Guatemalan defense minister publicly announced that I was a lesbian and had staged my abduction to cover up a tryst. The minister of the interior echoed this statement and then said he had heard it first from the U.S. embassy. According to a congressional aide, the political affairs officer at the U.S. embassy, Lew Anselem, was indeed spreading the same rumor.

In the presence of Ambassador Thomas Stroock, this same human rights officer told a delegation of religious men and women concerned about my case that he was "tired of these lesbian nuns coming down to Guatemala." The story would undergo other permutations. According to the Guatemalan press, the ambassador came up with another version: he told the Guatemalan defense minister that I was not abducted and tortured but simply "had problems with [my] nerves."

Something worth noting about Ortiz' ordeal is that First Lady Clinton had met with her and offered to help with the release of documents that Sister Ortiz was seeking.  From Julia Lieblich Pieces of Bone essay on Dianna Ortiz:

First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton caused a bigger stir when she invited Dianna into the White House for a meeting and told her that she would try to get an early release of some documents.
       And when Deputy National Security Advisor Nancy Soderberg said that the administration wanted to "underscore that people at high levels of the White House are following [her case] closely and that we are trying to get the information she is seeking as fast as we can," it looked like a stunning departure from the previous administration.
       "We're trying to get to the bottom of her case and find Alejandro if we can," she told me. "We have absolutely no reason not to believe her."

One wonders if Amselem is in bed with Fito (Alfredo Facusse - National Industry Chamber president).  Facussé came up with a plan for Honduras yesterday that everyone seems to be getting excited about.  There are reports that even Zelaya thinks it is a "good sign" even there are parts of it that Zelaya would never agree to.   But included in the plan is a call for an international military presence composed of troops from Canada, Columbia and Panama specifically - all countries with right-wing governments and (possibly) the three countries that joined with Amselen in stopping the OAS from declaring the elections unacceptable.  And troops for what?  All political principals would stand down with the agreement, so there's no problem there.  But would the people?  Hell no...and the international troops would be necessary to further repress the popular movements.  Fito's plan is a request for international welfare so someone else can pay for kicking Hondurans around.

But there was some damage control.  Hugo Llorens met with the presidential candidates at the US embassy in Tegucigalpa and reaffirmed the US committment to democracy, and at yesterdays daily press briefing:

QUESTION: I would like to come back to the statement by your ambassador to OAS yesterday about Honduras. He said that Zelaya's return to his country had been foolish and irresponsible. It seems that this statement has raised some questions, especially because Zelaya is still under siege in the embassy.
MR. CROWLEY: Who said that? I'm sorry.
QUESTION: Sorry?
MR. CROWLEY: Who made that statement yesterday?
QUESTION: Your - I mean the U.S. ambassador to the OAS.
MR. CROWLEY: Sure. Lew Amselem.
QUESTION: Lewis Amselem.
MR. CROWLEY: Mm-hmm.
QUESTION: And so is there any comment? Is there any change in the U.S. policy on this matter?
MR. CROWLEY: Not at all. Not at all. We have said throughout this process that all sides need to act constructively, avoid the kind of provocative statements or actions that would precipitate violence and inhibit the resolution of this situation. And I think our acting representative simply said with regard to statements that President Zelaya and his supporters have made that they need to act in a more constructive and positive manner. So I think what he said yesterday is fully consistent with our concern that both sides need to take constructive action, affirmative action. Both sides ultimately need to sign on to the San Jose process and begin a transition to a new government that the people of Honduras can support.
QUESTION: The words were very strong. The words were very --
MR. CROWLEY: Absolutely, absolutely. And we have said this before.

Quite a bit of stuff to update.

U.N. suspends support of Honduran elections.

U.N. Security Council Saturday - "Hands-off the embassy, Michelleti!"

Michelleti Ultimatum Saturday - "Brazil must decide on Zelaya's status in 10 days"

Lula tells Michelleti to kiss-off: "We don't accept ultimatums from coup-plotters."

Michelleti threatens to close-down Brazilian embassy.  Clamps down on civil liberties.

Honduras detains and deports OAS Officials:

Five OAS technical representatives, three Spaniards, one Columbian, and a US citizen, who arrived at Toncontin International Airport this morning were expelled from Honduras. All four arrived this morning at 9 am. Three were expelled on a COPA airlines flight this morning at 9 am while a fourth was expelled abord a later American airlines flight. El Heraldo reports that all four were deported because they arrived without the authorization of the de facto regime. La Prensa disagrees, and says they were deported because their governments do not recognize the de facto government. A Chilean who accompanied them as part of the team was allowed to remain. All of them were deported after being held for 6 hours, on flights bound for San Jose, Costa Rica.

Yesterday Carlos Lopez Contreras, Foreign Minister of the de facto regime, had invited the OAS delegation to visit. In a press release yesterday he emphasized that the political crisis in Honduras needed a Honduran solution, and that it was no threat to international peace, that there were no international interests. None-the-less he invited the OAS delegation to visit "on a precise date", along with the support staff they require, "so that they might witness the level of advance of the internal dialog." Lopez Contreras's statement didn't specify the "precise date" so we can only guess that its not today.

As regards the "clamp down on civil liberties" - NarcoNews got the jump and translated the Michelleti Decree, released Sunday afternoon:

Decree:

Article 1. For a period of 45 days beginning with this decree's publication, the Constitutional rights of Articles 69, 72, 81 and 84, are suspended.

Article 2. The Armed Forces will support, together or separately with the National Police, when the situation requires, to execute the necessary plans to maintain the order and security of the Republic.

Article 3. The following is prohibited:

First: Freedom of transit, which will be restricted according to the parameters established by press releases broadcast on all radio and TV stations by the President of the Republic, which will be in effect in all national territory and during curfews, with the exception of cargo transport, ambulances, and urban traffic in the cities excluded in said communiqués, and medical personell and nurses that in those cities work during curfew hours.

Second: All public meetings not authorized by police or military authorities.

Third: Publication in any media, spoken, written or televised, of information that offends human dignity, public officials, or criticizes the law and the government resolutions, or any style of attack against the public order and peace. CONATEL (the Honduran communications commission), through the National Police and the Armed Forces, is authorized to suspend any radio station, television channel or cable system that does not adjust its programming to the present decree.

Article 4. It is ordered:

First: Detain all persons who are found outside of the established orders of circulation, or that in any manner are suspected by police and military authorities of damaging people or property, those that associate with the goal of committing criminal acts or that place their own lives in danger. All detainees will be read their rights, and at the same time must be brought to be booked in a police station of the country, identifying all persons detained, their motives, the hour of arrest and release from the police station, recording the physical condition of the detainee, to avoid future accusations of supposed crimes of torture.

Second: All persons detained must remain confined in the legally established detention centers.

Third: All public offices, national, state and municipal, that have been occupied by demonstrators or have persons inside of them engaging in illegal activities will be cleared.

Fourth: All Secretaries of State, decentralized institutions, municipalities and other state organisms must place themselves at the orders of the National Police and Armed Forces without any equivocation, along with all means at their disposal, for the development of these operations.

Article 5. The present Decree becomes law immediately, being duly published in the Official Daily "La Gaceta" and will be sent to the National Congress to be made law.

Ordered from the Presidential Palace in the City of Tegucigalpa, municipality of the Central District, on the 22nd of September of 2009.

ROBERTO MICHELETTI BAIN

CONSTITUTIONAL PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC

And the constitutional articles which are suspended for the next 45 days.

Article 69: Personal liberty is inviolable and only through law can it be restricted or suspended temporarily.

Article 72: The expression of thought by any media, without censorship, is free. Those who interfere with this right or through direct or indirect means restrict or impede the communication and circulation of ideas and opinions will held responsible by the law.

Article 81: Every person has the right to circulate freely, leave, enter and remain in national territory.

No one can be obligated to move from his home or residence except in special cases in accord with the law.

Article 84: No one can be arrested or detained except  through written order by competent authorities, executed through legal formalities and for motives established by law.

Notwithstanding, open delinquency can be apprehended by any person only to deliver the delinquent to the authorities.

The arrested or detained person must be informed clearly of his rights and the facts of the accusations against him, and, additionally, authorities must permit him to communicate his detention to a family member or person of his choice.

It looks pretty grim to me, but I've cried wolf before and nothing happened.  Two events are scheduled for Monday; the Legal Government's Foreign Minister, Pratricia Rodas, is scheduled to speak at the UN General Assembly, and massive demonstrations in Honduras are planned by the resistance.   I find myself hoping that the movement leaders in Honduras will order a stand-down - time to reorient to a lawless autocracy that the coup leaders have become.  But I think that many are fed up, stressed out, and inclined to an all or nothing position, which is frightening.