Via the Miami Herald: They’re torturing me, Honduras’ Manuel Zelaya claims – 5-Minute Herald
It’s been 89 days since Manuel Zelaya was booted from power. He’s sleeping on chairs, and he claims his throat is sore from toxic gases and “Israeli mercenaries” are torturing him with high-frequency radiation.“We are being threatened with death,” he said in an interview with The Miami Herald, adding that mercenaries were likely to storm the embassy where he has been holed up since Monday and assassinate him.
Certainly such statements aren’t going to help Zelaya’s credibility–indeed, they make it sound as though he is cracking under the pressure of the situation. Although the part about being threatened with death and believing that he might be killed is actually likely and reasonable, respectively. AS, btw, is the sore throat from toxic gases, given that the Honduran military has been using tear gas on pro-Zelaya crowds outside the Brazilian embassy. Now, Israeli mercenaries with high-frequency radiation, a tad less reasonable, shall we say.
One thing about this story is that it continually gets weirder and weirder. There is a novel in the mode of magical realism to be written here.
h/t: Chris Lawrence via a comment, who correctly notes “Somehow I don’t think this interview is going to help him in the court of world opinion.”
Indeed.
September 24th, 2024 at 2:30 pm
My comment below responding to Chris is equally appropriate here.
It’s pretty easy to portray someone you interview as crazed if you set out to do so, and the reporter clearly did.
September 24th, 2024 at 2:47 pm
I take your point and I agree with part of your assessment (esp. regarding the tear gas). However, Zelaya isn’t helping himself with such statements, especially those abou Israeli mercs.
September 24th, 2024 at 4:41 pm
Brazil has violated the internal rules of Honduras supporting somebody who has been accused of corrupt, robber with proofs and not patriot pretending to change the constitution.
Would it be permitted by citizens from USA, France, Brazil, etc. to support a CORRUPT PRESIDENT OF THEIRS and afterward still to be supported by United Nations, American States Organization, and extremely to grant him housing in Brazil’s embassy when he never asked for it at an international call??????????
What a shame that United States and Europe is permitting and supporting the comunism to be spred in whole Latin America. Chávez had laughed at all of those countries, now Zelaya is going on…
WHO’S NEXT ???? Zelaya is causing inestability to whole Central America.
Why does Zelaya wish to be back for a month or two to Honduras??? THINK ABOUT IT.
UNITED STATES AND EUROPE IS AN EMERGENCY THAT YOU SUPPORT HONEST GOVERNORS AND NOT CORRUPT GOVERNMENTS. IF YOU SUPPORT ZELAYA AND CHAVEZ, YOU WILL BE RESPONSIBLE OF NEW SOCIALIST STATES IN AMERICAN CONTINENT. S U P P O R T NEW ELECTIONS AND NEW HONEST GOVERNORS TO CLEAN UP TRASH!!!
September 25th, 2024 at 8:31 pm
Steven Taylor, it’s not Zelaya that’s coming up with allegations that there are Israeli mercenaries training Hondurans. An independent reporter by the name of Dick Emanuelsson broke the story. He based it on an interview with a well-known human rights observer, Andres Pavon.
I haven’t seen the story confirmed, but why is it even controversial? If there were a report that American mercenaries were training Egyptians or Kenyans or Taiwanese, would that be craaaaazy?
Mercenaries are mercenaries. They sell their services for money. Israeli mercenaries are not any different than any others.
September 26th, 2024 at 12:10 am
This is the same Andres Pavon that wants the US to invade Honduras, I believe.
September 26th, 2024 at 12:33 am
Dear Mr Taylor,
With regard to your post on my blog: I understand from your post that you think that people like you and Frances Robles are very clever and that Mr. Zelaya is not very smart, maybe “cracking up.” Meanwhile, on the Field, people are checking Frances Robles’s quotes and discovering that she seems to have shaved them that her article is fiction. And people are discovering that many of Zelaya’s complaints that she mocks (the sonic harassment, the use of chemical weapons) might in fact be true!
Now, as to my asperity tonight, it has been reported that an eight year old child choked to death on the tear gas that Frances Robles got such a laugh out of. Confirming this is difficult because the same dictatorship that has already been indicted for massive human rights violations is willing to lie to cover up its cromes.
I really should be more patient with pompous jackasses. I will try harder.
But not tonight.
September 26th, 2024 at 7:16 am
Since we are cross-posting, I will cut and paste what I wrote on your site and then, I guess, be done with it:
I still don’t think that you are reading what I am writing very carefully at all. For example, in the portion of the post I quoted above, I acknowledge that that the use of tear gas was wholly consistent with Zelaya’s statements.
And I see no cause in calling names. I am simply trying to engage in dialog, but you seem uninterested in that.
My point remains, however, that Zelaya needs to be careful what he says and how he presents himself, as the situation is rather politically sensitive at the moment.
The real irony is that you are mad at Robles (and me, I guess) for focusing on one specific element from the interview, and yet that is exactly what you are doing to me: focusing on one part of my post (and my comment) and ignoring the rest, so as to make the point you want to make.