“Saturday, the body of a 23-year-old Zelaya supporter was found next to a coffee field, bearing knife gashes and signs he had been beaten. Supporters of the ousted president accuse Honduran police of murdering the man.

Munoz was buried in Tegucigalpa on Sunday, as activists chanted “blood of martyrs, seeds of freedom!”

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j8ypSuxw28USLCbS1BLqogyC6ouA

“Human rights court denounces press censorship in Honduras

Catalina Botero, the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), said there are “permanent forms of exclusion and censorship” in the wake of the coup that overthrew Manuel Zelaya, Telesur reports.

Botero reported receiving 12 complaints of media shut-downs and information about at least 25 journalists currently at risk. “Public media outlets which had favored president Zelaya were taken over, and the workers were fired,” she added.

She said the IACHR is monitoring the Honduran situation and is gathering the necessary information to process the complaints.”

http://knightcenter.utexas.edu/blog/?q=en/node/4716

Rather makes my point:

“You’ll note that I’ve not been arguing either for or against exile: only deposition and whether that was done according to the law.”

I think it’s hard to read it and believe all the hype about a ‘military takeover’ etc.

It can take a little while for the benefits of economic reforms to kick in, especially if they have been implemented by far from ideal governments. The point is Chile now has one of the most sucessful economies in South America, and also one of the most liberal.

Oh really? Interesting.

At one stage Pinochet nearly went bankrupt. Do you know why in the end Chile didn’t run out of money?

Because Pinochet never denationalised the Copper mines, the ones that were one of the countries chief export industries. The funds from that industry saved his government. Very neoliberal, I’m sure he was just waiting for the really high neoliberal growth to kick in…

Inspite, rather than because of, Pinochet.

In this respect I think the Obama administration are even worse news for Latin America than the Bush scum were.

http://www.counterpunch.org/grandin11172006.html

Hayek must have been well aware of the torture and murder committed by the regime, Amnesty had been documenting it extensively since the mid 70s. Yet nowhere did Hayek condemn it, his only recorded statements on the regime were approving. Clearly he believed that the repression was a necessary price to achieve his conception of “liberty” (i.e free market individualism) as such he supported murder and torture where he thought it was necessary. The same is true of his contemporary followers – look at this thread, they’re making *still* making apologies for a repressive military dictatorship that is violating human rights now.

“In 1973, the year General Pinochet brutally seized the government, Chile’s unemployment rate was 4.3%. In 1983, after ten years of free-market modernization, unemployment reached 22%. Real wages declined by 40% under military rule.

“In 1970, 20% of Chile’s population lived in poverty. By 1990, the year “President” Pinochet left office, the number of destitute had doubled to 40%. Quite a miracle.”

http://www.gregpalast.com/tinker-bell-pinochet-and-the-fairy-tale-miracle-of-chile-2/

Also see

http://multinationalmonitor.org/hyper/issues/1994/08/mm0894_12.html

Also, while not wishing to suggest this, IN ANY WAY, legitimates a dictatorial regime, it is worth looking out the outcomes the policies that were adopted had for people on the ground: http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTPOVERTY/EXTPA/0,,contentMDK:20206749~isCURL:Y~menuPK:435735~pagePK:148956~piPK:216618~theSitePK:430367,00.html

Compared with others in the region: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_South_America#Chile

Yes he did – you might to want to read this

http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2002/09/12/hayek-and-pinochet/

and this

http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2005/02/25/hayek-and-pinochet-one-more-time/

As for neo-liberal economics bringing a “slightly greater measure of freedom and prosperity” to Latin America, well if you think mass unemployment, the destruction of national industry, huge cuts backs in social service and an explosion of inequality achieved that then you’re only right if you’re referring to the freedom of a tiny oligarchy at the expense of the majority driven into poverty.

“Libertarians” still haven’t learnt the lesson, they’re still cheering on murderous dictatorships as this thread attests – Passing Libertarian, Tim Worstall and “Dan” have exposed themselves as apologists for dictatorship.

That’s untrammeled to you, dipstick.

Certainly news to me that Hayek supported either murder or torture. Got any evidence?

If I were a citizen of a country which had a history of dictatorship I think I’d be more concerned about a military seizure of power, the imposition of a media blackout and the violent suppression of dissent, including extrajudical killings, than I would about an elected civilan president proposing a non-binding opinion poll ffs.

But lets cut the bullshit here – Dan and Tim don’t support democracy at all, they just support untrampled capitalism and like their hero Hayek they also support the murder and torture of anybody that stands in the way of realising that. I don’t see why you even give them legitimacy by debating with them Neil – they should be placed in the same anti-democratic loony bin as the BNP. They are utter scum.

Except that there is a systematic and civilian administered impeachment process; it was the Supreme Court of the country which issued a warrant for Zelaya’s arrest.

Arrest is not the same thing as impeachment.

If I were a citizen of a country which had a history of dictatorship, I think I’d probably rather have constitutional safeguards in place than not.

I can sympathise with that, and I can understand why term limits have been commonplace in the region. But I do think they restrict democracy, and that Zelaya was within his rights to ask the question, even at the risk of betraying a constitution which seems calibrated to prevent change from ever occurring.

If Zelaya’s program is really that popular, it doesn’t seem to me as though it should be so difficult to find another of its advocates to run for president after Zelaya’s terms were up; if Putin can do it, why can’t he?

His domestic agenda isn’t at issue here (at least for me); I don’t care whether he’s on the left or right. The issue is constitutional change, and it appears drafted in such a way that it can never be altered even in the event of widespread support from the public & political class. In this case, Zelaya wasn’t a particularly good president, wasn’t a particularly popular figure, probably wouldn’t have won the referendum, and almost certainly wouldn’t have been able to extend a term which was/is due to expire. But I still think he should’ve been able to ask the question.

Except that there is a systematic and civilian administered impeachment process; it was the Supreme Court of the country which issued a warrant for Zelaya’s arrest.

And I’m not convinced that the constitution is a ‘faulty document’ which ‘unduly restricts the ability of the population to dictate their own future.’ If I were a citizen of a country which had a history of dictatorship, I think I’d probably rather have constitutional safeguards in place than not. If Zelaya’s program is really that popular, it doesn’t seem to me as though it should be so difficult to find another of its advocates to run for president after Zelaya’s terms were up; if Putin can do it, why can’t he?

Upholding the rule of law is a fetish now, is it?

Again, you’d have to demonstrate the lawfulness of exiling someone at gunpoint. Hell, even the Honduras army’s top lawyer’s conceded the illegality of what actually happened, and he thinks the coup was a great thing. http://bit.ly/hx04s

Characterise? I asked the question, certainly, but that’s not quite the same thing.

“you can fetishise a faulty document”

Upholding the rule of law is a fetish now, is it?

Err, no. I’m saying that if the Constitution has been followed, that Consitution which is the guarantor of the democratic rights of the Honduran people (for that is what a Constitution is) then I’m just fine with what has happened.

I’ve also pointed out that if the Constitution has not been followed, if the democratic rights of the Honduran people have been abrogated, then I’m not happy with it.

What’s so tough to understand about that?

Oh, there’s nothing tough to understand at all; it’s incredibly simplistic. All I’m saying is that the constitution doesn’t work, as evidenced by the fact that rather than having a systematic & civilian-administered impeachment process, the president was bundled onto an airplane in his pajamas. And since the constitution doesn’t work, it clearly needs reform, which for me justified Zelaya’s decision to ask a question of his people. Now, you can either agree with that or you can fetishise a faulty document which unduly restricts the ability of the population to dictate their own future. But characterising all those who’ve opposed the coup as being motivated by the belief of “he’s a lefty so it’s ok” is really quite daft.