coup d'etat in Honduras

The inauguration of Pepe Lobo in Honduras Wednesday marked the consolidation of the June 28 coup d'état in the Central American country.

Undeterred, thousands of Hondurans gathered for a parallel inauguration ceremony, the presidential sash handed off to members of the popular resistance movement.

According to Dina Meza, a reporter from the streets of resistance, Pepe Lobo "took possession of the government, with a small presence of international dignitaries, and a minimal participation of Hondurans. Hundreds of military and police almost equaled the number of civilians in the area."

The morning of the inauguration there were early morning police raids and at least 41 people were detained, a worrying sign that repression and killings of social activists will continue under this new regime.

Since I've been in Honduras, I've been hearing a constant refrain about the "medios golpistas," which is to say the pro-coup media. I avoided the papers for a while, preferring to listen to the radio, read online, and talk to Hondurans about the situation in the country (I generally do the same at home anyways).

That said, I caved and bought the paper today, and even though I was planning to spend the day transcribing, I feel compelled to write a post about flipping through La Prensa this morning over coffee.

"Government proposes break with ALBA" screams the headline on A1, with another story below on the assassination of the daughter of a pro-coup journalist.

The next three pages of the paper are dedicated to "The Keys of 2009," an ongoing series of unsigned opinion pieces presented as factual, objective reporting on the events that defined 2009.

Second of today's 12 "Keys" is a blurb titled "External aid pulled, commerce closed because of political crisis." I'm going to translate part of it here in an effort to get across the editorial perspective (again, masquerading as fact) in the paper.

The substitution of José Manuel Zelaya Rosales was like a bucket of icy water for the depressed national economy... The Internaional Monetary Fund - with who Zelaya had broken relations and had negated to sign a new memorandum of understanding with, was one of the first to distance itself from Honduras after June 28.

Not only is this a Non Sequitur, it's not true.