As the coup turns

Padre Fausto, whom I’ve written on before, runs a training center for health workers  in San Juan de Opoa, Copán.  Hard to say that it’s unconnected to the Padre’s outspoken criticism of the coup that the center was searched by police yesterday “looking for weapons.” No one, so far, is reported hurt or arrested, but the clinic is “under surveillence and being investigated.”   For what… helping people resist diseases?

Earlier today (er,  Thursday), CIPOL (“Plan Colombia and Beyond”) wrote “A general strike has closed schools and hospitals and blocked roads. President Zelaya is talking about crossing the border from Nicaragua as early as today.”

The Micheletti regime has definitely broken off all hopes of a negotiated settlement.  I never thought the Micheletti gang saw the Costa Rican talks as anything more than a means to buy time to consolidate their position.

With even The Economist — and one can’t get more mainstream conservative that that — weighing in on the stupidity and futility of allowing the farcical “de facto regime” to stay — the Micheletti gang is more and more isolated.   When the regime claimed support by one key regional leader (Alvaro Uribe, the Colombian President who sucessfully changed, possibly by fraud, his nation’ s constitution to allow him a second term, and is now pushing for infinite re-election) the is, in fact, no foreign support for Micheletti outside the far right, mostly among Latin exile circles in the United States and well-heeled expats within Honduras.

With President Zelaya expected to return to Honduras today or tomorrow,what happens next is anyone’s guess.