6-29-09, 10:00 am

Original source:

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolás Maduro Moros said Sunday, from Miraflores Presidential Palace, that Latin America must guarantee the defeat of the coup d'etat against the President of Honduras Manuel Zelaya and try those responsible.

'Latin America has to guarantee the defeat of this coup d'etat and also has to demand, without conditions, the reestablishment of President Manuel Zelaya and ensure justice is done to the fullest extent so that the rabid ultra-right gets a clear message, that they cannot take swipes at the democratic processes that the people are carrying forward,' Foreign Minister Maduro expressed.

Minister Maduro said that it is clear that those responsible for this military coup, 'those who have not shown their faces, but who will be discovered in the end, should be submitted to international justice for violating the democratic Charter and the constitutional rights of the Honduran people.'

'Sooner or later,' the Venezuelan foreign minister indicated, 'the people accompanied by the governments of Latin America and the Caribbean are going to defeat this coup, fomented by these fascists who kidnapped president Zelaya, and his principle collaborators and who continue to hold captive the [Honduran] foreign minister Patricia Rodas.'

The Venezuelan diplomat announced that today had been a day of intense consultation in order to convoke various international scenarios, where the situation could be analyzed, among those, a meeting of member countries of the Rio Group, 'we have direct contact with the foreign ministers from Central America and of the Bolivarian Alliance for Our Americas (ALBA), as well as diverse political and social actors in Honduras. We know that the people remain in the streets in a very valiant manner, resisting, confronting this coup d'etat that is a direct expression of the oligarchy and [private] media.'

He stressed that a Venezuelan commission has been activated in Costa Rica supporting the president of Honduras Manuel Zelaya, 'we are in contact for the convocation of this Presidential Summit in Managua that is going to coincide with the summit of the System of Central American Integration (SICA).'

The Venezuelan foreign minister emphasized that the media is justifying the coup, 'today they [the media] awoke in silence so that no one would be informed [of the coup]. It was [the Venezuelan-based] Telesur, that broke the media dictatorship, the media dictators of the Honduran oligarchy and the continental oligarchy tried to impose silence.'

'We remain in contact with, we have spoken recently with a senator from Chile and with other parliamentarians who are observers in the poll [in Honduras], and they told us that people continue voting until late afternoon hours as a form of expression and of support for the democracy of president Zelaya,' he said. He pointed out that there is a large concentration in front of the Honduran presidential palace, 'the rumours are running that they are going to decree a state of siege, but the people of Honduras are disposed to confront all the measures that this rookie dictatorship aims to impose.'

(Translated for Venezuelanalysis.com by Kiraz Janicke)