The Change They Needed?

This may be a big surprise to most readers in the United States, but the situation in Honduras has not been resolved like the media has been reporting. In fact, it is quite the contrary.
Today I had the honor and priviledge of hearing from a Honduran journalist who has been exiled in Nicaragua. He was escorted out of Honduras, by human rights groups protecting his life, after four of his coworkers were assasinated and he was detained and tortured by military personel for 36 hours straight. They beat him on the bottom of his feet, his stomach, and his testicles. They essetionally waterboarded him by putting him under a chair and pouring water down his nose and mouth until near drowning. The strangled him with a wire. The stories he told were horifying and moved many to tears.
The military tortured him because they believed he was part of an armed resistance movement. This was not true. He has been one of the few journalist who has been able to get information out about what is really happening.
Honduras, for the past 7 months has been a militarized police state with little to no constitutional rights. The military took over any media outlet speaking out against the repression and even took over the autonomous national universities. Many people think that with the recent elections and with a new president in power things will change. This journalist does not believe so. He cannot go home.
This is any interesting fact: when the Managua mayorial elections were deemed fradulent in Fall of 2008 the US cut funds for the Millenium Challenge Goals in Nicaragua. There were no deaths, repression, or human rights abuses, but an already poor country was cut of much needed funds. In contrast, in the wake of an illegal coup accompanied by nationwide curfews, military repression, and more than 130 deaths at the hands of police and military, the United States never took a strong stance against what has happened and what continues to happen. The new president is but a figurehead for the powers that control Honduras. Sadly that includes the local church and nearly all economic and political interests. I recently have reflected that Americans are often lulled into a stuper with the election of a new president. I believed Obama would change US foreign policy and bring in a new reign of change and maybe even some "justice for all," not just US. Does a new president change anything? What has happened in Honduras is frighteningly similar to what happened all over Latin American during the Cold War, when Military Dictorships were more prevalent than democracies in the hemisphere. They were not only supported by the US but often created by the US. Why are these things still happening in Latin America? Thirty years from now will someone write another Bitter Fruit about what has happened in Honduras and will we realize that the intellectual authors were not the Honduran people but rather our own government officials and that is was financed by our very own tax dollars? I hope not, but we are responsible for what our government does abroad. We must stay informed and speak out.
I invite you to watch this video. I saw it earlier today. It is all real and a testimony to the horror felt by so many Hondurans, including the journalist who realized the project before being exiled to Nicaragua. It is found on the Quixote Center website. Check out this organization. They are doing some really good work.

Repression in Honduras / Honduras Reprimido from Quixote Center on Vimeo.

If the video does not work you can find hit here.