Miami Herald makes up story on Zelaya, Washington Post and New York Times spread it
By Wayne Madsen
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Sep 29, 2009, 00:18
(WMR) -- WMR
usually does not comment on propaganda masked as news emitted daily by the
corporate media, but the September 24 report in the Miami Herald deserves
to be panned for its flagrant attempt to portray ousted Honduran President
Manuel Zelaya as a foolish �conspiracy theorist.�
After sneaking back into Honduras with the help of loyal
elements in the Honduran military, Zelaya has been besieged by Honduran police
and military forces inside the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa. The Honduran
junta has sporadically cut off electricity, water, and food supplies to the
embassy, a violation of international law on the inviolability of diplomatic
missions.
The Herald reported on a telephone interview
with Zelaya and said the Honduran leader said he was being subjected to �high-frequency
radiation� from Israeli mercenaries who are supporting the Honduran junta. The
paper also reported that Zelaya said that the Israelis were using �mind-altering�
gas and radiation. In actuality, that is not what Zelaya stated in his conversation
on September 24 with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who was attending the UN
General Assembly session in New York. Chavez said he spoke to Zelaya by phone
at 1:00 pm EDT and the Honduran leader said a piece of equipment on the rooftop
of a neighboring home had been recovered and brought into the embassy by Zelaya
loyalists. When Zelaya checked the gear�s serial number on the Internet, it
turned out the equipment was a cell phone jamming device manufactured in
Israel.
What Zelaya stated to Chavez and presumably to the Miami
Herald is that the junta and its Israeli private security company advisers
were jamming the cell phones of those holed up inside the embassy. Zelaya never
spoke of radiation death rays but that is the impression the Herald gave
and it was quickly picked up by various neocon and Zionist-controlled media
outlets, including the usual suspects that continuously debase this web
publication, to describe Zelaya as an anti-Semitic lunatic. The same
tactics by the neocon media have been used to mask propaganda as news in
falsely reporting on comments and actions of Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmedinejad, Libya�s leader Muammar Qaddafi, Bolivia�s President Evo Morales,
and Venezuela�s President Hugo Chavez. The neocon blogosphere and the
George Soros-funded faux progressive outlets were all quick to
claim that Zelaya�s �mental state� justified the military coup against him
in June.
In a September 25 editorial, the Washington Post, controlled by neoconservative and
pro-Israeli interests in the same fashion as the Miami Herald is
controlled by right-wing Cuban exile interests, Latin American oligarchs, and
Miami�s large Zionist Jewish community, deviously fed off the Herald�s unsubstantiated
report on Zelaya�s comments by lending credence to the myth of Israeli �ray
beams� and �poison gas.� The Post,
echoing its co-ideologists at the Herald, wrote that Zelaya was �reduced to making hysterical accusations
about being bombarded with radiation and toxic gases by �Israeli mercenaries.��
Zelaya and Chavez are constantly attacked by both papers while they hold up
Colombia�s narco-terrorist President Alvaro Uribe as a shining example of
democracy.
The New York Times also got into the act in a
September 25 story in which it claimed Zelaya made his �outrageous�
statements about Israeli commandos planning to assassinate him and the Herald�s
�poison gas and radiation� canard in phone calls to the Radio Globo station
in Honduras. However, the Herald�s contributing reporter told this editor in
New York that Zelaya made his claims in two telephone interviews conducted
exclusively with the Miami Herald.
The reason for the difference between the Herald, Post, and Times reports is clear: the
Zelaya statement is not true but a propaganda operation that resulted in
different slants on the same concocted story about �poison gas and radiation.� El
Pais of Spain also reported on an interview with Zelaya in which there was
no claims made by Zelaya of mind-altering beams or poison gas.
The Herald also reported that Zelaya told them that
he was being subjected to toxic gases. In fact, the Honduran military has used
tear gas to disperse the crowds of Zelaya supporters outside the embassy
grounds and the tear had wafted into the embassy through the windows and air
conditioning system, resulting in breathing problems for Zelaya, the Brazilian
diplomatic staff, and Zelaya�s family and supporters.
One of the Herald�s only true reports is from
eyewitnesses outside the embassy who said that the Honduran military used
a high-pitched sonic device on the embassy. Such sonic weapons have also been
used by police and military forces against protesters at the G-20 summit in
Pittsburgh.
It is also factual that an Israeli security company was
hired by the coup leaders in June to train Honduran police how to handle
pro-Zelaya protesters on the streets. The charge of Israeli involvement was
made by Andres Pavon, the head of Honduras�s human rights committee. There
are reports that the Israeli company operating on behalf of the coup leaders is
Delta Security. Israeli military advisers have been in Honduras since the 1980s
when they arrived in the country with the approval of then-US ambassador John
Negroponte to train Nicaraguan contra guerrillas based in the country. The
Israelis also trained Honduran military units, as well as paramilitary death
squads. The Israeli Likud support for the Hondurans and contras earned the
condemnation of Yitzhak Rabin, who would later become prime minister of Israel
and the first Israeli leader to die from an assassin�s bullet -- a Binyamin
Netanyahu supporter�s bullet. Rabin told the Israeli newspaper Yedioth
Ahronoth, �What do we have
with Honduras? , , , Israel�s military interference in Central America only
complicates and damages her position, image, and her interests with the few
friends she still has.�
Two Israeli companies -- NetLine Communications Inc.,
headquartered on Menachem Begin Street in Tel Aviv, and
Special Electronics Security Products -- are leading manufacturers of cell
phone jamming equipment used by police and military forces around the world.
NetLine manufactures a remote-controlled cell phone jammer that jams all cell
phone standards simultaneously, including GSM, CDMA, TDMA, and Nextel. There
are reports that what was found on the roof of the building next to the
Brazilian embassy was a C-Guard cell phone jammer manufactured by NetLine of
Tel Aviv.
WMR can report that the Miami Herald story about
Zelaya being subjected to �mind-altering� rays was the product of a New
York-based Israeli propaganda network that acts in lockstep with the Israeli
government on every occasion when Israel is caught involved in
foreign adventurism and espionage. The Miami Herald, which employs a number of Spanish-speaking reporters, did not
verify that Zelaya�s words were translated correctly from Spanish to English
but the tactic being used against Zelaya is familiar Israeli propaganda. A
Mossad front in Washington called the Middle East Media Research Institute
(MEMRI) is well-known for mistranslating the comments of Arab leaders, as well
as Iran�s Ahmadinejad and feeding the mistranslations to the corporate media,
which avidly reports on the translations as factual news items.
Previously
published in the Wayne
Madsen Report.
Copyright � 2009 WayneMadenReport.com
Wayne
Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and
nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report
(subscription required).
Copyright © 1998-2007 Online Journal
Email Online Journal Editor