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They say that following the coup, Cáceres, working with the pro-coup Marrder family that controlled the HTW website, deceitfully wrested control from the Gutierrez family which had founded the paper and until then had maintained editorial control.

The Marrders eventually decided to found Honduras weekly as a competing newspaper, with Cáceres as editor. Stanley Marrder, listed on its website as "Owner and publisher of Honduras Weekly," is a Texan businessman and large Republican donor who grew up in Honduras. As they watched their own paper go under, the staff and owners of HTW darkly joked that they too had been victims of a coup.

HTW had been a printed and online English-language newspaper aimed at tourists and investors, employing journalists. Honduras Weekly, by contrast, is a blog that does not employ any trained journalists or paid staff, although you would not know that from its "about" page. In a tally last week, of forty-one "guest contributors," fourteen were evangelical missionaries who had each written one travelogue in classic "Heart of Darkness" style. Here is an example: After months of prayerful, "Jonah and the whale" thoughts, I booked my ticket to La Ceiba, Honduras this past weekend and no longer retain a wussy status. This gives my 'I don't leave home well' feelings a whole new slant. I'm flying out with the Vision Honduras team from Dassel, Minnesota on March 3 for a volunteer eye care mission that will last 19 days, carrying only what I can fit into a backpack.

emerge officially in 1992.

But in 1992, Chavez was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Venezuelan Army and he tried, unsuccessfully, to take over the government in a failed coup d’ etat. When the coup failed, Chavez went to prison for two years. While doing time, he met the Tupas. Chavez needed the protection that the Tupa gang could offer, and the Tupas needed the resources and opportunities that Chavez could offer. They have worked well together ever since then in a quid pro quo relationship. Chavez was released from prison on March 26, 1994 and went on to be elected as president four years later (1998).

      It is a curious identity that we find in the Tupamaro street gang. On the one hand it identifies most specifically with being a guerilla warfare organization, dedicated to fighting the powers that be and seeking to implement its own type of revolution. On the other hand, it functions as a kind of armed paramilitary group that fervently defends and supports the controversial president of Venezuela — Hugo Chavez.

The tragic journey of Vásquez Chaj and Tucux Chiché is one story among many of how harmful U.S. political and economic policies in Latin America violently intersect with a hardening and brutal system of U.S. immigration control.

It is indisputable that the United States shares significant responsibility for the genocide of tens of thousands of Guatemalans—mainly indigenous Mayans, including members of Gustavo and Maximiliano’s community, who comprised a majority of the (at least) 150,000 killed in the 1980s alone. A 1999 UN Truth Commission blamed Guatemalan state forces for 93 percent of the atrocities. That same year, former President Bill Clinton admitted the wrongness of U.S. support for Guatemalan state violence.

The day of his remorseful words in Guatemala City, he looked genocide survivors in the face, acknowledged that Washington enabled their suffering, and then rejected their impassioned pleas for U.S. immigration reform because, he said, “we must enforce our laws.”

The diverging positions of the commissioners are reflected in the text of the report.  On the one hand, several passages in the "Background" section suggest that President Porfirio Lobo, elected in controversial elections held under the coup regime late last year, has made significant efforts to repair the damage done by the coup with measures such as the creation of a so-called "Unity Government" and the Creation of a Truth Commission made up of "national and international personalities of prestige and proven track record," according to the authors.  This section of the report also highlights the Honduran Congress' decision to review an alleged case of corruption perpetrated under the coup regime of Roberto Micheletti and appears to belittle the widespread accusations of ongoing human rights violations and repression of the opposition (it states that "some sectors insist" that the violations are still occurring despite the fact that major human rights organizations, including the OAS' own Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and Human Rights Watch, express the same concern in recent reports).

However, the final "Conclusions and Recommendations" section of the report is less favorable to the Lobo government.  In contrast with the "background" section, it explicitly recognizes the gravity of the human rights situation with a call for the "cessation of impunity for human rights violations" and the "adoption of measures to put an end to threats and harassments against human rights defenders, journalists . . . and members of the National Popular Resistance Front" (NPRF) as well as "measures issued to protect the lives and bodily integrity of numerous persons who are at risk."  Perhaps most significantly, it questions the Lobo government's justifications for maintaining some of the criminal charges against President Zelaya -- and thereby preventing him from returning without the risk of immediate prosecution -- and states that "the Commission considers it useful to put an end, in accordance with Honduran law, to the legal actions initiated against" the former president and his associates.

The NPRF may have the satisfaction of at last being recognized by the OAS as a significant Honduran actor -- indeed it is the first time that references to the group appear in an OAS document -- but the report makes no mention of its long-standing demand for a referendum on whether to convoke a constitutional assembly; nor does it take into account its demand for representation within the Truth Commission, whose Honduran members are all associated with Lobo's National Party.

Geography:  The incidence is lowest in Mexico, where the influence of the Church had been significantly reduced and restricted constitutionally after the Revolution in the early 1900's.  Surprisingly, in the three countries (Argentina, Brazil and Chile) in which brutal military dictatorships were actively supported by conservative church leaders in the 1980's, the incidences are just slightly higher than in Mexico.  Conservative Christians have the highest incidences in the other three countries (Colombia, Peru and Venezuela) which have been under nominally democratic, but unstable, governments.

Age/Sex:  Within men, conservative Christians are more likely to be found in the older people (age 45 and over).  Within women, the youngest ones (12 to 19 years old) are conservative, but there is a big drop once they become independent adults (20 to 24 years old).  The highest incidences of conservative Christians are found in women 45 years or older.  These older skews for conservative Christians does not augur well for the future as there are fewer successors within sight.