Honduras: Snipers are in place around the airport

Snipers in the Teguchigalpa airport control tower, as photographed this afternoon

Below is a direct translation of the first part of this post recently put up at Honduras Resistencia. The blogger has proven to be correct on several occasions this week, having blogged about the bus tires being shot out by troops before CNN got its hands on video footage and writing about how Micheletti's cousin was taking over as Mayor of San Pedro Sula before it hit the newswires. In other words, the blogger I'm translating has been getting the news stories right before they're news.

Now read the translation below, as tomorrow President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras and an entourage that is supposed to include Argentina's Fernandez, Ecuador's Correa, The OEA head Insulza and perhaps others will walk onto the tarmac at Tegucigalpa airport.

The de facto government led by our dinosaur coupmonger has placed his snipers around the area of the Toncontin International Airport, Tegucigalpa. The sharpshooters were seen today when protestors approached the area. They have maintained their position throughhout and we only hope they do not receive an order from the coupmongers and aim their rifles in the direction of the people and do what the Catholic church (which more than a church seems to be spokespeople of the government, they even get TV airtime) forecasted; "If Mel returns it will be a bloodbath". CONTINUES HERE

Half a kilo of C4 in Caracas, anyone?

Some French dude named Laurent Bocquet (above, from his 'feibu' page, as we say down here) got arrested trying to escape Caracas, Venezuela, and get to Isla Margarita on Friday. He was nabbed along with Omar Campusano, Diomedis Campusano and Edgar Florián Sánchez (all from The Dominican Republic). All four are supposedly members of the criminal gang known as "The Internationals" (oh how subtle). So when police checked out the arrested Frenchie's house in Caracas they found:

• half a kilo of C4 explosive
• flame throwers
• 5,000 (yeah, five thousand) shotgun cartridges
• bullet-proof vests
• military uniforms
• foreign licence plates
• 3 FAL weapons
• 2 machine guns
• 3 shotguns
• telescopic sights
• etc etc

Expect Venezuelan police to be called human rights offenders for daring to arrest foreign nationals like this on their soil. I mean, the impertinence...what's half a kilo of C4 between friends anyway?

UPDATE: Venezuela's Interior Minister has given a presser this afternoon to name the group as a "terrorist organization". Minister Tareck Al Aissami also said that Bocquet is known as an expert in military matters and a sharpshooter/sniper who saw action in Europe (the exact country wasn't mentioned). Here's a quote from Al Aissami:

"We can testify that the type of armaments used by these military terrorist organizations are for actions of destabilization. With this find we have no doubt in telling the country that we have dealt a severe blow to terrorism and to those groups that try to drag Venezuela into scenes of blood and confrontation."