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My letters to Chlopak, Leonard, Schechter and Associates

Sat, 10/17/2009 - 22:26 — AP

I sent the emails pasted below to the following partners and associates of the D.C. public relations firm representing the murderous Honduran coup regime (and you can send your own versions too; sending individual emails is even better than group ones--it shows you care enough to send the very best):

Partners:

Managing Associates, Managing Directors, Senior Associates and Senior Vice Presidents:

Email to partners:

Subject: For [Peter Schechter], regarding your firm's Honduras work
Dear [Peter Schechter],

As an anthropologist who has studied and written about Honduras for many years, I am deeply concerned with the extreme violence that the Honduran people have been subjected to by the current de facto government since its illegal installment following the June 28th military coup. Just today, yet another leader of the non-violent resistance movement was killed by the de facto military government's forces. His name was Jairo Sánchez, and he was president of a labor union, shot while peacefully marching, unarmed, in protest of the violence of the regime.

I stand with the Honduran people, and with many others who decry this dictatorship, which has rescinded constitutionally protected freedoms of speech, assembly, press, and whose human rights abuses, including torture, assassinations, rape as a weapon of war, and disappearances, are myriad and very well documented. In doing so, I also stand with the vast majority of Latin Americans who recognize the threat this regime poses to democracy throughout the hemisphere. I stand with my brothers and sisters in the United States who are calling, ever more loudly, for our government to fulfill its legal obligations in the case of a military coup and cut off support for the Micheletti regime.

I call on you to stand with me in supporting human rights and democracy in Honduras. Money taken from this regime is blood money, and no amount of PR can wash that away. End your association with the coup government.

Sincerely,
Adrienne Pine
Assistant Professor of Anthropology
American University
Working Hard, Drinking Hard: On Violence and Survival in Honduras: http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/10769.php

Email to associates:

Subject: For [Brian Berry], regarding your firm's Honduras work
Dear [Brian Berry],

As an anthropologist who has studied and written about Honduras for many years, I am deeply concerned with the extreme violence that the Honduran people have been subjected to by the current de facto government since its illegal installment following the June 28th military coup. Just today, yet another leader of the non-violent resistance movement was killed by the de facto military government's forces. His name was Jairo Sánchez, and he was president of a labor union, shot in the head while peacefully marching, unarmed, in protest of the violence of the regime.

I stand with the Honduran people, and with many others who decry this dictatorship, which has rescinded constitutionally protected freedoms of speech, assembly, press, and whose human rights abuses, including torture, assassinations, rape as a weapon of war, and disappearances, are myriad and very well documented. In doing so, I also stand with the vast majority of Latin Americans who recognize the threat this regime poses to democracy throughout the hemisphere. I stand with my brothers and sisters in the United States who are calling, ever more loudly, for our government to fulfill its legal obligations in the case of a military coup and cut off support for the Micheletti regime.

I call on you to stand with me in supporting human rights and democracy in Honduras, and to urge your firm's partners to cease representing the de facto government. Money taken from this regime and its sponsors is blood money, and no amount of PR can wash that away. Association with it will harm your firm's reputation, and your own.

Sincerely,
Adrienne Pine
Assistant Professor of Anthropology
American University
Working Hard, Drinking Hard: On Violence and Survival in Honduras: http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/10769.php