After Honduran member of Congress Marcia Villeda was accused by some media of having falsified ex-president Manuel Zelaya’s signature on his resignation letter that was presented to Congress in June, she yesterday went to the Attorney General of Honduras and asked them to investigate forensically if the signature was forged or not, which they agreed to do.
Manuel Zelaya, cheered on by Hugo Chávez, has stated that he didn’t write that letter. However, as I have reported on this blog previously, there is allegedly a person in Tegucigalpa who witnessed his writing and signing of the letter. I don’t know the identity of that person, nor what the media alleged that caused Marcia Villeda to take this step to protect her name, but it would not be far-fetched to assume that she knows the truth about the letter for a fact. As does of course Zelaya, but since he appears to be habitually lying through his teeth lately, his words count for nothing in my opinion.
Having looked closely at a scanned image of the letter, my personal hunch is that he probably did sign it, but with a pen that was running out of ink. Whoever signed it switched pen in the middle of the signature. Chávez purposefully manipulated the scanned image so that only the latter half of the signature is visible, and claimed that there was no similarity at all. Consider this: Would a forger be that careless as to use a bad pen without checking that it works? It implies not doing any practice signatures first. Have you ever heard of anyone forging a signature without practicing?
Juan Ramon Martinez gives us an explanation of how Zelaya’s resignation letter came to be in his book ITINERARIO DE UNA CAIDA, 2009, pages 217-218. The story is as follows:
A Legislative Committee met with Zelaya. The conversation was amicable and in the best terms. The differences were mentioned, the groups reproached each other; and the Committee’s dilemma was brought forth. Zelaya found out that the Committee did not want to oust him, because they were not sure of the legal support they had to do it and for the lack of willingness of the congressmen who didn´t want to be the ones to carry the historical burden of being the first ones to oust the president in the history of the nation. To dispel any doubts concerning Zelaya’s promises that the Executive would take charge amending the problems that he had created, he proposed to create an instrument that Congress could use in case he broke his word. The congressmen were surprised but accepted the offer. Immediately Zelaya, wrote his resignation. Nobody noticed that in an incorrect way, he had dated the resignation letter June 25 and they would be unable to use it for the purpose they had agreed upon.
That does not agree with the version I have been told, and that I have shared on this blog previously: That he wrote it when a friend told him that the Attorney General had requested an arrest order for him, on June 25th, in the evening.
Here’s my theory, although it doesn’t explain the date of the 25th. Maybe it goes along with the above theories.
Failing all else, it’s like this:
“Mr. Zelaya, you have a choice.
“Door Number One, you go to prison to await trial on 18 criminal charges and counting, where you shall surely be convicted, since you bragged about most of these criminal activities on camera”.
[They added many more now]
“Door Number Two, you sign this letter of resignation and go to exile. You also agree to give up aspirations to recuperate the office.”
When he got to Honduras, LaGringa at http://www.lagringasblogicito.com has noted that in the first interview on June 28 in Costa Rica he avoided answering directly whether he had resigned, in the second he gave another evasive answer (with eyes bouncing around), not till the 3rd or 4th did he claim directly he had not.
–alan
It does explain the date since the prosecutor requested an arrest warrant for him on that date. It was the 25th it started.