We awoke this morning to news of another a coup d'etat taking place today in Honduras. The following report is based on what we are seeing on Telesur and Venezuelan state television, VTV. The story is developing and some of the details of this coup d'etat are still sketchy because the Honduras golpistas have seized control of state television and cut off electricity in the capital. Here is what we know at 11:00 a.m. Sunday morning:

• The Honduran military kidnapped democratically-elected President Manuel Zelaya this morning. They took him under heavy guard to an airbase outside Tegucigalpa, the capital city. Since then he has been flown to Costa Rica, where a Washington-friendly regime is in power. At this moment, Telesur is interviewing Zelaya on television.
  
  
• In the Telesur interview, Zelaya is asking whether the United States is b behind this coup and he's asking President Obama to speak out against it.
  
  
• Zelaya was democratically elected in 2006 to a 4 year term in office which would end in January, 2010.
  
  
• A referendum was scheduled for today, June 27. The referendum would have asked the Honduran people if they approved of taking a formal vote next November to hold a constitutional assembly for constitutional reform. That vote would have included the possibility of ending presidential term limits. If the referendum had been held and the people voted for it, President Zelaya would  have been permitted to run for office again in 2009-2010.
  
  
• On Wednesday, President Zelaya ordered the army chief, General Romeo Vasquez, to distribute the referendum voting materials to the voting centers throughout the country. Ge. Vasquez refused and Zelaya fired him.
  
  
• The Supreme Court declared that the referendum is illegal.
  
  
• On Thursday, the Honduran Congress approved an investigation into whether President Zelaya "is fit to rule".
  
  
• Early this morning, some army troops surrounded President Zelaya's residence and took him from his home. Details of the kidnapping are not known but reportedly shots were fired. 
  
  
• President Zelaya's vow to bring Honduras' 7 million people out of poverty has placed him on a collision course with the wealthy, ruling elite who have control of the Supreme Court and the congress. 
  
  
• The European Union has called on the Honduran army to release the president and to restore constitutional order.
  
  
• UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon had urged Honduras' leaders to "act with full respect for the rule of law and democratic institutions".
• In a lengthy Telesur interview via telephone, President Zelaya is calling on President Obama to condemn this coup.
  
  
• Today, President Chávez canceled his weekly program, Aló Presidénte, and stated publically that Washington is behind this coup. He also called on President Obama to condemn this violation of democracy and constitutional order in Honduras.
  
  
• At this moment on Sunday morning, thousands of Hondurans are in the street, protesting the kidnapping of their president. They are confronting heavily armed troops and at one point a couple hundred of the protestors stoned the troops who responded with tear gas.
  
  
• Because of the news blackout inside Honduras, there is no way to know whether there have been casualties.

Opinion: Because of President Zelaya's heavy support among the majority poor, today's referendum would most likely have been approved by the people, opening the possibility for Zelaya to run for office again. That scenario was unacceptable to the Washington-backed opposition. The are refusing to allow the people to re-elect the president of the peoples' choice.  Rather than following constitutional order and a democratic process, the wealthy elite chose to use military force to overthrow the government. The reaction of the people here in Venezuela is interesting. Reading the blogs and readers opinion comments (in Spanish) on websites this morning we see the masses in Venezuela condemning the coup in Honduras and the wealthy Venezuelan opposition supporting it.

The coup in Honduras today is nearly a carbon copy of the attempted coup against President Chávez on April 11, 2002. We can expect the United States to condemn the coup with their words, while feeding and supporting the coup in covert CIA operations. Similarly, we also interpret the condemnations of the coup by the EU and the United Nations as an effort to distance themselves from the anti-democratic actions that they support. Reading the blogs and readers opinion comments (in Spanish) on websites this morning we see the masses in Venezuela condemning the coup in Honduras and the wealthy Venezuelan opposition supporting it. Below, see the videos of President Chávez' Telesur interviews, the troops executing the coup this morning. Also go to live Telesur TV and see the Honduran people fighting for the return of  Manuel Zelaya, the man they elected to serve them as their president. (Live Telesur requires some time and viewer patience to load.)

Look for updates on Axis of Logic as this story develops.

- Les Blough in Venezuela 

President Chávez interviewed and Telesur coverage of Honduras troops executing the coup.