Furious rant

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras - There's something fishy about these official international observers, and I feel like a lot of them exposed their true allegiances tonight at the Marriott in Tegucigalpa where the Supreme Elections Tribunal and all the hundreds of media here were set up to cover the elections returns.

In interviewing international observers tonight, I noticed a strange trend: not one of them had ever been an official elections observer before. They talked my ear off with all kinds of lofty rhetoric about how Honduras is speaking for itself now and what a great democratic fiesta this was and how Hugo Chavez lost his shot at taking over Honduras. Very few of them spoke in a way that was clearly non-partisan. After lots of questioning, many revealed they had allegiances to right-wing interests that had wanted the coup government to be recognized from the very beginning. This all made me start to question just how legitimate are the people hired to say the elections are legitimate? I wasn't the only one. And then this happened.

I was walking by a Chilean observer who got in a heated argument with a latina journalist I believe was working for Al Jazeera. She had also pointed out how inexperienced a lot of these observers appeared to be, and this guy and another observer got into it with her. Suddenly all the Honduran journalists and Honduran observers swarmed her and her argument with these two observers got drowned out by all these Honduran journalists and observers - IMPARTIAL PROFESSIONALS - shouting "Long live Honduran democracy!" and holding up signs for the cameras.

I got the Chilean guy's attention and he slipped out and I interviewed him. He acknowledged this was also the first time he had been an election observer, but he "has a law degree" and thinks he's capable of handling this job. OK, fair enough.

But while we were talking the crowd got even bigger around this poor woman and everyone around her was shouting "FUERA! FUERA!" (Out! Out!) and she actually had to flee the hotel because she was being verbally assaulted by these people, that's why I'm not sure who she was with.

Even the Chilean guy said "I disagree with her, but that over there's a bit much."

And some of those official Honduran observers chased her downstairs and out the door, and once she was gone they started whooping with fists raised towards the second floor balcony where we all were, and they all started chanting "Honduras! Honduras!"

It was just an unbelievable display of golpista mob rule. Dissenting opinions not welcome. The other international journalists were also shocked by the whole sight. Me and a French TV journalist were so incensed and talking about it that we started to draw the eyes of those same bastards who chased away a journalist who dared to ask a legitimate question about this cherry-picked group of international observers.

I'm still furious. Is this how we're supposed to know that democracy and transparency and freedom of dissent are still alive in Honduras? When the pro-coup media and pro-coup observers swarm people for asking questions and chase them all the way down the stairs and out the door?

Disgusting. Horrific. Any other words that come to mind I'll just shout off the balcony later once I get a much deserved drink.