KOZLOFF: "The Politics of Destabilization - McCain and Honduras" -Telecoms, etc.

[magbana]

Bastille Day Edition
July 14, 2009
The Politics of Destabilization
McCain and Honduras

By NIKOLAS KOZLOFF

A Behind the recent pressure campaign against the Zelaya regime in Honduras lurks a shadowy world of right wing foundations, lobbying groups and anti-Chávez figures. This tangled web of Washington, D.C. interests includes the Arcadia Foundation, a mysterious figure named Robert Carmona Borjas and former State Department official Otto Reich. What do all these organizations and characters have in common? In one way or another they are all tied back to Arizona Senator John McCain.

According to the Mexican newspaper La Jornada, it was Venezuelan lawyer Robert-Carmona Borjas who helped to draft some of the infamous anti-constitutional “Carmona decrees” after Hugo Chávez was overthrown in the April, 2002 military coup. After Chávez was returned to power Carmona Borjas fled to the United States where he found his calling as a leading anti-Chávez figure and, more recently, as a fierce critic of the Zelaya regime in Honduras.

In 2004, Carmona-Borjas was listed as part time faculty at the Department of Romance Languages and Literature at George Washington University and as recently as November, 2008 set up a class entitled “Political Management in Latin America” offered through the Graduate School of Political Management. According to the GW Hatchet, the local student paper, the class had a roster of right wing, free-trade boosting speakers including Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, former U.S. ambassador to Venezuela Otto Reich, Leopoldo López, a Venezuelan politician, Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutiérrez and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla.

According to the Hatchet, the class sought to “analyze Latin American governments that have failed social policies, which have led to anti-system political movements.” “Many Latin American countries have forged ties with re-emerging powers and countries in pursuit of nuclear capability,” Carmona-Borjas said, “ties that can endanger the interests of the United States in the region.”

But it was not part time teaching in D.C. which distinguished Carmona Borjas as a political player. No, it was the Venezuelan’s work as Vice President of the mysterious anti-corruption and watchdog outfit known as Arcadia Foundation which really set him apart. From his perch at Arcadia, Carmona-Borjas launched anti-corruption attacks against Honduras and the Zelaya regime. In particular he conducted a massive public relations campaign against Hondutel, the state telecommunications company in Honduras. In article after article published in the Central American media, Borjas-Carmona accused Hondutel of corruption.

The Right Wing Telecom Connection

The Venezuelan right winger was joined in his criticisms by Otto Reich, former U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela, State Department official under Bush, and foreign policy adviser for McCain’s 2008 campaign. Reich was linked to figures in the 2002 coup against Chávez and has worked as a corporate lobbyist for such firms as telecom giant AT&T. His firm, Otto Reich Associates, advises U.S. corporations in Latin America and promotes the American free trade agenda by fighting privatization.

I speculated before that Reich and Carmona-Borjas might have known of each other, and the George Washington University connection is now proof of that. What seems to have united both Reich and Carmona-Borjas was their interest in the telecommunications issue. That’s not too surprising in light of the history. Indeed, for McCain and his right wing ilk the telecom industry has been a central political focus. The Arizona Senator has had important historic ties to big corporations like AT&T, MCI and Qualcomm. In return for their financial contributions, McCain, who partly oversees the telecommunication industry in the Senate, has acted to protect and look out for the political and economic interests of the telecoms on Capitol Hill.

To get a sense of the sheer scope of McCain’s incestuous relationship with the telecoms one need only log on to the Web site of the Center for Responsive Politics. In the 1998 electoral cycle AT&T gave $34,000 to McCain. In the 2000 cycle the telecom giant provided $69,000, in 2002 $61,000, in 2004 $39,000, in 2006 $29,000 and in 2008 $187,000. Over the course of his career, AT&T has been McCain’s second largest corporate backer.

What’s more, AT&T has donated handsomely to McCain’s International Republican Institute (IRI). McCain chairs this group and though the Arizona Senator seldom talks about it he has gotten much of his foreign policy experience working with the operation which is funded by the U.S. government and private money. The IRI, which receives tens of millions of taxpayer dollars each year, claims to promote democracy worldwide. In 2006 AT&T gave the IRI $200,000. AT&T spokesman Michael Balmoris declined to elaborate on why the international telecommunications provider wrote a big check. “AT&T contributes to a variety of charitable organizations,” he said flippantly.

IRI and Telecom Agenda in Latin America

The IRI has fought against regimes in Latin America which resist privatization of the telecom industry. In Venezuela, where the government nationalized the telecom firm CANTV, IRI generously funded anti-Chávez civil society groups that were opposed to the regime. Starting in 1998, the year Chávez was elected, IRI worked with Venezuelan organizations to produce anti-Chávez media campaigns, including newspaper, television and radio ads.

Additionally, when politicians, union and civil society leaders went to Washington to meet with U.S. officials just one month before the April 2002 coup, IRI picked up the bill. The IRI also helped to fund the corrupt Confederation of Venezuelan Workers (which played a major role in the anti-Chávez destabilization campaign leading up to the coup) and Súmate, an organization involved in a signature-gathering campaign to present a petition calling for Chávez's recall.

Like Hugo Chávez, Honduran President Zelaya was known to be as a fierce critic of telecommunications privatization. In this sense he was at odds with the current coup president Roberto Micheletti as well as right wing interests in the U.S. such as McCain’s IRI, Arcadia and Otto Reich Associates which push for the free trade agenda and privatization.

The Curious Case of Cormac

For evidence of further U.S. corporate and right wing ties to the Honduran imbroglio one need look no farther than PR Newswire for last Monday, July 6th. In an article headlined “Honduran Congressional, Business Leaders to Hold Washington, D.C., Press Conference” we learn that a delegation sought “several days of meetings with United States policymakers to clarify any misunderstandings about Honduras’ constitutional process and to discuss next steps to ensure the preservation of the country's democratic institutions.”

Founded in March 2001, the Cormac Group is a “strategic consulting and lobbying firm” advocating “open and fair markets.” Cormac works in the telecommunications sector and seeks to construct “a barrier-free regulatory structure that enhances competition.” Cormac’s Founding Partner John Timmons was a fundraiser for McCain and former Senate aide and has represented AT&T. Another partner at Cormac, Jonathan Slade, “has developed a well-known reputation from helping American and foreign companies impact the U.S. foreign policy process, particularly related to Latin America.”

What seems to have united all these right wing groups and figures --- from Arcadia to Otto Reich --- was their allegiance to free markets and privatization of the telecom industry. It was these entities, allied to the hard right and McCain, which played the most prominent role in the pressure campaign against Zelaya --- not the Obama administration.

Nikolas Kozloff is the author of Revolution! South America and the Rise of the New Left (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2008) Follow his blog at senorchichero.blogspot.com"
http://counterpunch.org/kozloff07142009.html

[Peace Patriot]

1. "...promotes the free trade agenda by fighting privatization"? Surely that's a typo.

"The Venezuelan right winger was joined in his criticisms by Otto Reich, former U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela, State Department official under Bush, and foreign policy adviser for McCain’s 2008 campaign. Reich was linked to figures in the 2002 coup against Chávez and has worked as a corporate lobbyist for such firms as telecom giant AT&T. His firm, Otto Reich Associates, advises U.S. corporations in Latin America and promotes the American free trade agenda by fighting privatization."

??

Privatization is characteristic of U.S./corpo-friendly "free trade"--all the better to loot the common resources and public services of Latin American and other countries (including this one). Kozloff surely meant that "the Venezuelan right winger" has been "fighting nationalization" or "promoting privatization."

Evo Morales and his many Bolivian supporters fight privatization. Hugo Chavez and his many Venezuelan supporters fight privatization. The same for Argentina, Ecuador, and to varied extents the leftists in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil, Chile and other countries, including countries where the left is not in power, such as Mexico and Peru. It is rather the heart of the highly successful leftist democracy movement throughout Latin America to resist privatization, and to nationalize important resources for the common good.

[Peace Patriot]

2. Kozloff has certainly unearthed a snake pit here--and has made a significant

contribution to our understanding of the Honduran coup. For one thing, we now know why Telesur reporters and technicians were targeted by the coup. They also arrested and harassed AP (!) and other reporters, but reserved special attention for Telesur--and just arrested and deported all Telesur reporters--clearly because Telesur was the most informative and the most courageous in covering the coup under fire, but also--apparently, given this new information--because Telesur (a project of the Venezuelan government to diversity and improve news coverage in Venezuela and the region--an areas that suffers from even worse corpo/fascist 'news' monopolies than we do) is a potent rival to corpo/fascist telecommunication monopolies!

There is much more to it, of course. Kozloff connects the dots. This all goes back to the U.S. taxpayer-funded "International Republican Institute" headed by John McCain. I don't know, though, about Kozloff's exoneration of the Obama administration, especially Secretary of State Clinton. It would have been very unusual for a rightwing coup to be successfully mounted in Honduras without US complicity, and it would be impossible for the coup to continue in power without US support. US taxpayers fund the Honduran military and the government and all the rightwing political groups in the country. Withdraw that support and their coup collapses. Obama and Clinton have mouthed platitudes about democracy, but continue funding of the coup. McCain and the Reagan/Bush fascist operatives associated with him may have been responsible for the pressure campaign against Zelaya, and for the coup itself--it may have been them, and not Clinton, who have the go-ahead--but Obama and Clinton are responsible for it NOW. They are funding it. They are failing to shut it down. They appear to be delaying things--with "talks" in Costa Rica--while the coup arrests and kills more leftists and consolidates its hold on power. That's how it looks to me, at the moment. I'm not sure if this is Obama policy, or a manifestation of his hands being tied and deals he had to make to become president. But the truth of the matter is that he could shut this coup down today, and has not done so. And I trust Clinton even less, because her policy on Latin America has been bad all along. Is this just another example of DINO-ism? The Bushwhacks do the dirty work and the DINO's tidy up after them, or prepare the way for more corporate war and corporate theft? Pardon me for hoping that Obama was better than this. I hope that he yet will prove that he is. But it is a dwindling hope.

[magbana]

3. In a meeting with the Honduran delegation yesterday, I asked them

and the Honduran Ambassador Reina about this article. The ambassador said that everything is true and that Zelaya fought the Telecom privatization. He knows that all the US and Venezuelan folks who have swooped into Honduras are up to their armpits in the Telecom industry. Don't forget that the US put some serious screws to Haiti's president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide to privatize its telecom.