Can an Agreement Satisfy Left and Right? The Honduran Accords

[Judi Lynn]

Weekend Edition
June 10 - 12, 2011

Can an Agreement Satisfy Left and Right?
The Honduran Accords
By SAUL LANDAU and NELSON VALDÉS

Remember the plotters who kidnaped and exiled President Manuel ("Mel") Zelaya and those who helped provide the facade of legitimacy for the June 28, 2009, military coup d'état? Almost two years later, this group of landed gentry, businessmen and military goons joined most of Latin America in welcoming Mel's return to Honduras.

Even Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the media stenographers treated Mel's 2011 homecoming as if he had coached a winning Honduran soccer team. For the few with memories, Mel in 2009 "threatened democracy" by asking the citizens to vote: for or against changing the Constitution. Washington now beams with satisfaction – as if that former banana republic has returned to its proper servile place among "democratic" nations in the OAS.

In 2009, the now celebratory Hillary Clinton tried to legitimate the Honduran coup. The State Department had lined up with neocons, Chiquita Banana, Honduran business tycoons and military brass to condemn Zelaya for overstepping the sacred Constitution.

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The coup makers did not foresee Latin American governments – progressive or conservative – collaborating, as Colombia and Venezuela did, outside OAS and U.S. domains. But they like the results. On the surface the accords showed Latin Americans had reached maturity, where right and left could unify (except for Ecuador) around the concept of law and as a region, by excluding the U.S. and Canada, solve their own problems. But behind this rosy face lurked the same old partnership of local oligarchy and the Monroe Doctrine.

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/landau06102011.html