Honduras: America's great foreign policy disgrace

[Judi Lynn]

Honduras: America's great foreign policy disgrace
First, the US backed a coup that deposed the elected president. Now, it's backing the return of death-squad government
Mark Weisbrot guardian.co.uk, Friday 18 November 2011 16.02 EST

Imagine that an opposition organiser were murdered in broad daylight in Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador or Venezuela by masked gunmen, or kidnapped and murdered by armed guards of a well-known supporter of the government. It would be front page news in the New York Times, and all over the TV news. The US State Department would issue a strong statement of concern over grave human rights abuses. If this were ever to happen.

Now imagine that 59 of these kinds of political killings had taken place so far this year, and 61 the previous year. Long before the number of victims reached this level, this would become a major foreign policy issue for the United States, and Washington would be calling for international sanctions.

~snip~
Of course, President Obama refused to even meet with the democratically elected president who was overthrown in the coup that he mentioned, even though that president came to Washington three times seeking help after the coup. That was Manuel Zelaya, a left-of-center president who was overthrown by the military and conservative segments of society in Honduras after instituting a number of reforms that people had voted for, such as raising the minimum wage and laws promoting land reform.

But what angered Washington most was that Zelaya was close to the left governments of South America, including Venezuela. He wasn't any closer to Venezuela than Brazil or Argentina was, but this was a crime of opportunity. So, when the Honduran military overthrew Zelaya in June of 2009, the Obama administration did everything it could for the next six months to make sure that the coup succeeded. The "pressure from the international community" that Obama referred to in the above statement came from other countries, mainly the left-of-center governments in South America. The United States was on the other side, fighting – ultimately successfully – to legitimise the coup government through an "election" that the rest of the hemisphere refused to recognise.

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/nov/18/honduras-america-foreign-policy-disgrace

Editorials:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x638796

[Peace Patriot]

1. Weisbrot says Zelaya believes that the U.S. was behind the coup...

but Weisbrot doesn't go into the "overwhelming evidence" of this during the coup itself and just afterward. He starts with the fraudulent, U.S. State Department-run (s)election of Lobo in 2010.

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"In May of this year, Zelaya stated publicly what most of us who followed the events closely already guessed was true: that Washington was behind the coup and helped bring it about. While no one will likely bother to investigate the US role in the coup, this is quite plausible given the overwhelming circumstantial evidence.

"Porfirio Lobo took office in January 2010, but most of the hemisphere refused to recognise the government because his election took place under conditions of serious human rights violations." --from the OP

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But let's back up a bit. On the day of the coup, in June 2009, the U.S. funded and trained Honduran military shot up Zelaya's house in the middle of the night, kidnapped him at gunpoint and put him on an airplane out of the country--a violation of Honduras' constitution which states, unequivocally, that no Honduran can be exiled from Honduras (let alone the duly elected president of the country!). The plane with blackened windows stopped at the U.S. air base in Palmero, Honduras, for refueling. What were U.S. commanders doing while Honduran democracy was being overthrown, playing video games? The U.S. ambassador later admitted knowing about the coup ahead of time. Why didn't he call those U.S. commanders and advise them of a crime in progress? The alleged mission of that U.S. air base was to monitor and interdict illegal activity. Even if the U.S. ambassador was too busy to advise them of the coup, it was their JOB to watch and stop suspicious planes.

That's for starters. Next we find Hillary Clinton's former P.R. firm in Washington DC shilling for the coupsters with obviously well rehearsed "talking points" about how Zelaya violated the Honduran constitution by calling for a vote of the people as to whether or not they wanted to vote on forming constituent assemblies to reform the constitution. This simple ballot measure would only have been an advisory vote. This did not violate Honduras' constitution, at all! Hillary Clinton's P.R. firm was LYING. It was the coupsters who violated the constitution! But, guess what, this "talking point" had great cache in Washington and soon the chorus of Bushwhacks and Miami mafia in Congress were yammering about how the coup was "justified." They said Zelaya was trying to amend the constitution to get a second term, by--Lord above us!--having the people vote on it--the turd! But, lo and behold, there was absolutely NOTHING in his proposal about term limits, and, in fact, the process of constituent assemblies would take years of public debate on all constitutional issues before anything was decided. (The Honduran constitution, written by Reagan's henchmen in the 1980s, locked in the power of the rich elite and the military and badly needed reform.)

The U.S. State Department, under Hillary Clinton, then, a) denied that this was a military coup, ergo automatic U.S. sanctions against the coupsters didn't apply, and b) pretended to withhold aid money from the coupsters, but in reality kept shoveling millions at them to keep them afloat, while a phony deal was brokered in the U.S. client state of Costa Rica to legitimize the coup government by permitting the coupsters to hold an election. The coupsters meanwhile declared martial law, suspended civil rights and the death squads began their work of assassinating leftist leaders.

No reputable election monitoring group in the world would touch this phony election. So Hillary cobbled together an election monitoring cabal including John McCain's International Republican Institute! (McCain has telecommunications interests in Honduras). Honduran voters reported being yelled at and intimidated by U.S. far rightwing "Tea Partyers"!

Most Latin American countries refused to recognize this election. It was a farce--and, what is worse, a brutal farce. The anti-coup forces in the country boycotted the election. The coupsters forced local mayors to drew up hit lists of those in the local community who opposed the coup. Democracy advocates were being assassinated, terrorized, fired from their jobs, beaten and imprisoned.

Meanwhile, in the U.S. Congress, first term Senator Jim De Mint (SC-Diebold) began holding up all of Obama's appointments in Latin America, to blackmail Obama into supporting the coup. He succeeded. Jim DeMint was running U.S. foreign policy!

Or was it John "death squad" Negroponte (of Reagan infamy in Honduras), who was reportedly "advising" Clinton on this situation?

For a while, there was a plausible argument that this coup was of Bushwhack design and was inflicted on Obama only six months into his term, to destroy his stated policy of "peace, respect and cooperation" in Latin America. But CLEARLY, U.S. corporate/war profiteer interests were being served--and Obama has clearly shown himself, since that time, to be their servant. So I don't find this explanation to be plausible any more. It's possible he was caught flatfooted with an as-yet-to-be-developed LatAm policy, and was rather busy having to deal with a Bushwhack-induced Great Depression and two Bushwhack wars. But consider this: Bushwhack ambassador to Colombia, William Brownfield, was still in place in Colombia, doing some very dirty cleanup work for the Bush Cartel. And what did Obama do with Brownfield, once Jim DeMint permitted him to do anything? He appointed him to a higher office--to Undersecretary for the corrupt, murderous, failed U.S. "war on drugs"--the second biggest of war profiteer boondoggles with trillion+ dollar cocaine revenue streams coming out its ears. As for the Bush Cartel mafia boss in Colombia, Alvaro Uribe, he ended up teaching at Harvard and Georgetown!

I don't buy Obama innocence any more. Guess who has authorized new U.S. military bases in Honduras--to keep Honduran presidents on alert, it would seem. Dare to cross U.S. or Bush Cartel interests, and 'we have even more military bases now to fuel your plane out of the country'!