U.S. Policy on Honduras Puts Latin Ties at Risk, Brazilian Says

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Reuters

U.S. Policy on Honduras Puts Latin Ties at Risk, Brazilian Says
Published: November 25, 2009

BRASÍLIA (Reuters) — The United States risks souring relations with much of Latin America if it recognizes a presidential election in Honduras on Sunday, the foreign policy adviser to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil said in an interview on Wednesday.

The de facto leader of Honduras, Roberto Micheletti, has said he hopes the election will end a political crisis that began when soldiers placed President Manuel Zelaya on an airplane and sent him into exile on June 28.

The United States, which condemned the coup, has not announced an official position on the election, but American officials have implied that the Obama administration will support the outcome, saying that recognition of the presidential election was not contingent on Mr. Zelaya’s reinstatement.

“The United States will become isolated — that is very bad for the United States and its relationship with Latin America,” the Brazilian foreign policy adviser, Marco Aurélio Garcia, said after he had spoken on the telephone to the White House national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/26/world/americas/26honduras.html?_r=1&ref=global-home

[wpsedgwick]

1. Politics...enough said.

Albeit for political reasons, that U.S. is supporting the current administration in Honduras, it is a wholly contradictory position based on the actions that led to the current situation. Although, such is the world of politics and diplomacy. Get over it. It's the way the world works. Public statements denouncing certain positions declared by nation states should be taken for what they are - diplomatic CYOA (cover your own a**).

[harmonicon]

13. yeah, just get it over it already!!

The Rineland isn't all that important, really, and basically German. The change isn't that drastic. Now things will go back to normal.

[Peace Patriot]

17. Often true, but I don't think it is in this case. Brazil has given President Zelaya refuge

within Honduras at the Brazilian embassy. That is very solid support. Lulu has been unwavering on this and I think it derives from a genuine belief--but, what is more important, a substantive policy--about Latin American sovereignty, which has manifested in Lulu's strong support of, and friendship and alliance with, Hugo Chavez, for instance, and Evo Morales--as both have been attacked by the U.S. I think we are looking at not only an historic leftist democracy movement throughout the region, but also an historic and widespread assertion of independence by Latin America, against the bully in the north--the U.S.--which is reviled throughout the region for the war on Iraq, among other things. Latin Americans see that war as not just wrong and criminal, but as a reiteration of what the U.S. has done to them over the decades.

Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld did enormous damage to the U.S. with their policy of "pre-emptive" war, slaughtering a million innocent people to steal their oil, torturing prisoners and also arm-twisting and kneecapping other countries to force them to OBEY. Our good reputation is gone. This is what foreign policy analysts mean when they discuss the Bush junta damage to foreign relations. President Obama had a chance to repair some of the damage in Latin America, and he has blown it, by, a) his backstabbing of President Zelaya, and b) this secretly negotiated deal with Colombia for seven new US military bases in Colombia, and other signs of an aggressive, militaristic US policy.

The question is: why would Obama sacrifice the golden opportunity he had for good will in Latin America, by the US treachery on display in Honduras, and by the crude powermongering of what appears to be the 'South Vietnamization' of Colombia? Is he helpless to prevent it? (Chavez has said that Obama is "the prisoner of the Pentagon.") Or is he trying to prevent it, and failing? Or is he on board for the next oil war?

When the Bushwhacks reconstituted the US 4th Fleet last summer, Lulu said that it is a threat to Brazil's oil. (Everybody south of the border knows that it is a threat to Venezuela's.) That is how we are seen--as a dangerous and unpredictable aggressor. The other aspect of anti-U.S. policy is "free trade for the rich," or "neo-liberalism" as it is called there--a policy of imposed economic subservience to U.S. corporate and 'first world' exploitation, which has resulted in vast impoverishment of most Latin Americans--a Clinton policy made even worse, of course, by the Bushwhacks.

South America has good solidarity on resisting both kinds of US interference, with leftist governments in Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Uruguay and Paraguay, the only exceptions being the U.S.-supported fascist narco-thugs running Colombia and the corrupt free tradists in Peru. Central America was developing similar solidarity, with leftist governments elected in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala, and Zelaya (a member of the oligarchy) beginning to align Honduras with the left on social justice and sovereignty issues. And Mexico came within a hairsbreadth (0.05%) of electing a leftist government in 2006--which would have made it unanimous. (And Mexico may very well elect a leftist government in the upcoming elections, or, at the very least, a center-left government with a strong commitment to Mexico's sovereignty--the PRI.)

U.S. corporate interests are in grave jeopardy in Latin America, in several different ways--including rebellion against "neo-liberalism," rebellion against the corrupt, failed, murderous U.S. "war on drugs," rebellion against U.S. military presence in Latin American countries, trade deals with China, Russia, France, Iran and other countries--independent of U.S. government/corporate wishes--and formation of several trade groups that don't include the U.S., notably the all-South American "common market," UNASUR, formalized last summer, and the Venezuela-led ALBA trade group in the Caribbean. Lulu himself said--in the context of a recent meeting with Chavez and announcement of several Venezuelan/Brazilian joint enterprises--that Latin Americans must "look to each other and not to the north" for allies in creating prosperity and social justice.

So, take another look at the Honduran situation, with all of this in mind. Brazil is not just offering lip service to Honduran independence, sovereignty and real democracy. Their policy on Honduras is consistent with their other alliances, independent of the U.S. (with Chavez, for instance), and with these overall dramatic and historic trends throughout the region.

And, very, very, VERY unfortunately, President Obama's failure to implement his stated policy of "peace, respect and cooperation" in Latin America--for whatever reason (his insincerity, his lack of power, divisions within his team, sabotage by the Bushwhacks or the Pentagon, or whatever it is)--creates a situation in which, to serve our corporate masters' interests in Latin America, there are no options but war, and that is what I think the Pentagon is preparing.

SEVEN new U.S. military bases in Colombia, and NO LIMIT on the number of US troops and 'contractors' who can be sent there, all with complete diplomatic immunity from Colombian laws; increased border incidents between Colombia and Venezuela near Venezuela's major oil region (in the north); increased border incidents between Colombia and Ecuador near Ecuador's major oil region; a U.S./Colombia bombing/raid on Ecuador's border last year (which almost started a war); a rehearsal of a fascist secession scenario in Bolivia late last year (Bushwhack support of a white separatist uprising, to split off Bolivia's gas/oil rich provinces into a fascist mini-state in control of the resources); a very intense psyops/disinformation campaign against Chavez and other leftist leaders; a direct assault on Honduran democracy, openly supported and funded by Bushwhacks here, and apparently covertly supported by Obama and Clinton (or they were out-maneuvered by the Bushwhacks--an ever more remote possibility), with the plane carrying the kidnapped Honduran president out of the country at gunpoint stopping at the US military base in Honduras for refueling, and not a peep out of the US commanders there!

I see sign after sign that we are looking at a second oil war in preparation--a pre-war picture that has haunting resemblances to Vietnam, including the American peoples' near complete ignorance of the US military buildup in Colombia and the region. Latin American leaders are very worried about this--something else our people don't know. And they are alarmed, as well, about the US strategy of picking them off, one by one, with rightwing coups--so typical of the US 'dirty wars' of the 1980s. And Honduras was right in the middle of those wars as the US "lily pad" country for aggression in the region. With Colombia, now, they additionally have a full blown proxy army (like South Vietnam) paid for by $6 BILLION in US taxpayer-funded military aid. Brazil's support of Zelaya and of Honduran democracy is occurring in this context. It is not a side issue. And it is not superficial support.

[Andronex]

2. I hope the US does recognize these elections...

and so expose itself for what it really is, no matter who the ceremonial president happen to be.

[Downwinder]

3. Runaway military, not Honduran. n/t

[tritsofme]

4. Zelaya's term ends in January, the succession issue must be solved.

Zelaya has no claim to the presidency after January.

It is time for these regularly scheduled elections to go forward, and bring an end to the political crisis in Honduras.

[roody]

10. When will you be removing Obama?

[vadawg]

12. at the end of his second term for definite and if he loses as the end of his first

a strange question indeed...

[harmonicon]

15. so it wouldn't matter if he was removed by a dictatorship today, right?

That seems to be the logic that's being used. If Obama were removed from office, a military dictatorship installed, and all dissenting media shut down, it would be fine so long as there were elections in 2012, right? That is the logic that people are using to justify this. It is completely insane.

[boppers]

5. Up is down.

Democratic elections must not be recognized, if they impede dictators.

Uhm... what?

[Kurska]

6. He wasn't a dictator

Just a fool who over played his hand trying to abolish something the constitution said he couldn't abolish and got thrown out by his party, the opposition party, the supreme court and the military.

[harmonicon]

16. abolish/hold a non-binding public poll to gauge opinion....

yeah, those are basically the same thing

[Judi Lynn]

7. Honduran Dictatorship Is A Threat to Democracy In the Hemisphere

Honduran Dictatorship Is A Threat to Democracy In the Hemisphere

Toward Freedom
November 23, 2009

A small group of rich people who own most of Honduras and its politicians enlist the military to kidnap the elected president at gunpoint and take him into exile. They then arrest thousands of people opposed to the coup, shut down and intimidate independent media, shoot and kill some demonstrators, torture and beat many others. This goes on for more than four months, including more than two of the three months legally designated for electoral campaigning. Then the dictatorship holds an "election."
Should other countries recognize the results of such an election, to be held on November 29th? Latin America says absolutely not; the United States is saying, well, "yes we can"- if we can get away with it.

"There has been a sharp rise in police beatings, mass arrests of demonstrators and intimidation of human rights defenders," since President Zelaya slipped back into Honduras and took refuge in the Brazilian embassy, wrote Amnesty International. Human Rights Watch, the OAS Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and human rights groups worldwide have also condemned the violence and repression perpetrated by the Honduran dictatorship.

On November 5, the 25 nations of the Rio Group, which includes virtually all of Latin America, declared that they would not recognize the results of the November 29th elections in Honduras if the elected President Manuel Zelaya were not first restored.

Why is it that Latin American governments can recognize this threat to democracy but Washington cannot? One reason is that many of the governments are run by people who have lived under dictatorships. President Lula da Silva of Brazil was imprisoned by the Brazilian dictatorship in the 1980s. President Michele Bachelet of Chile was tortured in prison under the brutal Pinochet dictatorship that was installed with the help of the Nixon administration. The presidents of Bolivia, Argentina, Guatemala, and others have all lived through the repression of right-wing dictatorships.

Nor is this threat merely a thing of the past. Just two weeks ago the President of Paraguay, Fernando Lugo, had to fire most of the military leadership because of credible evidence that they were conspiring with the political opposition. This is one of the consequences of not reversing the Honduran military coup of June 28th.

Here in the United States we have been subjected to a relentless campaign of lies and distortions intended to justify the coup, which have been taken up by Republican supporters of the dictatorship, as well as by hired guns like Lanny Davis, a close associate of Bill and Hillary Clinton. Perhaps the biggest lie, repeated thousands of times in the news reporting and op-eds of the major media, was that Zelaya was overthrown because he was trying to extend his term of office. In fact, the non-binding referendum that Zelaya proposed had nothing to do with term limits. And even if this poll of the electorate had led eventually to a new constitution, any legal changes would have been far too late for Zelaya to stay in office beyond January 29.

More:
http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/americas/honduras/6425.html

[boppers]

8. So, Zelaya, if he wants to change the Constitution, can do that out of office, right?

Can he "make change" without being president?

Or did he only care about it when he had power?

[roody]

11. He must have cared about something to have raised

the minimum wage.

[boppers]

14. Oooh, keep the catholic repression, raise the minimum wage...

Wait...

[Judi Lynn]

9. Banana Repugnant: Can a military dictatorship hold ‘free’ elections in Honduras?

November 26, 2009
Banana Repugnant
Can a military dictatorship hold ‘free’ elections in Honduras?
By Jeremy Kryt

Elections in Honduras are set for Sunday, Nov. 29, but the ongoing human rights crisis—sparked by the military-backed coup last June—has both locals and international experts wondering if a free, transparent ballot vote is even possible.

“We are living under a military dictatorship,” said presidential candidate Carlos H. Reyes, in an exclusive interview with In These Times. “There is no historical precedent for successful elections under a government like this,” said Reyes, who was third in the polls and the anti-coup movement’s preferred candidate until he pulled out of the race last week. “In a system like this one, there are no constitutional guarantees. Everything is up to the whims of the dictator. Given the situation, I had no choice but to step down.”

And Reyes isn’t alone. Dozens of other candidates have dropped out of the race, and human rights groups have warned that the Honduran military may use the elections as an excuse to unleash violence on the general public in order to maintain their grip on power.

“As elections near, we expect the violence to increase,” said Andres Pavon, president of the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in Honduras (CODEH). “That is the only way this government can enforce its authority.” Last week, Pavon issued a press release saying CODEH had received a tip that the military was planning to dress soldiers up in civilian clothes on election day, and initiate a massacre of unsuspecting congressmen. Their intention, said Pavon, was to “discredit the resistance,” as well as to provide an excuse for canceling elections.

“The plot was revealed to us by a high-level contact within the Honduran armed forces,” said Pavon, although he would not name his source. “Many top generals are afraid of being blamed for the coup, once a civilian government is elected. That’s why they want to stop the vote. Even if they must kill to do so.”

More:
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/5245/banana_repugnant/