President Obama's Credibility on the Line in Honduras

[Judi Lynn]

Published on Thursday, November 5, 2009 by The Guardian/UK
President Obama's Credibility on the Line in Honduras
by Mark Weisbrot

Last Friday an agreement was reached between the de facto regime in Honduras, which took power in a military coup on 28 June, and the elected president Manuel Zelaya, for the restoration of democracy there.

US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, in announcing what she called a historic agreement, said: "I cannot think of another example of a country in Latin America that ... overcame such a crisis through negotiation and dialogue." Hopefully this will turn out to be true.

But the ink was barely dry on the accord when leaders of the coup regime indicated that they had no intention of honouring it. Some of them clearly saw the agreement as just another delaying tactic. They have talked of postponing congressional approval of the accord until after the 29 November elections, or even voting not to restore Zelaya.

If the Honduran congress delays or rejects the restoration of Zelaya, it will violate the clear intent of the accord. The agreement states: "The decision the national congress adopts should establish a basis for achieving the social peace, political tranquility and democratic governability the society requires and the country needs." This and other language makes it clear that the negotiators - who have the ability to deliver the votes in congress - agreed on Zelaya's restoration.

More:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/05-1

[roody]

1. What credibility?

[Judi Lynn]

2. The U.S. and Colombian Roles in the Honduran Crisis

The U.S. and Colombian Roles in the Honduran Crisis
November 05, 2009 By Garry Leech
Source: Colombia Journal

Many analysts and sectors of the mainstream media have suggested that the apparent ineffectiveness of the U.S. government to resolve the crisis in Honduras is evidence that the influence wielded by the region's superpower is waning. They argue that the assertiveness of Brazil in its efforts to have Honduras' coup regime step down and re-instate the country's democratically elected president Manuel Zelaya illustrates how the balance of power in the region has shifted. But such conclusions might well be premature. After all, given the stubbornness of the coup regime headed by Roberto Micheletti, it could be argued that it is the United States, and by extension its ally Colombia, that are getting their way in Honduras and not Brazil and its leftist allies Venezuela and Bolivia.

Many of those who suggest that the Honduran crisis is an example of Washington's waning influence in Central American affairs, including Time Magazine and the Los Angeles Times, point to the ineffectiveness of the Obama administration to resolve the situation. There is of course an assumption that the Obama administration and Congress actually want the re-instatement of Zelaya as president. But the administration's actions following the June 28 coup—and the rhetoric of many members of Congress—contradict this assumption. The Obama administration refused to label Zelaya's overthrow as a military coup even though Honduran troops seized the president and forced him to leave the country. Labelling Zelaya's ouster a military coup would have required that the Obama administration immediately cut-off all military and economic aid to Honduras. The United States did eventually cut military and economic aid to the coup regime but refused to withdraw its ambassador.

Also following the coup, Obama and his secretary of state Hilary Clinton called for a negotiated settlement to the crisis rather than the unconditional return to office of the country's democratically-elected president as most other countries around the world were demanding. Given Zelaya's close ties to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, Washington was not eager to see to Zelaya re-instated in the presidential palace. Despite carefully structured statements intended to suggest that the United States was supporting democracy, its support for negotiations and its lack of firm action clearly illustrated that the Obama administration had no intention of pressuring the coup regime to unconditionally surrender power. In August, Zelaya noted Washington's unwillingness to defend democracy in Honduras stating that "the United States only needs to tighten its fist and the coup will last five seconds."

Meanwhile, several Republican members of Congress have openly supported the coup regime and have worked hard to influence the Obama administration's response to the crisis. Florida Congressman Connie Mack, the ranking Republican on the U.S. House Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, visited Honduras in July and met with Micheletti. Mack declared that Hondurans "don't want us to stand with the ‘thugocrats' of the Western Hemisphere like Hugo Chávez." In early October, four more U.S. Republican lawmakers visited Micheletti in Honduras' presidential palace in a show of support for the coup regime.

Washington's close ally Colombia is the other country in the hemisphere that has been reluctant to pressure the coup regime in Honduras. In fact, the Uribe government welcomed a delegation from the coup regime and, according to members of the delegation, Colombian officials stated their support for the new Honduran government. Additionally, more than $6 billion in U.S. military aid over the past decade has strengthened the Colombian military to the point that it is now less reliant on right-wing paramilitary death squads to carry out its dirty war. As a result, the Uribe government was able to "demobilize" many of the country's paramilitaries in recent years because the U.S.-backed military has assumed a more direct role in the perpetration of human rights abuses. The supposedly demobilized paramilitaries are now free to offer their services to help protect the interests of rich landowners and industrialists in other countries. This is exactly what has occurred in Honduras as more than 40 Colombian paramilitaries have been imported to protect the economic interests of the elites with what appears to be the acquiescence of the right-wing coup regime.

More:
http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/23063

[Peace Patriot]

3. A good article but it leaves something out, which I think a lot of leftist commentators are missing.

Garry Leech writes that, "Labelling Zelaya's ouster a military coup would have required that the Obama administration immediately cut-off all military and economic aid to Honduras."

Leech omits the other thing that labeling this coup a "military coup" would have done. It would have triggered a provision that required Congressional approval of the label and the sanctions. Personally, I think that's what DeMint & brethren expected them to do. They were laying in wait for it, and intended to hand Obama a major defeat in his first effort to implement a policy of peace, respect and cooperation in Latin America.

This coup was "made in the USA"--by John ("death squad") Negroponte, John McCain ($43 million US tax dollars to rightwing, coup-supporting groups in Honduras, through the USAID-International Republican Institute), James Baker and others. One, as an embarrassment to and boxing in of Obama. Two, long term game to destroy democracy in Latin America once again. Three, probably an oil war.

So, it may have been a shrewd move on the part of the Obama team to keep it out of Congress where they were at risk of an outright defeat. But this and some other indicators point to a deeper problem in the US--that Bushwhack moles in the Pentagon, the CIA, the diplomatic corps in Latin America, and other entities, may be proceeding on their own, with plots and game plans that Obama cannot control.

I think we have to consider the possibility that the foreground impression of Obama in the Honduran situation--that he is collusive with these fascist forces--has been designed by the very forces who are subverting him. It is those operatives who have told the coup regime to "stand fast" and "things will be taken care of here." And that behind that impression is not a dirtbag fascist-colluding president, but a president who is boxed in, whose hands are tied, who hasn't been able to gain full control of the US government. He may well be in this position by his own doing, by deals he had to make to be permitted election. Or not. Hard to say for sure. And he may be the same-old-same-old collusive Democrat, shilling for global corporate predators and laying the ground work for more war and more war profiteering. But given this fact about the law on military coups--that it has to go to Congress, where Jim DeMint is currently holding up all of Obama's Latin America appointments, and is thereby blackmailing Obama on Honduras (and probably on the seven new US military bases in Colombia--which is now heading for Congress--as well) --we need to try to grasp the complications and dangers of this situation, and maybe not be so quick to attack a Democratic president who is under attack on every front, including this one.

I am NOT saying, "Shut up and be loyal and have hope." Anybody who knows my posts here at DU knows that I am not the kind of Democrat who shuts up. But I am a bit concerned that an attack on Obama from the left is exactly what has been designed by the right in this situation. And I am gravely concerned about possible Obama powerlessness against the military that he is supposedly commander of, and against Bushwhack plots like this one.

Example: The plane carrying the kidnapped president of Honduras, and holding him at gunpoint, landed at the US military base at Soto Cano, Honduras, for refueling, on its way to dump him in Costa Rica. The US embassy has admitted knowing about the coup days ahead of time. Did the US military fail to inspect and stop that plane because they were part of the coup? And on whose orders did they permit that plane to land, refuel and take off carrying the kidnapped president of the country? Was it an act of collusion? Was it a saving of Zelaya's life? (i.e., the best that Obama could do, given the Bushwhack plot that had been sprung on him)? Was it subversion--the Pentagon acting on its own? Was it Clinton? Was it the embassy? We need to know the answers to these questions before we jump on Obama as no better than Reagan or Bush. And are we maybe asking too much of our new president, when we ourselves are permitting extreme rightwing corporations to count all our votes with 'TRADE SECRET' code? We have been set up for another coup here. What are we doing about THAT?

I jumped on Obama the other day, because I read that the US is paying for, and organizing monitors for, that farce of an election in Honduras--when everybody else has refused to (the OAS, the EU, the Carter Center). But I keep pulling back, because of my concern that we don't fully understand what's going on. And at the least I urge people to consider being careful about hammering the wrong parties, at moments when they may most need our support. Did Obama authorize that? Did Clinton? Did Congress? Was Zelaya consulted? Zelaya after all signed the agreement that permits that election to go forward. Is that the best HE can do, given the Honduran military's imprisonment of him in the Brazilian embassy? Is all this possibly preventing a golpista bloodbath in Honduras (engineered by powerful rightwing forces in THIS country)?

They didn't dare take it to Congress. Think about that.

[EFerrari]

6. The Bermuda Triagle of power you're describing is

precisely where my own thoughts have been ever since the president was kidnapped.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Dr. Luther Castillo -- Voice of the Voiceless in Honduras

Dr. Luther Castillo -- Voice of the Voiceless in Honduras

San Francisco Bay View , News Report, Willie Thompson, Posted: Nov 05, 2009

“Doctor Luther! Doctor Luther, give it to the Honduras oligarchy hard!” Dr. Luther Castillo, who represents the National Resistance Front against the Military Coup in Honduras, brought to San Francisco the echoes of Cuba’s former President Fidel Castro on Thursday night at the Centro del Pueblo. He spoke for almost two hours with passion, conviction and a keen understanding of the savage rule of the minority oligarchic coup government in Honduras.

“More than 40 people have been shot down in the street and many women have been raped by the coup government. Ten families who control 90 percent of the wealth have closed the Garifuna hospital. They have expelled the Cuban doctors and teachers who treat the sick in isolated communities and eliminated illiteracy in six months.

“These oligarchs haven’t paid taxes or utilities for 38 years. They live in big houses and refuse to pay minimum wages to the workers. How can we be at the side of these rapists and assassins?” he asked rhetorically in response to a questioner who said she and her Honduran family represent the minority who support he coup government in Honduras. The audience of more than 100 Hispanic-, African-, Asian- and European-Americans shouted their enthusiastic support for Dr. Luther.

The National Resistance Front against the Military Coup in Honduras has been demonstrating in the streets of Honduras for more than four months and has absorbed the repression of the coup government. The Resistance is now asking for the support of the international community.

“Companeros y companeras, it’s time to raise our voices and to call on the heroic people of the United States in order to stop the barbarity of the coup government in Honduras. Where are the voices of humanity? Where is the solidarity? Where is the Nobel Peace Prize?” Dr. Castillo asked finally with sarcasm.

“We are not in agreement with the compromise of San Jose, Costa Rica,” he said. “The oligarchy cannot name their family members to lead us. We have decided to be the voice of the voiceless and the poor because no clean election can be held under the present conditions in Honduras.”

More:
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=e56553c1af0dcd742387c6a2ff9e82fc

[Bacchus39]

5. Zelaya agreed to let the Congress decide, it was his idea

there is nothing in the agreement that says Congress must restore Zelaya. There couldn't be anyway unless Congress specifically was a party to the agreement.

and regarding this:

"The decision the national congress adopts should establish a basis for achieving the social peace, political tranquility and democratic governability the society requires and the country needs." This and other language makes it clear that the negotiators - who have the ability to deliver the votes in congress - agreed on Zelaya's restoration.


There is absolutely nothing in that language that would lead anyone to conclude that it means the same as restoring Zelaya. If they meant that then why not simply say, "Z shall be restored to power"??

[Braulio]

7. They must have had an Israeli drafting the deal

The deal looks like an Israeli drafted it. They're very good at paperwork they violate the next day. Like the Oslo agreement. They started defecating on it the day after they signed it, yet they whine about "defending themselves" all the time. As if they weren't the ones starting it.