|
July 10, 2009 - No. 135 All Out to Support the Honduran People
|
 First Lady of Honduras, Xiomara Castro de Zelaya |
She condemned the fact that the coup perpetrators have trampled on the constitutional rights of all the people, on human rights and justice. "Today, there is no security for anybody; today they can freely enter people's homes; today they can kill; today they can take people prisoner, and so we have to keep speaking out against all this."
Castro criticized the media blockade being maintained in Honduras and the continuing persecution of the people and of journalists, although the coup faction claims there is freedom of expression.
Elsewhere in Latin America, Venezuela halted daily shipments of 20,000 barrels of oil to Honduras until cabinet President Manuel Zelaya return to power, Prensa Latina reported on July 7.
Venezuelan Economy and Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez, confirming the announcement by President Hugo Chavez, told Panorama daily that Venezuela halted oil supply to Honduras under the terms of the Petrocaribe agreement, adding that Venezuela will no longer give fuel to a dictatorship and a small group of businessmen involved in the coup against Zelaya.
(Prensa Latina, Granma International, www.ChavezCode.com)
Honduras and the "Twin-Track" Policy
of the United States
Until Honduran President Manuel Zelaya is returned to Tegucigalpa with all of the powers established in that Central American nation's Constitution, we must be wary of the "twin-track" policy. There is too much experience in "Our America" of clever "diplomatic" moves by the White House and the ability of its intelligence agencies to generate confusion and get away with it in the end.
The "twin-track policy" was developed by the United States in the 1980s to be used against the Nicaraguan revolution. Two different tactics with one single strategy (defeating the Sandinista movement) were translated into a combination of war, whose military base was in Honduras, and the promotion of dialogue demanded by sectors opposed to military intervention but also opposed to the then-president Daniel Ortega. Both the organization and financing of the "Contras" and the creation of spaces for dialogue served to wear down the revolutionary government. In 1989, the FSLN lost the power it had won militarily in 1979.
But if the above example could be disqualified because of the time gone by or justified on account of having occurred in the middle of the Cold War, the Haiti case is quite demonstrative of the double standards used by the imperialist bourgeoisie. On Sunday, February 29, 2004, a coup d'état deposed President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The United States and the OAS harshly condemned that interruption of democratic institutionalism. A resignation letter from the Haitian president was later released without any previous confirmation. The expectations of those who thought -- as a result of the U.S. position -- that they would witness the deposed president's return to Port-au-Prince began to evaporate as the days went by and as the empire worked to open up a transition that would take into account the sectors in conflict.
The statement this past June 28 of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would seem to confirm the data of historical experience. "When I talk about supporting the work of the OAS, it is a question of working with the parties in Honduras, so that all of the parties involved take a step back and look at how their democratic institutions should be working," the high-ranking U.S. official said. What could Clinton have meant when she said: "It should be understood that there is a lot at stake for maintaining democracy; we don't want to go backwards, and we want all parties to play a responsible role in that aspect." Hopefully the "not go backwards" does not mean backing the removal from office of Zelaya, who does not have the support of parties in the National Congress -- including the Liberal Party, with which he won the 2005 presidential election -- because he has taken Latin Americanist positions, or making a fresh start in such a way that the organizers of the coup d'état -- the first in the Obama era -- are not tried and sentenced.
Neither Dan Restrepo nor Clinton condemned the kidnapping of Zelaya or the coup d'état in terms that one would expect from an administration that claims to be interested in rebuilding its links with Latin America. Moreover, it is striking that Marcia Villeda, vice president of the Honduran Congress, told CNN that a solution was being sought for more than a week to prevent the referendum going ahead, and it is also striking that Hugo Llorens, the U.S. ambassador to that country, participated in those talks.
Other interpretations of the Honduras events, such as that of researcher Eva Golinger, lead one to think about the participation of the Pentagon and the CIA, which, in any case, raises many questions as to the real information available to the Obama administration before and during the military coup, although it may seem exaggerated to suggest that the cause of the coup could have been the expulsion of U.S. soldiers from Honduras.
The United States -- which in the early 20th century had the United Fruit Company and Rosario Mining controlling almost 100% of banana and mineral exports -- now has a military base in Soto Cano, 97 km from the capital, and the Honduran military does little or virtually nothing without the consent of its U.S. counterpart. In fact, it is unlikely that the Honduran military would have carried out the coup without the consent of high-ranking U.S. officials based in the country, or without the U.S. intelligence services, very active in that Central American country, having been aware of the anti-democratic plot.
One thing that is unquestionable is that the reaction of the White House gradually changed as the Honduran and international scenario reflected overwhelming condemnation of the cowardly coup perpetrated by the country's bourgeoisie, strongly tied to U.S. companies, and supported by the media silence against democracy and the legitimately constituted government. Initially Obama, in the voice of Dan Restrepo, expressed his concern (he did not use the word condemnation) over events, and urged that "the Honduran people should solve their problems without the participation of any foreign interference." In the afternoon, the Latin America advisor to the Democratic administration reiterated virtually the same words.
The United States has ended up yielding to the international condemnation led by the member countries of the ALBA-TCP. It couldn't have done otherwise; the cost would have been too high. But that does not mean that the imperial bourgeoisie is not going to replay its "twin-track policy." Renouncing subversion and counterinsurgency would be to deny its very nature.
"Our America" is not the same as it was in the 1970s. The rapid reaction of progressive and revolutionary governments has been -- despite the conduct of the transnational corporate media -- decisive in terms of preventing the consolidation of the de facto regime. Moreover, with respect to the media, Telesur has demonstrated, as if there was any doubt, how correct it was to create that network.
That is why, in order for Honduras not to become the Nicaragua of the 1980s and the Haiti of 2004, it is necessary for the peoples and governments of "Our America" to increase the pressure and to maintain their guard as to what the United States is going to do. Honduras could be a trial balloon.
(Taken from Rebelión. Translated by Granma International.)
Harper Government Isolated as
Opposition to Coup in Honduras Grows
At Saturday's special meeting of the Organization of American States (OAS) minister for the Americas, Peter Kent, recommended that ousted President Manuel Zelaya delay his planned return to the country.
Kent said the "time is not right," prompting Zelaya to respond dryly: "I could delay until January 27 [2010]," when his term ends. Kent added that it was important to take into account the context in which the military overthrew Zelaya, particularly whether he had violated the Constitution.
Along with three Latin American heads of states, Zelaya tried to return to Honduras on Sunday. But the military blocked his plane from landing and kept a 100,000 plus supporters at bay. In doing so the military killed two protesters and wounded at least 30. On CTV Kent blamed Zelaya for the violence.
This was Kent's most recent attack against Zelaya. In June Kent criticized Zelaya's plan for a non-binding public poll on whether to hold consultations to reopen the constitution.
"We have concerns with the government of Honduras," he said a couple of weeks ago. "There are elections coming up this year and we are watching very carefully the behaviour of the government and what seems to be an attempt to amend the constitution to allow consecutive presidencies."
With political tensions increasing in Honduras, two days before the coup the OAS passed a resolution supporting democracy and the rule of law in that country.
Ottawa's representative to the OAS remained silent on the issue. Foreign Affairs took a similar position in the hours after Zelaya was kidnapped by the military. Eight hours after Zelaya's ouster last Sunday morning a Foreign Affairs spokesperson told Notimex that Canada had "no comment" regarding the coup. It was not until late in the evening, after basically every country in the hemisphere denounced the coup, that Ottawa finally did so.
Canada, reports Notimex, is the only country in the hemisphere that did not explicitly call for Zelaya's return to power. Unlike the World Bank and others, Ottawa has not announced plans to suspend aid to Honduras, which is the largest recipient of Canadian assistance in Central America. Nor has Ottawa mentioned that it will exclude the Honduran military from its Military Training Assistance Programme.
Ottawa's hostility towards Zelaya is likely motivated by particular corporate interests and his support for the social transformation taking place across Latin America.
From 1996-2006 Canadian companies were the second-biggest investors in the Central American country. It is unlikely that Zelaya won brownie points from the large Canadian mining sector -- including Breakwater Resources, Yamana Gold and Goldcorp that are active in Honduras -- when he announced that no new mining concessions would be granted.
Likewise, Zelaya's move earlier this year to raise the minimum wage by 60 per cent could not have gone down well with the world's biggest blank T-shirt maker, Montréal-based Gildan. Employing thousands of Hondurans at low wages Gildan produces about half of its garments in the country. While the political instability in Honduras initially hit the company's stock price, a Desjardins Securities analyst Martin Landry noted that in the long term the coup could help Gildan if it leads to a more pro-business government.
More broadly, the Harper government opposes Zelaya's gravitation towards the governments in the region leading the push towards a more united Latin America. A year ago Honduras joined the Hugo Chavez led ALBA, the Bolivarian Alliance for the People of Our Americas, which is a fast growing response to North American capitalist domination of the region.
Two years ago Harper toured South America to help stunt the region's recent rejection of neoliberalism and U.S dependence. "To show [the region] that Canada functions and that it can be a better model than Venezuela," in the words of a high-level Foreign Affairs official.
During the trip, Harper and his entourage made a number of comments critical of the Venezuelan government. In a coded reference to Chavez, Harper discussed a "Latin American dictator."
Demonizing Chavez is part of Ottawa's attempt to block the leftward shift in the region. Supporting the coup in Honduras is part of the same plan.
* Yves Engler is the author of The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy and other books.
The Concept of Democracy at Stake
Thank you, Mr. President, Mr. Secretary-General, Mr. President of the Republic of Honduras, of the Republic of the Paraguay, delegates.
The truth is that if somebody had told me, barely 15 days ago, that today I would be sitting here in the OAS in opposition to a military coup, I would have said that such was a product of their imagination, that it was the product of some delirium, a product of sleeplessness, keeping in mind that the democratic restoration in Latin America is an achievement that cost too much in terms of human lives, in terms of economic and social tragedies.
Moreover, above all these things -- because in addition to that democratic restoration there has also begun to reign in the region, especially in the most recent times, since the change of administration in the United States of America -- things have begun to change. Barely two months ago we were in Trinidad and Tobago, at the Fifth Summit of the Americas, and we all felt, we clearly perceived that a new stage had begun, perhaps, to deepen the process of democratic restoration and to build a different coordination, between what was the United States and the rest of the Americas, especially because -- why not say it with absolute sincerity? -- the National Security Doctrine, which President Zelaya mentioned, had in fact been imposed from Washington.
I see José Miguel Insulza, who is the secretary-general of the Organization of the American States, but he is also a Chilean; I remember what my country suffered, not only in 1976; the coups were not only during the 1960s and 70s in fact in the Argentinean Republic they began in 1930, recognized even by the country's Supreme Court, which recognized the de facto governments as legal.
So, I thought we were in a new era, that also, in this same arena of the OAS, [at a recent meeting] in President Zelaya's country, we had also completed another historical landmark, which was precisely to revoke the sanction against our sister republic of Cuba.
And then suddenly this: the return of military coups.
I know there is a discussion one can often read in the newspapers, among political scientists, analysts about who has a lot of support or little support, who has the most support -- the coup leaders or those removed from office. I believe this is to not clearly understand that it is the concept of democracy [at stake], and also, it is to not understand what the history of military coups in Latin America was.
In Latin America the coups were military, but in fact, they were also often supported by wide segments of the population. In 1955 in my country, when Peron was overthrown, the Plaza de Mayo was full of people, packed, supporting the coup. I recall that recently the president of the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo recalled that she too had been there, because she was against Peron. Decades later her daughter disappeared, and they still haven't found her grandson.
The 1976 coup was instructive not in terms of the masses in the streets supporting the toppling of Peron, but because it had the silent and not so silent support of one part of the society. Another mother, a founding member of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo often relates that she was in agreement with that coup, and that she was pleased. Months later her son disappeared.
What am I trying to say by this? -- that the discussion is not about if one has a majority or a minority in favor of the coup backers or the non-coup backers, that is not to understand the true problem or the true dimension and true concept of democratic practices in our societies. That is to not understand that democracy is not only the respect of the popular will, but also -- fundamentally -- the systemic organization of society expressed in its constitutions.
That fact is that I have attentively read the Honduran Constitution, and in none of its 375 articles is there mentioned the possibility of the armed forces kidnapping its president and sending him to a foreign country.
Therefore, all the discussions about the acts that the president may have taken, if there was a majority or minority in favor of one or the other side, is in fact not to understand the true dimension of the problem. It is to hide it, perhaps to mask the true problem, which is the need to abide by legality, which is the instrument that allows us to be organized and coexist in a society. I sincerely believe that the dawn in which they kidnapped you, Mr. President; they were kidnapping democratic restoration in Latin America.
I have not come here to support a person or a president. Moreover, a journalist asked me before coming here, while still in my country, if I had any affinity with some leader. I told him President Zelaya was a leader of the Liberal Party, that he was a powerful rancher. That, in fact, he had little to do with my political history, but that this had absolutely nothing to do with what I came here to do today, which is to reaffirm the urgent necessity that this arena, which is the one containing all of the American states, not only applies Article 21 of the Democratic Charter, but rather, as that same Article 21 indicates, carries out all diplomatic actions aimed at restoring the illegitimately deposed government.
I believe that this includes not only the respect for democracy, but also the very existence of the Organization of American States and the possibility, without the least of doubt, of not returning to a barbaric past.
I also believe, speaking for myself alone, that, there are other interests also here behind the scenes, interests that perhaps want to detour the direction that the group of the Americas has begun to take; for example, in Trinidad and Tobago, where we could dialogue and try to have a different relationship.
I am not naïve, and I believe the attack is not only against you, President Zelaya, or against the Republic of Honduras. Perhaps there is a strategy that is finer, deeper, one that not only involves those in your country who may want to continue with the model of the non-redistribution of income, etc, etc. I believe that it is also an attempt to frustrate a different policy for the whole of America, of all countries that make up the Americas.
Let's give it some thought. How curious, during the last eight years there have not been similar cases recorded, except for the Venezuela episode. Change the administration of the most powerful country in the world, in which we are meeting today, here, with a new position, which we all hope is a change, and then comes something like this, that seems to be a retreat backwards or that calls into question the advances that we have begun to make. This started with a change of administration [in the U.S.], which has not only sowed a great deal of hope -- in America but also in the world -- in the need for change.
Without conspiratorial visions but with intelligence, we all have the obligation to observe the facts and not only in the place where they take place, or from the appearances that they present. I believe that we are all obliged to take a big dose of rationality, a big dose of intelligence, to understand the things that are in play based on what has happened in Honduras.
To restore things to their place, therefore, will not only be an act of justice for the people of Honduras and the unlimited respect for human rights, but also for the possibility of continuing and deepening a change that began in Trinidad and Tobago, of the repeal of the suspension of our sister republic Cuba, and of a different air that began to be breathed across all of the Americas.
It is the responsibility of everyone, not only of those who are in this international organization, who obviously have greater power, greater responsibilities. I always say that leaderships should be responsible and that to lead in the world and the region also demands a large dose of responsibility.
For that reason, President Zelaya, I want to tell you that I am here, not only as president of the Argentinean Republic, but also as part of a generation that was the object of the coup d'états in Latin America. When I became politically active in my country, there was a dictatorship. The party with which I identified was outlawed, as it remained so for 18 years.
In fact, in the name of all those histories that also exist over there I see the representative of Uruguay, I also see that of Brazil. I see, in short, our countries that have been the object of dictatorships, which have meant economic, social and cultural backwardness.
In the name of these histories and on behalf of these decades in which we have been able to reconstruct democracy, we are here today not only to cast a vote in the sense of a sanction, but also for the need to build and design a common strategy that seriously allows the reconstitution of his [Zelaya's] government, the legitimate government, so that when Hondurans vote again in November, when they decide who will be their new president, they will do it under a constitutional government.
If not, I greatly fear that we would be facing a trap, the trap of letting time lapse until the next elections, that surely will be carried out with observers from different countries, from different organizations, who could then legitimize what we might call the "doctrine of benevolent coups," perhaps a new form of introducing the rupture of the democratic order; not only now, since the taking of power by the military-civilian alliance, but also involving an important role of the media.
I recall the foreign minister's [Patricia Rodas] words, they remain recorded in my mind from the day that I heard them in the media, on Telesur to be precise, which was by the way the only media source that broadcast the coup, at least in its first hours and days. This means that while they kidnapped the president of Honduras, the main television stations in that country broadcast cartoons.
Because of all these things, I am here, although I would have liked to have been in the OAS for the first time for a different occasion. It is not one who chooses history, but history that often chooses us.
Nothing else, and thank you.
(Translation by Havana Times of the original supplied by Argentina's permanent mission to the OAS. Title by TML.)
The Role of the International Republican Institute (IRI) in the Honduran Coup
The International Republican Institute (IRI), considered the international branch of the U.S. Republican Party, and one of the four "core groups" of the congressionally created and funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED), apparently knew of the coup d'etat in Honduras against President Zelaya well in advance. IRI is well known for its role in the April 2002 coup d'etat against Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and its funding and strategic advising of the principal organizations involved in the ouster of President Jean Bertrand Aristide of Haiti in 2004. In both cases, IRI funded and/or trained and advised political parties and groups that were implicated in the violent, undemocratic overthrow of democratically elected presidents.
After the 2002 coup d'etat occured in Venezuela, IRI president at the time, George Folsom, sent out a celebratory press release claiming, "The Institute has served as a bridge between the nation's political parties and all civil society groups to help Venezuelans forge a new democratic future " Hours later, after the coup failed and the people of Venezuelan rescued their president, who had been kidnapped and imprisoned on a military base, and reinstalled constitutional order, IRI regretted its premature, public applause for the coup. One of its principal funders, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), was furious that IRI had publicly revealed the U.S. government had provided funding and support for the coup leaders. NED President Carl Gershman was so irritated with IRI's blunder, that he sent out a memo to Folsom, chastising him: "By welcoming [the coup] -- indeed, without any apparent reservations -- you unnecessarily interjected IRI into the sensitive internal politics of Venezuela." Gershman would have much prefered that NED and IRI's role in fomenting and supporting the coup against President Chávez remained a secret.
IRI, chaired by Senator John McCain, was created in 1983 as part of the National Endowment for Democracy's mission to "promote democracy around the world," a mandate from President Ronald Reagan. In reality, one of NED's founders, Allen Weinstein, put it this way in a 1991 interview with the Washington Post, "A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA." IRI's own history, according to its website (www.iri.org) also explains that its original work was in Latin America, at a time when the Reagan administration was under heavy scrutiny and pressure from the U.S. Congress for funding paramilitary groups, dictatorships and death squads in Central and South America to install U.S.-friendly regimes and supress leftist movements. "Congress responded to President Reagan's call in 1983 when it created the National Endowment for Democracy to support aspiring democrats worldwide. Four nonprofit, nonpartisan democracy institutes were formed to carry out this work -- IRI, the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), and the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (ACILS)."
"In its infancy, IRI focused on planting the seeds of democracy in Latin America. Since the end of the Cold War, IRI has broadened its reach to support democracy and freedom around the globe. IRI has conducted programs in more than 100 countries."
In its initial days, IRI, along with the other coup groups of the NED, funded organizations in Nicaragua to foment the destabilization of the Sandinista government. Journalist Jeremy Bigwood explained part of this role in his article, "No Strings Attached?," "'When the rhetoric of democracy is put aside, NED is a specialized tool for penetrating civil society in other countries down to the grassroots level' to achieve U.S. foreign policy goals, writes University of California-Santa Barbara professor William Robinson in his book, A Faustian Bargain. Robinson was in Nicaragua during the late ‘80s and watched NED work with the U.S.-backed Nicaraguan opposition to remove the leftist Sandinistas from power during the 1990 elections."
The evidence of IRI's role in the 2002 coup d'etat in Venezuela has been well documented and investigated. Proof of such involvement, which is still ongoing in terms of IRI's work, funding, strategic advising and training of opposition political parties in Venezuela, is available through documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act posted here, and also available in my book, The Chávez Code: Cracking U.S. Intervention in Venezuela (Olive Branch Press 2006). None of the claims or evidence regarding IRI's role in fomenting and supporting the April 2002 in Venezuela and its ongoing support of the Venezuelan opposition has ever been disclaimed by the institution, primarily because all evidence cited comes from IRI and NED's own internal documentation obtained under FOIA.
Hence, when the recent coup d'etat occured in Honduras, against democratically-elected President Manuel Zelaya, there was little doubt of U.S. fingerprints. IRI's name appeared as a recipient of a $700,000 Latin American Regional Grant in 2008-2009 from NED to promote "good governance" programs in countries including Honduras. An additional grant of $550,000 to work with "think tanks" and "pressure groups" in Honduras to influence political parties was also given by the NED to IRI in 2008-2009, specifically stating, IRI will support initiatives to implement [political] positions into the 2009 campaigns. IRI will place special emphasis on Honduras, which has scheduled presidential and parliamentary elections in November 2009." That is clear direct intervention in internal politics in Honduras.
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) also provides approximately $49 million annually to Honduras, a large part of which is directed towards "democracy promotion" programs. The majority of the recipients of this aid in Honduras, which comes in the form of funding, training, resources, strategic advice, communications counseling, political party strengthening and leadership training, are organizations directly linked to the recent coup d'etat, such as the Consejo Nacional Anticorrupción, the Archbishop of Tegucigalpa, the Honduran Private Enterprise Council (COHEP), the Council of University Deans, the Confederation of Honduran Workers (CTH), the National Convergence Forum, the Chamber of Commerce (FEDECAMARA), the Association of Private Media (AMC), the Group Paz y Democracia and the student group Generación X Cambio. These organizations form part of a coalition self-titled "Unión Cívica Democrática de Honduras" (Civil Democratic Union of Honduras) that has publicly backed the coup against President Zelaya.
IRI's press secretary, Lisa Gates, responded to claims that IRI funded or aided (which also involves non-monetary aid, such as training, advising and providing resources) groups involved in the Honduran coup as "false reports." However, there are several interesting links between the republican organization and the violent coup d'etat against President Zelaya that do indicate the institute's involvement, as well as to the above mentioned funding that exceeds $1 million during just this year. In addition to its presence on the ground in Honduras as part of its "good governance" and "political influence" programs, IRI Regional Program Director, Latin America and the Carribean, Alex Sutton, has recently been closely involved with many of the organizations in the region that have backed the Honduran coup. Sutton was a featured speaker at a recent 3-day conference held in Venezuela by the U.S.-funded ultraconservative Venezuelan organization CEDICE (Centro para la Divulgación de Conocimiento Económico). CEDICE's director, Rocío Guijarra, was one of the principal executors of the 2002 coup d'etat against President Hugo Chávez, and Guijarra personally signed a decree installing a dictatorship in the country, which led to the coup's overthrow by the people and loyal armed forces of Venezuela. The conference Sutton participated in, held from May 28-29 in Venezuela was attended by leaders of Latin America's ultra-conservative movement, ranging from Bolivian ex president Jorge Quiroga, who has called for President Evo Morales of Bolivia's overthrow on several occasions, Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa and his son Alvaro, both of whom have publicly expressed support for the coup against President Zelaya in Honduras, and numerous leaders of the Venezuelan opposition, the majority of whom are well known for their involvement in the April 2002 coup and subsequent destabilization attempts. The majority of those present at the CEDICE conference in May 2009, have publicly expressed support for the recent coup against President Zelaya.
But a more damning piece of evidence linking IRI to the Honduran coup, is a video clip posted on the institute's website. The clip or podcast, features a slideshow presentation given by Susan Zelaya-Fenner, assistant program officer at IRI, on March 20, 2009, discussing the "good governance" program in Honduras. Curiously, at the beginning of the presentation, Zelaya-Fenner explains what she considers "a couple of interesting facts about Honduras." These include, "Honduras is a very overlooked country in a small region. Honduras has had more military coups than years of independence, it has been said. However, parodoxically, more recently it has been called a pillar of stability in the region, even being called the USS Honduras, as it avoided all of the crisis that its neighbors went through during the civil wars in the 1980s."
Important to note is that what Zelaya-Fenner refers to as "USS Honduras" and "avoid[ing] all of the crisis that its neighbors went through during the civil wars in the 1980s" was because the U.S. government, CIA and Pentagon utilized Honduras as the launching pad for the attacks on Honduras' neighbors. U.S. Ambassador at the time, John Negroponte, and Colonel Oliver North, trained, funded and planned the paramilitary missions of the death squads that were used to assassinate, torture, persecute, disappear and neutralize tens of thousands of farmers and "suspected" leftists in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
Zelaya-Fenner continues, "Thus, Honduras has been more recently stable, and it's always been poor, which means that it's below the radar, and gets little attention. The current president, Manuel Zelaya and his buddies, the leftists in the Latin American region have caused a lot of political destabilization recently in the country. He is a would-be emulator of Hugo Chavez and Hugo Chavez' social revolution. He has spent the better part of this administration trying to convince the Honduran people, who tend to be very practical and very 'center' that the Venezuelan route is the way to go. Zelaya's leftist leanings further exarcerbate an already troubled state. Corruption is rampant, crime is at all time highs. Drug trafficking and related violence have begun to spill over from Mexico. And there's a very real sense that the country is being purposefully destabilized from within, which is very new in recent Honduran history. Coups are thought to be so three decades ago until now (laughs, audience laughs), again."
Did she really say that? Yes, you can hear it yourself on the podcast. Is it merely a coincidence that the coup against President Zelaya occured just three months after this presentation? State Department officials have admitted that they knew the coup was in the works for the past few months. Sub-secretary of State Thomas Shannon was in Honduras the week before the coup, apparently trying to broker some kind of deal with the coup planners to find another "solution" to the "problem." Nevertheless, they continued funding via NED and USAID to those very same groups and military sectors involved in the coup. It is not a hidden fact that Washington was unhappy with President Zelaya's alliances in the region, principally with countries such as Venezuela and Nicaragua. It is also public knowledge that President Zelaya was in the process of removing the U.S. military presence from the Soto Cano airbase, using a fund from the Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas (ALBA -- Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Dominica, Honduras, Nicaragua, St. Kitts, Antigua & Barbados and Venezuela) to convert the strategically important Pentagon base into a commercial airport.
IRI's Zelaya-Fenner explains the strategic importance of Honduras in her presentation, "Why does Honduras matter? A lot of people ask this question, even Honduran historians and experts. Some might argue that it doesn't and globally it might be hard to counter. However, the country is strategic to regional stability and this is an election year in Honduras. It's a strategic time to help democrats with a small "d," at a time when democracy is increasingly coming under attack in the region."
There is no doubt that the coup against President Zelaya is an effort to undermine regional governments implementing alternative models to capitalism that challenge U.S. concepts of representative democracy as "the best model." Countries such as Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, are building successful models based on participatory democracy that ensure economic and social justice, and prioritize collective social prosperity and human needs over market economics. These are the countries, together now with Honduras, that have been victims of NED, USAID, IRI and other agencies' interventions to subvert their prospering democracies.
Read The Marxist-Leninist
Daily
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca