Top Ten Ways You Can Tell Which Side the United States Government Is on With Regard to the Military Coup in Honduras December 16, 2009
Posted by rogerhollander in Democracy, Foreign Policy, Honduras, Latin America.Tags: roger hollander, Latin America, democracy, human rights, Amnesty International, foreign policy, oas, hillary clinton, monroe doctrine, obama administration, mark weisbrot, zelaya, Honduras, honduras coup, honduras military, honduras election, honduras repression, honduras aid
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by Mark Weisbrot
At dawn on June 28, the Honduran military abducted President Manuel Zelaya at gunpoint and flew him out of the country. Conflicting and ambiguous statements from the Obama administration left many confused about whether it opposed this coup or was really trying to help it succeed. Here are the top ten indicators (with apologies to David Letterman):
- The White House statement on the day of the coup did not condemn it, merely calling on “all political and social actors in Honduras” to respect democracy. Since U.S. officials have acknowledged that they were talking to the Honduran military right up to the day of the coup – allegedly to try and prevent it – they had time to think about what their immediate response would be if it happened.
- The Organization of American States (OAS), the United Nations General Assembly, and other international bodies responded by calling for the “immediate and unconditional” return of President Zelaya. In the ensuing five months, no U.S. official would use either of those two words.
- At a press conference the day after the coup, Secretary of State Clinton was asked if “restoring the constitutional order” in Honduras meant returning Zelaya himself. She would not say yes.
- On July 24th, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denounced President Zelaya’s attempt to return to his own country that week as “reckless,” adding that “We have consistently urged all parties to avoid any provocative action that could lead to violence.”
- Most U.S. aid to Honduras comes from the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), a U.S. government agency. The vast majority of this aid was never suspended. By contrast, on August 6, 2008, there was a military coup in Mauritania; MCC aid was suspended the next day. In Madagascar, the MCC announced the suspension of aid just three days after the military coup of March 17, 2009.
- On September 28, State Department officials representing the United States blocked the OAS from adopting a resolution on Honduras that would have refused to recognize Honduran elections carried out under the dictatorship.
- The United States government refused to officially determine that there was a “military coup,” in Honduras – in contrast to the view of rest of the hemisphere and the world.
- The Obama administration defied the rest of the hemisphere and the world by supporting undemocratic elections in Honduras.
- On October 30th, U.S. government representatives including Thomas Shannon, the top U.S. State Department official for Latin America, brokered an accord between President Zelaya and the coup regime. The agreement was seen throughout the region as providing for Zelaya’s restitution, and – according to diplomats close to the negotiations – both Shannon and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave assurances that this was true.
- Yet just four days later, Mr. Shannon stated in a TV interview that the United States would recognize the November 29 elections, regardless of whether or not Zelaya were restored to the presidency. This put the United States against all of Latin America, which issued a 23-nation statement two days later saying that Zelaya’s restitution was an “indispensable prerequisite” for recognizing the elections. The Obama administration has since been able to recruit the right-wing governments of Canada, Panama, and Colombia, and also Peru, to recognize the elections. But its support for these undemocratic elections – to which the OAS, European Union, and the Carter Center all refused to send observers – has left the Obama administration as isolated as its predecessor in the hemisphere.
- President Zelaya visited Washington six times after he was overthrown. Yet President Obama has never once met with him. Is it possible that President Obama did not have even five minutes in all of those days just to shake his hand and say, “I’m trying to help?”
- The Obama administration has never condemned the massive human rights violations committed by the coup regime. These have been denounced and documented by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the OAS Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), as well as Honduran, European, and other human rights organizations. There have been thousands of illegal arrests, beatings and torture by police and military, the closing down of independent radio and TV stations, and even some killings of peaceful demonstrators and opposition activists.
- These human rights violations have continued right through election day, according to Amnesty International and media reports, and beyond, including the killings of two activists opposed to the coup – Walter Trochez and Santos Corrales García – in recent days.
- The United States government’s silence through more than five months of these human rights crimes has been the most damning and persistent evidence that it has always been more concerned about protecting the dictatorship, rather than restoring democracy in Honduras.
The majority of American voters elected President Obama on a promise that our foreign policy would change. For this hemisphere, at least, that promise has been broken.
The headline from the latest Time Magazine report on Honduras summed it up: “Obama’s Latin America Policy Looks Like Bush’s.“
The Pot Calls the Kettle Black December 12, 2009
Posted by rogerhollander in About Hillary Clinton, Bolivia, Foreign Policy, Latin America.Tags: ahmadinejad, Bolivia, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, dulles, ethnocentrism, Evo Morales, foreign policy, hilary clinton, honduras coup, Iran, kissinger, monroe doctrine, nuclear power, pepe lobo, roger hollander, secretary of state, U.S. imperialism
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Hillary Clinton with Pepe Lobo, the newly “elected” president of Honduras, who has recently come to power in an election rejected and considered illegitimate and fraudulent by virtually every government around the world that is not a virtual puppet of the US. This photo by itself is capable of generating resentment towards the United States throughout the entire Latin American world, not to mention the vast Latino population in the States.
Roger Hollander, December 12, 2009
It is no big news to note that Americans tend to be ethnocentric. The United States is the benevolent sun around which the rest of the world revolves. Many Americans criticize their government — this was especially true during the Bush era — but few are either willing or able to step outside the apparent inborn prejudice and jingoism to look at the US as others do around the world. Internal critics of any particular US government castigate the incumbent regime for making “mistakes,” for being in error. Few are willing to admit that their government is criminal, a danger to world peace and security.
Living outside the United States helps one to see things in perspective. Today I read an article that appeared in the Associated Press in Spanish that I could not find on Google in English (too harsh criticism of the US for American readers?). It reported that Evo Morales, the president of Bolivia, had rejected threats made by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about Bolivia’s relationship with Iran. I suppose a typical American might respond to this by thinking: Iran bad, Iran president anti-Semetic, Iran nuclear threat, Hillary right to come down on Bolivia.
Morales’ response was to the effect that what right does the pot have to call the kettle black. He noted that the US itself exports terrorism abroad, that it sends troops to invade countries half-way around the world, that it has military bases all over the world. He could have mentioned that the US has a long history of allying itself with tyrants and dictators (currently the newly elected pseudo-president of Honduras, the product of a military coup), and he could have mentioned that as a nuclear threat, no one can begin to match the United States with a nuclear arsenal that could blow the globe to pieces a thousand times. Rather, Morales noted that Bolivia was interested in dialogue and relationship with all nations of the world.
With the super-hawk Hillary Clinton at the point, the Obama administration has its ambassador to the world that could fit into the most right-wing Republican administration. Her name will go down in history alongside of the likes of John Foster Dulles (who advocated the nuclear bombing of Vietnam), Henry Kissinger (responsible for the criminal bombing of Cambodia), Nixon’s Al Haig, George Schultz, Colin Powell (who lied to the world for Bush to justify the invasion of Iraq), and the Bush puppet, Condoleezza Rice.
Clinton’s and therefore Obama’s agressive (to the point of threats) policy toward Latin America, toward the progressive and popular governments in Bolivia, Venezuela, Panama, and Ecuador (not to mention Cuba), are in the tradition of the Monroe Doctrine and cold war geopolitics. More “plus ca change …” we can believe in.
I would add that I do not particularly enjoy seen Morales and Venezuela’s Chávez siding up with the likes of Iran’s notorious dictatorial and anti-Semitic Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; but that is what nations do, they engage in diplomatic and trade agreements with other nations. Imagine how it appears to non-Americans to see Clinton and Obama appearing alonside Iraq’s illegitimate President Talabani, Afghanistan’s Karzai, Israel’s ultra-right Netanyahu, and now the puppet of the Honduran military, Pepe Lobo.
On Presidents and Precedents: Implications of the Honduran Coup December 11, 2009
Posted by rogerhollander in Foreign Policy, Honduras, Latin America.Tags: democracy, foreign policy, hillary, honduran military, Honduras, honduras constitution, honduras coup, honduras election, honduras repression, honduras resistance, joseph shansky, Latin America, latin america democracy, latin america politics, manuel zelaya, micheltti, obama honduras, porfirio lobo, roger hollander, us intervention
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| Written by Joseph Shansky | |
| Thursday, 10 December 2009, www.upaidedownworld.org | |
President Obama was elected partly because of his promise to a large Hispanic constituency to give both new attention and new respect to Latin America. Judging from the US role in the military coup in Honduras, he must think that one of the two is enough. A REGIONAL DIVIDE
Throughout the coup, Zelaya had overwhelming verbal support from the majority of his counterparts in the region. Upon his bold return to Honduras in late September, Brazil’s President Lula opened the doors of his Tegucigalpa embassy to shelter the president, journalists, and supporters as his “guests”. That was the moment that things might have turned around for those fighting for his restoration. The populace had grown weary of struggling since late June demanding Zelaya’s reinstatement and protesting peacefully against the violations of so many basic rights. Zelaya’s homecoming was a move which energized them once again. But thanks to endless delay tactics on the part of US officials, his position in the embassy soon grew to resemble less that of a president than a prisoner. Additionally, the US position may have drawn a line in the sand among other Latin American governments. Over the past 5 months, of all Latin American countries, only Columbia, Peru and Panama (all strong US allies and economic dependents) rejected Zelaya’s status as the rightful leader of Honduras. But since the elections, others seem to be falling into line behind the US. El Salvador’s newly-elected FMLN President Funes agreed with the US line, stating that the elections will “end the crisis and lead to a unity government, the restoration of constitutional order and reconciliation in the brother country”. Now even Brazil appears to be adjusting its stance. “There is a new situation,” Brazil’s Chief of Staff Dilma Rousseff said recently. “There was an election. That process will be taken into account. We cannot turn a blind eye to the coup, but we can also not turn a blind eye to the election.” At a Special Meeting of the Organization of American States (OAS) on December 4, conflicting views were clear. US Ambassador Carmen Lomellin confirmed the US position to recognize the election results regardless: “The TSE and the Honduran people conducted remarkably free, fair and transparent elections.” Costa Rican Ambassador Jose Enrique Castillo Barientes concurred: “Any position against the elections means crushing the solution.” However, Bolivian Ambassador Jose Pinelo vehemently disagreed: “Under no circumstances will my government accept this objective. Recognizing a government formed like this means recognizing coup plotters.” ELECTION DAY- VIOLENCE AND ABSTENTION The Nov. 29 election passed with predictable results. For most Hondurans, Election Day in Honduras was never seen as a turning point. Rather, it followed a familiar rhetoric that democracy can be always gained, or restored, in the ballot box. That this simple action could clean up the violent elimination of democratic order is a profound lie. On the contrary, it provided opportunity for an escalation of abuse under the guise of protection. This is nothing new for Honduran citizens. Armed forces dispersed throughout the country to ensure a climate of fear and intimidation leading up to and especially on Election Day. As of Nov. 29, not only were national independent media banned from the airwaves, but as Laura Carlsen, the director of the Americas Program, recently reported, even international journalists became subject to vicious harassment and threatening to the point of fearing for their lives. Most of the violence was kept out outside of the capital on election day, but the repression was intense in smaller towns and especially in the second largest city, San Pedro Sula. Micheletti’s claim that an additional 30,000 armed forces for this particular week was for the citizens’ “protection” is absurd. Reports of all kinds of abuses by police and military poured in from human rights delegations and journalists stationed all around Honduras that day. A Real News video clearly shows police officers deliberately smashing windows of cars, beating protesters with batons in the street, and hitting journalists who dared to do their job. Again, these tactics were for the most part not unique to that day. They were consistent with the regime’s behavior throughout the coup and represented the usual degree of violence against its own citizens. Amnesty International has now called for an independent investigation into all human rights violations since the coup, including “killings following excessive use of force, arbitrary arrests of demonstrators by police and military, indiscriminate and unnecessary use of tear gas, ill treatment of detainees in custody, violence against women, and harassment of activists, journalists, lawyers and judges.” Lobo has announced that he wants political amnesty for all parties involved in the coup, effectively requesting that all of the above violations, still unacknowledged, now also go unpunished by their perpetrators. If this was to happen, it would represent the final elimination of almost all legal processes in Honduras since Zelaya’s ousting. While the coup government claims to have seen the highest electoral turnout in Honduran history, the National Front against the Coup (or Frente) claims the lowest. They cite an enormous victory in their much-promoted nonparticipation, claiming that 65-70 percent stayed away from the polls. On the other hand, the coup government claimed a 62 percent turnout. However, a new investigation by Jesse Freeston of the Real News has revealed that this figure, which was distributed and repeated by almost every major media outlet in the world, appears to have been an arbitrary creation by one of the heads of the Supreme Tribunal Electoral (TSE). According to TSE’s own numbers, in reality less than half of the country voted that day. Both the regime and the Resistance know the importance of keeping their supporters energized beyond the elections. Some of the international community (led by CNN headlines that evening boasting “high turnout” and saying the day was “calm and without incident”) are inclined to accept the idea that the elections are a healthy step forward. To believe that they are a clean break from the recent troubles is a convenient but dangerous assertion. A NEW PRECEDENT By most accounts, the coup was a surprising success for its leaders and backers. It now sets an alarming example that military coups can be sustained with backing of the world’s leading power. But many Latin American leaders are warning of a dangerous model. “What is at stake is whether we validate or not a new methodology of coups d’etat,” said Argentine Foreign Minister Jorge Taiana at the recent Ibero-American Summit. His Cuban counterpart, Bruno Rodriguez, agreed: “To recognize the spurious government emerging from these illegitimate elections will betray principles of peace, democracy and justice.” Fidel Castro wrote in a recent editorial: “I hold the view that before Obama completes his term, there will be from six to eight right-wing governments in Latin America that will be allies of the empire.” It’s not an outrageous prediction. Threatening signs are appearing all over the region. In Columbia, the United States just signed an agreement to expand its military presence by building new bases, igniting a feud between the US ally and Venezuela. In Paraguay, coup rumors were stirred when leftist president Fernando Lugo fired top military officials last month. In Guatemala, Obama’s fellow Nobel Peace laureate, indigenous activist Rigoberta Menchu, warned of plans amongst the Bolivian oligarchy against President Evo Morales. However, on the same day of the fraudulent Honduran elections, Uruguayans selected José Mujica, a leftist and former guerilla, as president. And in Bolivia, Evo Morales just won another term in a landslide victory. The tide has not yet turned. Most disturbing is that even amongst US officials there is now no dispute that what happened in Honduras was a military coup d’état. When I met with US Ambassador Hugo Llorens in Tegucigalpa in August, he was able to reluctantly confirm this when pressed. In his first State Department briefing on the day after the elections, Arturo Valenzuela, the new Assistant Secretary for the US Bureau of Hemispheric Affairs, described what took place as a “military coup” twice, marking the first time US officials have officially admitted this. THE CONSTITUYENTE AND THE FUTURE Those who’ve been fighting against the regime and against the elections have done so primarily for the return of legal order to Honduras. The Honduran Resistance, which formed in response to Zelaya’s expulsion, became a social movement no one could have predicted. In many ways, the level of repression by the regime throughout the coup was a direct response to the surprising force of the Resistance movement. It is also a testament to the movement’s strength. While some right-wing forces are doubtlessly watching to see how far Micheletti and his cohorts can get, others are taking notes from the Resistance in preparation for what comes next. The demands of the people are not limited to the restitution of President Zelaya. They want to ensure all Hondurans that the systemic injustices they’ve lived under for so long will be one day turned around. Their ultimate goal is a new Constitution for Honduras. The project they seek to implement is a large one, and is designed to follow a successful model already in place in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador. It will not be easy. The constituyente (constituent assembly) is an effort to rewrite the outdated Honduran constitution with new cultural, economic, and social reforms. After Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez proved it was possible to gain mass support for the idea in 1999, Bolivia adopted a new constitution in 2007. The following year, the people of Ecuador approved a draft constitution which guaranteed among other radical ideas, “free education through university and social security benefits for stay-at-home mothers” and “inalienable rights to nature”. Likewise, Manuel Zelaya proposed reforms for Honduras which focused on land re-distribution, an increase in the minimum wage, and new rights for women and the poor. It was partly because these ideas were so popular with economically-disadvantaged Hondurans that he was overthrown. But his supporters are moving on with an eye to the future. Now Resistance leaders have called for the people of Honduras to “close that chapter” of their struggle. They are turning their focus to the constituyente and to the 2013 elections. It’s uncertain what form their action will take. But they are still riding the momentum of their struggle. Emboldened by almost unanimous international support, Hondurans are now re-awakened to just how fragile a democracy can be. For those who closely followed the coup and its aftermath, a tiny fear sat in the back of our minds. Eventually it was confirmed. As the State Department position shifted from condemning to condoning the illegal government, the outline of a bigger picture became clear. If this violent takeover were really to be approved by the US, it would mark a frightening new focus on the region. In late June, Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was kidnapped by the military and forced out of the country. For the next five months, an illegitimate government, headed by Congressional leader Roberto Micheletti, suppressed the outrage of many Honduran citizens against this regime through a number of violent means including murder, torture, and detention of citizens. Throughout this time, the US response to these allegations was silence. Even though it was impossible for a free or fair election to take place under these circumstances, the US endorsed what is internationally recognized as a fraud. After months of stumbling through embarrassing press conferences dominated by contradictory statements, doublespeak, and back-pedaling, the US appeared firmly committed to helping overthrow democratic order by blessing the Honduran elections as the way out. It has deliberately chosen sides in the battle between the popular struggle for social justice in Latin America and the assured continuation of its own economic interests with the election of coup-supporting conservatives like Porfirio Lobo. |
Honduras: The Truth November 30, 2009
Posted by rogerhollander in Foreign Policy, Honduras, Latin America.Tags: School of the Americas, roger hollander, Latin America, democracy, human rights, soa, oas, carter center, soa watch, latin america politics, human rights abuses, zelaya, Honduras, honduras coup, honduras military, honduras election, micheletti, honduras repression, latin america democracy, lisa sullivan, honduras resistance, honduras boycott, honduras police, vasquez valeaquez, prince suazo, honduras whitewash
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Elections in Honduras
Whitewashing the Path to a Past of Horrors
After being asked by Honduran human rights leader Bertha Oliva, SOA Watch’s Latin America Coordinator Lisa Sullivan returned to Honduras to accompany the social movements who just entered the 5th month of resisting the SOA graduate-led militray coup.
Lisa and some 20 U.S. Citizens have traveled throughout Honduras over the past 4 days to cities and communities such as Tegucigalpa, San Pedro Sula, Tocoa, Santa Rosa de Copán, 
Choluteca, Comayagua, Siguatepeque y Puerto Grande. In addition, they have visited police stations, hospitals and jails, and held a protest and a press conference in front of the U.S. embassy to denounce the U.S. support for the illegitimate elections.
In each of the communities they visited, the delegation observed the systematic abuse of human rights as evidenced by raids, detentions, threats, physical abuse, intimidation and persecution on the part of state security agents. These actions have been mostly directed against citizens identified with the Resistance movement.
Elections in Honduras: Whitewashing the Path to a Past of Horrors
by Lisa Sullivan
I came to Honduras to participate as a human rights observer of the electoral climate in a delegation organized by the Quixote Center. Several delegations converged, connecting some 30 U.S. citizens with dozens more from Canada, Europe and Latin America. In the days prior to the elections we scattered to different cities, towns and villages, meeting with fishermen, farmers, maquila workers, labor leaders, teachers and lawyers, as well as those who were jailed for carrying spray paint, hospitalized for being shot in the head by the military, and detained for reporting on the repression. It was, most likely, a bit off the 5-star, air-conditioned path of most of the mainstream journalists who are filling your morning papers with the wonders of today´s elections.
But by the evening of the day of the elections, what we had witnessed in previous days pushed those of us from the U.S. directly to the doors of our embassy in Tegucigalpa. We realized that this place, not the polling stations, was where this horrific destiny of Honduras, and perhaps all of Latin America, was being determined. And so the U.S. citizens among us took our statements and signs and determination there.
We were, indeed, greeted by many: dozens of guards with cameras, some 30 journalists, Honduran police with guns and also cameras, as well as a low flying helicopter that at least made us feel important. While the journalists let us read our entire statement of why these elections should be not be recognized by our government because of the egregious repression, the embassy guards wouldn´t even let us leave our slip of paper. That, in spite of the fact that the embassy´s human rights officer, Nate Macklin, told our delegation leader to make sure to let him know if there were any human rights abuses.
Any? In each of the many corners of the country visited by the 70-plus international observers, we witnessed the fear, repression, intimidation, bribery and outright brutality of the government security forces (note: we were there to observe the electoral climate, not electoral observers, since we consider the elections to be illegal. Likewise, the UN, OAS, and Carter Center and other bedrock electoral groups boycotted “the event” as many Hondurans called the day.)
As elections were in full swing in the morning, our delegate and nurse practitioner, Silvia Metzler visited Angel Salgado and Maria Elena Hernandez who were languishing in the intensive care unit of the Hospital Escuela in Tegucigalpa . Both had been shot in the head at one of the many military checkpoints, no questions asked. Doctors give Angel a zero possibility of survival and he leaves behind a 6 year old son. Maria Elena has a better chance of recovery, but it will be a long road. She was selling snacks on the side of the road to support her teenage children when caught by military bullet.
Tom Loudon was on the streets of San Pedro Sula when police tanks and water trucks and tear gas canisters attacked a peaceful march of the resistance movement. It took him a long time to find other members of his delegation who had scattered in the frenzy, but they were luckier than two observers from the Latin America Council of Churches who were detained or a Reuters photographer who was injured in the massive display of repression. Dozens of cells phones captured the police beating anyone they could catch with their billy clubs.
The first person I thought of as I awoke on election day was Wlmer Rivero, a fisherman in a small town with the big name of Puerto Grande. I kept thinking of the fear in his eyes as he relayed how the police have been visiting his house and asking for him, ever since he trekked 6 days on foot to greet a returning President Zelaya. Each local mayor has been asked to put together a list of resistance leaders, and his name was one of 22 from his town. We suggested to Wilmer that he not sleep at home during the electoral days. He called the next day to thank us for our advise. The police had ransacked his home, and that of many of his neighbors, the night before elections, threatening his life. But, he wondered, what will he do now.
I also thought of Merly Eguigure who I had visited 2 days earlier in a cold and crumbling jail cell, reeking of human waste. She had been captured for having a can of spray paint in her car. Though she was released shortly before elections, she will face trial and probably prison for defacing government property. Merly claims that the spray paint was to be used in an activity to raise awareness of violence towards women. Perhaps authorities worried that the paint was destined to add a new message to the city walls. Every square inch of blank wall space in the city is covered with powerful graffiti against the coup. In spite of government to whitewash over it, the blank spaces are filled in again within hours.
So, now I wonder what the Honduran people will do to overcome the massive whitewash that just took place in their country. Not of walls, but of coups. The military coup led by SOA graduates Generals Vasquez Velasquez and Prince Suazo first had a quick bath of whitewash by placing a “civilian¨” leader as the figurative head of government: President of Congress and business mogul Roberto Micheletti. The whitewash used at the moment was mixed ahead of time, and quite abundant. It was the excuse that Zelaya was preparing a vote to call for his re-election and had to be removed quickly. (Never mind that the consultative vote actually had nothing to do with a re-election. It was a consultative vote to ask Honduras whether they wanted to vote on convening a Constitutional Assembly). I call this first whitewash the “transformation from military coup to civilian coup”.
And now, the second bath of whitewash was even more challenging, especially since the first whitewash proved to be kind of thin and exposed the words from below. Thus, it didn´t really convince many. As a matter of fact, it didn´t convince anyone except the United States government (or woops, maybe they actually helped to stir the first batch), Now, the challenge of November 29th whitewash was to transform the civilian coup into a shining electoral display of freedom, fairness and grand participation so that all the world would say, “wow, that Honduran coup is gone. Now Honduras has a real and wonderful democracy, End of story”.
Except that it´s probably the beginning of a story. One that we thought had been left to rest in Latin America years and years ago. One of fear and repression and deaths and disappearances. We know the litany all too well, and we remember the names of its thousands of victims each November. This year we had to add too many new names from Honduras. And, if our government chooses to recognize these elections, this massive whitewash, I fear that many more names will be read from the stage in front of Ft. Benning next year. And perhaps not just from Honduras.
So, when I said that I wonder what Hondurans will do in the face of this whitewash what I really wonder is what I will do, what we will do U.S. citizens. Because, this whitewash will only have the formula to whiten and brighten this military dictatorship if our government chooses to accept the results, as they have indicated that they will likely do.
Today the headlines in most of the U.S. media reiterate the official Honduran statistics that 60% of Hondurans went to the polls yesterday. Our delegates visited dozens of polling stations, finding them almost empty, in most places counting more electoral monitors and caretakers than voters. The resistance movement puts abstention at 65-70%. Which statistic do we prefer to believe?
I have lived in Latin America since 1977. I was called to stay in this land when I saw how young and idealistic youth such as myself at the time, were being taken from their homes, never returned. Somehow, I felt called to continue the steps they would never take. And so I stayed 32 years. I have witnessed hope rising from the South in the past 10 years, in ways I never dreamed. I have seen efforts of building dignity and sovereignty rise high, inspire millions, and make a difference.
And so, maybe this explains the anger that rose from within me yesterday, in front of the embassy. That anger surprised even me. I am ashamed of our government. Ashamed that we are in great part to blame for pushing this country back 30 years into dark and deadly times. And I worry that Honduras is just the beginning.
Selling Out Democracy in Honduras: The U.S. and the Honduran Election November 29, 2009
Posted by rogerhollander in Foreign Policy, Honduras, Latin America.Tags: Amnesty International, foreign policy, hillary clinton, Honduras, honduras coup, honduras election, honduras military, honduras repression, isabel macdonald, jim demint, micheletti, obama administration, rio group, roger hollander, zelaya
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Posted by Isabel Macdonald, AlterNet on November 28, 2009 at 12:10 PM.
The June 28 military coup d’etat that overthrew Honduras’ democratically elected president provided President Obama with “a golden opportunity…to make a clear break with the past and show that he is unequivocally siding with democracy,” as Costa Rica’s former vice president put it. However, the U.S.’s recognition of the sham election Honduras’ de facto regime is staging on Sunday makes it quite clear that Obama is choosing instead to side with the far-right Republicans who support the coup.
In the wake of the coup that overthrew Honduran president Jose Manuel Zelaya Rosales, the Guardian’s Calvin Tucker observes that there had been some promising signs that Obama was going to remain true to his pledge to “seek a new chapter of engagement” in Latin America. Despite some initial waffling by the State Department, Obama spoke out in strong terms against Zelaya’s overthrow, saying that “it would be a terrible precedent if we start moving backwards into the era in which we are seeing military coups as a means of political transition, rather than democratic elections.” The U.S. backed a Costa Rican-brokered compromise that would have seen Zelaya returned to office, at the helm of a “unity government.” All non-humanitarian U.S. aid was suspended to the de facto regime, as were the U.S. visas of the coup leaders. The State Department indicated that the US would “not be able to support” the outcome of the elections out of concern that they would not be “free, fair and transparent.” And finally, during a visit to Honduras by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in late October, the coup leaders agreed to sign the U.S. backed agreement providing for Zelaya’s return.
This firm U.S. reaction apparently “privately stunned” the coup leaders, who were sure “this would never have happened if the Republicans had still been in power,” according to the New Yorker’s William Finnegan.
Indeed, the coup leaders, who along with their allies such as the Latin American Business Council have spent at least six hundred thousand dollars on Washington lobbyists and lawyers, count amongst their supporters several prominent congressional Republicans, including South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint.
DeMint had been leading efforts to block key diplomatic appointments in Latin America, and earlier this month, the Obama administration succumbed to this pro-coup Republican pressure, announcing that it will after all recognize Sunday’s election, and not insist on the return of the legitimate president. On November 4, Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Shannon announced on CNN that “the formation of the National Unity Government is apart from the reinstatement of President Zelaya” and that the Honduran Congress will decide when and if Zelaya is reinstated.
DeMint took credit for the change in U.S. policy, releasing a press statement declaring “Senator secures commitment for U.S. to back Nov. 29 elections even if Zelaya is not reinstated.” In the statement, DeMint said he was
happy to report the Obama Administration has finally reversed its misguided Honduran policy and will fully recognize the November 29th elections… Secretary Clinton and Assistant Secretary Shannon have assured me that the U.S. will recognize the outcome of the Honduran elections regardless of whether Manuel Zelaya is reinstated.
The 23 Latin American and Caribbean nations of the Rio Group do not recognize Sunday’s election. However the Obama administration is now going ahead in recognizing the vote held in the midst of what Amnesty International has characterized as a “human rights crisis,” marked by an”increasingly disproportionate and excessive use of force being used by the police and military to repress legitimate and peaceful protests across the country.” Since Zelaya’s overthrow, over 3,500 people have been illegally detained, over 600 have been beaten and dozens have been killed, according to the Committee of Families of the Disappeared (COFADEH), with media workers, human rights defenders and female protesters particularly targeted, according to Amnesty.
The only two presidential candidates on the ballot supported the coup that ousted the elected president. The leading opposition candidate, Carlos Reyes, recently withdrew his nomination for the presidency, calling the election fraudulent, and hundreds of candidates for congressional and municipal seats have also withdrawn from the election.
And Tucker notes that
Trade unions and social movements calling for a boycott of the election are facing mafia-style threats, with the regime’s chief of police boasting that he has compiled a blacklist of “all those of the left”.
At the same time, Honduras’ big business federation, which supported the coup, is reportedly offering “cash discounts” to Hondurans for voting in the election.
The fact that such an election has won the support of the Obama administration does not bode well for the president’s “new chapter” of U.S.-Latin America relations.
No Fair Election in Honduras under Military Occupation November 28, 2009
Posted by rogerhollander in Foreign Policy, Honduras, Latin America.Tags: dana frank, democracy, Honduras, honduras coup, honduras military, honduras repression, honduras vote, Latin America, latin america politics, micheletti, obama administration, rio group, roger hollander, zelaya
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by Dana Frank
As the Honduran election approaches on Sunday, November 29, let’s be clear about the conditions under which it is taking place. Human rights abuses are rampant, freedom of speech is under attack, and the election process is in the hands of the very people who perpetrated the coup. Clearly, no free and fair election is possible under the repressive thumb of the military coup that has been in place for five months.
While the 23 nations of the Rio Group from Latin America and the Caribbean have condemned the election and announced they will not recognize its outcome, the Obama administration still insists it will recognize the results–once again isolating the United States from those who are upholding democracy in the hemisphere.
President Obama should join the rest of the world and immediately declare the elections fraudulent and demand the immediate restoration of President Manuel Zelaya, the withdrawal of the Honduran military, and a delay of the election until three months after Zelaya has been full reinstated.
Imagine a “free and fair election” under the conditions in Honduras today (and imagine if this were taking place in the United States):
- The same Honduran military,which perpetrated the June 28 coup forcing President Manuel Zelaya out of the country, and which has brutally occupied the country for five months, physically controls the ballots, the ballot boxes, the computers that tabulate the results, and the dissemination of the outcome.
- The legitimate President of the country is being held captive in the Brazilian Embassy under draconian circumstances, and has denounced the elections as fraudulent.
- The leading opposition candidate, the independent Carlos H. Reyes – who has a real chance of winning a free and fair election – has withdrawn his name from the ballot in protest. Throughout the country, hundreds of candidates for congress and municipal office, including those from the mainstream parties, have announced they are withdrawing from the election. They include the mayor of San Pedro Sula, the nation’s second largest city.
- All three trade union federations, the leading human rights organization, women’s groups, organizations of indigenous and African-descent peoples, the gay and lesbian movement, and the campesino movement–united in the National Front Against the Coup d’Etat–have denounced the election as fraudulent.
- The coup government has made it illegal to advocate not voting.
- Peaceful demonstrations are routinely teargassed. As the Committee of Families of the Disappeared (COFADEH) has documented, dozens of people have been killed, over 600 beaten, and over 3,500 illegally detained, including lawyers who have shown up to secure the release of detainees. Opponents of the coup continue be threatened, illegally arrested, and beaten in their homes.
- The military has recently instructed all mayors in the country to compile a list of persons in their jurisdiction who oppose the coup.
- The two presidential candidates remaining in the election from the traditional parties of the oligarchy, Elvin Santos from the right wing of the Liberal Party, and Porfirio Lobo Sosa from the National Party, both initially supported the coup.
No free and fair election can take place under these circumstances. Only when the legitimate President of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, has been fully restored to office for three months, only when the military has been pushed back into its barracks, and only when civil liberties are completely restored can an orderly transfer of power to a new administration take place.
By persuading coup leader Roberto Micheletti to briefly step aside in the week before the election, the U.S. State Department has tried to whitewash the election at the last minute. But that doesn’t change the fact that the Honduran military and the oligarchs, who perpetrated the coup and who have dictated the nation’s politics for decades, are still brutally repressing the people of Honduras.
The vast majority of Hondurans aren’t fooled. After five months of military repression, they know the difference between a fraudulent cover for the continuation of the coup regime, and a truly free and fair election under the rule of law. So does the European Union, the Organization of American States, and the Rio Group. They understand well the dangerous precedent the Honduran coup represents.
President Obama should refuse to recognize the results of the election and bring an end to embarrassing isolation of the United States from the rest of the world.
Stand with the Women of Honduras November 26, 2009
Posted by rogerhollander in Foreign Policy, Honduras, Latin America, Women.Tags: roger hollander, Latin America, democracy, human rights, civil disobedience, oas, hillary clinton, women, latin america politics, zelaya, Honduras, honduras coup, honduras election, honduras repression, honduras resistance, honduran military, honduras dictatorship, jody williams, lisaveneklasen, honduras women, pro-democracy
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As U.S. policy makers equivocate about resolving the crisis of democracy in Honduras, a major issue is being ignored-the widespread abuses of human rights in the aftermath of the Honduran coup.
The brunt of these abuses has been borne by the women of Honduras. So far, the Obama administration has failed to come to their defense even as their efforts to promote peace and democracy in their country have been met with systematic repression.
When democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya was forcibly abducted from his home in the middle of the night on June 28 by military officers and escorted to Costa Rica, Honduran citizens mobilized across the country in a peaceful pro-democracy movement to protest the coup and demand a return to constitutional order.
Women make up the majority of this vast resistance movement, playing a critical leadership role in all aspects of civil disobedience and citizen protection. For their support of democracy, women leaders have received death threats, they have been attacked with nail-studded police batons, tear gas and bullets-and they have been raped and sexually abused. Detained by police or military for hours and even days without charges or access to legal counsel, women have been deprived of medicine, food, and water. At least two cases have resulted in death.
Moreover, a lawless violence against women has pervaded Honduras since the coup. Women’s groups in Honduras have documented 249 cases of violations of women’s human rights, including 23 cases of beatings and sexual assault and seven gang rapes by police explicitly trying to “punish” women for their involvement in demonstrations. The number of femicides-the violent murder of women because they are women-has tripled since the coup, with 51 cases reported during the month of July alone.
But these statistics do not tell the whole story. Since those responsible for investigating cases are often the perpetrators of these atrocities, it not hard to understand why women are unwilling to come forward to report gender-related crimes against them.
Although the US officially condemned the coup, US policy has been weak and at times contradictory. The recent agreement between the coup government and the constitutional president, brokered by the US government in October, foundered when the Honduran Congress refused to schedule a vote on the reinstatement of President Zelaya-a crucial point of the accord.
Regrettably, the US then appeared to shift its position, saying it would recognize the November 29 elections staged by a coup regime and supported by the armed forces, despite non-compliance with the points of the agreement.
The nationwide movement of women that came together to oppose the coup and protect women’s human rights has clearly stated its position: “It is impossible to have free and fair elections in a context of violence and repression, when the perpetrators of the violence – the police and military – are mandated with running the elections.”
This fact is abundantly clear to all of Europe and Latin America, the Organization of American States, and many international agencies. They state, unequivocally, that they will not recognize as legitimate an election run by the coup government in the current context.
Within Honduras, the independent presidential candidate and nearly 300 mayors and deputies have withdrawn their candidacies in protest. Increasingly, the US stands alone in offering to endorse elections hastily staged by a military regime instead of continuing to build a lasting and just solution to the political crisis.
We are deeply concerned that this policy is rewarding lawlessness and brutality, and so are many other prominent women. “We urge you to condemn the orchestrated campaign of violence against women being waged by the current de facto regime,” two members of the Nobel Women’s Initiative and eight other women leaders wrote in recent letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. “Please step forward, as you have done elsewhere, and work to stop the violence now.”
The Elections will not be a panacea-particularly when much of the Honduran population and the international community view them as illegitimate. The US needs to live up to the expectations the Obama administration has raised and stand with Honduran women in their fight for democracy and human rights.
Clinton’s Copenhagen Announcement ‘Was Naked Blackmail’ December 17, 2009
Posted by rogerhollander in Environment, Foreign Policy.Tags: roger hollander, naomi klein, foreign policy, hillary clinton, global warming, climate change, U.S. imperialism, copenhagen, climate chaos, bella center, friends of the earth., blackmail
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(Roger’s note: I search my heart. Are there hidden misogynist motives behind my profound dislike of Hillary Clinton? My ire rose to the surface the other day when I saw a picture of her with a Cheshire Cat grin on her face, standing alongside the illegitimately elected president of Honduras. I am a Latin Americanist, and I detest the actions that she has taken on behalf of the Obama administration toward that region: the military base in Colombia, barely concealed tacit support for the Honduran military coup, continuation of the Blockade of Cuba, etc. And now this ugly ploy at Copenhagen. During the campaign for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, she had the support of a large number of feminist women. I have to wonder what they are thinking now as she poses as a standard bearer for the bloody Bush era foreign policy of permanent war and support for every US military and corporate dominated geopolitical position, regardless of the consequences on the poor and hungry of the world — mostly, of course, women and children.)
12.17.09 – 11:45 AM
by Naomi Klein
It’s the second to last day of the climate conference and I have the worst case of laryngitis of my life. I open my mouth and nothing comes out.
It’s frustrating because I was just at Hillary Clinton’s press conference and desperately wanted to ask her a question – or six. She said that the U.S. would contribute its “share” to a $100-billion financing package for developing countries by 2020 – but only if all countries agreed to the terms of the climate deal that the U.S. has slammed on the table here, which include killing Kyoto, replacing legally binding measures with the fuzzy concept of “transparency,” and nixing universal emissions targets in favor of vague “national plans” that are mashed together. Oh, and abandoning the whole concept (which the U.S. agreed to by singing the UN climate convention) that the rich countries that created the climate crisis have to take the lead in solving it.
Unless every country here agrees to the U.S. terms, the Secretary explained, “there will not be that kind of a [financial] commitment, at least from the United States.”
It was naked blackmail – forcing developing countries to choose between a strong fair deal that stands a chance of averting climate chaos and the funds they need to cope with the droughts and floods that have already arrived. I wanted to ask Clinton: Is this not climate structural adjustment, on a global scale? We’ll give you cash, but only with our draconian conditions?
And who is the U.S. to call the shots when it carries the heaviest responsibility for emitting the gasses that are already wreaking havoc on the climates of the global south – what happened to the principle that the polluter pays?
But…no point raising my hand, no voice.
I feel a bit like a walking metaphor because this is the day that pretty much all the NGOs have been locked out of the Bella Center, making this a much less interesting place. Almost all the side events have been canceled and people are scrambling to find alternative spaces around the city in which to meet. Some youth groups staged a sit-in last night to protest their expulsion.
As the big shots arrive and civil society is expelled, it may well turn out that months of activism and negotiations don’t matter much in the face of raw power plays like the one Clinton launched this morning: sign on our terms or get nothing.
Bolivia’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Pablo Solon put it best: “It seems negotiators are living in the Matrix, while the real negotiation is taking place in the ‘Green room,’ in small stealth dinners with selective guests.”
The image from the Bella Center that will forever stay with me is seeing security guards refuse entry to Nnimmo Bassey, chair of Friends of the Earth International, who has been fighting Shell and other oil giants in the Niger Delta for decades, losing friends like Ken Saro Wiwa to the struggle and being jailed himself. Meanwhile, the oil execs walk the halls of the Bella Center with impunity.
Even if I could talk I’d be speechless.
Research support for Naomi Klein’s reporting from Copenhagen was provided by the Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute