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TechnoratiThe Other 9/11 Returns to Haunt Latin America
It was inevitable that the people at the top would fight to preserve their privileges
The ghost of the other, deadlier 9/11 has returned to stalk Latin America. On Sunday morning, a battalion of soldiers rammed their way into the Presidential Palace in Honduras. They surrounded the bed where the democratically elected President, Manuel Zelaya, was sleeping, and jabbed their machine guns to his chest. They ordered him to get up and marched him on to a military plane. They dumped him in his pyjamas on a landing strip in Costa Rica and told him never to return to the country that freely chose him as their head of state.
Back home, the generals locked down the phone networks, the internet and international TV channels, and announced their people were in charge now. Only sweet, empty music plays on the radio. Government ministers have been arrested and beaten. If you leave your home after 9pm, the population have been told, you risk being shot. Tanks and tear gas are ranged against the protesters who have thronged on to the streets.
For the people of Latin America, this is a replay of their September 11. On that day in Chile in 1973, Salvador Allende – a peaceful democratic socialist who was steadily redistributing wealth to the poor majority – was bombed from office and forced to commit suicide. He was replaced by a self-described "fascist", General Augusto Pinochet, who went on to "disappear" tens of thousands of innocent people. The coup was plotted in Washington DC, by Henry Kissinger.
The official excuse for killing Chilean democracy was that Allende was a "communist". He was not. In fact, he was killed because he was threatening the interests of US and Chilean mega-corporations by shifting the country's wealth and land from them to its own people. When Salvador Allende's widow died last week, she seemed like a symbol from another age – and then, a few days later, the coup came back.
Honduras is a small country in Central America with only seven million inhabitants, but it has embarked on a programme of growing democracy of its own. In 2005, Zelaya ran promising to help the country's poor majority – and he kept his word. He increased the minimum wage by 60 per cent, saying sweatshops were no longer acceptable and "the rich must pay their share".
The tiny elite at the top – who own 45 per cent of the country's wealth – are horrified. They are used to having Honduras run by them, for them.
But this wave of redistributing wealth to the population is washing over Latin America. In the barrios and favelas, I have seen how shanty towns made out of mud and rusted tin now have doctors and teachers and subsidised supermarkets for the first time, because they elected leaders who have turned the spigot of oil money in their direction. In Venezuela, for example, the poorest half of the country has seen its incomes soar by 130 per cent after inflation since they chose Hugo Chavez as their President, according to studies cited by the Nobel Prize-winning US economist Joseph Stiglitz. Infant mortality has plummeted.
No wonder so many Latin American countries are inspired by this example: the notion that Chavez has to "bribe" or "brainwash" people like Zelaya is bizarre.
It was always inevitable that the people at the top would fight back to preserve their unearned privilege. In 2002, the Venezuelan oligarchy conspired with the Bush administration in the kidnapping of Hugo Chavez. It was only a massive democratic uprising of the people that forced his return. Now they have tried the same in Honduras.
Yet the military-business nexus have invented a propaganda-excuse that is being eagerly repeated by dupes across the Western world. The generals claim they have toppled the democratically elected leader and arrested his ministers to save democracy.
Here's how it happened. Honduras has a constitution that was drawn up in 1982, by the oligarchy, under supervision from the outgoing military dictatorship. It states that the President can only serve only one term, while the military remains permanent and "independent" – in order to ensure they remain the real power in the land.
Zelaya believed this was a block on democracy, and proposed a referendum to see if the people wanted to elect a constituent assembly to draw up a new constitution. It could curtail the power of the military, and perhaps allow the President to run for re-election. The Supreme Court, however, ruled that it is unconstitutional to hold a binding referendum within a year of a presidential election. So Zelaya proposed holding a non-binding referendum instead, just to gauge public opinion. This was perfectly legal. The military – terrified of the verdict of the people – then marched in with their guns.
But there has been progress since the days of 1973, or even 2002. The coups against Allende and Chavez were eagerly backed by the CIA and White House. But this time, Barack Obama has said: "We believe the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the President of Honduras." He called the coup "a terrible precedent".
His reaction hasn't been perfect: unlike France and Spain, he hasn't withdrawn the US Ambassador yet. He supports the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, which are vast brakes on Latin American democracy, and he bad-mouths Chavez while arming the genuinely abusive Colombian government. But it is a vast improvement on Bush and McCain, who would have been mistily chorusing "We are all Honduran Generals now".
The ugliest face of the Latin American oligarchy is now standing alone against the world, showing its contempt for democracy and for its own people. They are fighting to preserve the old continent where all the wealth goes to them at the end of a machine gun. I have seen the price for this: I have lived in the rubbish dumps of the continent, filled with dark-skinned scavenging children, while a few miles away there are suburbs that look like Beverly Hills.
This weekend, Zelaya will return to the country that elected him, flanked by the presidents of Argentina and the Organisation of American States, to take his rightful place. Whether he succeeds or fails will tell us if the children of the rubbish dumps have reason to hope – and whether the smoke from the deadliest 9/11 has finally cleared.
23 Comments so far
Show AllThis coup is highly significant due to the subtle way that it was carried out. The usurpers used and continue to use the constitution of 1982 as cover for their deed. The reason they persist in this charade is that it is, in fact, the constitution of 1982 that was the real coup. That document provides for permanent military rule in Honduras with only a cosmetic veneer of civilian authority. Let's be specific.
The Last "official" coup in Honduras occurred in 1975. That military government was typically brutal and typically allied with US government interests. Their army formed the infamous battalion 316 that tortured and "disappeared" thousands of Hondurans in the name of domestic security. Honduras' military commanders provided bases and supplies for the Regan Administration's not so secret Contra War. In 1982, the international spotlight was beginning to shine on these thugs so they decided to set up a civilian government to run Honduras for them while they continued to control things in the background. The constitution for this new government had some very important provisions intended to shackle any civilian executive.
While the constitution proclaims in one article that the president is commander-in-chief of the armed forces (art. 245), another states that he exercises that power through the Army Chief of Staff (art.278). This legal loophole makes it impossible for the president to exercise any control over the army other than what the army chief of staff allows. Moreover, if the president removes the chief of staff, he removes his only means of control over the military, putting them on their own, in this case at the service of the Supreme court. This is one of the central features of the constitution that President Zelaya hoped to change.
The 1982 constitution also makes it impossible for any president to serve more than a four year term. While this hamstringing of the president is bad enough in and of itself, there is an additional provision that prohibits amendment to the constitution on this point. The military government that moved into the shadow of this constitution in 1982 sought to ensure that no civilian would ever be around long enough to make any substantive changes in the true source of power in Honduras. President Zelaya could not change this for himself, but, I am sure, hoped he could do so for his successor.
Zelaya was unpopular and would not have stood a chance of being re-elected even if he could run four months from now. He was removed not as a seizure of power but as a reaction to his challenge to the military's already firm grip on control. Had the election taken place as scheduled on June 28 and a constituent assembly formed to draft a new constitution, it would have been the beginning of the end for military rule in Honduras. This would have been Zelaya's parting shot to the generals who really run things there.
More important than the return of Zelaya to his office is the return of the right of the people of Honduras to draft a new constitution that puts them and not their generals in control of the nation and its resources.
Excellent post.
Thank you for this very informative comment. It answers many questions that had occured to me.
"I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves."
Henry Kissinger
COME ON OBAMA, DON'T JUST SIT THERE WITH YOUR TEETH IN YOUR MOUTH.
The last coup in Latin America, before the one in Honduras, was in fact the one that deposed Jean-Bertrand Aristide of Haiti in February, 2004, which was clearly engineered by the United States. Haiti is, definitely, in Latin America. The United Nations, which now condemns the coup in Honduras and demands the return of Zelaya, is the same United Nations that has been occupying Haiti militarily since a couple of months after Aristide was ousted and was there during the bloody coup government of Gerard Latortue, acting as his police force, attacking Haitians demonstrating for the return of Aristide. They were thus supporting the coup, killing many Haitians in the process. And Brazil, now also condemning the coup in Honduras, supplies the commander and most of the soldiers in the United Nations army of occupation.
Is that coup less important than this one?
No, that coup is certainly important, and some like myself have mentioned it, but not with the details you include.
And Dr. Kissinger remains a free man of considerable wealth, influence and power. He ought to have been languishing in prison for the last decades until the end of his miserable life.
The Obama regime's position is not surprising, given the overwhelming outcry from so many countries around the world, he termed the coup not legal; however he has not called for the re-instatement of Zelaya or formally declaring the coup illegal, and pulling our diplomatic personnel.
After all, the coup leader, Roberto Micheletti, was trained at the School of the Americas. So he was trained, on the dime of the US taxpayer, to overthrow democratically elected leaders and impose brutal dictatorships. This has happened so many times before it is almost textbook
a one term limit was imposed on the honduran presidency to insure rule by the military on behalf of the elites, behind a facade of revolving nonentities---kind of like here, now that i think about it. zelaya merely wanted to ask his constituents if they thought that should be changed.
if the honduran people want zelaya to have another term, don't the principles of democracy say he should have it? and wasn't it u.s. elites who decided that nothing like fdr's 4 terms should ever be repeated?
term limits, like winner take all elections, are only two of the many tools elites have for fine tuning the machinery of state. watch out for those who hype them as a fix for our old clunker.
Fine article, but it still repeats the canard - at best a speculation - that Zalaya was contemplating another term, the main talking point of the coup plotters. Zalala's opinion poll says nothing about presidential elections, only the posibility of a contitutional assembly. To whit: "Do you agree that, during the general elections of November 2009 there should be a fourth ballot to decide whether to hold a Constituent National Assembly that will approve a new political constitution?"
Let's be careful.
good point halrivers
Excellent article.
You might also want to read:
http://theragblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/haiti-and-honduras-considering-two.html
The best summary of the coup I've seen so far.
"The ugliest face of the Latin American oligarchy is now standing alone against the world, showing its contempt for democracy and for its own people. They are fighting to preserve the old continent where all the wealth goes to them at the end of a machine gun. I have seen the price for this: I have lived in the rubbish dumps of the continent, filled with dark-skinned scavenging children, while a few miles away there are suburbs that look like Beverly Hills."
This is the best paragraph I've ever seen this writer compose.
Some coups are conducted openly--Iran 1953, Chile 1973, Honduras today--others in secret: election 2000, followed by the 9/11 attacks.
The best piece I have seen so far about the Honduras coup--reflective, thoughtful, sad.
As it should be.
Johann Hari's analogy to 9/11 is incorrect. It is very important to point out that in neither Honduras nor Chile was the overthrow of those countrie's leaders, as heinous as they were, a result of a false flag operation. As Hari states, in both Honduras and Chile the coup that had occurred in those countries was not blamed on another group or another country whereas in this country on Sept. 11, 2001, without a shred of proof, very soon after those attacks, the Bush administration went on the airwaves claiming that the United States had been attacked by 19 crazed Arabs from the Middle East while the compliant mainstream media went along with that fable put forth by Bush, Cheney, and the rest of the neoconservatives. Apparently it was too much for any of the so-called experts to wonder who was in more of a position to carry off that massive operation, a very tall bearded man living in a cave thousands of miles away in Afghanistan or those people who were much closer to the situation such as those in the higher echelons of government and the military command structure who would have had the means, method and opportunity to carry off their task without any worry that Air Force jets would have prevented those airplanes [or, in the case of the Pentagon attack, quite possibly a missile] from reaching their targets.
Whereas in Honduras, as Hari states, "the generals locked down the phone networks, the internet and international TV channels", on 9/11 in this country the method was more indirect and insidious as the U.S. government decided to conduct hijacking exercises on the very day that four actual and very real hijackings took place which added much confusion in attempting to distinguish which planes were being hijacked and which ones were merely ersatz terrorists. While it is all too easy to accept that coups that happen in third world countries are a somewhat commonplace occurrence, in America it is apparently unthinkable for the mainstream media to even consider the fact that their own government could have been responsible for those attacks in order to achieve their nefarious ends which could only come about, as it was described in the Project for a New American Century, through a "new Pearl Harbor."
"All Great Truths begin as blasphemies."- George Bernard Shaw
I was under the impression the 9/11 he was refering to was September 11, 1973 - the day Allende was overthrown and murdered.
Lord Buckley
I think that you are certainly correct. I was too hasty in reading the article to realize that Hari was indeed referring to the illegal coup that took place in Chile on Sept. 11, 1973. Still, I do not believe that should dilute what I had written which is that the 9/11 that took place in this country in 2001 was a false flag operation which the mainstream media and left gatekeepers like Noam Chomsky refused to even consider while, either explicitly or implicitly, endorsing the extremely tenuous explanation given for what occurred on that fateful day by Bush, Cheney and the rest of the neoconservatives.
This quote by GBS could very well apply to those in the corporate media and other flag waving Americans in regards to 9/11/01:
"The moment we want to believe something, we suddenly see all the arguments for it, and become blind to the arguments against it."- George Bernard Shaw
Erroll: beautiful statement of what well may be a "great truth" at a time when such statements are generally treated as "blasphemies," even in the so-called progressive community. Thanks for your courage in making it!
Bringing back the name of Henry Kissinger and his plans for the Chilean Coup could not be more appropriate.....
Wouldn't it be nice if Henry and Zbigniew admitted their roles as policy makers for the Coups of the 70´s, 80´´s, and 90´s and took their "Tri-Lateral Commission and Council On Foreign Relations" out of U.S. Policy making..........
How simple for Obama to react appropriately.....1. Withdraw the U.S. Ambassador and staff......2. Propose a U.N Escort for the President of Honduras....3. Ask that the U.N. Forces be authorized to arrest all the generals involved in the Coup and try them for "Crimes Against Humanity"......And, Ask the U.N. to investigate who paid for the Coup.
Just a dream......Henry's Council On Foreign Relations has Obama´s ears!!!!!
Midas has long ears.