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Top Ten Ways You Can Tell Which Side the United States Government Is on With Regard to the Military Coup in Honduras
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."
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37 Comments so far
Show AllThis article is a good delineation/chronology of U.S. complicity in regard to Honduras.
At the end of the article, there is the mention of Obama making a promise. The only "promise"s Obama WORKS to keep are those which increase the pentagon's power or the power of Wall Street. All his pretty words on issues of social justice are (and have been since announcing his candidacy for Puppet in Chief) deliberately deceitful.
Obama is George W. Bush with a pretty voice and he is, disgustingly, merely typical of the vast majority of democrats and all republicans.
"it has always been more concerned about protecting the dictatorship"
It is naive to think that the down trodden in countries where America has interests will be allowed to take control of their countries' destiny and so pose a direct challenge to the establishment. It is the reason why dictators/puppet governments are supported by the US regardless of how many innocents need to be eliminated. Regrettably, Those who saw through Obama were unable to warn so many that there would have been no change.
Well we warned them to come out of darkness, but then they came at us with a vengeance.
For theirs being an illusion that they deserve more, which gives them a guilt conscience if ever they fail to take all they can take, surely their greatest desire is darkness.
For darkness being the pretense of good hiding an intent to take all you can take, surely our self-absorbed majority not only love the darkness, but get great pleasure with every word generating new darkness to put out the light. Especially new darkness which is the only thing that will force our new light to give way.
And that is why we will never be obsolete, as our new light will always force darkness to give way, and this aggravates the hell out of those in darkness. As exhaust all their emotional capital does it do, as the more lies we force them to tell, all the more does it expose their deceit.
The honest NGO's working in Honduras accurately estimate that only 40% of voters went to the polls, and looking at the videos and pictures it was clear they were the 40% most wealthy. As they had expensive cloths and were of European blood.
Empire USA and Honduras are identical in that respect, as our upper half of society has good jobs, nice savings and healthcare. So they are the only ones who vote, the only ones that fund politicians, and Obama is doing exactly what they hired him to do.
If "40%" of Honduras is "wealthy", then I want to move there. It is for darn sure that 40% of Americans are NOT wealthy.
What he means is "relatively wealthy."
And this is the only kind that matters.
By Honduran standards, having an outhouse may qualify you as "wealthy"
Obama, Bush, What is the difference?
11. The US military has a 500+ member joint task force stationed at Soto Cano Air Base in Honduras, home to the Honduran Air Force, which assisted in overthrowing Zelaya.
Do you have agood source for this? If true, it needs to be publicized.
I don't think MSM is interested; however, here is a link.
http://southernstudies.org/2009/06/key-leaders-of-honduras-military-coup-trained-in-us.html
War is peace. Slavery is freedom. Obama brought change.
good one.. ;)
Another fine article by Mark Weisbrot. According to the Spanish-language article linked above, Santos Corrales Garcia was beheaded, a particularly gruesome way to invoke terror in anyone inclined to oppose the golpista government. They're preparing for the resistance they know is sure to come.
if the obama admin can't even help poor little old honduras KEEP the democracy they fought and died to create against the oligarchs that control that countrys laws, natural resources, etc
then we have to realize that OBAMA is a threat to democracy EVERYWHERE.
the mega-rich are now talking about the "honduran solution" for those countrIes in central and south america that actually try to have a just and equitable society and democracy....
it would have been very easy for the Obama admin to stand up for democracy, human rights and "change we can beleive in"...
honduras is the straw that broke the proverbial camels back on the obama admin for me......
and Honduras PROVES tha Obama will DO NOTHING FOR WE THE PEOPLE....
that is guaranteed..... as such it is the progressives that now must fight the Obama admin just as we fought the bush admin......
the battle lines are clearing drawn.....
which side are you on?
Thanks, Mark, for this very clear list of the administration's actions/inactions in support of the coup. The fate of Honduras has not received anywhere near the attention it deserves, even among progressives.
Side? Which side? The US was obviously BEHIND the coup, not beside it.
No matter what happens - we should keep our nose out of their business. Look at what we have done in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. If it is the nation of Honduras, then the people of Honduras should decide the outcome.
That's a good sentiment, but since I think we're behind the coup, I think that our nose is already in their business up to our arses.
Toe the line or else. Big Oil has likewise made Chavez a pariah even among libs.
How many have read Noam Chomsky's "The Culture of Terrorism"? It is about the Reagan years and what we did to Nicaragua with the Iran mess and all those drugs and guns. We are still in the brutal business of supporting Facists regimes against Democracy with the military still calling the shots. The torture, the death squads, and summary executions that go on in the name of Democracy is a disgrace. We support the oligarcs out of the country and with Glen and Rush and the rest of the morons we support the corps in this country too with them calling the shots with out health care bills and climate change and about anything else you can come up with.
When will the American people stop being so afraid and start calling the shots and stop buying the crap made in China and start supporting the Businesses that used to flourish here in America? Americans have lost their collective balls and are just a bunch of wimps.
So much for pretending that we support democracy and human rights around the world.
Ah well, at least we do not support unelected dictatorships like that which is running Cuba...
Cuba doesn't have an unelected dictatorship. They have elections there. Fidel is the only candidate for Commander in Chief, President, Vice President, Minister of Defense, Minister of Education, Minister of the Interior, Minister of Unimportant Affairs but they do have elections. Pretty soon, we'll have the same thing here since the Yankees seem to be trying everything they've criticized Fidel for doing.
If Obama moves too quickly, he will be assassinated.
He is still 25% better than McCain would ever have been in Honduras - you can't end 110 years of rapacious foreign policy in just ONE YEAR. If Obama can maneuver the Ship of State just 1 degree to the left each year, we will be much better off after 8 years than if McCain/Palin was running the show for 8 years.
Americans are too addicted to quick fixes - you have to change the INSTITUTIONS, a little each year, to affect lasting change. Complaining that Obama is "just like Bush" is just going to screw everything up in 2010 and 2012 - just like the billionaires pulling the strings of the Media and GOP WANT it to happen.
If he stood still, it would be an improvement.
How long would it have taken Obomba to decide NOT to support the coup (assuming the U.S. wasn't behind it)? If Obomba had wanted things different, he would have started with the people he hired to give him advice. What he chose was the liberal branch of the neocon movement.
As for changing institutions, he has already changed the presidency since the moment he got into office - in the direction of greater imperial power, just like his predecessors.
He is just like McCain would have been.
McCain would have had 100's of $billions that he didn't spend on trying to save the US economy, which he would use in military adventures all over the world. Coups and covert operations in Bolivia, Uruguay, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Argentina would take the MSM attention off of Honduras.
Of course, after McCain died from the strain of being President in 2010, President Palin would have been much, much worse...
that is a copout - the point is no one pays attention to S and Central America here..... Obama could have stood up to the Honduras coup leaders with very little effort.....
it wasn't worth his time to support democracy.....
I forget which articles this was stated in, but they were probably at www.globalresearch.ca and said that the U.S. actually knew before the military coup occurred on June 28th that this was planned and stayed complicitly silent about this.
And while the chronology in the article is a fine reference to bookmark, the piece ends with an oddly titled piece by the LAT, for the Obama administration's foreign policy isn't only like the Bush Jr admin.'s was; [all] of the Obama admin.'s foreign policy is like the Bush Jr admin.'s was. The changes are very superficial and the following article provides an example of how superficial the differences are.
"Welcome to Gitmo North", by Glenn Greenwald, Dec 15 2009
http://salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/12/15/gitmo/index.html
I got that link from the copy at uruknet.info.
One doesn't need to consider so many things in order to know which side the US is on. The key question is: is the head of the military coup a graduate of the School of the Americas? If the answer is yes, then, that's all you need to know!
Obama may have made one of the more fallacious statements of his presidency when he said (and I paraphrase from memory) "people who for years opposed military intervention in latin america are now asking us to intervene in Honduras."
I wish a reporter would have asked, "could you please name one person who has called on the US to intervene."
I am unable to find obama's actual quote. If someone could help me find it I would appreciate it.
I found the offensive quote..."The same critics who say that the United States has not intervened enough in Honduras are the same people who say that we're always intervening, and the Yankees need to get out of Latin America. You can't have it both ways."
For Immediate Release August 10, 2009
PRESS CONFERENCE BY PRESIDENT OBAMA,
PRESIDENT CALDERÓN OF MEXICO,
AND PRIME MINISTER HARPER OF CANADA
Cabanas Cultural Center
Guadalajara, Mexico
from uncle sham's track record in the world in general and in sa in particular, i think its suffice to say
"amerikka, guilty until proven innocent" !!!
what is most important here is to establish which AMERICAN CORPORATIONS HAVE THE MOST TO LOSE IN HONDURAS. then it is time to PAINT A TARGET ON THEIR BACKS within the american economy. BOYCOTTS AND SANCTIONS can be highly effective along with pamphlateering. this is the most effective way to apply the needed pressure at the most vulnerable points. perhaps it would be the same corporations involved in the assasinations in COLOMBIA in recent years?
Mark, muchas gracias for this cogent analysis.
For the sequel to the 10 points you raised, here are the next ten.
From Coup-lite to Truth-lite: US Policy and Death Squad Democracy in Honduras | CommonDreams.org
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/03-7
Solidarity greetings
from the Brazilian embassy in Honduras, andrés
The entire crisis was caused by imperialist ambitions of countries who have no business meddling in Honduras. I am not talking about the US primarily, but about Venezuela, and in second place, the US.
This crisis is not about Zelaya or Micheletti, it is about the Honduran Constitution, and Hugo Chavez's attack on it to create another satellite nation to his bolivarian ego.
Zelaya wasn't really going to gain anything, he wasn't eligible for reelection. His stated intent was a Constitutional Assembly that was going to do much more than only change the reelection clause.
It was going to re-found Honduras as a socialist state.
I am sure a few of you will be very angry at me for saying this: Most Hondurans don't want a socialist system of government. We can see what socialism has done Cuba and Venezuela, and frankly, we don't want it, or at least the majority doesn't according to Gallup's polls. But worse, we don't want ANY system of government imposed on us.
How is this different from the US imposing democracy on theocratic Iraq? Venezuela wanted to impose socialism on democratic Honduras, and the OAS would have forced to sit still and swallow it. Except, forgive me, you may hate me saying this, for the Republicans in the US Congress.
Before you hate me, consider what Chavez is doing with an open mind. Supposing he could, would you like him to do this to the US? Read caracaschronicles.com.
Sometimes the ethical thing to do is to break the law, which is what General Romeo Vasquez did when he exiled Zelaya to Costa Rica.