From Coup-lite to Truth-lite: US Policy and Death Squad Democracy in Honduras

In the Top Ten Ways You
Can Tell Which Side the United States Government is On With Regard to
the Military Coup in Honduras, Mark Weisbrot correctly illustrates
U.S. backing for the coup regime and its lack of support for democracy.
For more than 100 days, I have been holed up inside the Brazilian Embassy
in Tegucigalpa, accompanying President Manuel Zelaya and covering the
story for Democracy Now! and other independent media. In case Mark's
points were not convincing, here are 10 more ways to help you decide.

10. The resolution adopted
by the United Nations General Assembly on June 30^th strongly
condemned the coup in Honduras. The United States, however, prevented
the UN Security Council from taking strong measures consistent with
the resolution.

9. When President Zelaya
returned to Tegucigalpa and took refuge in the Brazilian embassy on
September 21st, Lewis Amselem, the U.S. representative at the Organization
of American States (OAS), called it "foolish" and "irresponsible."
Amselem, whose background is with the U.S. Southern Command, is known
in the halls of the OAS as "the diplomator." He led the charge
for validating the Honduran elections, while most countries opposed
recognition of elections held under the coup regime.

8. The U.S. Southern
Command sponsored the PANAMAX 09 joint maneuvers from September 11-21
off the coast of Panama with military forces from 20 countries.
Even though the U.S. publicly stated that ties had been severed with
the Honduran military, the invitation for Honduras to participate in
these maneuvers stood firm. The Honduran armed forces finally
said they would withdraw from the exercises, only after several Latin
American countries threatened to boycott them.

7. Key members of the
Honduran military involved in the coup received training at the School
of the Americas (which changed its name to the Western Hemisphere Institute
for Security Cooperation -- WHISC), including Generals Romeo Vasquez
and Luis Javier Prince. Even after the June 28th coup, the Pentagon
continued training members of the Honduran military at WHISC in Ft.
Benning, Georgia.

6. The negotiating teams
for both sides of the conflict reached an Accord on October 30^th.
Days later, when the U.S. made it clear it would honor the November
29th election whether or not he were reinstated as president, Zelaya
declared the Accord to be a "dead letter". In spite of the
U.S. claim that they only recognize Zelaya as the president of the country,
they refuse to accept that he withdrew from the Accord. The practice
of ignoring the will of the Honduran president is also evidenced by
the failure Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and President Barack Obama
to respond to letters he sent them.

5. Although U.S. officials
continue to sing the praises of the Accord, they have been cherry picking
around which parts of the agreement to underscore and which to ignore.
The Verification Commission mandated by the Accord only came together
on one occasion for a photo-op. The Accord stipulates the need
for international aid for the Commission to function, but the U.S. provided
no economic or political support. Had the Verification Commission
been activated, it would have denounced the November 5th deadline passing
without the formation of a government of national unity. It would
have to consider rebuking coup leader Roberto Micheletti for assuming
he would preside over this new government. Given these violations,
the Commission would have to rule whether or not the November 29th elections
should have proceeded, or be recognized.

4. The U.S. supports
a comprehensive amnesty, a component intentionally left out of the Accord.
The coup regime filed 24 criminal charges against President Zelaya,
yet he is willing to face all of them in an impartial court of law.
He has called for an independent international tribunal and rejected
the option of amnesty for himself and the coup perpetrators. If
amnesty is declared, impunity will be enshrined for the "golpistas,"
as well as for the U.S. Pentagon and civilian officials complicit in
the crimes of the coup.

3. The Accord calls
for the establishment of a Truth Commission during the first half of
2010. U.S. officials say they favor this; however, "truth-lite"
seems to be what they prefer. In recent decades, most Truth Commissions
have limited truth-telling to circumstances within their country's
borders. One exception occurred in Chad where the role of foreign
governments in funding and training the perpetrators of human rights
crimes was investigated. If Honduras followed Chad's example,
its Truth Commission could examine the U.S. role before, during and
after the coup. Some possible questions: What role did those formerly
employed by the U.S. government, like John Negroponte, Otto Reich, and
Lanny Davis, play before and after the coup? Why did the plane carrying
the kidnapped president on June 28th land just 60 miles away from the
capital at the airbase where the U.S. Joint Task Force Bravo is headquartered?
(U.S. officials claim it was to "refuel"). Why did the U.S. allow
aid to continue to flow to the coup regime while not declaring that
a "military coup" took place against the advice of the State Department's
legal advisors? Top U.S. officials labeled what happened in Honduras
as a coup; but given their actions, it's more like "coup-lite."

2. In August 2009, at
the Summit of North American Leaders in Mexico, President Obama had
harsh words for opponents of his policy by declaring, "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. . .
I think what that indicates is that maybe there's some hypocrisy involved
in their approach to U.S.-Latin American relations. . ."

The ongoing U.S. intervention
and hypocrisy in Honduras goes well beyond what Mark Weisbrot and I
have described. Aid continues to flow to the de facto regime,
despite U.S. law that mandates cutting aid to military coups; that is
intervention. Lifting the symbolic sanctions temporarily imposed on
the dictatorship after the Accord was signed but not implemented; that
is intervention. Bestowing harsher criticism on President Zelaya
and his nonviolent supporters rather than on the perpetrators of gross
human rights crimes; that is hypocrisy.

1. Here in the Brazilian
embassy, death threats are part of the psychological warfare directed
against those who continue to accompany President Zelaya. Elsewhere
in Honduras: resistance leader Carlos Turcios was kidnapped and beheaded
on December 16th; two members of the United Peasant Movement of Aguan
were abducted by four hooded men on December 17th; resistance member
Edwin Renan Fajardo, age 22, was tortured and murdered on December
22nd. In an open letter to fellow Central American Presidents
on December 28th, President Zelaya cited over 4,000 human rights violations
by the coup regime, including 130 killings, over 450 persons wounded,
over 3000 illegal detentions, and 114 political prisoners.

The silence of the U.S. government
over the last six months regarding the ongoing human rights atrocities
by the "golpistas" in Honduras confirms that the Obama regime has
sought to support a death-squad democracy, rather than reinstating its
elected leader.

That is intervention. That
is hypocrisy.