Clinton: Honduran Government ‘Followed The Law’ In Ousting Its President

[cprise]

by Alice Ollstein Apr 13, 2016 8:00 am

In an extensive interview this week, the editorial board of the NY Daily News grilled Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton on her record, including her tenure as Secretary of State. The editorial board asked specifically about the role she played in Honduras, where the military overthrew the democratically-elected president. On June 28, 2009, soldiers raided then-President Manuel Zelaya’s home before dawn, arrested him in his pajamas at gunpoint, and forced him on a plane to Costa Rica.

Since then, the board pointed out, the country has seen a spike in violence and a massive wave of child migration to the United States.

Leaked State Department cables revealed that the U.S. ambassador in Honduras pleaded with Clinton to call what happened in Honduras a military coup, as did members of Congress. But she refused, and worked instead to broker a deal that elected a new government that was much friendlier to multinational corporations and the U.S. military.

Clinton told the NY Daily News on Monday that the Honduran government “followed the law” in ousting its president and said, “I think in retrospect we managed a very difficult situation without bloodshed.”

“I didn’t like the way it looked or the way they did it,” she said, “but they had a very strong argument that they had followed the constitution and the legal precedence.”

But at the time, the U.S. embassy in Honduras wrote that “there is no doubt” that what happened was “an illegal and unconstitutional coup.” The Embassy cable also emphasizes that the Honduran “Congress and the judiciary removed Zelaya on the basis of a hasty, ad-hoc, extralegal, secret, 48-hour process” and called their reasons for doing so “mere supposition or ex-post rationalizations of a patently illegal act.”

more
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/04/13/3768430/clinton-honduras-coup/

That's Kissenger-inspired alright.

[arcane1]

1. I can't wait to see her foreign policy in action, it will be Peace in Our Time.

[Chiquitita]

2. A lot of people have died in Honduras because how Clinton handled this.

"there’s ways in which the coup regime basically threw up Honduras to transnational pillage. And Berta Cáceres, in that interview, says what was installed after the coup was something like a permanent counterinsurgency on behalf of transnational capital. And that was—that wouldn’t have been possible if it were not for Hillary Clinton’s normalization of that election, or legitimacy.

http://www.democracynow.org/2016/3/11/before_her_assassination_berta_caceres_singled

[thereismore]

3. Slick Willy had some Latino protesters mentioning the name of Berta Cáceres the other day...

Some people know. Some people don't want to know.

[KoKo]

4. "She's Baldly Lying": Dana Frank Responds to Hillary Clintnse of Her Role in Honduras Coup

Last edited Wed Apr 13, 2016, 04:52 PM - Edit history (1)

"She's Baldly Lying": Dana Frank Responds to Hillary Clinton's Defense of Her Role in Honduras Coup
April 13, 2016Story

As Hillary Clinton seeks to defend her role in the 2009 Honduras coup, we speak with Dana Frank, an expert on human rights and U.S. policy in Honduras. "This is breathtaking that she’d say these things. I think we’re all kind of reeling that she would both defend the coup and defend her own role in supporting its stabilization in the aftermath," Frank says. "I want to make sure that the listeners understand how chilling it is that a leading presidential candidate in the United States would say this was not a coup. … She’s baldly lying when she says we never called it a coup."

http://www.democracynow.org/2016/4/13/shes_baldly_lying_dana_frank_responds


PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS:

AMY GOODMAN: For more on Honduras, we are joined by—Hillary Clinton and the legacy of the 2009 coup—Dana Frank, is professor of history at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and an expert on human rights and U.S. policy in Honduras.

Professor Frank, it’s great to have you with us. Well, Hillary Clinton said a lot in this five-minute exchange with Juan González. Respond.

DANA FRANK: Well, I just want to say this is like breathtaking that she’d say these things. I think we’re all kind of reeling that she would both defend the coup and defend her own role in supporting its stabilization in the aftermath. I mean, first of all, the fact that she says that they did it legally, that the Honduras judiciary and Congress did this legally, is like, oh, my god, just mind-boggling. The fact that she then is going to say that it was not an unconstitutional coup is incredible, when she actually had a cable, that we have in the WikiLeaks, in which U.S. Ambassador to Honduras Hugo Llorens says it was very clearly an illegal and unconstitutional coup. So she knows this from day one. She even admits in her own statement that it was the Honduran military, that she says, well, this was the only thing that was wrong there, that it was the military that took Zelaya out of the country, as opposed to somehow that it was an illegal thing we did—that the Honduran government did, deposing a president.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to that WikiLeaks cable on Honduras. The U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, sent a cable to Washington on July 24, 2009, less than a month after the coup. The subject line was "Open and Shut: The Case of the Honduran Coup." The cable asserted, quote, "there is no doubt" that the events of June 28, 2009, "constituted an illegal and unconstitutional coup," unquote. The Embassy listed arguments by supporters of the coup to claim its legality, and dismissed each of them, saying, quote, "none ... has any substantive validity under the Honduran constitution." The Embassy went on to say the Honduran military had no legal authority to remove President Zelaya from office or from Honduras. /The Embassy also characterized the Honduran military’s actions as an "abduction" and kidnapping that was unconstitutional. Again, this was the U.S. Embassy memo that was sent from Honduras to Washington. Professor Frank?

DANA FRANK: Well, I want to make sure that the listeners understand how chilling it is that the leading presidential—a leading presidential candidate in the United States would say this was not a coup. The second thing is that she’s baldly lying when she says we never called it a coup; we didn’t, because that would mean we have to suspend the aid. Well, first of all, they repeatedly called it a coup. We can see State Department statements for months calling it a coup and confirming, yes, we call it a coup. What she refused to do was to use the phrase "military coup." So, she split hairs, because Section 7008 of the State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Act for that year very clearly says that if it’s a coup significantly involving the military, the U.S. has to immediately suspend all aid. So she—they decided to have this interpretation that it was a coup, but not a military coup. So, she, Hillary Clinton—and Obama, for that matter, I want to make clear—in violation of U.S. law, that very clearly said if there’s a coup, they have to cut the military aid and that—all other aid to the country, she violated the law, decided, well, it wasn’t a military coup, when of course it was. It was the military that put him on the plane, which she says in her statement.

AMY GOODMAN: I mean, the memo is very clear.[/]

DANA FRANK: Well, the Hugo Llorens cable is very clear. But look, even what she said on Saturday, she says, well, the military put him on the plane; that was the only problem here. She’s admitting it was a military-led coup and that so, therefore, she’s in violation of the law—so is Obama—by not immediately suspending the aid. And here she’s saying, "Well, we never called it a coup." I mean, hello, we have so many public statements in which the State Department called it a coup.

Continued Transcript at....

http://www.democracynow.org/2016/4/13/shes_baldly_lying_dana_frank_responds

[Eko]

5. Wait a minute.

I'm confused, did the military throw him out or the congress and judiciary?

[Judi Lynn]

6. The military went to his house in the middle of the night, shot the place up, kidnapped him

at gunpoint, dragged him out in his pajamas, flew him, after stopping for refueling at a base used by the US military, Soto Cano, and dropped him off on the tarmac in Costa Rica.

You will feel more grounded if you spend some time researching the subject, as it has been lied about copiously by the fascists in this country in order to convince people in the US it was right to get rid of the people's elected President of Honduras.

The people of Honduras, other than the 1% most certainly don't agree with that, after so many beaten, tortured, and murdered political activists, environmental activists, indigenous, and African-Honduran people later. They've also gone after doctors who ran clinics for the minorities, and clergy.

This all started as soon as the pieces of filth completed their evil coup, in 2009. The police even went to the trouble to shoot and kill a young boy standing at the airport hoping to see President Zelaya when his plane tried to land on the airstrip so he could return from being kidnapped. The police jammed the airstrip with their vehicles, then started shooting at the people gathered to greet the President, and bagged one, who just happened to be the teenaged son of an environmental activist. Coincidence? You just never know, do you?

[Zorro]

7. Zelaya defied the Honduran courts and legislature

and planned to conduct an illegal referendum that would have opened the door to eliminating presidential term limits. It was the act of an authoritarian, and the Hondurans were having none of it -- even his own political party opposed it.

DU's resident Chavistas remain perpetually outraged that Zelaya's plan -- reportedly hatched in Caracas by his mentor Hugo -- was usurped. Now they fall all over themselves rushing to blame the US (and Clinton) for not intervening and restoring Zelaya -- no friend of the US -- back into power, and for all events that have transpired in Honduras since that episode.

[alarimer]

8. The fact is, it is not our business to intervene.

It was a COUP, however much you twist yourself in knots over it. You Hillary fans are all of a sudden okay with this, when if it had happened under Bush you would be screaming. Listen to Democracy Now; they have the facts on this.

[Zorro]

9. No dispute with me. It is not our business to intervene, and the FACT is the US DID NOT intervene

and the Hondurans settled the matter on their own and in their own way, whether you like the outcome or not.