Honduras’ Illegitimate President and His Cheering Squad

[Judi Lynn]

Belén Fernández: Honduras’ Illegitimate President and His Cheering Squad
May 14, 2012

Honduran President Pepe Lobo received an International Leadership Award last week from the U.S. Congressional Hispanic Leadership Institute. But why?

By Belén Fernández

Last week, in Washington, D.C., Honduran President Pepe Lobo was honored with an International Leadership Award from the U.S. Congressional Hispanic Leadership Institute (CHLI, endearingly pronounced “chili”).

This is the latest in a sequence of preposterous euphemisms emitted by the U.S. political establishment with regard to the Honduran regime, described by Hillary Clinton in 2010 as being committed to democracy. All this despite Lobo’s ascension to power via illegitimate elections conducted in the aftermath of the coup d’état against democratically elected President Mel Zelaya.

One possible explanation for CHLI’s enthusiasm is that the organization’s Board of Directors includes Congressman Mario Díaz-Balart, former Congressman Lincoln Díaz-Balart, and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Ileana Ros-Lehtinen—who paid a joint visit to Tegucigalpa in 2009 to reaffirm the democratic nature of the military coup. The Board also includes corporate representatives from AT&T, Coca-Cola, and Wal-Mart.

Lobo’s achievements

According to a CHLI press release, Lobo was selected for the award due to “tireless dedication to strengthening the U.S. Hispanic community by promoting the advancement of Hispanics in all sectors of the U.S. and global economy, consistent with the mission of the Congressional Hispanic Leadership Institute.”

More:
http://www.guernicamag.com/blog/belen-fernandez-honduras-illegitimate-president-and-his-cheering-squad/

The "U.S. Hispanic community" to which they refer is comprised of right-wing reactionary Cuban "exiles" who have almost nothing in common with the Hispanic people of the United States. Their Cuban American National Foundation spokeswoman, Ninoska Perez-Castellon told reporters in 2000 that they are not a minority group.

[sad sally]

1. Honduras is another military launching pad for the US

The U.S. Drug War Comes to Honduras

New York Times correspondent Thom Shanker broke the story on May 5 that the U.S. military had established three base camps in Honduras to help that country combat the increasingly powerful Mexican drug cartels. The Obama administration authorized this new, and potentially quite dangerous, military operation without congressional approval or the slightest public debate by the American people. That aspect is merely the latest evidence that Obama is as much a devotee of the imperial presidency as any of his predecessors.

But this move should not have come as a great surprise. The Mexican cartels have become a major force in nearly all of the Central American countries, especially Honduras and Guatemala, over the past four years. Political leaders in Central America, as well as their U.S. counterparts, have grown increasingly worried that one or more of those countries could become de facto narcostates.
(snip)
Sending U.S. military personnel into Honduras to wage the war on drugs, though, is ill-advised. American military commanders openly state that they intend to apply the lessons learned in Iraq to the situation in Honduras. That anyone would regard the Iraq debacle as a template for future military operations is more than a little worrisome. The principal lesson of the Iraq war should be to avoid murky counterinsurgency/nation-building crusades, not to try to pursue such missions more effectively.

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-skeptics/the-us-drug-war-comes-honduras-6917