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HRC Tells Tabloid NYDN: Honduras Coup Not Illegal
(unbelievable!)
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/04/13/hillary-clinton-says-honduras-coup-not-illegal-ny-daily-news-editorial-board
Democatic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton insisted the Honduras legislature and national judiciary’s removal of President Manuel Zelaya in 2009 “actually followed the law” and was not an illegal coup. Her statement sharply contradicts the real-time assessment of Hugo Llorens, who was the United States’ ambassador to Honduras.
At a meeting with the New York Daily News editorial board on April 8, Clinton was asked about her direct involvement in “the coup in Honduras,” which took place when she was secretary of state.
At a meeting with the New York Daily News editorial board on April 8, Clinton was asked about her direct involvement in “the coup in Honduras,” which took place when she was secretary of state.
interviewer to HRC:
As you know in 2009, the military overthrew President Zelaya. There was a period there where the OAS was trying to isolate that regime, but apparently some of the emails that have come out as a result of the State Department releases show that some of your top aides were urging you to declare it a military coup, cut off U.S. aid. You didn’t do that. You ended up negotiating with Oscar Arias [former Costa Rican president] a deal for new elections.
But the situation in Honduras has continued to deteriorate. There’s been 300 people killed by government forces, and all these children fleeing and mothers from Honduras over the border into United States. And just a few weeks ago, one of the leading environmental activist, Berta Cáceres, was assassinated in her home. Do you have any concerns about the role that you played in that particular situation, even not necessarily being in agreement with your top aides in the State Department?
Clinton responded, “The legislature, the national legislature in Honduras and the national judiciary actually followed the law in removing President Zelaya.
snip
The US Embassy Perspective:
The U.S. embassy in Honduras rejected all of the coup defenders’ rationalizations for a “patently illegal act” and outlined the following: “the military had no authority to remove Zelaya from the
country”;
“Congress has no constitutional authority to remove a Honduran president”; “Congress and the judiciary removed Zelaya on the basis of a hasty, ad-hoc, extralegal, secret, 48-hour process”; and “Zelaya’s arrest and forced removal from the country violated multiple constitutional guarantees, including the prohibition on expatriation, presumption of innocence and right to due process.”
The U.S. embassy in Honduras rejected all of the coup defenders’ rationalizations for a “patently illegal act” and outlined the following: “the military had no authority to remove Zelaya from the
country”;
“Congress has no constitutional authority to remove a Honduran president”; “Congress and the judiciary removed Zelaya on the basis of a hasty, ad-hoc, extralegal, secret, 48-hour process”; and “Zelaya’s arrest and forced removal from the country violated multiple constitutional guarantees, including the prohibition on expatriation, presumption of innocence and right to due process.”
How can anyone claiming to have sound judgment read such a clear-cut assessment and still assert there was a “strong argument” the constitution and rule of law was followed in Honduras?
23 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
Hill and Bill seem to think they create their own reality...hmmm...
where have we heard that before 
The history from 2009:
Hillary Clinton’s Honduran Disgrace
By Matthew Rothschild
The Progressive, March 5, 2010
Hillary Clinton continues with her hawkish ways, making Obama’s foreign policy less distinguishable from Bush’s every day.
She just met with Honduran President Pepe Lobo, she’s notified Congress that the Obama administration is restoring aid to Honduras, and she’s urging Latin American nations to recognize the Lobo government in Tegucigalpa.
The democratic opposition in Honduras boycotted lobo’s election, since he’s allied with the forces that overthrew Manuel Zelaya last June.
But for the longest time, Hillary Clinton stubbornly refused to call the June takeover a “coup,” even though her boss, the president of the United States, immediately denounced it as such.
SNIP..
“Other countries of the region say that they want to wait a while,” she said on her Latin American trip. “I don’t know what they’re waiting for.”
CONTINUED...
http://progressive.org/wx030510.html
Originally, President Obama backed ousted Honduran president (supporters shown in civilian clothes below).
Dancing with Monsters: The U.S. Response to the 2009 Honduran Coup
"A coup anywhere in Latin America is a very big deal.”
By Alvaro Valle
Harvard Political Review, April 13, 2015
SNIP...
The U.S. Response
Latin American governments immediately denounced Zelaya’s ouster as a military coup. The United States was not quite as decisive in its diction, with the initial statement from the Obama administration merely calling on “all political and social actors in Honduras to respect democratic norms.” Obama did go on to denounce the coup in the following days, but Frank noted that Obama’s characterization of the government change was very important. “He very clearly failed to call it a military coup. If he had called it a military coup, the United States would have had to immediately suspend all police and military aid,” Frank explained. “Eventually some money sent was suspended, but the vast majority was not.”
Following the coup, President Obama called many times for the reinstatement of Zelaya. In contrast, Secretary of State Clinton made remarks that were far more equivocal. When asked if the United States had any plans to alter aid to the coup government, , “Much of our assistance is conditioned on the integrity of the democratic system. But if we were able to get to a status quo that returned to the rule of law and constitutional order within a relatively short period of time, I think that would be a good outcome.” Clinton seemed to prioritize having a stable regime over preserving democratic ideals.
As further evidence, Clinton wrote in her book, Hard Choices, “In the subsequent days [after the coup] … we strategized on a plan to restore order in Honduras and ensure that free and fair elections could be held quickly and legitimately, which would render the question of Zelaya moot,” revealing that even as the administration publicly advocated for Zelaya’s return, Clinton was not working to ensure that it would happen.
Pastor added that Clinton had personal connections with supporters of the coup government that may have led her to soften her stance. For instance, Lanny Davis, Bill Clinton’s former personal lawyer and a longtime Hillary Clinton supporter, lobbied in Washington for the Honduran coup government, Honduran elites, the Business Council of Latin America, and the American companies that took issue with Zelaya’s reforms. Bennett Ratcliff, another top Democratic campaigner with close ties to the Clintons, also worked for the Honduran coup government as a lobbyist in Washington. These personal connections to advocates for the coup government raise troubling concerns that political ties influenced Clinton’s stance.
In Clinton’s defense, these personal connections were not the only political forces supporting the coup. Levitsky noted that initial opposition to the coup in the United States may have given way because “Republicans held a couple of major U.S.-Latin America appointments: the Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs and the Ambassador to Brazil. They held these positions hostage to a softening of U.S. policy toward the coup government.”
CONTINUED w/ links sources etc....
http://harvardpolitics.com/united-states/us-honduran-coup/
If you believe in Democracy, you think others deserve it, too -- NOT just the rich and white.
(No, I did not call it a career of evil
must be good for Wall Street...
