Honduran leader: US apathy made him turn to Chavez

[subsuelo]

Source: AP

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) - President Manuel Zelaya said U.S. apathy toward deepening poverty in Honduras forced the longtime Washington ally to turn for help to Venezuela's leftist leader, Hugo Chavez.
Zelaya said rising food prices began hitting Hondurans hard six months ago and he asked the local business sector, the United States and the World Bank for help.

But he said his pleas fell on deaf ears and so he sought out Chavez.
"Allies, friends, did not help me when I asked for help," Zelaya said in a news release Friday.
The Venezuelan leader, whose oil-rich nation has benefited from high world prices, offered Honduras US$300 million a year to invest in agriculture and help the country, where about 70 percent of the population lives in poverty, Zelaya said without providing more details.

Zelaya has become increasingly outspoken about his support of Latin America's leftist leaders since August, when Honduras joined the Bolivarian Alternative alliance known as ALBA, a trade bloc led by Venezuela.

Read more: http://www.pr-inside.com/honduran-leader-us-apathy-made-him-r816371.htm

[Judi Lynn]

1. He gave the same reason entire states in the U.S., and many Native American tribes

went to Venezuela to secure discounted winter heating oil for their constituents living on limited incomes.

As they have told the press, they went to the big oil companies originally and were totally blown off well before they decided they were not going to give up and went to Venezuela for assistance.

This will be the 3rd or 4th year of discounted heating oil, and the people who need help are very, VERY grateful for any help they can get altogether.

As for Honduras, they can use a breather from heavy U.S. manipulation of their national affairs. They need some time to heal:

When a wave of torture and murder staggered a small U.S. ally, truth was a casualty.
Was the CIA involved? Did Washington know? Was the public deceived? Now we know: Yes, Yes and yes.
By Gary Cohn and Ginger Thompson | Sun Staff
June 11, 1995

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras - The search for Nelson Mackay Chavarria - family man, government lawyer, possible subversive - began one Sunday in 1982 after he devoured a pancake breakfast and stepped out to buy a newspaper.

It ended last December when his wife, Amelia, watched as forensic scientists plucked his moldering bones from a pit in rural Honduras. Spotting a scrap of the red-and-blue shirt her husband was wearing the day he disappeared, she gasped: "Oh my God, that's him!"

Along with Amelia Mackay, the nation of Honduras has begun to confront a truth it has long suspected - that hundreds of its citizens were kidnapped, tortured and killed in the 1980s by a secret army unit trained and supported by the Central Intelligence Agency.

The intelligence unit, known as Battalion 316, used shock and suffocation devices in interrogations. Prisoners often were kept naked and, when no longer useful, killed and buried in unmarked graves.

Newly declassified documents and other sources show that the CIA and the U.S. Embassy knew of numerous crimes, including murder and torture, committed by Battalion 316, yet continued to collaborate closely with its leaders.

In order to keep U.S. dollars flowing into Honduras for the war against communism in Central America, the Reagan administration knowingly made a series of misleading statements to Congress and the public that denied or minimized the violence of Battalion 316.

More:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-negroponte1a,0,3704648.story

[Mika]

2. I hope that President Manuel Zelaya has trustworthy security.

Because the corporate hit men will be coming for him.


Santiago, Chile, 11 September 1973

[Judi Lynn]

4. You are so right. He'll need LOTS of security until we get a sane president. That photo is really

a sad, dark moment in the world's history, and our corporate media (ostensibly there to inform us) made sure no one knew it was happening, even then.

It took Democratic Senator Frank Church to start opening the windows on the dark secret the U.S. government had been controlling mass media and the "news." It was a lesson very few people took to heart, obviously.

Most of them STILL don't know what happened.

Thanks for posting this. Never had a chance to see the photo so clearly. Damned sad.

[David__77]

8. He'll need lots of security even if Obama wins.

The imperialist machine certainly won't come screeching to a halt - not by a longshot. In fact, the ideological offensive against developing country progressives is even more pernicious under a Democrat, because it's dressed up in pastel hues that confuse many wavering elements.

[Judi Lynn]

9. Their only hope is to develope their own solidarity, create their own unity, and defend it.

Already they have made close allies throughout the rest of the world.

More power to them every day.

[Mika]

10. You're so correct.

To me, reading the DUDem fawning over Debbie Wasserman Schultz assures your point. Hearing her talking about the left(ist) leaders in the Latin Americas and Caribbean (not to mention her talking points regarding Israel, or Georgia) is just like listening to a rabid neocon - and she's a rising star of the Dem party.


-

[Judi Lynn]

12. What a disappointment that one is. She has glued herself to the Cuban Congresscritters

from South Florida, all Republicans, and won't budge. You can't see daylight between her and those 3.

It was great seeing her beginning, as she was a fresh face, seemed well equiped for her job, then her alliance with rabid right-wingers started showing, and it's TRAGIC, insulting, a betrayal. What's the point of running as a Democrat, anyway?

[fascisthunter]

13. Yup... I Caught That Too.... Disgustingly Biased

I expect better from fellow Democrats. Supposedly she too drinks the Anti-Leftist Hegemony Koolaid.

PS - I would love to drop her ass off in Palestine.

[SpiralHawk]

3. The Bolivarian Alternative Alliance - ALBA

That has a certain RING to it.

[EFerrari]

6. It has the wind of millions of people here and history behind it.

:)

[EFerrari]

5. Cuidado. Be careful, hermanito.

[SpiralHawk]

7. Soaring over all.

[Vogon_Glory]

11. Venezuela Providing Foreign Aid?! Then THIS Should Be Happening!

What, Venezuela is providing foreign aid to Honduras? Then according to the best US CPC (Conservative Politically Correct) group-think, THIS should be happening to Venezuelan policy initiatives:

Massive anti-Venezuelan demonstrations (and occasional riots) in the streets of La Paz, Tegucigalpa and elsewhere.

Furious denunciations of Venezuela by left-wing newspapers about Venezuelan imperialism and Venezuelan neo-colonialism.

Plunging living standards and economic productivity as lazy, ungrateful foreigners stop trying to be self-reliant or to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and start relying on Venezuelan government largesse instead.

Ungrateful foreign governments immediately implementing anti-Venezuelan foreign and domestic policies to get yet more Venezuelan assistance.

Ungrateful foreign men and women-on-the-street hating Venezuela and Venezuelans even more.

Quadrupling of the Venezuelan national budget to provide assistance to foreigners.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Sound familiar to older DU readers? This is the same BUMF rhetoric that right-wingers here in the USA have used for over half a century to gut foreign aid programs and discredit the idea of government assistance to other nations.