Powerful lawmaker urges U.S. aid cutoff for Honduras

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Reuters

Powerful lawmaker urges U.S. aid cutoff for Honduras
By Arshad Mohammed Arshad Mohammed – Thu Sep 3, 3:23 am ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States should formally declare a military coup took place in Honduras and cut off most aid to the government that replaced ousted President Manuel Zelaya, an influential U.S. lawmaker said on Thursday.

Howard Berman, who chairs the House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, made the case in an opinion piece published before a meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Zelaya at 12:30 p.m. (1630 GMT) on Thursday.

Zelaya, forced into exile on June 28 aboard a military plane while still in his pajamas, was accused by opponents of trying to change the constitution to extend presidential mandates beyond a single four-year term.

The State Department has dragged its feet on making the formal determination of whether a military coup took place in the hopes that a diplomatic solution could be found to restore Zelaya to power in the impoverished Central American coffee and textile exporter.

Writing in the Los Angeles Times newspaper, Berman argued that "our patience is not without end" and called on Clinton to formally determine that Zelaya was removed in a military coup.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090903/pl_nm/us_honduras_usa

[Judi Lynn]

1. Ousted Honduran president recounts removal at ESIA

Ousted Honduran president recounts removal at ESIA
by Madeleine O'Connor
Hatchet Reporter

Ousted President of Honduras Jose Manuel Zelaya described being abducted in his pajamas in June and accused his home country's interim government of violating citizens rights at the Elliott School on Wednesday morning.

Zelaya spoke to a lecture hall full of ambassadors, Honduran government officials, students and members of the media in Spanish. He gave a detailed account of his forced removal from power, where he was taken from his home at gunpoint and flown to Costa Rica.

"What do I do now in my pajamas? They just turned around, put the steps up, and left," Zelaya said of being left on the airstrip in Costa Rica.

Zelaya joked about the first report he read on his removal, which a journalist called an "obscene" coup.

"I could say it was obscene," he said. " 150 bullets in a metal door at my house."

More:
http://media.www.gwhatchet.com/media/storage/paper332/news/2009/09/03/News/Ousted.Honduran.President.Recounts.Removal.At.Esia-3762676.shtml

[formercia]

2. Tick...tick...tick......

The screw turns.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Honduras: Make it official -- it's a coup (by Rep. Howard Berman)

Honduras: Make it official -- it's a coup
A formal finding would trigger a suspension of U.S. aid.
By Howard L. Berman

September 3, 2009

Official Washington is waiting for the State Department to determine if this summer's events in Honduras constitute a coup. Actions may speak louder than words, but in this case, one word alone could affect the course of democracy in the Western Hemisphere.

U.S. law requires that foreign assistance, with the exception of humanitarian and democracy-related aid, be suspended for "the government of any country whose duly elected head of government is deposed by military coup or decree." A formal determination by the State Department would trigger this suspension, whereas previous uses of the word "coup" by U.S. authorities have not. The matter will be on many minds today as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton meets with ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a "coup d'etat" as "a sudden decisive exercise of force in politics; especially: the violent overthrow or alteration of an existing government by a small group."

So far, the United States has taken a measured approach to this matter, allowing negotiations between Latin American leaders and the de facto Honduran government to run their course. But our patience is not without end, and President Obama, Secretary of State Clinton, the U.N. General Assembly and the Organization of American States have already put the label to good use.

In late June, amid a constitutional impasse with his country's supreme court and military, Zelaya was taken from his home by soldiers, bundled aboard a plane in his pajamas and flown out of the country. Since then, even in the face of united hemispheric and world condemnation of the coup, a de facto government led by the former head of the Honduran Congress, Roberto Micheletti, has dug in its heels.

This one looks, walks and quacks like a duck. It's time to stop hedging and call this bird what it is. And if, for whatever reason, the State Department lawyers do not conclude that this was a coup, Congress should examine other ways by which it can directly affect the flow of aid.

Cutting off assistance is a blunt instrument, one that should not be wielded lightly. It can affect livelihoods and families and industries, in addition to targeting those at the top. But Honduras will hold presidential and parliamentary elections Nov. 29, and every passing day gives Micheletti and his associates the chance to tighten their illegitimate hold on the reins of power.

In negotiations, they have done little more than stall, hoping that the matter of the coup will become moot as elections near. They refuse to participate in a regional agreement brokered under Costa Rican President Oscar Arias and the OAS to restore Zelaya so that he can serve the remainder of his term, even with strict conditions on his exercise of power under international monitoring.

All the while, conditions in Honduras are coming to resemble what we saw in this region in the 1970s, especially for those who are known to have voted for Zelaya. In August, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, an autonomous and respected regional human rights monitor, found in Honduras today "the existence of a pattern of disproportionate use of public force, arbitrary detentions and the control of information aimed at limiting political participation by a sector of the citizenry ... the use of repression against demonstrations ... the arbitrary enforcement of curfews; the detentions of thousands of people; cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment; and poor detention conditions."

More:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-berman3-2009sep03,0,4312741.story

[Mudoria]

4. Let Zelaya back in, impeach him and everything is all legal.. should have done that to start with..

[Judi Lynn]

5. If they thought they had a case against him they would have allowed his plane to land

during the many passes over the airport, attempting to land a couple of weeks after he was violently kidnapped.

A week or two after that, he made a well publicized trip to the border from Nicaragua, with many Hondurans streaming to meet him there from inside Honduras, going in defiance of a coup leader's curfew, and he crossed the border and spoke with the commanding military officer at length before they communicated with the coup President and were instructed to refuse to let him enter his country of birth.

BOTH times he tried to return to his country he was kept out by the people who had him kidnapped. Either one of those times would have allowed him to be brought to Tegucigalpa where they could then arrest, and try him.

We all know that. You should have thought about it, as well. If they had a case, they would have pressed it long ago, instead of kidnapping him, then keeping him from returning.

[ngant17]

6. their twisted logic to defend the violence

and the coup, it will continue for as long as the US government will tolerate it. Besides, an authentic democracy based on socialism and supported by the majority of its citizens, it could survive a US boycott indefinitely, Cuba is proof of that.

The oligarchy is afraid of democracy, and it's willing to do anything illegal and criminal to protect itself from justice. It wouldn't last a month once a US boycott is implemented.

[Judi Lynn]

7. True. They would sink like a rock if that happened. Lights out time.

The coup operators are being kept alive by their bluff, and the belief in parts of the US government that the use of their airfield is critical, and a stubborn refusal to allow the people to choose their own President even if it means he puts Honduras first, above US corporatists' interests.

[Judi Lynn]

8. Guardian: IMF: Stop Funding Honduras

Published on Friday, September 4, 2009 by The Guardian/UK
IMF: Stop Funding Honduras
By giving millions of dollars to Honduras, the IMF is supporting an illegitimate coup government the world doesn't recognise
by Mark Weisbrot

The IMF is undergoing an unprecedented expansion of its access to resources, possibly reaching a trillion dollars. This week the EU committed $175bn, $67bn more than even the $108bn that Washington agreed to fork over after a tense stand-off between the US Congress and the Obama administration earlier this summer.

The Fund and its advocates argue that the IMF has changed. The IMF is "back in a new guise", says the Economist. This time, we are told, it's really going to act as a multilateral organisation that looks out for the countries and people of the world, and not just for Washington, Wall Street or European banks.

But it's looking more and more like the same old IMF on steroids. Last week the IMF disbursed $150m to the de facto government of Honduras, and it plans to disburse another $13.8m on 9 September. The de facto government has no legitimacy in the world. It took power on 28 June in a military coup, in which the elected President Manuel Zelaya was taken from his home at gunpoint and flown out of the country.

The Organisation of American States suspended Honduras until democracy is restored, and the UN also called for the "immediate and unconditional return" of the elected president.

No country in the world recognises the coup government of Honduras. From the western hemisphere and the EU, only the US retains an ambassador there. The World Bank paused lending to Honduras two days after the coup, and the Inter-American Development Bank did the same the next day. More recently the Central American Bank of Economic Integration suspended credit to Honduras. The EU has suspended over $90m in aid as well, and is considering further sanctions.

More:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/09/04-1