VERY IMPORTANT: Mark Weibrot:- "Hondurans Resist Coup, Will Need Help From Other Countries"

[magbana]

Hondurans Resist Coup, Will Need Help From Other Countries

By Mark Weisbrot

This column was published by The Guardian Unlimited on July 8, 2009. If anyone wants to reprint it, please include a link to the original.
The military coup that overthrew President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras took a new turn when Zelaya attempted to return home on Sunday. The military closed the airport and blocked runways to prevent his plane from landing. They also shot several protesters, killing at least one and injuring others.

The violence and the enormous crowd - estimated in the tens of thousands and reported as the largest since the coup on June 28 - put additional pressure on the Obama administration to seek a resolution to the crisis. On Tuesday Secretary of State Clinton met with President Zelaya for the first time.

In many ways this is similar to the coup in Venezuela in 2002, which was supported by the United States. After it became clear that no government other than the United States would recognize the coup government there, and hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans poured into the streets to demand the return of their elected president, the military switched sides and brought Chávez back to the presidential palace.

In Honduras we have the entire world refusing to recognize the coup government, and equally large demonstrations (in a country of only seven million people, and with the military preventing movement for many of them) demanding Zelaya's return. The problem in Honduras is that their military - unlike the Venezuelan military - has more experience in organized repression, including selective assassinations carried out during the 1980s, when the country was known as a military base for U.S. operations in El Salvador and Nicaragua. The Honduran military is also much closer to the U.S. military and State Department, more closely allied with the country's oligarchy, and more ideologically committed to the cause of keeping the elected president out of power. Colonel Herberth Bayardo Inestroza, a Honduran army lawyer who admitted that the military broke the law when they kidnapped President Zelaya, told the Miami Herald, "It would be difficult for us, with our training, to have a relationship with a leftist government. That's impossible." Mr. Inestroza, like the coup leader and army chief General Romeo Vasquez, was trained at Washington's infamous School of the Americas (now renamed as WHINSEC).

This puts a heavy burden on the people of Honduras, who have been risking their lives, confronting the army's bullets, beatings, and arbitrary arrests and detentions. The U.S. media has reported on this repression but only minimally, with the major print media sometimes failing to even to mention the censorship there. But the Honduran pro-democracy movement, through their courage, has in the last few days managed to change the course of events. It is likely that Clinton's decision to finally meet with Zelaya was the result of the large and growing protests, and Washington's fear that such resistance could reach the point where it would topple the coup government.

The Obama administration's behavior over the last eight days provides strong evidence that if not for this threat from below, the administration would have been content to let the coup government stall out the rest of Zelaya's term.

This was made clear again on Monday, at a press briefing held by State Department Spokesperson Ian Kelly. Under prodding from a reporter, Mr. Kelly became the first on-the-record spokesperson for the U.S. State Department to say officially that the U.S. government supported the return of President Zelaya. This was eight days after the coup, and after the United Nations General Assembly, the Organization of American States, the Rio Group, and many individual governments had all called for the "immediate and unconditional" return of Zelaya - something which Washington still does not talk about.

Meanwhile, on the far right, there has been a pushback against the worldwide support for Zelaya and an attempt to paint him has the aggressor in Honduras, or at least equally bad as the people who carried out the coup. Unfortunately much of the major media's reporting has aided this effort by reporting such statements as "Critics feared he intended to extend his rule past January, when he would have been required to step down."

In fact, there was no way for Zelaya to "extend his rule" even if the referendum had been held and passed, and even if he had then gone on to win a binding referendum on the November ballot. The June 28 referendum was nothing more than a non-binding poll of the electorate, asking whether the voters wanted to place a binding referendum on the November ballot to approve a redrafting of the country's constitution. If it had passed, and if the November referendum had been held (which was not very likely) and also passed, the same ballot would have elected a new president and Zelaya would have stepped down in January. So, the belief that Zelaya was fighting to extend his term in office has no factual basis - although most people who follow this story in the press seem to believe it. The most that could be said is that if a new constitution were eventually approved, Zelaya might have been able to run for a second term at some future date.

Another major right-wing theme that has spilled over into the media and public perception of the Honduran situation is that this is a battle against President Chávez of Venezuela (and some collection of "anti-U.S." leftist allies, e.g. Nicaragua, Cuba - take your pick). This is a common subterfuge that has surfaced in most of the Latin American elections of the last few years. In Mexico, Peru, Nicaragua, and El Salvador, for example, the conservative candidates all pretended as if they were running against Chávez - the first two with success, and the second pair losing.

It is true that under Zelaya Honduras joined the ALBA, a grouping of countries that was started by Venezuela as an alternative to "free trade" agreements with the United States. But Zelaya is nowhere near as close to Chávez as any number of other Latin American presidents, including those of Brazil and Argentina. So it is not clear why this is relevant, unless the argument is that only bigger countries or those located further south have the right to have a co-operative relationship with Venezuela.

As this article goes to press, Clinton has announced that she arranged for Costa Rican President Oscar Arias to serve as a mediator between the coup government and President Zelaya. According to Clinton, both parties have accepted this arrangement.

This is a good move for the U.S. State Department, as it will make it easier for them to maintain a more "neutral" position so long as mediation is taking place - as opposed to the rest of the hemisphere, which has taken the side of the deposed president and the Honduran pro-democracy movement. "I don't want to prejudge what the parties themselves will agree to," said Clinton in response to a question as to whether President Zelaya should be restored to his position.

It is difficult to see how this mediation will succeed, so long as the coup government knows that they can stall out the rest of Zelaya's term. The only thing that can remove them from office, in conjunction with massive protests, is real economic sanctions of the kind that Honduras's neighbors (Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala) imposed for 48 hours after the coup. These countries account for about a third of Honduras's trade, but they would need economic aid from other countries to carry the burden of a trade cutoff for a longer time. It would be a great thing if other countries would step forward to support such sanctions and to cut off their own trade and capital flows with Honduras as well.

So it is up to the rest of the world to help Honduras; it is clear that Hondurans won't be getting any help from the United States. The rest of the world will have to scream bloody murder about the violence and repression there, too, because Washington will not be making much of an issue about it.
Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, in Washington, D.C. He is co-author, with Dean Baker, of Social Security: The Phony Crisis, and has written numerous research papers on economic policy. He is also president of Just Foreign Policy.

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[Peace Patriot]

1. "...although most people who follow this story in the press seem to believe it."

"In fact, there was no way for Zelaya to "extend his rule" even if the referendum had been held and passed, and even if he had then gone on to win a binding referendum on the November ballot. The June 28 referendum was nothing more than a non-binding poll of the electorate, asking whether the voters wanted to place a binding referendum on the November ballot to approve a redrafting of the country's constitution. If it had passed, and if the November referendum had been held (which was not very likely) and also passed, the same ballot would have elected a new president and Zelaya would have stepped down in January. So, the belief that Zelaya was fighting to extend his term in office has no factual basis - although most people who follow this story in the press seem to believe it. The most that could be said is that if a new constitution were eventually approved, Zelaya might have been able to run for a second term at some future date." --Mark Weisbrot (from the OP)

-------

"Most people seem to believe it" because this lie had been repeated over and over and over again in our corpo/fascist media--that Zelaya was trying to extend his term limit or was trying to holding a referendum on same. Here is the entire text of the ADVISORY referendum that he wanted to hold:

"Do you agree that, during the general elections of November 2009 there should be a fourth ballot to decide whether to hold a Constituent National Assembly that will approve a new political constitution?"

(Compliments of BoRev.net: http://www.borev.net/2009/06/national_news_outlets_bring_th.html#more --which also traces the lie through all the major corpo/fascist so-called 'news' outlets.)

He was proposing that people DISCUSS their Constitution, re-write it if the national assembly decides to do so, and put it to a vote of all of the people--a process that would have taken a couple of years and would have been completed long after he was out of office. The 'yes' or 'no' vote on this common reform practice in Latin America--which is provided for in the current Honduran Constitution--would have had no force of law. It was essentially an opinion poll by which people could express their interest in much needed reform in Honduras.

For THIS, they shot up the presidential palace, dragged the elected president out of his bed, beat him up and put him on a plane with blackened windows to another country, declared martial law, suspended all Constitutional rights, arrested at least 600 political prisoners whose fate is unknown at this time, shut down the media, surrounded public buildings and neutral or left-leaning TV studios with troops, arrested and harassed even CNN and the Associated Pukes reporters, and opened fire on Zelaya supporters at the airport on Sunday, killing a 16 year old boy and wounding others. And for THIS, they will not let him back into his own country, of which he is the elected president--for trying to open a discussion on reform.

Even the BBC repeated the goddamned rightwing "talking point" lie that the vote was about term limits. This lie came from the blog of a rightwing presidential candidate in Honduras, and most likely ultimately from the US State Dept and its clever USAID-NED writers, who have been "training" the rightwing coupsters in Honduras and larding rightwing groups with $49 million dollars in USAID funds to give them the advantage in elections and, presumably, to help them engage in rightwing coups. The rifles that shot at the protesters are also paid for by you and me (more multi-millions in military aid to Honduras).

Repeated over and over and over again, in every corpo/fascist 'news' article. It is no accident that "most people believe it." This is a PLANNED campaign of disinformation!

[Judi Lynn]

2. Kicking to read later. Here are some images from the weekend:

It will be necessary to click on the links, since I can't get the images themselves to post on this page:

http://a123.g.akamai.net/f/123/12465/1d/www.canada.com/news/world/gallery+honduras/1762228/1762325.bin?size=620x400

Supporters of ousted Honduras' President Manuel Zelaya lie as soldiers fire tear gas at a protest at the international airport in Tegucigalpa July 5, 2009. At least one person was killed and two were badly wounded in Honduras on Sunday when protesters demanding the return of ousted President Manuel Zelaya clashed with troops at the main airport in the capital, a medical worker and emergency services at the scene told Reuters.
Photograph by: REUTERS/Benedicte Dsrus ,

http://a123.g.akamai.net.nyud.net:8090/f/123/12465/1d/www.canada.com/news/world/gallery+honduras/1762228/1762377.bin?size=620x400

Supporters of ousted Honduras' President Manuel Zelaya try to climb a wall to enter inside Toncontin international airport in Tegucigalpa July 5,2009. Zelaya turned back from an attempted return home on Sunday after soldiers clashed with his supporters as he tried to land, fueling tensions over the coup that toppled him.

http://a123.g.akamai.net.nyud.net:8090/f/123/12465/1d/www.canada.com/news/world/gallery+honduras/1762228/1762323.bin?size=620x400

A supporter of ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya reacts after a battle between soldiers and protesters outside the Toncontin international airport in Tegucigalpa July 5, 2009. At least one person was killed and two were badly wounded in Honduras on Sunday when protesters demanding the return of Zelaya clashed with troops at the main airport in the capital, a medical worker and emergency services at the scene told Reuters.
Photograph by: REUTERS/Tomas Bravo

http://a123.g.akamai.net.nyud.net:8090/f/123/12465/1d/www.canada.com/news/world/gallery+honduras/1762228/1762328.bin?size=620x400

Supporters of ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya make the "V" sign as his plane overflies Toncontin international airport in Tegucigalpa on July 5, 2009. At least half a dozen military vehicles blocked the only runway at the airport in Tegucigalpa, while tens of thousands of Zelaya's supporters demonstrated outside.
Photograph by: (ELMER MARTINEZ/AFP/Getty Images)

http://a123.g.akamai.net.nyud.net:8090/f/123/12465/1d/www.canada.com/news/world/gallery+honduras/1762228/1762322.bin?size=620x400

A supporter, wearing a shirt covered in blood, of ousted Honduras' President Manuel Zelaya talks to supporters after soldiers fired tear gas at the protest at the international airport in Tegucigalpa July 5, 2009. Zelaya turned back from an attempted return home on Sunday after soldiers clashed with his supporters as he tried to land, fueling tensions over the coup that toppled him.
Photograph by: REUTERS/Henry Romero

http://a123.g.akamai.net.nyud.net:8090/f/123/12465/1d/www.canada.com/news/world/gallery+honduras/1762228/1762217.bin?size=620x400

Supporters of Honduras' ousted President Manuel Zelaya stand in front of riot police and soldiers outside Toncontin international airport in Tegucigalpa July 5, 2009. Zelaya departed on a flight for his country on Sunday, but the interim government that has defied international pressure over last week's coup.
Photograph by: REUTERS/Tomas Bravo

http://a123.g.akamai.net.nyud.net:8090/f/123/12465/1d/www.canada.com/news/world/gallery+honduras/1762228/1762218.bin?size=620x400

A sniper of the Honduran Army keeps watch from a roof of Tegucigalpa's international airport Toncontin, after it was militarized and all flights suspended on July 5, 2009. Ousted President Manuel Zelaya reaffirmed his intention to return to Honduras on Sunday, despite a threat by the interim government that
Photograph by: (ORLANDO SIERRA/AFP/Getty Images)

http://a123.g.akamai.net.nyud.net:8090/f/123/12465/1d/www.canada.com/news/world/gallery+honduras/1762228/1762219.bin?size=620x400

Supporters of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya carry the dead body of a man after he was shot by Honduran soldiers outside Toncontin international airport in Tegucigalpa on July 5, 2009. Ousted President Manuel Zelaya reaffirmed his intention to return to Honduras on Sunday, despite a threat by the interim
Photograph by: (Jose CABEZAS/AFP/Getty Images)

http://a123.g.akamai.net.nyud.net:8090/f/123/12465/1d/www.canada.com/news/world/gallery+honduras/1762228/1762221.bin?size=620x400

Supporters of ousted Honduran President, Manuel Zelaya, clash with soldiers during a protest against the military coup near Toncontin international airport in Tegucigalpa on July 5, 2009. Ousted President Manuel Zelaya reaffirmed his intention to return to Honduras on Sunday, despite a threat by the interim
Photograph by: (ELMER MARTINEZ/AFP/Getty Images)