NICARAGUA NETWORK: "Zelaya Was Overthrown Because His Policies Favored the Poor!

[magbana]

Zelaya was overthrown because of his policies that favored the poor!

http://www.nicanet.org/?p=728

If Zelaya was so bad, why are all those people out in the streets demanding his return?
The reasons you never hear in our media

From the Nicaragua Network

Very few news sources have covered the real reason why Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was overthrown. Even while reporting their presence, they have not covered the reason why tens of thousands of ordinary Hondurans are in the streets demanding Zelaya´s return. The reason Zelaya was overthrown and the reason why his supporters are in the streets is that, during his three and one half years in office, he made fundamental changes in whom the government favored with its policies.

Zelaya abolished fees for primary education resulting in 400,000 more children attending elementary schools. One million children received a meal (breakfast or lunch) during the school day. Nearly US$1 billion was spent by the government on education in 2008, according to El Heraldo newspaper of January 29, 2008. Hospitals have more medicines in stock and the program of childhood immunizations has been expanded, including a vaccination against the rotavirus which is a major cause of diarrhea in small children. Beginning in February 2009, the government expected to vaccinate 180,000 children. Where will this program stand with a coup government that considers such social programs to be "communism?"

The government brought electricity to more homes in both urban and rural areas. The Zelaya government estimated that its programs had lowered the poverty level 9.8% from 46% of the population to 36% in 2008, based on a survey of 133,861 households, and created 313,000 new jobs nationally. According to Leticia Solomon, Zelaya angered the Honduran Council of Private Enterprise and the National Industrialists´ Association in January when he decreed a raise in the nation´s minimum wage.

In the area of agriculture, production of basic food grains under Zelaya increased from 650,000 tons per year to 950,000 tons and the strategic reserve of food grains was four times larger than in 2005. Secretary of Agriculture Hector Hernandez said in January that for 2009, the goal was to produce 1.3 million tons of basic grains from 1.3 million acres, noting that Honduras had the land and the capacity. Will the coup government continue to emphasize food production?

More than his association with Hugo Chavez, more than his pursuit of a constitutional convention that might have allowed for him to run for president again at some future time (but not in time for the next elections), the real reasons for Zelaya´s overthrow were his change from the centuries old policies favoring the rich elites to policies that improved the lot of the poor. And that´s also why the poor have mobilized in his support.

[Judi Lynn]

1. Good to see this information. If the coup remains, the people will lose so much gained ground.

Everyone's got the right-wing's number. EVERYONE.

This article will be useful for future reference. Thank you.

[Peace Patriot]

2. Thanks so much for posting this, and to the Nicaragua Network for the research.

I knew some of it, but was only guessing at the rest. (The patterns of greedy rich elites are the same everywhere.) I figured Zelaya raising the minimum wage in Chiquita-dominated Honduras was enough to get him killed. Interesting that Chiquita's attorney in the matter of paying death squads to kill union leaders in Colombia, Eric Holder, is now our AG, and that John "death squad" Negroponte--so active currently advising Clinton on Honduras--is now VP of that same law firm, and John Bolton is a partner). (Small world!) (Info developed by Nicholas Kozloff.)

But I wasn't versed in all of what Don Zelaya had done for the poor in attempting to save his soul. (He was born into the Oligarchy--another reason they hate him--rather like the rich elite here hated FDR for "betraying his class").

However, I really don't think that this coup would have had any cache, or any chance of success, if Zelaya hadn't proposed converting the US air base in Honduras to a commercial airport. The Pentagon is in play here, and their use of Honduras as a "lily pod" country for their Oil War in South America. They are building five US bases in their narco-fascist client state of Colombia, to replace the one that Ecuador is kicking them out of. They've now got the US 4th Fleet roaming the Caribbean--thanks to the Bushwacks, which did that last summer, when the South Americans formalized their new "common market"--UNASUR--which includes a "common defense" (proposed by Brazil, whose president considers the 4th Fleet a threat to Brazil's oil, let alone Venezuela's). The Honduran coup is not just a matter of the Honduran "let them eat cake" Oligarchy. Their greed is merely useful to the global corporate predators who rule over us in the US.

I do think that our Oiligarchs worry about the precedent being set, with the overwhelmingly successful, leftist democracy movement that has swept South America, and, recently, Central America. Transparent elections (which we don't have even a semblance of), hard work on all democratic institutions over the last decades, grass roots social movements, indigenous and environmental movements, labor organizing, community networking to get around corpo/fascist control of the media, better historical understanding (than our people have)--these and other elements have resulted in the election of social justice governments in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay (Paraguay!), Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala. There is also a huge social justice movement in Mexico which almost won the last election (probably a stolen election--the left lost by a hair). This is not good for our Corporate Rulers. They've poured trillions of dollars into convincing us that the political discussion should be about just how big a "bailout" their banksters should get from our great grandchildren, and whether or not "waterboarding" is torture, or whether or not to nuke Iran. They greatly fear a social justice revolution here. That is another reason for the Honduran coup--to try to turn back the leftist tide that is lapping at our shores.

So there has been a convergence of fascist interests, to overthrow democracy in Honduras, but I think the Pentagon is the driver--for sheer war profiteer purposes (the Latin American left is rejecting the US "war on drugs"--a lot of war profiteer booty at risk), but primarily to further their secret plans to regain control of the major oil reserves in Venezuela and other countries.

[Billy Burnett]

3. The American fascists dreamed (and planned) of a coup against FDR.

The Honduras operation was a modern upgrade and smaller scale of the planned military/court usurping of the US presidency against FDR and his social policy.


http://aftermathnews.wordpress.com/2007/07/25/bbc-bushs-grandfather-planned-fascist-coup-in-america/


Same dark forces at work, different day.