PROGRESO WEEKLY: "An Unforgivable Crime"

[magbana]

PROGRESO WEEKLY
An unforgivable crime

Wednesday, 22 July 2009 11:27

http://tinyurl.com/l8qgux

By Gustavo J. Fuchs A.

The past several weeks have been crucial for Latin America. The coup d'état that occurred in Honduras has left the entire continent -- especially the isthmus -- awaiting a swift solution. Meanwhile, the demonstrations of the heroic Honduran people continue on the streets, as they demand that the democratically made election of Manuel Zelaya as President of the Republic be respected.

Since the first day of the coup, the images on CNN and the comments of its "analysts" sought to legitimize the Army's brutality. The following day, CNN was imitated by the majority -- if not the totality -- of the commercial media, all of whom are members of the Inter-American Press Association. The argument about the constitutionality of President Zelaya's actions came to the fore and spread faster than swine flu. Now, the coup-plotters' version of events -- in which Hugo Chávez embodies a Latin American Hitler -- is spreading with the same speed and senselessness.

As President Zelaya well explained it, according to the doctrinaire principles of international law, human rights can only be expanded, not restricted. On the basis of this assumption, the call to a Fourth Ballot Box expands human rights (in this case, the political rights, which are part of human rights), which rise above the Constitution. Any serious jurist would come to the same conclusion.

The law has evolved from this fact, not from positivist stances like those defended by the putschists. If we took the position of the de-facto government -- in its erroneous justification -- we would go back in time; we'd probably continue to live in monarchies and feudal states that took advantage of a spurious legality. From the French Revolution to the workers' revolutions in Europe in 1868, human rights have been won and expanded by means of social struggle, often bloody.

Now we turn to the Honduran stage, a nation where more than half its people live in poverty and must work under subhuman conditions. This people, oppressed by a small oligarchy that concentrates the nation's wealth, decided to take one step forward and demand a new Constitution, one that represents its common interests, not the stale Magna Carta that it inherited, written for a society that no longer exists.

That new Constitution, in concordance with today's reality in Honduras, probably would have meant the end of the Palmerola (Soto Cano) Military Base, the main center of operations of the U.S. Army in Latin America. For a long time, President Zelaya had proposed turning the military base into an international airport. In like manner -- through a Constituent referendum -- the people of Ecuador decided to expel from their land the Manta Base operated by the U.S. Army.

In the face of such facts -- zealously concealed by the international media, which contend that the coup was triggered by the Fourth Ballot Box and its alleged illegality -- the new target of distraction is Hugo Chávez, the embodiment of the Devil on earth. The Santa Fe Document, which molded U.S. foreign policy, made clear that "the need to accumulate our defenses against the overwhelming threat that Stalinism represented for Western civilization ordered things with greater ease." That's one reason why every possible effort has been made to demonize the Venezuelan president, a new threat that helps "order" things "with greater ease."

Chávez has boldly threatened the coup-plotters, with every reason and protected by international law. Manuel Zelaya's great sin has been to join the ALBA, a sovereign decision that any government may make. Analysts like Andrés Oppenheimer have legitimized the coup and even have tried to justify, in advance, possible similar scenarios in Bolivia, Venezuela, Nicaragua or Ecuador, i.e., the ALBA nations.

Latin America continues to be the most unequal continent on the planet. No matter how many economic successes the Latin American ensemble achieves, the redistribution of wealth is not linked to the generation of wealth -- contrary to what the continent's elites preach -- and this fact has been demonstrated on a number of occasions. Manuel Zelaya's atrocious crime was to ask the people if it wanted a new Constitution. The argument wielded by the media -- that Zelaya sought reelection -- is absolutely false. How could Zelaya be reelected when the Fourth Ballot Box was going to be brought up in the presidential elections, when the current Constitution still applied?

The arrogance and injustice with which the media have manipulated, throughout this episode, the events that led to the coup d'état and its possible consequences constitute an unforgivable crime. It is an unforgivable crime to condemn the

Honduran people to respect an obsolete Constitution that is far removed from the contemporary reality of the Central American nation, as President Arias is trying to do.

More serious still, it is an insult to human intelligence to try to validate the coup -- with everything that entails -- by using the rotten argument of "the Chavist threat," the same argument used in our country during the referendum, and the same argument used whenever all ideas have run out and there's a need to make a consensus out of fear.

Gustavo Fuchs writes from Costa Rica and studied international relations. He is a member of the Frente Amplio.

[Downwinder]

1. And they wonder why they are going broke?

because they are bankrupt, morally and ethically, and soon economically.

[Peace Patriot]

2. The coupsters accusations against Zelaya dissolved into nothingness the moment they

had the military shoot up his home, drag him from his bed, arrest him at gunpoint and spirit him out of the country in a plane with blackened windows, declared martial law, suspended all Constitutional civil rights and shut down the media.

If their accusations had any substance at all--and I cannot fathom what the substance is that they allege (--proposing an advisory vote on constitutional reform?!)--surely they could have brought charges against him in an orderly, lawful fashions, in an impeachment proceeding or court, and since the they control all institutions in Honduras including the courts, they might have gotten a favorable verdict, not on the merits, but by corrupt means. But in that case, Zeyala would have had some chance to speak and defend his actions, I presume. They would have risked exposure of their cooked up case against him. And one can only conclude that their actions speak louder than their words. They don't have a leg to stand on, in indicting him. They did a violent rightwing military coup instead.

So much for their devotion to the Constitution! So much for their charges against Zelaya! It was and is all bullshit--now touted by our corpo/fascist media in din of unreality.

[Downwinder]

3. But, they did unite the population behind him.