Once Again South America Comes to Washington's Rescue

[Judi Lynn]

Once Again South America Comes to Washington's Rescue
Honduran Coup Over?
By GREG GRANDIN

Bloomberg is reporting that Honduran coup leader, Roberto Micheletti has accepted the Arias plan, which means -- if true -- that Manuel Zelaya will be, with conditions, as president. Though Micheletti is still begging for time, saying he needs Arias’s help in convincing his co-coup leaders to agree.

The terms are unclear about what is covered in the Arias’ amnesty, but it is doubtful there will be any investigation or prosecution of the human-rights violations that have taken place, including nine, perhaps ten murders, all against Zelaya supporters, over the last month.

The very fact that there are conditions on Zelaya’s return, and that there were negotiations, granted legitimacy to the coup leaders. But, and this is a big but, the very fact of Zelaya’s return is important for three reasons:

1. The momentum building in Honduras could continue, including an emerging alliance between the traditional, organized left (unions, peasant organizations, politicians), new social movements, real democrats, and the long-suppressed reformist wing of the liberal part (of course, it could fizzle out; if this new alliance put its energies into backing a presidential candidate in the coming elections, which are presumably advanced from November to take place in October, and that candidate lost, it could effectively end any energy (but right now, social movements are saying that no matter what the Arias accords say, they plan to still push the idea of a constitutional amendment). .

2. Potential coup plotters in neighboring Guatemala, and possibly El Salvador, must be discouraged. They were hoping Honduras might offer a model to follow, what with peasants on the march in Guatemala (protesting, among other things, transnational mining and biofuels) and a center-left president in office who refuses to repress them, and the FMLN in power in El Salvador. If Zelaya returns, this is a set back for them.

3. Perhaps most important on an international level, it delays the maturation of the budding alliance between neoliberals like Lanny Davis (who stands in for the broader Clinton camp) and neo-cons like Reich and Roger Noriega, who have developed close ties with Colombia, Venezuelan self-exiles, and displaced neoliberals from Bolivia. It also strengthens the relatively more sane tendency within the Obama foreign-policy coalition. One underreported aspect of the coup is that Nike, Adidas, Gap, and Knights Apparel lobbied Washington to restore Zelaya. They have maquilas in San Pedro Sula and were afraid of further labor unrest, which I guess is what passes these days for the modernizing bourgeoisie…

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/grandin07302009.html

[Peace Patriot]

1. Hm-m-m. It may be a set-back for the DLC/Bushwhack oil war--and a victory

for the combined clout of the leftist leadership of Latin America, and a boost to the democratic forces in Honduras--but other war assets are still being put into place, or being kept in place, including five new US military bases in Colombia--one of the worst human rights violators on earth--$6 BILLION in military funding to Colombia, retention of Bushwhack war planners like 'Ambassador' Brownfield in Colombia and other countries (including Honduras), continued funding of far rightwing groups and coup plotters throughout Latin America, through USAID and other budgets (including John McCain's US taxpayer-funded "International Republican Institute"--$43 million to rightwing groups in Honduras alone), the continued reconstitution of the US 4th Fleet in the Caribbean (Venezuela's biggest oil reserves are located on its Caribbean coast--adjacent to Colombia--in provinces with rightwing politicians who openly talk of secession*), and the continued and intensifying "Big Lie" campaign against Chavez and also against Rafael Correa, president of Ecuador. (Ecuador's main oil supplies are also adjacent to Colombia, to the south, and are also in provinces with secessionist coup plotters. Venezuela and Ecuador are the chief targets of this war.)

The Arias deal leaves Honduras as an asset in this planned war. Honduras doesn't have oil, but it does have strategic location. The US base in Honduras, already sizeable, will probably be beefed up now (and Zelaya's proposal to convert it to a commercial airport scotched). 'Training' of Honduran officers at the "School of the Americas" will continue. US funding of the Honduran military will continue. The power of the fascist head of the Honduran military (Vazquez) will continue, and the democratic forces within the military will more than likely suffer a set-back. Zelaya fired Vazquez (who serves the US, multinational corporations and the rich elite)--and then the Supreme Court (so like our own corrupt 'justices') overruled Zelaya's civilian authority and reinstated him. This is how things are likely to go for Zelaya. He may regain the title of president, but he won't really be the president.

And how is the left going to mount presidential and other campaigns for October--which would have already been hard enough in November--given the over 1,000 political prisoners in jail (no doubt most of them the political activists who would be running campaigns), some activists already dead, and some in hiding; the shutdown of the media for over a month (when will that be lifted?), martial law (when will that be lifted?), and--perhaps worst of all--this infusion of millions of dollars to rightwing groups through McCain's "institute" and other US taxpayer funds. The leftists in Honduras are mostly very poor. They could barely afford bus rides to a protest, or buying lunch when they got there. Thousands have been beaten, threatened, harassed, the tires of their buses shot out, their homes invaded, and there are at least ten known 'disappeareds.' (Vanished in the night; tortured, killed and some bodies tossed by the wayside as a lesson to all.) This is NOT an atmosphere in which a fair election can take place. And it cannot be remedied in two months! International election monitors cannot guarantee a fair election in Honduras, with only two months prep time, and without being given the power (and protection) to actually run the election. The "ten families" who run Honduras as their private fiefdom will have control of all of the levers of government. We must remember that Zeyala was elected as a conservative. He "betrayed his class" and became an advocate for the poor majority (rather like our own FDR). It is very unlikely that these "ten families" will allow a real representative of the people to be elected president (or to any office). They will steal elections to retain their power. They are as audacious as Bushwhacks. But they may not even have to stuff ballot boxes, since they have all the money and control of the media, the courts and the military.

I think Vazquez is positioning himself to 'run' in this highly dubious election. He is in cahoots with Latin America's 'Donald Rumsfeld'--Defense Minister Santos in Colombia, who has announced that he is 'running' for president (in a country where, if you vote the wrong way, you can get a bullet through the head).

The upshot of all this will be that the US keeps its war asset--Honduras--and possibly worse repression than we have already seen, in the 'guise' of democracy--'democracy' like they have in Colombia, in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Not democracy at all. Merely its ghost.

I think democracy will ultimately win out, in Honduras. I have great faith in the social movements and other forces who have elected leftist governments in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala--against great odds, against bottomless troughs of US tax dollars and non-stop US psyops, against corpo/fascist 'news' monopolies that are even worse than our own, and against the money and power of US-based and other multinational corporate monsters. It has been an amazing thing to behold--the most heartening political development in the world--and it is especially relevant and important that these countries are now sticking together, and in fact turned back a Bushwhack-instigated white separatist coup in Bolivia this last September (--and God knows how many other such plots) through cooperative action. But I think it will be particularly difficult in Honduras, a vassal of the Pentagon, strategically located in the middle of it all, with a long coast on the Caribbean, access to the Pacific, and a long history of being used as a launching pad for death squads in other countries. It is an essential asset in the planned war against Venezuela and Ecuador, and the war planners don't want the sovereign people of Honduras to be in control of their own country. They have damn few assets for this war. They will not tolerate losing one.

They will lose the war, though.