U.S. owes Zelaya stronger backing

[Judi Lynn]

U.S. owes Zelaya stronger backing
By Luis Martin-Cabrera
2:00 a.m. September 4, 2009

On June 28, officers of the Honduran army stormed the house of the democratically elected president, Manuel Zelaya. Zelaya was kidnapped and sent to exile in Costa Rica. Roberto Micheletti, a former president of the congress and a member of Zelaya's own Liberal Party, was subsequently named “interim president.”

Since then, several media outlets have repeated the rationale that the perpetrators provide to justify their actions: Zelaya, they say, wanted to modify the constitution illegally in order to keep himself in power.

Fortunately, few in Latin America accept the lies fabricated by the new Micheletti government after the coup. From the Caribbean to the Southern Cone, Latin American presidents quickly condemned the coup d'etat and demanded the immediate return of President Zelaya to Honduras. Given the infamous long list of U.S.-backed military interventions in the region — Guatemala (1954, 1963 and 1983), Dominican Republic (1962 and 1965), Chile (1973), El Salvador (1980), etc. — there is, not surprisingly, a very low threshold of tolerance for political authoritarianism in the region. In Honduras itself, we must not forget, there was a U.S.-backed coup in 1963 that paved the way for the establishment of a series of military regimes that lasted until the 1980's.

Yet if this history is present in the minds of most Latin Americans, it is not due to the kindness of their politicians. It is rather thanks to the relentless pressure of political activists and human rights organizations. In such places as Guatemala, Argentina, Brazil and Chile, these grassroots groups have forced the new democratic governments to try those responsible for human rights violations and have insisted on preserving historical memory.

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