Honduras: Obama Cozies Up To The Golpistas

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Faked me out, he did.  Faked me out of my socks.  You remember how the Obama Administration was going to blaze a new path, a pro-democracy path in Central America, how it was going to insist on the restoration of democracy in Honduras and the re-seating of Manual Zelaya, the democratically elected president who was deposed in a coup at the end of June?  I do, maybe you do, too, but ut oh! ut oh! ut oh!

US policy toward Honduras today slipped right back to the same old, same old, support for the oligarchy, support for the “friendly” golpistas, support for anti-democracy forces, and an enormous raised middle digit to the OAS and the UN and the rest of this Hemisphere.

No, the US did not restore the name of the School of Americas.  That would be too symbolic, too opaque a raised middle digit.  No, the US made a much larger gesture: it just sold out democracy in Honduras.

Join me in Tegucigalpa.  

The New York Times lays it out:

Under fire from allies in Latin America and on Capitol Hill, the Obama administration moved Tuesday to try to salvage the American-brokered agreement that had been billed as paving the way for a peaceful end to the coup in Honduras.  Instead, the accord seems to have provided the country’s de facto government with a way to stay in power until a presidential election scheduled for the end of this month.

The State Department sent Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Craig Kelly to Honduras on Tuesday for meetings with Manuel Zelaya, who was ousted from power as president more than four months ago, and with the head of the de facto government, Roberto Micheletti.

Senior administration officials said Mr. Kelly would try to get both men to abide by the terms of an Oct. 30 agreement that called on them to form a coalition government to run the country while the Honduran Congress prepares for a vote on whether to return Mr. Zelaya to power.

The deal began to unravel last week when the Congress announced it would postpone a vote on Mr. Zelaya’s return to power until after the election. In protest, Mr. Zelaya then refused to submit names for the coalition government. And the United States, breaking with its allies in Latin America, announced it would recognize the results of the coming presidential election, even if Mr. Zelaya were not reinstated.

Republicans, like Jim DeMint, who were pro golpista, pro oligarcy, anti-Communist, anti-Chavez, and not coincidentally anti-democratic are of course absolutely elated.  I’m sure you’ll recall the taxpayer funded trip by Republican Senators who flew to Teguigalpa to support the golpe and thumb their noses at democracy talk to Roberto Micheletti last month.  It was Micheletti, you will recall, who engineered the coup and who is now occupying the presidency by force.  But there’s a storm of criticism from the OAS, from Honduras’s neighbors, from the UN, from Brazil, from countries who supported democracy and opposed the coup.

Pardon me, but I saw this coming.

You’ll recall how the US immediately stopped all non-humanitarian aid to Honduras while it studied whether there had been a coup, requiring a cut off of aid.  That study has not been completed after 4 months.  When the military seizes the elected president in his bed, puts him on a plane in his pajamas, deports him to another country, and refuses to readmit him to his own country, you’d think that might be a coup.  But not in DC.  This has to be studied.  Deeply studied.  Studied until the US finds a way ultimately to support the golpistas.  That way is to recognize the election held during the coup and argue that the coup is now moot.

And so they now have it.  How to “support” democracy and simultaneously support the golpe de estado.  

Look at these reactions to this US nonsense:

On Tuesday, the secretary general of the Organization of American States, José Miguel Insulza, said that he would not send observers to monitor the presidential election, scheduled for Nov. 29. And many of the organization’s 34 members said they would not recognize the election winner unless Mr. Zelaya was reinstated to complete his term.

“Paraguay is not only not going to accept the outcome of the elections, it will not even accept that the elections are held,” said Hugo Saguier Caballero, Paraguay’s ambassador to the O.A.S. “These elections for us simply will not exist.”

Ruy de Lima Casaes e Silva, Brazil’s ambassador to the organization, said the situation in Honduras seemed like a “badly written soap opera, with sinister characters played by the de facto regime, which history will judge.”

The Obama administration’s representative to the O.A.S., W. Lewis Amselem, said that the agreement signed in Honduras two weeks ago did not guarantee Mr. Zelaya’s reinstatement, but put that decision in the hands of the Honduran Congress.

Oh the Obama Administration is so very cagey. Or it might be if we hadn’t been paying any attention. The initial position of the US was that Manual Zelaya, the rightful president, had to be restored to power and that was a pre-condition to recognizing the results of the election.  Period.  That supposedly remained the Administration’s position, until it negotiated a deal, which was so full of holes that initially it looked like it might resolve the crisis, but on greater analysis it was revealed as just a joke. The deal had to be approved by Congress, which was not then in session and wouldn’t have to be called into session.  So the deal would never be approved before the election.  The deal maybe had to be reviewed by the Supreme Court, which is filled with golpista sympathizers.  That’s being tough with the golpistas, isn’t it?   Micheletti must have been laughing.

I am extremely dismayed.  I am wondering this evening why I believed that the US would really embark on a new relationship with the rest of this hemisphere.  I should have known better.  If the US recognizes the Honduras election while the coup is in power, the US will have once again made it clear that south of the Rio Grande it supports coups friendly to it and that it talks democracy but when push comes to shove, it just doesn’t walk the walk.