Tag: Manual Zelaya

Jan 25 2010

Honduras: Remember That Coup?

You know.  The one where agents of Roberto Micheletti seized duly elected President Manual Zelaya at gun point, put him on a plane in his pajamas, and flew him out of the country in June, 2009?  Remember that?  Remember how most countries, except the US, refused to accept the November, 2009 Honduran presidential election because the coup remained in power and Zelaya hadn’t been restored to his office on election day?  Remember how after the election the US Government told us that was no big deal, that it would recognize the new Porfirio Lobo government anyway, and we should all move on, there was nothing to see?  Have we forgotten all of that?  Have we forgotten that Manual Zelaya found refuge in the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa in September, 2009, and that he’s still there, still confined in the embassy?

Porfirio Lobo is supposed to be sworn in as President of Honduras on Wednesday, January 27.  And today’s news, which you probably wouldn’t otherwise have heard about, is about the failure of democracy in Honduras:

Ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya has accepted a deal to go to the Dominican Republic this week when his four-year term ends and his predecessor is sworn in, his top political adviser said.

Zelaya said that he will return “when there is a process of reconciliation”.

The ousted president said he can leave as an ordinary citizen on the 27th, leaving the Brazilian embassy where he has been in refuge since last September when he returned to Honduras….snip

Except for the United States, most of the other nations refuse to recognize the November elections as legitimate because the balloting took place under the regime of the puchistas, coup d’etat government.

Costa Rican president, Oscar Arias, …said he would not attend the Lobo swearing in ceremony on the 27th.

source.

So it’s over.  The golpe goes unavenged.  Democracy in this hemisphere is at its most perilous because a coup might not be fought.  And, of course, the right wing in the US continues to scream that despite the US’s complete betrayal of Manual Zelaya, the US is being too cozy with Hugo Chavez and events in Honduras somehow prove it.

If there was a “teachable moment” before or after the Honduras golpe de estado, about democracy in this hemisphere and the U.S.’s relationship to it, we’ve apparently forgotten what it might have been.  2010 in Honduras is looking a lot like 1910.

Updated: 1/26/10, 9:39 am ET: An answer to questions about who will attend the inauguration of Lobo:

Though Lobo, of the National Party, won the elections by a wide margin over the Liberal Party’s Elvin Santos, several countries refused to recognize the election results. Argentina, Brazil, and Spain opposed the vote, although Spain indicated it may recognize Lobo in the near-term. None of ALBA member countries – Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines-has recognized Lobo’s election, culminating in Honduras’s withdrawal from the trade bloc last week.

The United States, Colombia, Peru, Panama, and Taiwan were among the countries that recognized the election results. But, as The Economist points out, only the Panamanian and Taiwanese presidents will attend Lobo’s inauguration. Washington plans to send an envoy as well. Though Costa Rica recognized the election results, President Óscar Arias-who served as a central mediator in the political crisis-announced he will not attend the inauguration, stating that Micheletti’s refusal to resign before the power transfer constitutes a breach of power.

 

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simulposted at The Dream Antilles

Dec 05 2009

Honduras: Where’s The Unity Government And The Truth Commission?

An election has been held in Honduras.  The new, conservative, pro-golpista President will be sworn in in January.  Manual Zelaya, the rightfully elected president remains stuck in asylum in the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa.  His term ends in January.  Roberto Micheletti, the golpista usurper, remains ensconced in the presidency.  The Honduran Congress and Supreme Court, two golpe supporting institutions, have to no one’s surprise refused to re-instate Manual Zelaya in his elected presidency.  The US, Costa Rica, and a few other countries have recognized the results of the election.  Brazil, Venezuela, and Argentina won’t.  The OAS won’t.

Given these apparently intractable circumstances and the desire to restore democracy in Honduras, The New York Times in an editorial has proposed what I consider to be a reasonable solution, one that both Honduras and the US should adopt.

Please make the jump.

Nov 29 2009

Honduras: Same As It Ever Was

Today there are presidential elections in Honduras.  The US says that it doesn’t matter that the golpista government of Roberto Micheletti is still in control despite international condemnation, that Manual Zelaya, the democratically elected president, is still stuck in asylum in the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa, and that Brazil and Venezuela have announced that they will not recognize today’s election results.  Nor does it matter that the US originally denounced the coup, cut off non-military aid, and demanded the immediate reinstatement of Zelaya.  All of that, amigos, is stuff you’re supposed to forget about.  Just forget it.  Yeah, after today, democracy will be magically restored in Honduras via an election.  And we’re back to the same old same old.  The power of El Norte continues, the maquiladoras make Fruit of the Loom for export, the bananas are back on the shelves, and the military puts its boot on the throat of anyone in Honduras who complains about the lack of democracy.  It’s 1910 all over again.

The AP reports:

A new Honduran president chosen Sunday faces the challenge of defending his legitimacy to the world and to his own people, who are bitterly divided by Central America’s first coup in more than 20 years.

Porfirio Lobo and Elvin Santos, two prosperous businessmen from the political old guard [both of whom support the golpistas], are the front-runners. But their campaigns have been overshadowed by the debate over whether Hondurans should cast ballots at all in a vote largely shunned by international monitors.

Manuel Zelaya, the left-leaning president ousted in a June 28 coup, is urging a boycott, hoping overwhelming abstention will discredit the election. As polls opened Sunday, he vowed the United States would regret its decision to support the vote.

“Abstention will defeat the dictatorship,” Zelaya told Radio Globo from the Brazilian Embassy, where he took refuge after sneaking back into the country from his forced exile Sept. 21. “The elections will be a failure. the United States will have to rectify its ambiguous position about the coup.”

The US’s “ambiguous position about the coup” isn’t all that ambiguous. Especially in historical context.  The US has said explicitly it will support the government elected in this election. Period. It just doesn’t matter to the US government that is imposing democracy in Iraq, Afghanistan, and who knows where else, that there be actual democracy in its own hemisphere.  That would require the restoration of Manual Zelaya and an election supervised internationally.  Instead, we have an election supervised by the golpistas and their military.  One can only wonder why US warships have not arrived off shore to preserve order and democracy.

The word from the streets isn’t ambiguous at all:

“The best thing for this country is not to vote, to show the world, the United States, which stabbed us in the back and betrayed us,” said Edwin Espinal, whose 24-year-old wife, Wendy, died of from asthma complications a day after soldiers hurled tear gas to disperse protesters demanding Zelaya’s return.

There is, of course, the expected golpistas’ repression.  Narconews reports:

The free speech necessary to guarantee free elections is not the message being transmitted to the resistance front. Intimidation, torture, illegal detentions and in extreme cases assassinations are being carried out to prevent mass mobilizations on Election Day. The National Front Against the Coup D’état has encouraged all week a ‘popular curfew’ on Election Day to prevent clashes with the opposition. The Center for the Investigation and Promotion of Human Rights in Honduras (CIPRODEH), has documented aggression directly from the police and the military towards nearly all human rights groups working in Honduras.

And now, hypnotically, the promise that the US under Obama would have a new relationship with Latin America, one in which democracy would be fostered and coups would be discouraged, one in which the oligarchies would not be permitted to exploit and repress poor people, one in which popular leaders could be elected even if they disagreed with El Norte and not be the immediate objects of golpes de estado,  those promises will be forgotten.  They will be erased from your memories.  And life as we knew it in 1910 will resume.

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simulposted at The Dream Antilles

Oct 30 2009

Honduras: A Deal Is Made?

After months of repression by the golpistas in Honduras and resistance and demonstrations by pro-democracy forces, it appears that there’s finally been a deal to restore the rightful president Manual Zelaya to power for the last few months of his presidential term.  If that happens, the crisis in Honduras is over.

The New York Times says there’s a deal in its headline.  The details aren’t quite as firm:

A lingering political crisis in Honduras seemed to be nearing an end on Friday after the de facto government agreed to a deal, pending legislative approval, that would allow Manuel Zelaya, the deposed president, to return to office.

The government of Roberto Micheletti, which had refused to let Mr. Zelaya return, signed an agreement with Mr. Zelaya’s negotiators late Thursday that would pave the way for the Honduran Congress to restore the ousted president and allow him to serve out the remaining three months of his term. If Congress agrees, control of the army would shift to the electoral court, and the presidential election set for Nov. 29 would be recognized by both sides.

On Friday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called the deal “an historic agreement.”

“I cannot think of another example of a country in Latin America that, having suffered a rupture of its democratic and constitutional order, overcame such a crisis through negotiation and dialogue,” Mrs. Clinton said in Islamabad, where she has been meeting with Pakistani officials.

The deal, however, hasn’t been inked yet.  There are details to be worked out between the golpistas and Zelaya, and of course, the Honduras Congress has to approve the pact:

Negotiators for both men were expected to meet Friday to work out final details. It was not clear what would happen if the Honduran Congress rejected the deal.

Passage could mean a bookend to months of international pressure and political turmoil in Honduras, where regular marches by Mr. Zelaya’s supporters and curfews have paralyzed the capital.

This is the most hopeful news since the June coup d’etat in Nicaragua.  I’m cautiously optimistic that democracy will now be restored in Honduras.

Oct 25 2009

Honduras: A Sign That The Coup Has Won

I know, I know.  I’m hypersensitive, I’ve lost my sense of humor, I’m out of touch with common reality. I’m making mountains out of mole hills.  And I sound angry.

All of that about me might be so, but today’s Washington Post article about Honduras seems to me to be a sign that the coup has won, as far as the Trad Media are concerned, and that deserves at least brief mention here.  Put another way, I don’t think you’re going to read more about Honduras in the Trad Media until the end of November when the presidential election is held there.

Join me in Tegucigalpa.

Oct 23 2009

Honduras: The Golpistas Raise Their Middle Finger

The news of an impending resolution to Honduras’s coup was hopeful, but apparently too good to be true.  Today it’s clear that nothing has been decided, that rightful, democratically elected President Manual Zelaya is still stuck in the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa, and that the negotiations to resolve the crisis are now totally dead.  This should not be a big surprise to anyone.

The New York Times reports:

Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya pulled out of talks with the country’s post-coup de facto leaders on Friday, throwing efforts to resolve a months-long political crisis back to square one.

Zelaya pulled his representatives out of meetings with envoys of de facto leader Roberto Micheletti that were the latest in a series of attempts to resolve the political deadlock sparked by a June 28 military coup.

“As of now we see this phase as finished,” Zelaya envoy Mayra Mejia said shortly after midnight (7 a.m. British time) at the hotel where both sides have been negotiating for three weeks.

All attempts to reach a deal have snagged over whether Zelaya can return to power for the last few months of his term, which ends in January.

“Post-coup de facto leaders” is an interesting turn of phrase.  I prefer “golpistas.”  Or if you prefer, “leaders of the coup d’etat.”  But the bottom line is that no matter what you call Roberto Micheletti and his friends in the oligarchy, their coup continues despite virtually universal condemnation.  And it only has to continue, as far as the golpistas are concerned, until November 29, 2009, the present date for elections of a new president.  That date is right around the corner.  The golpistas have no intention, none whatsoever of restoring Manual Zelaya to his rightful presidency.  That is the one, single thing they will not permit.  And, unfortunately, that’s the one single step the rest of the world believes is an essential first step to end the crisis.

This is what is called a deadlock.

The rest of the world may insist on restoration of Zelaya to the presidency as an initial step, and it may insist as well that the coup’s running the national election in November undermines the legitimacy of the “democratic election.”  But the golpistas don’t see it that way.  At all.  To them, surviving all the diplomatic initiatives and the sternly worded verbal condemnations and the impounding of funds until there’s an election is the goal.  They’ll happily argue about the legitimacy of the election after its been held.  And nothing is going to budge them from their present stranglehold on Honduras’s government or move them to restore Manual Zelaya to the presidency.

The golpistas would rather clamp down on the demonstrators than move their position toward a possible resolution.  This is what one should expect of them.  The burden of the unrest, and especially the present damage to the Honduras economy fall on the poorest people in Honduras.  These are not the golpistas.  They are quite powerless to resist the military government and the US equipped and trained army.

And what of the US and it’s recently announced “better relations” with Latin America?

The deadlock in Honduras is proving a challenge for U.S. President Barack Obama after he vowed better relations with Latin America. Washington suspended the visas of more figures in the de facto government this week to pressure a settlement.

“The two sides need to seal this deal now. Time is running out,” U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said on Friday. “We have not given up on a deal yet … We are focussed on these guys sitting down and agreeing,” he said.

This is nice.  There is no deal to seal.  There is no agreement.  And now there are no talks.  Put another way, US insistence on an agreement is and continues to be an utter non starter.  Similarly, negotiations brokered by Oscar Arias.  Similarly, the impounding of non-essential US aid to Honduras.  The golpistas have raised their middle finger and most observers are making believe it’s to tell which way the wind is blowing.

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simulposted at The Dream Antilles

Oct 04 2009

Honduras: Finally Talking About Talking

Today is Sunday. Democratically elected, legal President Manual Zelaya of Honduras remains in sanctuary in the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa. And the military golpistas remain in control of the Government.  But today there is the tentative news of a beginning of negotiations finally to end the coup. The end of the crisis and the restoration of normalcy can’t come soon enough for the people of Honduras.

Join me in Tegucigalpa.  

Sep 29 2009

Honduras In State Of Siege While US Blathers That Zelaya’s “Foolish”

Lest anyone think that the US had suddenly reversed centuries of supporting and/or creating rightwing, military coups all across Latin America and was going to stand firm in support of restoring democracy in Honduras, today the US sent unmistakable signs that it wasn’t changing anything.  It was sticking with historical tradition. The US today lashed out at Manual Zelaya for returning to the country of which he is the legitimate president.

Join me in Tegucigalpa.

 

Sep 27 2009

Honduras: A Stand Off (Breaking News Update)

You will recall that the legitimate president of Honduras Manual Zelaya evaded the golpistas who wanted to arrest him and secretly returned to Honduras, where he found refuge in the Brazilian embassy.  First, there was this essay; then this. Zelaya’s still there. And this is an update on the present stand off.

Please join me in Tegucigalpa.

Sep 24 2009

Honduras: The Crisis Continues

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Manual Zelaya In The Brazilian Embassy, Tegucigalpa

The two sides aren’t talking to each other in Honduras, even though they are just miles from each other.  The golpistas use the military to repress the people on the streets and to continue the curfews.  The real president of Honduras has asylum in the Brazilian embassy.

Join me in Tegucigalpa.

Sep 22 2009

Honduras: Zelaya Returns, Micheletti Unleashes Repression

Deposed, legitimate president Manual Zelaya of Honduras returned to his country and took shelter in the Brazilian Embassy, where he remains.  Thousands of Hondurans rushed into the streets to support his return.  And now, the golpistas have unleashed the expected repression.

Please join me on the streets of Tegucigalpa.  

Jul 05 2009

Honduras: The Oligarchy Strikes Back

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A major confrontation approaches.  Or does it?  The New York Times breathlessly reports the drama in the air:

Honduras’ exiled president took off for home in a Venezuelan jet in a high-stakes attempt to return to power, even as the interim government told its military to turn away the plane.

Zelaya won wide international support after his ouster a week ago by the military, but the only prominent escort aboard his plane was the U.N. General Assembly president after Latin American leaders backed out, citing security concerns. Honduras’ civil aviation director said Zelaya’s plane was being redirected to El Salvador.

Several other planes carrying Latin American presidents, the secretary-general of the Organization of American States and journalists were leaving Washington separately, trailing Zelaya to see what happens in the skies over Honduras before deciding where to land.

Presumably, the Latin American presidents won’t land in Honduras if Zelaya’s plane is diverted to San Salvador.

And, of course, there’s a corresponding drama on the ground:

Thousands of protesters descended on the airport in the Honduran capital in anticipation of the showdown. Police helicopters hovered overhead. Commercial flights were canceled, and outside the airport about 200 soldiers with riot shields formed a line in front of the protesters.

”The government of President (Roberto) Micheletti has ordered the armed forces and the police not to allow the entrance of any plane bringing the former leader,” the foreign minister of the interim government, Enrique Ortez, told The Associated Press on Sunday.

So much for the golpista’s threat that Manual Zelaya, the deposed president, would be arrested if he set foot on Hondruan soil. Evidently, the golpistas have decided that they have a tight hold on the country, and they fear the consequences of attempting to arrest Zelaya on Honduran soil.  Their tactic is simple: the golpistas control the air force and the airport.  They will keep Zelaya from returning.  The demonstrators will see nothing.

Nonetheless, thousands of demonstrators are making their way to the airport:

Zelaya has urged loyalists to support his arrival in Honduras in a peaceful show of force.

”We are going to show up at the Honduras International Airport in Tegucigalpa … and on Sunday we will be in Tegucigalpa,” Zelaya said Saturday in the taped statement carried on the Web sites of the Telesur and Cubadebate media outlets. ”Practice what I have always preached, which is nonviolence.”

Zelaya supporters said they got the message as they converged on the airport.

”We have no pistols or arms, just our principles,” organizer Rafael Alegria said. ”We have the legitimate right to fight for the defense of democracy and to restore President Zelaya.”

And so, we wait.  And we watch. The odds, I think, are that Manual Zelaya’s plane will be turned away from Honduras, that the golpistas will continue to thumb their noses at the OAS, and that the question of appropriate sanctions, including the removal of ambassadors and the permanent cutting off of aid, will be the next topic of discussion.

The coup has to go.  Democracy has to be restored in Honduras.  I’m waiting to see exactly how committed the US and Canada are to those propositions.

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cross-posted from The Dream Antilles

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