[News] The Coup in Honduras - Obama's Real Message to Latin America?

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://www.counterpunch.org/kozloff06292009.html
June 29, 2009


Obama's Real Message to Latin America?


The Coup in Honduras

By NIKOLAS KOZLOFF

Could the diplomatic thaw between Venezuela and 
the United States be coming to an abrupt end?  At 
the recent Summit of the Americas held in Port of 
Spain, Barack Obama shook Venezuelan President 
Hugo Chávez’s hand and declared that he would 
pursue a less arrogant foreign policy towards 
Latin America.  Building on that good will, 
Venezuela and the United States agreed to restore 
their ambassadors late last week. Such diplomatic 
overtures provided a stark contrast to the 
miserable state of relations during the Bush 
years: just nine months ago Venezuela expelled 
the U.S. envoy in a diplomatic tussle.  At the 
time, Chávez said he kicked the U.S. ambassador 
out to demonstrate solidarity with left ally 
Bolivia, which had also expelled a top American 
diplomat after accusing him of blatant political 
interference in the Andean nation’s internal affairs.

Whatever goodwill existed last week however could 
now be undone by turbulent political events in 
Honduras.  Following the military coup d’etat 
there on Sunday, Chávez accused the U.S. of 
helping to orchestrate the overthrow of Honduran 
President Manuel Zelaya.  “Behind these soldiers 
are the Honduran bourgeois, the rich who 
converted Honduras into a Banana Republic, into a 
political and military base for North American 
imperialism,” Chávez thundered.  The Venezuelan 
leader urged the Honduran military to return 
Zelaya to power and even threatened military 
action against the coup regime if Venezuela’s 
ambassador was killed or local troops entered the 
Venezuelan Embassy.  Reportedly, Honduran 
soldiers beat the ambassador and left him on the 
side of a road in the course of the military 
coup.  Tensions have ratcheted up to such an 
extent that Chávez has now placed his armed forces on alert.

On the surface at least it seems unlikely that 
Obama would endorse an interventionist U.S. 
foreign policy in Central America.  Over the past 
few months he has gone to great lengths to 
“re-brand” America in the eyes of the world as a 
reasonable power engaged in respectful diplomacy 
as opposed to reckless unilateralism.  If it were 
ever proven that Obama sanctioned the overthrow 
of a democratically elected government this could 
completely undermine the U.S. President’s carefully crafted image.

Officially, the military removed Zelaya from 
power on the grounds that the Honduran President 
had abused his authority.  On Sunday Zelaya hoped 
to hold a constitutional referendum which could 
have allowed him to run for reelection for 
another four year term, a move which Honduras’ 
Supreme Court and Congress declared illegal. But 
while the controversy over Zelaya’s 
constitutional referendum certainly provided the 
excuse for military intervention, it’s no secret 
that the President was at odds politically with 
the Honduran elite for the past few years and had 
become one of Washington’s fiercest critics in the region.

The Rise of Zelaya

Zelaya, who sports a thick black mustache, cowboy 
boots and large white Stetson hat, was elected in 
late 2005.  At first blush he hardly seemed the 
type of politician to rock the boat.  A landowner 
from a wealthy landowning family engaged in the 
lumber industry, Zelaya headed the Liberal Party, 
one of the two dominant political parties in 
Honduras.  The President supported the Central 
American Free Trade Agreement which eliminated 
trade barriers with the United States.

Despite these initial conservative leanings, 
Zelaya began to criticize powerful, vested 
interests in the country such as the media and 
owners of maquiladora sweatshops which produced 
goods for export in industrial free 
zones.  Gradually he started to adopt some 
socially progressive policies.  For example, 
Zelaya instituted a 60 per cent minimum wage 
increase which angered the wealthy business 
community.  The hike in the minimum wage, Zelaya 
declared, would “force the business oligarchy to 
start paying what is fair.”  “This is a 
government of great social transformations, 
committed to the poor,” he added.  Trade unions 
celebrated the decision, not surprising given 
that Honduras is the third poorest country in the 
hemisphere and 70 per cent of its people live in 
poverty.  When private business associations 
announced that they would challenge the 
government’s wage decree in Honduras’ Supreme 
Court, Zelaya’s Labor Minister called the critics “greedy exploiters.”

In another move that must have raised eyebrows in 
Washington, Zelaya declared during a meeting of 
Latin American and Caribbean anti-drug officials 
that drug consumption should be legalized to halt 
violence related to smuggling.  In recent years 
Honduras has been plagued by drug trafficking and 
so-called maras or street gangs which carry out 
gruesome beheadings, rapes and eye 
gouging.  “Instead of pursuing drug traffickers, 
societies should invest resources in educating 
drug addicts and curbing their demand,” Zelaya 
said.  Rodolfo Zelaya, the head of a Honduran 
congressional commission on drug trafficking, 
rejected Zelaya’s comments. He told participants 
at the meeting that he was “confused and stunned 
by what the Honduran leader said.”

Zelaya and ALBA

Not content to stop there, Zelaya started to 
conduct an increasingly more independent foreign 
policy.  In late 2007 he traveled to Cuba, the 
first official trip by a Honduran president to 
the Communist island in 46 years.  There, Zelaya 
met with Raul Castro to discuss bilateral 
relations and other topics of mutual interest.

But what really led Zelaya towards a political 
collision course with the Honduran elite was his 
decision to join the Bolivarian Alternative for 
the Americas (known by its Spanish acronym ALBA), 
an alliance of leftist Latin American and 
Caribbean nations headed by Chávez.  The regional 
trade group including Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, 
Bolivia and Dominica seeks to counteract 
corporate-friendly U.S-backed free trade 
schemes.  Since its founding in 2004, ALBA 
countries have promoted joint factories and 
banks, an emergency food fund, and exchanges of 
cheap Venezuelan oil for food, housing, and educational investment.

In an emphatic departure from previous Honduran 
leaders who had been compliant vassals of the 
U.S., Zelaya stated “Honduras and the Honduran 
people do not have to ask permission of any 
imperialism to join the ALBA.”  Speaking in the 
Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa before a crowd of 
50,000 unionists, women’s groups, farmers and 
indigenous peoples, Chávez remarked that 
Venezuela would guarantee cheap oil to Honduras 
for “at least 100 years.”  By signing onto ALBA, 
Zelaya was able to secure access to credit lines, 
energy and food benefits.  As an act of good 
faith, Chávez agreed to forgive Honduran debt to 
Venezuela amounting to $30 million.

Infuriating the local elite, Chávez declared that 
Hondurans who opposed ALBA were “sellouts.”  “I 
did not come here to meddle in internal affairs,” 
he continued, “but
I cannot explain how a 
Honduran could be against Honduras joining the 
ALBA, the path of development, the path of 
integration.” Chávez lambasted the Honduran press 
which he labeled pitiyanquis (little Yanqui 
imitators) and “abject hand-lickers of the 
Yanquis.”  For his part, Zelaya said “we need no 
one’s permission to sign this commitment. Today 
we are taking a step towards becoming a 
government of the center-left, and if anyone 
dislikes this, well just remove the word ‘center’ and keep the second one.”

It wasn’t long before private business started to 
attack Zelaya bitterly for moving Honduras into 
Chávez’s orbit.  By joining ALBA, business 
representatives argued, the President was 
endangering free enterprise and the Central 
American Free Trade Agreement with the United 
States.  Former President Ricardo Maduro even 
claimed that the United States might retaliate 
against Honduras by deporting Honduran migrants 
from the United States.  “Don't bite the hand 
that feeds you,” Maduro warned, alluding to 
Washington.  Zelaya was piqued by the 
criticisms.  “When I met with (U.S. President) 
George W. Bush,” he said, “no one called me an 
anti-imperialist and the business community 
applauded me. Now that I am meeting with the 
impoverished peoples of the world, they criticize me.”

Zelaya’s Letter to Obama

In September, 2008 Zelaya further strained U.S. 
relations by delaying accreditation of the new 
U.S. ambassador out of solidarity with Bolivia 
and Venezuela which had just gone through 
diplomatic dust ups with Washington.  “We are not 
breaking relations with the United States,” 
Zelaya said. “We only are (doing this) in 
solidarity with [Bolivian President] Morales, who 
has denounced the meddling of the United States 
in Bolivia's internal affairs.”  Defending his 
decision, Zelaya said small nations needed to 
stick together.  “The world powers must treat us 
fairly and with respect,” he stated.

In November, Zelaya hailed Obama’s election in 
the U.S. as “a hope for the world,” but just two 
months later tensions began to emerge.  In an 
audacious letter sent personally to Obama, Zelaya 
accused the U.S. of “interventionism” and called 
on the new administration in Washington to 
respect the principle of non-interference in the 
political affairs of other nations.  According to 
Spanish news agency EFE which saw a copy of the 
note, Zelaya told Obama that it wasn’t his 
intention to tell the U.S. President what he should or should not do.

He then however went on to do precisely 
that.  First of all, Zelaya brought up the issue 
of U.S. visas and urged Obama to “revise the 
procedure by which visas are cancelled or denied 
to citizens of different parts of the world as a 
means of pressure against those people who hold 
different beliefs or ideologies which pose no threat to the U.S.”

As if that was not impudent enough, Zelaya then 
moved on to drug trafficking: “The legitimate 
struggle against drug trafficking
should not be 
used as an excuse to carry out interventionist 
policies in other countries.”  The struggle 
against drug smuggling, Zelaya wrote, “should not 
be divorced from a vigorous policy of controlling 
distribution and consumer demand in all 
countries, as well as money laundering which 
operates through financial circuits and which 
involve networks within developed countries.”

Zelaya also argued “for the urgent necessity” of 
revising and transforming the structure of the 
United Nations and “to solve the Venezuela and 
Bolivia problems” through dialogue which “yields 
better fruit than confrontation.”  The Cuban 
embargo, meanwhile, “was a useless instrument” 
and “a means of unjust pressure and violation of human rights.”

Run Up to June Coup

It’s unclear what Obama might have made of the 
audacious letter sent from the leader of a small 
Central American nation.  It does seem however 
that Zelaya became somewhat disenchanted with the 
new administration in Washington.  Just three 
months ago, the Honduran leader declined to 
attend a meeting of the System for Central 
American Integration (known by its Spanish 
acronym SICA) which would bring Central American 
Presidents together with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden in San José, Costa Rica.

Both Zelaya and President Daniel Ortega of 
Nicaragua boycotted the meeting, viewing it as a 
diplomatic affront.  Nicaragua currently holds 
the presidency of SICA, and so the proper course 
of action should have been for Biden to have 
Ortega hold the meeting.  Sandinista economist 
and former Nicaraguan Minister of Foreign Trade 
Alejandro Martínez Cuenca declared that the 
United States had missed a vital opportunity to 
encourage a new era of relations with Central 
America by “prioritizing personal relations with 
[Costa Rican President] Arias over respect for 
Central America's institutional order.”

Could all of the contentious diplomatic back and 
forth between Tegucigalpa and Washington have 
turned the Obama administration against 
Zelaya?  In the days ahead there will surely be a 
lot of attention and scrutiny paid to the role of 
Romeo Vasquez, a General who led the military 
coup against Zelaya.  Vasquez is a graduate of 
the notorious U.S. School of the Americas, an 
institution which trained the Latin American military in torture.

Are we to believe that the United States had no 
role in coordinating with Vasquez and the coup 
plotters?  The U.S. has had longstanding military 
ties to the Honduran armed forces, particularly 
during the Contra War in Nicaragua during the 
1980s.  The White House, needless to say, has 
rejected claims that the U.S. played a role.  The 
New York Times has reported claims that the Obama 
administration knew that a coup was imminent and 
tried to persuade the military to back down.  The 
paper writes that it was the Honduran military 
which broke off discussions with American 
officials.  Obama himself has taken the high 
road, remarking “I call on all political and 
social actors in Honduras to respect democratic 
norms [and] the rule of law
Any existing tensions 
and disputes must be resolved peacefully through 
dialogue free from any outside interference.”

Even if the Obama administration did not play an 
underhanded role in this affair, the Honduran 
coup highlights growing geo-political tensions in 
the region.  In recent years, Chávez has sought 
to extend his influence to smaller Central 
American and Caribbean nations.  The Venezuelan 
leader shows no intention of backing down over 
the Honduran coup, remarking that ALBA nations 
“will not recognize any [Honduran] government that isn't Zelaya’s.”

Chávez then derided Honduras’ interim president, 
Roberto Micheletti.  “Mr. Roberto Micheletti will 
either wind up in prison or he'll need to go into 
exile
 If they swear him in we'll overthrow him, 
mark my words.  Thugetti--as I'm going to refer 
to him from now on--you better pack your bags, 
because you're either going to jail or you're 
going into exile.  We're not going to forgive 
your error, you're going to get swept out of 
there.  We're not going to let it happen, we're 
going to make life impossible for you.  President 
Manuel Zelaya needs to retake his position as president.”

With tensions running high, heads of ALBA nations 
have vowed to meet in Managua to discuss the coup 
in Honduras.  Zelaya, who was exiled to Costa 
Rica from Honduras, plans to fly to Nicaragua to 
speak with his colleagues.  With such political 
unity amongst ALBA nations, Obama will have to 
decide what the public U.S. posture ought to be.

Nikolas Kozloff is the author of 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0230600573/counterpunchmaga>Revolution! 
South America and the Rise of the New Left 
(Palgrave-Macmillan, 2008) Follow his blog at 
<http://www.senorchichero.blogspot.com>senorchichero.blogspot.com




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