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<h1><font size=4><b>US Secretary of State Clinton’s Micro-Management of
the Corporation that Funds the Honduras Coup Regime<br><br>
<br>
</b></font></h1><h2><font size=3><b>Records Demonstrate that the
Secretary Has Hands-On Control of the Fund that Gave $6.5 Million to the
Regime After the June 28
Coup</b></font></h2><font size=3>
<a href="http://www.narconews.com/Issue59/article3760.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.narconews.com/Issue59/article3760.html<br><br>
<br>
</a></font><h3><b>By Bill Conroy and Al Giordano<br>
Special to The Narco News Bulletin</b></h3><font size=3>August 11,
2009<br><br>
In recent days, Narco News has reported that, in the three months prior
to the June 28 coup d’etat in Honduras, the
<a href="http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/bill-conroy/2009/08/millennium-challenge-corp-poured-millions-honduras-months-leading-putsc">
US-funded Millennium Change Corporation (MCC) gave at least $11 million
US dollars</a> to private-sector contractors in Honduras and also that
<a href="http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/too-cute-half-honduras-mr-president">
since the coup it has doled out another $6.5 million</a>.<br><br>
The latter revelation – that the money spigot has been left on even after
the coup – comes in spite of claims by the State Department that it has
placed non-humanitarian funding “on pause” pending a yet-unfinished
review.<br><br>
Narco News has further learned – based on a review documents available on
the websites of the Millennium Challenge Corporation and the US State
Department – that Secretary Clinton, as chairman of the MCC board, is not
just a figurehead in name only. She has played an extremely active role
in governing and promoting the fund and its decisions.<br><br>
An <a href="http://www.mcc.gov/blog/ceo/">August 6 statement by MCC
acting chief executive officer Darius Mans</a> praises Clinton and
President Obama for their balls-out support of MCC:<br><br>
</font>
<dl>
<dd>Now, well into a new administration and era, I am encouraged by the
level of support MCC has been given by Congress and senior government
leaders. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, chair of MCC’s board,
confirms, “President Obama supports the MCC, and the principle of greater
accountability in our foreign assistance programs.” The Secretary herself
has referred to Millennium Challenge grants as a “very important part of
our foreign policy. It is a new approach, and it’s an approach that we
think deserves support.” Deputy Secretary of State Jack Lew has said,
“MCC is getting off the ground and making real progress.<br><br>
</i>
</dl>Secretary Clinton’s official “blog” at the State Department reveals
that the <a href="http://secretaryclinton.wordpress.com/2009/06/10/">June
10 meeting of MCC’s board</a> – just 18 days before the Honduras coup –
was on the Secretary’s schedule:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>Here’s what Hillary has on her plate for today, June 10th: 10:00 a.m.
Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Board Meeting and Luncheon.
<br><br>
</i>
</dl>Last March, the previous MCC acting executive director Rodney Bent
<a href="http://www.mcc.gov/blog/ceo/page/2/">wrote</a>:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton chaired her first MCC Board
meeting this week</b>. I was pleased to be part of this historic
transition, and I welcomed Secretary Clinton’s active participation at
the meeting. Her presence and the presence of Treasury Secretary Timothy
Geithner and other public and private sector Board members signal the
importance of MCC’s ongoing commitment to delivering change in the lives
of the world’s poor.<br><br>
</i>
</dl>A recent move by the Clinton-led MCC board documents that the
US-funded corporation has already discussed the cutting of funds to
another Central American country, Nicaragua, based on criticism of its
government, and that this was the topic of MCC’s June 10 session, chaired
by Secretary Clinton.
<a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0609/p06s10-woam.html">The
Christian Science Monitor</a> reported:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>LEÓN, NICARAGUA - US concerns over last year’s questionable municipal
elections in Nicaragua could be strong enough to cause leftist President
Daniel Ortega, a cold-war nemesis of the US, to lose $64 million in
development aid.<br><br>
<dd>In a Wednesday meeting with the board of directors of the Millennium
Challenge Corporation (MCC), an international development initiative
started during the Bush administration, Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton will discuss whether to cancel the remaining portion of a $175
million compact awarded in 2006</b>.<br><br>
<dd>In December, the US government froze new aid after expressing serious
concern about “the government of Nicaragua’s manipulation of municipal
elections and a broader pattern of actions inconsistent with the MCC
eligibility criteria.”<br><br>
</i>
</dl>At the June 10 meeting, the MCC board approved partially terminating
the agency’s foreign-aid compact with
<a href="http://www.mcc.gov/mcc/press/releases/release-061009-boardmeets.shtml">
Nicaragua</a> resulting in some $62 million in U.S. foreign aid being
withheld from that nation, which shares a border with Honduras. And in
May o f this year, the Clinton-led MCC board approved the termination of
the agency’s compact with
<a href="http://www.mcc.gov/mcc/press/releases/release-051909-mccboardauthorizes.shtml">
Madagascar</a> in the wake of
a<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/world/africa/01madagascar.html?_r=1">
coup</a> in that nation. However, no such action has been taken by the
MCC board, to date, in the wake of the Honduran coup.<br><br>
In the context of President Obama’s statement last weekend that those who
urge the US to take stronger action against the Honduras coup regime
“think that it’s appropriate for us to suddenly act in ways that in every
other context they consider inappropriate,” calling it “hypocrisy.” The
revelation that Clinton and MCC have already sanctioned the elected
government of Nicaragua and its private sector in ways that it so far
refuses to sanction the illegal coup regime of Honduras and its private
backers has revealed one important fact: That Washington has already
determined that “it’s appropriate” to deny MCC funds to a country for
lighter and more transient reasons than those that exist to sanction a
coup regime in another.<br><br>
Didn’t a certain US President, last weekend, speak the word “hypocrisy”
in the context of the US and the Honduras coup?<br><br>
If “it’s appropriate” to sanction Nicaragua for lesser reasons, why not
apply the sanction of denying MCC funds to a criminal coup regime in
Honduras that Washington claims it has “paused” giving money, but that it
continues to fund?<br><br>
<br><br>
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