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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element"> <font
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<h1 class="reader-title">‘The coup turned Honduras into hell’:
Interview with President Manuel Zelaya on 10th anniversary of
overthrow by US</h1>
<div class="credits reader-credits">Anya Parampil - July 1, 2019<br>
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<h4>The Grayzone’s Anya Parampil sat down for an exclusive
interview with Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, on the
10th anniversary of the US-backed right-wing military
coup that overthrew him.</h4>
<h4>He discusses the extreme violence, drug trafficking,
economic depression, migration crisis, Juan Orlando
Hernández (JOH), WikiLeaks, Venezuela, and more.</h4>
<h4>Video by Ben Norton</h4>
<p><span></span></p>
<h3>Transcript</h3>
<p><strong>ANYA PARAMPIL</strong>: Thank you for your
time, Mr. President. It has been 10 years since you were
removed in a US-backed coup from your position as the
democratically elected president of Honduras. What has
the United States accomplished since then, what has
changed in your country?</p>
<p><strong>MANUEL ZELAYA</strong>: The rupture of a social
contract, which we call the constitution of the
republic, in the constitution of the state, when a
social contract is broken, what logically comes next is
the the law of the stronger (survival of the fittest).
Crimes, killings, torture. Always the winning side
against the opposition.</p>
<p>That has been a sacrifice for the Honduran people,
because the side that took power had the support of the
United States. The US is the major beneficiary of the
coup. And there is a principle in penal law that says
the beneficiary of a crime is the principal suspect.</p>
<p>How has it been the beneficiary? The US has almost
complete control over Honduras. Control over justice
through the OAS (Organization of American States). It
controls security through US Southern Command. It
controls the economy through the International Monetary
Fund (IMF), World Bank, and IDB (Inter-American
Development Bank).</p>
<p>It controls the main media networks in Honduras; it has
a big influence over the opinion of the main media
outlets. It funds many churches, which receive donations
from North American NGOs. And it finances Honduran NGOs.
That is, it controls public opinion. It controls the
powers of the state.</p>
<p>And in this way, it has a high interference in the
decisions of states like Honduras, poor states, weak
states, where their rulers, to receive protection, give
up everything to the North Americans.</p>
<p><strong>ANYA PARAMPIL</strong>: What has been the
impact on the average Hondurans throughout these years?</p>
<p><strong>MANUEL ZELAYA</strong>: Poverty increased.
There are more poor people. The poverty level already
surpasses almost 70 percent of the population. Crime
increased. Drug trafficking increased. According to a
report from the US State Department, the drug
trafficking in Honduras after the coup increased by
almost double. And the report says that Honduras became
“the drug-trafficking paradise.”</p>
<p>External debt increased. When they took me out at
gunpoint, we owed $3 billion. Today, in 10 years, we owe
$14 billion. That is four times more. So this means the
country has serious problems with a lack of economic
growth, a lack of investment, human rights violations.</p>
<p>And I will present you with only one piece of proof:
The [migrant] caravans heading to the US are from
Honduras. Because the [US-backed] coup d’etat turned
Honduras into hell.</p>
<p><strong>ANYA PARAMPIL</strong>: How has this situation,
what has happened over the last 10 years, contributed to
the development of your party, Libre?</p>
<p><strong>MANUEL ZELAYA</strong>: We are a party of
opposition to the coup d’etat. And for 10 years those
who carried out the coup have governed. They are the
spawn of the coup. And the more errors they commit, the
more they oppress, the more the opposition grows.</p>
<p><strong>ANYA PARAMPIL</strong>: And this has led to the
strengthening of the social movements here?</p>
<p><strong>MANUEL ZELAYA</strong>: Well, social movements
don’t grow for a sectarian political reason; they grow
because electricity was privatized and they can’t pay
for light. Many social services have been privatized.
They have been given to private companies. And the
problem is not just that they leave it to private
enterprise. Private enterprise is efficient, but it’s
expensive.</p>
<p>The most comfortable thing for a ruler is to say,
“Security will be managed for me by US Southern
Command.” “The economy will be managed for me by the
IMF.” “The soldiers will manage internal security for
me.” “And private enterprise will manage the money for
me.” So, what does the ruler do? Nothing. Simply give
benefits to his followers.</p>
<p><strong>ANYA PARAMPIL</strong>: Who is Juan Orlando
Hernandez (JOH) and why are we seeing now, 10 years
after the coup, a re-ignition of unrest in the streets
and a demand that JOH leave office?</p>
<p><strong>MANUEL ZELAYA</strong>: He (JOH) is a son of
the coup. He has serious personality problems. For
example, I was president. And I walked in the streets.
And people greeted me. And they told me, “Hi Mel! Hi
President!” He (JOH) travels with armored cars, with
helicopters. He travels with a huge security team.</p>
<p>In my opinion, he has a problem with mental illness. He
believes that being president is a big deal. And the
pastors come and tell him he is chosen by God. So it
becomes even worse. And he begins to act like a person
who is not in touch with reality.</p>
<p>The people are protesting because of hunger. And he
thinks they’re protesting because of politics. And he
tells to the United States a speech that the US, its
right-wing, conservative governing class wants to hear.
He says, “In Honduras there is terrorism. [Venezuelan
President Hugo] Chávez’s people are there in Honduras.
And they are affecting me, the drug traffickers.”</p>
<p>I think he is suffering from psychopathy.</p>
<p><strong>ANYA PARAMPIL</strong>: And what about the
accusations of corruption? Some Hondurans I spoke to
today told me now JOH is one of the richest men in the
region.</p>
<p><strong>MANUEL ZELAYA</strong>: The corruption is
public. They broke the social security system. Look, how
do you sustain an illegal government? Paying people off.
If they are legal, they don’t need to pay. Because they
are the product of a social pact.</p>
<p>But when there is a coup d’etat, there is fraud. So
they need to corrupt the institutions to sustain
themselves. The fact that the United States supports a
coup d’etat makes them support a dictator. And that is
why corruption is surging. The corruption is the result
of the dictatorship.</p>
<p><strong>ANYA PARAMPIL</strong>: Hondurans have also
told me that a small group of families control much of
the country in terms of in terms of industry and
specifically the media. Can you talk about the media’s
role in the coup and also in sustaining the
dictatorship, which you describe?</p>
<p><strong>MANUEL ZELAYA</strong>: That is how capitalism
works. In the US, France, anywhere. Capitalism is based
on just one principle: accumulation of wealth. That is
how it functions here and in the rest of the world.</p>
<p>A small elite of transnational [corporations]
associated with people in countries who clean up for
them. They do business, and that business creates the
need to set up security for themselves.</p>
<p>They don’t tolerate competition. I brought in oil from
Venezuela, with Hugo Chávez, and they insisted that they
had to maintain their agreements. And they did not
accept Venezuela. And that was one of the motives behind
the coup.</p>
<p><strong>ANYA PARAMPIL</strong>: And I believe the US
ambassador at the time, Charles Ford, told you you’re
not allowed to do this, as though he had the right to do
this as a foreign ambassador.</p>
<p><strong>MANUEL ZELAYA</strong>: The US gives advice
that if you don’t follow, they act with reprisals. US
President George W. Bush told it to me. John Negroponte
told it to me. Ambassador Ford told it to me. And other
government officials.</p>
<p>Bush said it to me in these words: “You cannot have
relations with Hugo Chávez.” John Negroponte, his deputy
secretary of state, told me, “If you sign the ALBA
(Bolivarian Alliance), you are going to have problems
with the US.”</p>
<p>And I signed the ALBA. And I would sign it again if I
had the chance. Because it is to help Honduras progress.</p>
<p>I needed the support from Brazil, the support from
Venezuela, the support from the US, the support from
Europe. We are not able to depend solely on the US,
because the US has its own interests. It’s another
nation.</p>
<p><strong>ANYA PARAMPIL</strong>: I would like you to
comment on the significance of Wikileaks in the history
of your country but also the region, and what you think
about what is currently happening to Julian Assange with
the with the help of the government in Ecuador?</p>
<p><strong>MANUEL ZELAYA</strong>: Julian Assange is a
symbol of freedom in the world today, tomorrow, and
forever. He will be one of the people, in the future,
like one of the great prophets. In their day, they are
repressed. And later they become a symbol. That’s what
Julian Assange will become.</p>
<p>Julian Assange proclaimed a world without secrets, an
open world, a free world. Of course he affects the
[powerful] interests of today. But in the future, I, and
others in other generations, will follow the example of
Assange.</p>
<p><strong>ANYA PARAMPIL</strong>: We were speaking about
Ambassador Ford, I believe after he finished his work in
the embassy here he went to go work for SOUTHCOM, the
military. Can you talk about how central the interests
of the US military are to what happened with you and how
its presence in the country has grown since you were
ousted?</p>
<p><strong>MANUEL ZELAYA</strong>: [Honduran] soldiers are
trained at the [US] School of the Americas. All of their
drills they do with the US. For the soldiers, the ideal
of their life is to be like the US Marines, like the US
soldiers.</p>
<p>And here, the US controls the armed forces and the
police. They do what the US wants them to do. They are
occupation forces.</p>
<p><strong>ANYA PARAMPIL</strong>: I want to talk a little
bit about the region, specifically Nicaragua. What do
you think about the US-backed coup attempt he (Daniel
Ortega) has faced over this last year? This month, I
believe, is the one year anniversary since the
government there defeated a US backed regime change
operation.</p>
<p><strong>MANUEL ZELAYA</strong>: When I returned [after
the coup], I made several attempts to return to
Honduras. In the return from Washington to Honduras, I
was not able to land, because the military blocked me.
So I had to come back through the Las Manos border
crossing in Nicaragua. Then I secretly entered the
Brazilian embassy. Two years later I returned from the
Dominican Republic, from the Dominican Republic to
Nicaragua, and from Nicaragua to Honduras.</p>
<p>In relation to the US trying to overthrow [Nicaraguan
President] Daniel Ortega, I believe it already did it
before, in the 1980s. The US armed Contras here in
Honduras to fight against Nicaraguans. Since that time,
I have always protested against this US occupation of
Honduras to invade Nicaragua. And the people [today]
voted for the Ortega government. He was elected.</p>
<p>Now, the US has been unable to overthrow him. Now, he
is strong. Now Ortega has a lot of popular support. And
I don’t think they are able to overthrow him, as they
did in the past, from Honduras.</p>
<p><strong>ANYA PARAMPIL</strong>: Can you compare your
party, Libre, to the Sandinista Movement and what
lessons you took from them?</p>
<p><strong>MANUEL ZELAYA</strong>: They are two different
historical moments. Sandinismo was developed by a
military sergeant, who went to the mountains at the
beginning of the 20th century, and he created an
anti-imperialist force that created a party called the
Sandinista Front for National Liberation (FSLN). This
party won a war, overthrew the Somoza dictatorship, and
now organizes democratically to stay in power.</p>
<p>We (in Honduras’ Libre Party) are a party that did not
come out of the armed struggle. We did not come out of a
war. We were born out of a movement that is
revolutionary and democratic, but peaceful. Against the
coup d’etat. And against those who support the coup. The
US supported the coup.</p>
<p><strong>ANYA PARAMPIL</strong>: I want to talk about
your personal political development because when you
were elected you were considered part of a more
center-left party and movement, and now you are speaking
about socialism. Why did you change and how would you
characterize yourself now?</p>
<p><strong>MANUEL ZELAYA</strong>: Center-right actually.
(Not center-left.) It has been an evolution. Because the
right wing is done for. It sustains itself with weapons,
with coups, with fraud, with deceptions.</p>
<p>The future of humanity has to be social. You are a
social being. You. Aristotle says that we are rational
beings. The human is a rational animal. But we think
that the human being, today, is a totally social being.
Without society, men and women can’t survive. Everything
that we think and perceive is related to our social
environment.</p>
<p>So where should humanity walk to? To individualism, to
egoism? To individual interests, or social interests?
It’s to social interests.</p>
<p>The future of humanity is socialist. We might have to
struggle for 10,000 years or more. But in the future, if
humanity does not advance to be social, we would be
living in caves, according to the survival of the
fittest. Human beings are advancing, progressing to
become social.</p>
<p>I was raised in a liberal political philosophy. But now
I evolved to a new politics: first liberal and
pro-socialist, but now democratic socialist.</p>
<p><strong>ANYA PARAMPIL</strong>: How were you influenced
by other governments of the Pink Tide, specifically Hugo
Chavez of Venezuela?</p>
<p><strong>MANUEL ZELAYA</strong>: Well you would have to
ask how Chávez, a soldier, became a socialist. If you
find this explanation, then you will find an explanation
for how I, a land-owner, went from being a capitalist to
a socialist. It is a heightening of the spirit. It is
the conviction of a human being.</p>
<p>Capitalism is so barbaric. It is not the future of
humanity. If capitalism is the future of humanity,
humanity is destroyed. It is defeated. It is doomed to
fail. The same for the planet.</p>
<p>The future of the humanity has to be social. It’s
simple. It’s not money. It’s not commerce. It’s not
simply economic activities that should lead humanity.
No, those should be subject to the social.</p>
<p>It’s fine that private enterprise exists, private
initiative. It’s fine that capital exists. But it is not
ok for capital to direct the world. No, it is the world
that should direct capital. This is an upside-down
world.</p>
<p>And when you reach the highest governmental position in
a country, which I reached, even in a small nation like
Honduras, I learned then that there is no way to deal
with capital other than subjecting it to popular
sovereignty. Capital should continue to exist, but
subjected to a plan of popular sovereignty that is the
people.</p>
<p>The voice of the people is the voice of God. You have
to have faith.</p>
<p><strong>ANYA PARAMPIL</strong>: Like Chavez, you were
pursuing the process of a Constituent Assembly in your
country the day of the coup, to change the character of
the state here. Why do you think that specifically was
so threatening to the oligarchy here and the US
government?</p>
<p><strong>MANUEL ZELAYA</strong>: The question is not
well formulated. Do you know who Thomas Jefferson is? Do
you know who George Washington is? They created the
United States, with a constitution.</p>
<p>Why mention Chávez? Chávez is simply from the 21st
century. Jefferson and Washington were from 1776. The
American Revolution was anti-imperialist, against the
British Empire. They developed a constitutional
assembly. And you have your constitution in the US. It’s
not Chávez who invented the constituent assembly; it’s
Jefferson and Washington. So why be afraid of the way in
which nations are formed?</p>
<p>When the social pact is broken, because there is a lot
of poverty, there is a lot of hunger, many people in
need, and the majority does not resist the economic and
social situation, you have to return to the constituent
dialogue. This is basic in a society.</p>
<p>Inside the US, there are no coups. No, there presidents
have to be ready in case in any moment they are killed.
Here, there are coups. And in these countries in Latin
America there have been 170 coups. And the great
majority of them were sponsored by the US.</p>
<p>And what do you do when the pact is broken? You start
over with a constituent assembly.</p>
<p><strong>ANYA PARAMPIL</strong>: When you were facing
the coup, Maduro was the Foreign Minister of Venezuela
and you worked very closely with him at that time. What
did you think about him, what was your impression of
Nicolas Maduro, and what do you think about what’s
happening now with Venezuela?</p>
<p><strong>MANUEL ZELAYA</strong>: Two things: One, Chávez
did not seek me out. Chávez was never going to look for
a far-right country like Honduras, almost totally
governed by the US. And now more than ever. And me, a
president who arrived with the center-right. Chávez
would never have sought me out.</p>
<p>I reached out to Chávez. I have to clarify that. Chávez
never had an interest in Honduras. This is an invention
of right-wing activists in the US, like Otto Reich,
Robert Carmona, and Roger Noriega. I had to convince him
[Chávez] to come here to help us, with oil, with the
ALBA alliance, with Petrocaribe.</p>
<p>Two: Nicolás Maduro, yes he is a socialist from birth.
He is a worker, from the working class, from the class
that is exploited by capital, from the class that sells
its labor force, and that is denied the rights that
capitalists enjoy. He is a socialist, like Chávez.</p>
<p>And moreover, the Bolivarian Revolution, that was
initiated by Chávez, with his socialist convictions, was
inherited by Nicolás [Maduro]. And he has led with a
great capacity, sensibility, and conscience.</p>
<p>They don’t want you to recognize it, but Nicolás
[Maduro] is a Latin American leader of great
international stature.</p>
<p><strong>ANYA PARAMPIL</strong>: We’re 10 years since
the coup, since then, one by one other progressive
governments have been picked off and changed back into
pawns of the United States. What gives you hope that one
day we will see progressive governments return to power
in Latin America?</p>
<p><strong>MANUEL ZELAYA</strong>: No empire is eternal.
With the exception of God eternal. Since the end of
World War II, the US has ruled over much of the world.
But it has serious contradictions. It is a country with
high levels of poverty. There are serious internal
contradictions.</p>
<p>And sometime soon, the North American ruling class will
learn that to survive in the world, it will have to
reduce military spending, to give medicine, healthcare,
education and a good quality of life to its people.
Someday they are going to understand that being the
soldiers of the world, that being the police of the
world, does not bring them as many benefits as they
think.</p>
<p>And one day they are going to understand that it is
better to have democratic countries than military
dictatorships. When they come around, let’s hope it’s
not too late.</p>
<p>The world is going to applaud, and meanwhile they
continue giving fascist and imperialist orders
installing dictators in our countries, setting up
multinational corporations that exploit our rivers, our
seas, our forests, our lands, and our working class.
Then they will be pointed at and called practices that
do not suit our countries.</p>
<p>I don’t have anything against the North American
people. Nor do I have anything against the North
American society. I’m an admirer of Lincoln, Kennedy,
Jefferson, Washington, of what the US had signified. But
I condemn its imperialist practices toward small
countries like ours.</p>
<p>Instead of strengthening democracies, it strengthens
military dictatorships. And that impoverishes our
nation, and immigrants move there. And when immigrants
move there, they start to complain.</p>
<div itemtype="http://schema.org/Person" itemscope=""
itemprop="author">
<div>
<p>Anya Parampil is a journalist based in Washington,
DC. She previously hosted a daily progressive
afternoon news program called In Question on RT
America. She has produced and reported several
documentaries, including on-the-ground reports from
the Korean peninsula and Palestine.</p>
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