Hondurans Resist Coup, Will Need Help From Other Countries

The military coup that overthrew President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras took a new turn when Zelaya attempted to return home on Sunday. The military closed the airport and blocked runways to prevent his plane from landing. They also shot several protesters, killing at least one and injuring others.

The violence and the enormous crowd -- estimated in the tens of thousands and reported as the largest since the coup on June 28 -- put additional pressure on the Obama administration to seek a resolution to the crisis. On Tuesday Secretary of State Clinton met with President Zelaya for the first time since the coup.

In many ways this is similar to the coup in Venezuela in 2002, which was supported by the United States. After it became clear that no government other than the United States would recognize the coup government there, and hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans poured into the streets to demand the return of their elected president, the military switched sides and brought Chavez back to the presidential palace.

In Honduras we have the entire world refusing to recognize the coup government, and equally large demonstrations (in a country of only seven million people, and with the military preventing movement for many of them) demanding Zelaya's return. The problem in Honduras is that their military -- unlike the Venezuelan military -- has more experience in organized repression, including selective assassinations carried out during the 1980s, when the country was known as a military base for U.S. operations in El Salvador and Nicaragua. The Honduran military is also much closer to the U.S. military and State Department, more closely allied with the country's oligarchy, and more ideologically committed to the cause of keeping the elected president out of power. Colonel Herberth Bayardo Inestroza, a Honduran army lawyer who admitted that the military broke the law when they kidnapped President Zelaya, told the Miami Herald, "It would be difficult for us, with our training, to have a relationship with a leftist government. That's impossible." Mr. Inestroza, like the coup leader and army chief General Romeo Vasquez, was trained at Washington's infamous School of the Americas (now renamed as WHINSEC).

This puts a heavy burden on the people of Honduras, who have been risking their lives, confronting the army's bullets, beatings, and arbitrary arrests and detentions. The U.S. media has reported on this repression but only minimally, with the major print media sometimes failing to even to mention the censorship there. But the Honduran pro-democracy movement, through their courage, has in the last few days managed to change the course of events. It is likely that Clinton's decision to finally meet with Zelaya was the result of the large and growing protests, and Washington's fear that such resistance could reach the point where it would topple the coup government.

The Obama administration's behavior over the last eight days provides strong evidence that if not for this threat from below, the administration would have been content to let the coup government stall out the rest of Zelaya's term.

This was made clear again on Monday, at a press briefing held by State Department Spokesperson Ian Kelly. Under prodding from a reporter, Mr. Kelly became the first on-the-record spokesperson for the U.S. State Department to say officially that the U.S. government supported the return of President Zelaya. This was eight days after the coup, and after the United Nations General Assembly, the Organization of American States, the Rio Group, and many individual governments had all called for the "immediate and unconditional" return of Zelaya -- something which Washington still does not talk about.

Meanwhile, on the far right, there has been a pushback against the worldwide support for Zelaya and an attempt to paint him has the aggressor in Honduras, or at least equally bad as the people who carried out the coup. Unfortunately much of the major media's reporting has aided this effort by reporting such statements as "Critics feared he intended to extend his rule past January, when he would have been required to step down."

In fact, there was no way for Zelaya to "extend his rule" even if the referendum had been held and passed, and even if he had then gone on to win a binding referendum on the November ballot. The June 28 referendum was nothing more than a non-binding poll of the electorate, asking whether the voters wanted to place a binding referendum on the November ballot to approve a redrafting of the country's constitution. If it had passed, and if the November referendum had been held (which was not very likely) and also passed, the same ballot would have elected a new president and Zelaya would have stepped down in January. So, the belief that Zelaya was fighting to extend his term in office has no factual basis -- although most people who follow this story in the press seem to believe it. The most that could be said is that if a new constitution were eventually approved, Zelaya might have been able to run for a second term at some future date.

Another major right-wing theme that has spilled over into the media and public perception of the Honduran situation is that this is a battle against President Chavez of Venezuela (and some collection of "anti-U.S." leftist allies, e.g. Nicaragua, Cuba -- take your pick). This is a common subterfuge that has surfaced in most of the Latin American elections of the last few years. In Mexico, Peru, Nicaragua, and El Salvador, for example, the conservative candidates all pretended as if they were running against Chevez -- the first two with success, and the second pair losing.

It is true that under Zelaya Honduras joined the ALBA, a grouping of countries that was started by Venezuela as an alternative to "free trade" agreements with the United States. But Zelaya is nowhere near as close to Chavez as any number of other Latin American presidents, including those of Brazil and Argentina. So it is not clear why this is relevant, unless the argument is that only bigger countries or those located further south have the right to have a co-operative relationship with Venezuela.

As this article goes to press, Clinton has announced that she arranged for Costa Rican President Oscar Arias to serve as a mediator between the coup government and President Zelaya. According to Clinton, both parties have accepted this arrangement.

This is a good move for the U.S. State Department, as it will make it easier for them to maintain a more "neutral" position so long as mediation is taking place -- as opposed to the rest of the hemisphere, which has taken the side of the deposed president and the Honduran pro-democracy movement. "I don't want to prejudge what the parties themselves will agree to," said Clinton in response to a question as to whether President Zelaya should be restored to his position.

It is difficult to see how this mediation will succeed, so long as the coup government knows that they can stall out the rest of Zelaya's term. The only thing that can remove them from office, in conjunction with massive protests, is real economic sanctions of the kind that Honduras's neighbors (Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala) imposed for 48 hours after the coup. These countries account for about a third of Honduras's trade, but they would need economic aid from other countries to carry the burden of a trade cutoff for a longer time. It would be a great thing if other countries would step forward to support such sanctions and to cut off their own trade and capital flows with Honduras as well.

So it is up to the rest of the world to help Honduras; it is clear that Hondurans won't be getting any help from the United States. The rest of the world will have to scream bloody murder about the violence and repression there, too, because Washington will not be making much of an issue about it.

This column was published The Guardian Unlimited on July 9, 2009.

Comments

[MattZilla]

I just got back from Honduras last night as I wrote in another comment on a different post. I know about the events of last Sunday, I was there. There were a few hundred people protesting and unfortunately it turned violent. What is not being reported, is there were 70,000 people in a rally the day before supporting the new government. It was a must, that the country took one step back before taking two steps forward. Come January, their lives should be better because of the sacrafices they are going through today. I also received inside information they were receiving help from the US gov't every step of the way. This shouldn't suprise anyone, but if Chavez ever got wind of it, he will shut off the gas in an instant, severly hurting the country. The US is well aware and have to be extremly diplomatic in how they handle this. Unfortunately the people of Honduras have to suffer in the meantime.

They still have a long ways to go as a country but this is a positive step for them. We should all applaud their efforts for trying to preserve their democracy. For what its worth, I am not a right wing nut and I voted for Obama. Support the people of Honduras, it is actually beautiful to watch. If people cared that much about their country's fate in the USA, we wouldn't have some of the corruption we have today.

[vagabondvet]

You lost me at "coup."

How is a government being run by civilians in the constitutional line-of-succession after the president was pulled out for trying to unconstitutionally amend the Constitution considered a coup?

[PR one]

You use the Military under the cover of darkness. They break in with force at the point of the gun. Remove the elected President from his residence and move him out of the Country at the end of a bayonet then, If you believe that is Democracy and not a Coup, Then you more likely believe that Pinochet was a freedom fighter in Chile.

[culturevue]

Thank you.

[jt2020]

"The belief that Zelaya was fighting to extend his term in office has no factual basis."

This is not true. He was flown back into the country aboard a PDVSA jet, with Venezuela provided ballot boxes to illegally change the constitution.

Of course this coup was abhorrent and wrong - Zelaya should have been impeached or simply allowed to serve out his term.

But pretending like this old oligarch, exactly the kind of elite governing class the Bolivarian revolution pretends to oppose, is counter-productive to everyone involved. If Chavez hadn't already messed everything up and threatened to invade, regional leaders would have succeeded in a negotiated reinstatement.

There are clear instances of deep hypocrises by the Left here, practically begging for a yankee intervention, with "Zelaya riding back to the presidency on top of a gringo tank," as Petkoff wrote.

[RoloTomassi]

Oh please, your assertions are by far over-the-top.

[RoloTomassi]

Well, there you have it; the first straight-up honest article on this issue I've seen since the coup. And below we have three comments by rightwing p.rop.ag.an.di.sts, the disgusting ilk that has tried desperately to dominate the issue in all huffpo comments sections.

So, for those who insist on promoting disinformation:

You have no significant influence on the issue through readers in this forum, as we're not that easily duped. So keep it up--you will persuade no one.

[brainfood1984]

Interestingly, the Honduran Constitution of 1982 does provide for loss of citizenship for those who “incite, promote or aid in the continuation or re-election of the President” http://pdba.georgetown.edu/Constitutions/Honduras/hond05.html (article 42):
ARTICULO 42.- La calidad de ciudadano se pierde: 5. Por incitar, promover o apoyar el continuismo o la reelección del Presidente de la República.
Further, Article 239 indicates that anyone who has held the office of chief executive cannot be president or vice president and anyone who proposes reform to that prohibition can be barred from holding public office for ten years: ARTICULO 239.- El ciudadano que haya desempeñado la titularidad del Poder Ejecutivo no podrá ser Presidente o Vicepresidente de la República. El que quebrante esta disposición o proponga su reforma, así como aquellos que lo apoyen directa o indirectamente, cesarán de inmediato en el desempeño de sus respectivos cargos y quedarán inhabilitados por diez años.

[Esther Villanueva]

There is not such thing as "repression" from the military army or the press. We can talk freely and there has been no violence reported, unless you counted manifestations in favor of Mel Zelaya (sponsored by Chavez himself) who are not only honduran from birth, but have integrated people from Nicaragua, Venezuela and cubans and who have destroyed some of the countrys historic infrastructure. My personal hope is that peace is restored, that international governments (of course the non leftists ones) realize what they are forcing us upon and that if they take help away from the country, the honduran people will be greatly affected (not the government), they will still maintain their position and the mayority will back it, as long it is accorded, so that TRUE democracy prevails, not a masked one.

[Esther Villanueva]

I am enormously sad that most of the international media is misinformed about my country´s (Honduras) political, social and economical current happenings. First of all, Mel Zelaya DID want to perpetuate himself in the political power, such as his comrades Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro have done in their countries. There is evidence from this, letters that describe Hugo Chavez mentoring Mel Zelaya into illegal ways to this perpetuation, money he payed for people to support him (money coming from Honduras reserve government and from Hugo Chavez himself, Venezuelan planes surrounding Honduran skyes, Hugo Chavez coming to my country and giving speeches from his leftist intentions and insults to my people. The mayority of people in Honduras (though we are a small 7 million as the article stated) is in favor of the new government and not of Mel Zelaya, who is also implied in fraud and the murder of 14 people who fought against communism in the early 70's.