How Much Repression Will Hillary Clinton Support in Honduras?

Now that President Zelaya has returned to Honduras, the coup government -- after first denying that he was there -- has unleashed a wave of repression to prevent people from gathering support for their elected president. This is how U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described the first phase of this new repression last night in a press conference:

"I think that the government imposed a curfew, we just learned, to try to get people off the streets so that there couldn't be unforeseen developments."

But the developments that this dictatorship is trying to repress are very much foreseen. A completely peaceful crowd of thousands surrounded the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa, where Zelaya has taken refuge, to greet their president. The military then used the curfew as an excuse to tear-gas, beat, and arrest the crowd until there was nothing left. There are reports of scores wounded and three dead. The dictatorship has cut off electricity and water to the embassy, and cut electricity to what little is left of the independent media, as well as some neighborhoods. This is how the dictatorship has been operating. It has a very brutal but simple strategy.

The strategy goes like this: they control the national media, which has been deployed to convince about 30-40 percent of the population that their elected President is an agent of a foreign government and seeks to turn the country into a socialist prison. However, that still leaves the majority who have managed to find access to other information.

The strategy for dealing with them has been to try to render them powerless: through thousands of arrests, beatings, and even some selective killings. This has been documented, reported, and denounced by major human rights organizations throughout the world: Amnesty International, the Center for Justice and International Law, Human Rights Watch, the Inter American Commission on Human Rights and others.

One important actor, the only major country to maintain an ambassador in Honduras throughout the dictatorship, has maintained a deafening silence about this repression: that is the United States government. The Obama administration has not uttered one word about the massive human rights violations in Honduras. This silence by itself tells you all that you need to know about what this administration has really been trying to accomplish in the 87 days since the Honduran military squelched democracy. The Obama team understands exactly how the coup government is maintaining its grip on power through violence and repression. And President Obama, along with his Secretary of State, has shown no intention to undermine this strategy.

In fact, President Zelaya has been to Washington six times since he was overthrown, but not once did he get a meeting with President Obama. Why is that? Most likely because Obama does not want to send the "wrong" signal to the dictatorship, i.e. that the lip service that he has paid to Zelaya's restoration should be taken seriously.

These signals are important because the Honduran dictatorship is digging in its heels on the bet that they don't have to take any pressure from Washington seriously. They have billions of dollars of assets in the United States, which could be frozen or seized. But the dictatorship, for now, trusts that the Obama team is not going to do anything to hurt their allies.

The head of the Organization of American States' Inter-American Human Rights Commission, Luz Mejias, had a different view of the dictatorship's curfew from that of Hillary Clinton. She called it "a clear violation of human rights and legal norms" and said that those who ordered these measures should be charged under international criminal law.

What possible excuse can the military have for breaking up this peaceful gathering, or can Ms. Clinton have for supporting the army's violence? There was no way that this crowd was a threat to the Brazilian embassy - quite the contrary, if anything it was protecting the embassy. That is one reason why the military attacked the crowd.

On August 11, sixteen members of the U.S. Congress sent a letter to President Obama urging him to "publicly denounce the use of violence and repression of peaceful protestors, the murder of peaceful political organizers and all forms of censorship and intimidation directed at media outlets."

They are still waiting for an answer.

Some might recall what happened to President Bill Clinton when his administration sent mixed signals to the dictatorship in Haiti in 1994. President Clinton had called for the dictator Raul Cedras to step down, so that the democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide could be restored. But Cedras was convinced -- partly because of contradictory statements from administration officials like Brian Latell of the CIA -- that Clinton was not serious. Even after Jimmy Carter, Colin Powell, and then Senator Sam Nunn were sent to Haiti to try to persuade Cedras to leave before a promised U.S. invasion -- the dictator still did not believe it. In September of 1994 President Clinton sent 20,000 troops to topple the dictatorship and restore the elected president (who ironically was overthrown again in 2004, in a U.S.-instigated coup).

By now, the coup government in Honduras has even less reason than the 1994 Haitian dictatorship to believe that the Obama team will do anything serious to remove them from power.

What a horrible, ugly message the Obama administration is sending to the democracies of Latin America, and to people that aspire to democracy everywhere.

This column was published by The Guardian Unlimited on September 23, 2009.

 

Comments

[RevBookburn]

Now they are raiding media buildings. This coup must be stopped.

[altohone]

Neoliberal and neocon are synonyms after all.

People should be disappointed in Obama, and question his neocorrupt advisers.

[apduncan1]

So ... what is Mr. J Negroponte up to these days?

[lightningbolt]

Not only is the U.S. government not concerned about repression in Honduras, but they are also supporting repression in Pittsburgh at the G-20 meeting. We cannot expect a U.S. government that represses its own population to care about another country's population.

[Meno Argenti]

Micheletti is now getting ready to suppress the resistance in one massive sweep and possibly suspend the constitution in Honduras for it.

http://www.hondurancampesino.org

[lightningbolt]

He has already suspended parts of the constitution.

[piul05]

"Brazil will not comply with an ultimatum from a government of coup mongers," Lula da Silva.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8277770.stm

Now, that's leadership.

[apduncan1]

Cojones.

[max08]

Support Zelaya.

[RoloTomassi]

Once again Mark you are one of the few keeping your eye on the ball and reporting reality [unlike everyone in the MSM, and the coup-supporting trolls who post here and elsewhere].

But I think we Americans will learn our lesson the hard way; we are headed for an economic bottomless pit, and once we arethere, statements such as the one made by Hillary Clinton will quite suddenly make perfect sense....

Americans will wake up to the notion of US government supported oppression when the same sort of actions are taken against its own citizens in the streets; when the US economy fully resembles that of the post-crash USSR, the bureaucrats and the 1% they serve will be secure behind compound walls, and we peons protesting for REAL change will be on the receiving end of violent actions taken to suppress "unforeseen developments."

[JustifiablyParanoid]

That's a pretty scary scenario you paint, but sadly, it looks like we're headed in that direction. I feel like what's happening in Honduras is of particular interest to all those in power--how to stifle a revolution; how to upend a movement; how to frighten and subjugate a people--all lessons being watched and learned, so that more and more military regimes can practice the exact same methods on their own people.

It's pretty much happening now, everywhere on the globe, only here in the States it's not quite as blatant. Yet.

[mergina]

Uh, last time I checked, Obama was the president not Clinton.

[RoloTomassi]

Hmmm...is that comment based on poor reading comprehension, or were you just skimming?

Reread it.

[lightningbolt]

Did you know Clinton is in charge of foreign policy? She's the Secretary of State. Just letting you know.

[yankees]

I guess you would have used the same article but changed the names if Zelaya was still in power and got what he wanted, even though it was unconstitutional. Am I right or is this article just part of the Left/Liberal party line?
Elections are coming up so let's see how the people of Honduras vote so they don't have to listen to the comments like yours to tell them how their country should be run.

[sticksnstones]

Elections are indeed coming up as you say. However, any election results will not be recognized as legitimate by ANY sovereign nation in the world, with the apparent exception of Panama.

Is that the result of some "Left/Liberal party line" conspiracy ?? Of course not. An unelected coup d'etat regime intends to hold those elections.

You can't wrap yourself in the constitutional rule-of-law banner on the one hand and support a legally unrecogniz­ed/non-rep­resentativ­e regime on the other hand for the simple reason that you happen to share the right wing political philosophy of that same coup cabal.

Makes you look a tad hypocritical.

[RoloTomassi]

Yes, and should they rise up and re-elect Zelaya [should his name be on the ballot, and the miracle of the coup government failing to rig the election occurs], what would your ridiculous rightwing, oppression­-supportin­g commentary be then, eh Sparky?

And I would speculate that you are rarely--if ever--"right" about anything....

[piul05]

Thanks for the excellent article.

It's interesting to compare the present administration's stand on Honduras (a half-hearted criticism) with its "deep concern" for democracy in Iran, accompanied by a stream of articles on MSM and high-profile support campaigns. Do you see anybody wearing blue armbands in solidarity with the Honduran people? Well, neither do I.

I must say I'm not really surprised with the double standard - foreign policiy wasn't an area I expected much change, both based on Obama's preelection speeches and his choice of advisers - however, I had hoped to be proved wrong.

[2Bfair]

SoS Secertary of State Hillary Clinton staked out Honduras as a point of PERSONAL intervention, by moe than meeting witht president in exile, securting a peer negoitator from the region and using US AID as a stick.

What is she accomplishing? What does she need to resolve this tension?

Oops, another Hillary fumble?

[wreckdiver]

Like any S0S, she's got to follow orders. Guess it's just another area in which the administration doesn't know what to do.

So much for his leadership, huh?

Oops, another Obama fumble?

[2Bfair]

Exactly, Hillary has no leadership capacity. Honduras is the only real internatonal problem she has taken a highly visible public role on with no progress. So it falls to Obama personally to guide negotiations with every nation in the world? Interesting expectation. He does have a few million other responsibilities. The downside of putting a token SoS in office may be coming back to bite him.

Maybe its time to appoint a special envoy for Honduras or send Bill to do what Hillary can't get done.

[nelsonviana]

Dear sirs, i'm honduran, i'm posting this at several online news services, is easy for you (1st world people)have a "changing the world" chat about poor hondurans and how to teach us the virtues of democracy, every day that your are trying to enforce your best "tom clancy style"solution you`re giving us the oportunity to rip our heads off each other.

Zelaya has it`s supporters, however there is a lot of people that every day goes to work or school and only wants to get to the elections in november to forget all this mess, supreme court issued orders to get mel out, we fail getting him to CR (to avoid disturbs and dead people)

With the repression, well, you`re not giving ice cream to the g20 protesters, this people is the same that have been protesting for the last 5 years at least, but not only for mel, sometimes because they want more money ( goverment jobs) or fuel price rises, the same people.

We need education, peace, prosperity, politics that respect the law (not zelaya and most of them) not moral lessons or new constitution.

We need help with the elections in nov not with fighting each other (Much of my fellow countrymen are people that work with a machete and are short tempered enough), is easy for you to talk about democracy and rule of law, but it`s my children that can't go to school because of the zelaya protesters and the expected curfews.

[Meno Argenti]

I am not kidding. If you want the videos from the embassy then you can read this here:

http://www.hondurancampesino.org/campesino-revolution/videos-from-la-ceiba-brazil-embassy/

Look at the last video. That was what was going on at the embassy when they military moved in. They were not looting as you say. As for burning things down, maybe after they were attacked, but they were peacefully at the embassy first. Your argument falls short when viewing the videos. I suggest you take that back to La Gringa and show her the video. Of course she will say that the video was faked, that the beatings of innocent people was all done for the camera. I have posts that show her saying this in response to a query about an old women being beaten by the military. La Gringa said that she was being beaten because it was on camera, even though it was evident that no one knew a camera was filming it. You La Gringa people amaze me at your attitudes about what is really going on in Honduras. But we have noted that on every site that posts news of the reality, you all show up in droves to refute it. Truth talks allot more than some right wing zealot like La Gringa. Wake up please..

[sticksnstones]

No Coup d'Etat / No civil unrest