Honduran Human Rights Leader: Clinton "Reckless," U.S. Silent About "Terrorismo"
When finally reached by telephone, the very hard-to-reach Bertha Oliva was in the middle of a typically tragic day in post-coup Honduras. " [The military and paramilitary operatives] just bombed a nearby labor union," she said. Oliva leads the Tegucigalpa-based Committee for the Detained and Disappeared of Honduras (COFADEH), which is recognized worldwide as her country's leading non-governmental human rights organization. "Fortunately," she said, "all of the members of the union were at the burial of one of the boys the death squads killed on Saturday near El Paraiso [The Paradise], and no one was killed this time."
"They are following our every move," Oliva added. "They're surveilling our offices and we've received threatening phone calls. And they make it extremely difficult or impossible to take water, medicine and food to all the people they've detained," she said.
Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, while making camp at the Nicaragua-Honduras border last Friday, called for new protests in Honduras. This prompted U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton to declare: "'President Zelaya's effort to reach the border is reckless. It does not contribute to the broader effort to restore democracy and constitutional order in the Honduras crisis."
When asked about Clinton's statement, Oliva quickly responded, "Bombs are going off, people are being detained without due process, young men's bodies are found with signs of torture and 45 stab wounds. [Clinton's] declarations and her silence about human rights are strengthening criminals and signaling to those committing crimes against humanity that they can keep on doing it. Isn't that 'reckless?'"
"Instead of disqualifying Zelaya," she continued, "Secretary Clinton should take actions in favor of democracy, in favor of constitutional order. That can really help us, that would be a great contribution."
If a recent report by COFADEH is any indicator, there has been an exponential rise in the number of human rights violations since the June 28 coup. The report documented over 1,100 cases of arbitrary detentions, attacks on the media, killings and other human rights violations.
"Why don't Mrs. Clinton and the Obama administration say anything about this, this ... terrorismo that the [de facto Honduran President] Micheletti and the coup backers are committing?" asked Oliva.
The questions and concerns raised by Oliva about the Obama administration's policy towards the Honduran coup reflects what many fear is a growing distance between the administration and the democracy movements backing the reinstatement of President Manuel Zelaya, who was ousted my the Honduran military on June 28th.
Observers around the world question, for example, why the United States has chosen not to declare the Honduran putsch a "coup" in the legal sense, which would require stronger actions, including a complete cutoff of military and other aid, withdrawing the ambassador and other measures the Obama Administration has refused to take.
Instead, critics both inside and outside Honduras, say Clinton and Obama have chosen a 'good cop-bad cop' strategy, in which Obama gets to perform symbolic actions like declaring the coup "illegal" while Clinton gets to deliver the bad policy news to the media and the world about how the administration has chosen not to designate the situation a "coup."
In his own increasingly pointed responses, Zelaya noted that the possibility that the Obama Administration may actually be enabling and strengthening the hand of those perpetrating the killings, torture and other human rights violations documented by Oliva and COFADEH. "The position of Secretary Clinton at the beginning was firm," Zelaya declared, "... now I feel that she's not really denouncing (the coup) and she's not acting firmly against the repression that Honduras is suffering."
Oliva, Gilda Rivera of the Center for Women's Rights, José Luis Galdamez, a journalist with Radio Globo and others fear that the Obama Administration's handling of the coup may reflect the same willingness to overlook human rights violations that has characterized previous U.S. administrations.
As she looks at the numbers and as she visits killing fields, prisons, private homes and other sites where human rights violations are taking place, Oliva said she couldn't help but be reminded of the past.
She and her family founded COFADEH along with 12 other families that, like hers, had lost a family member disappeared by death squads linked to the U.S.-trained Honduran military. Her husband is still "disappeared," she noted. "Some of the same businesspeople and military officials involved in the disappearances and killings of the 1980's are the same people behind the coup today," said Oliva. "And as happened back then, the United States government seems willing to back them politically by sponsoring talks that make the coup leaders look like legitimate partners to negotiate with."
Oliva saved her most impassioned pleas for Hillary Clinton. "As a Honduran that has worked for justice her entire life, I ask Mrs. Clinton to listen to her heart and formally declare this a coup so that [coup leaders] know that her country stands for human rights," she said. "As someone who has sought the truth, I ask you, Mrs. Clinton not to hide the truth about what's happening here. And, finally, as a creator of life, as a mother, I plead with you to put yourself in the shoes of so many mothers whose sons are victims of repression by the government. I know [the coup leaders] will listen to you. With God as my witness, I know it."
(For more information on the Honduras coup visit www.ofamerica.wordpress.com)
Follow Roberto Lovato on Twitter: www.twitter.com/robvato
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Bill Clinton was and remains a staunch friend of the Latin American oligarchy and their diaspora. While Al Gore had the common decency to avoid hanging out with Alvaro Uribe, paramilita
Clinton and Biden are playing a weak Obama and backing many of the same reactionary forces that the neo-cons embrace. Not much has changed.
Elections will probably be moved up from November to Oct. Elvin Santos vs Pepe Lobo. More than likely Pepe Lobo and the nationalist party will win because of the fiasco that occured within the Liberal Party...
Mel Zelaya will return to power to finish up the final 6-7 months before retiring from political life. He will have served Chavez the best he could but will have failed to maintain Honduras in the ALBA.....
Congress will nullify the ALBA agreement and all political enemies with have anmensty for the "crimes" committed.
All Politicans are corrupt...
Thank you, Roberto. Apparently, the US is going to be involved in a bad way; because corporations don't want workers to have better conditions. That is why the US carried out the coup in Haiti ---for corporations to have control of the markets in Haiti. We can, only, hope that South America will take a different position in a forceful maner.
Didnt have much to do about labor conditions
The US was not involved..
But Obama.....
Yet another thing the right will blame Obama for....
The US is not going to put too much pressure on Honduras..
Downtown San Pedro Sula was vandalized by the Mel supporters
Honduras is a peaceful country... there have been only 3-7 deaths being reported in 1 month since this incident. 3 people died yesterday at the Olimpa vs Montagua soccer game...no outrage there..
The 1000 _ detentions are due to people breaking the curfew rules.... spend the night in jail and are released the next day.
There are no death squads... killing of innocent people....
Did you even read what Bertha Oliva has to say? You're making the stock standard deny, deny, deny responses.
Why are the people of a nation with abundant resources amongst the poorest in the world yet a small elite are among the wealthiest? The coup government does not want the status quo as enshrined by the current constitution to be changed. Now one can lay all manner of false charges on Zelaya but the fact remains that he was threatening that corporate elite and that is why he was thrown out of his country. The act of throwing him out in the way he was nullifies any legitimate reason the coup leaders may have had. And don't come with the bull that the military acted on the orders of the supreme court and congress. Those two bodies are owned by the business elite and have no legitimacy in terms of what any sane person understands by democracy.
Billy... your alittle lost on your Honduras politics.
"The coup government does not want the status quo as enshrined by the current constitution to be changed."
-Elections are set for November..
The Honduras Consitution specifically states that ONLY Congress can create a Consitutional Assembly..
The Congress is made up majority of the LIBERAL party...in
I love how people say the rich/elite control the government ----------------- if thats the case..why did the Nationalists lose the election!!
all 128 members of Congress voted to remove Zelaya from power.... ALL of them. Please dont tell me that rich control all politicans
Elvin Santos - the liberal presidental candiate (left) and Pepe Lobo - nationalist (right) are against each other in many issues.... yet both we against the way Mel was pushing his own agenda...
That's ironic.
Usually, Hillary Clinton is accustomed to "sending in the marines" without regard to the consequences in the event that a human rights crisis emerges.
really...w
When her husband needed a distraction from Monica Lewinsky, her husband bombed Iraq. And her belligerence and involvement with shady members of the global oligarchy is well noted.
And, lest we forget, Bill Clinton was standing in the streets of Haiti while the coup in Honduras was raging, talking with pride about the peace and serenity that reigned there four years after That Coup! He said these things on the four year anniversary of that Coup, on the same streets where UN soldiers murdered hundreds of pro-democracy protesters who had assembled to support their illegal deposed President. The parallels are frightening.
You have to wonder why Obama and his admin are basically backing a government that gained power thru a coup. This is about a duly elected official removed from power by a right wing government/military because they feared a referendum would have voted to allow a second term for the man they despised.
This seems like a clear-cut response would be to stand up for the democratically elected president. Instead Obama does exactly what George Bush would have done; support the coup buy not vigorously calling for the president’s return immediately.
Sad. Just sad. More change that just isn’t change at all. Just more pretty words and fudged, disingenuous responses.
They support this return to banana republic politics for the same reason gun boat diplomacy and banana republics were created in the first place--To suppress the People! Whether here, or there, it makes no difference. Honduras was one of a handful of peaceful central and south American countries with a growing populist movement that empowered the People, and that threatens the powers that be--the Oligarchs in the country and their paymasters, American Corporations and Banks. Everything in Honduras is merely a dry run for the US. And I'll change my mind about that statement when Obama calls it a coup, suspends all aid, severs diplomatic relations, and begins repealing Bush's expanded presidential powers, ends spying, holds the telcoms accountable for their role in it, end the patriot act and all of its unConstitutional laws, and return America to the people here. Right now it is the Hondurans disappearing again, just like the 80's, tomorrow it may well be us, if the military in Washington state have their way.
US has too much interest in the country. US companies operate most of the trade coming out of Honduras..
Government just playing it cool..... putting some pressure on the government
What a courages woman! Sounds like the next thing you know, Clinton will be making announcements recognizing the coup government on behalf of the administration. One hopes the White House realizes that the truth is known, and doesn't totally discredit the fine words of President Obama by going that route. Claiming a reluctance to interfere in the sovereignty of other nations cannot be swallowed with all the information on it's origins, process and leaders.
The "cyber" operatives supporting this coup will be out in force again tonight. They'll be justifying the violence and claiming it necessary for fighting off the attack by Zelaya on democracy.
The US is against the coup... Hillary will never recognize the new government
Honduras imports about 45% of all goods from US..... and Honduras exports about 60-70% of all goods to US....
US also maintains a 40% of the foreign direct investment in the country...
Obama is refusing to come clean. He is refusing to fully return to the pre Bush era regarding such acts. He is as guilty as Nixon by actively attempting to cover up these crimes which is a crime in itself. As a Constitutional law expert by education, he knowingly refuses to apply it forthwith. This is part of a pattern of behavior by Obama whereby he is presented as change we can believe in, yet except for a few highly publicized changes from Bush/Cheney, when push comes to shove, he is militant around the world and illegally autocratic at home. He still has not shut down Gitmo and apply the rule of law. He knows the Constitution says only the Congress can declair war and has not issued any such declaration. He knows Congress can not pass the authority to declair war to the Executive branch without an ammendment to the Constitution. He knows no such ammendment to the Constitution has been passed by Congress. Our soldiers are sworn to uphold the Constitution yet are forced to fight unconstitutional wars.
Obama continues to perform illegal cloak and dagger operations against US citizens in America and continues to hide this reality while presenting an image of obedience to the law. This only came out because of a Freedom Of Information Act FOIA legal action combined with diligent investigative reporting that forced the truth out. http://www
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