Honduras on The Huffington Post

Robert Amsterdam: What Kind of Global Player Does Brazil Want to Be?

2009-12-30T13:10:54Z

Brazil in the 21st century is impressive to international observers for its dynamic economic growth, low inflation, and firmly established democratic institutions. How the country overcame the global economic crisis so swiftly is just one demonstration of their brilliant efforts. But the question remains: what kind role in the world does Brazil want to play?

[A version of this article was first published in Portuguese in the Brazilian newspaper O Estado de São Paulo]

For some, the question is irrelevant. Security analysts from Madrid to New Delhi are perplexed by the relationship between Brazil and Venezuela. They have come to formulate an unfortunate theory: that the country has become a 21st century economic power, but continues to practice a 20th century foreign policy.

The theory is backed up by the facts. Earlier this month the Brazilian Senate confirmed Venezuela's ascension to Mercosur, literally in the same moment in which President Hugo Chávez launched an attack on the country's judiciary, while at the same time bringing the dispute with Colombia perilously close to outright armed conflict.

There are those who argue that the Brazilian Senate did not vote for Chávez, but rather voted for a future partnership with the Venezuelan people. This may be true, and there is nothing wrong with Brazil welcoming Venezuela into the region's most important trade bloc. But it is not convincing. We have seen a fundamental lack of political will to confront the government of Chávez and protect Brazilian interests in the region.

The jailing of Judge María Lourdes Afiuni on Dec. 10 is proof that the presidency of Venezuela is dismantling the constitutional separation of powers. The incident occurred moments after Afiuni had ordered the release of the businessman Eligio Cedeño, a political prisoner who had been held in jail for almost three years without trial or sentence. The judge was defamed on national television by the president himself, who demanded the maximum sentence of 30 years.

Chávez ordered the arrest of Afiuni, publicly attacked her and Cedeño and demanded the maximum punishment against both of them. The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, formed by three independent human rights experts, rendered an opinion condemning the detention of Cedeño and qualifying it as arbitrary. The Chávez government has a long history of reprisals against judges and prosecutors involved in this case. In 2007, one judge suffered the attempted kidnapping of her son and was forced to flee the country to seek asylum. All this for having independently performed her duties as a judge and admitting one complaint by Cedeño against representatives of the prosecutor's office. Another striking example is that of a prosecutor who lost her job after opining that the arrest of Cedeño was unfounded.

Afiuni is the most recent victim of Chávez. When Cedeño legally entered the United States on Dec. 19 to voluntarily submit himself to their jurisdiction, the judge was moved from a pre-trial holding center to a maximum security facility, filled with prisoners she had sentenced (which is against the law), where she has already survived two attempts on her life by inmates who have threatened to "burn her alive."

Chávez's mask has slipped off and we can no longer consider Venezuela as a normative and democratic rule-of-law state. To everyone's surprise, one judge had the courage to observe the law and agree with international opinions on the illegality of a political prisoner's detention.

In spreading misinformation about arrests, extraditions, and alleged illegal acts, the Chávez administration is clearly making moves to stake out a position as an aggrieved party, and invent a hyped-up dispute with their favorite imaginary enemy, the United States of America. The Venezuelan president has appropriated both the courts and the military as personal instruments. He has been able to do this thanks to the international acquiescence of key countries such as Brazil.

It is also important to consider that many of Brazil's top companies are deeply invested in Venezuela, but they are still owed billions of dollars, thanks to the country's corrupt currency exchange regime, CADIVI, controlled by Chávez. Perhaps the Brazilians think that they will somehow be the only ones not to suffer broken contracts, expropriation, or non-payment? If this is the assumption, then they are profoundly naïve. As we have seen by Chávez's personal attack against Cedeño and the judge who freed him, Brazil cannot count upon any fair decision in a court on these business matters. Chávez's Venezuela provides for no judicial security.

One must also remember that an armed conflict between Venezuela and Colombia would be catastrophic for Brazil, leading to capital flight, an economic crash, and the high possibility of escalating regional violence, given the close ties Chávez maintains with extremist groups. The regrettable events in Honduras this year showed just how much trouble can be created by any departure from constitutional order.

There is great merit in Brazil's ability to maintain friendly relations with so many different nations of different values. The South-South diplomacy, pioneered by the Lula government, should continue long into the future, and help to redefine a multipolar approach to global affairs. This tactic, however, has its limits. When taken to an extreme, there are high costs.

Brazil is better than that, and deserves much more. Its ambitious view toward the future is not compatible with the tolerance of outright tyranny on her borders. It's decision time: one can't have a foot in the 21st century while maintaining retrograde views.

Honduran Regime Martyrs LGBT Leader

2009-12-23T23:03:40Z

Walter Trochez, a well-known 27-year-old queer democracy activist in Honduras, knew he was taking his life in his hands when he began a militant campaign to document and publicize 16 murders of LGBT Hondurans since the illegal June 28 coup d'etat that overthrew the country's elected president and unleashed a reign of terror on civilian opponents.

Read more: Honduras, Home News

Jane Guskin: It's Holiday Shopping Time, while the Peace of the Graveyard Marches on

2009-12-21T14:57:58Z

In Colombia there is an expression: la paz del cementerio - the peace of the graveyard.

This is the kind of peace that powerful forces enjoy when everyone who resists them is dead and buried.

Colombia's government and its military and paramilitary forces have spent decades working diligently for this kind of peace. The country is so intent on achieving it that its even dispensed with the graveyard. According to Senator Gloria Inés Ramírez, more than half a million people have been forcibly disappeared in Colombia in the past 33 years. The government's own "Justice and Peace Unit" has reports of 210,000 forced disappearances, based on complaints lodged by family members between 2006 and mid-2009. That suggests the 500,000 figure may be low; Yanett Bautista of the Nydia Erika Bautista Human Rights Foundation -- named for one of the disappeared -- estimates that family members have filed complaints in only 10% of the disappearance cases. Of the cases investigated so far, fewer than 2,500 bodies have been located, mostly in mass graves.

Israel, meanwhile, has spent six decades building its own brand of graveyard peace in Palestine. December 27 marks one year since Israel began a massive attack on the residents of Gaza, killing more than 1,400 people, including nearly 400 children and transforming the tiny strip of land from a de facto prison into a cemetery. Israel continues to strangle Gaza through a blockade, and greets nonviolent protesters with tear gas and bullets.

In Honduras, the rightwing elite and military high command, which have close ties to the extremist Catholic group Opus Dei, seem similarly committed to a graveyard peace. Last June 28 they toppled an elected president who in their eyes had bowed too far to pressure from progressive grassroots sectors. Already strong, the country's diverse social movements--including indigenous, African-descended, unionists, and lesbian and gay activists--responded to the coup by uniting and launching a coordinated nonviolent struggle from the streets.

Since the coup, 18 gay and transgender Hondurans have been among those murdered in a campaign of repression against the resistance movement, according to data compiled by the lesbian activist and research group Cattrachas. Killings of transgender women in Honduras were already rampant: in four years from 2005 through 2008, Human Rights Watch reports that 17 transgender women were killed. Now in just six months the coup government has doubled the number of victims.

On December 13, just two days after I met Cattrachas activist Indyra Mendoza at a New York City event organized by the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, Indyra's friend and fellow activist Walter Tróchez was shot to death in Tegucigalpa. A human rights defender for the gay community and for people living with HIV/AIDS, and an active member of the National Resistance Front Against the Coup, Tróchez had been threatened repeatedly, and on Dec. 4, four armed men in civilian clothes had attempted to kidnap him. "Walter used to go with me to recognize the bodies of our transgender friends when they were killed," said Indyra. "Now I had to go on my own to identify his body."

This is the peace of the graveyard. It is also known as genocide.

And if it makes you uncomfortable to read this while you would prefer to think about your last-minute Christmas shopping, that's fine, as long as your discomfort leads you to action. Because genocide is not exactly in the holiday spirit, and it's happening right now--in your name, and with your tax dollars.

You can start by picking up the phone and calling your representative and senators and telling them you believe that people have a right to protest peacefully without getting attacked or murdered, and you would like the US government to stop supporting regimes in Colombia, Israel and Honduras that are violating that right. Following the links in this article will lead you to more sources that can help you stay informed and get involved.

Mark Weisbrot: Top Ten Ways You Can Tell Which Side the United States Government is On With Regard to the Military Coup in Honduras

2009-12-16T13:12:02Z

At dawn on June 28, the Honduran military abducted President Manuel Zelaya at gunpoint and flew him out of the country. Conflicting and ambiguous statements from the Obama administration left many confused about whether it opposed this coup or was really trying to help it succeed. Here are the top ten indicators (with apologies to David Letterman):

10. The White House statement on the day of the coup did not condemn it, merely calling on "all political and social actors in Honduras" to respect democracy. Since U.S. officials have acknowledged that they were talking to the Honduran military right up to the day of the coup - allegedly to try and prevent it - they had time to think about what their immediate response would be if it happened.

9. The Organization of American States (OAS), the United Nations General Assembly, and other international bodies responded by calling for the "immediate and unconditional" return of President Zelaya. In the ensuing five months, no U.S. official would use either of those two words.

8. At a press conference the day after the coup, Secretary of State Clinton was asked if "restoring the constitutional order" in Honduras meant returning Zelaya himself. She would not say yes.

7. On July 24th, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denounced President Zelaya's attempt to return to his own country that week as "reckless," adding that "We have consistently urged all parties to avoid any provocative action that could lead to violence."

6. Most U.S. aid to Honduras comes from the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), a U.S. government agency. The vast majority of this aid was never suspended. By contrast, on August 6, 2008, there was a military coup in Mauritania; MCC aid was suspended the next day. In Madagascar, the MCC announced the suspension of aid just three days after the military coup of March 17, 2009.

5. On September 28, State Department officials representing the United States blocked the OAS from adopting a resolution on Honduras that would have refused to recognize Honduran elections carried out under the dictatorship.

4. The United States government refused to officially determine that there was a "military coup," in Honduras - in contrast to the view of rest of the hemisphere and the world.

3. The Obama administration defied the rest of the hemisphere and the world by supporting undemocratic elections in Honduras.

On October 30th, U.S. government representatives including Thomas Shannon, the top U.S. State Department official for Latin America, brokered an accord between President Zelaya and the coup regime. The agreement was seen throughout the region as providing for Zelaya's restitution, and - according to diplomats close to the negotiations - both Shannon and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave assurances that this was true.

Yet just four days later, Mr. Shannon stated in a TV interview that the United States would recognize the November 29 elections, regardless of whether or not Zelaya were restored to the presidency. This put the United States against all of Latin America, which issued a 23-nation statement two days later saying that Zelaya's restitution was an "indispensable prerequisite" for recognizing the elections. The Obama administration has since been able to recruit the right-wing governments of Canada, Panama, and Colombia, and also Peru, to recognize the elections. But its support for these undemocratic elections - to which the OAS, European Union, and the Carter Center all refused to send observers - has left the Obama administration as isolated as its predecessor in the hemisphere.

2. President Zelaya visited Washington six times after he was overthrown. Yet President Obama has never once met with him. Is it possible that President Obama did not have even five minutes in all of those days just to shake his hand and say, "I'm trying to help?"

1. The Obama administration has never condemned the massive human rights violations committed by the coup regime. These have been denounced and documented by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the OAS Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), as well as Honduran, European, and other human rights organizations. There have been thousands of illegal arrests, beatings and torture by police and military, the closing down of independent radio and TV stations, and even some killings of peaceful demonstrators and opposition activists.

These human rights violations have continued right through election day, according to Amnesty International and media reports, and beyond, including the killings of two activists opposed to the coup - Walter Trochez and Santos Corrales García - in recent days.

The United States government's silence through more than five months of these human rights crimes has been the most damning and persistent evidence that it has always been more concerned about protecting the dictatorship, rather than restoring democracy in Honduras.

The majority of American voters elected President Obama on a promise that our foreign policy would change. For this hemisphere, at least, that promise has been broken.

The headline from the latest Time Magazine report on Honduras summed it up: "Obama's Latin America Policy Looks Like Bush's."

This column was published by Common Dreams on December 16, 2009.

Eric Ehrmann: US - Brazil Relations Desafinado

2009-12-14T12:26:13Z

Christmas season marks the 50th anniversary of Brasilia, the futuristic capital city designed by architect Oscar Niemeyer, and magazines and online media are celebrating the event. Moving the seat of government inland was the beginning of the Bossa Nova (new wave) of president Juscelino Kubitscheck that started Brazil's transformation from the tropical paradise of Hollywood movies into a major world democracy.

Kubitschek made the cover of Time before JFK launched the New Frontier. But months after the White House danced to the Bossa Nova a military coup backed by another Democrat, President Lyndon B. Johnson, put Brasilia in the hands of the military for two decades.

Desafinado, the hit by Joao Gilberto that captured the musical mood of the period, means out of tune. Although President Barack Obama promised more harmonious inter-American relations, the sounds coming from Washington are once again, out of tune.

Even Time Magazine has noted the Cold War drift in Obama's Latin policy.

Brazil is concerned as Uncle Sam flexes his muscles next door in Colombia, and in Honduras. And the 54 cents/gallon tax Washington slaps on sugar-based ethanol imported from Brazil that Obama supported is keeping the US senate from approving a Bush retainer from taking over the ambassador's office in Brasilia.

Washington's efforts to put a positive spin on the policy rift are in damage control mode now that Brazil's foreign minister Celso Amorim canceled a meeting set for today with US Assistant Secretary of State Arturo Valenzuela. The only thing the two nations seem to agree upon in this moment is that deposed Honduran president "Mel" Zelaya should be guaranteed safe passage out of Honduras.

Like the Bush holdovers he works with, Valenzuela continues to obfuscate the legality of the Honduras coup in order to keep US military bases there funded by tax dollars. The state department has also patched together a Karl Rove-style "coalition of the willing" that seeks to shift the focus away from possible US misdeeds in Honduras and tag Brazil, Venezuela and Ecuador as enablers of what Hilary Clinton characterizes as a terrorist government in Iran.

Fronting this group are Colombia and Israel, the largest recipients of US foreign military assistance, along with Costa Rica, Peru and Canada.

Providing Zelaya with asylum in their Tegucigalpa embassy, Brazil is well aware of the anti-Castro Cuban support for the Honduras coup that Obama's Bush holdover ambassador, Hugo Llorens, may finally have to discuss in testimony to the US Congress. The right wing Cubans, who are also active as mercenaries in the Northern Tier of South America, view Honduran leader Mel Zelaya as a pawn of Kremlin proxies in the region, notably the Castros and Hugo Chavez.

But the most contentious issue facing the US and Brazil and South America as a region, is Washington's long term base deal with Colombia that puts US forces along the borderland with Brazil and turns the Amazon into the new Rio Grande.

Obama has nominated Bush holdover, Thomas Shannon, a highly regarded careerist who has been Assistant Secretary of State for "western hemisphere" affairs to be the next US ambassador to Brazil. Shannon's appointment, however, has been held up for months because of objections from the anti-Castro lobby and their new front man Senator George Le Mieux (R-Fla.), who was appointed recently by Governor Charlie Christ (R-Fla.) to replace Mel Martinez, who resigned.

The anti-Castro Cubans think Shannon has been soft on containing what they see as Havana's support for the FARC narco-guerrilla movement in Colombia. And they support Washington's desire to make more base deals in Peru, and in Chile, where Obama has plans to visit later this year.

Even if Shannon is confirmed by the Senate, there are no guarantees that Brazil, moving into a presidential election year, will accept him. US ambassadors have never been shy about meddling in the internal politics of Brazil. The churn rate for US ambassadors in Brazil is 24 months.

If Shannon makes it to Brasilia possible FARC border incursions would have him wearing two hats, being the good cop doing photo ops with the likes of Madonna and Sting while coordinating with US military commanders and electronic battlefield contractors in Colombia in the best tradition of the Yanqui warrior diplomats he started out with including Frank Ortiz, John Dmitri Negroponte and David Jordan.

Defense spending siphoning dollars away from nation building is a classic example of how the pathology of underdevelopment perpetuates itself and recycles deply imbedded concepts of class conflict. With the United States as its #2 oil customer, Brazil's neighbor Venezuela is shipping billions of American petrodollars into the Kremlin's coffers with the purchase of armaments. Money that could better be used on the social programs Hugo Chavez likes to take credit for.

Brazil's economy is putting up real growth numbers and the US presence along the northern border could become a divisive issue among voters and those in the armed forces who align with US supported neoconservative politicians. As Brazil moves toward a presidential election, relations with the US are definitely... desafinado.

Manuel Zelaya Negotiating Deal To Leave Honduras

2009-12-10T09:47:18Z

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Honduras' coup-installed government says ousted leader Manuel Zelaya is free to leave the country, but there's a catch: Zelaya can't go as president, and he says he won't go as anything else.

And so he remained holed up Thursday in the Brazilian Embassy, where he has been staying since he slipped back into the country three months ago. If he sets foot outside the building, the leaders who ousted him have vowed to arrest him on charges of treason and abuse of power.

Ousted president 'to exit' Honduras

2009-12-09T22:46:07Z

Manuel Zelaya to leave Brazil embassy in Tegucigalpa and go to Mexico, reports say.

The Real News: TRNN Exclusive: Honduran Elections Exposed

2009-12-09T12:23:25Z

Honduran coup regime's claims of more than 60% participation in free and fair election revealed as fraud.

"There is wide agreement that last week's presidential election in Honduras..." begins an editorial in Saturday's New York Times, "...was clean and fair." The editorial gives no hint as to whom all these people are that are in agreement, except for the 'official' data from the same regime that overthrew the elected president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, at gunpoint. The Times joins governments, commentators and editorial pages around the world that have fallen victim to the 'official' coup data. But, as this video shows, the proof of the fraud was sitting out in the open the whole time.

Produced by Jesse Freeston, on location in Honduras.

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Honduran Coup Regime's Claims Of A Fair Election Are Fraudulent: Report (VIDEO)

2009-12-07T13:04:33Z

The Real News Network calls into question the validity of the November 29 Honduran elections, which have been regarded as "clean and fair" by outlets such as the New York Times, in a new video report.

Producer Jesse Freeston argues that, despite international support and Western media approval, the election of the new Honduran government was not as fair as it appeared to be. "The facts are: that these elections were neither clean nor peaceful," he argues.

Watch for yourself to see if you feel these post-coup elections were as fair as had been widely reported.

More at The Real News

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Honduran Lawmakers Vote 'No' To Restoring Zelaya

2009-12-03T08:10:57Z

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Where does Manuel Zelaya go now?

Congress slammed the door on restoring the ousted Honduran leader to power, ignoring intense international pressure to reverse Central America's first coup in 20 years.

Manuel Zelaya Should Be Returned To Power, Say Latin American Leaders

2009-12-01T15:13:41Z

ESTORIL, Portugal — Honduras should return ousted President Manuel Zelaya to power, leaders from Latin America, Spain and Portugal said at a summit Tuesday.

Calling the June coup that forced Zelaya out "unacceptable," they said reinstating him was "a fundamental step" the Central American country needed to take to return to constitutional normality.

US: Honduras vote 'a step forward'

2009-11-30T20:46:06Z

Ousted president Zelaya insists voter turnout was low and calls vote illegitimate.

Read more: Honduras, Home News

Porfirio Lobo Elected President In Honduras

2009-11-30T07:57:55Z

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Honduras' president-elect is not worried that many countries do not recognize his election. Washington supports Porfirio Lobo, and that's what matters most to this Central American nation.

Lobo, 61, lit up in public appearances Monday with his trademark toothy grin as he assured Hondurans that the crisis over the June 28 coup that overthrew leftist-allied President Manuel Zelaya would soon be history.

Honduras opposition takes poll lead

2009-11-30T00:30:54Z

Ousted president Zelaya insists voter turnout was low and vote is illegitimate.

Read more: Honduras, Home News

Polls close in Honduras vote

2009-11-29T19:30:48Z

Counting begins in presidential vote five months after coup ousted Manuel Zelaya.

Read more: Honduras, Home News

Honduras votes for new president

2009-11-29T08:15:58Z

Ousted president calls on voters to boycott election, saying it will legitimise coup.

Read more: Honduras, Home News

Christopher Sabatini: Sunday's Elections Left As Risky Option in Honduras

2009-11-27T09:56:47Z

As Hondurans go to the polls this Sunday, months of negotiations and years of diplomatic precedent hang in the balance. The Obama administration hopes that the presidential elections will end the political crisis in Honduras. The deep divisions in Honduran society and the firmness with which most Latin American leaders have rejected the de facto government and the elections, however, risk dashing the administration's hopes.

On June 28th, the Honduran Congress and Supreme Court voted to remove President Manuel Zelaya. This followed Zelaya's disregard of their rejection of a planned ballot to allow for a constituent assembly. Acting under Supreme Court order, in the early morning, soldiers rousted the President and placed him--still in his pajamas--on a plane to Costa Rica. Because the removal strayed from the Honduran constitution, the international community immediately condemned the act as a coup and called for Zelaya's restoration. But the de facto government, led by Roberto Micheletti, asserted that the removal was constitutional, while admitting that Zelaya's exile--not to mention lack of due process--was a "mistake."

The international community's position was virtually unanimous, demanding Zelaya's restoration before previously scheduled November elections. Subsequently, Micheletti dragged his feet, thwarting regional negotiators' efforts to resolve the impasse and ignoring economic and diplomatic sanctions by the U.S. and others.

Last month, under pressure to find some exit, U.S. negotiators traveled to Tegucigalpa, engineered an agreement, and declared victory. The U.S. left implementing the agreement to the Hondurans, however, and said that it would accept the elections as a critical step for Honduras's future--even before the agreement had been fulfilled.

Most leaders in the hemisphere do not share this view. They share the position of Ricardo Lagos, former President of Chile and member of the agreement's Verification Commission that Micheletti broke the agreement and Zelaya must be restored. Now, Argentina and Brazil have denounced the elections as an attempt to legitimize the coup.

At the same time, conditions inside Honduras are troubling. The de facto government has routinely violated Honduran citizens' rights--repressing protesters, imposing curfews, censoring pro-Zelaya media, and suspending constitutional freedoms. In this tense climate, parties drastically cut back on campaign activity. Now, Zelaya and his supporters are promoting a boycott, threatening legal action, and pledging to mobilize supporters. And, with several recent unsolved explosions in the country, many voters remain afraid of election-day violence. Election officials themselves have declared that "the candidate to beat is abstentionism," as many voters may stay away from the polls in protest or out of fear. Furthermore, dozens of mayoral and congressional candidates have withdrawn from the elections in solidarity with Zelaya.

These international and domestic factors all suggest that the elections will not bring a quick resolution to this crisis. After Sunday, the Honduran people will likely continue to confront a deeply divided society and a crippled economy. Meanwhile, the Obama administration will likely remain at odds with Latin American countries with whom it had hoped to restore congenial relations after the Bush era.

But perhaps the greatest loser will be the hemispheric consensus to defend liberal democracy. In the last three decades, from Haiti to Peru, the region has effectively pushed back on coups and democratic transgressions. Allowing the Honduran coup to stand has eroded this hard-won consensus.

Looking forward, the diplomatic divisions emerging from the crisis will only weaken the international community's authority to hold accountable leaders like Venezuela's Hugo Chávez and Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega and the judicial and legislative systems that they control. It will also enable these leaders to decry the hypocrisy of their critics, who argue that elections are the solution in Honduras while denying their legitimacy in Venezuela and Nicaragua. Furthermore, by not allowing Zelaya to return in a limited form, the events over the last four months have converted Zelaya into an unlikely and undeserved democratic hero, allowing his defenders to ignore the threat he posed to Honduran democracy.

Fingers are crossed throughout the Americas for a speedy conclusion to the Honduran crisis. But Sunday's elections may not present the exit we all hope for. Instead, no matter how transparent they may be, Sunday's elections may mark a defeat for the hemisphere's ability to stand firm against coups, rein in overzealous presidents, and hold fast to a conception of liberal democracy on which we should all be able to agree.

Chris Sabatini is the senior director of policy at the Council of the Americas/Americas Society and editor-in-chief of Americas Quarterly. Daniel Altschuler is a Rhodes Scholar and doctoral candidate in Politics at the University of Oxford.

Dana Frank: No Fair Election In Honduras Under Military Occupation

2009-11-26T13:04:39Z

As the Honduran election approaches this Sunday, let's be clear about the conditions under which it is taking place. Human rights abuses are rampant, freedom of speech is under attack, and the election process is in the hands of the very people who perpetrated the coup. Clearly, no free and fair election is possible under the repressive thumb of the military coup that has been in place for five months.

While the 23 nations of the Rio Group from Latin America and the Caribbean have condemned the election and announced they will not recognize its outcome, the Obama administration still insists it will recognize the results -- once again isolating the United States from those who are upholding democracy in the hemisphere.

President Obama should join the rest of the world and immediately declare the elections fraudulent and demand the immediate restoration of President Manuel Zelaya, the withdrawal of the Honduran military, and a delay of the election until three months after Zelaya has been full reinstated.

Imagine a "free and fair election" under the conditions in Honduras today (and imagine if this were taking place in the United States):

The same Honduran military,which perpetrated the June 28 coup forcing President Manuel Zelaya out of the country, and which has brutally occupied the country for five months, physically controls the ballots, the ballot boxes, the computers that tabulate the results, and the dissemination of the outcome.

The legitimate President of the country is being held captive in the Brazilian Embassy under draconian circumstances, and has denounced the elections as fraudulent.

The leading opposition candidate, the independent Carlos H. Reyes--who has a real chance of winning a free and fair election--has withdrawn his name from the ballot in protest. Throughout the country, hundreds of candidates for congress and municipal office, including those from the mainstream parties, have announced they are withdrawing from the election. They include the mayor of San Pedro Sula, the nation's second largest city.

All three trade union federations, the leading human rights organization, women's groups, organizations of indigenous and African-descent peoples, the gay and lesbian movement, and the campesino movement--united in the National Front Against the Coup d'Etat--have denounced the election as fraudulent.

The coup government has made it illegal to advocate not voting.

Peaceful demonstrations are routinely teargassed. As the Committee of Families of the Disappeared (COFADEH) has documented, dozens of people have been killed, over 600 beaten, and over 3,500 illegally detained, including lawyers who have shown up to secure the release of detainees. Opponents of the coup continue be threatened, illegally arrested, and beaten in their homes.

The military has recently instructed all mayors in the country to compile a list of persons in their jurisdiction who oppose the coup.

The two presidential candidates remaining in the election from the traditional parties of the oligarchy, Elvin Santos from the right wing of the Liberal Party, and Porfirio Lobo Sosa from the National Party, both initially supported the coup.

No free and fair election can take place under these circumstances. Only when the legitimate President of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, has been fully restored to office for three months, only when the military has been pushed back into its barracks, and only when civil liberties are completely restored can an orderly transfer of power to a new administration take place. By persuading coup leader Roberto Micheletti to briefly step aside in the week before the election, the U.S. State Department has tried to whitewash the election at the last minute. But that doesn't change the fact that the Honduran military and the oligarchs, who perpetrated the coup and who have dictated the nation's politics for decades, are still brutally repressing the people of Honduras.

The vast majority of Hondurans aren't fooled. After five months of military repression, they know the difference between a fraudulent cover for the continuation of the coup regime, and a truly free and fair election under the rule of law. So does the European Union, the Organization of American States, and the Rio Group. They understand well the dangerous precedent the Honduran coup represents.

President Obama should refuse to recognize the results of the election and bring an end to the embarrassing isolation of the United States from the rest of the world.