The White House knew for months that a coup was being prepared in Honduras, even though now State Department spokespersons feign a surprised innocence. The U.S. ambassador in Tegucigalpa, Hugo Llorens, knew it very well: on September 12, 2008, he arrived in the Central American country and, nine days later, the current coupist general Romeo Vásquez declared on the radio station HRN that they had sought “to overthrow the government of president Manuel Zelaya Rosales” (9/12/08). He added: “We are a serious and respectful institution, which is why we respect Mr. President as our Commander-in-Chief and we subordinate ourselves as dictated by law.”  Just like Pinochet before rising against Salvador Allende. Any resemblance is just the work of reality.
 
On June 2 of this year, Hillary Clinton went to Honduras to participate in a meeting of the Organization of American States.  She spoke with Zelaya and shared with him her discomfort with the referendum that the leader planned to hold at the same time as the next presidential elections.  U.S. officials indicated that “they didn’t believe that the plebiscite was constitutional” (The New York Times, 6/30/09).  Six days before the coup, the Honduran paper La Prensa reported that Ambassador Llorens had met with influential politicians and military chiefs “in order to find a solution to the crisis” caused by the referendum (6/22/09).  The “solution” they found is obvious.
 
It’s difficult to assume that the military leaders of Honduras, armed by the Pentagon and educated at the School of the Americas, where many Latin American dictators were trained, would have made a move without the approval of their mentors.  Aside from that, the coupists did not hide the reasons for their actions: Zelaya was getting too close to the “communism” of Chávez, the Venezuelan most-hated by the White House: in July 2008, under his mandate, Honduras joined the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA), the new “axis of evil” in Latin America. Too much, right?
 
Too much, yes, because Honduras is strategic territory for the Pentagon, which from its base in Soto Cano, where it stations troops from the U.S. air force and infantry, doesn’t only dominate Central America: this bona fide enclave is fundamental in the U.S. military’s scheme for a region rich in natural resources.  Although he never touched the interests of foreign corporations or the local owners of economic power, Zelaya constituted a danger of “destabilization.”  It’s fitting to mention that the referendum about holding a Constituent Assembly that could have permitted the reelection of Zelaya was non-binding.  No one was bothered in Washington by the constitutional reform in Colombia that allowed for the re-election of Alvaro Uribe, the great ally of the U.S., which was not even a plebiscite. It’s that one thing is one thing and another is another.
 
The Honduran coupists are not very presentable.  General Romero Vásquez Velásquez, thrown out by Zelaya, came back with the coup and authored the kidnapping and expulsion of the president, was sent to the national penitentiary in 1993, together with ten other members of a gang accused of robbing 200 luxury automobiles (2/2/93).  He was then a major in the army; as a general, he devoted himself to robbing a government elected at the polls.  Another unpresentable one is Advising Minister Billy Joya, who doesn’t do justice to his last name [jewel] (or does, depending on how you look at it): he was head of the tactical division of Battalion B3-16, the Honduran death squad that tortured and “disappeared” numerous individuals in the 1980s.  “Lawyer Arrazola” - one of his aliases - is an expert in such activities: he studied the methods of the Argentinean and Chilean dictatorships (7/7/09).  These are well-known facts, in spite of which, or because of which, he was chosen to form a part of the so very democratic coupist regime.
 
The repression in Honduras continues. Thursday of last week the father of Isis Obeid Murillo, the 19-year-old young man killed by the army at the Tegucigalpa airport, was detained: he had the crazy idea to publicly demand justice for his son (7/11/09).  The saviors of democracy expelled journalists from the Associated Press, Channel 21 disappeared off the screen, and the armed forces occupied Channel 36 (Miami Herald, 7/1/09). It is the concept of freedom of the press that characterizes the coupists.
 
The White House continues meekly with what it classifies as an “illegal act.”  Hillary refuses to call it a “coup d’état” because that would automatically implicate the cessation of U.S. economic and military aid to Honduras.  The talks about a peaceful resolution taking place in Costa Rica, in which President Oscar Arias is acting as a mediator at Obama’s request, are a farce.  But they have an important aspect: they signify an official recognition of the imposed regime.  Arias already announced that he will treat coupist Micheletti as “presidentially” as the leader elected at the polls and then deposed.  That is equanimity.

Spanish original: Desde Abaho

Translated by Scott Campbell

Visit Scott Campbell's Website: Angry White Kid