South America

Wikileaks confirms: removal of Hondurian president was a coup

Honduras
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From a cable sent by the US ambassador to Honduras on 24th July, 2009 we learn that the removal of the then president Zelaya from power by the military and his subsequent deportation was illegal and hence a coup:

— the military had no authority to remove Zelaya from the country;

— Congress has no constitutional authority to remove a Honduran president;

— Congress and the judiciary removed Zelaya on the basis of a hasty, ad-hoc, extralegal, secret, 48-hour process;

— the purported “resignation” letter was a fabrication and was not even the basis for Congress’s action of June 28; and

— Zelaya’s arrest and forced removal from the country violated multiple constitutional guarantees, including the prohibition on expatriation, presumption of innocence and right to due process.

The official US response to the coup back then was ambivalent. While the Hondurian military’s actions were condemned, the US government accepted the outcome of the coup. It hesitated to put pressure on the coupists and sought to mediate between them and Zelaya and his supporters. This was sold as a properly neutral, unbiased position, but the end result was that the coupists won: Zelaya remains in exile while they remain in power. Had the US made this analysis coming from its own embassy public, it would’ve been much harder if not impossible for the coup to succeed.

IMF supports Honduras coup

Honduras
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What else would you call a $150 million loan to the coupists:

But it’s looking more and more like the same old IMF on steroids. Last week the IMF disbursed $150.1 million to the de facto government of Honduras, and it plans to disburse another $13.8 million on September 9. The de facto government has no legitimacy in the world. It took power on June 28th in a military coup, in which the elected President, Manuel Zelaya, was taken from his home at gunpoint and flown out of the country. The Organization of American States suspended Honduras until democracy is restored, and the United Nations also called for the “immediate and unconditional return” of the elected president.

No country in the world recognizes the coup government of Honduras. From the Western Hemisphere and the European Union, only the United States retains an ambassador there. The World Bank paused lending to Honduras two days after the coup, and the Inter-American Development Bank did the same the next day. More recently the Central American Bank of Economic Integration suspended credit to Honduras. The European Union has suspended over $90 million in aid as well, and is considering further sanctions.

But the IMF has gone ahead and dumped a large amount of money on Honduras – the equivalent would be more than $160 billion in the United States – as though everything is ok there.

This is classic IMF behaviour. As you know Bob, despite its supposed international focus, the IMF is pretty much ruled from Washington and has a long history of involvement with coups, especially in Latin America. An abrupt cancellation of a planned loan is usually the first sign of Washingtonian displeasure with a certain country, while the quick re-continuation of the same the first sign of approval. To have the IMF blithly carry out a loan while the rest of the world has cancelled all aid to Honduras is evidence enough that, despite Obama’s protests against the coup, the US doesn’t want the coupists to go away.

Do Toke For Me Argentina

South America
Published on 1 Comment on Do Toke For Me Argentina

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Excellent and sensible drugs news from Argentina

The supreme court in Argentina has ruled that it is unconstitutional to punish people for using marijuana for personal consumption.

The decision follows a case of five young men who were arrested with a few marijuana cigarettes in their pockets.

But the court said use must not harm others and made it clear it did not advocate a complete decriminalisation.

Correspondents say there is a growing momentum in Latin America towards decriminalising drugs for personal use.

The Argentine court ruled that: “Each adult is free to make lifestyle decisions without the intervention of the state.”

Supreme Court President Ricardo Lorenzetti said private behaviour was legal, “as long as it doesn’t constitute clear danger”.

“The state cannot establish morality,” he said.

Honduras: unions call for general strike against the coup

Honduras
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the Hondurian unions, through bitter experience well aware of what a rightwing regime can do to their country, have been out in force against the coup from the start. Now they’re calling for a general strike, as deposed president Zelaya has sworn to return soon:

The CUTH represents 250,000 workers in both urban and rural areas.

Previous protests against coup leader Roberto Micheletti have been confronted by large numbers of armed soldiers and police.

Mr Salinas told the Morning Star that opposition to the coup is gathering strength. “We have been in the streets for 22 days and our movement is becoming stronger and stronger.

“Our aim is to stop production, trade and transport,” he said.

Despite the resistance of the oligarchy, Mr Zelaya’s government had doubled the minimum wage and the trade unions predict that unless the coup regime is removed from power, it will attempt to reverse this and other progressive measures.

So far the coupists seem to have kept somewhat of a low profile: repressive, intransigent, but just standard issue repression rather than football stadiums full of dissidents being tortured and shot. They seem to be playing for time, establishing the facts on the ground and count on the “international community” to lose interest. They’ve been trying to spin the coup as an emergency measure to prevent the constitution from Zelaya’s supposed depravity, urged on them by the people. If they can keep Honduras quiet without too much visible repression, this old trick might just work. Hence the importance of a general strike as a very visible show of support for Zelaya.

By the way, it would be a mistake to think that this is just about Zelaya and his return. Until he came in office he was your fairly establishment candidate, who was half pushed into taking some measures to better the existence of the majority of Hondurians. He isn’t a socialist or populist reformer like Chavez, but hopefully if he does return, he will be radicalised like Chavez was, rather than cowed as happened to Ariste in Haiti. More important than Zelaya’s fate however is what this struggle is doing for the working classes in Honduras: if they win it’s a huge boost; if they lose they know everything that was achieved during Zelaya will be taken away again.

The Obama strategy in Honduras

South America
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Is the Obama administration attemptting to have its cake and eat it too in Honduras? Greg Grandin thinks so, arguing that the ideal outcome for Washington would be president Zelaya’s restoration but without his populist policies:

The State Department, though, has been more circumspect. At first it was reluctant to use the word “coup” to describe Zelaya’s overthrow, since to do so would trigger automatic sanctions, including the suspension of foreign aid and the withdrawal of US troops. Honduras hosts Soto Cano Air Force Base, the main US military base in the region, and Washington is concerned with keeping that installation fully operational. Likewise, according to John Negroponte–who as ambassador to Honduras in the 1980s was implicated in the cover-up of hundreds of death-squad executions–Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is working to “preserve some leverage to try and get Zelaya to back down from his insistence on a referendum” and presumably from his other populist policies.

It seems like what the United States might be angling for in Honduras could be the “Haiti Option.” In 1994 Bill Clinton worked to restore Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide after he was deposed in a coup, but only on the condition that Aristide would support IMF and World Bank policies. The result was a disaster, leading to deepening poverty, escalating polarization and, in 2004, a second coup against Aristide, this one fully backed by the Bush White House.

The ambiguity with which the American government has responded to the coup in Honduras is mirrored in such establishment barometers as the New York Times, as seen in this article on Zelaya’s attempted return last Sunday. Condescending towards Zelaya, but not very enthusiastic about the coupists either.