Are Trump's troubles the result of a "soft coup"? (1 of 2)

I first recall coming across the term "soft coup" (golpe suave or golpe blando) in connection with the impeachment of Paraguay's President Fernando Lugo in 2012. This report from Aljazeera gives an account of the outster of Lugo, Paraguay's Forgotten Coup 12/26/2013. The article is accompanied by this video report, People & Power - Paraguay's Forgotten Coup 12/25/2013:

An earlier report closer to the event from Aljazeera's Inside Story also describes the ouster and whether it should be considered a coup, Paraguay: Impeachment or political coup? 06/25/2016:

El Universal (Ecuador) gives credit to Gene Sharp for coining the "soft coup" term back in 1973. (Un politólogo de EE.UU. planteó el término de ‘golpe de Estado blando’ 12.06.2014)

Sharp is a political scientist whose name is not so well-known in the United States as it seems to be in Latin America, where the left generally regards him as the designer of a regime change strategy commonly used by the United States to undermine governments it considers inconvenient or otherwise undesirable by using means other than overt force. This CNN reports celebrates him, Gene Sharp: A dictator's worst nightmare by By Mairi Mackay 06/25/2012.

I've seen the term "soft coup" also applied to the overthrow of the Honduran government in 2009. But that one also had military involvement: "In 2009, a group of Honduran politicians and military officers staged a coup and removed then-President Manuel Zelaya from office and from the country." (Tracy Wilkinson, A Honduran coup comes full circle Los Angeles Times 04/27/2017)

Not incidentally, the Obama Administration and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton showed clear diplomatic approval of both the Honduran and Paraguayan coups, "soft" or not. The Administration also showed sympathy for the "soft coup" in Brazil in 2016 against President Rousseff. (This Confirms It was a Coup: Brazil Crisis Deepens as Evidence Mounts of Plot to Oust Dilma Rousseff Democracy Now! 05/25/2016; Ben Norton, “Parliamentary coup”: Impeachment of Brazil’s President Rousseff hands power to corrupt, unelected right wing Salon 08/31/2016; Genaro Oliveira, Brazil's 'soft coup' is not the end of a lively democracy New Zealand Herald 09/01/2017)

The circumstances of Rousseff's ouster fully justify Genaro Oliveira's characterization, "From whatever side it's viewed, the impeachment process was never about seeking justice or upholding democracy. It has always been a judicial farce masking a nasty power dispute between elite political factions."

I don't have a problem using the "soft coup" term to describes Lugo's removal from office in Paraguay in 2012 and Rousseff's in Brazil in 2016. Because both were politically and democratically illegitimate actions that nevertheless took place within established legal procedures. The actions resulted in a significant change in the national government leadership and its policies in a way that fairly obviously ran contrary to the democratic decision of free elections.

I have some reservations about how far the usage of the "soft coup" idea can go. On the one hand, it usefully distinguishes between coups accomplished by force and violence and those which achieve an illegitimate change of government without the use or imminent threat of violence. On the other hand, we could have an interesting discussion about the extent to which the implicit or explicit threat of violence is at work even in the case of the "soft coups." And while it's arguably preferable to achieve illegitimate aims through nonviolent means, the consequences of a "soft coup" could be every bit as destructive as a more traditional version in which the military rolls tanks into the street and demands that the legal government resign.

Whether or not we consider Honduras 2009 as "soft" or not, the change of government took place without armed clashes between pro- and anti-government forces. But this description makes it sound a lot like the traditional military coup, "In the first military coup in Central America since the end of the cold war, soldiers stormed the presidential palace in the capital, Tegucigalpa, early in the morning, disarming the presidential guard, waking Mr. Zelaya and putting him on a plane to Costa Rica." (Elisabeth Malkin, Honduran President Is Ousted in Coup New York Times 06/28/2009) But the upshot of the coup in practice has been a vast increase in criminal violence in Honduras, which has increased pressure for Hondurans to flee to Mexico and the United States.

It's also important to remember that military coups typically have major cooperation among civilian politicians and private players. Two examples that come readily to mind are the coup in Chile in 1973 and that in Argentina in 1955.

And a "soft" coup can also have problematic international assistance. (Helene Cooper and Marc Lacey, In a Coup in Honduras, Ghosts of Past U.S. Policies New York Times 06/29/2009)

Now the term "soft coup" is turning up in discussion of President Trump's pretty certainly impeachable offenses. In this MSNBC 11th Hour report, a Wall Street Journal reporter uses the term, Eli Stokols: Donald Trump Is Facing Something Like A Soft Coup D'état 05/19/2017:

Eli Stokols uses the term in a seemingly descriptive way to talk about how Trump critics internal to his Administration as well as the press and external political critics are undermining Trump's Presidency over the Trump-Russia scandal. But "coup" obviously carries an implication of illegitimacy.

Legitimacy is a critical factor here. And by any sensible perspective, there are substantial reasons to believe that there are serious instances of wrongdoing that may well amount to the kind of "high crimes and misdemeanors" that would justify impeach of the President under the Constitution.

The drama (and melodrama) of the Trump-Russia scandal has eclipsed the issue of violating the emoluments clause that was much discussed during the transition. (Mark Joseph Stern, High Crimes and Misdemeanors Slate 01/04/2017) But given how the Trump Family Business Administration approaches the business of the Presidency, that in itself is a substantial problem that should be formally and thoroughly investigated. Just this weekend, we had the odd coincidence of Saudi Arabia committing $100 million to a fund established by First Daughter Ivanka Trump, during the same foreign trip in which Saudi Arabia agreed to a $110 billion arms deal with the US. (Jen Hayden, On same weekend as record-breaking arms deal, Saudis announced $100 million donation to Ivanka fund Daily Kos 05/21/2017) Admittedly, $100 million is less than one percent of the amount of the arms deal. But I'm pretty sure it's big enough to count as an emolument if it otherwise meets the technical requirements of the term. Ivanka's husband also played an important role in arranging the arms deal. (Mark Landler et al, $110 Billion Weapons Sale to Saudis Has Jared Kushner’s Personal Touch New York Times 05/18/2017)

Trump's defenders insist there is no "evidence" of serious misdeeds by Trump. But that begs the questions of whether there are concerns substantial enough for Congressional and criminal investigation of some of these major incidents. While it's true that we don't have the full documentation for the intelligence community's January report on Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee in the public record, it's hard to see how any government would make every detail of such a finding publicly available. But it's certainly reason for Congress and investigative agencies to understand it thoroughly. And if the four intelligence agencies whose consensus that report represented just concocted the conclusions, that would be something that urgently needs to be uncovered, as well!

And it sounds highly likely from what is in the public record that Trump himself was involved in obstruction of justice in the Trump-Russia investigation, especially with the firing of FBI Director James Comey. And Trump's first National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was working as an unregistered foreign agent for Turkey last year. And given the warnings we know that Trump and his transition team received from senior officials about Michael Flynn before Trump named him as National Security Adviser makes it look reckless at the very best to appoint him to that post with the top-level security clearance that comes with it.

Given Trump's flagrant lack of concern about conflicts of interest, it will not surprise me in the least that we'll eventually learn at lot about dubious financial entanglements of the Trump family business with Russian interests.

In Part 2 tomorrow, I'll look at left and right versions of the "soft coup" framing on Trump's Constitutional problems.

Hillary and Honduras

Stephen Zunes recounts The US role in the Honduras coup and subsequent violence National Catholic Reporter 03/14/2016:

Referring to Berta Cáceres, the environmental activists murdered earlier this month:

She is just one of thousands of indigenous activists, peasant leaders, trade unionists, journalists, environmentalists, judges, opposition political candidates, human rights activists, and others murdered since a military coup ousted the democratically elected president Manuel Zelaya in 2009.

Despite being a wealthy logger and rancher from the centrist Liberal Party, Zelaya had moved his government to the left during his four years in office. During his tenure, he raised the minimum wage and provided free school lunches, milk for young children, pensions for the elderly, and additional scholarships for students. He built new schools, subsidized public transportation, and even distributed energy-saving light bulbs.

None of these were particularly radical moves, but it was nevertheless disturbing to the country’s wealthy economic and military elites. More frightening was that Zelaya had sought to organize an assembly to replace the 1982 constitution written during the waning days of the U.S.-backed military dictator Policarpo Paz Garcia. A non-binding referendum on whether such a constitutional assembly should take place was scheduled the day of the coup, but was cancelled when the military seized power and named Congressional Speaker Roberto Micheletti as president.

There's a grim continuity with the past in the 2009 coup:

The leader of the coup, Honduran General Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, was a graduate of the notorious School of the Americas, a U.S. Army training program nicknamed “School of Assassins” for the sizable number of graduates who have engaged in coups, as well as the torture and murder of political opponents. The training of coup plotters at the program, since renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, isn’t a bygone feature of the Cold War: General Luis Javier Prince Suazo, who played an important role in the coup as head of the Honduran Air Force, graduated as recently as 1996. [my emphasis]

Here is how US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton responded to the coup:

Emails released last year by the State Department also show how Clinton rejected calls by the international community to condemn the coup and used her lobbyist friend Lanny Davis -- who was working for the Honduran chapter of the Business Council of Latin America, which supported the coup -- to open communications with Micheletti, the illegitimate interim ruler installed by the military.

Leaders of Latin American nations, the U.N. General Assembly and other international organizations unambiguously demanded Zelaya’s immediate return to office. However, in her memoir Hard Choices, Clinton admits that she worked to prevent restoring the elected president to office: “In the subsequent days [after the coup] I spoke with my counterparts around the hemisphere, including Secretary Espinosa in Mexico. We strategized on a plan to restore order in Honduras and ensure that free and fair elections could be held quickly and legitimately, which would render the question of Zelaya moot.”

The elections, held under military rule and marred by violence and media censorship, were hardly free or fair. The Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) declared they would not recognize elections held under the de facto government and the Organization of American States drafted a resolution that would have refused to recognize Honduran elections carried out under the dictatorship, but the State Department blocked its adoption.

In the subsequent six years, the horrific repression and skyrocketing murder rate -- now the highest in the world -- has resulted in tens of thousands of refugees fleeing for safety in the United States. Ironically, as Secretary of State, Clinton rejected granting political asylum and supported their deportation.

Honduras and continuing repercussions of the 2009 coup

The murder of an American environmental activist in Honduras is bring new focus for some on one of the more dubious acts of the Obama Administration and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, their support for the coup in Honduras in 2009. At least support after the fact.

David Agren reports for Catholic News Service in Catholic groups write John Kerry to urge US scrutiny of Honduran activist's death National Catholic Reporter 03/14/2016:

At least 25 Catholic groups joined nongovernmental organizations in condemning the murder of Honduran environmental activist Berta Caceres, calling for a change in U.S. policy toward assistance in the region.

In an open letter to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, the organizations demanded a proper investigation into a crime that has captured international attention and put a spotlight on impunity in the Central American country. The called for the U.S. government to not allow the killing of Caceres to go unsolved and unpunished and to avoid a response of "business as usual." Instead, they urged, the U.S. should use the tragedy to make "a profound change of direction toward improving the abysmal situation of human rights in Honduras." ...

Honduras has suffered instability and insecurity since a 2009 coup, while corruption has caused widespread protests -- especially in 2014 after revelations that money embezzled from the state social security institute ended up in the governing National Party's election campaign.

Mark Weisbrot wrote in Hard choices: Hillary Clinton admits role in Honduran coup aftermath Aljazeera America 09/29/2014:

In “Hard Choices,” Clinton describes her role in the aftermath of the coup that brought about this dire situation. Her firsthand account is significant both for the confession of an important truth and for a crucial false testimony.

First, the confession: Clinton admits that she used the power of her office to make sure that Zelaya would not return to office. “In the subsequent days [after the coup] I spoke with my counterparts around the hemisphere, including Secretary [Patricia] Espinosa in Mexico,” Clinton writes. “We strategized on a plan to restore order in Honduras and ensure that free and fair elections could be held quickly and legitimately, which would render the question of Zelaya moot.”

This may not come as a surprise to those who followed the post-coup drama closely. (See my commentary from 2009 on Washington’s role in helping the coup succeed here, here and here.) But the official storyline, which was dutifully accepted by most in the media, was that the Obama administration actually opposed the coup and wanted Zelaya to return to office. ...

The question of Zelaya was anything but moot. Latin American leaders, the United Nations General Assembly and other international bodies vehemently demanded his immediate return to office. Clinton’s defiant and anti-democratic stance spurred a downward slide in U.S. relations with several Latin American countries, which has continued. It eroded the warm welcome and benefit of the doubt that even the leftist governments in region offered to the newly installed Obama administration a few months earlier. ...

Like the 54-year-old failed embargo against Cuba, Clinton’s position on Latin America in her bid for the presidency is another example of how the far right exerts disproportionate influence on U.S. foreign policy in the hemisphere.

Manuel Zelaya returns to Honduras intending to challenge the post-coup regime

To show I don't only watch videos from PBS Newshour and Aljazeera, even though I've posted quite a few from both lately. This is from The Real News dated 05/28/2011, about Honduras on the occasion of the return of the overthrown President Manuel Zelaya as a private citizen, under the Cartagena Accord, an agreement negotiated by Colombia and Venezuela, two countries who often find themselves at odds over foreign policy. That cooperation is an illustration of the general Latin American concern over the military coup of 2009 in Honduras. Zelaya's declaration on returning home, "Golpes de Estado nunca jamás" (No coup d'etat's ever again), finds great resonance throughout Latin America.



See also Zelaya vuelve a Honduras dos años después del golpe Clarín 28.05.2011; Thelma Mejía, Zelaya Says Coup Was International Conspiracy Inter Press Service 05/30/2011; and Is U.S. covering up reality in Honduras? McClatchy News, also a video report from The Real News dated 04/08/2010.

On the question of the US showing itself as a friend of democracy, the Obama Administration could have made a more demonstrative show of support for the elected government of Honduras at the time of the coup and immediately afterward.

New elections in Honduras are scheduled for 2013. Zelaya describes his goal as "refundar Honduras" (to re-found Honduras). This is the video from the McClatchy link above from 2010, giving some idea of the human rights situation under the coup regime and the not-especially-noble role the Obama Administration played in the post-coup period:



This raises again the dilemma I discussed in a recent post: at what point should the United States recognize a regime that has taken effective power in a country? And in what ways should the US attempt to support the restoration of democracy in such a case? What kind of aid is appropriate to provide to a non-democratic regime like the post-coup government in Honduras if it is deemed to be appropriate to recognize it?

That report gives a suggestion of the problem of viewing recognition as a reward. In this case, the Obama Administration decided it was appropriate to recognize the government that was in fact in control in Honduras. But because recognition by the US is treated by our government as a kind of special benefit, recognition required minimizing the human rights abuses taking place there. Which doesn't enhance the United States' reputation as a friend of democracy and human rights in other countries. If recognition of governments were treated as a more straightforwardly pragmatic manner, the US would be in a better position in such a case to recognize the government but still criticize its human rights abuses straightforwardly. Assuming the US government at a given moment wants to do so.

In yet another report from The Real News, this one dated 04/22/2011, which discusses one of the less encouraging developments under the current Honduran government, the incursion of Mexican drug cartels into Honduras:



This story is also reported by Tim Johnson in Drug gangs muscle into new territory: Central America McClatchy Newspapers 04/21/2011:

The extent of the infiltration is breathtaking. Drug cartels now control large parts of the countries of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, the so-called Northern Triangle of Central America. They've bought off politicians and police, moved cocaine processing laboratories up from the Andes, and are obtaining rockets and other heavy armament that make them more than a match for Central America's weak militaries.

Air Force Gen. Douglas Fraser, chief of the U.S. Southern Command in Miami, told a March 30 Pentagon news briefing that Central America "has probably become the deadliest zone in the world" outside of Iraq and Afghanistan. Homicide rates in cities such as San Pedro Sula in northern Honduras are soaring, making them as deadly as Mogadishu, Somalia, or the Taliban home base of Kandahar, Afghanistan.

Tags: honduras, manuel zelaya

Addicted to war and convinced dictators are our best friends

Those are two major problems with today's Republican Party. I don't have a good sense of why rightwing Republicans are so fond of the Honduran government of now-President Roberto Micheletti that took power in a military coup this past June. Jom Lobe at his LobeLog blog takes a stab at it in Neocons Stay Silent on Honduran Human Rights Crackdown 10/05/09:

The Republican delegation’s trip is indicative of the strong support that the post-coup regime enjoys from the American right. While the coup and its aftermath have been condemned by Latin American leaders across the political spectrum — including rightists like Alvaro Uribe of Colombia and Felipe Calderon of Mexico — their counterparts in the U.S. have demonstrated no such qualms, offering unqualified support for the Micheletti government.

To be sure, some of this is simply reflexive anti-Obama animus: the right wants to give the new administration a black eye, and sniping at his anti-coup stance (which has in fact been quite restrained compared to other leaders in the region) is an easy way to cause headaches for the president. But right-wing support for the coup has also reflected a sort of residual Cold War hangover — recalling the days when neoconservatives and other avid Cold Warriors in the Reagan administration threw their support behind brutal military juntas and death squads throughout Latin America. Just as the Communist threat was thought to justify any measures taken against it, no matter how unsavory, today the rise of left-wing populist leaders led by Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez occupies a similar place in the right’s Manichean framework. [my emphasis]

The support among the neocons and the Republican right for the coup regime in Honduras is important and notable for several reasons. One is what Lobe mentions, that the Latin American governments across the board are supportive of the outsted, democratically-elected government of Honduras. I'm not in favor of American crusades to impose democracy at the point of a rifle and under the explosion of bombs. But it is in the interest of the United States to promote democracy in ways that don't cause wars. And to promote peaceful and cooperative relations with Latin America. Both of which argue for something like the policy of the Obama administration to take a position of favoring the democratically elected government and opposing coups like the one in Honduras in June.

In the longer run, the US needs to have practical relations with the governments that actually control their countries. Officially pretending that Chiang Kai-Chek's government was the actual ruler of China for over 20 years after the victory of the Chinese Revolution on the mainland was a foolish policy that damaged American interests, for instance. The policy diplomatic and economically isolating Cuba for much longer than that has been even dumber, though not as consequential in terms of great-power politics. Obama's administration has made a lot of constructive progress by moving away from that policy toward Iran. Normal diplomatic relations isn't a sign of approval of a country's internal policies. It's a practical arrangement for relationships among nations.

How long would be long enough to not recognize the coup regime in Honduras, I don't know. But right now would not be the time to do so. Hopefully a negotiated settlement for a return to democracy will succeed within the next few months.

Another reason it's notable is that the Reagan administration essentially gave Central American policy to the neocons as their playground. Honduras was the staging area for the Contra war against the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. Major diplomatic players in the Cheney-Bush administration like Elliot Abrams and John Negroponte were deeply involved in supporting reactionary groups and dictatorships in that area. Negroponte was the Ambassador to Honduras: Negroponte's Time In Honduras at Issue by Michael Dobbs Washington Post 03/21/05; The Negroponte File National Security Archive (George Washington University) 04/12/05.

And third reason, closely related to the second, is that Christian Right groups were very active in promoting Reagan policies in Central America. I haven't seen anything that tells me there is a special Christian Right angle to the current situation in Honduras. But it bears watching.

See also:

La OEA dejó Honduras sin acuerdo y con el "ánimo destemplado" por Alejandra Pataro Clarín 09.10.2009

Honduran Coup Regime in Crisis By Greg Grandin The Nation Online 10/08/09

HONDURAS: Talks Seek Solution to 102-Day Crisis by Juan Ramón Durán, Inter Press Service 10/07/09

Against Anti-Semitism: Right, Left, or Media-Induced by Al Giordano, Narco News/The Field 10/04/09

Tags: honduras, neoconservatives

Honduras

Elizabeth Dickinson gives us part of the story on American supporters of the Honoduran coup in Who's Lobbying for the Coup? Foreign Policy Online 08/04/09. What's missing from this is any notion that the rest of Latin American has lined up solidly behind the outsted elected President Manuel Zelaya. much less why:

With the U.S. Congress split over which side to favor, the crisis in Honduras looks no closer to resolution; Zelaya remains camped on the border between Nicaragua and Honduras, talks being mediated by Costa Rica's President Oscar Arias seem to have stalled, and no one is sure which way things will turn next. What's clear is that what Washington does next will have an impact.

"It's striking that both sides have looked to Washington for resolution to the crisis," explained Shifter. "I think it's hard to see a resolution without U.S. support."

Dickinson makes it sound like the only players involved are factions within the US government.

See also: Former U.S. Ambassador Roger Noriega hired to push Honduran putsch agenda by Bill Conroy Narcosphere 08/01/09; In Mexico, ousted Honduran leader boosts bid to go home by Sara Miller Llana The Christian Science Monitor 08/04/09.

Tags: honduras

March on Tegucigalpa

Deposed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya is staging a march from Nicaragua to the border of Honduras in his latest political manuever to regain his seat after being deposed by a military coup: Zelaya inició su marcha hacia Honduras Página 12 23.07.2009.

The Organization of American States (OAS) tried to negotiate a power-sharing arrangement as an interim settlement but it fell through.

I wonder what role if any American conservatives are playing in this. The Republicans neocons and the Christian Right have a bad record when it comes to opposing democracy and stirring up military trouble in Central America.

See also:

Zelaya Heads Home to Honduras on the Anniversary of Bolívar’s Birth by Al Giordano 07/23/09

Honduras: Talks on Verge of Collapse; General Strike Declared by Thelma Mejía 07/23/09

Tags: honduras

Don't we have enough foreign policy headaches already without creating new ones?

Douglas Farah asserts the traditional not-Good-Neighbor American attitude toward Latin America in The Ghost of Che: The same old authoritarian revolution is back Foreign Policy Online 07/20/09:

And here's the most dangerous part of all: The leaders of today act not in the name of Marxism -- but democracy. Venezuela and its Bolivarian allies call for Zelaya's reinstatement for rule of law's sake. Yet these are the very countries that have most measurably moved toward authoritarianism.

So across the region, the Bolivarian revolution is unwinding the hard-won democratic gains made in the past 15 years, while pretending that it's doing everything in the name of democracy itself. In Nicaragua, the formerly U.S.-backed Contra rebels disarmed and the Sandinista military and police were tamed. The democratic system Ortega now tramples was the same one that was finally open enough to see him reelected. In Bolivia, repressive military regimes gave way to elected governments -- opening the way to Morales's election. He has since turned back the democratic clock by attacking the press, allowing his followers to physically target the opposition, and illegally passing sweeping constitutional reform.

In an extremely superficial description of the "caudillo" tradition, Farah basically dismisses the democratically elected governments in Latin America that US foreign policy makers have found most annoying in recent years as essentially enemies of the United States. And he embraces the crudest kind of Cold War framework in doing so.

I'd like to think that, in the absence of the Soviet Union that was the linchpin of Cold War scaremongering - "the Soviets are establishing a new base in our own hemisphere!" - such appeals would simply fall flat. But we've seen in the last eight years how a Republican administration was able to pass off the bogeyman of Al Qa'ida as being an existential threat on the level of Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union.

Farah makes his argument with specific reference to Hondurus, where he clearly supports the recent military coup and opposes the return of the elected President Manuel Zelaya. He oversimplifies the constitutional issues that the coup leaders used as a nominal justification of overthrowing the government. That's putting it generously. Actually, he just regurgitates the pro-coup claim as though it were undisputed fact.

This whole post of Farah's smells really bad to me. He doesn't bother to mention that the elected governments of Latin America have unanimously opposed the Honduran coup and support the return to office of Zelaya, as does the Obama administration. The Organization of American States (OAS) has been playing an active diplomatic role in trying to attain that goal. And his claim that the "Bolivarians" support the FARC narco-guerrillas in Colombia also - at the very best - grossly oversimplifies the realities, where Farah's main Latin bogeyman Hugo Chávez has pushed for a diplomatic settlement. Farah even manages to take decades of peaceful, democratic transitions of power in Nicaragua as demonstrating the failure of democracy in Nicaragua!

Weird. And worse than weird.

Glenn Greenwald just interviewed Ken Silverstein of Harper's on the Honduran coup and other matters. Glenn writes:

I still to this day find one of the most amazing and insignificant events to be when, in 2002, Hugo Chavez, who whatever you think of him, was and is the democratically elected leader of Venezuela, was overthrown in a military coup, and The New York Times editorial page not only supported that coup, but in very Orwellian fashion, they actually described it exactly as the opposite of what it in fact was.

The lead line was, "With yesterday's resignation of President Hugo Chavez, Venezuelan democracy is not longer threatened by a would-be dictator." And they urged that Venezuela needs a leader with a strong democratic mandate to clean up this mess, when in fact, of course, it was democracy that had been subverted by, not his resignation, but by his overthrow by military coup, that it turned out that the Bush administration, at least, rhetorically, if not otherwise, had supported. So, to me, what seems like, the way that the media has talked about what's going on in Honduras seems similar to that. Maybe not as egregious, but maybe it is, so talk about what you see as the problems with how these events in Honduras have been discussed and what the significance is.

Tags: honduras

The coup in Honduras

Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya

There was a military coup late last week on Sunday in Honduras. The military outsted President Manuel Zelaya (Liberal Party) because he intended to hold a popular referendum on whether he should be allowed to be re-elected for a second term. The referendum was scheduled for this past Sunday. The Honduran Congress last week passed a bill to cancel the referendum. Zelaya announced it would proceed anyway and immediately fired Romeo Vásquez, the head of the armed forces, to forestall any coup attempt. The coup happened anyway. Zelaya was arrested on Sunday and unceremoniously expelled to Costa Rica. The Congress quickly installed another member of the Liberal Party, Roberto Micheletti, as interim President until this coming November's scheduled election.

The US, the European Union and the Organization of American States (OAS) are all opposing the coup and demanding Zelaya's return as the legitimate head of government.
And furious diplomacy is under way to that end. Zelaya had said he would return to Honduras on Thursday, Micheletti had threatened to arrest him if he did, and he now says he's going to delay his return by 72 hours at the request of the OASA to give diplomacy a chance to proceed. (Zelaya esperará 72 horas para regresar a su país, a pedido de la OEA Página 12 01.07.2009) If the situation is not resolved satisfactorily soon, among other problems it could cause it delaying the arrangement of an important trade agreement between the EU and the countries of Central America; the EU suspended the talks for now in response to the coup.

Pro-Zelaya protester

M. Á. Bastenier in Golpe contra el chavismo El País 01.07.2009 speculates that Zelaya may have set a trap for his opponents. On the one hand, the US, the EU and some members the OAU were less than pleased by his diplomatic and political closeness to Venezuela. But they also are opposed to seeing Latin America slide back to the bad old days of elected governments being overthrown by militaries doing the bidding of economic elites who are being discomforted by popular reforms. Framing the basic issue as "chavism" versus anti-chavism, he argues that the anti-chavists may have shot themselves in the foot by staging a coup. Because whatever reservations the democracies of the Europe and the Americas may have about Hugo Chávez' and "chavism" in other countries, the Honduran chavists seem to have made it much more difficult to show any kind of favoritism to their cause. Chavism, in the case, is very much on the side of democracy against a military coup.

Tom Hayden argues that a failure by the Obama administration to back Zelaya in this crisis would badly damage his chances of improving relations with Latin America (Honduras Crisis Forces Obama to Focus on Latin America The Nation Online 06/30/09):

The Obama position is complicated by the history of US training of the Honduras armed forces, past involvement with shadowy death squads, and concern over Zelaya's alliance with the [Venezuelan-led] Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas. In the background are memories of US complicity in the attempted coup against Venezuela's Hugo Chávez in 2002. [my emphasis]

An involvement about which most Americans heard little or nothing, thanks to the sad state of the American news media. Gabriel Puricelli makes a similar analysis in 72 Hours “Before Actions Kick In” on Honduras Coup by Al Giordano The Field 07/01/09.

Tags: honduras, latin america

Bolivian developments

Bolivian President Evo Morales is moving more forcefully against the separatist rebels, whose opposition to the national government developed into armed rebellion during this week. He has declared martial law (estado de sitio, literally "state of siege") in the norther rebel province of Pando. (Bolivia declara el estado de sitio en la violenta región de Pando El Mundo/EFE [Spain] 13.09.2008) He has arrested the governor of the rebellious department (province) of Pando.

The PBS Newshour presented a major report on the Bolivian situation on Friday, Unrest in Bolivia Leads to Ousting of U.S. Diplomats 09/12/08:

Opposition protesters reportedly shot and killed seven peasant farmers in a remote eastern Amazon region of Bolivia called Pando on Thursday, and an employee of the opposition-led regional government employee was also killed, a government official told Reuters.

The violence is rooted in an ongoing stand-off between President Evo Morales' leftist government and opposition governors who control four of the country's nine regions - some of which hold the country's valuable natural gas reserves.

The governors are demanding more energy revenue and opposing Morales plan to distribute land to the poor and rewrite the constitution.

PBS also reports on developments in Venezuela:

In a show of support for ally and fellow-leftist Morales, Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez also expelled the U.S. ambassador from Caracas on Thursday and shouted insults at the United States at a political rally.

"Go to hell...Yankees, we are a dignified people, go to hell a hundred times," Chavez said, reported Reuters.

"The yankee ambassador in Caracas has got 72 hours to get out of Venezuela, in solidarity with Bolivia," Chavez said.

Chavez accused the U.S. of being behind a plot to oust him and of planning to bomb Venezuela.

"If there was an aggression against Venezuela there would be no oil for the people or for the government of the United States," he said, according to the AP. [my emphasis]

PBS provided an earlier report on earlier actions by Morales' government that antagonized the petroleum oligarcy there, Bolivia Moves to Nationalize Oil and Gas Industries 05/02/06.

A new disturbing development Califican de injerencia al anuncio de intervención El Diario [Bolivia] 12.09.2008; Trigo a Chávez: No se permitirá ninguna intervención militar El Mundo [Bolivia]) is that both the opposition and the Bolivian military itself are making an issue out of Hugo Chávez' offer of Venezuelan military support to the Morales government.

General Luis Trigo, who in the Bolivian system is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces (not President Morales), declared on Thursday in a public announcement carried on radion and TV:

Al señor presidente de Venezuela, señor Hugo Chávez, y a la comunidad internacional le decimos que las Fuerzas Armadas (de Bolivia) rechazan enfáticamente intromisiones externas de cualquier índole, venga de donde venga, y no permitirán que ningún militar o hueste extranjera pise el territorio nacional.

[To the President of Venezuela, Señor Hugo Chávez, and to the international commenunity, we say that the Armed Forces [of Bolivia] emphatically reject external interference of any nature, from wherever it may come, and we will not permit any foreign military or army to enter the national territory.]

Since Trigo is formally the head of the Bolivian military, it's not clear to me just how far his statement goes in being a threat to the Bolivian government. Trigo did state his intention to support the democratic government of Morales in the current crisis.

Chávez, speaking in his own capacity as commander-in-chief of the Venezuelan armed forces, responded to Trigo directly. (Chávez pide al Ejército boliviano que apoye a Morales El País [Spain] 14.09.2008)

Chilean President MIchelle Bachelet has called a meeting of the Unión de Naciones Sudamericanas (UNASUR) for Monday to discuss the Bolivian crisis. (Bachelet convoca a presidentes de UNASUR a reunión de emergencia por Bolivia Los Tiempos [Bolivia] 13.09.2008)

In Central America, Honduras joined in the diplomatic defense of Bolivia by refusing to accept the credentials of the new US Ambassador to their country (Honduras se niega a recibir las credenciales del nuevo embajador estadounidense El País [Spain]/EFE 13.09.2008)

Honduran President Manuel Zelaya said that Honduras would remain allied with the US, but made clear that the act was an expression of solidarity with Bolivia, in the face of what Bolivia claims is US intervention in fomenting the oligarchs' separatist rebellion.

Honduras is a member of the Alternativa Bolivariana para las Américas (ALBA), along with Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Bolivia. The tiny Carribean island nation of Dominica (population circa 70,000) is also a member. (Cuba, Nicaragua and Bolivia are three of the poorest countries in Latin America.)

El País [Spain] reports in Evo Morales anuncia que detendrá al Gobernador opositor de Pando por desacato 14.09.2008:

Santa Cruz es el principal foco de oposición al Gobierno de Evo Morales y lidera un proceso autonomista, que el Ejecutivo considera ilegal, secundado también por las regiones de Beni, Pando, Tarija y Chuquisaca. Los sucesivos desencuentros políticos entre el Gobierno de La Paz y los prefectos autonomistas, agrupados en el Consejo Nacional Democrático (CONALDE) se han agravado en los últimos días con varios episodios de violencia en los departamentos de Tarija (sur), Santa Cruz (este) y Pando (norte).

[Santa Cruz is the principal focus of opposition to the government of Evo Marales and is leading a process of autonomy which the Executive [Morales] considers illegal, seconded also by the regions of Beni, Pando, Tarija and Chuquisaca. The successive political clashes between the government in La Paz and the autonomist prefects grouped in the Consejo Nacional Democrático (CONALDE) have been aggravated in recent days by episodes of violence in the provinces of Tarija (south), Santa Cruz (east) and Pando (north).]

The rebel provinces are referred to as the Media Luna (Crescent Moon), because of their contiguous shape in the easter part of Bolivia.

For more background on the situation in Bolivia in English, see:

Bolivia: Can the Majority of People Vote for Change and Actually Get It? by Mark Weisbrot, AlterNet 08/27/08

Bolivia: Rescuing the New Constitution and Democratic Stability International Crisis Group 06/19/08

Tags: bolivia, evo morales, honduras, hugo chávez, venezuela