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Honduras-The CIA Never Quits

Gary Sudborough | 29.06.2009 23:46 | Anti-militarism | World

The United States has a long history of interference in Latin America and the coup in Honduras could be a part of that.

Just after I had written three articles about the alleged voter fraud, street demonstrations and violence in Iran being a classic example of a CIA destabilization operation because of Iran's oil, and even more importantly its strategic location, there is a coup in Honduras, which certainly suggests another CIA operation. Two of the leaders of the Honduran coup are School of the Americas graduates. The School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia has trained some of the most brutal dictators and death squad leaders in Latin America. Two of those who immediately come to mind are the former brutal dictator of Guatemala, Rios Montt, and the Salvadoran death squad leader, Roberto d'Aubuisson, who was responsible for the murder of Archbishop Oscar Romero in El Salvador. The names of these Honduran SOA graduates are General Vasquez and General Suazo, the first from the army and the latter from the air force. President Zelaya, the victim of the coup, was flown to Costa Rica and the ambassadors from Cuba and Venezuela were arrested. It is very reminiscent of the time when President Aristide of Haiti was arrested by US forces and flown to the Central African Republic. President Aristide was trying to raise the wages of the sweatshop workers employed by American corporations in Haiti, and this situation simply could not be tolerated. President Zelaya, being a leftist, was probably trying to do something for the poor in Honduras, also.

The history of US involvement in Honduras in very interesting. The United Fruit Company set up many banana plantations there. There were US military interventions in Honduras in 1903, 1907, 1911, 1912, 1919, 1924, and 1925. These were the so-called Banana Wars and occurred in other countries in the region, as well. There was a massacre of banana workers working for the United Fruit Company in Colombia in 1928, during which the Colombian military machine-gunned an unknown number of people. In fact, marine Major General Smedley Butler mentions his military operations in Honduras in his famous speech where he refers to himself as having been a "high class muscle man for big business, for Wall Street and the bankers."

The next very memorable period in Honduran history is when John Negroponte was ambassador to that country from 1981 to 1985. He supervised the construction of the El Aguacate air base where Honduran and Argentinean graduates of the School of the Americas trained the Contras in torture and other methods of counterinsurgency warfare, so that they could conduct their illegal and immoral war against Nicaragua. This base was also a torture and detention center in itself. In 2001 the base was dug up and found to contain the bodies of 185 people including two Americans. John Negroponte, also, collaborated with Battalion 316, which was a Honduran death squad responsible for the disappearances and deaths of hundreds of people. John Negroponte was later made ambassador to Iraq in 2004 and afterward held a cabinet level post, newly created by then President George W. Bush called Director of National Intelligence. One can only wonder what havoc Ambassador John Negroponte created in Iraq. All the deadly bombings and religious violence between Sunnis and Shias have his fingerprints all over them. Divide and Conquer!

I don't know how this present coup will turn out. The United States has condemned the coup, but that is obviously just rhetoric. Hugo Chavez and other Latin American leftist Presidents like Evo Morales have condemned the coup, as well. Hugo Chavez has even threatened military action if the Venezuelan embassy in Honduras is threatened, but this is just rhetoric, also, because he can't confront the military might of the United States, which would probably intervene for the present thugs in Honduras. I know there won't be any twittering out of Honduras, like there was in Iran, and there will be no hourly coverage on the news media of any demonstrations by the Honduran people. Given the fact that Zelaya is a leftist, this is a coup that is undoubtedly favored by United States, and the corporate media would like to send it down the memory hole as fast as possible, while keeping demonstrations in Iran in prime time news coverage.




Gary Sudborough
- e-mail: IconoclastGS@aol.com

Comments

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Protest Honduran embassy Tuesday and US embassy Friday

30.06.2009 03:02

In the early hours of Sunday June 28, a group of soldiers seized the democratically elected president of Honduras Manuel Zelaya at gun-point and took him by plane to Costa Rica. A new president was sworn in, while the army decreed a curfew, tanks patrolled the streets, the government TV channel was taken off the air and a list was issued of social movement leaders to be arrested.

The trigger for the coup was an attempt by Zelaya to call a Constituent Assembly in order to reform the country's constitution. Zelaya's government had carried out a whole series of progressive reforms in the fields of education and health care, breaking the monopoly of the multinationals in the pharmaceutical and oil sector and boosting the minimum wage by 60% and had the support of the majority of workers, peasants and the poor. His government brought Honduras into the ALBA regional bloc, aligning itself with the progressive governments of Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Cuba, Nicaragua and others, whose leaders are holding an emergency summit in Managua to reverse the coup.

The masses have come out on the streets and are striking to reject this coup. We give them our full support and demand that the British government backs Zelaya as the only legitimate president of Honduras and acts to bring about the immediate restoration of constitutional order.

Down with the reactionary coup!
Bring back Zelaya!
Solidarity with the people of Honduras!

Emergency picket of the Honduras embassy
5pm Tuesday June 30
115 Gloucester Place, London W1U 6JT (nearest Tube: Baker Street or Paddington)

Called by the Co-ordinadora Latinoamericana (Hands Off Venezuela, Bolivia Solidarity Campaign, Colombia Solidarity Campaign, Ecuadorian Movement in the UK, Latin American Workers Association and Polo Democratico UK) and supported by Colectivo Acuerdo Humanitario.

The Co-ordinadora Latinoamericana has also called for a picket of the US embassy from 4.30pm on Friday July 3, Grosvenor Square, W1A 1AE (nearest Tube: Bond Street).

La Chola


Hmmm..

30.06.2009 03:08

Could be the Honduran military just assumed they'd be backed by the USA, or were encouraged to think so by elements such as the CIA. But it's definitely not in the interests of other elements in the US establishment to back this coup, so there could be a substantial split over this. Could be the sort of split of which little gets out until historians get to work in 20 or 30 years time. I think it's still uncertain which forces will win in Washington and which way the USA will jump.

Any facilitation or encouragement of the coup by shadowy elements of the US state -which is quite likely in a direct sense and certainly true indirectly- now looks rather old school. A subtler brand of hegenomism may prevail. Egg on the face of one faction or the other, I reckon.

Stroppyoldgit


Micheletti is a failed Quisling

30.06.2009 09:54

To be honest, the US is going to have to jump with the elected President, as the rest of the world already has. Zelaya is speaking at the UN in a few hours, ALBA have withdrawn their ambassadors and followed Venezualas lead by putting their military on alert.

Clinton was trying to buy herself time by saying it had 'evolved' into a coup, yet without imposing the legal sanctions that requires, and so the US is even more clearly associated with the same retarded, anti-democratic military tactics it has always pursued in that hemisphere. Unless the US is deliberately trying to provoke an all out war on the rest of the
Americas, Clintons fudging can only be seen as a continuation of the September 11th CIA coup against Allende, the mining of Nicaraguan harbours that earned the US the first legal rebuke ever from the world court and their countless other bloody wars against the people.

Can you imagine how it feels to be Micheletti this morning? His huge and overwhelming ambition to be President has been handed to him by a fascist putsch, but his own people hate you, the world has nothing but contempt for him, he only has the support of a few soldiers who are hopelessly outgunned by the surrounding democractic armies.

I think his name may be remembered as a noun, just like Quisling but without the powerful backer.


Danny


Brilliant video report

30.06.2009 10:11

Showing the soldiers getting slapped about and links it to the School of the Americas class 'How to overthrow Democracy 101'. It also points out there there are is a US military base there, presumably shredding documents ready to go home as we speak.

Danny
- Homepage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-Wquoo1dIA


Possible false reports of assasination

30.06.2009 10:24

That video includes a widely reported reference to the "assassination" (actually execution) of Cesar Ham, the leftist presidential candidate. Zelaya isn't a leftist, except in CIA terms, he is the same 'Liberal' party as his deposer. That execution remains unverified with various new reports reporting he is still alive.

Danny


Change of location for friday picket - Honduras Embassy

02.07.2009 20:26

The protest on friday will be at the Honduras Embassy NOT be at the US Embassy as previousy advertised.

Solidarity with the people of Honduras!
Friday 4 pm outside EMBASSY Honduras
115 Gloucester Place London W1U 6JT
Tube: Baker Street

Hasta La Victoria Siempre...

La Chola


Defence of the constitution

02.07.2009 22:30

Given the fact that the Honduran Supreme Court and Congress had ruled Zelaya's attempt to change the constitution to allow him a second term was illegal and called for him to be removed suggests that this not a military coup in the traditional sense. This was no Pinochet-style coup.

The constitution of Honduras specifies that a president cannot serve more than one term and makes it illegal for him to seek to change this rule. Zelaya went ahead with a referendum on the subject that the Supreme Court had ruled illegal.

Observer


@observer

04.07.2009 18:09

>Given the fact that the Honduran Supreme Court and Congress had ruled Zelaya's attempt to change the constitution to allow him a second term was illegal and called for him to be removed suggests that this not a military coup in the traditional sense.

It was still a military coup by officers trained at the School of Americas in the US.

>This was no Pinochet-style coup.

It was identical to the CIA coup against Chavez even though the political situation was different in Venezuala.

>The constitution of Honduras specifies that a president cannot serve more than one term and makes it illegal for him to seek to change this rule.

It makes it illegal for any one to oppose this rule even verbally. However the rule was designed to appease the previous military dictatorship and the ruling elite, or else why else should people who choose to have the same President for two terms be allowed to express their opinions. There is no provision for exiling anyone who challenges that rule, and there is nothing in their constitution to remove a President under any circumstances. If he was to be removed though, he should have been impeached, tried and sentenced after new elections were called.

>Zelaya went ahead with a referendum on the subject that the Supreme Court had ruled illegal.

Zelaya tried to go ahead with a non-binding referendum which only proposed a further referendum at the next election. Why depose an elected President over a device that would have no legal value but which would solely indicate the opinion of the majority of citizens - unless you fear the opinion of the majority? Anyway, Zelaya has stated he isn't going to pursue this vote when he returns to power so why is he threatened with arrest.

Danny


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