A Coup is a Coup is a Coup: March on Southern Command in Solidarity with the People of Honduras

by Ray Del Papa & Linda Belgrave, SOA Watch, July 27, 2009

When Your Only Tool is a Hammer, Every Problem Looks Like a Nail

Those who have supported the SOA Watch over the years know that Fort Benning and the U.S. Southern Command (SouthCom, the command and control facility for the US military in Latin America and the Caribbean) go hand in hand. Saturday morning, July 25, 60 people (two-thirds of them Latino) gathered in the pouring rain to march to the gates of SouthCom in solidarity with the people of Honduras.

Our demands, directed at the U.S. military, were straightforward:

1. Withdraw all US forces from Honduras (there are 600 troops stationed there)
2. Close all US military bases in Honduras.
3. Cut off all military aid to Honduras.
4. Return all Honduran military personal now being trained at the SOA (WHINSEC)
5. Close the School Of the Americas now.

Directly in front of the main gate participants gave testimony as to why these demands needed to be implemented. People made the trip from as far away as Maryland, as well as many locations in Florida, to be there for this important event; a vacationer from New York City joined the action.

Whole families from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers traveled from central Florida to stand with their brothers and sisters in Honduras; many of this party of twenty-five had had their own experiences at the hands of oppressive regimes in Central America. A mother (name withheld for safety) explained that it was especially important for women and children to march in opposition to the coup, as women, mothers, and children suffer disproportionately under oppression; her family back in Honduras is strongly opposed to the coup.

Isabella Gomez, of the U.S.—Latin American Solidarity Network and a member of SEIU, told of people being killed in her region of Honduras, as well as reports of other deaths in the north, reports that are not making into the stories put out by the U.S. media. Ms. Gomez fled Honduras twenty-five years ago to escape the death squads. At that time Micheletti was busy putting down a teachers’ strike in which she was involved. She also gave a telling critique of the current Honduran constitution—it doesn’t mention women at all! It might be worth noting that the U.S. Constitution, which also initially failed to mention women or minorities, has been amended many, many times. Amendments ending slavery and giving women the right to vote were especially hard fought. Opposition to progressive constitutional changes elsewhere in the world should not surprise Americans; military coups in response to efforts at change should shock us.

Pat McCann, of Veterans for Peace, pointed out to the crowd that members of the military, ordinary soldiers, not officers, are drawn from the poor, who often have few options. He vowed that the next time we come out to SouthCom, we will know some of the ordinary U.S. soldiers stationed there and we will talk to them.

Katherine Kean, of Crowing Rooster Production, talked about a documentary she made twenty years ago about the exploitation of poor workers in Honduras by U.S. Corporations. A dedicated activist for the Haitian people, she pointed out the parallels between the coup in Haiti in 2004 and the coup in Honduras, how both presidents were awakened in the early morning hours, put on planes, and flown out of the countries they had been elected to lead. Aristide has never returned to Haiti, much less to his Presidency.

Organizers of the action pointed out the connection between SouthCom and the SOA (WHINSEC), specifically that SouthCom approves curriculum for the School and directs military actions in all of Latin America. Secondly, they called on Obama to call the coup a coup and cut off all U.S. aid to Honduras so that Zelaya can return to his rightful office with no conditions.

Saturday’s action did have its trying moments. Thursday evening saw the beginning of a flurry of (unconfirmed) e-mail rumors that General Romeo Orlando Vasquez Velasquez, the commanding general of the coup, would appear for a speaking engagement at the Miami Beach Convention Center Saturday at the same time as the action at SouthCom. This brought suggestions for a change of venue for the protest, a change of date, and plain demands that folks go out to South Beach. Mostly what these rumors wrought was distraction and confusion. When that failed to derail our action, we learned that Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen had called a press conference at her office with a former president of Honduras at the same time our event was taking place. This had a media effect. Saturday morning those media that arrived to cover the protest had to leave before it got going, in order to cover the Congresswoman’s event. Despite their hopes of getting back in time for our march, that simply was not logistically possible. If this were not enough, there was the Florida weather. It rained over most of Florida and just poured in South Florida.

One reporter caught a photo of a few hardy souls with soggy signs before leaving. While he missed our eventual numbers, he captured our determination to show that there is significant local opposition to the coup. Motorists’ favorable responses to our rally were unexpected. Many driving in the miserable weather took the time and effort to slow down and read our signs, honk, wave, and give us the thumbs-up. This, more than anything, illustrates a deep current of opposition to the coup, even in Miami, a bastion of the Latin right-wing.

The high-powered hidden support for Honduras' coup

The country's rightful president was ousted by a military leadership that takes many of its cues from Washington insiders.
By Mark Weisbrot, Los Angeles Times, July 23, 2009

Powerful special interests have flexed their muscles and confronted President Obama on the most important legislative priorities of his domestic agenda. But this kind of politics-by-influence-peddling doesn't stop at the water's edge. And in foreign policy, the consequences can be more immediate, violent and deadly.

Meet Lanny Davis, Washington lawyer and lobbyist, former legal counsel to President Clinton and avid campaigner for Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential bid. He has been hired by a coalition of Latin American business interests to represent the dictatorship that ousted elected President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras in a military coup and removed him to Costa Rica on June 28.

Davis is working with Bennett Ratcliff, another lobbyist with a close relationship to Hillary Clinton who is a former senior executive for one of the most influential political and public relations firms in Washington. In the current mediation effort hosted by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, the coup-installed government did not make a move without first consulting Ratcliff, an unnamed source told the New York Times.

Davis and Ratcliff have done an amazing public relations job so far. Americans, relying on media reports, are likely to believe that Zelaya was ousted because he tried to use a referendum to extend his term of office. This is false.

Zelaya's referendum, planned for the day the coup took place, was a nonbinding poll. It only asked voters if they wanted to have an actual referendum on reforming the country's Constitution on the November ballot. Even if Zelaya had gotten everything he was looking for, a new president would have been elected on the same November ballot. So Zelaya would be out of office in January, no matter what steps were taken toward constitutional reform. Further, Zelaya has repeatedly said that if the Constitution were changed, he would not seek another term.

If we add together the high-powered lobbyists from the Clinton camp, Republican members of Congress and conservatives within the State Department, the coup government has a lot of support from Washington.

So it's up to Obama to do the right thing. He can have the U.S. Treasury freeze the coup leaders' personal bank accounts and the assets of the coup leaders and their supporters, and deny them visas to the U.S. He could also impose trade sanctions -- 70% of Honduran exports go to the United States. He would have worldwide support for such steps: Both the Organization of American States and the U.N. General Assembly have voted unanimously to demand the immediate and unconditional reinstatement of Zelaya.

Almost all of the Latin American governments -- which are mostly left of center -- also sympathize with Zelaya because he is a reform president fighting against a corrupt oligarchy. In one of the poorest countries in the hemisphere, he raised the minimum wage by 60% and increased teachers' salaries and public pensions, as well as access to education.

What happened in Honduras is a classic Latin American coup in another sense: Gen. Romeo Vasquez, who led it, is an alumnus of the United States' School of the Americas (renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation). The school is best known for producing Latin American officers who have committed major human rights abuses, including military coups.

The military has shot at peaceful demonstrators, killing one, according to human rights groups, and the coup government has closed TV and radio stations and arrested journalists. Two political activists have been murdered.

During the 1980s, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency trained a military death squad -- the infamous Battalion 316 -- that tortured and murdered hundreds of Honduran political activists. The U.S. Embassy looked the other way, and the State Department doctored its human rights reports to omit these crimes.

Obama has so far been silent about the coup government's violence and censorship. This silence is very unfortunate and difficult to explain. The repression may worsen if -- as expected -- the Arias mediation efforts fail and Zelaya makes good on his vow to return to Honduras.

Obama needs to show that the U.S. will not follow policies of the past by supporting Zelaya's return with action, not just words. Anything less will look like complicity in the eyes of the world, especially given the coup government's friends in high places.

Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington. (www.cepr.net).

Honduras: Breakdown of Mediation Means More Pressure for U.S. to Act

By Laura Carlsen, Americas MexicoBlog, July 20, 2009

• Coup rejects proposal that includes return of Zelaya
• Zelaya to return to Honduras on Friday, supporters prepare reception
• Clinton calls Micheletti to warn of “potential consequences”
• European Union suspends aid to Honduras
• Honduran “Feminists in Resistance” convokes demonstrations at U.S. Embassies throughout the world

Last weekend, President Oscar Arias presented a seven-point mediation plan to representatives of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya and the regime installed by a military coup last Jun 28. The plan included the return of Zelaya to carry out his term in office, formation of a coalition government, elections held a month earlier than scheduled, and amnesty for political crimes, among other points.

Showing great flexibility, the legal government, whose claim to power is supported by international law, democratic practice, the OAS and the UN, agreed “in principle” to the proposal.

The coup, led by Roberto Micheletti, replied with a flat-out “no”. The press reported that Carlos Lopez of the coup delegation announced, "I'm very sorry, but the proposal you presented [is] unacceptable to the government of Honduras that I represent."

The intransigence of the coup placed the nail in the coffin of efforts to mediate the conflict. On Sunday Zelaya called the talks “exhausted” and deemed the attitude of the Micheletti delegation “arrogant” and “disrespectful.” Sec. General of the Organization of American States José Insulza responded, “We deeply regret the attitude of Micheletti.” Insulza has led diplomatic efforts to return constitutional order in the country and reinstate Zelaya without bloodshed.

Although Arias has said he wants to continue with mediation, Zelaya has announced his return to Honduras this Friday, respecting the 72-hour period Arias requested for a last-ditch attempt at some kind of resolution. The National Front against the Coup called for a nationwide mobilization to receive the president, stating in a communiqué, "With the aim of giving a grand reception to our constitutional president, we call on all the Honduran people to be prepared and organized on this date for a huge march to the meeting at the place and hour to be announced soon.”

Leaders of the grassroots organizations of workers, farmers, teachers and citizens who support his return never had high hopes for the mediation efforts. They questioned the validity of making the coup a recognized counterpart in talks and have given up on the prospect of a mediated solution. Juan Barahona, leader of the Front, said Saturday, “We don’t see any possibilities to arrive at an agreement in the talks in Costa Rica. These talks could just be a way to buy time for the coup to consolidate its power and also to buy time to exhaust the resistance.”

As predicted, the talks fell through and the battle has moved to the streets. Zelaya’s daughter, Pichu, addressed the crowd and made clear the stakes. She defended the Honduran people’s right to democracy and urged the construction of “citizen power” to carry out the constitutional referendum and extend social programs started by her father.

A Two-Prong Strategy in the U.S.

Zelaya called on the international community to strengthen measures against the coup and said after the failure of the talks, “Today the coup leaders have once more insulted the international community, Oscar Arias and the Secretary of the United States, Hillary Clinton, promoter and sponsor (of the talks),” he said.

Clinton has been criticized lately for avoiding calls for the return of Zelaya and placing all the eggs in the basket of mediation. By all rights, she should be furious with the coup for scuttling that effort.

Instead, the State Department issued a milquetoast statement on the talks:

“We commend President Oscar Arias of Costa Rica for his continuing efforts to facilitate a peaceful, negotiated restoration of Honduras's democratic and constitutional order. This weekend's talks produced significant progress, and created a foundation for a possible resolution that adheres to the principles of the Inter-American Democratic Charter and the decisions taken within the Organization of American States (OAS).

We call on the parties to the talks to reflect upon the progress made so far, and to commit themselves to their successful conclusion. At this important juncture, we also call upon the OAS, its member states, and other interested parties to reaffirm their support for the talks facilitated by President Arias, underscore their commitment to the peaceful resolution of political disputes through dialogue, remain mindful of the principles of non-intervention and self-determination, and express their solidarity for the democratic well-being of the Honduran people.”

The declaration is not only weak and vague but also ominous and out of touch. When the international press announces that the coup has shut down talks, the State Department unaccountably refers to “significant progress.” There is no pressure on the coup to relinquish its illegitimate power to the elected president.

Later in a press briefing, spokesperson Phillip Crowley said that behind the scenes there has been some pressure. Asst. Sec. Tom Shannon and Ambassador Llorens had spoken with both sides and with other countries. He also said that Sec. Clinton called Micheletti from New Delhi for the first time and “encouraged him to continue focus on these negotiations and also helped him understand the potential consequences of the failure to take advantage of this mediation.”

Just how much Clinton put the screws to the Micheletti regime was unclear. Crowley said, “I think it was a very tough phone call. However, I think it was – she made clear if the de facto regime needed to be reminded that we seek a restoration of democratic and constitutional order, a peaceful resolution. We do not think that anybody should take any kind of steps that would add to the risk of violence in Honduras, and that we completely support the ongoing Arias mediation… that we need to have a restoration of democratic and constitutional order. We would like to see President Zelaya returned to Honduras, and that we’d like to see a clear path that leads to follow-on elections.”

When asked about sanctions, Crowley said “…in the Secretary’s phone call with Micheletti she reminded him about the consequences for Honduras if they fail to accept the principles that President Arias has laid out, which would – it has a significant impact in terms of aid and consequences, potentially longer-term consequences, for a relationship between Honduras and the United States.”

He also said that the State Department told Zelaya not to return to Honduras in the meantime and mentioned that the OAS was considering a statement in favor of mediation.

The response contrasts with the response of other countries. After talks broke down over the weekend, the European Union today announced the suspension of millions of Euros in financial aid to Honduras, in addition to the withdrawal of their ambassadors in the early days of the coup.

The U.S. government has done neither. For the grassroots organizations fighting against the coup, it is essential that the U.S. back up its words with actions. Barahona stated this weekend, “What we expect is for the United States to comply with the agreement of the OAS, which is for the complete economic and political isolation of the coup and they still aren’t doing it.”

The Honduran organization Feminists in Resistance has called for simultaneous demonstrations in front of U.S. embassies on Jul 22 at 10 A.M. The demands include:

* Condemn the political-military coup against the Honduran State, which was financed by Honduran businessmen and the Latin American and North American ultra-right, promoted by national media corporations, protected by the Ombudsman of Honduras and blessed by the leadership of the Catholic and evangelical churches in the country.

* Unconditional support for the return to constitutional order in Honduras, which means the return of President Manuel Zelaya Rosales a Honduras.

* End to repression of organizations that demonstrate against the coup by police and military units aided by retired military personnel responsible for the disappeared of the decade of the 80s in Honduras.

* End to threats of war, promoted by the de facto regime, which is creating a climate of terror in the Honduran population.

* Suspension of all technical or financial, bilateral or multilateral aid to the de facto regime.

* Condemnation of María Martha Díaz Velásquez, named as head of the National Women´s Institute by the de facto regime and María Antonieta Bustamante, representative of the Inter-American Commission on Women for Honduras, who met us with anti-riot police when we went to demand that they give back our institute. (See a video in Spanish on the violence against women protesters in front of the Institute July 15).

Grassroots organizations in the United States have launched a two-pronged strategy to defend democracy and unseat the coup in Honduras. The strategy calls for pressure on the government to demand additional sanctions, withdrawal of the ambassador and a cut-off of military ties. The School of the Americas Watch notes that although joint military operations have been suspended the school is still training Honduran soldiers. Many organizations are calling for U.S. citizens to support the Delahunt-McGovern resolution before Congress to declare the coup a coup, cut off non-humanitarian funding to Honduras and urge the reinstatement of President Zelaya.

The second part of the strategy involves grassroots actions to keep the issue at the forefront of a crowded national agenda through direct action and support the Honduran people. Tactics include demonstrations, protest actions including a planned convergence on SouthCom headquarters in Florida Jul 25, media and information sharing, and delegations to Honduras. U.S. unions have nearly unanimously condemned the coup and urged actions.

U.S. continues to train Honduran soldiers

Military coup that ousted president, didn't stop U.S. engagement in Honduras
By James Hodge and Linda Cooper, National Catholic Reporter, ¡Presente!, July 15, 2009

A controversial facility at Ft. Benning, Ga. -- formerly known as the U.S. Army’s School of the Americas -- is still training Honduran officers despite claims by the Obama administration that it cut military ties to Honduras after its president was overthrown June 28, NCR has learned.

A day after an SOA-trained army general ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya at gunpoint, President Barack Obama stated that "the coup was not legal" and that Zelaya remained "the democratically elected president."

The Foreign Operations Appropriations Act requires that U.S. military aid and training be suspended when a country undergoes a military coup, and the Obama administration has indicated those steps have been taken.

However, Lee Rials, public affairs officer for the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, the successor of SOA, confirmed Monday that Honduran officers are still being trained at the school.

"Yes, they're in class now." Rials said

Asked about the Obama administration's suspension of aid and training to Honduras, Rials said, "Well, all I know is they're here, and they're in class."

The decision to continue training the Hondurans is "purely government policy," he said, adding that it's possible that other U.S. military schools are training them too. "We're not the only place."

Rials did not know exactly how many Hondurans were currently enrolled, but he said at least two officers are currently in the school's Command and General Staff course, its premier year-long program.

"I don't know the exact number because we've had some classes just completed and some more starting," he said. "There's no more plans for anybody to come. Everything that was in place already is still in place. Nobody's directed that they go home or that anything cease."

The school trained 431 Honduran officers from 2001 to 2008, and some 88 were projected for this year, said Rials, who couldn't provide their names.

Since 2005, the Department of Defense has barred the release of their names after it was revealed that the school had enrolled well-known human rights abusers.

The general who overthrew Zelaya -- Romeo Orlando Vásquez Velásquez -- is a two-time graduate of SOA, which critics have nicknamed the "School of Coups" because it trained so many coup leaders, including two other Honduran graduates, General Juan Melgar Castro and General Policarpo Paz Garcia.

Vasquez is not the only SOA graduate linked to the current coup or employed by the de facto government. Others are:

* Gen. Luis Javier Prince Suazo, the head of the Honduran air force, who arranged to have Zelaya flown into exile in Costa Rica;
* Gen. Nelson Willy Mejia Mejia, the newly appointed director of immigration, who is not only an SOA graduate, but a former SOA instructor. One year after he was awarded the U.S. Meritorious Service Medal, he faced charges in connection with the infamous death squad, Battalion 3-16, for which he was an intelligence officer.
* Col. Herberth Bayardo Inestroza Membreño, the Honduran army's top lawyer who admitted that flying Zelaya into exile was a crime, telling the Miama Herald that ''In the moment that we took him out of the country, in the way that he was taken out, there is a crime," but it will be justified.
* Lt. Col. Ramiro Archaga Paz,the army's director of public relations, who has denied harassment of protesters and maintained that the army is not involved in internal security.
* Col. Jorge Rodas Gamero, a two-time SOA graduate, who is the minister of security, a post he also held in Zelaya's government.

The ongoing training of Hondurans at Ft. Benning is not the only evidence of unbroken U.S.-Honduran military ties since the coup.

Another piece was discovered by Maryknoll Father Roy Bourgeois, the founder of SOA Watch, while on fact-finding mission to Honduras last week.

Bourgeois -- accompanied by two lawyers, Kent Spriggs and Dan Kovalik -- visited the Soto Cano/Palmerola Air Base northwest of Tegucigalpa, where the U.S. Southern Command's Joint Task Force-Bravo is stationed.

"Helicopters were flying all around, and we spoke with the U.S. official on duty, a Sgt. Reyes" about the U.S.-Honduran relationship, Bourgeois said. "We asked him if anything had changed since the coup and he said no, nothing."

The group later met with U.S. Ambassador Hugo Llorens, who claimed that he had no knowledge of ongoing U.S. military activity with the Hondurans, Bourgeois said. The ambassador also said that he himself has had no contact with the de facto government.

That has apparently changed. Christopher Webster, the director of the State Department's Office of Central American Affairs, said Monday that Llorens has in fact been in touch with the current coup government, according to Eric LeCompte, the national organizer for SOA Watch.

LeCompte met with Webster Monday along with other representatives of human rights groups and three Hondurans -- Marvin Ponce Sauceda, a member of the Honduran National Congress, Jari Dixon Herrera Hernández, a lawyer with the Honduran attorney general's office, and Dr. Juan Almendares Bonilla, director of the Center for the Prevention, Rehabilitation and Treatment of Victims of Torture.

Webster told the group that Llorens and the State Department are engaging the coup government to the extent necessary to bring about a solution to the crisis.

Webster "told us that military aid had been cut off, and that the return of Zelaya as president is non-negotiable although the conditions under which he returns are negotiable," LeCompte said.

Herrera Hernández, the lawyer with the Honduran attorney general's office, told Webster that the coup government has disseminated misinformation by claiming the coup was legal because the court had issued an arrest warrant for Zelaya for pushing ahead with a non-binding referendum on whether to change the Honduran constitution.

However, the order to arrest Zelaya came a day after the coup, he said. And contrary to coup propaganda, Zelaya never sought to extend his term in office, and even if the survey had been held, changing the constitution would have required action by the legislature, he said.

Whatever legal argument the coup leaders had against Zelaya, it fell apart when they flew him into exile rather than prosecuting him, the attorney said. The legal system has broken down, he added, for if this can happen to the president, who can't it happen to?

Linda Cooper and James Hodge are the authors of Disturbing the Peace: The Story of Father Roy Bourgeois and the Movement to Close the School of the Americas.

Washington & the Coup in Honduras: Here is the Evidence

By Eva Golinger, Postcards from the Revolution, July 15, 2009

[aquí está en Español]

• The Department of State had prior knowledge of the coup.

• The Department of State and the US Congress funded and advised the actors and organizations in Honduras that participated in the coup.

• The Pentagon trained, schooled, commanded, funded and armed the Honduran armed forces that perpetrated the coup and that continue to repress the people of Honduras by force.

• The US military presence in Honduras, that occupies the Soto Cano (Palmerola) military base, authorized the coup d’etat through its tacit complicity and refusal to withdraw its support of the Honduran military involved in the coup.

• The US Ambassador in Tegucigalpa, Hugo Llorens, coordinated the removal from power of President Manuel Zelaya, together with Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Shannon and John Negroponte, who presently works as an advisor to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

• From the first day the coup occurred, Washington has referred to “both parties” involved and the necessity for “dialogue” to restore constitutional order, legitimizing the coup leaders by regarding them as equal players instead of criminal violators of human rights and democratic principles.

• The Department of State has refused to legally classify the events in Honduras as a “coup d’etat”, nor has it suspended or frozen its economic aid or commerce to Honduras, and has taken no measures to effectively pressure the de facto regime.

• Washington manipulated the Organization of American States (OAS) in order to buy time, therefore allowing the coup regime to consolidate and weaken the possibility of President Zelaya’s immediate return to power, as part of a strategy still in place that simply seeks to legitimate the de facto regime and wear down the Honduran people that still resist the coup.

• Secretary of State Clinton and her spokesmen stopped speaking of President Zelaya’s return to power after they designated Costa Rican president Oscar Arias as the “mediator” between the coup regime and the constitutional government; and now the State Department refers to the dictator that illegally took power during the coup, Roberto Micheletti, as the “interim caretaker president”.

• The strategy of “negotiating” with the coup regime was imposed by the Obama administration as a way of discrediting President Zelaya – blaming him for provoking the coup – and legitimizing the coup leaders.

• Members of the US Congress – democrats and republicans – organized a visit of representatives from the coup regime in Honduras to Washington, receiving them with honors in different arenas in the US capital.

• Despite the fact that originally it was Republican Senator John McCain who coordinated the visit of the coup regime representatives to Washington through a lobby firm connected to his office, The Cormac Group, now, the illegal regime is being representated by top notch lobbyist and Clinton attorney Lanny Davis, who is using his pull and influence in Washington to achieve overall acceptance – cross party lines – of the coup regime in Honduras.

• Otto Reich and a Venezuelan named Robert Carmona-Borjas, known for his role as attorney for the dictator Pedro Carmona during the April 2002 coup d’etat in Venezuela, aided in preparing the groundwork for the coup against President Zelaya in Honduras.

• The team designated from Washington to design and help prepare the coup in Honduras also included a group of US ambassadors recently named in Central America, experts in destabilizing efforts against the Cuban revolution, and Adolfo Franco, ex administrator for USAID’s Cuba “transition to democracy” program.

No one doubts that the fingerprints of Washington are all over the coup d’etat against President Manuel Zelaya that began last June 28th. Many analysts, writers, activists and even presidents, have denounced this role. Nevertheless, the majority coincide in excusing the Obama Administration from any responsibility in the Honduran coup, blaming instead the lingering remains of the Bush-Cheney era and the war hawks that still pace the halls of the White House. The evidence demonstrates that while it is certain that the usual suspects who perpetrate coups and destabilization activities in Latin America are involved, ample proof exists confirming the direct role of the new administration in Washington in the Honduran coup.

The Department of State

The new form of diplomacy of the United States, known as “smart power”, has played a principal role before, during and after the coup in Honduras. During a press briefing on July 1, spokesmen for the Department of State admitted to having prior knowledge of the coup in Honduras, clarifying that US diplomats had been meeting with the groups and actors planning the coup to encourage a different “solution” to their discontent with President Zelaya. The State Department also confirmed that two high level representatives from the Department, which included Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Thomas Shannon and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Craig Kelley, were in Honduras the week prior to the coup and maintained meetings with the civilian and military groups that later participated in the illegal overthrow of a democratically elected president. They state their mission was to “urge against” the coup, but evidently such verbal pressure was insufficient to discourage the actors involved in the coup, particularly considering the actions manifested by Washington contradicted those harsh words.

On the day of the coup, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton published a statement regarding the situation in Honduras. Despite the fact that governments around the world were quickly condemning the actions as a coup d’etat, Clinton’s statement did not recognize the events in Honduras as a “coup d’etat” and also did not call for the return of President Zelaya to power. Curiously, Clinton’s statements from day one have referred to “all parties” of situation, legitimizing the coup leaders and somehow placing blame – publicly – on President Mel Zelaya for provoking his own overthrow: “The action taken against Honduran President Mel Zelaya violates the precepts of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, and thus should be condemned by all. We call on all parties in Honduras to respect the constitutional order and the rule of law, to reaffirm their democratic vocation, and to commit themselves to resolve political disputes peacefully and through dialogue. Honduras must embrace the very principles of democracy we reaffirmed at the OAS meeting it hosted less than one month ago.”

And ever since, despite different references to a “coup” having occurred in Honduras, the Department of State has refused to legally classify what took place as a coup d’etat. By doing so, the US government would be obligated to suspend economic, diplomatic and military aid to Honduras, which apparently they are unwilling to do, since such a measure would substantially affect US interests in the Central American nation and the region. On July 1, the spokesmen for the State Department explained their wavering on the coup question: “In regard to the coup itself, I think it would just – it would be best to say that this was a coordinated effort between the military and some civilian political actors. Obviously, the military was the entity that conducted the forcible removal of the president and has acted as the securer of public order during this process. But for the coup to become more than an insurrection or a rebellion, you have to have an effort to transfer power. And in that regard, the congress – the congress’s decision to swear in its president, Micheletti, as the president of Honduras indicates that the congress and key members of that congress played an important role in this coup.”

This position of ambiguity, that condemns the events in Honduras as a violation of constitutional order but doesn’t go as far as classifying the situation as a coup d’etat and also doesn’t call for the reinstatement of President Zelaya to the presidency, was ratified again after the meeting held between Secretary of State Clinton and President Zelaya on July 7. Clinton made the following statement, “I just finished a productive meeting with President Zelaya. We discussed the events of the past nine days and the road ahead. I reiterated to him that the United States supports the restoration of the democratic constitutional order in Honduras. We continue to support regional efforts through the OAS to bring about a peaceful resolution that is consistent with the terms of the Inter-American Democratic Charter…We call upon all parties to refrain from acts of violence and to seek a peaceful, constitutional, and lasting solution to the serious divisions in Honduras through dialogue. To that end, we have been working with a number of our partners in the hemisphere to create a negotiation, a dialogue that could lead to a peaceful resolution of this situation.”

Now it was clear, after this meeting, that Washington would no longer consider Zelaya’s return to the presidency as a necessary solution but rather would lobby for a “negotiation” with the coup regime, that in the end, favors US interests. Sources that were present at the Organization of American States (OAS) meetings that took place after the coup affirm that the presence of a high-level US delegation intensified the pressure against other States to urge for a “negotiated” solution that didn’t necessarily imply the return to power of President Zelaya.

This method of circumventing the main issue, manipulating the outcome and attempting to appear as though one position has been assumed when in reality, actions demonstrate the contrary, forms part of the new Obama doctrine of “smart power”, which purports to achieve imperialist objectives without demonizing the government. “Smart Power” es “the capacity to combine ‘hard power’ with ‘soft power’ to achieve a victorious strategy. ‘Smart Power’ strategically uses diplomacy, persuasion, capacity building, military power and economic and political influence, in an effective way with a political and social legitimacy.” Essentially, it’s a mix of military force with all forms of diplomacy, with an emphasis in the use of “democracy promotion” as a principal tactic to strongy influence the destiny of societies, instead of a military invasion. [Note: Beware that “smart power” places an emphasis on the use of agencies like USAID and National Endowment for Democracy (NED) to do the ‘dirty work’ of silently penetrating and infiltrating civil society organizations in order to promote a US agenda. This explains Obama’s call for an additional $320 million in “democracy promotion” funds for the 2010 budget just for use in Latin America. This is substantially a higher sum than the quantity requested and used in Latin America for “democracy promotion” by the Bush administration in its 8 years of government combined.]

The Ambassador

Journalist Jean-Guy Allard has revealed the origens of the current US Ambassador in Honduras, Hugo Llorens . Per Allard, Hugo Llorens, a Cuban national from birth who arrived in the United States as part of Operation Peter Pan, is “a specialist in terrorism…In 2002, George W. Bush’s White House strategically placed the astute Llorens as Director of Andean Affairs at the National Security Council in Washington, D.C., which converted him into the principle advisor to the President on Venezuela. The coup d’etat in 2002 against Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez occured during Llorens’ tenure, who was working together with Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Otto Reich, and the very controversial Elliot Abrams. In July 2008, Llorens was named Ambassador to Honduras.”

On June 4, 2009, just weeks before the coup d’etat against President Zelaya, Ambassador Llorens declared to the Honduran press that “...One can’t violate the Constitution in order to create another Constitution, because if one doesn’t respect the Constitution, then we all live under the law of the jungle.” Those declarations were made in reference to the national opinion survey on the possibility of convening a constitutional convention during 2010, that would have taken place on June 28th if the coup d’etat against President Zelaya hadn’t occured. The commentaries made by Llorens evidence not only his position against the survey, but also his interference in the internal affairs of Honduras.

But Llorens wasn’t alone in the region. After his nomination as US Ambassador in Honduras – position that he was assigned to due to the urgent necessity to neutralize the growing presence of leftist governments in the region and impede the regional potency of ALBA - several other US ambassadors were also named in neighboring nations, all experts in destabilizing the Cuban revolution and executing psychological warfare.

The diplomat Robert Blau arrived first to the US Embassy in El Salvador, on July 2, 2008, named as second in command. In January 2009, Blau became the Charge d’Affairs at the Embassy. Before arriving to El Salvador, Blau was Subdirector of Cuban Affairs at the Department of State in Washington, after working for two years at the US Interests Section in Havana, Cuba, as a Political Counselor. His work with Cuban dissidents was so successful that Blau was honored with the Department of State James Clement Dunn Award for Excellence. Llorens and Blau were old friends, after working together as part of Otto Reich’s team in the State Department.

Soon after, Stephen McFarland was named as US Ambassador in Guatemala, on August 5, 2008. McFarland, a graduate of the National War College in the US, similar to Hugo Llorens and Robert Blau, and also a former member of Combat Team Number 2 of the US Marines in Iraq, was the second in command at the US Embassy in Venezuela during William Brownfield’s tenure. Brownfield is known for achieving a substantial increase in State Department funding and strategic support for the Venezuelan opposition. After Venezuela, McFarland was sent to the US Embassy in Paraguay to oversee the construction of the large US military base in that country that borders Bolivia. McFarland was also Director of Cuban Affairs at the State Department and his resumé claims he is an expert in “democratic transitions, human rights and security matters.”

Ambassador Robert Callahan arrived to Managua, Nicaragua, also at the beginning of August. Callahan has worked at the US embassies in La Paz, Bolivia, and San José, Costa Rica, and was a distinguished professor at the National War College. In 2004, he was sent to Iraq as press attaché at the US Embassy in Baghdad. Upon his return, he established the press and propaganda office at the newly created Directorate of National Intelligence (DNI) in Washington, which today is the most powerful entity in the US intelligence community.

Together, these ambassadors – experts in coup d’etats, destabilization and propaganda – prepared the terrain for the coup against President Zelaya in Honduras.

Funding the coup leaders

Just one month before the coup against President Zelaya occured, a coalition of different organizations, business associations, political parties, high level members of the Catholic Church and private media outlets, was formed in opposition to Zelaya’s policies. The coalition was called the “Democratic Civil Union of Honduras”. It’s only objective was to oust President Zelaya from power in order to impede the future possibility of a constitutional convention to reform the constitution, which would allow the people a voice and a role in their political process.

The “Democratic Civil Union of Honduras” is composed of organizations including the National Anticorruption Council, the Archbishop of Tegucigalpa, Honduran Council of Private Enterprise (COHEP), Council of University Deans, Worker’s Federation of Honduras (CTH), National Convergence Forum, National Federation of Commerce and Industry of Honduras (FEDECAMARA), Association of Communication Media (AMC), the Group Peace & Democracy and the student group Generation for Change.

The majority of these organizations have been the beneficiaries of the more than $50 million annually disbursed by USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) for “democracy promotion” in Honduras. In fact, a USAID report regarding its funding and work with COHEP, described how the “low profile maintained by USAID in this project helped ensure the credibility of COHEP as a Honduran organization and not an arm of USAID.” Which basically means that COHEP is, actually, an arm of USAID.

The spokespeople for the Democratic Civil Union of Honduras representing, according to them, “civil society”, declared to the Honduran press on June 23rd – five days before the coup took place against President Zelaya – that they “trust the armed forces will comply with their responsibility to defend the Constitution, the Law, peace and democracy.” When the coup took place on June 28th, they were the first to immediately claim that a coup had not occured, but rather “democracy had been saved” from the hands of President Zelaya, whose crime was to attempt to give voice and visibility to the people. Representing the biased middle and upperclasses, the Democratic Civil Union has qualified Zelaya’s supporters as “hoards”.

The International Republican Institute (IRI), entity that receives funding from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), received more than $1.2 million in 2009 to work with political groups in Honduras. IRI’s work has been dedicated to supporting “think tanks” and “pressure groups” to influence political parties and “support initiatives to implement political positions during the campaigns in 2009.” This is a clear example of intervention in the internal politics of Honduras and evidence of NED and IRI funding to those groups involved in the coup.


The Washington Lobby

Republican Senator John McCain, ex US presidential candidate, helped coordinate the visit of a coup regime delegation to Washington last week. McCain is well known for his opposition to governments in Venezuela, Bolivia and other countries in the region considered “anti-imperialist”. McCain also maintains very close ties to the Cuban exile community in Miami. McCain is also Chairman of the Board of the International Republican Institute (IRI) that has funded the coup participants in Honduras. McCain offered the services of a lobby firm in Washington, closely tied to him, the Cormac Group, that organized a press conference for the coup regime delegation at the National Press Club on June 7th. McCain also helped set up several meetings in Congress with the traditional Cuban-American representatives and those general “Chávez-haters”, such as Connie Mack, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mel Martinez.

But beyond the Republican connection to the Honduran coup regime, there is a even more damning link to the current Democrat administration in Washington. Lawyer Lanny Davis was hired by the Business Council of Latin America (CEAL) to lobby in favor of the coup regime and convince the powers in Washington to accept and recognize the de facto government in Honduras. Lanny Davis was special counsel to ex President Bill Clinton from 1996-1998 and he is a close friend and advisor to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Davis is organizing a diplomatic offensive and public relations blitz in favor of the coup regime, including the strategic placement of advertisements in important US media that seek to legitimize the de facto Honduran government, and he is organizing meetings and hearings with members of Congress, the State Department and the White House. CEAL represents the conservative business community in Latin America, including those that have promoted and participated in previous attempts to oust democratic governments via coup d’etats and/or other forms of sabotage. For example, the Venezuelan representative of CEAL is Marcel Granier, president of RCTV, the television station that heavily participated in the 2002 coup against President Chávez and that consistently has violated Venezuelan law in order to promote its political agenda.

As part of this offensive, Lanny Davis arranged a special hearing before the House Foreign Relations Committee, attended by high level members of Congress and overseen by Democrat Elliot Engel (congressman from New York). Testimonies were given at the hearing by representatives of the coup regime from Honduras and others who have supported the coup – directly and indirectly – such as Michael Shifter from the InterAmerican Dialogue, Guillermo Pérez-Cadalso, ex Honduran Foreign Minister and Supreme Court Judge, and the infamous Otto Reich, a Cuban-American well-known for his role in the majority of destabilization activities against leftist and progressive governments in Latin America throughout the eighties. Reich, who was named Special Advisor on Latin America to President George W. Bush, also played a key role in the 2002 coup against President Chávez. As a result of this hearing, the US Congress is currently trying to pass a resolution that recognizes the coup regime in Honduras as a legitimate government.

Another consequence of Lanny Davis’ lobbying efforts was the meeting arranged in the Council of the Americas Washington office on June 9th. This event included the participation of Jim Swigert, Director of Programs in Latin America and the Caribbean for the National Democratic Institute (NDI), entity that receives its funding from NED & USAID, Cris Arcos, former US Ambassador to Honduras, and Adolfo Franco, ex USAID Administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean, and the director of the “transition to democracy” program for Cuba. These three characters are working as advisors to the Obama administration on the Honduran crisis. Franco, who was previously advisor on foreign policy to John McCain during his presidential campaign in 2008, has been accused of corruption for his mismanagement of USAID funds destined for the Cuba “democracy” program. Franco diverted a large quantity of these funds, totaling over $40 million, to groups such as the Committee for a Free Cuba and the Institute for Cuban Studies in Miami, without adhering to a transparent process of funds disbursement.

Negroponte and Reich, again

Many analysts and specialists on Latin American have speculated on the role of former Ambassador to Honduras John Negroponte, who directed the paramilitary forces and death squads known as the “Contra” against leftist movements in Central America during the 1980s. Negroponte held various high level positions during the Bush administration, including US Ambassador to Iraq, US Ambassador to the United Nations, National Director of Intelligence and lastly, Subsecretary of State, second only to Condoleezza Rice. After leaving the Department of State in January 2009, Negroponte entered the private sector, as is custom amongst former top government officials. He was offered a job as Vicepresident at the most influential and powerful consulting firm in Washington, McLarty Associates. Negroponte accepted the job. McLarty Associates was founded by Thomas “Mack” McLarty, former chief of staff for President Bill Clinton and also Clinton’s Special Envoy to Latin America. Since the end of the Clinton administration, McLarty has managed the most powerful strategic consulting firm in Washington, which until just last year, was called Kissinger-McLarty Associates due to the merging of Thomas McLarty and Henry Kissinger. This partnership clearly evidenced the bi-partisan unions that truly craft the most important policies in Washington.

In his new role, John Negroponte presently works as Advisor to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Remember, the current US Ambassador to Honduras, Hugo Llorens, has worked closely under Negroponte’s domain during the majority of his career. So it would not be a far jump to consider that John Negroponte, expert in crushing leftist movements in Central America, has played a role in the current coup against President Zelaya in Honduras.

Otto Reich has also been investing his energy during the last couple of years in a campaign against President Zelaya. The Honduran president actually threatened to sue Reich for defamation in April 2009, after Reich accused President Zelaya of stealing $100 million from the state-owned telecommunications company, Hondutel. These accustations were never backed by evidence, and the truth was revealed soon after that explained Reich’s interest in Hondutel. Through his consulting and lobbying firm, Otto Reich Associates, the Cuban-American was representing a multinational corporation that was pushing for the privatization of Hondutel, a move that Zelaya opposed. With President Zelaya out of the picture now, Reich is able to pursue the multi-million dollar deal.

Reich also co—founded an organization in Washington named Arcadia Foundation together with a Venezuelan, Robert Carmona-Borjas, a lawyer specialized in military law who is linked to the April 2002 coup d’etat in Venezuela, per his own resumé. Robert Carmona-Borjas was in the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, Venezuela, together with the dictator Pedro Carmona, on the days of the coup, from April 11-12, 2002, and escaped, together with Carmona, when the palace was retaken by the presidential guard and constitutional order was restored. He later fled to the United States after he was brought up on charges for his role in the coup d’etat in Venezuela, and became a university professor at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. (nice to see the warm welcome coup leaders and violators of democracy receive in the United States). Since last year, Reich and Carmona-Borjas have been conducting a campaign against President Zelaya, accusing him of corruption and limiting private property rights. Through the Arcadia Foundation, they created a series of video clips that have been shown in different media, attempted to portray Zelaya as a corrupt president who violates the basic rights of the Honduran people.

Carmona-Borjas has traveled frequently to Honduras during the last few months, and even held public meetings where the coup against Zelaya was discussed openly. At one encounter where Carmona-Borjas was present, the Honduran Public Defender, Ramón Custodia, who was involved in the coup d’etat, declared to the press that “Coups are a possibility and can occur in any political environment.” After the coup took place, Robert Carmona-Borjas appeared at a rally in support of the de facto regime, on July 3rd, and received the honors and applause from the coup leaders who declared him “an important actor” that “helped make possible” the removal from power of President Zelaya and the installment of the dictator Roberto Micheletti as de facto president.

Military Power

The United States maintains a large military presence in Honduras in the Soto Cano (Palmerola) base, located about 50 miles from the capital, Tegucigalpa, that has been actively operating since 1981, when it was heavily occupied by the Reagan Administration and used for its operations in Central America.

During the eighties, Soto Cano was used by Colonel Oliver North as a base of operations of the “Contra”, the paramilitary forces trained, armed and funded by the CIA, and charged with executing warfare against all leftist movements in Central America, with particular focus on the neighboring Sandinista government in Nicaragua. From Soto Cano, the “Contra” launched terrorist attacks, psychological warfare (overseen by Otto Reich’s Office for Public Diplomacy), death squads and special covert missions that resulted in the assassination of tens of thousands of farmers and civilians, thousands of disappeared, tortured, wounded and terrorized all throughout the region.

John Negroponte, US Ambassador at the time in Honduras, together with Oliver North and Otto Reich, directed and oversaw these dirty operations. They later became involved in the Iran-Contra scandal once the US Congress cut the funding for the paramilitary groups and death squads used by the Reagan Administration to neutralize the leftist movements in the region, and the Negroponte-North-Reich team sold arms to Iran to continue funding their covert operations.

The Soto Cano base houses the US Joint Task Force-Bravo military group, composed of members from the Army, Air Force, joint security forces and the First Batallion Regiment 228 of the US Air Force. The current total presence of US forces on the base numbers approximately 600, and includes 18 combat planes, UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters and CH-47 Chinook helicopters, used for special warfare operations. The Honduran Aviation Academy is also located on the Soto Cano Base. More than 650 Honduran and US citizens also live inside the base installations.

The Honduran Constitution does not permit legally the presence of foreign military in the country. A “handshake” agreement was made between Washington and Honduras authorizing the “semi-permanent” important and strategic presence of hundreds – at times thousands – of US military personnel on the base. The agreement was made in 1954, in exchange for the multi-million dollar aid the US provides to the Honduran armed forces, which ranges from training programs, arms and military equipment and joint exercises and operations that take place on the ground in Honduras. The base was first employed by the US military and CIA to launch the coup d’etat against Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954.

Each year, Washington authorizes hundreds of millions of dollars in military and economic aid to Honduras, which is the third poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, after Haiti and Nicaragua. This “exchange” securing the US military presence in the Central American nation can be terminated at any time by the Honduran government, without much notice.

On May 31, 2008, President Manuel Zelaya announced that Soto Cano (Palmerola) would be converted into an international civilian airport. The construction of the airport terminal would be financed with a fund from the Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas (ALBA – of which Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Dominique, Honduras, Nicaragua, St. Vicents, Antigua & Barbados and Venezuela are members). This obviously was a huge threat to the future US military presence in Honduras.

The two generals that have participated in key roles in the coup against President Zelaya are both graduates of the US School of the Americas, famous for training dictators, torturers and repressors in Latin America, and they maintain very close ties with the US military forces based in Honduras. The Commander of the Honduran Air Force, General Luis Javier Prince Suazo, studied in the famous School of the Americas in 1996. The Head of the Honduran High Military Command, General Romeo Vásquez, who was fired by President Zelaya on June 24, 2009, for disobeying the president’s orders, and later appeared as the principal actor in the military coup just days later, is also a graduate of the School of the Americas. These two high level military officers also maintain close contact with the Pentagon and the Southern Command.

The US Ambassador in Honduras through September 2008, when Hugo Llorens was appointed to the position, Charles Ford, was transferred from Honduras to the Southern Command in Florida and charged with providing “strategic advising” to the Pentagon about Latin America, a position he holds today.

The Honduran military are funded, trained, schooled and commanded by the US military. They have been indoctrinated with the anti-leftist, anti-socialist, pro-empire mentality since the beginning of the Cold War. The Generals and high level officers involved in the coup in Honduras have publicly stated that they were “obligated” to remove President Zelaya from power because of the “threat” he posed with his “leftist” ideology and alignment to socialist nations in the region such as Venezuela and Cuba. Per one Honduran colonel, “'We fought the subversive movements here and we were the only country that did not have a fratricidal war like the others…It would be difficult for us, with our training, to have a relationship with a leftist government. That's impossible. I personally would have retired, because my thinking, my principles, would not have allowed me to participate in that.''.

All of the above evidence – and certainly more to come in the future – proves the undeniable role of Washington in the coup d’etat aginst President Zelaya in Honduras.

Read more of Eva Golinger's articles at Postcards from the Revolution

Standing vigil at the U.S. embassy

SOA Watch

I was last here in Honduras only about 6 weeks ago. I was totally taken off guard by the energy of the country, the hope that something new and different was emerging, the belief that luck had come their way, that unity that I found among the social movements around a goal that seemed to actually be within reach (the constitutional assembly). How quickly things can change in a country. This is perhaps one of the things that has most impacted me as I prepare to leave Honduras tomorrow.

But I also am struck by how much things don’t change. Can we really be living through a situation in 2009 when SOA grads are organizing coups and filling the ranks of new cabinets. Really?

This sense of incredibility about current events was what marked our attitude as we headed to the U.S. embassy in the morning. There, we met with Ambassador Hugo Llorens, and two of his political staff. In spite of the delicate moment, with mediations just underway in Costa Rica, they gave us an hour of their time.

We asked Ambassador Llorens to clarify U.S. policy and relationships with Honduras at this time. According to Llorens, it was a “black and white situation.” A coup had taken place, and therefore the U.S. neither recognizes nor has contact with the de facto government. He also told us that all military aid had been suspended between the U.S. and Honduras. While this was breaking news to us, and welcome news at that, he indicated that this situation had been the case since the moment Micheletti swore himself in as president.

However, three of our delegation members had stopped by the Palmerola military base, where over 500 U.S. soldiers are based, and witnessed an apparently normal buzz of activities, including helicopter flights and interchange of Honduran and U.S. soldiers. Ambassador Llorens insisted that everything had come to a standstill, and that perhaps the soldiers were interchanging on such normal day-to-day affairs such as the administration of water and electricity and routine training exercises.

The ambassador told us that Honduras was an extremely polarized society. According to him, President Zelaya had been doing what many in the country considered illegal. He reiterated Obama’s position that no matter how much the U.S. may be in disagreement with internal issues of another government, nothing justified a forceful removal from office. He also indicated that most of their contacts in the country (acknowledged later by an aide to come mostly from the upper crust) were outraged at the U.S. position. However, he noted that “other political leaders and business leaders were beginning to 'calm down'" in the past four. My guess is because it now looks like they are here to stay, for at least quite a while.

We then shared our series of concerns. We noted that while most countries had pulled their ambassador from the country, that he and his staff remained. He told us this was because the president had asked him to do so, since he could be “useful.”

We also shared our concerns that about the mediation process in Honduras. Had it been Obama who was abducted by force by armed soldiers and taken against his will to Mexico, would we support a process in which Obama and his usurpers sat down at a table together, while the usurpers remained in power? The ambassador replied that Secretary Clinton felt that the the U.S. no longer should be in the role of solving problems, and that she wanted this to have a Central American solution. He said that, given the exteme polarization, that there needed to be certain guarantees for Zelaya’s return. Among things that are being talked about are issues of amnesty, a truth commission and a national unity government.

We also questioned other aid into the country, and the ambassador clarified that this aid is contingent on just how this coup will be classified. Apparently, there are different categories of coups in the U.S. (sounds like the Washington Post editorial staff!) and until this is determined, the exact kinds of aid to be cut are in question. Among the $50 million of U.S. aid slated for Honduras, that which goes to “democratic programs” is still in force, as well as health and education programs that don’t deal with the government. He belittled the impact of U.S. aid, indicating that the bulk of aid came from the IDB, and this was suspended when Honduras was cut from the OAS.

We shared our concerns for human rights abuses since the overtake of the government, and the three embassy members agreed that this was the case. We gave them a copy of COFADEH’s human rights report since June 28th. The ambassador told us that they were in regular contact with the Attorney General Luis Rubi and Ombudsman Ramon Custodia, since neither were from the executive branch. We shared that many human rights groups had grave concerns for Custodia, who has turned a deaf ear to many of the abuses and seemed supportive of the coup government in his declarations. We also indicated that several human rights leaders are concerned for their safety, and he indicated that they should be in touch with the human rights coordinator, Mike Gorman.

We also shared our concerns for the fact that two of the key leaders were graduates of the School of the Americas, as well as several current cabinet appointees. He asked the aides to note the names.

We had decided the previous day that we felt it was important to publically show our support for Honduran democracy, and call upon our government to be more consistent with their actions. Immediately after the meeting, we flew into preparation mode for an action in front of the embassy, and with the help of Honduran allies, made signs and banners and a cross with the name of the 19-year old who was gunned down at the airport. We also sent out press releases widely.

From 2 until 5 we stood vigil in front of the embassy, which is on a busy street, with signs that shared our concerns. They said, in English and Spanish, thank you President Obama, for your words. Now, we need actions. We called upon our government to:

* Insist upon the immediate and unconditional return of President Zelaya
* Recall the U.S. ambassador and embassy staff
* Withdraw U.S. troops from Palmerola
* Expel Honduran troops from SOA/WHINSEC

We were overwhelmed with press from both Honduran, Latin American and international sources and did dozens of interviews. After the first hour, we were joined by leaders of the resistance movement, who stood by us, shook our hands and thanked us, and brought us juice and sandwiches.

What was most touching were the hundreds of passengers in cars that passed by who showed a look of great surprise and a huge grin. Many held out their hands in a peace, or victory sign. Many called out to thank us. It was clear that being there in Honduras, at this moment, in solidarity, was the right thing to do.

Honduras Emergency Response Delegation Report

By Lisa Sullivan, SOA Watch, July 11, 2009

My plane has just lifted off from the Toncontin airport in Tegucigalpa and I look down on the runway that five days ago was blocked by army tanks and soldiers, prohibiting the return of Honduran president Manuel Zelaya, ousted 12 days ago in a coup. Hundreds of thousands of people had swollen the roads leading to the airport to receive “Mel”, as the president is affectionately known. One 19-year old who came from the interior of the country, Isis Obed Murillo, was shot in the head by soldiers trying to disperse the crowd, his brains literally blown apart.

One of those present on Sunday was our taxi driver, who - on our half-hour winding ride to the airport - gave us a colorful report of what he thought of the new president, punctuated by sweeping arm gestures that frequently took his hands from the wheel. “Goriletti! Pinochetti! For 36 years he’s been robbing the poor as a member of Congress. He’s always wanted to be president. Now, he’s stolen the position! Our president is Mel! The soldiers are against us. They have the guns. But we are together, we are with Mel. If he can’t come back by plane, he should return on horseback. We will join him!” Like a Honduras made-to-order Hollywood backdrop to the driver’s passionate soliloquy, we passed street after street covered with graffiti: “fuera golpistas!” “Queremos al” “Pinocheletti fuera!”

As I boarded the plane, my mind swam with images of faces of Hondurans in their cars passing by our little vigil outside the U.S. embassy yesterday. The slow traffic of the busy road gave people pause to read our signs, calling on our country to match their words with actions: to insist upon the immediate and unconditional return of Zelaya, to recall the ambassador and U. S. troops at Palmerola. Many honked in support, flashed a peace/victory sign, and many smiled broadly calling out “gracias!”. Even the Honduras guards at the embassy shook each of our hands when we left. What they couldn’t say was silently passed on in the firmness of their grasp.

If ever there was a time for a solidarity moment, this was it. Just one month earlier, I had gone to Honduras with a small SOAW delegation, and had asked our partners there to help us organize around this issue. How could we not go at this moment, when their very democracy was at stake? When we learned that two of the key coup leaders were SOA graduates, the need for the visit was sealed.

Six other activists made the snap decision to come down as well, and a small SOAW delegation was formed overnight. We came from California, Florida, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Washington . All of us were trying to get to Honduras on Sunday, and all were blocked due to the closing of the airport in anticipation of Zelaya’s attempted return. No one gave up, however, and we each found alternative ways to get there, arriving, miraculously, within hours of one another on Tuesday.

I rerouted through San Salvador and arrived to a sea of enthusiastic Salvadorans, awaiting Zelaya whose plane was diverted there after landing rights were denied in Honduras. The mood was electric as planes landed on the runway, shortly after my plane, carrying the presidents of Ecuador, Argentina, Paraguay and later a car bringing Salvador’s president Funes to meet Zelaya. A powerful and extraordinary display of Latin American solidarity.

After finding our way to Tegucigalpa by land, we were welcomed in Honduras by Bertha Oliva, director of COFADEH. It was Bertha who had brought us some weeks previous to a meeting with President Zelaya. It was not just an ordinary meeting, but one in a series of gatherings between the president, some of his ministers, and leaders of most of Honduras’ social movements. It was a 6-hour, heart-to-heart, head-to-head real dialogue on deep issues such as whether to continue with CAFTA, to keep Palmerola open to U.S. soldiers, how to create a sustainable water system, whether to pull Honduran troops from the SOA. I have been in Latin America for 32 years, but this kind of president-to-the-people consultation was a first. And, it made me realize that something very interesting was happening in Honduras.

Since the issue of the SOA had been raised by the social movements, I approached the president as he was leaving, and told him that the purpose of our visit was to request that he withdraw troops from the SOA, a school we hoped would soon close. He looked at me squarely and said “That’s Obama’s problem”. I was a bit put off by the terse reply and said “actually, if you care about the sovereignty of your country, it’s your problem too”. He paused and looked deeply at me and said, “get me the information”. That night he called a friend and said “tell them that I agree, but at this moment I can’t do this. I need the military on my side”.

I wonder if Zelaya remembered any of this conversation when a few weeks later, soldiers - sent by their SOA-graduated commanders, roused him at gunpoint and forced him on a plane and to Costa Rica in his pjs. While US media flashed that the ouster was provoked by an illegal push from Zelaya to get another term of office, I knew differently. But, only because I was in Honduras recently. Living in Venezuela, and seeing how U.S. media portrays that country, I’ve learned that it’s impossible to really know what is happening in another country from the U.S. mainstream media, unless you actually go there.

Like the rest of the continent, Honduras had lived the failed experiments of the neoliberal model, (or Washington consensus, or free trade model, whatever you like to call it) over the past decade and more. Violence, poverty, unemployment, migration and despair were the result. But, winds from the south were blowing, and Honduras began to open its windows, wide. The concept that change could come via a move towards participative democracy, and via constitutional reform, like several South American countries, was beginning to take shape. On June 28th a non- binding consultative vote was to take place, known as the “cuarta urna”. Urna in Spanish refers to ballot, and cuarta refers to the idea that it would be the 4th ballot in November, added to the votes for president, congress and mayors. It was hard to miss the sense of enthusiasm running through the country.

Those who had held power in the country were fearful of these winds of change. Congress and the Supreme Court tried to block the consultation, and the Army Chief of Staff refused to have his soldiers guard the vote, leading to his dismissal by Zelaya. All these events cascaded together, only days before the coup . One question worth asking is why the old guard politicians, along with military leaders, risked staging a coup and possible international condemnation, had they really thought that Sunday’s vote was going to win. If so, wouldn’t it have been best to let it fall on its face? If our earlier visit was any measure, it seemed poised to win, and in a big way. Therefore, it seems, it needed to be stopped before happening.

The initial idea for the consultation came not from Zelaya, but from the social movements, beginning some five years earlier. These were not the groups with whom Zelaya was accustomed to rubbing elbows, as a member of the landed elite. But, as he told us at the meeting, his fellow elites refused to collaborate when he asked them to lend a helping hand to their country. And so, he turned to the social movements. And apparently, they responded, but so did he. He raised wages significantly, paid attention to the needs of poor urban and rural communities, brought doctors and teachers from Cuba and cheap oil for public transportation from Venezuela. Mostly, the poor felt that they were taken into account, that they mattered.

During the past days in Honduras, we joined the people on the streets , which is where this political battle seems to being waged. At a road block along the southern highway, Hondurans came up to us to shake our hands and thank us for being there. Some had been on the streets for 10 days. Despite the blazing sun and the many days into the coup, their spirits seemed intact. Later, we were invited to a meeting of the newly formed Frente de Resistencia Contra el Golpe en Honduras. I found many of the same leaders of the social movements whom I had met at the meeting with the president. Labor leaders, campesinos, indigenous groups, taxi drivers, teachers and artists were planning the next day’s strategies. People were tired but determined, amazingly united and efficient in their planning. As time was dedicated to determining who would offer the sound system, provide buses, water, etc, it was clear that no one was bankrolling this operation.

While I never actually saw pro-coup marches in the streets, the local t.v. stations looped the same scenes of them repeatedly. What called my attention was that everyone was dressed in white, and signs were professionally printed. This was a contrast to the motley crowd and creative colorful hand-made signs of the pro Zelaya crowd.

As I head to Venezuela I know that I will not leave Honduras behind. Just days ago (though it feels like months), when I asked the taxi driver taking me to the Caracas airport how he was doing, I expected a reply about the traffic or weather or local political scene. His response was “Worried. About Honduras”. The reason for this response is likely both one of solidarity – never has Latin America looked more towards one another than now. And, it is one of survival: There is a sense that this battle in Honduras is larger than Honduras. It is a push-back against a new model, or new models, arising from the South.

Please keep the people of Honduras in your thoughts. And please keep tuned in. And call your member of congress to ask him/her to vote to close the School of the Americas. Their graduates have lead 2 coups in 7 years in Latin America. We can’t afford to let them lead another.

Fidel's Reflections on the Honduras Coup - Mentions my work!

Posted by Eva Golinger, Postcards from the Revolution, July 11, 2009

Reflections by Comrade Fidel Castro

THE COUP DIES OR CONSTITUTIONS DIE
(Original en español)

The countries of Latin America were struggling against history’s worst financial crisis within relative institutional order.

When US President Barack Obama -- while on a trip to Moscow to discuss vital topics on the subject of nuclear weapons -- was declaring that the only constitutional president of Honduras was Manuel Zelaya, the ultra right-wing and the hawks in Washington were making maneuvers for Zelaya to negotiate a humiliating pardon for the illegalities attributed to him by the perpetrators of the coup.

It was obvious that before his people and the world such an act would be tantamount to his disappearance from the political stage.

It is a proven fact that when Zelaya announced he would be returning on July 5th, he had decided to fulfill his promise to share the brutal repression of the coup with his people.

Traveling with the president was Miguel d’Escoto, the president pro tempore of the UN General Assembly, along with Patricia Rodas, the Honduran foreign minister, a Telesur journalist and others, a total of 9 persons. Zelaya maintained his decision to land. I know for a fact that in mid-flight, when they were nearing Tegucigalpa, he was informed from the ground about Telesur broadcasting the moment when the enormous mass of people awaiting him outside of the airport was being attacked by soldiers with tear gas and automatic rifles fire.

His immediate reaction was to request that they took up altitude in order to denounce the events on Telesur and to demand of the commanding officers of those troops that they ceased the repression. Then he informed them that he would carry on with the landing. The high command then ordered the landing strip to be blocked. In a matter of seconds, motorized transport vehicles were obstructing the runway.

The Falcon jet made three passes, at a low altitude, over the airport. Specialists explain that the tensest and most dangerous moment for pilots is when fast, small planes -- like the one carrying the president -- reduce speed for touchdown. That’s why I think that attempt to return to Honduras was audacious and brave.

If they wanted to put him on trial for alleged constitutional crimes, why not allow him to land?

Zelaya knows that it was not only the Constitution of Honduras what was at stake, but also the right of the peoples of Latin America to elect the people who govern them.

Today Honduras is not just a country occupied by a coup, but it is also a country occupied by the armed forces of the United States.

The military base at Soto Cano, also known by its name of Palmerola -- located less than 100 kilometres from Tegucigalpa and reactivated in 1981 under the Ronald Reagan administration -- was used by Colonel Oliver North when he was running the dirty war against Nicaragua, and from there the US government directed the attacks against the Salvadoran and Guatemalan revolutionaries that cost tens of thousands of lives.

That is the location of the US Joint Task Force-Bravo -- made up of personnel from the three forces -- that occupies 85 percent of the area of the base. Eva Golinger reveals its role in an article published on Rebelión web site on July 2, 2009, entitled “The US military base in Honduras at the centre of the coup”. She explains that “the Constitution of Honduras does not legally allow for foreign military presence in the country. A ‘handshake-like’ agreement between Washington and Honduras authorizes the important and strategic presence of hundreds of US soldiers on the base, under a ‘semi-permanent’ deal. The agreement was reached in 1954 as part of the military aid the United States was offering Honduras…the third poorest country in the hemisphere.” She adds that “…the agreement that allows the military presence of the United States in the Central American country can be removed with no notice given”.

Soto Cano is also home of the Aviation Academy of Honduras. The components of the US military task force are partly made up of Honduran soldiers.

What is the objective of the military base, the planes, the helicopters and the US task force in Honduras? Without any doubt they are only adequate for use in Central America. The war on drug trafficking does not require those weapons.

If President Zelaya is not returned to his position, a wave of coups threatens to sweep away many Latin American governments, or these will be at the mercy of the ultra right-wing military, educated in the security doctrine of the School of the Americas, an expert in torture, psychological warfare and terror. The authority of many civilian governments in Central and South America will become weakened. Those dark days are not very far back in time. The military perpetrators of the coup would not even pay any attention to the civilian administration of the United States. It can be very negative for a president who wants to improve that country’s image, like Barack Obama does. The Pentagon formally obeys the civilian power. The legions have not yet taken over control of the empire as they did in Rome.

It would not be understandable for Zelaya to now admit to stalling maneuvers that would wear out the considerable social forces that support him and only lead to an irreparable attrition.

The illegally overthrown president does not seek power, but he defends a principle, and as Marti said: “One just principle from the depths of a cave can be mightier than an army.”

Fidel Castro Ruz
July 10, 2009

SOA Watch Accompanying Resistance in Honduras

by Lisa Sullivan, SOA Watch, July 10, 2009

Today in Honduras was a day of brilliant sunshine interrupted by torrential rain, in a country were extremes seem to be the norm. While classes started up and businesses opened up their storefronts, there were also roadblocks and rallies and resistance meetings and curfews. People strolled quietly down streets covered with virulent anti-coup graffiti. As I write, cars rush noisily outside our hotel as people try to get home before the curfew, in 15 minutes the streets will be silent.

This is the 11th day of a coup, and Milton Rodriguez, age 18, has been walking on the streets for each of these days, and has the broken shoes to show for it. Like many others, he reached out his hand to thank us for joining him, and several thousand others, in blocking the cities’ main southern road this morning, one of daily street actions to protest the coup. He immediately gave us his reason for doing so: Article 3 of his constitution that states that he need not be subordinate to a government that takes usurps power.

In return, we also shared our reason for being there. A school funded by our tax dollars had trained the generals that abducted his president at gunpoint. A government representing us had forgotten that the use of certain nouns (coup) required the use of certain verbs as well, verbs such as (withhold) military aid, (remove) your troops, (withdraw) your ambassador. This is the message that Fathers Joe Mulligan and Roy Bourgeois took to the podium at the road block, much to the enthusiastic applause of the Hondurans who filled the streets.

It is also the message that we will take to the U.S. embassy tomorrow, at a meeting granted to our group in the morning. Many of our Honduran allies expressed frustration that the double message coming from the U.S. does not bode well for the mediation process that Secretary of State Clinton set up in Costa Rica, which begins tomorrow. In spite of the insistence on local tv stations in Honduras that this was a lovely way out of this miserable mess, the feeling on the streets here was that mediation with coup leaders is not possible. The unconditional return of their democratically elected president was the only solution acceptable to them.

We were invited to a strategy meeting with the leaders of the resistance movement (Frente Nacional de Resistencia contra el Golpe en Honduras) and found a dynamic, diverse, focused, unified and efficient group whose common goal – the return of their president and the reinstatement of the constitutional reform process - would not be deterred by any amount of barriers. Just a few minutes with this group – labor leaders, teachers, bus drivers, indigenous movements, human rights activists, artists, journalists, and campesinos - made it clear that this was not the first time they were gathering. It is this joint expression of social movements that initiated a process calling for a new constitution over 5 years ago, as a radical step towards creating a society of participative rather than representative democracy. It was they who invited Mel, as they call their president, to join them in this goal, not vice-versa. The folks who write those Washington Post editorials should spent 30 seconds with this group to realize not only their determination, but that the motivation behind the June 28th consultation, that led to Zelaya’s removal, had nothing to do with a re-election push of one person, and everything to do with their dreams of “another world is possible”.

Today the SOA-Honduran coup connections continued to deepen. In addition to the key coup players who are SOA grads, Chief of Staff Commander General Romeo Vasquez and Air Force Commander General Luis Javier Prince Suazo, new cabinet members were named by the coup government, whose attendance at the SOA was part of their CV. Director of Immigration Willy Mejia Mejia and Assistant Minister of Security Mario Raul Hung Pacheco will round out a hearty portfolio of SOA grads in this coup, with more military cabinet members expected to be named soon.

Tomorrow is our last full day here, and the fate of Honduras, will continue to be at play in the streets of Tegucigalpa, the hallways of San Jose Costa Rica, and the interchanges of emails such as yourselves. Your solidarity is resounding throughout Honduras and throughout Latin America, where this coup is taken personally, as something against all of the Americas. These have been new and hopeful times in this continent, where new experiments are arising as fast as you can say “experiment”. On the streets and in the meeting rooms here, and in the cyber buzz all around, there is fear that the violent dashing of this little flame in this little country, may well portend more of the same in other parts of the continent.

Urge your Representative to take a stand for democracy!

SOA Watch, July 9, 2009

On Friday, July 10, Representatives Bill Delahunt (D-MA) and James McGovern (D-MA) introduced a resolution in the House of Representatives, H. Res. 630, that is calling for the reinstatement of Manuel Zelaya as president of Honduras.

Call your Representative and ask her or him to sign on as a co-sponsor of the resolution! The Capitol Switchboard number is: 1-800-473-6711. Here is some suggested language for your call:

"Please tell Representative _________________ that I urge him to be a co-sponsor of the Delahunt/McGovern resolution H. Res. 630 to oppose the military coup by graduates of the School of the Americas in Honduras. The resolution calls for the reinstatement of democracy in that country. Please contact Cliff Stammerman or Ben Dailey in Delahunt's office."

**********************
Rep. Grijalva Urges Greater U.S. Pressure on the Coup Regime in Honduras
Rep. Raul Grijalva is circulating a letter to President Obama, calling on him to freeze U.S. assets and suspend U.S. visas of coup leaders. Signers of the letter include Reps. McGovern, Conyers, Serrano, Fattah, Honda, Barbara Lee, Jesse Jackson, Oberstar, and Kucinich. Urge your Representative to sign the Grijalva letter calling for more U.S. pressure on the coup regime.
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/grijalva-letter

Update from Tegucigalpa, SOA Watch 7 in Honduras!

By Lisa Sullivan, SOA Watch, July 7, 2009

Greetings from the quiet of the curfew here in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. The curfew has just begun, and the normal rattle of traffic outside this one-star hotel in the heart of the city is silenced.

Three of the seven of our delegation are tapping away at our computers, trying to put down some first impressions of this country that pulled our heart strings and brought us to Honduras, in spite of rather difficult odds of getting here. It took me 3 days from my home in Venezuela via Miami, San Salvador and lots of bus and taxi rides in the wee hours. Laura Slattery, former West Point graduate and SOA Watch prisoner of conscience bought her ticket to Honduras 2 hours after reading my email in California. Like all of us, she got stuck on Sunday when Honduras closed all its airports, as the president attempted, unsuccessfully, to return to his country. Never one to sit still for long, Laura then jumped on another plane to El Salvador to join me in coming over by land.

Kent Spriggs, human rights lawyer and SOAW activist from Florida made a similar quick decision to join us, and traveled from Atlanta together with Roy Bourgeois and Dan Kovalik of the United Steel Workers. They waited 2 days for the airport in Tegucigalpa to open, finally opted to fly to San Pedro Sula and go by land to the capital. Joe Mulligan, a Jesuit priest in Nicaragua and Tom Loudon of the Quixote Center, also gave up waiting for an air route, and left Managua at 4 a.m. to get here by bus this afternoon.

The 6-hour bus trip from that Laura and I took from San Salvador turned into 10+, due to military road checks and back ups at the entrance to this mountainous capital caused by blocked roads and marches. We got a flavor of the city with our first taxi ride from the bus station. Our driver, a gregarious and enterprising guy, piled several of us in to take us to 3 distant destinations. We got a good glimpse of the city and the massive amounts of graffiti on the walls:" fuera golpistas!" "no mas Pinochilettis" ."Mel te esperamos". As soon as the middle class lady who told us she was grateful to the new president for saving them from communism disembarked, the taxi driver turned to us to say that she was probably mad since Zelaya had raised minimum wages by 60 percent. Welcome to Honduras, a country divided, wounded, stunned and defiant.

After converging in our little hotel, the seven of us headed to the Committee of Family Members of the Disappeared of Honduras (COFADEH) to meet with their director, Bertha Oliva, who has been keeping us in the loop by cell phone reports during this week. Her first words during our dinner were "This is a coup not only to Honduras, but to all of Latin America". Bertha narrated to us the days before the coup. It was becoming clear that winds of change were sweeping through the country, and many of those in power felt threatened.

Joe and I had sensed this only a month earlier, when we visited Honduras and met with Zelaya on an SOAW visit. We were invited to participate in what was, without a doubt, the most fascinating meeting of my 32 years in Latin America. It was a 6 hour frank and open dialogue between the president, several of his ministers and some 30 leaders of the social movement - peasants, workers, indigenous, human rights, women, in which deep issues such as whether to close the Palmarola base, to continue with the free trade agreement, to send troops to the SOA, etc. The president listened, debated, asked questions. I had never witnessed such frank dialogue between such a collection of high government officials and social movement leaders. When I returned to the states, I shared that - while most people were looking elsewhere - such as El Salvador, that Honduras was the most fascinating country in Latin America at the moment. Little did I know...

However, people like Bertha DID know that something was coming. On the night of June 25th, many leaders of the social movements gathered with the president. He was called to meet with four generals. Upon exiting the meeting, Zelaya told the close group of supporters, with a grave face, that he was going to announce the resignation of the Defense Minister, the destitution of the head of the armed forced (SOA grad Romeo Vasquez) and the cancellation of the consultative vote on the constitutional assembly, to be held on June 28th. The group insisted that he could not eliminate this consultation, that it belonged to the people. Betha said that she was one of them. While she said that as a human rights leader, it wasn't in her position to support or oppose a president, the consultation was something that had elevated the self esteem of the people. There was a sense, for the first time, that they were being taken into account in shaping the direction of their nation. The president agreed, and that night many knew that the coup was sealed. These powerful figures could not allow the consultation to win, as was clear would happen on June 28.

And, there are so many other stories, but bed calls us. Tomorrow we hope to meet with leaders of the social movements, participate in a scheduled march, try to meet with someone from the U.S. Embassy and do some interviews. But mostly, we hope to get a better sense of what Hondurans are experiencing at this moment, and to ask how we can help.

I"ll keep you posted, abrazos from Tegucigalpa, Lisa