On Wednesday the 27th of January, Porfirio Lobo was sworn in as the president of Honduras, and Manuel Zelaya, who was ousted from the presidency by a military coup d’etat last June, was released from his refuge in the Brazilian embassy and sent into exile in the Dominican Republic. On the same day US President Obama delivered his State of the Union address in which he paid homage to neo-liberal notions of globalization, intoning:
“And that’s why we’ll continue to shape a Doha trade agreement that opens global markets, and why we will strengthen our trade relations in Asia and with key partners like South Korea and Panama and Colombia.”
Porfirio Lobo
The two Latin American countries named in that excerpt were among the only countries of the region to have sent representatives to Lobo’s inauguration that day. Most other countries in Latin America – and around the world – regard Lobo’s election as illegitimate, coming as it did amidst the crisis created by the coup.
Was Obama’s tribute to Panama and Colombia at this time merely a coincidence? Not entirely. The US president is CEO of a global enterprise seeking to build a solid bloc of nations around the principles of free trade – principles which put economic powerhouses like the US, China and the European Union into the ring to compete on “equal” terms with countries like Haiti, Mozambique, and Honduras. The political elites of Panama and Colombia have accepted these grossly skewed terms of engagement. In contrast, and to the surprise of many, Zelaya, son of a prominent businessman, and having previously shown no marked reformist tendencies, encouraged his country to join the Venezuelan-initiated regional trade bloc, ALBA.
Manuel Zelaya
ALBA promotes Latin American economic co-operation and integration as a counterbalance to the economic dominance of the US on the continent. Even worse in the eyes of Washington and the Honduran comprador class, Zelaya also raised the minimum wage of Honduran workers by 60%.
According to a Panamanian vice-president:
“Every multinational knows that if Honduras raises its hourly rate, the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean will have to follow. Haiti and Honduras have always set the bottom line for minimum wages. The big companies are determined to stop what they call a ‘leftist revolt’ in this hemisphere. In throwing out Zelaya they are sending frightening messages to all the other presidents who are trying to raise the living standards of their people.” (Information Clearing House, August 07, 2009)
Although the immediate pretext for the coup was Zelaya’s effort to organize a non-binding opinion poll on presidential term limits, there is little question that his government’s left-progressive realignment was a source of annoyance for local elites and foreign business, and was a major factor underlying the coup.
Protesting the Coup
The part played by the US in the Honduran coup has been a matter of debate and confusion. Given the US’s record of promoting and supporting coups in Latin America, it doesn’t take a great leap of faith to imagine that the US played a direct behind-the-scenes role. This impression is reinforced by the extremely close relationship between the US military and the Honduran military, which carried out the coup. Many Honduran officers are alumni of the US military’s notorious School of the Americas (now rebranded as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation), which graduates specialists in torture and suppression of popular movements. During the 1980s, Honduras served as a staging area for US military interference in the civil wars in Nicaragua and El Salvador.
Of those who believe the US had a role in the coup, some think that the ball was already rolling before Obama’s inauguration and, as with Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs invasion, Obama inherited the fallout of his predecessor’s schemes. This is certainly plausible. What is certain, however, is that the Obama administration’s attempts to influence the restoration of democracy in Honduras after the coup were tepid and inconsistent. Many countries around the world immediately declared support for the ousted Zelaya and refused to recognize the coup headed by Roberto Micheletti.
Obama in his first public reaction referred to the Honduran situation as an illegal coup and stated his belief that Zelaya remained the president. After that initial statement, however, the Obama administration – and especially Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – backpedalled and dithered about their position on the coup. The term “coup” was excised from discussion, because calling what happened a coup would require the cut-off of US aid to the Honduran government and military. Instead, references were focused on “respect for democratic norms”, “return to rule of law” and “constitutional order”. This allowed considerable wiggle room for the instigators of the coup, who claimed to be acting in defense of the constitution. While other countries and international organizations were calling for the immediate and unconditional return of Zelaya to office, the U.S. appeared to be keeping the crisis at arm’s length. Subsequently, while refusing to condemn the coup’s flagrant violation of Honduran citizens’ human rights, which included repression of protesters, extra-judicial killings, jailings and press censorship, the US adopted a position of supporting a compromise between President Zelaya and those who illegally ousted him. Although Zelaya submitted to the humiliation of negotiations with the “de-facto” government imposed by the coup, the latter never honored any of the compromises that were reached.
Zelaya with supporters
Some commentators have suggested that Obama sought to avoid the kind of interference in Honduran affairs which elsewhere has exposed US foreign policy to criticism. This is similar to the excuses made for Obama before his inauguration, when he failed to take a stand on the Israeli invasion of Gaza. The fact that he criticized Russian actions against Georgia at that time, and that his administration has not shied away from interventionist policies in other nations – Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan – casts considerable doubt on that theory. The US only seems to show reticence to intervene when intervention doesn’t further its geostrategic objectives.
Last November’s election, in which Porfirio Lobo was declared the winner, was boycotted by international election monitors such as the Carter Center, which refused to sanction elections taking place under the repressive conditions of the coup. Most governments in Latin American, and elsewhere, dismiss the election as fraudulent. The government’s public claims of high voter turnout have been shown to contradict its own data (The Real News Network, December 8, 2009).
The inauguration of Lobo on January the 27th cements the illegal actions of the coup and the highly questionable conduct of the election. Two days after the inauguration the US normalized relations with Lobo’s government, as if all was well again. According to US Assistant Secretary of State Arturo Valenzuela, who attended the inauguration, “Things are moving very much in the right direction. A truth commission is going to be installed soon and quickly” (America.gov, 28 January 2010).
The coup leaders and their spawn in the new government haven’t done the best job of telling the truth yet, so it is difficult to believe that any “truth commission” in which they play a part will do much better. Nevertheless, from the US perspective, Zelaya is out for good and that means things are “moving very much in the right direction”.
