FAIR: US Contribution to Death of Honduran Activist Goes Unmentioned in US Coverage

[Mufaddal]

Honduran environmental activist Berta Cáceres was shot and killed in her home in La Esperanza, Intibuca, Wednesday. While the killers’ ID remains unknown, activists, media observers and the Cáceres family pointed to the increasingly reactionary and violent Honduran government, which has frequently clashed with Cáceres over her high-profile activism against land dispossession and mining, and her defense of indigenous rights.

There was widespread outcry and grief over her death, and the story was covered by major media in the United States. But there was a glaring problem with the coverage: Almost none of it mentioned that the brutal regime that likely killed Cáceres came to power in a 2009 coup d’etat supported by the United States, under President Barack Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

As Greg Grandin at The Nation explains:

Cáceres was a vocal and brave indigenous leader, an opponent of the 2009 Honduran coup that Hillary Clinton, as secretary of State, made possible. In The Nation, Dana Frank and I covered that coup as it unfolded. Later, as Clinton’s emails were released, others, such as Robert Naiman, Mark Weisbrot and Alex Main, revealed the central role she played in undercutting Manuel Zelaya, the deposed president, and undercutting the opposition movement demanding his restoration. In so doing, Clinton allied with the worst sectors of Honduran society.

The Honduran military abducted President Manuel Zelaya at gunpoint and flew him out of the country on June 28, 2009. While the coup unfolded before the international community, the United Nations, the EU and the Organization of American States rushed to condemn it. Fifteen House Democrats joined in, sending a letter to the Obama White House insisting that the State Department “fully acknowledge that a military coup has taken place and…follow through with the total suspension of non-humanitarian aid, as required by law.”

Full article: http://fair.org/home/us-contribution-to-death-of-honduran-activist-goes-unmentioned-in-us-coverage/

[Wilms]

1. Hey, hey! Not so loud!

[Judi Lynn]

3. Good one! Thanks. n/t

[Bacchus4.0]

2. There has been two elections since Zelaya so how is Hillary responible?

Z's term ended the year he was deposed and he could not have constitutionally run again.

[Mufaddal]

4. This is pretty well-documented, but I'll save you the trip to Google.

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

Clinton’s false testimony is even more revealing. She reports that Zelaya was arrested amid “fears that he was preparing to circumvent the constitution and extend his term in office.” This is simply not true. As Clinton must know, when Zelaya was kidnapped by the military and flown out of the country in his pajamas on June 28, 2009, he was trying to put a consultative, nonbinding poll on the ballot to ask voters whether they wanted to have a real referendum on reforming the constitution during the scheduled election in November. It is important to note that Zelaya was not eligible to run in that election. Even if he had gotten everything he wanted, it was impossible for Zelaya to extend his term in office. But this did not stop the extreme right in Honduras and the United States from using false charges of tampering with the constitution to justify the coup.

Link: http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/9/hillary-clinton-honduraslatinamericaforeignpolicy.html

It was becoming widely believed that the Clinton State Department, along with the right-wing in Washington, was working behind the scenes to make sure that President Zelaya would not return to office. This U.S. cabal was coordinating with those behind the coup, it was being rumored, to bring new elections to Honduras, conducted by an illegal coup government, which would effectively terminate the term of Zelaya, who was illegally deposed in the final year of his constitutionally mandated single term. All this as Honduras was “descending deeper into a human rights and security abyss,” as the coup government was seen to be actually committing crimes worthy of removal from power. Professor Dana Frank, an expert in recent Honduran history at UC Santa Cruz, would charge in the New York Times that the resulting “abyss” in Honduras was “in good part the State Department’s making.”

Link: http://www.salon.com/2015/06/08/exclusive_hillary_clinton_sold_out_honduras_lanny_davis_corporate_cash_and_the_real_story_about_the_death_of_a_latin_america_democracy/

In Honduras, as many as 25,000 people marched Friday demanding the resignation of Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández. The protests come six years after a coup ousted Honduras’s democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya. In an exclusive interview, Zelaya talks about the new protest movement, the fallout from the 2009 coup, and Hillary Clinton’s role in his ouster. "On the one hand, [the Obama administration] condemned the coup, but on the other hand, they were negotiating with the leaders of the coup," Zelaya said. "And Secretary Clinton lent herself to that, maintaining that ambiguity of U.S. policy to Honduras, which has resulted in a process of distrust and instability of Latin American governments in relation to U.S. foreign policies." While the United States publicly supported Zelaya’s return to power, newly released emails show Clinton was attempting to set up a back channel of communication with Roberto Micheletti, who was installed as Honduran president after the coup. In one email, Clinton referenced lobbyist and former President Clinton adviser Lanny Davis. She wrote, "Can he help me talk w Micheletti?" At the time, Davis was working for the Honduran chapter of the Business Council of Latin America, which supported the coup. In another email, Thomas Shannon, the State Department’s lead negotiator for the Honduras talks, refers to Manuel Zelaya as a "failed" leader.

Link: http://www.democracynow.org/2015/7/28/clinton_the_coup_amid_protests_in




Hillary Clinton will be good for women. Ask Berta Cáceres. But you can’t. She’s dead. Gunned down yesterday, March 2, at midnight, in her hometown of La Esperanza, Intibuca, in Honduras.

Cáceres was a vocal and brave indigenous leader, an opponent of the 2009 Honduran coup that Hillary Clinton, as secretary of state, made possible. In The Nation, Dana Frank and I covered that coup as it unfolded. Later, as Clinton’s emails were released, others, such as Robert Naiman, Mark Weisbrot, and Alex Main, revealed the central role she played in undercutting Manuel Zelaya, the deposed president, and undercutting the opposition movement demanding his restoration. In so doing, Clinton allied with the worst sectors of Honduran society.

Link: http://www.thenation.com/article/the-clinton-backed-honduran-regime-is-picking-off-indigenous-leaders/

[Judi Lynn]

5. You will discover they suddenly go blind when you bring the evidence. It's hilarious.

Your post is worth keeping for future reference on this subject.

Thank you, very much.

[Mufaddal]

7. Yeah, I see what you mean, but it's okay

I thought it might have been a half-serious question, but I see now that it was just some sort of Contra trollery.

[Bacchus4.0]

9. yep, a serious question. How about an answer?

How is Hillary or the US implicated in Caceres' death? I hear from chavista types that Z was not trying to change the constitution and could not run again. His term was over in about 6 more months. There have been two elections since Z's ouster. His wife lost the last election. How is the US responsible for the death of Caceres?

[Bacchus4.0]

6. So what is the connection between Hillary and Caceres

Forgetting for the moment that you posted opinions from the likes of Mark Weisbrot who thinks the Venezuelan government is doing a good job. As you posted, Zelaya's term was to finish in about 6 months after his ouster. He couldn't run for re-election (even though that is what he was trying to do) There, ostensibly, would have still been an election at the designated time. Moving forward, there has since been another election where Z's wife was defeated. So how is Hillary implicated in the death of Caceres?

[polly7]

8. Great post, Muffadal. nt.

[Zorro]

10. More anti-US, anti-Clinton FUD

Zelaya defied the Honduran courts and the legislature and imported ballot boxes from Venezuela for his unsanctioned and illegal "referendum", which Hondurans perceived as a power play to usurp mandated term limits. Zelaya took his chances -- most likely at the direction of his puppetmaster Hugo -- and lost.

Lots of butthurt Chavistas were baying incessantly for direct US intervention when those events happened, despite also demanding the US not interfere in Latin America. Go figure.

[Mufaddal]

11. I feel your pain, really.

US imperialism gets all the tough breaks.

[Zorro]

12. No pain here

but you just outed yourself as an anti-US, anti-Clinton troll. But I'm sure you'll be welcomed by the rest of that community that infests this LatAm group; they all admire Weisbrot, too.

[MinM]

13. Mitt Romney’s “Pinochet Moment”

Interesting piece from the last POTUS election cycle...

Mitt Romney’s “Pinochet Moment”
Posted on September 20, 2012 by Daniel Hopsicker

...Speaking about US policy towards Honduras, Romney accused President Obama of backing a "pro-Marxist" leader in Honduras, faulting him for not more quickly and enthusiastically supporting the military coup in 2009 that deposed the elected President of a fledgling democracy.

That Romney chose to say anything at all about a small nation in Central America was somewhat surprising, especially since he hasn't been specific about much else.

But, as he must know, Honduras is important to US foreign policy for only one reason: Controlling Hondurus is important to controlling the drug trade.

Romney was signaling that in a Republican Administration, a return to the good old days when death squads could just "disappear" inconvenient people would be A-OK with him...

http://www.madcowprod.com/2012/09/20/romneys-pinochet-moment/

[Mufaddal]

14. Bottom line

We haven't had any administration in recent memory (maybe Carter?..), Democratic or Republican, that viewed Latin America as anything but America's colonial backyard. The fact that we still have the SOA/WHISC is a testament to this.