Vested interests behind Honduras coup: analysts

[Judi Lynn]

Vested interests behind Honduras coup: analysts
by Staff Writers
Tegucigalpa (AFP) July 30, 2009

With the standoff over Honduras now in its second month, some analysts say the toppling of President Manuel Zelaya was masterminded by powerful families in the country opposed to his leftist bent.
Those clans, who form an oligarchy in the impoverished Central American state, were unnerved by Zelaya's sharp turn to leftwing populism after he took power in 2006, the Honduran experts say.

Although the nation's supreme court authorized the president's arrest on June 28, it was the families that plotted his ouster, said one analyst, Roberto Briceno, head of the Autonomous University of Honduras's sociology department.

"The blows against the oligarchy, which was used to controlling all the governments, were the real reason for the coup d'etat," he said.

Zelaya, a wealthy rancher and lumber magnate, had been elected in late 2005 as a conservative candidate acceptable to the vested interests of the country's rich and powerful set.

But in 2008 he abruptly moved to the left, coming under the sway of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who is seeking to form an anti-US, anti-capitalist bloc in Latin America.

"Powerful groups -- the bosses of energy and pharmaceutical companies, among others -- saw that Zelaya was no longer defending their interests and noted his alliance with Chavez. And that's where you have the causes," Briceno said.

In January this year, Zelaya increased the minimum salary from 189 dollars a month to 289 dollars, sparking multiple lawsuits by furious employers.

He also undermined profits by fuel distributors in the country by turning to Chavez's Petrocaraibe scheme, under which countries buy subsidized Venezuelan oil on favorable terms, and he suspended supply contracts for the big drugs companies.

His attempt to hold an informal referendum without required congressional approval was merely one offense more, the analysts said, but one that supplied legal ammunition for Zelaya's detractors.

"The government led by Mr Zelaya has systematically violated the constitution and the laws," Honduras's Private Enterprise Council declared on June 28, using the same justification as the supreme court and military.

"He upset the interests of the big company bosses, which had never happened before here. And for that, they couldn't forgive him," said another academic, Roberto Salinas.

"The coup d'etat was born in the oligarchy's intolerance, which rejected even the smallest reform that might bring in better conditions for the people," argued a colleague of Briceno's, sociologist Marcial Urquia.

Companies and employer groups, all of which back the de facto government replacing Zelaya's, have nonetheless agreed to accept a price-freeze on basic aliments such as chicken and butter to help the poor that make up 70 percent of the population.

In Honduras is "the theater of a war between two visions of the world: the neo-liberal model... and the new vision of Latin American socialism," said Efrain Nieto, a professor in the Honduras university's literary department.

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Vested_interests_behind_Honduras_coup_analysts_999.html

[subsuelo]

1. "He upset the interests of the big company bosses"

Pretty much says it all.

This is why the leaders of Latin America are coming under fire. It has nothing to do with freedom of speech. It has nothing to do with allegedly sending arms to the FARC. It has nothing to do with socialism or capitalism or democracy or any ideology.

The interests of the big company bosses are being threatened, and in some cases they are being torn down altogether. This is what the fussing and fighting is about today in Latin America.

[Peace Patriot]

2. Yeah, I think that's true, for sure, but it may not be the whole story.

There are the five new US military bases going into Colombia, a country with borders on both Venezuela's and Ecuador's northern oil rich provinces. The US/Colombia bombing/raid on Ecuador last year. The Bushwhack reconstitution of the US 4th Fleet in the Caribbean, which even alarmed Lula da Silva (who said it was a threat to Brazil's oil; everybody knows it's a threat to Venezuela). The USAF overflights of Venezuelan territory. The US military base in Honduras (which Zelaya proposed converting to a commercial airport). The vast US taxpayer military funding of Colombia and Honduras. The open talk of secession by fascist politicians in those very provinces of Venezuela and Ecuador, adjacent to Colombia, where all the oil is. And, to cap it off, there was Rumsfeld's column in the WaPo (12/1/07), a year after he retired from the Pentagon, entitled "The Smart Way to Defeat Tyrants Like Chavez," in which he urges "swift action" by the US in support of "friends and allies" in Latin America. And the rehearsal secession in Bolivia last September (a foiled coup). There is also the increasingly intense and outrageous psyops/disinformation campaign against Chavez (and also against Rafael Correa, president of Ecuador).

I don't mean to downplay the corporate interests (including war profiteer interests) active in trying to defeat leftist democracy in Latin America. But I think something even worse is in the works--a hot war to regain US global corporate predator control of South America's oil. Exxon Mobil and the Bushwhack junta were denied Iran. They now want Venezuela and Ecuador.

[subsuelo]

3. I see what you mean

Could you clarify one thing for me -- I'm not understanding the difference between "US global corporate predator control" and "corporate interests"... aren't we talking about essentially the same thing?

[Mika]

4. Only a hair's breadth of difference

Just look at the 1953 coup in Iran (or later, in Iraq) for the idea.

A pro US coup gov in Honduras is positioning Honduras to be the 'Israel of Latin America' - right in the middle of the "enemy" (anything to the left of fascism).

[Peace Patriot]

10. We are talking about something similar, but there is a difference between

economic warfare, which Bill Clinton conducted in Latin America, with the World Bank/IMF looting and destroying Latin American economies, and a "hot war" like Iraq where the violent power of the US military is used to slaughter a hundred thousand people to steal their oil. Argentina, for instance--once it smartened up and allied with Venezuela, in particular, and other leftist governments--was able to crawl out of the economic devastation of Clinton's "neoliberalism" over a 5 to 10 year period, and is now doing very well; whereas Iraq is a basketcase--its society utterly smashed up, a million dead, another million displaced, more millions wounded, land and water polluted with depleted uranium and other horrors, and its peoples' natural resources birthright sold away by a corrupt US-installed, puppet government. It could be centuries before Iraq regains its sovereignty and re-establishes an orderly civil society, if it ever does. Certainly there are casualties of economic warfare, but nothing like a literal rain of bombs and death. I just wanted to emphasize the aspects of current US/Latin American relations which I think are pointing to a US intention of war. Such a war (if successful) would not only benefit multinational monsters like Exxon Mobil, and likely be aimed at serving other corporate interests (such as sweatshop operators, and corps like Monsanto and Chiquita) and the local rich elites), but it also serves our war profiteers. And the damage of any shooting war--but especially a civil war--is very long lasting. Colombia's been at it for more than 40 frigging years, with devastating consequences.

[flamingdem]

5. Yikes! Isn't is always - follow the oil interests

Cuba might have substantial reserves as well.

[Downwinder]

6. Storm the Bastille! Class war.

Class disparity has arrived at the breaking point, you can even feel it in this country.

[flamingdem]

7. Here people have LESS vocabulary and understanding to mount a resistance

than in poverty stricken Honduras!

The mainstream media etc. has done a great job confusing the issues so that people go against their own interests here. In Honduras people with a ninth grade education, if that, seem more capable of identifying the issues!

[Downwinder]

8. See Health Care go down. You always have to drop some crumbs.

I have never seen this country so polarized. Sites like this erase geographical boundaries. Why all of the push against Cuba and Venezuela, they are no threat militarily or economical? They are a threat socially. The elites are running scared.

Truthfully, why did USSR crash. They had the economic drain of a un-winnable war and a bureaucracy the economic base could not support.

Where are we? We can't win in Afghanistan and we do not have a sufficient wage base to support the bureaucracy.

Both the Right and the Left are complaining about the Government.

What are the gender figures on unemployment? Women can traditionally fall back on the home when unemployed so it is not as much a psychological shock. Men on the other hand have no back up position. They come to See themselves as failures if they cannot provide.

Look at the employment in Honduras. The main manufacturing is fabric, women's work. Male unemployment is high.

I'm rambling, time for medication. It takes about 3 days for me to develop a coherent thought with this MS damaged brain.

[flamingdem]

9. Your comments are most often witty and incisive

I get where you are going making connections. Things are bubbling to the surface and class divisions are sharpening. Add to that fast communications and the restlessness increases and the elites start attempting to close the moat to their greed castles.

We're past ideology and into accounting!