Zelaya just said that the USA is against the coup

[flamingdem]

on Telesur.

Smells of a CIA-Bush buddies - Obama administration split perhaps

[magbana]

1. BINGO - flamingdem! Zelaya had better watch his back in Costa

Rica, a country most hated by the other Central American countries, and most loved by the US. He especially had better check out that plane carefully if he goes to that meeting in Nicaragua tomorrow.

[flamingdem]

3. Drug cartels are probably involved as well

** NOTE -- I read that it's the Honduran police attacking demonstrators there - not the army = corruption in the police department..

Monday, March 23, 2009

Recession, Mexican Drug Cartels, putting Honduras at Risk

http://mexidata.info/id2202.html

By Eliot Brockner

-------------------- SNIP

Yet perhaps the greatest danger Honduras faces is the growing presence of organized crime, mostly from Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) within its borders. A report published by the Honduran daily La Prensa highlighted the nation's growing strategic influence in trafficking illegal drugs (mostly cocaine) to the US. Honduras' vast, unpatrolled coast, mountainous borders with Guatemala and Nicaragua, and sparsely populated eastern jungle are favorable geographic features for smugglers looking to evade authorities. Within the past few weeks alone, authorities have found boats and planes transporting large amounts of cocaine in Farallones, Utila and other points along the Caribbean coast.

But it is not just Honduras' peripheral and coastal regions that are facing an increase in drug trafficking and the organized crime that controls it. According to the website Southern Pulse, the Honduran government allocated 12 percent of its police force to fighting organized crime in 2008, using Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula as its center of operations, implying that organized crime is at work in Honduras’ two largest cities.

A December 2008 Stratfor report on Mexican organized crime mentioned the arrests two months earlier of Sinaloa cartel affiliates and the location of safe houses along a north-south highway in Honduras’ interior. Additionally, Juan Carlos Garzón wrote in his 2008 book "Mafia & Co," of a “strategic triangle,” formed by the Bay Islands, unpopulated islands and lagoons in Gracias a Dios department, and the border town of El Guasule on the Honduran-Nicaraguan border, which allows control of trafficking throughout much of the country.

Further proof comes from testimony of people living in Honduras, who have reported a rise in drugs in small towns not on the tourist trail. Places once traditionally immune to the flow and sale of drugs are now being targeted. Illegal drugs and the presence of dealers and small-level traffickers have been slowly infiltrating the towns and villages on the Guatemalan/Honduran border and well into the interior of the departments of Copán and Santa Bárbara, according to a former US state department official in Honduras. Thus, some of the drugs smuggled into Honduras stay there, creating a local market where previously none had existed.

Corruption has long been a part of Honduran politics, but recent reports indicate that DTOs may be behind some of the bribery. This is a tactic used in Mexico, where high-level military, police, and political figures have been linked to organized crime. The violence there is the result of the country's military fighting back against the cartels, which were able to operate with near impunity for years under a corrupt system.

Yet Honduras’ underpaid and overstretched police and military are far less developed in manpower and technology than the Mexican military and would not be able to independently handle the presence of Mexican DTOs. They may also be the easiest to target: Hondurans have the third lowest confidence in their police in the Americas, according to a study done in 2007 by the Consorcio Iberoamericano suggesting that the police are already fairly corrupt.

------------------------------------------ SNIP

[Bacchus39]

13. Costa Rica, "a country most hated by other Central American countries,"

what a fascinating claim. maybe because they haven't had an active military since the 1940's? or perhaps their relatively good economic position?

[magbana]

2. Obama Responds to Coup in Honduras

acnnews 5
Barack Obama Reacts to Coup d’état in Honduras

HAVANA, Cuba, June 28 (acn) Using an ambivalent speech, US President
Barack Obama said he was “deeply concerned” at the arrest of President
Manuel Zelaya by Honduran military and urged all sides to
respect “democracy and the rule of law.”
“I am deeply concerned by reports coming out of Honduras regarding
the detention and expulsion of President Manuel Zelaya,” Obama said in a
brief statement a few hours after it was announced that Zelaya was
arrested by Honduran military and forcibly taken to Costa Rica.
The text urges “all political and social actors in Honduras to
respect democracy and the rule of law.”
The communiqué adds that “all disputes must be settled peacefully
through negotiations that are free from outside interference,” in a
clear reference to the Honduran links with other Latin American nations,
which have been used by the local oligarchy in their confrontation with
Zelaya.


Worldnews/ef/13:15

Reacción norteamericana ante golpe en Honduras


Cuban News Agency
www.cubanews.ain.cu
[e-mail]

[flamingdem]

4. After this statement Obama was much stronger against the coup

He examines before pronouncing. I don't have doubts that he could ever be on the side of the coupsters!

[subcomhd]

6. I know Obama has disappointed on some things but

I have been pleased with his approach to LA - restoring relations with Venezuela is a prime example. I don't think there is any US involvement here, other than to condemn it. and although the US has a horrible record of anti-democratic meddling in LA (CA especially) I don't think the dynamic calls for Obama to be as restrained as in Iran. In other words, I don't think a secular right-wing coups could get much traction from accusing the US of interfering by supporting a secular left-wing elected president. I actually wouldn't mind seeing a little meddling on the side of democracy - for a change. I'm not sure what I recomend exactly.

[EFerrari]

14. It's my strong feeling that there are elements at State and at the Pentagon

that might not be on board with our new president. It's only June, after all.

[subcomhd]

15. Good Point

The Bay of Pigs was planned under Ike - though JFK did give the go-ahead. There is no way Obama gave the go-ahead for this. But was there CIA involvement? Good question. Was this something that was in the works under Bush and they just went ahead without the new president knowing. Possible.

[EFerrari]

17. Some of us in this forum noticed, during the OAS summit

that Obama's State Department sidekick was very negative in the press and in fact, sometimes contradicted the President's upbeat comments.

Hay gatos encerrados. :shrug:

ETA: "There are cats locked up in a closet here somewhere".

[subcomhd]

19. quizas

[flamingdem]

5. Narcosphere has a blurb

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/

School of the Americas-Trained Military Detains and Expels Democratically-Elected President Zelaya

Early this morning approximately 200 Honduran soldiers arrived at President Manuel "Mel" Zelaya's residence, reportedly fired four shots, and detained the President. Zelaya told TeleSUR that the soldiers took him to an air force base and put him on a plane to Costa Rica.

Zelaya told TeleSUR from San Jose, Costa Rica, "They threatened to shoot me." Honduras' ambassador to the Organization of American States, Carlos Sosa Coello, reports that the president has been beaten up.

[bananas]

7. Thanks, they have a long article now

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/kristin-bricker/2009/06/coup-honduras

<snip>

Zelaya told TeleSUR that he doesn't believe it was regular soldiers who kidnapped him. "I have been the victim of a kidnapping carried out by a group of Honduran soldiers. I don't think the Army is supporting this sort of action. I think this is a vicious plot planned by elites. Elite who only want to keep the country isolated and in extreme poverty."

<snip>

TeleSUR reports that the soldiers have also arrested the Cuban, Venezuelan, and Nicaraguan ambassadors to Honduras, as well as Chancellor Patricia Rodas. The Venezuelan ambassador told TeleSUR that the soldiers beat him during the kidnapping. La Prena reports that soldiers have detained at least one pro-Zelaya mayor, San Pedro Sula's Rodolfo Padilla Sunseri.

<snip>

[Judi Lynn]

8. Amazing. Hope we'll hear more about this. Thank you. n/t

[magbana]

9. Chavez, in his press conference this morning, said that he understood

that the guys rounding up Zelaya and family and others were very, very young like 17 years old and the speculation is that if any of this operation went down poorly, the honduran military could say oh, those young kids, they just went a bit overboard.

Telesur just did a tour of the Zelaya home and you can see that they shot through the main gate and broke big holes through the bedroom doors. Also, when the TV cameras toured the bedroom of their daughter, there was one of those toy dolls of Chavez (with red beret and all) on her bureau!

[Judi Lynn]

10. They recruit kids for Colombia's death squads, too. Ugly to use very young people

to do ugly things. It will destroy them.

Hiding behind the kids, just like the oligarchs in Venezuela, too, who send their kids out to pitch filthy, vicious fits in the streets with their violent demonstrations the oligarchs call "guarimbas."

Right-wingers. What's not to admire?

[EFerrari]

12. Wow I guess we should be happy Zelayz isn't dead. n/t

[EFerrari]

11. State Department still full of vipers. n/t

[subcomhd]

16. More Likely CIA

[EFerrari]

18. State has outlets all over the world.

And everyone there is a "diplomat".

They also control USAID funds and God only knows what other funds. :shrug:

[subcomhd]

20. Oh, yeah.

DOS is full of CIA.

[EFerrari]

21. One of my teachers was a person bringing tape out of the Atlantic Coast

during the Contra war, and also, going into Honduras and visiting with all those hostages in the camps that government set up for the Misquitu when we made their home unsafe. She brought tape out of the negotiations and I translated them to counter the RW nuts in Congress that said they weren't happening.

It was her impression that the main actors were the Pentagon and State but, of course, CIA isn't supposed to leave their tags everywhere.

[magbana]

22. OAS Resolution Should Imply US Condemnation

"Sunday, June 28, 2009
UPDATE 7:40PM: OAS RESOLUTION SHOULD IMPLY US CONDEMNATION

Since the Obama Administration has stated the coup situation in Honduras should be resolved via the OAS, and the OAS has just condemned the coup and called for the unconditional restoration of President Zelaya to power, that should also imply that the US Government shares the same position.

Some rumors are flying around that two US government reps have made statements to the effect of Obama not recognizing the coup government in Honduras, but not wanting to "get involved" and to "wait" for the coup government to decide it is illegitimate by analyzing the OAS decision.

I think a clear coup d'etat against a democratic government that also happens to be a major dependent on US economic and political aid should provoke a more firm and concise statement by the US Government.

Tomorrow the State Dept will have to respond to questions about the coup....
Posted by Eva Golinger at 7:37 PM

http://www.chavezcode.com/2009/06/update-740pm-oas-resolution-should.html

[magbana]

23. Zelaya just left Costa Rica and is enroute to Nicaragua n/t

[magbana]

24. US Union Group in Honduras

I'm listening to an interview on Telesur. The group was in Honduras to witness the polling that was supposed to take place today. One of the guys said, "we came here to witness an election, but instead we got a coup!"