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in Honduras that is not going to go away, no matter what happens next. More repression, rigged election, fall or removal of the coup, US supporting democracy, US not supporting democracy, continued OAS and international boycott, or not? Doesn't matter. Honduras is forever changed by the huge, bipartisan social movement that immediately arose on Day #1 of the coup and has grown in strength and organization ever since--a huge miscalculation of the coupsters, who thought everybody would forget about it within weeks.
In this article, Canadian journalist, Jennifer Moore, is reporting on the analysis of Director of Scientific Research for the the National Autonomous University of Honduras, Leticia Salomón. It is quite a boon to get such a well-informed, and informative, analysis from inside Honduras. The detail on the big businessmen involved, and on the military, is very enlightening.
Big business was one of the chief instigators and their motive was--as many of us thought--Zelaya social justice measures like raising the minimum wage. (Honduras is one of the poorest countries in the western hemisphere, due to US "free trade" and national business exploitation of workers.) The military is using this opportunity to try to re-entrench itself in Honduras society, with a military draft and regaining control of telecommunications (for profits and spying). And the two established political parties were threatened by political reform, which was coming from social movements among the vast poor majority, to whom Zelaya was listening--as a good president should. We were also hearing this from NarcoNews--that the constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution was a grass roots movement for reform that Zelaya agreed to champion. (It was NOT Zelaya doing something on his own.) Salomón confirms it.
I am grateful for these insights, but I would say that the analysis is too insular for me. I think US rightwing forces and Bushwhack moles in the US government and military were critically important in giving the go-ahead on the coup to these oligarchic rulers of US client state, Honduras. Salomón/Moore mention almost in passing that US ambassador (Bushwhack appointee) Lorens was present in the pre-coup meetings! Was he delivering the word from Bushwack operatives like John McCain (who has telecommunications interests in Honduras, and was funneling over $40 million of US taxpayer money to these rightwing groups in Honduras through the "International Republican Institute" via USAID, according to Eva Golinger's FOIA research), that Obama would be successfully pressured to wink at the coup, and/or word from the Pentagon that US forces at the US military base in Soto Cano, Honduras, would stand down, when the Honduran military stopped to refuel the plane there, that was carrying the kidnapped Zelaya out of the county? Whose foreign policy was being carried out by the US embassy in Honduras?
Salomón provides previously unavailable insight into the coup players within Honduras, but says very little about US funding of the coupsters ($40+ million from McCain; more multi-millions via Clinton's Millennium Corporation to rightwing big businesses; many multi-millions via the Pentagon and military spending; plus other aid). And she doesn't help we who have been unwittingly paying for this coup with any clue as to whether or not the coupsters would have dared to do what they did without a nod from powerful forces here.
They miscalculated on their own people--that is her main point--Hondurans' passionate desire for reform and for the rule of law. They also miscalculated on the unanimous and adamant disapproval of other Latin American countries, of the OAS, of the UN, and of the EU--which she says almost nothing about. Did they also miscalculate US reaction? Or were they counting on a Buchwhack mole insurrection against Obama's policy (a theory I've been considering)?
Is it possible that what happened is a coup designed by the Bush Junta, then implemented by Bushwhack moles like Lorens, and officers in the "Southern Command" (or higher), with political backing from McCain & brethren, to embarrass Obama and sabotage his stated policies of peace, respect and cooperation in Latin America--a situation that Clinton was not complicit in--as many of us have suspected--but instead salvaged, via the Arias Accord, possibly even saving Zelaya's life, as well as prospects for restoring democracy in Honduras? I know there are many strikes against Clinton in this situation, but I also do not underestimate Bushwhack capacity for treachery, nor their long term oil war plans. (I think Honduras is one military asset in a larger war plan; Zelaya was threatening it by proposing the conversion of the US military base at Soto Cano to a commercial airport.)
Possibly Salomón deliberately avoided the subject of the US and its power in Honduras, so as not to in any way screw up US support for Zelaya (such as it is--overt support, but apparently with continued funding of the coup through various budgets). I don't fault her for it, whatever her reasons. I'm just saying that, as a US citizen who wants to know what my government is doing, it doesn't provide much help on those issues--except for the bombshell that Lorens attended the pre-coup meetings. (To be accurate, Salomón says that she strongly suspects it. But given her reluctance to say much about the US, I doubt that she would say this, unless she was pretty sure. And it certainly makes sense.) (Note: Embassy officials admitted knowing of the coup beforehand--they say they "advised against it"--but this is the first I've heard that Lorens attended pre-coup meetings.)
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