'Who Rules In Honduras?' Coup's Legacy Of Violence

[flamingdem]

http://www.npr.org/2012/02/12/146758628/who-rules-in-honduras-a-coups-lasting-impact


---- You can thank the Diaz-Balart Brothers for the destruction of democracy in Honduras. Their brother Jose Diaz-Balart is not an impartial journalist, sorry too many indicators to the contrary..

Honduras is a major stop for drug traffickers; corruption is rampant. Many experts say things got markedly worse after the 2009 coup that ousted democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya. The fallout of that coup continues today.

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"But when you look at what was actually happening in Honduras, [Zelaya] really was a continuation of a halting but definitely forward-moving consolidation of democracy," he says.

Despite the call for Zelaya's return by nearly every other country in the hemisphere, Washington chose to back new elections, which were condemned internationally because of widespread violence and repression. Polls were held, and five months after Zelaya's ouster, Porfirio Lobo was elected president. Eventually, the crisis was declared over, but violence has only increased.

Cresencio Arcos, who was ambassador to Honduras in the early '90s, has been involved in the country for decades. He says the Obama administration failed to take a firm position regarding the coup.

"I think this stems from the following: that Latin America is an orphan in our foreign policy. I don't think we have a defined policy," Arcos says. "We had one during the Cold War: They were our allies. After the Cold War ended, we never redefined; we never retooled.

[Uncle Joe]

1. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, flamingdem.

[flamingdem]

2. http://www.thenation.com/article/167994/honduras-which-side-us

** What difference does a coup make? Maybe the Diaz-Balart Brothers can enlighten us


Most dangerous of all, since the coup, the government has attacked the opposition relentlessly and mercilessly. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights reports “serious incidents of violence and repression” against demonstrations. At least twenty-two journalists and media workers have been killed since the coup, according to Reporters Without Borders; most of them were critics of the government. On May 16, the body of well-known radio reporter Alfredo Villatoro was found, dressed in a police uniform, a week after he was abducted. On May 7, Erick Martinez, a beloved journalist, LGBTI and resistance activist, and candidate for Congress with LIBRE, the opposition party, was found dead, strangled, by the side of the road. The AFL-CIO also reports “numerous murders, attacks and threats since 2009 aimed at trade unionists for their labor or political activities.”

Those who dare to document this are at tremendous risk. The United Nations reported in February that “human rights defenders continue to suffer extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances, torture and ill treatment, death threats, attacks, harassment, and stigmatization.” On February 22, for example, a paramilitary group called the CAM, linked to death squads during the 1980s, sent a text message to Dina Meza, press officer and co-founder of Cofadeh, that read: “We are going to burn your pussy with lime until you scream and later the whole squad is going to enjoy [you].” In late April, the same paramilitary group began sending death threats to two women, one British, the other French, who serve as “accompaniment” to protect those who have been threatened. Even when the government does promise protection, it’s rarely delivered, and victims are sometimes guarded by the very same police from whom they need to be protected.

Campesino activists have paid the highest price. In the lower Aguán Valley, at least 46 campesinos struggling over land rights have been killed since the coup, most of them allegedly by a combination of police, military and the private army of Miguel Facussé, the richest, most powerful man in the country and a key backer of the coup. The perpetrators enjoy near-complete impunity. On June 24, 2011, for example, seventy-five policemen destroyed the entire campesino community of Rigores, burning down more than 100 houses and bulldozing three churches and a seven-room schoolhouse; not one has been charged. At least ten security guards and others have died in the conflict as well. In an e-mailed response to questions for this article, Facussé admitted that in one incident four campesinos were killed in what he described as a “gun battle” with his security guards.

What difference does a coup make? Add up the rampant corruption of the Honduran state, the crime it unleashed and perpetrates, and its ruthless repression of the opposition, and it’s impossible to blame the crisis merely on drug trafficking and gangs; nor can organized crime and drug trafficking be separated from the criminal regime of Porfirio Lobo and the Honduran oligarchs.

[flamingdem]

4. That's not the case if you read about how Zelaya was bringing back democratic

institutions. Though I know in a larger sense what you mean, Honduras has a US military base, we had puppet presidents down there for decades.