Those Kids Crossing the Border From Mexico Wouldn't Be There If Obama Hadn't Supported a Coup the Me

[unhappycamper]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/07/12-4



Supporters of ousted Honduras' President Manuel Zelaya clash with soldiers near the presidential residency Tegucigalpa, Monday, June 29. 2009. Police fired tear gas to hold back thousands of Hondurans outside the occupied presidential residency as world leaders appealed to Honduras to reverse a coup that ousted the president.

Those Kids Crossing the Border From Mexico Wouldn't Be There If Obama Hadn't Supported a Coup the Media Doesn't Talk About
by Ted Rall
Published on Saturday, July 12, 2014 by Common Dreams

If you're reading this, you probably follow the news. So you've probably heard of the latest iteration of the "crisis at the border": tens of thousands of children, many of them unaccompanied by an adult, crossing the desert from Mexico into the United States, where they surrender to the Border Patrol in hope of being allowed to remain here permanently. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's detention and hearing system has been overwhelmed by the surge of children and, in some cases, their parents. The Obama Administration has asked Congress to approve new funding to speed up processing and deportations of these illegal immigrants.

Even if you've followed this story closely, you probably haven't heard the depressing backstory — the reason so many Central Americans are sending their children on a dangerous thousand-mile journey up the spine of Mexico, where they ride atop freight trains, endure shakedowns by corrupt police and face rapists, bandits and other predators. (For a sense of what it's like, check out the excellent 2004 film "Maria Full of Grace.&quot

~snip~

The fact that Honduras is the biggest source of the exodus jumped out at me. That's because, in 2009, the United States government — under President Obama — tacitly supported a military coup that overthrew the democratically elected president of Honduras. "Washington has a very close relationship with the Honduran military, which goes back decades," The Guardian noted at the time. "During the 1980s, the US used bases in Honduras to train and arm the Contras, Nicaraguan paramilitaries who became known for their atrocities in their war against the Sandinista government in neighbouring Nicaragua."

Honduras wasn't paradise under President Manuel Zelaya. Since the coup, however, the country has entered a downward death spiral of drug-related bloodshed and political revenge killings that crashed the economy, brought an end to law, order and civil society, and now has some analysts calling it a "failed state" along the lines of Somalia and Afghanistan during the 1990s.

[ColesCountyDem]

1. Only one problem: the Obama administration did NOT 'tacitly' support the coup.

~snip~

"...'We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the president of Honduras," Obama said.

"It would be a terrible precedent if we start moving backwards into the era in which we are seeing military coups as a means of political transition rather than democratic elections," Obama said. "The region has made enormous progress over the last 20 years in establishing democratic traditions in Central America and Latin America. We don't want to go back to a dark past....' "

~snip~

...Reinforcing the president's message, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Tuesday that the U.S. had spoken out on the Honduran situation to put to rest "any rumors that we were in any way involved in this."

"Despite whatever political disagreements you might have, there are democratic norms that have to and should be followed," Gibbs said.

Jose Raul Perales, a Latin American scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center, said Obama's response to the crisis was prompt and in unison with leaders of the hemisphere and beyond. Obama can bring considerable leverage to the matter and add credibility to an emerging regional response, he said....

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/31669400/ns/politics-white_house/t/analysis-obamas-stand-honduran-coup/#.U8JqD7GmWA4

[GoneFishin]

4. So they don't want to be tied to it. I'd be more interested in what sanctions or steps they

actually took in response to it.

Talk is very, very cheap to this administration.

And worthless from Robert Gibbs.

[cstanleytech]

5. What do you want him to do send in troops? nt

[1StrongBlackMan]

10. Yeah ...

Then we wouldn't be talking about these refugees, we'd be screaming about imperialism.

This President can't win for (folks ignoring what happened to have him) losing.

[GoneFishin]

14. Not at all. Just curious if we are sending them aid or back-channel support.

We have seen many instances of double speak lately, and I honestly don't know the details in this case.

[ColesCountyDem]

7. The Obama administration did what previous administrations did not do.

As stated elsewhere in the article, the U.S. coordinated its response with the OAS' response, rather than acting unilaterally and with a 'heavy hand', as the U.S. has traditionally done.

I've spent a great deal of time in Latin America, particularly in Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua. I have many friends in Honduras, and none of them blame the U.S. in any way whatsoever for the coup. Any active, unilateral U.S. intervention would only have made matters worse: military intervention would have rekindled longstanding resentment of U.S. military intervention in the region, and economic sanctions would have worsened the lives of a vast majority of the population.

The Guardian is well known for its "The U.S. Can do Nothing Right" editorial bias, vis a vis foreign affairs.

[MH1]

6. Yeah as soon as I saw that 'tacitly supported' I knew what we had here.

I wonder what Teddy wanted Obama to do?


And, reading further in your link, we are reminded that the situation didn't seem so simplistic at the time:

But there are still bigger problems in Honduras — the failed democratic institutions that led the nation to resort to a military coup. The conflict came about after a referendum Zelaya had called in defiance of Honduras' courts and Congress, one seen as a way for him to stay in power beyond his term limit.

[ColesCountyDem]

9. Indeed! n/t

[WhiteTara]

11. Thanks for the correction. I'm tired of all the "blame it on Obama"

media reports.

[MattSh]

12. Loved this line...

"Despite whatever political disagreements you might have, there are democratic norms that have to and should be followed," Gibbs said.

Except when it's advantageous to us that democratic norms not be followed.

[littlemissmartypants]

3. Thanks for your post.

My heart breaks.

[avebury]

8. Notice how the Republicans never complain

about all the dirty dealings in Central/South America and other parts of the world that Republican administrations were involved in.

[MisterP]

13. world's first narcostate with 1978 barracks coup, 1980 Carter WH moves to use Honduras

to destabilize Nicaragua (so it doesn't provide an example) and backstop El Salvador's nun rapists (later they get napalm, white phosphorus, choppers, arms and training to "professionalize" them, though the slaughter continues steady 1981-90), "opting in" into Argentina's existing networks
1980-4 Alvarez Martinez et al disappear ~200 people
1982 Sharon visits and sets up the secret arms and money channels that Iran-Contra will later use
1984 Ollie North orders 1,500 kilos of cocaine in *one* shipment from kingpin Ramon Matta and Alvarez Martinez is exiled (the witch-President is told "the plane's still waiting" if he didn't like it)
1985 "Kiki" Camarena impaled and THEN buried alive by Matta et al
1988 Matta illegally extradited and the right-wing student union (in charge of UNAH thanks their electoral techniques of threatening professors with pistols, torturing students with car batteries, and having the army arrest their opponents and then release them the day after the election) marches on the Embassy and, joined by several other groups, burns one of its rooms; the Army blocks the firefighters and the police don't take the trapped consuls' calls
1990 Contras finally return to Nicaragua after Violeta Chamorro wins an election under duress (with $1M CIA money for her party alone)