Zelaya, Negroponte and Controversy at U.S. Air Base of Soto Cano (Palmerola)

[Judi Lynn]

Zelaya, Negroponte
and Controversy at U.S. Air Base of Soto Cano (Palmerola)
July 22, 2009 By Nikolas Kozloff

The mainstream media has once again dropped the ball on a key aspect of the ongoing story in Honduras: the U.S. airbase at Soto Cano, also known as Palmerola. Prior to the recent military coup detat President Manuel Zelaya declared that he would turn the base into a civilian airport, a move opposed by the former U.S. ambassador. Whats more Zelaya intended to carry out his project with Venezuelan financing.

For years prior to the coup the Honduran authorities had discussed the possibility of converting Palmerola into a civilian facility. Officials fretted that Toncontn, Tegucigalpas international airport, was too small and incapable of handling large commercial aircraft. An aging facility dating to 1948, Toncontn has a short runway and primitive navigation equipment. The facility is surrounded by hills which makes it one of the worlds more dangerous international airports.

Palmerola by contrast has the best runway in the country at 8,850 feet long and 165 feet wide. The airport was built more recently in the mid-1980s at a reported cost of $30 million and was used by the United States for supplying the Contras during Americas proxy war against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua as well as conducting counter-insurgency operations in El Salvador. At the height of the Contra war the U.S. had more than 5,000 soldiers stationed at Palmerola. Known as the Contras unsinkable aircraft carrier, the base housed Green Berets as well as CIA operatives advising the Nicaraguan rebels.

More recently there have been some 500-to-600 U.S. troops on hand at the facility which serves as a Honduran air force base as well as a flight-training center. With the exit of U.S. bases from Panama in 1999, Palmerola became one of the few usable airfields available to the U.S. on Latin American soil. The base is located approximately 30 miles north of the capital Tegucigalpa.

In 2006 it looked as if Zelaya and the Bush administration were nearing a deal on Palmerolas future status. In June of that year Zelaya flew to Washington to meet President Bush and the Honduran requested that Palmerola be converted into a commercial airport. Reportedly Bush said the idea was wholly reasonable and Zelaya declared that a four-lane highway would be constructed from Tegucigalpa to Palmerola with U.S. funding.

In exchange for the White Houses help on the Palmerola facility Zelaya offered the U.S. access to a new military installation to be located in the Mosquitia area along the Honduran coast near the Nicaraguan border. Mosquitia reportedly serves as a corridor for drugs moving south to north. The drug cartels pass through Mosquitia with their cargo en route from Colombia, Peru and Bolivia.

A remote area only accessible by air, sea, and river Mosquitia is full of swamp and jungle. The region is ideal for the U.S. since large numbers of troops may be housed in Mosquitia in relative obscurity. The coastal location was ideally suited for naval and air coverage consistent with the stated U.S. military strategy of confronting organized crime, drug trafficking, and terrorism. Romeo Vsquez, head of the Honduran Joint Chiefs of Staff, remarked that the armed forces needed to exert a greater presence in Mosquitia because the area was full of conflict and problems.

But what kind of access would the U.S. have to Mosquitia? Honduran Defense Secretary
Aristides Meja said that Mosquitia wouldnt necessarily be a classic base with permanent installations, but just when needed. We intend, if President Zelaya approves, to expand joint operations . That statement however was apparently not to the liking of eventual coup leader and U.S. School of the Americas graduate Vsquez who had already traveled to Washington to discuss future plans for Mosquitia. Contradicting his own colleague, Vsquez said the idea was to establish a permanent military base of ours in the zone which would house aircraft and fuel supply systems. The United States, Vsquez added, would help to construct air strips on site.

Events on the ground meanwhile would soon force the Hondurans to take a more assertive approach towards air safety. In May, 2008 a terrible crash occurred at Toncontn airport when a TACA Airbus A320 slid off the runway on its second landing attempt. After mowing down trees and smashing through a metal fence, the airplanes fuselage was broken into three parts near the airstrip. Three people were killed in the crash and 65 were injured.

In the wake of the tragedy Honduran officials were forced at long last to block planes from landing at the notoriously dangerous Toncontn. All large jets, officials said, would be temporarily transferred to Palmerola. Touring the U.S. airbase himself Zelaya remarked that the authorities would create a new civilian facility at Palmerola within sixty days. Bush had already agreed to let Honduras construct a civilian airport at Palmerola, Zelaya said. There are witnesses, the President added.

But constructing a new airport had grown more politically complicated. Honduran-U.S. relations had deteriorated considerably since Zelayas 2006 meeting with Bush and Zelaya had started to cultivate ties to Venezuela while simultaneously criticizing the American-led war on drugs.

Bushs own U.S. Ambassador Charles Ford said that while he would welcome the traffic at Palmerola past agreements should be honored. The base was used mostly for drug surveillance planes and Ford remarked that The president can order the use of Palmerola when he wants, but certain accords and protocols must be followed. It is important to point out that Toncontn is certified by the International Civil Aviation Organization, Ford added, hoping to allay long-time concerns about the airports safety. Whats more, the diplomat declared, there were some airlines that would not see Palmerola as an attractive landing destination. Ford would not elaborate or explain what his remarks were supposed to mean.

Throwing fuel on the fire Assistant Secretary of State John Negroponte, a former U.S. ambassador to Honduras, said that Honduras could not transform Palmerola into a civilian airport from one day to the next. In Tegucigalpa, Negroponte met with Zelaya to discuss Palmerola. Speaking later on Honduran radio the U.S. diplomat said that before Zelaya could embark on his plans for Palmerola the airport would have to receive international certification for new incoming flights. According to Spanish news agency EFE Negroponte also took advantage of his Tegucigalpa trip to sit down and meet with the President of the Honduran Parliament and future coup leader Roberto Micheletti .

Needless to say Negropontes visit to Honduras was widely repudiated by progressive and human rights activists who labeled Negroponte an assassin and accused him of being responsible for forced disappearances during the diplomats tenure as ambassador (1981-1985). Moreover, Ford and Negropontes condescending attitude irked organized labor, indigenous groups and peasants who demanded that Honduras reclaim its national sovereignty over Palmerola. Its necessary to recover Palmerola because its unacceptable that the best airstrip in Central America continues to be in the hands of the U.S. military, said Carlos Reyes, leader of the Popular Bloc which included various politically progressive organizations. The Cold War has ended and there are no pretexts to continue with the military presence in the region, he added. The activist remarked that the government should not contemplate swapping Mosquitia for Palmerola either as this would be an affront to Honduran pride.

Over the next year Zelaya sought to convert Palmerola into a civilian airport but plans languished when the government was unable to attract international investors. Finally in 2009 Zelaya announced that the Honduran armed forces would undertake construction. To pay for the new project the President would rely on funding from ALBA and Petrocaribe, two reciprocal trading agreements pushed by Venezuelan leader Hugo Chvez. Predictably the Honduran right leapt on Zelaya for using Venezuelan funds. Amlcar Bulnes, President of the Honduran Business Association said that Petrocaribe funds should not be used for the airport but rather for other, unspecified needs.

A couple weeks after Zelaya announced that the armed forces would proceed with construction at Palmerola the military rebelled. Led by Romeo Vsquez, the army overthrew Zelaya and deported him out of the country. In the wake of the coup U.S. peace activists visited Palmerola and were surprised to find that the base was busy and helicopters were flying all around. When activists asked American officials if anything had changed in terms of the U.S.-Honduran relationship they were told no, nothing.

The Honduran elite and the hard right U.S. foreign policy establishment had many reasons to despise Manuel Zelaya as Ive discussed in previous articles. The controversy over the Palmerola airbase however certainly gave them more ammunition.

http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/22085

[Peace Patriot]

1. "No, nothing." LOL!

"In the wake of the coup U.S. peace activists visited Palmerola and were surprised to find that the base was busy and helicopters were flying all around. When activists asked American officials if anything had changed in terms of the U.S.-Honduran relationship they were told no, nothing."

I think the Palmerola air base controversy has been overlooked as a key indicator of what might be really going on with Obama Administration foreign policy, as to Honduras and overall in Latin America. The Bush Junta began plans to create more US military bases in Colombia--a US client state run by narco-fascists, whose military has one of the worst human rights records on earth--and the Obama administration is not only completing those plans, the goal is now five US military bases in Colombia! Honduras, in the control of the rightwing, gives them another strategic location, smack in the middle of three border countries--Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala--which now have leftist governments allied with Venezuela and the South American left (Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay and, on important sovereignty issues, and some social justice issues, Chile). Furthermore, the Bushwhacks reconstituted the US 4th Fleet in the Caribbean last summer, an action that alarmed all of Latin America, including Brazil's president, Lula da Silva, and I will tell you in a moment what he said.

What is all this US military hegemony in Latin America about? And don't tell me the "war on drugs." Don't make me laugh. The failed, corrupt, murderous US "war on drugs"--among the worst disasters of US foreign policy--has done nothing, I repeat, nothing, to stem the flow of cocaine, weapons and criminal networks out of Colombia. $6 BILLION in US tax dollars to the Colombian military, and not even a dent in the trade. The only countries actually making progress in illicit drug interdiction and breaking up associated crime networks are Venezuela, Bolivia and others who have rejected the US "war on drugs," and evicted the US military and the DEA from their countries. So it's not about drugs.

What IS it all about? What Lula da Silva said is that the US 4th Fleet poses a threat to Brazil's oil fields in the Caribbean and the Atlantic. Everybody (south of the border) knows that the 4th Fleet is a threat to Venezuela's main oil fields on its Caribbean coast, in provinces including Zulia that not only border Colombia, but that are rife with fascist plots to secede from the national government, taking the oil fields with them. But Brazil's? Why would a president, who is moderate leftist, and one of the few leaders of South America who was invited to both the Bush and Obama White House, be concerned about US military aggression against Brazil's oil fields? It was Brazil--not Venezuela--who proposed a "common defense" among South American countries, in the context of UNASUR, their newly formalized (last summer) "common market." Logically--in this and other contexts--Brazil's president would be concerned about Venezuela's sovereignty and its control over critical resources such as oil. Venezuela is a key partner in UNASUR. And US plots against the Chavez government are certainly no secret in Latin America. But why would he fear US aggression against Brazil?

Back to Honduras. Honduras doesn't have oil, but it does have strategic location--a long coast on the Caribbean, access to the Pacific and a long bloody history of being used by the US as a "lily pad" country for launching death squads and other aggression against its neighbors--horrors over which John Negroponte (now advising Hillary Clinton) presided, during the Reagan era.

Probable answer: US control of Palmerola air field in Honduras is a key component of what is likely a Bushwhack plan for Oil War II-South America.

Thanks for posting the Z-Net article on the recent history of US/Honduras and Zelaya relations regarding Palmerola. It is like a map to the coup. I was aware that Zelaya had proposed turning Palmerola into a commercial airport, and figured that this might have triggered Pentagon support for the coup. (They obviously sat back and let the Honduran military roust the elected president, Zelaya, out of bed at gunpoint and fly him out of the country as a prisoner, and then sat back again, when Zelaya tried to re-enter the country by air, the other week, and was blocked by the Honduran air force. Why couldn't he land at Palmerola, which is controlled by the Pentagon? Why did the USAF stand down? Who gave that order?) What becomes clearer, in this article, is that converting Palmerola to a commercial airport was not such a radical idea. I had thought maybe that that had been Zelaya's mistake--proposing that at the wrong time. But even the Bushwhacks had discussed it, and seemed to be open to it--meanwhile plotting the overthrow of Honduran democracy. Retaining their "lily pad" was a more important issue than we observers of these events at DU knew. Likely they never intended to give it up, and were just game-playing with Zelaya--who thought he could make gains toward Honduran sovereignty and independence, and toward social justice, by increments and by negotiating with the Dark Lords in Washington DC. (Hadn't he read "The Lord of the Rings"?)

It remains to be seen whether or not Obama and Clinton are on board for Oil War II. I have to say that I am not hopeful. I was, until the Honduran coup. Now I am not. Either they support that coup, covertly (they are saying otherwise), or they don't have the power to stop this war plan. Their story that they knew about the coup plans, and told the coupsters not to do it just doesn't hold up. They had the pursestring power (not to mention control of Palmerola and the US and Honduran air forces) to stop it in its tracks. They didn't. They could have facilitated Zelaya's return the other week. They didn't. They have jawboned for delay, delay, delay--the "talks" in Costa Rica--while the coup consolidates its power, and represses the Honduran people with martial law. They have suspended some military and other funding--not all of it--but have refused to designate this coup as a coup and shut it down, as they should. Why? Because John Negroponte is advising them. It's his coup--his and John McCain's*. Didn't we reject these fascists in the last election? Who is running our government?

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*(As Eva Gollinger has revealed, through FOIA research, John McCain's US taxpayer funded "International Republican Institute" has funneled over $40 million to the rightwing groups in Honduras who perpetrated this coup. I wonder if that funding--via the USAID and other budgets--has been stopped.)

[Judi Lynn]

3. No doubt those funding resources are never terminated during events like this.

Someone here, possibly magbana, or rabs, or EFerrari has posted money is being funnneled into the coup plotters through various programs running from Soto Cano air base, under the explanation they are emergency relief funds of some kind.

So they are still getting money into the country and of course it's not earmarked to help the poor, clearly it will go to the "government."

[Peace Patriot]

5. Brazil finally weighs in, on Honduras...

I think it's appropriate to re-post here--in view of what I was discussing above (re Brazil's fears about US aggression against is oil fields)--the entirety of an article that you posted in another OP in Latest Breaking News--for any casual readers who may want to understand Brazil's position on Honduras.

You posted it here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3980669

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Source: Brazzil Magazine

Brazil Pans US and Clinton's Role in Honduras Coup d'État Crisis
Written by Newsroom
Wednesday, 22 July 2009

The Foreign Minister of Brazil, Celso Amorim called last weekend US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was in New Delhi, India, to "express concern" about the slow pace and handling of the negotiations for the reinstatement of the democratic order in Honduras, reports Brazilian daily Folha de S. Paulo.

According to the Brazilian Minister's press office, Amorim conveyed Brazil's criticism to Hillary regarding the way in which the mediation "on equal footing" was being carried out between the coup and deposed governments, under the leadership of Costa Rican President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Oscar Arias.

The Minister informed the Secretary of State - who sponsored the mediation by Arias - that Brazil did not approve of the possibility that the coup organizers could impose conditions for the return of President Zelaya, much less that of a coalition government of the two sides.

If such an agreement were sealed, according to the Brazilians' assessment, it will be characterized as a victory for the coup organizers, which would serve as an incentive for new coups in Latin America.

Even in the official version, the Brazilian Minister informed the United States that the mediation by the President of Costa Rica "has to be held within the framework of the OAS (Organization of American States) resolutions." In other words: with the unconditional return of the deposed Honduran leader to the presidency.

Read more: http://www.brazzilmag.com/content/view/10986 /

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The Brazilian Foreign Minister's final point is an important one. What I suspect has occurred is that Brazil agreed to the Oscar Arias talks outside the framework of the OAS on the condition that the OAS's firm position on this matter would be supported by the US and Arias in the talks. But it has not been. Arias (and by extension the US) has proposed a "coalition" government--Zelaya and the coupsters. Brazil was therefore moved to go public in distancing itself from the talks in Costa Rica (not just calling Clinton, but releasing the information through the press office). Brazil's president has been an adamant supporter of democracy in Latin America, and has often come to Chavez's defense on this issue, against the relentless disinformation campaign of US agencies and our corpo/fascist press trying to paint Chavez as a "dictator." (He isn't.) His courage on this matter has been commendable. He is a good man, and, like Chavez, extraordinarily popular in his country and throughout Latin America. The coup government in Honduras has thus far refused even to consider a coalition government. (Where do they get their confidence from, one wonders?) If Zelaya abandons the talks as fruitless--and takes another path back to his rightful position as president of Honduras (as has been rumored, for instance, returning to Honduras and setting up his legitimate government at an alternative location within Honduras, no matter the danger)--he is going to have strong (as well as near universal) support, given this news out of Brazil. Brazil is a powerful Zelaya supporter--and one with whom the Obama administration wants to deal, on other matters. (And who will the Obama administration send the aid checks to, in that case? Will US tax dollars continue flowing to the rightwing coupsters and the Honduran military?)

[Downwinder]

2. Isn't Palmerola where the bodies are buried?

[Judi Lynn]

4. Wow. I've got a mental block. Can't remember which country it was where they discovered bodies

buried under the runway.

That's going to burn a hole in my head until I can get the answer!