Intellectuals Back Chavez Mediation in Honduras Conflict

[Judi Lynn]

Saturday 23 April 2011

Intellectuals Back Chavez Mediation in Honduras Conflict

Tegucigalpa - Honduran writers and artists expressed their support for mediation efforts by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to resolve a continuing crisis in Honduras since the 2009 coup.

In a statement, the Union of Writers and Artists of Honduras reiterated their trust in Chavezâ�Ö efforts for the return of former President Manuel Zelaya.

Zelaya must return with all his constitutional rights guaranteed, the text said.

That is also one of the international community's demands for the admission of Honduras to the Organization of American States, from which it was expelled after the coup.

More:
http://www.insidecostarica.com/dailynews/2011/april/23/centralamerica11042302.htm

[Peace Patriot]

1. Bombshell at end of article about SANTOS-involved with Chavez peace process in Honduras!

"On Saturday, FNRP leaders met in Caracas with Chavez, who expressed his willingness to help restore peace and democracy in Honduras, a process which is also supported by Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos." --from the OP

---

This needs to be headlined in LBN and GD. The Inside Costa Rica headline doesn't include Santos.

It is certainly news, also, that Chavez has met with the Honduran National Front for Popular Resistence (FNRP) in Caracas. The article is upside down, in this respect. It's interesting but not terribly surprising news that the Honduran writers/artists union supports Chavez mediation efforts. It is a major development that Chavez has agreed to mediation efforts. And it is a bombshell that Santos supports the process--because of Colombia's history of fascism, murdering leftists (still going on), corruption and shilling for U.S. corporate and war profiteer interests.

We badly need to find out more about Santos' role in this. I've portrayed him as having gone to CIA "smile school." And there is that, about Santos. Leaders of U.S. client states need to be scorchingly scrutinized, because they simply cannot attain the presidency of a country in which the U.S. has invested at least $7 BILLION in military aid, and where the Pentagon freely roams, without having made "a deal" to serve U.S. interests.

The two main U.S. interests we know about are multinational corporate interests in slave labor and stealable resources and war profiteer interests of several kind, including use of the corrupt, murderous, failed U.S. "war on drugs" as a backup gravy train, and controlling sources of oil to fuel the big U.S. war machine. And there may be a third--directing the trillion dollar-plus cocaine revenue stream to U.S. banksters, the Bush Cartel and the CIA. The Obama administration also appears to have quite an interest in covering up the crimes of Alvaro Uribe, immunizing him from prosecution and "laundering" his image (which could be related to Bush Junta crimes in Colombia that they are covering up).

So, Santos playing a GENUINE role in restoring democracy in Honduras needs to be held in suspicion, until proven otherwise. And it raises the questions: Is he acting at U.S. direction and to what end? Could it be, for instance, that Dilma Rousseff told Barack Obama, regarding Honduras: "Fix this, or we can't do business together"?

Brazil put a lot on the line in backing Mel Zelaya, and Rousseff's predecessor and mentor, Lula da Silva, considered repelling U.S. meddling in Latin America to be a major, and maybe the FIRST, premise of Latin American social and economic progress. It is very important to Brazil. Rousseff basically lectured Obama on this point. That is known. In another article you posted, she said something like the U.S. needs to bring a sense of reality to its relations to Latin America. The new reality is that Latin America will not tolerate U.S. meddling any more and that the new leftist leadership of the region is united on this and other important matters. Though Lula da Silva, for all this effort, couldn't get Zelaya restored to his rightful office, Honduras remains an outcast because of the coup and because of the phony martial law (s)election that the U.S. State Department staged to legitimize the coup.

Is Santos therefore involved in "fixing this" (restoring democracy in Honduras) because the Obama administration very much wants to do business with Brazil?

The Bushwhacks went around with big boots, with a program of murder and mayhem--and bullying, elbow-breaking and kneecapping--and alienated virtually everybody in the region, pushed the region to the left and into resistance--leftists elected in most of South America and half of Central America, with successful efforts in South America to fend off U.S. coups and to strongly pull together for mutual benefit and support.

It is not realistic to presume that the U.S. wants real democracy in Latin America. They have so-o-o-o proven otherwise, time and again--no matter which of the Tweedle party leaders appears to be in charge in Washington. Bill Clinton was the architect of "Neo-liberalism"--the economic ravaging of Latin America. Bush Jr & cabal employed murder and mayhem. Same policy, different style--with perhaps one important difference, that the Clinton style of oppression is not so directly warlike and murderous, and thus may leave some room for democracy to emerge out of economic ruin.

If the Honduran coup was Bushwhack-designed (quite likely, since it occurred in 06/09, only six mos. into Obama's term, with Obama barely in control of things--Pukes John McCain, Jim DeMint, John Negroponte and others were running it)--then it may represent a clash of these Tweedle styles. Maybe Obama/Clinton (& Panetta?) want to find their way out of it, in the realization that the political landscape in Latin America has drastically altered against the corporate/war profiteer interests whom they serve.

As for Santos, it is equally difficult to believe that he supports democracy, or wants peace for any other reason than to serve the above interests--U.S. multinationals and war profiteers--as well as the interests of the fascist rich elite in Colombia (including major cocaine interests). But where do you draw the line in deciding that it's OKAY for trade to be the driver of peace? That is a very, very difficult line to delineate--especially without a crystal ball. Is what we are getting hints of, in Santos, and in the Obama administration, merely an interregnum of feigned peace--while U.S. multinationals/ war profiteers regain some ground--to be followed by Bushwhack war, after ES&S/Diebold tosses Obama out in 2012 and installs Bush Junta II?

That is the pattern of U.S. policy.

It is therefore reasonable to ask: Will Santos ultimately sabotage democracy and peace in Honduras, by getting involved with Chavez's peace efforts? (And is that his role in the region, getting all friendly with Chavez, etc.?) Is his purpose, for instance, to pull Honduras away from Chavez and the ALBA trade group (rival to CAFTA) and into the U.S. "free trade for the rich" fold, once democracy is restored? (example: El Salvador). Given that the majority leftist leadership in the region will not tolerate this coup regime in Honduras, and that Honduras will not be allowed to re-join the OAS until this is fixed, is Santos, in some sense, acting as a "mole" for the U.S.?

You know, it's always possible that a leader, once he is in power, can genuinely change for the better. It happened to JFK and also to RFK (on the issue of world peace). It appears to have happened to Mel Zelaya, who was elected as the same-old/same-old "liberal" servant of the Honduran oligarchy and BECAME an advocate of the poor majority. It happened, to some degree, to FDR (privileged rich guy, who got more radical in office; result, the "New Deal"). They can also change for the worse (LBJ, Clinton...Obama???). We must not rule out change, including dramatic change for the better.

We don't have a crystal ball--but this Chavez, Santos, Honduras thing bears close watching. And we need a lot more information about it. Chavez is a powerful force for peace--as Lula da Silva recognized and stated publicly. I've dwelled on possible Santos bad or dubious motives, and on Santos and the Obama administration as lead actors in this story. But it could be that they are followers, and that, whatever their bad or dubious motives, it won't matter. What I mean is, we may be looking at a huge Lula, Rousseff, Chavez, Zelaya triumph for their leftist democracy movement--a triumph of diplomacy, economic finesse and political savvy, such as the leftist leaders of South America pulled off, in defeating the Bushwhack coup attempt in Bolivia in 2008. The U.S. may well want to sabotage, exploit and dominate, and may well be using Santos to that end, but they may not succeed. The Left certainly has historical momentum on its side, and that, too, has been proven, time and again, over the last decade.