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Sunday, June 28, 2009
Military coup in Honduras
Is it the first military coup in Latin America since the Reagan era? Excepting the invasion of Haití and the failed coup attempt against Chávez and the foiled murder attempt against Morales... that's it.
Concerned.
BBC: Troops arrest Honduran president.
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8 comments:
There are several others.
In 1992 there were two bloody coups organized by Chavez and his military. I was a student back then. I disliked Carlos Andrés Pérez but I knew he was leaving office anyway 2 years later. One of the places the Chavez military attacked was close to were I was living. The shooting was bad. I saw the destruction later on. Some of my friends are doctors. They had to treat quite some of those who were shot during the second coup that year.
Look in Youtube "Golpe de Estado 27 Noviembre 1992"
One of the funny things: they refer to the thirty something years of mismanagement but they always leave aside the 1952-1958 dictatorship of Perez Jimenez. Thousands of people were murdered during Pérez Jiménez's regime, many of them socialists.
Chavez said he was forced to carry out his coup in 2002 because of the Caracazo of 1989...but he never prosecuted those involved in that Caracazo...as they were, apart from CAP, his buddies.
The one in Venezuela in 2002 from the extreme right against Chavez used a demonstration of hundreds of thousands of people who disliked Chavez but were not precisely "l'Ancien Regime" or wanted another coup. There was shooting against the people (there are endless discussion about who it was, check The Silence and the Scorpion and the comments thereof)
Many of them marched again two days later to ask for the return of Chavez as they did not want right-winged Carmona.
I don't know enough about Honduras. I wonder why the president could go against the constitution and why almost everybody in the parliament, even his party, supported the measure taken by the Supreme court.
I reject coups, be they from the right or from the left.
You're right. And there was also another attempt in Peru.
Here commenters are highly sceptic re. the legality of the coup, something its defenders claim. Questions are:
1. If there was a judicial order, why was Zelaya expelled to another country and not arrested.
2. Is not the President of the Republic immune to prosecution while in charge? I bet he is.
3. Why there was no impeachment process, as would have been logical if the President was breaching the constitution and (supposedly) so many MPs opposed him?
AFAIK, Honduras is a true Third World country controlled by a corrupt olygarchy that does nothing for the developement of the nation. Seemingly, right-wing Zelaya had been seduced in such circumstances by "the dark side" and had decided to lean to the left and get Honduras integrated in the ALBA, as means of help for development.
It was obvious that if he wanted to run for a second term, he could not wait to modify the constitution till the very Presidential elections in Autumn and tried to overcome this legal obstruction. Was this technically illegal? Maybe but doesn't seem to justify any sort of coup.
The reasons to me, after some consideration, seem more obvious: the oligarchy feared he would actually get the popular support (after all it was a referendum) and decided to get rid of him, even if the USA apparently did not support the coup.
What I wonder is that, if the USA actually did not support the coup (and it's not just a diplomatic facade), who did, as I doubt the Honduran troops dared to act on their own? Was it Mexico maybe?
Your questions are very pertinent.
I think they should have impeached him.
Someone in Caracas Chronicles said they "were not very sophisticated", which sounds condescending, but there may be some truth in that: nobody had a clue, thought it was not necessary. The amazing thing is that even people in his party, almost all of them thought so.
Were they all so "old oligarchy"?
I don't think so, even if there certainly are many like that.
I think they were afraid of the Venezuelan influence, also for carrying out the voting process.
Mind: the material for voting came from Venezuela and people distrust that system (in spite of what the Carter center said in 2004, I think I already showed you a story about the EU "observation" in 2006)
I read in The Guardian his popularity was around 30%.
Is that number not reliable? I don't know. He could gain more popularity using Chavez's money.
They were distributing mattresses and refrigerators for free in Venezuela, less than that would make wonders in an even poorer country.
"1. If there was a judicial order, why was Zelaya expelled to another country and not arrested."
I don't know, but it does seem the Judiciary was already opposed to him. Perhaps they are as clumsy as the rest.
"2. Is not the President of the Republic immune to prosecution while in charge? I bet he is."
I suppose, I don't know the details of when he stopped being a president if he did.
"3. Why there was no impeachment process, as would have been logical if the President was breaching the constitution and (supposedly) so many MPs opposed him?"
See above.
"What I wonder is that, if the USA actually did not support the coup (and it's not just a diplomatic facade), who did, as I doubt the Honduran troops dared to act on their own? Was it Mexico maybe?"
I don't know, but it could have been Hondurans themselves. I think people are very afraid that something like what happened in Venezuela happens there.
There is a lot of injustice in those countries, but there are a lot of people who disagree the way to get rid of them is to switch an oligarchy for another one with red berets.
Well, you are at the center-right like Zelaya used to be. And he still decided that it was surely a good idea for his people to go somewhat "socialist". It's an interesting example of someone sliding to the left because of national interests it seems to me.
For me it's clear that they wanted to prevent the people from speaking out democratically. Honduras has been by far the counrty most rigidly under the influenced of the USA in the region. Recently the left won elections in Nicaragua and El Salvador and probably in Mexico too (though in that country there was another more subtle type of coup - at least they kept the formalities, like in Iran).
10% of Hondurans hold almost 50% of the GDP. I am sure that nearly all the Hondurans that we see defending the coup belong to this privileged minority who fear change (like the one yesterday talking in ETB, who said his family's home had direct view of the Presidential Palace - you can imagine!)
I believe that the situation is far from stable after this and guess that the system has lost loads of credibility among the people. It certainly has lost them internationally, as nearly everybody is demanding the restoration of legality.
Well, Zelaya is probably still to the the right of me and yes, I am right of centre. His conversion to socialism is to me as credible as Berlusconi's statements about his sexual life. I am convinced the only interests he is trying to follow are his and he saw his survival through Chavez's petrodollars.
I agree there is a lot of injustice there, I agree probably most of the parliamentarians are thugs looking after their interests, I am aware of those words you use about "compradores", etc (to a big extent also true).
I know the extreme left solution in Latin America has always proved to be the same thing, but with red berets and, given enough time, with electoral processes as flawed as those in Cuba.
I think the Congress did a lot of things wrong. I am aware of the social injustice in Honduras, but that is an excuse. I know about the social injustice in Venezuela before Chavez but I also know the kind of plundering taking place right now. The poor simply receive some crumbles from the biggest oil boom we ever had (still now, oil revenues per year are over 400% higher than in the nineties and oil revenues in Venezuela were controlled by the state for decades).
I agree the Honduran system has lost credibility. I would plead now for elections to be monitored definitely NOT by the OAS and NOT by the Carter Center and that the Venezuelan CNE be kept away. I am not going to go into technicalities here but the electoral system in Venezuela is incredibly flawed, Carter my foot.
Not even Chavez's dad's paper trail gave the right vote.
The EU's vote observers "observed" our elections from a 5-star hotel in Caracas out of fear for criminality.
I fear the same will happen in Honduras unless checks on checks on checks on checks take place.
I know the extreme left solution in Latin America has always proved to be the same thing.
"Always"? Not even the moderate left had a chance, except in USSR-protected Cuba. Just look what happened to Allende.
...
Zelaya seemingly began to have riff-raffs with the oligarchy when he raised the minimal wages by 60% and said that way the oligarchy would have to begin to pay some of what was due to the workers. At that time he was still a fervient supporter of free trade agreements with the USA.
I've been reading some US websites on this issue and the conclussion is unanimous: the USA is behind the coup. Even Zelaya who, maybe out of naivety (a very bad trait for a statesman), believed that the US was not supportive of the coup is now changing his opinion and has demanded Obama to condemn the coup.
As I see it, this is surely part of the US counter-offensive against popular nationalist goverments in Latin America. Offensive that began with the invasion of Haití, with a result similar to what just happened in Honduras.
It is always very sad to see Latin American nations forced to follow the path traced by the Gringos, a path that is not one to development, sovereignity or democracy but to corruption, neocolonial dependency and tyranny.
It seems that Honduras had a proud independent leader, able to make decisions with the benefit of his people in mind, and not just a bunch of oligarchs... and now the rotten aristocracy has got rid of him manu militari.
Well, if they are so sure about the US, be it. The US has certainly intervened a lot of times in Latin America but they also like to cry "wolf" more than necessary.
One I remember (of many) in Venezuela was a "fax" the Venezuelan intelligence "caught" where CIA agents were writing in Spanish with typical Venezuelan errors and syntax (Spaniards make different errors as so do Mexicans and translations from English look differently) about how they were going to do this and that. Eva Gollinger promised to find the original, but at the end she forgot it. It was big news in the governmental media in Venezuela for a long time.
I don't know details about Honduras, but I know very well what is happening in Venezuela. Chavez may be barking a lot, but Venezuela is more of a colony than it ever was. The fact now it keeps importing more from the US than in the nineties, it exports less of anything (just oil is so much more expensive).
The only thing CHavistas can say is that Venezuela exports less oil to the US and instead exports more oil to China but that does not make things better, it is actually more costly for Venezuela due to transportation costs.
China is in no way better than the US, in spite of having a red flag.
In Venezuela the old oligarchy is prospering as it always was as long as it dances the Chavez dance. Then there is the boliburguesia, who tell people to burn US flags while they keep going to the US for shopping.
Chavez's family controls Barinas. Guys who did not pay taxes in 2001 are now owners of several banks for hundreds of million of dollars (the Chacon I mentioned).
"to development, sovereignity or democracy but to corruption, neocolonial dependency and tyranny. "
What? Look at my last post in Venezuela Europe.
I don't get my news about Venezuela from Globovision or VTV. I get them first hand from many people who are working as state employees, as workers, as teachers, as anything (no, not bankers). Corruption was huge back in the AD times. It is much worse now.
China is in no way better than the US, in spite of having a red flag.
Indeed. In fact I find insulting that such hypercapitalist country uses and abuses the red banner.
But it does offer an alternative customer and "ally" for those countries that may want to seek some independence from the US Empire. This is double-edged, of course, as the same support can be given to Sudan or Iran than to Venezuela, as Chinese foreign policy is hyper-pragmatic and in no way ideological.
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