<html><body><span style="font-family:Verdana; color:#000000; font-size:10pt;"><div><a href="http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/03-7">http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/03-7</a></div><div><br></div><div id="node-header"><span class="submitted">Published on Monday, January 4, 2010
by <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/">CommonDreams.org</a> </span>
<h1 class="title">From Coup-lite to Truth-lite: US Policy and Death Squad
Democracy in Honduras</h1>
<p class="author">by Andrés Thomas Conteris</p><p class="author"><br></p></div>
<div id="node-body">
<div>In the <a href="/view/2009/12/16">Top Ten Ways You Can Tell Which Side the
United States Government is On With Regard to the Military Coup in Honduras</a>,
Mark Weisbrot correctly
illustrates U.S. backing for the coup regime and its lack of support for
democracy. For more than 100 days, I have been holed up inside the Brazilian
Embassy in Tegucigalpa, accompanying President Manuel Zelaya and covering the
story for Democracy Now! and other independent media. In case Mark's points were
not convincing, here are 10 more ways to help you decide.</div>
<div><br></div><div><b>10.</b> The resolution adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on
June 30<sup>th</sup> strongly condemned the coup in Honduras. The United States,
however, prevented the UN Security Council from taking strong measures
consistent with the resolution.</div>
<div><br></div><div><b>9.</b> When President Zelaya returned to Tegucigalpa and took refuge in
the Brazilian embassy on September 21st, Lewis Amselem, the U.S. representative
at the Organization of American States (OAS), called it "foolish" and
"irresponsible." Amselem, whose background is with the U.S. Southern Command,
is known in the halls of the OAS as "the diplomator." He led the charge for
validating the Honduran elections, while most countries opposed recognition of
elections held under the coup regime.</div>
<div><br></div><div><b>8.</b> The U.S. Southern Command sponsored the PANAMAX 09 joint maneuvers
from September 11-21 off the coast of Panama with military forces from 20
countries. Even though the U.S. publicly stated that ties had been severed with
the Honduran military, the invitation for Honduras to participate in these
maneuvers stood firm. The Honduran armed forces finally said they would
withdraw from the exercises, only after several Latin American countries
threatened to boycott them.</div>
<div><br></div><div><b>7.</b> Key members of the Honduran military involved in the coup received
training at the School of the Americas (which changed its name to the Western
Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation -- WHISC), including Generals
Romeo Vasquez and Luis Javier Prince. Even after the June 28th coup, the
Pentagon continued training members of the Honduran military at WHISC in Ft.
Benning, Georgia.</div>
<div><br></div><div><b>6.</b> The negotiating teams for both sides of the conflict reached an
Accord on October 30<sup>th</sup>. Days later, when the U.S. made it clear it
would honor the November 29th election whether or not he were reinstated as
president, Zelaya declared the Accord to be a "dead letter". In spite of the
U.S. claim that they only recognize Zelaya as the president of the country, they
refuse to accept that he withdrew from the Accord. The practice of ignoring the
will of the Honduran president is also evidenced by the failure Secretary of
State Hilary Clinton and President Barack Obama to respond to letters he sent
them. </div>
<div><br></div><div><b>5.</b> Although U.S. officials continue to sing the praises of the Accord,
they have been cherry picking around which parts of the agreement to underscore
and which to ignore. The Verification Commission mandated by the Accord only
came together on one occasion for a photo-op. The Accord stipulates the need
for international aid for the Commission to function, but the U.S. provided no
economic or political support. Had the Verification Commission been activated,
it would have denounced the November 5th deadline passing without the formation
of a government of national unity. It would have to consider rebuking coup
leader Roberto Micheletti for assuming he would preside over this new
government. Given these violations, the Commission would have to rule whether or
not the November 29th elections should have proceeded, or be recognized.</div>
<div><br></div><div><b>4.</b> The U.S. supports a comprehensive amnesty, a component
intentionally left out of the Accord. The coup regime filed 24 criminal charges
against President Zelaya, yet he is willing to face all of them in an impartial
court of law. He has called for an independent international tribunal and
rejected the option of amnesty for himself and the coup perpetrators. If
amnesty is declared, impunity will be enshrined for the "golpistas," as well as
for the U.S. Pentagon and civilian officials complicit in the crimes of the
coup.</div>
<div><br></div><div><b>3.</b> The Accord calls for the establishment of a Truth Commission during
the first half of 2010. U.S. officials say they favor this; however,
"truth-lite" seems to be what they prefer. In recent decades, most Truth
Commissions have limited truth-telling to circumstances within their country's
borders. One exception occurred in Chad where the role of foreign governments
in funding and training the perpetrators of human rights crimes was
investigated. If Honduras followed Chad's example, its Truth Commission could
examine the U.S. role before, during and after the coup. Some possible
questions: What role did those formerly employed by the U.S. government, like
John Negroponte, Otto Reich, and Lanny Davis, play before and after the coup?
Why did the plane carrying the kidnapped president on June 28th land just 60
miles away from the capital at the airbase where the U.S. Joint Task Force Bravo
is headquartered? (U.S. officials claim it was to "refuel"). Why did the U.S.
allow aid to continue to flow to the coup regime while not declaring that a
"military coup" took place against the advice of the State Department's legal
advisors? Top U.S. officials labeled what happened in Honduras as a coup; but
given their actions, it's more like "coup-lite."</div>
<div><br></div><div><b>2</b>. In August 2009, at the Summit of North American Leaders in Mexico,
President Obama had harsh words for opponents of his policy by declaring, "The
same critics who say that the United States has not intervened enough in
Honduras are the same people who say that we're always intervening. . . I think
what that indicates is that maybe there's some hypocrisy involved in their
approach to U.S.-Latin American relations. . ." </div>
<div>The ongoing U.S. intervention and hypocrisy in Honduras goes well beyond what
Mark Weisbrot and I have described. Aid continues to flow to the de facto
regime, despite U.S. law that mandates cutting aid to military coups; that is
intervention. Lifting the symbolic sanctions temporarily imposed on the
dictatorship after the Accord was signed but not implemented; that is
intervention. Bestowing harsher criticism on President Zelaya and his
nonviolent supporters rather than on the perpetrators of gross human rights
crimes; that is hypocrisy.</div>
<div><br></div><div><b>1.</b> Here in the Brazilian embassy, death threats are part of the
psychological warfare directed against those who continue to accompany President
Zelaya. Elsewhere in Honduras: resistance leader Carlos Turcios was kidnapped
and beheaded on December 16th; two members of the United Peasant Movement of
Aguan were abducted by four hooded men on December 17th; resistance member Edwin
Renán Fajardo, age 22, was tortured and murdered on December 22nd. In an open
letter to fellow Central American Presidents on December 28th, President Zelaya
cited over 4,000 human rights violations by the coup regime, including 130
killings, over 450 persons wounded, over 3000 illegal detentions, and 114
political prisoners. </div>
<div><br></div><div>The silence of the U.S. government over the last six months regarding the
ongoing human rights atrocities by the "golpistas" in Honduras confirms that the
Obama regime has sought to support a death-squad democracy, rather than
reinstating its elected leader.</div>
<div><br></div><div>That is intervention. That is hypocrisy.</div>
<div class="authorBio"><br></div><div class="authorBio">Andrés Thomas Conteris is Program on the Americas Director
for <a href="http://nonviolenceinternational.net/?page_id=25" target="_blank">Nonviolence International</a>, and works with <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/es" target="_blank">Democracy Now! en
Español</a>.</div></div></span></body></html>