<div dir="ltr"><br><div class="gmail_quote">---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>From: <b class="gmail_sendername">Alexander Main</b> <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:main@cepr.net">main@cepr.net</a>></span><br>Date: Tue, Sep 30, 2014 at 5:36 PM<br>Subject: [Presente-Honduras] Fwd: Hard Choices: Hillary Clinton Admits Role in Honduran Coup<br>To: Presente-Honduras <<a href="mailto:Presente-honduras@lists.mayfirst.org">Presente-honduras@lists.mayfirst.org</a>><br><br><br>
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<h2 style="text-align:center"><span style="color:rgb(0,102,153)"><span style="font-size:large">Hard Choices:<br>
Hillary Clinton Admits Role in Honduran
Coup <br>
</span></span></h2>
<p>By Mark Weisbrot</p>
<hr>
<p>This article was originally published by <a href="http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=KHgwdA%2FJYyOU1TCD1nC58MrYQrtK8jnr" target="_blank">Al
Jazeera America</a> onSeptember 29, 2014.</p>
<hr>
<p></p>
<p>In a recent op-ed in the <i>Washington Post</i>,
former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton <a href="http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=8FoJc7YTGlwf27X8Rg%2B4f8rYQrtK8jnr" target="_blank">used
a review of Henry Kissinger’s latest book,
“World Order,”</a> to lay out her vision for
“sustaining <span>America’s leadership in the
world</span>.” In the midst of numerous
global crises, Clinton called for return to a
foreign policy with purpose, strategy and
pragmatism. She also highlighted some of these
policy choices in her memoir, “Hard Choices,”
and how they contributed to the challenges
that the Obama administration now faces. </p>
<p>The chapter on Latin America, particularly
the section on Honduras, a major source of the
child migrants currently pouring across the
border, has gone largely unnoticed. In letters
to Clinton and her successor John Kerry, <a href="http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=18e9ooUWllwMAL2Q6G9gKsrYQrtK8jnr" target="_blank">more
than 100</a> members of Congress have <a href="http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=Awh7CNJmMcQlPF1qNX4JK8rYQrtK8jnr" target="_blank">repeatedly</a>
warned about the deteriorating security
situation in Honduras, especially following
the 2009 military coup that overthrew the
country’s democratically elected president,
Mel Zelaya.</p>
<p>As Honduras scholar Dana Frank <a href="http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=sO0Ezj76TB8GxMnbdEkEHcrYQrtK8jnr" target="_blank">wrote
in <i>Foreign Affairs</i></a>, the
post-coup government “rewarded coup loyalists
with top ministries. They opened the door, in
turn, for worsening violence and anarchy … as
the United Nations, Amnesty International, the
Organization of American States, and Human
Rights Watch have documented…” The homicide
rate, already the highest in the world,
increased by 50 percent from 2008 to 2011;
political repression, the murder of opposition
political candidates, peasant organizers and
LGBT activists increased and continue to this
day. Femicides skyrocketed. The violence and
insecurity were exacerbated by a generalized
institutional collapse. Drug-related violence
has worsened amid allegations of <a href="http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=6%2FjmhHwNNtJF4Kz%2BkJLmE8rYQrtK8jnr" target="_blank">rampant
corruption</a> in Honduras’ police and
government. While the gangs are responsible
for much of the violence, the Honduran
security forces have also engaged in <a href="http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=69rSUTypFtuqaZP0otvcU8rYQrtK8jnr" target="_blank">a
wave of killings</a> and other human rights
crimes, with impunity.</p>
<p>Despite this, however, both under Clinton and
Kerry, the State Department’s response to the
violence and continued military and police
impunity has largely been silence, along with
continued U.S. aid to Honduran security
forces. In “Hard Choices,” Clinton describes
her role in the aftermath of the coup that
brought about this dire situation. Clinton’s
first-hand account is significant both for the
confession of an important truth and also a
crucial false testimony. We won’t accuse
anyone of lying; like the Houyhnhnms in
Jonathan Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels,” who
didn’t have a word for lying, let’s just say
she has said “the thing which is not.” </p>
<p>First, the confession: Clinton admits that
she used the power of her office to make sure
that Zelaya would not return to office. “In
the subsequent days [after the coup] I spoke
with my counterparts around the hemisphere,
including Secretary [Patricia] Espinosa in
Mexico,” Clinton wrote. “We strategized on a
plan to restore order in Honduras and ensure
that free and fair elections could be held
quickly and legitimately, which would render
the question of Zelaya moot.”</p>
<p>This may not come as a surprise to those who
followed the post-coup drama closely (see my
commentary from 2009 on Washington’s role in
helping the coup succeed <a href="http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=7PnwVq0Wn6pdNwNHkjL%2F8MrYQrtK8jnr" target="_blank">here</a>,
<a href="http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=58TtXCBAydUsDQSfMO45HcrYQrtK8jnr" target="_blank">here</a>
and <a href="http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=OSjwD28xOommuAT4p3Osr8rYQrtK8jnr" target="_blank">here</a>).
But the official storyline, which was
dutifully accepted by most in the media, was
that the Obama administration actually opposed
the coup and wanted Zelaya to return to
office.</p>
<p>The question of Zelaya was anything but moot.
<a href="http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=q5EeaftEMJx4F3zb2nfQFMrYQrtK8jnr" target="_blank">Latin
America leaders</a>, the <a href="http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=3v9HMruTlKRTzwNk3iPrBMrYQrtK8jnr" target="_blank">United
Nations General Assembly</a> and other
international bodies vehemently demanded his
immediate return to office. Clinton’s defiant
and anti-democratic stance spurred a downward
slide in U.S. relations with several Latin
American countries, which has continued to
date. It eroded the warm welcome and benefit
of the doubt that even the leftist governments
in region had offered to the newly installed
Obama administration a few months earlier.</p>
<p>Now for the “thing which is not”: Clinton
reports that Zelaya was arrested amid “fears
that he was preparing to circumvent the
Constitution and extend his term in office.”
This is simply not true. As Clinton must know,
when Zelaya was kidnapped by the military and
was flown out of the country in his pajamas on
June 28, 2009, he was in fact trying to put a
consultative, non-binding poll on the ballot.
The poll was supposed to ask voters whether
they wanted to have a real referendum on
reforming the constitution during scheduled
elections in November. It is important to note
that Zelaya was not eligible to run in that
election. Even if he had gotten everything he
wanted, it was chronologically impossible for
Zelaya to extend his term in office. But this
did not stop the extreme right in both
Honduras and the United States from using
false charges of tampering with the
constitution to justify the coup.</p>
<p>In addition to her bold confession and
Clinton’s embrace of the far-right narrative
in the Honduran episode, the Latin America
chapter is considerably to the right of even
her own record on the region as Secretary of
State. This appears to be a political
calculation. There is little risk of losing
votes for admitting her role in making most of
the hemisphere’s governments disgusted with
the United States. On the other side of the
equation, there are influential interest
groups and significant campaign money to be
raised from the right-wing Latin American
lobby, including Florida Cuban Americans and
their political fund-raisers.</p>
<span>Like the 54-year old failed embargo
against Cuba, Clinton’s position on Latin
America in her bid for the presidency is
another example of how the far-right exerts
disproportionate influence on U.S. foreign
policy in the hemisphere.As <a href="http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=VtA73nNZlu669dCJqDmo%2BcrYQrtK8jnr" target="_blank">we
have also seen</a> in the case of
Argentina’s ongoing fight with the vulture
funds, these influences can be substantial at
certain moments when even the majority of the
political establishment would prefer to let
reason prevail. Not to mention the electorate,
if it had a voice in these matters.</span>
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