This is one of the more upsetting articles I've read about Clinton and
Honduras. But everything I've read lately is horrifying. Deborah Murray scanned
a 2009 book for Bookshare, Israeli Exceptionalism. It has a lot of detailed
history about the formation of Israel. I thought, before I started reading the
book that I'd already had every shock there was to be had about how Israel was
formed. But it turns out, I had a few additional shocks in store. I'm just
grateful for all the young people who are hopeful and keep fighting for causes.
Miriam
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Subject: [blind-democracy] Clinton, Kissinger and the coup in Honduras
https://socialistaction.org/2016/05/02/clinton-kissinger-and-the-coup-in-honduras/
Clinton, Kissinger and the coup in Honduras
/ 20 hours ago
By ANN MONTAGUE
Honduras: peasant protestsIn one of the early Democratic Party debates, in
order to inflate her credentials as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton threw
out an off-the-cuff comment about her relationship with Henry Kissinger: “I was
very flattered when Henry Kissinger said I ran the State Department
better—better than anybody had run it in a long time.” In 2014 when Clinton
reviewed Henry Kissinger’s book, “New World Order,” she called him a “friend”
whose counsel she “relied on.”
This was all too much even for Bernie Sanders, who had refrained from
criticizing any of Clinton’s actions when she was Secretary of State.
Sanders stated that Kissinger was “no friend of mine” and launched into
describing Secretary of State Kissinger’s nefarious role in the bombing of
Cambodia. He did not use the word “war criminal,” but this was the verdict of
the International Tribunal at The Hague, and summons for his arrest issued by
judges in France and Spain are still in effect.
While Secretary of State, Kissinger oversaw the destruction of civilian
populations and the assassination and kidnapping of leaders who got in his way.
It is well known that Clinton is a strong proponent of “regime change.”
This is an innocuous term that actually means that the U.S. has the right to
violate the sovereignty of any nation to enable the removal of that nation’s
leader. This can be done with massive military might, creating instability in
the nation, financially and militarily supporting opposition groups, or with a
wink and a nod to the nation’s military. What many may not know is that this
includes removing popularly elected leaders. Two examples in recent history
were Salvador Allende in Chile (1973) and Manuel Zalaya in Honduras (2009).
The U.S. role in Chile
Henry Kissinger, Nixon’s Secretary of State, spoke openly about his involvement
in the coup in Chile. One of his most famous statements is also a description
of what is meant by “regime change”: “I don’t see why we need to stand by and
watch a country go communist [sic] due to the irresponsibility of its people.
The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide
for themselves.”
Declassified documents show that Kissinger set up a two-track plan. One was
ostensibly diplomatic and the other was a strategy of destabilization,
kidnapping, and assassination designed to provoke a military coup. One out of
every seven members of the command staff of DINA, the notorious Chilean
intelligence agency responsible for many of the worst human rights atrocities
during the Pinochet years, were graduates of the notorious U.S. Army School of
the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia.
Once the coup had been completed, on Sept. 11, 1973, and Augusto Pinochet and
his cohorts were in the good graces of U.S. corporations, they turned to making
fortunes for themselves from the privatization of public services.
Honduras military overthrows Zelaya
President Manuel Zelaya was a popular leader who won election in 2006 with a
coalition of unions, indigenous leaders, LGBT activists, and women’s rights
supporters. He was not a socialist but a large landowner and a social reformer.
Zelaya supported a 60% wage hike, which angered U.S. corporations like Chiquita
Brands International and the Dole Food Company, who were concerned that the
higher minimum wage would spread to other countries in Latin America.
Zelaya put in place other liberal policies, including free education and meals
for children, subsidies to small farmers, lower interest rates, and free
electricity. As a result, Honduras saw a 10 percent decline in poverty.
The Honduran international airport, Toncontin, is one of the most dangerous in
the world. For years prior to the coup the Honduran authorities had discussed
the possibility of converting the U.S. Air Base at Soto Cano (also called
Palmerola) into a much-needed civilian airport. The U.S. military would be
moved to another base on the Honduran coast.
Venezuela agreed to reciprocal trading agreements to help finance the new
airport. Right-wing Hondurans protested the use of Venezuelan funds, but after
a major airline crash at Toncontin, President Zelaya announced that they would
proceed with construction at Palmerola. A couple weeks after Zelaya had
announced that the armed forces would proceed with construction at Palmerola,
the military rebelled.
The coup was carried out by Gen. Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, the head of the of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Honduran military and by Gen.
Luís Prince Suazo, the head of the Air Force. Like the notorious Chilean
intelligence agency, they were trained at the Western Hemisphere Institute for
Security Cooperation (formerly called the U.S. Army School of the Americas) at
Fort Benning.
On June 28, 2009, Zelaya was overthrown by the Honduran military, who broke
into his home and kidnapped him at gunpoint. They forced him onto a plane that
flew him to Costa Rica and dumped him onto the tarmac.
According to Zelaya, an Honduran military plane flew him to Costa Rica and
stopped to refuel at Soto Cano, the Honduran air base that is home to 600 U.S.
soldiers, sailors, and airmen.
The coup was followed by months of protests by the Honduran people against the
de facto government led by Roberto Micheletti and for a return of their
president. While virtually all Latin American governments condemned the coup
and called for Zelaya’s restoration, Secretary Clinton, who had been in
Honduras a few weeks before, immediately called for elections to bring in a new
government.
Using the word “crisis,” Clinton immediately praised the Honduran military for
bringing “stability” to Honduras. She detailed some of her actions in her book
“Hard Choices,” published in 2014. Days after the coup, she teamed up with
Mexican Foreign Secretary Patricia Espinosa to forge a response: “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 and give the Honduran people a chance to choose their
own future.”
In regard to Chile, Kissinger, the U.S. president, and the CIA were all on one
page. But on Honduras, President Obama initially stated it was a coup and that
Zelaya should be returned. WikiLeaks also reveals that the former U.S.
Ambassador to Honduras, Hugh Llorens, sent a cable to Clinton with the subject
line, “Open and Shut: The Case Of The Honduran Coup.” The cable said, “There is
no doubt” that the coup was “illegal and unconstitutional.”
The U.S. Embassy listed arguments by supporters of the coup to claim its
legality, and dismissed each of them, saying, “none … has any substantive
validity under the Honduran constitution.” The Embassy went on to say that the
Honduran military had no legal authority to remove President Zelaya from office
or from Honduras. They characterized the Honduran military’s action as an
“abduction” and kidnapping.
Nevertheless, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton quickly did everything she
could to help the military coup in Honduras succeed, at the same time that it
was violently cracking down on the media and the opposition. She inferred that
Zelaya was legally removed from office and she violence baited the Honduran
people who were non-violently demanding the return of their president.
Clinton claimed that Honduras was on the verge of a civil war. The “elections”
that she helped organize for November 2009 in Honduras were not recognized as
legitimate by the rest of the region and the world.
The Organization of American States, the European Union, and the Carter Center
all refused to send observers.
Rosemary Joyce of the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA)
said: “The election was conducted without the presence of certified
international observers that would be necessary to accept the results even in
normal times, let alone with the election conducted under a government
exercising fierce repression of the media and of free speech.
It was a ‘demonstration election.’ An election held for little other purpose
than to buff the image of an anti-democratic government.”
Yet Clinton continued to claim that the situation was merely a “crisis,”
not a coup, and that Zelaya should be replaced with hastily called elections.
The fraudulent election was financed by the National Endowment for Democracy,
known for its pro-U.S. obstructive practices in Latin America and around the
world, and the U.S. State Department.
In 2013, when Xiomara Castro, the wife of Manuel Zelaya, ran for president,
over 30 candidates of her Libre party were murdered. The right-wing
presidential candidate, Juan Orlando Hernandez, was declared the winner,
although many international observers reported evidence of intimidation, vote
buying, and other irregularities at the polls.
The Clinton e-mails
In January 2016, three batches of Secretary Clinton’s e-mails were released.
The Center For Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) has reported that while many
of the e-mails are heavily redacted, they give a clearer picture of how Clinton
handled international developments during her tenure at the State Department.
Anne-Marie Slaughter, then Director of Policy Planning at the State Department,
sent an email to Clinton on Aug. 16, 2009, strongly urging her to “take bold
action” and to “find that [the] coup was a ‘military coup’ under U.S. law,” a
move that would have immediately triggered the suspension of all
non-humanitarian U.S. assistance to Honduras: “I got lots of signals last week
that we are losing ground in Latin America every day the Honduras crisis
continues … even our friends are beginning to think we are not really committed
to the norm of constitutional democracy.”
Fifteen House Democrats asked the State Department to “fully acknowledge that a
military coup has taken place.” They expressed concern that “every passing day
gives Micheletti and his associates the chance to tighten their illegitimate
hold on the reins of power.”
As we know, Clinton spurned this advice, which meant that millions of dollars
of U.S. military assistance continued to flow to the military coup. While
strategizing the best way to keep Zelaya out of power, Clinton’s e-mails
mention working with Lanny Davis, a former advisor to President Bill Clinton,
who was working as a consultant for a group of Honduran businessmen that
supported the coup.
Violent aftermath of the Honduran coup
The decisions made by Clinton contributed to the enormous damage done to
Honduras since the coup. Poverty has increased, and violence has spiraled out
of control. The U.S. government has continually increased military assistance
to Honduras, despite alarming reports of killings and human rights abuses by
the military and security forces.
Honduras is the size of New Hampshire, and before the coup there were five
military bases. After the coup the number of bases has doubled; the U.S.
instituted multi-million-dollar projects to build two U.S. naval bases. One of
the bases is on Guanaja in the Bay Islands, which destroyed a popular tourist
destination that had been known as a diving mecca for its pristine waters.
Honduras rapidly descended into a period of extreme violence after the coup, as
security forces suppressed protests. The British organization Global Witness
has released figures that show at least 109 people were killed in Honduras
between 2010 and 2015, for taking a stand against destructive dams and mining,
logging, and agricultural projects. Of the eight victims whose cases were
publicly reported in 2015, six were from indigenous groups.
A major LGBT leader and activist with the front of resistance against the coup
was assassinated on Dec. 14, 2009. Ten days before his murder, Walter Trochez
was kidnapped, beaten, interrogated, threatened with death, and told to cease
his activism. He managed to escape after being told they had orders to kill
him. Trochez was documenting and publicizing homophobic killings and crimes
committed by forces behind the coup. He also was documenting human rights
violations committed during anti-coup demonstrations.
Three days after his body was found, the International Gay and Lesbian Human
Rights Commission stated, “The death of Walter Trochez is the 16th known murder
in the LGBT community since the military coup. The accelerated rate at which
LGBT people have been killed in the last seven months shows a targeted pattern
of violence.” The fact that at the same time Hillary Clinton was making
sanctimonious speeches about U.S.
advocacy of LGBT human rights around the world shows the height of hypocrisy.
Honduran feminists speak out
Hillary Clinton has built her presidential campaign around her self-proclaimed
dedication to fighting for women’s rights and her experience as Secretary Of
State. Honduran feminist artist Melissa Cardoza has another view of Secretary
Clinton’s legacy in Latin America:
“As is well known, she supported the coup d’etat in my country, which has sunk
a very worthy and bleeding land further into abject poverty, violence and
militarism.
“In Honduras, women suffer widespread gender violence as well as a crisis of
human rights abuses since the U.S.-backed 2009 coup that ousted democratically
elected Manuel Zelaya.”
Neesa Medina of the Honduran Women’s Rights Center told Telesur that the coup
has had an impact on all human rights, but particularly the rights of women.
“As a member of a feminist organization we are severely affected by the U.S.
support for militaristic policies in other countries, which always has a
negative effect on the lives of women”.
In Honduras the femicide rate increased by over 260% between 2005 and 2013. In
2014, 513 women were murdered, and in 2015 one woman was killed every 16 hours.
Since 2009, Tegucigalpa has become known as “The Murder Capital of the World.”
Since 2009 59 journalists have been assassinated in Honduras, with 12
journalists assassinated last year and four murdered so far in
2016 as of April.
Adding to her shame is Hillary Clinton’s stance in regard to the refugee
children who have fled Honduras and other Central American countries. In a 2014
interview with CNN, for example, Clinton said that children arriving in the
United States should be “sent back” to their violence-prone countries. “We have
to send a clear message, just because your child gets across the border, that
doesn’t mean the child gets to stay,” she said. Recently, however, in debate
with Sanders, Clinton backtracked from that position.
The assassination of Berta Cáceres
On March 3 of this year, two assassins broke down the back door of the home of
indigenous activist Berta Cáceres and killed her. Last year, Cáceres was given
the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize for her 10-year fight against the
Agua Zarca Dam, a project planned along the river sacred to the indigenous
Lenca people. She led the struggle against Canadian and U.S. corporations for
promoting development that the people considered threats to their very
existence because they eliminated access to the rivers, forests, and mountain
environments critical for agriculture, food, and water.
Cáceres and Gustavo Castro cofounded the Civic Council of Popular and
Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH). They led the movement that was
pressuring the Honduran government to ratify a law that requires the free,
prior and informed consent of indigenous communities before projects can
proceed on their land.
Recently, thousands of people converged on Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital,
in a massive mobilization to demand justice for Berta and an end to repression
and government support for corporate interests. All around Tegucigalpa, her
face has been spray-painted next to the words, “Berta did not die. She
multiplied.”
A week after the death of Berta Cáceres, another member of COPINH, Nelson
Garcia, was shot to death. Before he was murdered, Garcia was at the site of
the Rio Chiquito eviction, where Honduran police and military were violently
forcing the community out by destroying homes and crops. Garcia went to his
mother-in-law’s home, where two gunmen were waiting for him and shot him dead.
The following week, the Dutch development Bank FMO and the Finnish development
bank Finnfund said they would suspend funding of the Agua Zarca Dam. In a
statement FMO said it was “shocked” by the deaths and would halt all activities
in Honduras.
Berta’s daughter, Bertha Zuniga Carceres, came to the United States to demand
an international investigation of the recent deaths. She was also concerned
that “since the coup hundreds of concessions were given for hydroelectric
exploitation, for mining.” She pointed out that a number of projects aimed at
dispossessing the population have been established, including “model cities” to
house people who were displaced.
“So, we are actually experiencing the results of the coup d’état now with the
establishment of a whole series of projects that are strengthening an economic
model that represents the pillage of the common goods of nature.”
COPINH states that more than 300 hydroelectric dams are planned for Honduras,
of which 49 are on COPINH lands. In addition, 872 contracts have been handed
out to corporations for mining alone. The majority of these are planned for
indigenous lands.
Brigitte Gynther of the Washington-based School of the Americas Watch told
Telesur, “The U.S. is essentially financing this repression.”
At the same time, colleagues and relatives of Cáceres in Honduras have raised
questions about the role of Honduran soldiers and police in her March 3 death.
They cite what they call a pattern of intimidation and abuse by security
forces, including a national police unit called Los Tigres, which was set up by
U.S. Special Forces soldiers over the past two years and receives funding and
training from the United States.
Before she died, Cáceres warned U.S. visitors about Los Tigres, describing the
unit as a “repressive” force in her region of western Honduras.
Secretary Clinton enabled the coup with a wink and a nod to the military by
supporting fraudulent elections and by avoiding the word “coup,”
which ensured that U.S. military aid would continue to flow to the murderous
regime. According to Foreign Policy In Focus, the U.S. gave
$37 million in direct aid to the Honduran military and security forces from the
date of the coup through 2013. But equally culpable are all Democrats. During
the current presidential campaign no one, including Bernie Sanders, has said a
word about the ongoing human rights crisis in Honduras and U.S. culpability.
Dan Beeton, international communications director for the Center for Economic
and Policy Research, told AlterNet that the “Obama administration is loathe to
put any pressure on the Honduran government.
I would say, worse than that, they are pretending there is not a problem. It’s
hard to understate Clinton’s actions in Honduras. Clinton needs to answer why
she did this and why they thought this was a good idea.”
Clinton still refuses to answer any questions about her role in Honduras. The
newly issued paperback edition of her book has been wiped clean of the sections
on Honduras that appeared in the first edition.
Nevertheless, the murderous outcome of her actions in 2009 cannot be erased
from the memories of the Honduran people.
Photo: Honduran police arrest peasant leaders from the district of Bajo Aguán
at a protest in Tegucigalpa. The peasants were protesting the takeover of their
land for big World Bank-funded palm oil plantations.
Palm oil is exported to Europe for use as bio-fuel. AFP / Getty Images.
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May 2, 2016 in Anti-War, Elections, International, Latin America, Latino Civil
Liberties, Uncategorized, Women's Liberation. Tags: Berta Caceres, Clinton,
Honduras, Kissinger, Zelaya
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