Yesterday, I mentioned that an extra episode of the Democracy Now podcast
had downloaded to my stream and that it was really interesting. Today, the
transcript landed in my inbox. Here it is.
Miriam
Ousted Honduran President Zelaya: US-Backed Coup Destabilized My Nation
Forcing Migrants to Flee
By Democracy Now!
05 July 19
conversation with former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, who was ousted in
a U.S.-backed coup in 2009. Zelaya reflects on that coup, what has happened
to Honduran politics since then, and the migration crisis that has seen
hundreds of thousands of Central Americans flee to the U.S.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace
Report. Im Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, June 28th marked the 10th anniversary since Honduran
soldiers stormed into the residency of democratically elected President
Manuel Zelaya and forced him onto a plane to Costa Rica, ousting him from
Honduras just six months before the end of his term. Since the coup, which
was plotted by the Honduran military, business and political elite, and
which was supported by the Obama administration, tens of thousands of
Hondurans have been murdered, including more than 300 LGBTQ people, 60
journalists and hundreds of campesino rights leaders and environmental and
land protectors. One of the most devastating blows to environmentalists in
the country was the brutal killing of Lenca environmental activist and
winner of the prestigious 2015 Goldman Environmental Prize, Berta Cáceres,
who was shot to death in her bedroom three years ago by Honduran military
intelligence specialists with links to the countrys U.S.trained special
forces.
AMY GOODMAN: As both extreme poverty and violence skyrocketed in the last 10
years, in recent years, under the presidency of Juan Orlando Hernández, tens
of thousands of refugees have fled Honduras in caravans with the hope of
political asylum in the United States. Many argue this is a humanitarian
crisis caused by U.S. intervention in Honduras, as well as the U.S.
governments unconditional support for Hernández. Many challenged the
fairness of his re-election in 2017.
Since April, tens of thousands of protesters have marched throughout
Honduras, protesting plans by Hondurass government to privatize healthcare,
pensions and education. Protesters have been met with violent repression
from the Honduran military and police. The reforms were suspended, but the
protests are ongoing, demanding Hernández resign.
For more, were joined by the ousted President Manuel Zelaya, coordinator of
the Honduran opposition party, Libre. He is speaking to us from Honduras,
where he has just returned for this 10th anniversary of the coup that ousted
him.
Manuel Zelaya, welcome to Democracy Now! Can you start off by describing
what happened to you 10 years ago, and then whats happening in your
country, in Honduras, today?
MANUEL ZELAYA: [translated] Very well. Greetings, Amy. And greetings to
Democracy Now! Democracy Now! has covered the events in Honduras very
objectively, in an exemplary manner, for the last 10 years, when we began to
have direct contact.
Honduras is part of this region. We are neighbors of the United States. We
are under the aegis of the dollar for the United States. Before, we were
good neighbors. We have now become an uncomfortable neighbor for the United
States, because they changed their perspective on the region, on Central
America and South America, especially because they always used the idea that
this region should be treated from the standpoint of, well, establishing
democratic regimes in recent decades. Nonetheless, I think U.S. policy
towards our region has changed radically.
And Honduras is a special case. It would be easier for the United States,
which has absolutely meddled in this country, and it has interfered in a way
to support the dictatorshipit would be easier to handle the situation if
there were not a military and oppressive regime with a system that
impoverishes the people of Honduras, because the economic system that is
sealed for us by the International Monetary Fund is harmful, privatizing all
activities. Privatization itself is not bad. What is bad is that it drives
up the price of basic services for the population. Plus, since private
enterprise needs profit and needs to accumulate wealth, it impoverishes the
rest of the population. The famous trickle down of the capitalist system
never reached our society. Here, 70% of the population is living in poverty.
And the problem is that poverty continues to deteriorate the lives of
millions of people whoor, of thousands of people who migrate to the United
States.
The caravans coming from Central America are made up of persons from
Honduras, also El Salvador and Guatemala. But the large caravans are people
going after what we know as the American dream, which has become the
American nightmare, because people go and find that the policies of
President Donald Trump, who is a white supremacistthats how we see him. He
looks down on and holds in contempt mestizos and migrants. Young Hondurans,
in particular, dont migrate from Honduras just because they want to, but
out of necessity. There are more than 1 million Hondurans who have family
members in the United States. And if we look at it from the perspective of
Honduran migrants in the United States, well, there are a million Hondurans
who have close family ties with their families in Honduras. But family
reunification is a crime that has no name. Nobody has chosen where they were
born in this life. Even your name is given to you by your parents when
youre born. And the least that we human beings should have is the right to
live where we wantof course, following procedures.
But now these conditions, I consider that militarizing society, which is
what the United States has done with Honduras from the Southern Commandand
the United States doesnt even have an ambassador in Honduras. It has
Colonel Heide Fulton, who is chargé daffaires, who has been running the
country for the last four years. The United States looks at Honduras merely
from the standpoint of security policy. Here, if you want to characterize
what is happening in terms of what the Trump administration is doing to us,
weve practically gone back to the 1980s. Here, theres a major campaign
against communists, against those who sympathize with Chávez or the
Chavistas.
President Hernández, who has usurped power, because he is a result of the
coup détat, he illegitimately assumed the presidency through election
fraud, two election frauds, that the United States has been supporting
incredibly. Even the Organization of American States, Mr. Almagro, who is a
major conservative and totally pro-U.S., said that the Honduran elections
should be redone. Nonetheless, Colonel Heide Fulton came forward, the chargé
daffaires here, and, at a press conference with the electoral tribunal,
said that would 5,000 new would be counted. Well, 70% of the vote tally
sheets had been collected. And with the other 20,000, they said there were
5,000 that had to be recounted, and that changed the outcome. It was a clear
fraud that was supported by the United States.
And this president came to power. And then he said, facelesslythe current
president, who is illegal, said that the problem in Honduras is that
practices of al-Qaeda were coming in. Imagine, telling us that the
opposition had Islamic tendencies and bringing in other things from the
Middle East from other conflicts. And he also blamed drug trafficking for
the problems that he has. But there was an increase in drug trafficking
after the coup détat. The Department of State says so.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: President Zelaya, youre mentioning drugyou mentioned drug
trafficking. Here in the United States, most of the images that the American
public receives of whats going on in Honduras is of the violence of the
street gangs in Honduras, of the criminality in Honduras, but very little of
the political repression by the government against the people. Could you
talk about your perspective of how the rise of street gangs and the violence
in Honduras is linked to the coup that occurred, to the corruption in the
government, that is occurring every day in your country?
MANUEL ZELAYA: [translated] Well, look, the coup détat, inexorably, it
marks a new form of U.S. meddling in our society. Ten years ago, John
Negroponte, undersecretary of state, and President George W. Bush warned me
and threatened me, when I was president of Honduras, saying that if had
relations with Hugo Chávez, then I would have problems with the United
States. Six months after that warning, I was removed from power and removed
from this country. The problem for the United States is that the friends of
those who they consider their adversaries are not their friends. Theyve
decided theyre enemies of the United States, quite simply, because I was
seeking better relations with the south, bringing in oil from Venezuela and
getting financing for hydroelectric projects with President Lula da Silva,
who they are now holding prisoner in Brazil.
So, the policies of the United States towards this region changed. And they
made a mistake. And Ill talk to you about the gangs, the maras, in just a
moment, to your question. But if you think about the elite in the U.S.
government, well, their view for this region is mistaken. They want to go
back to the 1980s, which was marked by the Cold War, stigmatizing the
opposition. Theyve created shock forces, psychological war, dirty war.
Well, if they think that theyre going to be able to stop migration in this
way, well, its only going to worsen.
The gangs are a link in the drug trafficking business, and they come about
because theres no jobs. Theres an excess of poverty. Poverty is misery in
Honduras. Youth find no solution. So, organizations such aswell, then the
drug trafficking organizations come on the scene, and instead of creating
more jobs, the government brings more repression.
Plus, these are components of the dictatorship the United States is
supporting. Theyve looted the country. Since the coup détat, in these 10
years, each year, the United States, through the International Monetary
Fund, has authorized $24 billion of additional debt each year. So now we
have approximately $14 billion debt. When they removed me 10 years ago, we
only owed $3 billion. Today, its $14 billion. So, to uphold the
dictatorship, first they militarize the country, then they drive the country
into debt. And they take out huge credits, which they call sovereign bonds,
at huge interest rates. And of every 100 lempiras, 40 now go to the banks.
Plus, they loot the state institutions. The levels of corruption are
exorbitant. They are abusive in every sense of the word. Theyve looted
institutions such as Social Security, which is where the retirement funds
for the elderly are and where the moneys are to cover the illnesses that the
mothers suffer. They have looted these institutions in order to finance an
unpopular, anti-democratic and dictatorial regime.
The United States doesnt talk about Honduras, because its shameful. They
are ashamed to talk about what theyre supporting in Honduras. And the only
thing to do about it is to denounce it, because there are murders. There are
death squads. Theyve exported whats called Plan Colombia to Honduras, the
false positives, where many opposition leaders, such as Berta Cáceres, to
mention one, or Murillo at the time of the coup, or another person who was
asphyxiateda 24-year-old who was asphyxiated by the gasesall of these,
theres no way to describe these crimes over the last 10 years other than by
calling them crimes against humanity. And this country should be brought
before the International Criminal Court, because what U.S. policy is doing
is supporting genocide in Honduras and in Central America.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: President Zelaya, I would like to ask you about another
country in the region, about the role of Mexico, because many expected that
when Andrés Manuel López Obrador won the presidency in Mexico, that Mexico
would develop a more humane policy toward the refugees coming across its
borders. Whats your assessment of the first year or the first several
months of AMLOs presidency in relationship to your country and your
situation?
MANUEL ZELAYA: [translated] Well, look, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, I
consider him to be a profoundly human man, with values that are in line with
great moral principles, for the region and for Mexico and for Central
America. He has had a very clear position vis-à-vis the United States. I
believe that Mr. Trumps pressures against Mexico are serious. When they
threaten to impose tariffs on Mexican merchandise, well, that produces more
migrants, more migration and more poverty in our region. So, the policies of
Mr. Andrés Manuel López Obrador are practically being punished by the United
States.
In focusing on migration, theyre going to look for some solution to the
system that is provoking the migrants, because everyone talks about
migration, but the causes of migration are the U.S. policies, the IMF
policies, the policies of the Southern Command for this region, are
provoking more and more migrants with each passing day. So, militarizing
Central America, militarizing Honduras means that that escape valve that the
Honduran people have had, which is to be able to get work in the United
Statesand the Honduran people havent even looked for jobs in the United
States. It is the U.S. businesses. U.S. businesses, for example, have large
crops and cannot pay a U.S. person to work in the countryside. They give the
travel expenses to the family members of those who are their employees, and
that is why theres massive migration to work in the United States. They
might work six months or a year, and then go back and then return. Migration
is a human process, seeking to find solutions. When they militarize the
border, what they are going to provoke here will be greater convulsions,
greater explosions.
And the Honduran peopleyouve seen this in media reportsthe Honduran
people are in the streets, and theyre protesting. And theyre not
protesting because we, the opposition, tell them to protest. Nobody goes out
to protest because some politician tells them to do so. Maybe there would be
a group of a hundred people in that context, but here its thousands of
people in different parts of the country engaged in massive protests,
peaceful protests. They do not use weapons. At most, the protesters might
mobilize in the streets, making traffic difficult, bringing transportation
to a halt. But those expressions of migration shows that poverty has
worsened, the debt has gone up. And people are in the streets protesting
because the cost of electricity, the cost of transportation, the cost of
fuel. Almost everything has been privatized in Honduras.
So, that should be evidence that this, which is a model for neoliberal
capitalismeverything is turned into a business for a small group, and for
the rest, theres no solution. Its a failure of Mr. Donald Trump in Central
America. And then drug trafficking increases. No one wants to say so, but
drug trafficking increased after the coup détat, because the drug
traffickers, when they see a country that they can control, through an
authoritarian system, well, they immediately get involved. Here, theyve
found the military and the police. So, democracy is the way forward for
Honduras and Central America. The United States should learn to live with
democracy and not be creating repressive policies against us. We have the
same right that they do to be able to make a living and live in freedom.
AMY GOODMAN: You have the current president of Honduras, Juan Orlando
Hernández, investigated by the U.S. government for drug trafficking, and his
brother, Tony Hernández, actually arrested for cocaine trafficking. He was
arrested in Miami. Hes currently awaiting trial in this country. How
doeswhat does this mean for the people of Honduras? I mean, this is under
the Trump administration, that supports the current president, Hernández.
MANUEL ZELAYA: [translated] Well, theres only one way to read this. The
United States is protecting its dictator here. And mistakenly, they think
that benefits the government of Donald Trump. Donald Trump might win
re-election in the United States, if the world sees that he is taking
measures in favor of democracy in Honduras rather than in favor of the
dictatorship, as he is doing now.
Drug trafficking is a measure of that. Drug trafficking is managed by the
DEA. The DEA knows of each shipment that comes out of Venezuela and
Colombia. The DEA knows about it. And some pass through without any problem,
and others are stopped. So, there is not a fight against drug trafficking.
There is a fight against cartels. There are some cartels that are fought,
and others, they let them go. They know the implications of drug trafficking
here. Nonetheless, justice is selective. They take action against some and
protect the others. I think the president is protected by the United States.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Ten years ago, before the coup against you, throughout Latin
America there were progressive governments trying to change the social
conditions of their people. And weve seen this enormous changein Brazil,
in your country, in Argentina, in the attacks on the government in
Venezuela. What is your sense of what is happening in Latin America today in
terms of the movements of peoples for greater social equality?
MANUEL ZELAYA: [translated] Well, there were some statements recently made
by a U.S. senator that triumph in socialism was seen that it could set a bad
example for the United States, because it could even impact domestic
politics in the United States. They could not allow socialism, modern
socialism, I would say, because this is a socialism that is different than
the socialism one found in Europe during the Cold War. This is a socialism
that accepts capitalnot capitalism, but capital. It accepts private
enterprise, not control by capitalism of the state, because we understand
the concept of popular sovereignty, where sovereignty resides in the people.
Power does not reside in a military or economic elite as under the
neoliberal model. So, of course, for the United States, which has internal
opposition, because internally in the United States theres begun to be talk
of democratic socialism. I have heard Democratic Party candidates talking
about democratic socialism. That is why the policy of the United States
towards our region has changed. And in Brazil, they went after Dilma
Rousseff with a technical coup détat, because of socialist agreements with
the people of Honduras and others in the region. And the right won the
elections because Lula was in prison. They would not have done so if Lula
were free. And now the United States not only trains military, but also
judges, because theyre using the justice system as a tool for political
purposes.
AMY GOODMAN: President Zelaya, what is your assessment of President Trump
and what hes doing along the border?
MANUEL ZELAYA: [translated] I dont know if that brings him any electoral
benefit. But I consider it to be an absurd action in a globalized world, in
which for the last three decades weve been talking about free trade,
talking about competition and competitiveness as part and parcel of the
development of capitalism. And now he has come up putting a halt to
globalization. So, Trump is like a negation of the historic process. He is a
setback in almost every sense.
So, in a conservative society, such as the United States, that can bring him
electoral benefits. But in the eyes of the world, he is behaving like a
white supremacist, with no human sensitivity as one would require in the
21st century, because migrationwell, migration is a right, not a crime. And
the migration of the poor northward is bad, but migration of the investor
southward is good. The investors come to take over the natural resources, to
take over like an oligopoly. And they further impoverish our countries, and
that impoverishment produces migration and the increase in drug trafficking
and so on and so forth. So, I see that Mr. Donald Trumps policies, with the
Republican Party, represent a setback when it comes to having good neighbor
relations with Latin America.
AMY GOODMAN: President Trump cut off all aid to the Northern Triangle
countries, to El Salvador, to Guatemala and to your country, Honduras. This
is very interesting, considering he supports Juan Orlando Hernández, the
president. Now hes backed off cutting that aid, but threatens to do so if
the immigrant flow continues. Do you think President Hernández would fall
without that U.S. aid?
MANUEL ZELAYA: [translated] We dont need the help of the United States. The
United States gives very little assistance. What the United States wants is
to exercise economic control over the structures of the macroeconomy
worldwide. For example, the World Bank gives Honduras some $150 million a
year, $150 million. The Inter-American Development Bank, a similar sum. So,
all told, we might get about $240 million. And that is controlled by the
United States. And it also has a specific weight in our region. The IMF
authorizes a letter that is signed every year so that Honduras can go into
debt at very high interest rates, because it is a government that is allied
with the United States. What that provokes in our region is clear, I think.
I think its evident, what it causes in our region. I believe that that
relationship, where they say theyre going to cut the assistance, has almost
no effect.
Let me put it in clearer terms. Honduran migrants send to Honduras about $4
billion a year. Let me repeat this, Amy: $4 billion a year. And the United
States, together with the World Bank and the IDB, sends $200 million.
So, Honduras should be concerned. And the current president has no dignity.
We should be able to speak to the Americans on equal conditions, with
reciprocity and dignity. But he doesnt protest, because an immigration
treaty we had with the United States was canceled. We had an immigration
treaty. It was renewed every year. Indeed, I had good relations with the
United States. The U.S. and European oil companies dont accept competition.
But they respected me. And every year, they renewed TPS. Every year, they
renewed the Millennium Account. But this year they have not renewed a single
penny of the Millennium Account. But, of course, the policy is threatening
that aid.
Well, the U.S. aid, from the standpoint of hegemonic control of capitalism
through the transnational corporations, through businesses, through the
control of the Southern Command over security, and the IMF over the economy,
and the OASthe OAS has supported or made an internal effort on the justice
system through the MACCIH. So, if the justice system is controlled by the
OAS, and if the U.S. and Monetary Fund and IDB control the economy, and
security is controlled by the Southern Command, thenwell, then what does
Honduras run?
Its all based on U.S. policy and on the interference and meddling of the
United States in Honduras. We should simply reach agreement, because the
United States is a strong neighbor. Its the biggest military and
technological power in the world. Its not that were going to be the same
as the United States, but we should not be a vassal of the United States. We
are a small country, but with the same dignity as the Europeans and the U.S.
have.
AMY GOODMAN: President Manuel Zelaya, we want to thank you very much for
joining us. President Zelaya was president of Honduras from 2006 to 2009. He
was ousted in a U.S.-backed coup June 28th, 2009, coordinator of the
Honduran opposition party, Libre. Im Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
Thanks so much for joining us.
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