Al Giordano

Dear Mr. President:

Remember, during the 2008 presidential primaries, the constant screeching national media presence from lawyer-lobbyist Lanny Davis? Yeah, him. The guy who night after night went on every cable TV channel to scream that Obama wasn’t electable, that Obama couldn’t win swing states, that Obama couldn’t win white voters, that Obama had to explain his position on race, that Obama couldn’t answer the 3 a.m. phone call…

He’s baaaack.

And now he’s representing the Honduran coup d’etat.

Yup, one of those very same bottom-feeding lobbyists who you banned from your administration is now out to prove that you really are the “inexperienced” rube he said you were.

And (as your Spanish-speaking US citizen it is my duty to inform you) the way that much of Latin America sees it, your administration – and particularly your Secretary of State – are being successfully played by.. cough… cough… Lanny Davis!

Who can forget Lanny’s January 17, 2008 “Open Letter” to you, asking: “What Exactly in the Clinton-Era Nineties Did You Not Like?”

Well, other than lobbyists wagging the dog of Washington (in general) and Lanny Davis (in particular), I’ll bet that heavy-handed US policy over the previous 28 years (including the 1990s) toward Latin America didn’t leave a good taste in your mouth either, Mr. President. It certainly didn't down here.

When Lanny Davis bellies up to the roulette wheel and shouts “bet on red” you know it’s the hour to put all your chips down on black. The guy is a walking, talking piece of inverted litmus paper with a bow tie, like on February 28, 2008, when he lectured, “Recent Polling Data Shows Serious Concerns About Senator Obama’s “Electability” over Senator McCain vs. Senator Clinton’s.”

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Al Giordano

“No one owes obedience to an usurper government nor to those who through force of weapons assume public functions or positions…. The acts of such authorities have no legal standing, and the people have the right to resort to insurrection in defense of the Constitutional order.”

- Article 3, Constitution of the Republic of Honduras

And so we must do both: continue to report to you on the movement from below while also disarming the falsehoods imposed from above.

Take the latest from Miami Herald ombudsman Edward Schumacher-Matos, for example. He claims, in his “summary” of events in Honduras, that “the military never seized power.” Yet his own recount of his own newspaper’s coverage disproves that very claim:

“But the military on its own, according to what the army lawyer told Robles, illegally sent the president out of the country instead of hauling him into court. He said the fear was that if Zelaya stayed in the country, there might be street violence, which is what happened when Zelaya tried to fly back. Arresting a president has little precedence anywhere, and the army lawyer was breathtakingly honest in a story no one else had.”

The Los Angeles Times’ rookie Mexico correspondent Tracy Wilkinson offers a similar incredulous spin, portraying events in Honduras as “A New Kind of Coup,” as if this putsch is really a shiny newborn bauble for the professional simulators to play with.

Yet Wilkinson and Schumacher-Matos, and the others forwarding similar fairy tales, need only read the very same Miami Herald's interview with Honduran Colonel Herberth Bayardo Inestroza to easily come to terms with how this coup is the same as any other military coup; one in which the only government possible is severely limited by the top-down dictates of the military brass. The Colonel freely admitted:

“It would be difficult for us, with our training, to have a relationship with a leftist government. That's impossible.”

That was the interview in which he also admitted that the coup was illegal:

''We know there was a crime there,'' said Inestroza, the top legal advisor for the Honduran armed forces. ``In the moment that we took him out of the country, in the way that he was taken out, there is a crime. Because of the circumstances of the moment this crime occurred, there is going to be a justification and cause for acquittal that will protect us.''

In other words, if the military sets the terms for a puppet “civilian government” (i.e. you can “govern” but not from the left, no matter what the voters say, that would be “impossible”), then it is still military rule no matter how you slice it: that of unelected generals and colonels determining their very narrow and authoritarian limits of “government.” Democracy is impossible under those circumstances.

As a club, the US and European correspondents in Latin America have very short memories. The fact is that virtually every military coup of the past 55 years in this hemisphere has offered the pretense of supposed illegality by the democratically elected government it deposed as its excuse for the coup. As I pointed out the other day, the Oligarch Diaspora still claims that the 1973 coup in Chile – the most notorious and widely disgraced of them all – was somehow “legal,” justified by a Congress that accused President Salvador Allende of violating the law. This is how military coups have always been set up, and most, just like in Honduras, have established after-the-fact civilian paint jobs over their illegitimate regimes.
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TIME

Say this much for Roberto Micheletti: The Honduran coup leader, who refuses to let deposed President Manuel Zelaya back into the country, has at least turned Washington and Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez into diplomatic bedfellows. But can the Honduran crisis, as many are beginning to suggest, make acrimonious relations between the U.S. and Venezuela chummy again?

It's true that the ouster of Zelaya, who was flown into forced exile on June 28 by the Honduran military, has given Chávez and the Obama Administration some rare common ground. The world has denounced the coup as an affront to democratic norms and demanded that Zelaya be returned to office. The U.S. and Venezuela, which only last month returned their ambassadors to each other's capitals after pulling them out last year, agree that booting the democratically elected President out of his country at gunpoint in his pajamas was, as Chávez said, a "troglodyte" way of getting rid of the leader, even if Zelaya had flouted his own constitution. (Read about Washington's options regarding the Honduras coup.)

Since then, the U.S., which needs Venezuela's oil, and Venezuela, which needs the U.S. oil market, have been on the same page, much to the rest of the hemisphere's surprise. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has brought Zelaya and Micheletti into talks mediated by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias in hopes of finding a peaceful way to let Zelaya, a close Chávez ally, serve out the last half-year of his term. The left-wing and usually anti-U.S. Chávez has encouraged President Obama's involvement and even his leadership in restoring Zelaya to Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital. "Obama," Chávez said last week, "do something."

Yet even that appeal was a not-so-veiled barb from Chávez. It was mild, admittedly, compared with the epithets he's thrown at Yanqui Presidents in the past, but it indicated the still narrow limits of U.S.-Venezuelan bonhomie. Even as she was aiding Zelaya's cause last week, Clinton sat down for an interview with Globovisión, an intensely anti-Chávez Venezuelan news network that backed a failed 2002 coup attempt against him. Asked about Chávez's recent threats to shut down Globovisión, Clinton said that suppressing opposition media is "not a way to run a democracy." That set off the Chávez government, which issued a statement calling Clinton's remarks "aggressive" and "disrespectful."

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Washington Post

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras -- To many poor Hondurans, deposed president Manuel "Mel" Zelaya was a trailblazing ally who scrapped school tuitions, raised the minimum wage and took on big business.

"He met with us -- the taxi drivers could go to the presidency and talk to him, the poor farmers, the women's groups," said Berta Cáceres, 38, an Indian rights activist who has been organizing pro-Zelaya rallies since his ouster last month. "The people liked him -- liked him because he said things they knew were true but that no other president had said before."

But among the country's small but influential establishment, what Zelaya did and said were cause for alarm. That sentiment fueled not just the military coup that removed the populist leader from power June 28 but also solidified the de facto government's now intractable stance against any effort to reinstate him.

"I don't want Mel Zelaya back in our country because of all the damage he did to our country," said Alan Licona, 42, an engineer who has rallied for the de facto government.

Licona said Zelaya had been taking Honduras on a socialist path similar to that of Venezuela, whose president is a close ally of Zelaya's.

"Honduras has lived in peace and democracy all these years," Licona said, "and we want to continue to live in peace and democracy."

The two diametrically opposed views underscore the deep divisions and simmering anger evident in Honduras, where those who support Zelaya are generally poor and those who oppose him tend to come from the middle and upper classes. That has created something of a powder keg here as Costa Rica's president, Oscar Arias, mediates talks between Zelaya and the de facto government.

The caretaker president, Roberto Micheletti, has said that November's presidential election could be moved up to defuse tensions but that his government considers Zelaya's ouster legal and non-negotiable.

Zelaya has said that if the de facto government does not agree to reinstate him at the next round of talks Saturday, he will resort to "other measures" to find his way back to power. In Guatemala on Tuesday, he called for "an insurrection," and diplomats say more violence of the type that has left at least one protester dead is possible.

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CNN

Deposed Honduran President Jose Manuel Zelaya said his followers plan to take action inside the country this weekend, ratcheting up pressure on the provisional government that has ruled for more than two weeks.
Deposed Honduran President Jose Manuel Zelaya says he must be returned to power.

Deposed Honduran President Jose Manuel Zelaya says he must be returned to power.

Speaking on his arrival in Guatemala on Tuesday for talks with President Alvaro Colom, Zelaya vowed to return to his home country. He did not say when.

"This weekend we are planning many internal activities in the country," he said. "We are not going to rest, and the public is not going to rest, because the right against oppression is a right that people have."

Asked in an interview by CNN affiliate Noti7 TV if he supported insurrection, Zelaya skirted answering directly.

"In this case, the public has a right to defend itself," he said.

Zelaya also said that in a country where eight of every 10 Hondurans live in poverty, public discontent is common.

"That leads to a general insurrection," he said. "That leads to a permanent insurrection by the people against the government."

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New York Times

When President Óscar Arias of Costa Rica set out to find a negotiated solution to the Honduran political crisis, he hailed it as an opportunity for Central Americans to show they could resolve their own problems, and he established some simple ground rules.

The ousted president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, and the man who leads the de facto government that replaced him, Roberto Micheletti, were each to show up at his house with just four of their closest Honduran advisers.

On Thursday morning, Mr. Micheletti showed up with six, adding an American public relations specialist who has done work for former President Bill Clinton and the American’s interpreter, and an official close to the talks said the team rarely made a move without consulting him.

Then on Friday, with the negotiations seemingly going nowhere, Mr. Arias reached out for American support of his own, telling Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton that pressure from the United States was crucial to ending the stalemate.

In the two weeks since the coup against Mr. Zelaya, the Obama administration has taken great pains to distance itself from the crisis as part of an effort to make the United States just one of many players in a region that it has long dominated. And Latin American leaders have publicly expressed support for what they describe as Washington’s new spirit of collaboration.

Privately, and not so privately, however, it has become clear that leaders on all sides of this crisis see the United States as the key to getting what they want.

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Reuters

Honduran interim leader Roberto Micheletti said on Sunday ousted president Manuel Zelaya would not be allowed to return to power under any circumstances but could be granted an amnesty if he comes home quietly to face justice.

Micheletti's overture was the first conciliatory offer from the interim authorities to try to solve the worst crisis in Central America since the Cold War, although Zelaya insists on being reinstated and has vowed to return and defy the interim government.

"If he comes peacefully first to appear before the authorities ... I don't have any problem (with an amnesty for him)," Micheletti told Reuters in an exclusive interview at the presidential palace in Tegucigalpa in a room guarded by five heavily-armed soldiers.

"We have to talk to the Supreme Court and consult with the State Attorney of the Republic to see what possibilities there are of that nature," he added. "But I think that we need to seek peace, and that is part of it."

However the interim president, a centrist veteran of Zelaya's Liberal Party who was installed by Honduras' Congress after the June 28 military coup that deposed Zelaya, repeated his position that Zelaya would not be reinstated as president "under any conditions."

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AP

Hondurans enjoyed their first night of unfettered freedom in two weeks after the interim government lifted a curfew imposed following the ouster of President Manuel Zelaya.

While diplomatic efforts to resolve the political crisis marked time, the interim government announced Sunday that people no longer had to stay home at night as it sought to restore some normality in a country deeply divided over the coup.

Daily demonstrations for and against the forcibly exiled leader disrupted transit and prompted many businesses to stay closed.

Guillermo Quintanilla, a taxi driver, cheered the end of the curfew. "Thank God. A lot of people who work at night have not been able to," he said.

More cars could be seen on the streets in the early hours Monday as people visited bars, while vendors and street musicians returned to work in the downtown area.

"During all these days we had problems because we did not work. Our family depends on this work. This is our life," said Fredy Rivera, a member of the group "Mariachi the Alcones".

The raising of the curfew won no praise from about 300 Zelaya supporters who peacefully demonstrated in a park in Tegucigalpa on Sunday.

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Do Hondurans support the ouster of President Manuel Zelaya or not? A recent poll has two sets of data that reveal a nuanced public view.
By Sara Miller Llana | Staff writer 07.14.09 | CSM

Honduran society might be divided over whether they believe the ouster of their president, Manuel Zelaya, was right or wrong. But they are united in their belief that the international media is on his side.

At protest marches in favor of his removal, signs implore: “CNN, Publish the Truth!”

At protests in favor of Mr. Zelaya, those who are typically suspicious of the foreign press corps have suddenly warmed up.

But in the US, the media is being accused of being out of touch with Hondurans who support Zelaya.

Why?

Last week, many news organizations cited a public opinion poll done by CID-Gallup, which was published by the local Honduran newspaper, La Prensa. The poll showed 41 percent of Hondurans surveyed found Zelaya’s ouster “justifiable.”

A blog post by Robert Naiman, national coordinator of Just Foreign Policy, calls on the Monitor, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and Reuters to correct this information. And he provides links for readers to send corrections directly to the offending news organizations.

Did we get it wrong?

Yes, and no. We inadvertently got only half of the survey, according to the only blogger (bloggingsbyboz.com) who seems to have figured out what happened.

Apparently, CID-Gallup asked two related questions in the poll.

(A call to the president of CID-Gallup to get the raw data has not yet been returned to confirm this. Their website does not have the poll results.)

The first question: Was President Zelaya removal justified? Forty-one percent of those surveyed said that the removal was justified, while 28 percent disagreed. Thirty-one percent did not know or did not answer.

La Prensa published only this first question and these figures. So did The Christian Science Monitor and various other outlets.

The second question in the poll was: Did those surveyed agree with the actions to remove him? This time, 46 percent said they disagreed, and 41 percent agreed. Some news organizations, such as the New York Times, published these figures.

Publishing misleading numbers on purpose?

How could the polling numbers be so contradictory? Do people in Honduras support the ouster or not?

News outlets, including ours, were accused of publishing inaccurate figures or even falsifying numbers for ideological gain. I can assure readers that that is not the case … at least for the Monitor.

In retrospect, I wish I had seen both questions and both results, because they would have supported what I was hearing from Hondurans.

So, do Hondurans support the ouster or not?

A closer look at both survey questions and the answers makes more sense. Together they offer a more nuanced understanding of the Honduran perspective – and reinforces what I found during my reporting in Honduras.

I met with a group of young people who said that they believed that Zelaya needed to be ousted. But they were either undecided about or adamantly opposed to how he was removed. They were particularly upset by the fact that he was exiled.

In other words, these young Hondurans probably would have fallen into both the 41 percent who believe his removal was justifiable and the 46 percent of those who disagree with the actions to remove him.

De facto Honduran leader sets conditions for his exit
Posted: 16 July 2009 0922 hrs

afp
TEGUCIGALPA: Honduran de facto leader Roberto Micheletti said on Wednesday he would be prepared to step down, but only if ousted President Manuel Zelaya does not return to power.

"For peace and tranquility in the country ... without the return of ex-president Zelaya, I would be ready to do it," Micheletti said.

The comments appear to be a softening of his position since talks to resolve the country's crisis were adjourned last week.

The Central American nation has been convulsed with protests and flashes of violence since Zelaya was forced out of the country at gunpoint on June 28.

Although Micheletti has support from the Honduran military, which helped orchestrate last month's coup, he has faced a barrage of criticism from the international community.

Since his ousting, Zelaya has tried to garner the backing of regional powers and rally his supporters back home, at one point making an abortive attempt to return and more recently calling for a popular insurrection.

"I want to tell you to not leave the streets, that is the only space that they have not taken from us," said Zelaya, speaking on Tuesday in neighboring Guatemala.

"The Honduran people have the right to insurrection," he told a news conference alongside Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom.

Zelaya described insurrection as a legitimate democratic right "when faced with a usurping government and a coup-supporting military," and urged his supporters in Honduras to strike, march and engage in civil disobedience.

Two days of talks last week mediated by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias -- who won the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize for helping resolve Central America's civil wars -- ended without any resolution, as the coup leaders insisted they would remain in power.

Earlier Tuesday Micheletti appeared to soften his position by not excluding a face-to-face meeting with Zelaya in talks expected to resume later this week.

"He is a former president of the country, an old friend of mine, and I will very gladly hold out my hand to him when the time comes, if he wishes to do so," Micheletti said.

The de facto leader and his entourage has staunchly rejected accusations that removing Zelaya was a coup, and instead accuse the president of defying a high court ruling and ignoring the constitution.

The head of the Honduran army, General Romeo Vasquez, told AFP that Zelaya was exiled to avoid "deaths and injuries".

Honduran security services "believed it would be dangerous to imprison him," Vasquez said, adding such a move "could have caused deaths and injuries" if his supporters had tried to free him.

"The consequences for the country would have been serious," he said.