PrintJuly 30, 2009
Will the Real Golpistas Please Stand Up?
The U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa, Honduras continues to proclaim the legitimate government of Roberto Micheletti as golpistas -- which in Latin society means far more than coup plotters. In fact, in Latin nations with no semblance of the USA's Posse Comitatus laws barring direct military action domestically, golpistas take on the veneer of military dictatorial fascism with a venue of total criminality and lawless, venal anti-democratic behaviors void of rule of law. As it comes to pass, declaring the current Honduras government and its courts as golpistas -- that is, deemed as criminals to be stripped of support, of rights and barred by the United States of America, carries a de facto declaration of illegitimacy.
In essence, U.S. ambassador to Honduras Hugo Llorens inexplicably maintains that the Micheletti government are criminals. The July 28, 2009 U.S. Department of State press briefing confirmed what AP wire stores had been reporting early this week and Honduran media had been running -- that judges and officials of the current high court and government in Honduras are deemed unworthy and now barred by the United States of America.
The problem with all this flurry of U.S. and OAS acts against Hondurans who do not want Venezuela's Chavista-style strong arm under Zelaya in Honduras is that there is still not one scrap of due diligence, not one fact-based review of the last month regarding what actually transpired in Honduras, and no legal analysis of what the now removed former president Zelaya's constitutional breaks actually mean. Remarkably, the Obama team under questioning from international media Tuesday admitted that the U.S. still had not completed any legal review of the facts about Honduras.
Imagine if Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Senate Leader Harry Reid and chief Supreme Court Justice Roberts were deemed criminal golpistas under a Latin legal definition completely akin to treason and sedition, and denied access to a major country. While this may seem far fetched, Americans would rightly want to review the facts of their alleged crimes and why, with nothing more than political screed justifying their denunciations, such acts are taken. Due process under law is supposed to still matter to North Americans. The U.S. government has given no such courtesy to the formal, albeit interim government of Honduras.
It is challenging to listen to this superb recent interview with former Honduran ambassador to Washington Flores at the Washington-based Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs on July 25 and not feel compelled to question exactly why fact based analysis remains missing in action as the U.S. and the OAS continue to act to squeeze and defame the current government of Honduras. The Honduran NGO Union Civica Democratica conclusively explains the Honduran rule of law under its constitution and how Manuel Zelaya broke their laws.
An open letter in support of Zelaya signed by supposed NIKE tennis shoe officials and co signed as from Nike Inc., the Adidas Group, Gap Inc, and Knights Apparel is ostensibly supposed to tell us all that the Chavez and Obama and OAS acts of the last month to vilify those who acted lawfully to remove the Zelaya criminal acts from Honduras are meaningful and that the current Micheletti team in Honduras are to be deemed criminal. Indeed, the OAS has acted to declare Honduras a pariah, an undemocratic nation under its Democratic Charter with still no facts and no airing of Micheletti's governmental steps. While the Obama and Clinton foreign policy handlers seem want to tell Americans that they have "smart" diplomacy to replace "old" diplomacy, this latest lobbying effort smacks of a ginned up promo for Obama and Clinton as if to bless the mess they have made... and are still making. The problem with Nike group's assist to the Obama-Chavez-Zelaya lobbying team is that it still remains devoid of facts and sells propaganda This is not "smart" and it is not "diplomacy" and it is no way to run government relations.
J.P. Morgan was said to have quipped that no bank, no financial system -- and no government -- long survives without the essential component of trust. Facts still matter. Due diligence cannot be so easily discarded in favor of untrustworthy behaviors.
Honduras watchers breathed a sigh of relief on Friday, July 24 as U.S. Secretary of State Clinton deemed Zelaya's theatrics at the Honduran border as "reckless." To many observers this carried a tacit message of non-support for Chavez's Zelaya, even as the State Department that very day announced that Zelaya would be in Washington for meetings with the Obama team on Tuesday. When Zelaya rejected the Obama team's welcoming arms on July 28, 2009 and stated he needed "proof' that the Obama team was still behind him before coming their way, with the seeming speed of light the Obama team handed to Zelaya their version of proof by publicly revoking standing for the current Micheletti government.
The Obama team waited until just after the visiting Republican House Congressional team, under ranking Western Hemisphere chair Connie Mack [R-FLA], had just departed Honduran airspace late on Sunday to commence its latest round of Chavez-pleasing activities to give the increasingly unpopular and clownish Zelaya proof of their allegiance to him and his ALBA bloc that he has been demanding before returning to Washington. Mack has stated that based on Congressional review, there was no coup, military or non military, in Honduras and that Zelaya must not be reinstated as president. The Republicans state that the Micheletti administration are not golpistas. As the only U.S. Congressman to visit inside Honduras in the last month, Mack late Tuesday declared as "wrong" the "punishment" by the Obama team against lawful Hondurans who seek to maintain their democratic charter, the Honduran constitution and laws.
Will the untrustworthy Zelaya be satisfied now that the Obama team has thrown in their lot with him and Chavez by throwing in the towel on the Honduran freedom lovers basically deeming them criminals? And for how long?
Any act of extortion is not trust-building and is not "smart" diplomacy and must be rejected. Gaming Hillary Clinton by Zelaya at first blush appears dicey and foolish but I wonder how long she and Obama can continue to be gamed?
