Honduras: The Deep Roots of Resistance
Honduras: The Deep Roots of Resistance
Alexander Main
Dissent, April 14, 2014
~snip~
U.S. relations with Latin America’s new left-leaning governments have been rocky from the start. The George W. Bush administration supported a short-lived military coup against Hugo Chávez in 2002 and later backed coup supporters’ attempt to force Chávez out of office by shutting down Venezuela’s vital oil industry. In Bolivia, the U.S. Embassy and USAID worked to keep Evo Morales’s leftist MAS party from gaining power in the early 2000s and later supported right-wing secessionist movements opposed to Morales’s rule. In 2008 the U.S. Embassy in La Paz offered gestures of support to the Bolivian opposition at a time when it was engaged in a violent destabilization campaign condemned by every other country in South America.
U.S. diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks indicate that the State Department has for years been obsessed with countering the influence of ALBA, depicted in cables as a “dependable political tool for Chávez.” Even non-members with good relations with ALBA countries, like Brazil, have been viewed with suspicion. But the Bush administration’s opposition to Venezuela and ALBA only succeeded in fostering a deeper sense of solidarity among Latin America’s left governments. The region breathed a collective sigh of relief when Obama, shortly after taking office, promised “equal partnerships” and a “new chapter of engagement” with Latin America.
The Honduran coup was Obama’s first big regional test. The country had long served as the most dependable U.S. strategic outpost in Central America. In the 1980s it provided cover and a logistical base for the CIA-backed Contras in Nicaragua. Since 1983 the Soto Cano base has housed U.S. Army troops and aircraft even though the Honduran constitution prohibits a “permanent foreign presence.” Until Zelaya, U.S. interests in Honduras had been secure under the National and Liberal Party governments that together ruled the country since 1983.
“President Zelaya strikes us as a well-meaning populist, but susceptible to leftist influences,” wrote former U.S. ambassador Charles Ford in June 2006, at the beginning of Zelaya’s term. “Zelaya does not appear to grasp the larger geo-political threat posed by Chavez,” Ford added. Two years later, after Honduras had joined Petrocaribe and ALBA, the United States had all but given up on Zelaya. “With only 16 months before he leaves office, our goal is to get Zelaya through his term without causing any irreparable damage to bilateral relations . . . and to minimize further expansion of relations with Chavez,” wrote the new U.S. ambassador, Hugo Llorens, in September 2008.
~snip~
Washington policymakers fail to see that social movements, rather than individual leaders like Zelaya, Chávez, or Morales, are the most enduring and potent force of change in Latin America today. These movements were spurred by the very economic policies that the United States has promoted in the region, and repression won’t make them go away. Whether the U.S. government likes it or not, the Honduran resistance and a multitude of similar people’s movements throughout Latin America are here to stay.
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-columns/honduras-the-deep-roots-of-resistance
