Congress grants amnesty to Honduran interim leader, others involved in coup

Source: Xinhua

Congress grants amnesty to Honduran interim leader, others involved in coup
2010-01-16 11:16:01

TEGUCIGALPA, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Honduran Congress has approved a decree to grant amnesty to those involved in last June's military coup that ousted President Manuel Zelaya, local media reported Friday.

The decree, approved on Wednesday night, will ensure the safety of post-coup leader Roberto Micheletti as well as that of his family.

Seventeen ministers and vice ministers of the de facto government, the President of the Supreme Court of Justice, Jorge Aviles, and General Prosecutor Luis Rubi will also be amnestied.

The amnesty issue has aroused controversy among different sectors of Honduran society. Some believe this is the only solution to the country's political crisis, which was triggered by the coup. Others reject it on the grounds that it will enable those who committed crimes to go unpunished.


Read more: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2010-01/16/content_12819634.htm

Weekend Edition
January 15-17, 2010

Magical Realism
A Coup in Honduras ... So Twentieth Century!
By SAUL LANDAU and NELSON P. VALDES

“I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go Communist because of the irresponsibility of its own people.”

-– Henry Kissinger, June 26, 1970

“I’ve heard many in this room say that they will not recognize the elections in Honduras. … What does that mean in the real world, not in the world of magical realism?”

-- W. Lewis Amselem, US Representative to the Organization of American States, Nov. 11, 2009

For US magical realists, a coup becomes a coup after Washington defines it as such. On March 10, 1952 Cuban General Fulgencio Batista grabbed power and sought to legitimize his coup by holding fake elections. Magically, the coup makers won; Washington recognized Batista.

In 1964, Brazil’s military removed President João Goulart and covered naked crime with electoral fig leaves, as if coups came with routine republicanism.

In 2009, few imagined military goons taking orders from a corrupt supreme court, kidnapping a President and exiling him to Costa Rica. Fewer imagined Costa Rican President Oscar Arias cooperating with kidnappers, and instead of charging them with major felonies, allowed them free return in their military plane. More 21st Century Magical Realism surfaced when Arias evolved from collaborator to mediator – with US and OAS blessing.

Washington could have frozen the plotters’ assets, or denounced the coup-supporting Honduran congressional hooligans for producing a fake resignation letter by President Manuel Zelaya, one he had not signed and with the wrong date.

In stead of the State Department labeling the blatant heist a coup, officials “studied” the absurd allegation that Zelaya had violated Honduras’ Constitution by calling for a referendum (consultation) with his people -- to see if they wanted to change the document. Indeed, a 2009 State Department human rights report had labeled as corrupt the very Supreme Court that ordered Zelaya arrested – but not kidnapped and exiled.

By November, the thugs had repressed opposition media, killed, tortured and beaten protesters. Then, the conditions were ready for the plotters to hold “elections.” 50% or less voted for candidates that reflected none of Zelaya’s programs. Despite charges of fraud and irregularities, Washington recognized the process and beseeched the world to forget Honduras’ disagreeable past: five months of a nation’s upset stomach?

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/landau01152010.html

From Coup-Lite to Truth-Lite: 10 Ways the U.S. Fought Democracy in Honduras
Posted on Jan 13, 2010

By Andrés Thomas Conteris

In his essay “Top Ten Ways You Can Tell Which Side the United States Government Is On With Regard to the Military Coup in Honduras,” Mark Weisbrot correctly illustrates U.S. backing for the coup regime and the lack of U.S. support for democracy. For more than 100 days, I have been holed up with President Manuel Zelaya inside the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa, covering the story for “Democracy Now!” and other independent media. In case Weisbrot’s points were not convincing, here are another 10 ways the U.S. has undermined democracy in Honduras.

10. The resolution adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on June 30 strongly condemned the coup in Honduras. The United States, however, prevented the U.N. Security Council from taking strong measures consistent with the resolution.

9. When President Zelaya returned to Tegucigalpa and took refuge in the Brazilian Embassy on Sept. 21, Lewis Amselem, the U.S. representative at the Organization of American States (OAS), called his action “foolish” and “irresponsible.” Amselem, whose background is with the U.S. Southern Command, is known in the halls of the OAS as “the diplomator.” He led the charge for validating the Honduran elections, while many other countries opposed recognition of elections held under the coup regime.

8. The U.S. Southern Command sponsored the PANAMAX 09 joint maneuvers, conducted Sept. 11-21 off the coast of Panama with military forces from 20 countries. Even though the U.S. publicly stated that ties with the Honduran military had been severed, the invitation to Honduras to participate in these maneuvers was not rescinded. The Honduran armed forces finally said they would withdraw, but only after several Latin American countries threatened to boycott the exercises.

7. Key members of the Honduran military involved in the coup received training at the School of the Americas (which changed its name to the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, WHISC), including Gens. Romeo Vasquez and Luis Javier Prince. Even after the June 28 coup, the Pentagon continued training members of the Honduran military at WHISC, in Ft. Benning, Ga.

More:
http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKN1315247020100113?rpc=401&feedType=RSS&feedName=governmentFilingsNews

Barack Obama, the fourth U.S. president to win the Nobel Peace Prize, joins the others in the long tradition of peacemaking so long as it serves U.S. interests.

All four presidents left their imprint on “our little region over here that has never bothered anybody,” as U.S. Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson characterized the hemisphere in 1945.

Given the Obama administration’s stance toward the elections in Honduras in November, it may be worthwhile to examine the record.

.

Theodore Roosevelt

In his second term as president, Theodore Roosevelt said, “The expansion of the peoples of white, or European, blood during the past four centuries has been fraught with lasting benefit to most of the peoples already dwelling in the lands over which the expansion took place,” despite what Africans, Native Americans, Filipinos and other beneficiaries might mistakenly believe.

It was therefore “inevitable and in the highest degree desirable for the good of humanity at large, that the American people should ultimately crowd out the Mexicans” by conquering half of Mexico and, “It was out of the question to expect (Texans) to submit to the mastery of the weaker race.”

Using gunboat diplomacy to steal Panama from Colombia to build the canal was also a gift to humanity.

more . . .

http://inthesetimes.com/article/5375/presidential_peacemaking_in_latin_america/


in the article Obama's position on Honduras: The coup reflected a “yawning political and socioeconomic divide,” The New York Times reported. For the “small upper class,” Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was becoming a threat to what they call “democracy,” namely, the rule of “the most powerful business and political forces in the country.”

Zelaya was initiating such dangerous measures as a rise in the minimum wage in a country where 60 percent live in poverty. He had to go.

approved a decree to grant amnesty to de facto president Roberto Micheletti and others involved in last June's military coup that ousted President Manuel Zelaya. However, actual local media (Radio Progreso, Jan. 15; El Heraldo, Tegucigalpa, Jan. 12) report that the National Congress voted Jan. 12 to put the issue off until a new congress convenes after president-elect Porfirio Lobo Sosa takes power later this month.

An amnesty bill was introduced by president-elect Lobo earlier this month, and debated before being shelved ...

The source of the confusion may be a measure passed Jan. 13 that grants a security detail for life to Micheletti and some 50 other officials of the de facto regime, including Supreme Court president Jorge Rivera, Prosecutor General Luis Rubí, and six members of the armed forces high command ...

... The de facto regime has not dropped threats to arrest Zelaya, and he was not covered by the proposed amnesty bill ...

Honduras: whither amnesty?
Submitted by WW4 Report on Sat, 01/16/2010 - 18:36
http://www.ww4report.com/node/8212

Honduran Congress postpone amnesty debate
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=4222818

Xinhua may be wrong