US role in Colombia and Honduras sparks Latin American criticism

US role in Colombia and Honduras sparks Latin American criticism

Author: Emile Schepers and W.T. Whitney Jr.
People's Weekly World Newspaper, 08/30/09 20:15

Storm signs are up over Latin America as new tensions play out against historical memories. The great liberator, Simon Bolivar, said in 1829 that the United States is “destined by Providence to plague America with misery in the name of liberty”. Over nearly 200 years of U.S. military and economic intervention in Latin American affairs have taught the leaders, governments and peoples of the hemisphere to be on their guard.

Will the Obama administration change this century’s long pattern of arrogant hegemonism? At the start of Obama’s administration, some things pointed to a change for the better. In March, Obama broke with the precedent of the Bush administration by pointedly refraining from intervening in the presidential elections in El Salvador. To the protests of the Republicans, he assured Salvadoran voters that if Mauricio Funes, candidate of the left-wing FMLN party won, there would not be reprisals against Salvadoran immigrants living in the United States, as the Bush administration had threatened to impose during the 2005 elections.

At the Summit of the Americas in Port of Spain, Trinidad in April, Obama’s comments were of a conciliatory nature that made a generally good impression on the leaders present and on the Latin American public.

But two new situations have developed which have put these originally positive impressions under a cloud.

First, the June 28 military coup d’état in Honduras: Although Obama denounced the coup and his administration has stuck to the position that Manuel Zelaya is the legitimate president of Honduras, the perception in Latin America has been that the U.S. has been slow to impose the sanctions necessary to oust the coup regime from power. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s move to put Costa Rican president Oscar Arias in charge of a mediation effort which has not gone anywhere has raised suspicions that the U.S. policy objectives may indeed be to restore Zelaya, but also to keep him from aligning with the more left-wing states in the area. And everyone in the hemisphere is aware of the historic U.S. military and C.I.A. involvement in all aspects of Honduras public life. Once the sanctuary of Cuban exile terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, Honduras hosted bases for U.S. support of the brutal “Contras” in the wars during the 1980s to overthrow the left-wing Sandinista government in Nicaragua, and to stop the FMLN guerrillas in El Salvador. Honduran officers involved in the coup were trained at the U.S. Army “School of the Americas” in Fort Benning, Georgia. So when the coup took place, many quickly concluded that is was one of many such events “made in the U.S.A.”. Major Latin American leaders such as Cuba’s former president Fidel Castro and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, himself nearly the victim of a U.S. supported coup in 2002, are careful not to say that Obama personally ordered up the coup, but nevertheless it is clear that the situation has damaged U.S. prestige.

http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/16869/

Here is Simon Bolivar's letter to British Colonel Patrick Campbell, dated August 5, 1829:

Frankly, I'd forgotten about it, in the maelstrom of events since then. They made quite a point of contradicting the fascists in El Salvador who said that the leftist winning would mean retaliation by the US. This makes analysis of the US role in Honduras, and in Colombia (great escalation of US military bases) more interesting and more hopeful. If what we are seeing is Bushwhack sabotage of Obama policy, then there is hope that it can be reversed.

I tend to think that the hope is not great, even so. I think Obama made some deals so as not to be Diebolded and/or Swift-boated in 2008, and one of them was putting Latin America into Clinton's hands. She's been gung-ho Colombia, a country with one of the worst human rights records on earth; harshly anti-Chavez in the stupid way of Bushites--full of lies and cant, and great hypocrisy; and is gung-ho "free trade for the rich" as well as gung-ho for the failed, corrupt, murderous US "war on drugs." It is possible that she is NOT colluding with the Bushwhacks on Honduras, but is instead trying to save Obama's policy of peace, respect and cooperation, against their sabotage (and their long range war plans to grab's Venezuela's northern oil reserves, and other oil--Ecuador's, Cuba's, maybe even Brazil's). (Ecuador's president recently said, "After Zelaya, I'm next.") Her actions COULD BE read that way--as trying to salvage Obama's policy. It is not easy to tell for sure. But I am not optimistic. And if this is all Clinton's doing--the Honduran coup, the seven new US military bases in Colombia, etc., in collusion with the Bushwhacks--then, unless there is a major fight between Obama and Clinton, and he fires Clinton, the bad policy is not going to change any time soon.

Another strike against Clinton is that she has left a whole bunch of really bad Bushwack ambassadors in place in Latin America. Why didn't she clean house? Maybe she will. Maybe she opposes all this crap that has come down and will use it to purge them. I don't doubt her intelligence or savvy. She may have been wise to wait. I don't know. But on the surface it is a bad indicator. And on the whole I am extremely concerned about US Latin American policy, and especially worried about a Pentagon oil war plan for which there is ever-growing evidence.

is a throwback to 19th century imperialism and gun boat diplomacy, and this is happening under Obama's watch!

Llorens is a Cuban Pedro Panista, and was involved in the Honduran coup.