Running Down the Clock: OAS/Micheletti Mtg. Could Have Been Done by Conf. Call, Weeks Ago

Definitely running out of time quickly. That was the plan. This is one huge nullification of his programs, his plans, of the progress for which he was elected.

Really can't say enough about the value of these UPDATES in the right column, too.

Thank you for working to fill that total void of information we get here from our corporate non-sources.

It's just that he got boxed around, and probably decided to take the boxing around in order to get into the country, but then found himself with an impossible task, ousting the junta and somehow arranging for fair elections, with the US sabotaging him all the way. Do you really think he wanted to be a US tool? I don't. He may have been deluding himself (about US intentions), but I think he saw himself as a last resort, but then maybe went in with too much "last resort" type of thinking.

I HATE to see the OAS marginalized like this, just as I hated to see it happen to the UN with the Bush Junta. I believe in international regulations and controls on countries, the idea of an international rule of law. I just hate to see it go down in flames, and I think it's a very dangerous thing. So I was rooting for him to pull one out of the hat. The way you describe it--with the formation of the delegation, exclusion of ALBA countries, etc.--I do see your point, and I do agree. This was a Clinton-designed failure. And all it amounted to was another delay (excuse for the US not to act), as they wait out Zelaya's term and get ready to fix the election (with so much fixing already having been done--thousands of activists in jail, acid rain on the media, etc.).

A vital question is why. You don't have a coup, and this much world scorn, over the minimum wage. I think it's deeper than Chiquita Banana, deeper than any business interest, and I think it's deeper even than the grass roots movement for constitutional reform. I think it has to do with the Sato Cano US military base and its importance to Rumsfeld's war plan. They simply can't risk having a "moderate" government in charge when that comes down. They have to have an illegitimate rightwing government totally dependent on them, monetarily and politically. Otherwise, they (Clinton, McCain, Negroponte & co., and the Pentagon) COULD HAVE worked something out and Zelaya would have agreed--some moderate reforms, gradual change. It absolutely could have been done. But that isn't the point--is my point. Modest reform is not the issue to the US. It brings players on board, but it is NOT why the coup is so obdurate, nor why the US is supporting the coup in being so obdurate. And I don't think it's a merely economic/political game either--that is, countering ALBA and UNASUR, depriving them of an ally, knocking a peg out of the unity that Latin American countries are showing, and that Chavez is part of, and hitting their bogeyman Chavez. This, too, adds motive, but, IF that was their only goal, how can they have hoped to accomplish it with a brutal military coup? The coup just drives people the other way. It is energizing the grass roots in Honduras. It is causing outrage all over Latin America. It is further solidifying leftist movements and alliances among leftist leaders. It is so TYPICAL of us! This is not clever. This is stupid--IF your motives are merely political/economic. There were a thousand better ways--and much less costly ways--to work the political/economic issues. Hell, when Obama went down there, everybody was willing to forgive and forget, and get on to a better future together.

I'm with Chavez on this. It smells like war to me. That's the only advantage the Honduran coup gives the US--securing that military base. It is otherwise an albatross--a stinking corpse of an albatross-- that could easily have been avoided.

It's important to see what the main goal is--like so many didn't see, or couldn't see, when the Bushwhacks started talking about Iraq after 9/11. I didn't see it, at first. I just didn't think they would go that far. I really didn't believe it until they invaded. I thought it was all posturing and bullying. But now we know more. And we can pick up the scent earlier. I don't know if it's imminent. Could be. But I tend to think they have more work to do to set this up--for one thing, get all those US military bases in Colombia up and running. (But they may have made much more progress on that than anyone realizes.) For another, Obama. He may not be on board for this, so they may have to trick him into it, or wait out his term and Diebold a warmonger into the White House.

Anyway, for what it's worth, that's what I think the goal is. That's why the US has taken on all this approbrium and suspicion, just after Obama promised peace, respect and cooperation. They don't seem to care about that. They could have avoided it, and didn't. I think this is why.

promised the US that you will do its bidding. In Haiti and within the Haiti solidarity movement, Insulza is known as a treacherous snake for what he didn't do concerning Haiti. Of course, it was the US manipulating the situation and Insulza was the guy that did the magic tricks to make it all come out just as the US wanted and covered the US' role quite effectively.

I think this article written by a friend of mine in 2005 will give you an idea about how Insulza operates. Also, the circumstances of the 2004 in Haiti and its aftermath are quite similar to Honduras.

July 21, 2005
Time for a Reality Check
Haiti's Elections

By BRIAN CONCANNON, Jr.

Three days this month in strife-torn Haiti should have sufficed to show José Miguel Insulza, the brand new Secretary-General of the Organization of American States (OAS), that something is very wrong with both Haiti and his predecessors' Haiti policy. But instead of using the OAS helm change and the visit to set a new course, Mr. Insulza recommitted the organization to its current failures, at the expense of Haiti's long-suffering citizenry.

Normally, five Haitians asked almost any question about politics will give at least that many different responses. But today almost anyone asked whether they are better off than they were before Haiti's regime change sixteen months ago will answer a resounding no. Poor urban dwellers will complain about regular, deadly police raids in their neighborhoods and even more deadly rises in food costs; middle class professionals will protest the kidnapping epidemic (seven reported kidnappings last Monday alone); wealthy importers will grumble that customers who survive the trip to the store cannot afford to buy much. Supporters of the Lavalas movement, which has won every Haitian election by a landslide for fifteen years, will mention the dozen or so top leaders, and hundreds of supporters, who have been illegally arrested or imprisoned.

The OAS, however, has found very little fault with the unelected, unconstitutional Interim Haitian Government, despite a chorus of reports, from Amnesty International, the Harvard and the University of Miami Law Schools, and the Committee to Protect Journalists, among others, documenting police massacres, political arrests and attacks against journalists.

Haiti's coup d'etat in February 2004 provided the OAS an historic opportunity to implement its own principles and stand up for democracy in the hemisphere. The organization had a new, potentially effective tool in the Inter-American Democratic Charter, which promised that "an unconstitutional alteration of the constitutional regime" is an "insurmountable obstacle" to a country's OAS participation. The Charter allows the organization to respond with measures "to foster the restoration of democracy," including suspending undemocratic members.

But when almost half of the OAS' thirty-four members- the fourteen member Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and Venezuela- called for an investigation into the coup d'etat last year, the organization declined to either investigate. Although CARICOM suspended Haiti because the coup violated its similar democratic principles, the OAS has not imposed the slightest sanction. Not coincidentally, three OAS members-the U.S., Canada and the Dominican Republic- played central roles in the coup.

The OAS may be passing up another chance to insist on democracy, with Haiti's elections scheduled for this October, November and December. Secretary-General Insulza went to Haiti to observe the preparations by Haiti's Provisional Electoral Council (PEC) with OAS help. He spoke with Haitian and foreign officials, and inaugurated a voter registration center. He reaffirmed his support for the PEC, and found that "despite some delays, the process is moving ahead."

"Moving ahead" in this case means that 5% of the eligible voters have registered, with only a few weeks left before registration closes on August 9. The registration center Mr. Insulza inaugurated was about the 105th opened since April 25th, out of an announced 424 (the last election, run by an elected government in 2000, had upwards of 12,000 centers). The registration center shortage, like most shortages in Haiti, hits the poor hardest: there are no centers in or near Cité Soleil, the crowded seaside slum that supports the ousted President Aristide, but there are three in Pétionville, the opulent hillside suburb that forms the Interim Government's base. There are four in the whole Central Plateau, a large region with few good roads.

"Moving ahead" also means that many potential candidates, party members and voters continue to languish in jail, deprived of access to any judicial process, while many more citizens keep quiet to avoid a similar fate. It means that campaign event organizers need to consider arrest or beating, or worse, as one of the costs of their events

Mr. Insulza's proposed solution to this crisis, extending registration by a month, ignores these fundamental problems. It is now obvious that the Interim Government is no closer to relinquishing power to a democratic successor than when it started in March 2004. Haitian voters have seen enough electoral charades to recognize one, and they call the upcoming votes a "selection." They connect the dots from the arrests of political dissidents to the scarce and gerrymandered registration centers, and see a return to the days when a fraction of the citizenry chose the likes of "Papa Doc" Francois Duvalier from a list of approved candidates.

That international experts keep expressing confidence in such a transparently flawed process merely assures Haitians that the Interim Government's international supporters are content with the charade. They foresee the OAS and the Americans conferring a stamp of approval on a vote that is unrepresentative by any objective standards.

Secretary-General Insulza, a respected political scientist and former exile from Chile's Pinochet dictatorship, should be able to connect the same dots. He should also understand that even if the OAS gets away with calling undemocratic elections this fall a "success" in the short term, in the medium and long terms Haiti's problems will keep resurfacing, until the people are allowed the government of their choice.

In his May 25 OAS inauguration speech, Mr. Insulza pledged that his "principal concern was to strengthen this Organization's political relevance and capacity for action." The Secretary-General will have no better opportunity to fulfill this promise than right now, in Haiti. The OAS should immediately use the tools of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, including suspending Haiti from normal OAS activities, unless the Interim Government immediately frees all political prisoners and ceases persecuting dissidents. It should withhold the organization's extensive technical, financial and political support until the PEC demonstrates a willingness to run the elections on a level playing field. Most importantly, the OAS should unequivocally declare that it will not recognize any election or resulting government unless Haitian voters are afforded the fair election they deserve.

Brian Concannon Jr., Esq. directs the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti and is a former OAS Elections Observer and UN Human Rights Observer in Haiti. He can be reached at: Brianhaiti@aol.com"
http://www.counterpunch.org/concannon07212005.html

and to hand over power to that person. better late than never I guess.

We all know that the OAS mission after the end of WWII was to help the USA thwart any Soviet inroads in the Western Hemisphere.

So from that time onward the OAS and its secretary generals were lackeys of Washington, doing what successive U.S. government wanted and helpless during the time of the military dictatorships in the Southern Cone and the U.S.-sponsored wars in Central America. It also abandoned Argentina during the Malvinas war at the bidding of Alexander Haig and the Reagan government.

Flash forward to April 2005. The OAS elects a new secretary general. Three candidates, U.S. puppet Flores, former president of El Salvador. Derbez, foreign minister of Mexico. Insulza, then Interior Minister of Chile.

Before the vote, Flores drops out. U.S. then throws its support to Derbez. A pre-vote count gave Insulza 19 votes to 15 for Derbez. There were reports later that the U.S. (Rodger Noriega) had "convinced" Paraguay and Grenada to change their vote in favor of Derbez.

The first three rounds of voting ended in a 17-17 tie. The marathon session that day continued with two more votes also ending in 17-17 deadlocks. So the voting was reset for May 2. In the interval, the Mexican candidate dropped out of the race and Insulza was elected on May 2 with 31 votes for, 2 abstentions and 1 blank. He took office on May 26, 2005.

It was a major diplomatic defeat for the bushistas.

So why was the U.S. so opposed to Insulza, the first pure leftist to head the OAS?

Insulza is a prominent member of the Chilean Socialist Party, the party of Salvador Allende in the early 1970s and today the party of Michelle Bachelet. After the pinochetazo in 1973, Insulza was forced into exile for 15 YEARS. He went back to Chile from exile in Mexico to help topple Pinochet in the 1988 yea or nay plebiscite. As a member of the Concertacion that has ruled Chile since, he held several ministerial positions, including foreign minister.

Regarding magbana's observation that he was lax in regards to Haiti, I think it would have been unrealistic to think that Insulza, as newly elected OAS head when he went to Haiti, could have reversed decades of his predecessors' and U.S. Haiti policy in the brief seven weeks he had been in office.

As a consummate diplomat, I think Insulza is trying to avert a bloodbath in Honduras, which could be a real possibility the longer the crisis drags out. He is doing this despite the barriers that Hillary and the remaining hardliners have thrown in his and the OAS' path.

It is not a matter of buying time for the gorilettis to consolidate, but to prevent rivers of blood in Honduras, in my humble opinion.

Insulza bio:

http://www.oas.org/documents/eng/biography_sgInsulza.asp

Related Judi post from April 1995 (funny photos too)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1384336

beyond when the article I posted was written, there was another whole year before presidential elections were held that was jam packed with hundreds incarcerated without charge, summary executions in the streets, and UN peacekeeping mission committing many murders including a more than a few massacres.

The only relevant issue to the discussion here is that Insulza was the OAS Sec. Gen. during a year of an illegal, murderous regime in Haiti which got to the presidential palace only because the US put it there. Insulza continued to reject the CARICOM request for an investigation into the origins of the coup as well as calls from numerous human rights organizations, religious groups, and civil rights organizations. I'm many things, but being naive is not one of them -- I know it was Insulza's JOB to keep an investigation at bay. I have attended events here in Washington where Insulza was present and he told bold-faced lies about he situation in Haiti always trying to paint a rapidly improving, rosy picture. Did I expect him to do differently? No. Does he have blood on his hands because he kept international community away from a situation that desperately needed its scrutinty? Yes.

Let's not forget about the Democratic Charter of the OAS that essentially says overthrowing a democratically-elected president in not cool and Insulza quashed every effort to have the OAS proceed with an investigation.

So,I can't help you build a monument to Insulza and canonize him over how he is saving Honduras. Please understand that what Insulza is doing is within the prescription of the State Dept. and I know from many years of experience that whatever comes out of that, it CANNOT be good for the people of Honduras.

I'm not so sure whether Insulza is still a leftist, but when you start doing the empire's bidding you end up an enemy of the people.

You are probably right--that someone who was so bad on Haiti isn't going to do differently now. My posts about it are more hopeful and wishful than anything else. It is indeed a different political landscape than when Haiti happened. That is what my hope is based on--and also Insulza can he replaced; he has a constituency; his failure in this case may have consequences for him as to his leadership of the OAS. I do NOT consider him a "saint." Please do not misunderstand me. I would just like the OAS to succeed--to stop the violence against the poor, and restore order in Honduras--and to become the organization that it could be, given the new leadership in Latin America.

Thank you for your comments! I greatly appreciate them.

and he--and everyone in Latin America--were suffering under the Bush Junta, like we here in the US. I remember feeling sorry for Batchelet when the Bush Junta successfully kneecapped her to get Chile to abstain about Venezuela's turn on the Security Council. The political landscape of South America was not so solid and well-organized then as it is now. A lot has happened. And Batchelet has grown. On Bolivia, last September, she acted quickly and strongly, through UNASUR, fully backing up Morales after he threw the US ambassador out of Bolivia. Courage sometimes needs context--help from others--and timeliness--the moment for action is ripe. Not everybody--only great heroes, a rare commodity--can act courageously all on their own.

The OAS has always been a US tool, but that is changing, too. The left has a majority now. That's why Hillary Clinton avoided it. Its US tool-ness was why the South American leaders avoided it during the Bolivian crisis, with Bush still in power, and acted through UNASUR. Now the US is avoiding it, presumably because it is stronger and more likely to defy the US, which it certainly did in the vote on Honduras.

I don't think the story is over yet--OAS/Honduras. Isulza has a lot to prove, re OAS viability for supporting good change and undoing this horror--not the least because of the failure on Haiti. It may be that the US has just broken the OAS's back. That certainly seems to be the US intent. It if refuses to be a US tool, then to hell with it, seems to be our policy. No different from the Bush Junta, alas. But I wouldn't rule it out yet.