2009 Honduras coup `was illegal,' says U.S. ambassador in leaked cables

Posted on Monday, 11.29.10
2009 Honduras coup `was illegal,' says U.S. ambassador in leaked cables

The U.S. ambassador to Honduras said the 2009 coup in Honduras was `clearly illegal,' according to cables released by WikiLeaks.
BY TIM JOHNSON
McClatchy News Service

MEXICO CITY -- The events surrounding the June 2009 coup in Honduras was a carnival of illegal actions by every branch of government, including the successor of the deposed president, a diplomatic cable signed by the U.S. ambassador says.

The cable, part of the quarter-million confidential diplomatic cables that WikiLeaks began to make public Sunday, offered a harsh critique of the ruling class in Honduras during and after the coup, the first in Latin America since the end of the Cold War. In the cable, Ambassador Hugo Llorens, a veteran Cuban-American diplomat, wrote that he'd studied the legal and constitutional issues that led up to the June 28 morning when some 100 soldiers dragged President Manuel Zelaya out of bed and flew him to Costa Rica.

Llorens wrote that Zelaya's foes claimed he sought to alter constitutional articles considered ``carved in stone'' and acted improperly in ousting the military chief. Llorens said, though, that the charges were never aired in a proper legal fashion.

``Although a case could well have been made against Zelaya for a number of the above alleged constitutional violations, there was never any formal, public weighing of the evidence nor any semblance of due process,'' the cable dated July 23, 2009, said.

More:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/11/29/1947782/2009-honduras-coup-was-illegal.html

One reason anyway, makes it hard to "frame the debate" by pretending that all the "experts" agree.

this morning on Amy's show.

lol

This is a real "man behind the curtain" moment and all over the world. Never have so few rich powerful people in so many countries been made to look so stupid at the same time.

:rofl:

Why do "they" hate us?

We're finding out why (although many already know this, but wikileaks puts it on the front page for all to see).

Soto Cano air base in Honduras AND TELL THEM TO STOP THE PLANE that was carrying President Zelaya out of the country at gunpoint? The plane landed and refueled at the U.S. base! What were its U.S. commanders DOING--playing video games about the overthrow of Venezuela?!

He later admitted to knowing ahead of time, SO WHY DIDN'T HE DO SOMETHING?

Jeez.

We gotta watch out for SELF-SERVING statements in these cables. This wasn't even secret or top secret. It was merely marked "confidential" so the writer of it must have been well aware that it could easily become public. I think he's covering his ass.

the US has use of the base, just like the "US base" in Manta, Ecuador. it was and continues to be an Ecuadorian base.

That is precisely why they did so. The Pentagon gets a foothold in a country, and straightaway it's THEIR base, and the local military is theirs, the local police are theirs, and often the local government is theirs and cannot do anything--including raising the minimum wage in U.S. sweatshop factories, as President Zelaya found out--without Washington's okay. The U.S. had thoroughly infiltrated the Ecuadoran military. The U.S. embassy was making appointments to the Ecuadoran national police. And it is very likely that the pilot, plane and 500 lb U.S. "smart bombs" that were dropped on Ecuadoran territory, slaughtering 25 sleeping people at a temporary FARC hostage release camp, just inside Ecuador's border, in March 2008, came from the U.S. base at Manta--an act that nearly started a war between the U.S./Colombia and Ecuador/Venezuela. Ecuador got rid of that U.S. base none too soon.

It is very, VERY naive to think that the "School of the Americas"-trained, bought and paid for Honduran military would or could do anything like overthrowing the government, and refueling their coup plane at a U.S. air base, without the consent and cooperation of the U.S. commanders. It is the U.S. military's alleged JOB in Latin America to interdict suspicious planes in their alleged "war on drugs." NOTHING flies in or out of a U.S. air base that the commanders don't know about. They are spying on all traffic, not to mention spying on the host country and its neighbors. That's what they DO. That's what it's all about. That's why they spend BILLIONS and BILLIONS of our tax dollars on U.S. military bases in Latin America. It's a CONTROL MECHANISM. And, according to a USAF document that was recently uncovered, each of these bases that the Pentagon operates out of are part of a U.S. network aimed at "full spectrum military capability" throughout Latin America. You think the Pentagon is going to be shy and proper and legal, and oh-so-careful of the sovereignty of Latin American countries, that it ISN'T going to know, and isn't going to control, what the host country's military establishment is doing?

When Rafael Correa kicked the U.S. military out of Ecuador, he said that he would agree to a U.S. military base on Ecuadoran soil when the U.S. agreed to an Ecuadoran military base in Miami! There is NO equality. Power only goes one way where the U.S. is concerned. The U.S. would NEVER allow a foreign military base on its soil for the very reason that it is so dangerous to the sovereignty of the military base-occupied country. This comment by Correa perfectly illustrates the situation at Manta and the situation at Soto Cano. Once the Pentagon gains a foothold, the sovereignty of the host country is eroded and destroyed, and it becomes a U.S. client state.

You are promoting the Pentagon propaganda line, that all they want from "boots on the ground" in another country is to 'help"--help with "war on drugs," help "train" the local military, and help fund the local military, police and government. That is bullshit. And most Ecuadorans knew that very well. That's why they elected Rafael Correa--whose chief campaign promise was to get rid of that U.S. base--by an overwhelming majority. Ecuadorans hated having a U.S. base on their soil and knew perfectly well what it meant--that their country was not their own.

Hondurans found that out, to their grief. Their country was not their own. Their military was not their own. And now their government is not their own.

The Bushwhack ambassador to Honduras, Hugo Llorens, was a Bushwhack. He was chief National Security advisor to Bush Jr. during the U.S.-supported Venezuelan coup attempt. He had been chief political advisor to the Pentagon's "Southern Command"! He knows exactly how these things work. He didn't call the U.S. commanders at Soto Cano, to intercept that plane, because they were all in accord. The U.S. commanders at Soto Cano were ordered to stand down. Who gave that order remains a question. But what happened is not in question. The Honduran military shot up the president's house, terrifying his family, dragged him out of bed in the dead of night, in his pajamas, put him on a plane with blackened windows, at gunpoint, and flew him to the U.S. military base at Soto Cano for refueling, then took off again and dumped him on the tarmac in Costa Rica. And all this was just too much for U.S. military commanders in Honduras to take in?? They didn't notice?? They had no power to intervene because...um, they had too much respect for Honduran sovereignty?? Their pals from the "School of the Americas" didn't give them a heads up?? They were otherwise occupied??

Really, Bacchus39, how stupid do you think we are?

the base in Ecuador was and continues to be an Ecuadorian military base. the US had a 10-year lease for USE of the base. there is an agreement with Honduras as well for the US to use THEIR base. The base in Manta continues to operate to this day as an Ecuadorian military base.

the US had no authority to intercept the plane carrying Zelaya or prevent if from landing at the Honduran military base.

How stupid do I think you are? I don't know. But I do believe willful ignorance is worse than stupidity.

By what authority was the U.S. operating torture prisons in Iraq, at Abu Ghraib, in Guantanamo Bay, in Eastern Europe, in other Middle Eastern countries, in Afghanistan and God knows where else?

By what authority did the U.S. bomb and invade Iraq, slaughtering 100,000 innocent people?

By what authority is the U.S. killing civilians every week in Afghanistan?

By what authority did the U.S. abduct people from their countries and imprison them, and torture them, or "render" them for torture?

By what authority did the U.S. depose President Aristide of Haiti and remove him from his country?

By what authority did William Brownfield sign an outrageous, illegal, secretly negotiated U.S./Colombia military agreement, which expanded the U.S. military presence in Colombia to at least seven more bases, and granted "total diplomatic immunity" to all U.S. military personnel and all U.S. military 'contractors' in Colombia?

By what authority did Brownfield extradite death squad witnesses from Colombia to the U.S., over the vociferous objections of Colombian prosecutors and judges?

By what authority did the U.S. keep shoveling millions of dollars at the junta in Honduras? Honduras had no government. They had an illegitimate junta which received no recognition from any government in Latin America. So under what authority did the U.S. do this?

By what authority did the State Department use our tax money to pay John McCain's "International Republican Institute" to "monitor" the martial law election in Honduras? Honduras had no government. They had an illegitimate junta which received no recognition from any government in Latin America. So under what authority did the U.S. do this?

The U.S. government does what it damn pleases. Any half sentient human being knows this. And the Pentagon and the CIA are even worse. They are authorities unto themselves, with virtually no connection to the people who fund their trillion dollar budgets. They spy on everybody. They spy on us. They probably spy on the President and the State Department. They have their own foreign policies, their own agendas (protecting and expanding all that money), their own secrets, their own dirty games. They want a war? They can make it happen, right now. They have set-ups for MANY "Gulf of Tonkins" all over the world. That's yet another purpose for their thousand military bases around the world. Power to make war happen, at their choosing.

And, believe me, they knew damn well what was happening in Honduras and the Pentagon stood down.

We are talking here about a U.S. client state, dependent on U.S. taxpayers for operating expenses and for military expenses, training and equipment--a country the Reaganites wrote the constitution for, and used as their stepstool to war against neighboring countries. Honduras was experiencing a TERRORIST incident--the abduction of their president by the military and the set-up of a completely illegitimate junta, that immediately started inviting death squads into the country to kill leftists, and that was cruelly beating up, imprisoning, raping and torturing thousands of their people.

But the U.S. didn't care, and that is a fact. And the Pentagon didn't care, and that is a fact. They could have stopped it at any point, and they didn't. You know, I don't know what went down between Hillary Clinton and John "death squad" Negroponte. Maybe she was informed of the limits of her power. Maybe HE was running U.S. policy on Honduras. But you cannot tell me that the U.S. military could not have stopped that plane from taking off from their base, if they had been ordered to, and damn the consequences. Who would have objected? Hm? Who would taken the U.S. to the World Court for not having the authority? There would have been cheers all over Latin America! Nobody would have cared "by what authority," with Honduras' democracy, and President Zelaya's life and the lives of many in Honduras at immediate risk.

The U.S. arrogates plenty of "authority" to itself for doing evil, and none for doing the right thing.

no longer going to intervene in Latin American affairs. got it. makes all the sense in the world.

So many posters constantly and stridently demand that the US not interfere in the internal affairs of foreign countries, yet just as stridently condemn the US for not interfering in Honduran internal affairs.

Wonder when the cables describing Hugo's interference in Honduran internal affairs will surface.

THAT'S what they wanted the US to do regarding Honduras, STOP FUNDING THEM WITH US TAXPAYERS' DOLLLARS.

PERIOD.

"US funded the illegal coup government" -- a typically hysterical exaggeration. The US acted properly in this event and didn't interfere, and chose to maintain established relations whether they approves of the new government or not.

Or would you have preferred the US cut off all relations with the interim Honduran government? If that's how you think the US should have reacted, then you have no basis to complain about the state of US relations with Cuba.

Under the direction of his puppetmaster Hugo, Zelaya ignored the Honduran Supreme Court's rulings and defied Honduran Congressional legislation. Zelaya's tin ear was to blame for what transpired. And where is Zelaya now? Doesn't he hold some bogus position with PDVSA?

in contravention of US law. That's the fact. Judi Lynn is right, you're wrong and water is still wet today.

however, if you think the administration broke the law, why not take the administration to court??

Water is still wet, Zelaya is living at a resort in the DR, and Lobo is president of Honduras.

and continued to train at SOA. :)

and that fact has never been in question. Also in this article, it does refer to the continued SOA training, of course. (Their graduates made them proud in this dirty coup.)

Laura Carlsen, Director, Americas Program, Center For International Policy
Posted: September 17, 2009 12:14 AM
Cutting Off the Honduran Coup's Air Supply

~snip~
Pressure or Simulation from Above?

Measuring the coup's current air supply is a tricky undertaking. There are few, if any historical precedents. South America's military dictatorships lasted decades, but at a huge human cost in assassinations and repression, without the international opprobrium and sanctions, and with support from the U.S. government.

One part of the task at hand is to evaluate the real impact of current sanctions against the Honduran coup. On Sept. 3, the State Department announced the termination of $33 million dollars, including $11 million in Millennium Challenge Funds and approximately $22 in State Department funds. The State Department finally broke down these numbers for reporters in a teleconference: $9.4 million from USAID (including $8.7 million in development assistance and Economic Support Funds and $2.7 million in child survival and health), State Dept. money at $8.96 million ($6.5 million in Foreign Military Financing, $361,000 in International Military Education and Training, and $1.72 million in global peacekeeping operations) and $1.7 in 1206 security assistance. This is added to the $16.5 million in military aid suspended in July.

State Department officials closed the door on determining legally that a military coup took place in Honduras and requiring application of Section 7008 of the Foreign Operations law. They assured reporters that all funds that could be suspended under Section 7008 have now been suspended. This is a highly debatable contention that requires further research.

In any case, the sanctions imposed are dwarfed by the money that continues to go to the illegal regime. The State Department has admitted that $70 million in aid--over twice the amount suspended--will still flow to the coup. Following its meeting, the Millennium Challenge Fund declared on Sept. 9 the formal suspension of the $11 million. But Bill Conroy at Narco News reports that the Millennium Challenge Fund plans to sustain an estimated $100 million in funds to Honduras from now through the end of 2010. Funds that have already been disbursed are not even under review.

Then there are the international financial institutions where the U.S. has a controlling vote. Although the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank and International Monetary Fund announced in early July a freeze on loans to Honduras, not all disbursements on approved loans are halted. The Americas Program has found that the IDB approved four loans in the four days before the coup--when the press was already reporting an imminent rupture. This was the highest concentration of approvals in recent history and total over $70 million dollars. IDB President Luis Alberto Moreno stated that the bank would not be providing any new credits, meaning disbursements on these loans continue.

More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/laura-carlsen/cutting-off-the-honduran_b_289520.html

Honduran military at SOA, one duty officer said, yeah, there's some in the classroom right now.

s

for their dirty war against Nicaragua. The Reaganites wrote the Honduran constitution to keep it that way. And nothing much has changed since. It is ruled over by a rich rightwing oligarchy on behalf of U.S. multinational corporations and war profiteers.

That is the situation.

So it is NOT a matter of wanting the U.S. to interfere in Honduras. It is a matter of wanting the U.S. to STOP interfering. Criminy, the U.S. dictates the wages in Honduras, on behalf of U.S. multinational sweatshop owners! It is dictating the privatization of telecommunications, on behalf of John McCain! It is dictating teachers' salaries and the price of bus tickets for poor workers. It dictates who Honduras can trade with and what trade groups it may join (NOT the Venezuela-organized ALBA trade group). President Zelaya violated all of these orders from Washington. THAT is why he was ousted--with the help of the Pentagon, the Bushwhack ambassador to Honduras and, ultimately, the Clinton State Department.

STOP doing that. That is the request. STOP supporting the rightwing oligarchy and their death squads. STOP interfering with a democratic reform process. STOP using Hondurans as slave labor. STOP ousting elected, popular leaders. STOP subverting and bribing the military. STOP controlling the country for the profit of the few. STOP using Honduras, once again, for aggression against Nicaragua. GET OUT!

---------------------

Your comment about "Hugo" reveals your total incomprehension of the history of brutal U.S. interference in Latin America, which continues to this day. It is in the interest of small, poor Central American and Caribbean countries to band together in a trade group like the Venezuela-organized ALBA, because what happens if they don't, is they get U.S. "free trade for the rich" imposed on them, with the Pentagon prowling around the Caribbean and installing war assets anywhere they can get the local oligarchy to sell out their country, to make clear who's the boss. These countries have been shat upon, raped, dragged through mountains of bloody corpses, degraded, insulted and massively robbed, time and time and time again, by the United States of America, on behalf of its multinational corporations. And the story in South America is exactly the same. So when a country with some heft--Venezuela, with its oil wealth--manages to elect a government that believes in Latin American sovereignty, and understands that Latin American countries will NEVER achieve sovereignty until they cooperate with each other, and when other Latin American governments AGREE, and formulate a COMMON policy throughout the region, of social justice, cooperation, economic/political integration and "raising all boats"--a policy that "Hugo" hammered out in monthly meetings with Lula da Silva of Brazil, and other like-minded leaders, and with the formalizing of UNASUR (EU-type union and common market), and through close friendships and alliances with many leaders and through diplomacy--YOU call it "interference."

"Hugo" did not "interfere" in "Honduran affairs." The trade unionists, human rights groups, social movements and other elements of Honduran society, representing the vast impoverished majority, THEMSELVES decided on a program of reform, and President Zelaya, seeing the advantages of reform and having sympathy with the poor majority, JOINED them in trying to change Honduras for the better. ALBA offered something to Honduras--access to cheap oil, so that Zelaya could lower the price of bus tickets for poor workers. And that is exactly how he put it, when he joined ALBA. He was "getting no help from the U.S." at alleviating poverty in Honduras, whereas joining with his neighbors gave Honduras significant advantages, not the least of which is collective clout in dealing with the U.S. bully that had, time and again, raped Honduras.

You are really missing the boat, Zorro, in continuing to believe that "Hugo" is somehow subverting Latin America. "Hugo" is just one leader. What is happening in Latin America is much bigger than "Hugo." Venezuela happens to be the first country where this leftist democracy revolution took place. The election of similar-minded leaders--leaders who are, above all, interested in asserting their country's sovereignty in regard to both U.S. and EU (but mostly U.S.) interference, by pulling together--soon followed. In Brazil. In Argentina. In Bolivia. In Ecuador. In Uruguay. In Paraguay (of all places!). In Chile. In Nicaragua. In Guatemala. In El Salvador. In Honduras. This is a huge, historic, unstoppable movement.

I think you are projecting how the U.S. corpo-fascist establishment behaves in the world onto "Hugo"--onto this phantom bogeyman that that very establishment has created. If "Hugo" provides cheap oil to Honduras, "Hugo" is "interfering." Yes, that is exactly what it means when the U.S. gives aid or makes trade deals. U.S. aid and U.S. trade deals are mechanisms of interference and control. They are mechanisms of subversion and robbery. They are mechanisms of oppression. WHO is "Hugo" oppressing by providing Honduras with cheap oil? The poor workers who get cheaper bus tickets? I'll tell who "Hugo" is oppressing, with cheap, and in some cases free, oil: He is "oppressing" Exxon-Mobil!

I can tell you, without any doubt in my mind, that, if you were to ask Lula da Silva or Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, or Cristina Fernandez in Argentina, or Evo Morales in Bolivia, or Rafael Correa in Ecuador, or Fernando Lugo in Paraguay, or Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, or any of these new leaders, "Is 'Hugo' interfering?," they would laugh in your face. Far from interfering, the people of Venezuela and THEIR government have led the way in establishing the sovereignty of these countries. These countries now have strength as democracies, and more control over their own affairs, and more clout in the world, BECAUSE Venezuela led the way. "Hugo" is corpo-fascist myth. The real person is NOT like OUR "dear leaders"--the Nixons and the Reagans and the Bushes and, yes, the Clintons--who have spent billions of our tax dollars actively subverting democracy in Latin America and supporting bloody tyrants, murder and chaos. THEY are the interferers! Hugo Chavez is just one president among many who are sick to death of this bloody interference and are fighting back. He is just one leader, among many, in a region where the vast majority of people are sick to death of this bloody interference and aren't going to take it any more. THEY actually believe in democracy. Do we? Does our government?

The memos I would like to see are the memos out of Langley to our corpo-fascist 'news' monopolies, laying out the "talking points" for turning "Hugo" into a "dictator" and a "threat to the region."

You are living in that "Alice in Wonderland" world, Zorro. And the entire U.S.A.--our beloved country and its people and their democratic ideals-- is being sucked right down into that "rabbit hole" by the LACK OF REALITY in our political establishment and the machinations of those who install them in power. In their upside down, inside out, backwards world, the Red Queen rules by "Off with their heads!" They are toxic with their love of power. They are blood-drenched, at this point, with stains that will never go away. They have drained us of our wealth and our dignity as a people. They have sent a third of the U.S. military into suicidal depression. And they are absurd in their posturings--and most especially in their posturings about "freedom and democracy." What a bloody crock!

It is the U.S. that is out there, subverting and interfering and assassinating and running psyops and playing dirty tricks and proliferating weapons, and creating mayhem with its "war on drugs" and its "war on terror," and robbing people blind! NOT "Hugo"!