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July 31, 2009 - No. 149 Consequences of Honduras' Coup
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 Repression of protestors during general strike in Honduras, July 30, 2009. |
Cuban Vice President Esteban Lazo said in Nicaragua on July 20 that the future of Latin America and the people's right to freely choose their leaders will be decided in Honduras.
Lazo, who led a Cuban delegation to the commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua, pointed out that the Honduran usurpers would not be able to survive if they were not counting on Washington's support, and he singled out American authorities as responsible for the military action.
In this regard, the Vice President quoted Cuban leader Fidel Castro as saying: "The only right thing to do at this moment is to demand the U.S. government cease its intervention, to stop providing military support to the coup perpetrators and withdraw its taskforces [from Honduras]," reported Granma newspaper.
In his speech in the ceremony to mark the anniversary in Managua, the Cuban Vice President highlighted the progress made by the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) and for its determination in leading the Nicaraguan people and in defending their main achievements.
"We are proud to know that today the FSLN has fulfilled its commitment to lead Nicaragua into becoming a territory free of illiteracy," said Lazo.
The Cuban official conveyed a message of congratulations from Fidel, Raul and Cubans in general to the Nicaraguan people and saluted compatriots who are working in Nicaragua in different collaboration programs in the fields of education and health, among others.
Lazo said: "We are absolutely convinced that integration based in the principles of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of the Americas (ALBA) is the most effective way to face these threats."
He thanked the Nicaraguan people, government and in particular President Daniel Ortega for the expressions of solidarity with Cuba in different international forums in favor of the lifting of the U.S. economic blockade against his country and for the release of five Cuban antiterrorist fighters who have been unfairly imprisoned in the U.S. for more than a decade.
(Cuban News Agency)
The 30th Sandinista Anniversary
and the San José Proposal
The coup d'état in Honduras, promoted by the far right-wing of the United States -- which in Central America was maintaining the structure set up by Bush -- and backed by the Department of State, was evolving poorly on account of the energetic resistance by the people.
The criminal venture, condemned unanimously by world opinion and international bodies, could not be sustained.
The memory of atrocities committed during recent decades by the tyrannies that the United States organized, instructed and armed in our hemisphere was still fresh.
The efforts of the empire were set in motion during the Clinton administration and in the following years in the plan to impose the FTA on all the countries of Latin America via the so-called Summits of the Americas.
The intention of committing the hemisphere to a free trade agreement fell through. The economies in other parts of the world grew at a good clip and the dollar lost its exclusive hegemony as the privileged currency. The brutal world financial crisis complicated the situation. Under those circumstances, the military coup was produced in Honduras, one of the poorest countries in the hemisphere.
In the wake of two weeks of growing popular struggle, the United States maneuvered to gain time. The Department of State appointed Oscar Arias, president of Costa Rica, to the task of helping along the military coup in Honduras, besieged by the vigorous but peaceful pressure exerted by the people. Never had such a similar event in Latin America received such a response.
In U.S. calculations, the fact that Arias held the title of Nobel laureate for peace held some weight.
The real Oscar Arias story indicates that the man we are dealing with is a neo-liberal politician, talented and with a gift for words, extremely calculating and a faithful ally of the United States.
From the first years of the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, the government of the United States used Costa Rica and apportioned it resources to present it as a showcase of the social advances that could be achieved under capitalism.
That Central American country was used as an imperialist base for the piratical attacks against Cuba. Thousands of Cuban technicians and university graduates were stolen away from our people who were already being submitted to a cruel blockade, in order to provide their services in Costa Rica. Relations between Costa Rica and Cuba have been restored in recent times; it was one of the two last countries in the hemisphere to do so, something that is of satisfaction for us, but in spite of that I must express what I am thinking at this historic moment for our America.
Arias, originally from the wealthy and leading class in Costa Rica, studied law and economics at a university in his country and later studied and graduated as master in political sciences from the English University of Essex where he finally graduated as Doctor of Political Sciences. Having such academic laurels, President José Figueres Ferrer of the National Liberation Party appointed him as advisor in 1970, at the age of 30, and shortly after he was appointed Minister of Planning, a position ratified by the next president Daniel Oduber. In 1978, he enters Congress as Deputy for that party. He ascends to secretary general in 1979 and is president for the first time in 1986.
Years before the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, an armed movement of the national bourgeoisie of Costa Rica, under the leadership of José Figueres Ferrer, father of President Figueres Olsen, had eliminated the small coup-perpetrating army of that country and his struggle gained the sympathies of the Cubans. When we were fighting in the Sierra Maestra against the Batista tyranny, we received some weapons and ammunition from the Liberation Party created by Figueres Ferrer, but he was too much of a friend to the Yankees and he soon broke with us. It cannot be forgotten that the OAS meeting in San José, Costa Rica gave rise to the First Declaration of Havana in 1960.
All of Central America suffered for more than 150 years and, since the days of the filibusterer William Walker who made himself president of Nicaragua in 1856, is still suffering the problem of United States interventionism which has been a constant, even though the heroic people of Nicaragua have now attained an independence that they are ready to defend right up to their last breath. Any support from Costa Rica is unheard of since it was achieved, even though there was a government in that country which, on the eve of the victory in 1979, saw fit to show solidarity with the Sandinista National Liberation Front.
When Nicaragua was being drained of its life blood in Reagan's dirty war, Guatemala and El Salvador had also paid a high price in human lives due to the U.S. interventionist policy that provided money, weapons, schools and indoctrination to the repressive troops. Daniel told us about how the Yankees finally promoted formulae that put an end to the revolutionary resistance of Guatemala and El Salvador.
On many occasions, Daniel had bitterly commented to me that Arias, following U.S. instructions, had excluded Nicaragua from the peace negotiations. He only met with the governments of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala to impose treaties on Nicaragua. Therefore he was expressing great gratitude to [then Guatemalan President] Vinicio Cerezo. He also told me that the first treaty signed in the convent of Esquipulas, Guatemala on August 7, 1987, after two days of intense conversations among the five Central American presidents. I have never publicly spoken about that.
But this time, while commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Sandinista victory on July 19, 1979, Daniel explained it all with impressive clarity, as he did with all subjects throughout his speech that was heard by hundreds of thousands of people and broadcast on radio and television. I use his exact words: "The Yankees appointed him as mediator. We have deep sympathies with the people of Costa Rica, but I cannot forget, in those tough years the president of Costa Rica called together the Central American presidents and he didn't invite us "
"But the other Central American presidents were more sensible and they told him: There can be no peace plan here if Nicaragua isn't present. In the name of historical truth, the president had the fortitude to break the isolation the Yankees had imposed on Central America -- where they had forbidden the presidents to talk with the president of Nicaragua and they wanted a military solution, they wanted to finish Nicaragua off, finish off its revolution, with a war -- the man who took that courageous step was President Vinicius Cerezo of Guatemala. That is the true story."
Right away he added: "The Yankees came running to find President Oscar Arias, because they already know him! They want to find a way to gain some time, so that the perpetrators of the coup begin to make demands that are unacceptable. Who has ever heard of a coup negotiating with the people from whom it is ripping away their constitutional rights? Those rights cannot be negotiated; one simply has to reinstate President Manuel Zelaya, just as the ALBA, Rio Group, SICA [Central American Integration System], OAS and United Nations treaties stated.
"We want peaceful solutions in our countries. The battle being fought by the people of Honduras at this time is a non-violent battle, in order to avoid more pain than that which has already been inflicted on Honduras," concluded Daniel, verbatim.
Because of the dirty war ordered by Reagan and which in part -- he told me -- was funded by drugs sent to the United States, more than 60,000 persons lost their lives and 5,800 more were made invalid. Reagan's dirty war gave rise to the destruction and abandonment of 300 schools and 25 health centres; 150 teachers were murdered. The toll rose to tens of billions of dollars. Nicaragua only had 3.5 million inhabitants, it stopped receiving the fuel that the USSR was sending them and the economy became unsustainable. It called elections and even had them earlier, and it respected what the people decided, those people who had lost all hope for holding on to the gains of the Revolution. Nearly 17 years later, the Sandinistas returned to the government in victory; just two days ago they were celebrating the 30th anniversary of the first victory.
On Saturday, July 18th, the Nobel Laureate proposed 7 points of the personal peace initiative that was detracting from the authority of the UN and OAS decisions and was tantamount to an act of renunciation by Manuel Zelaya that took away sympathies and weakened poplar support. The constitutional president sent what he described as an ultimatum for the coup, which his representatives were to present, announcing at the same time his return to Honduras on Sunday, July 19th via any department of that country.
Around noon on that Sunday, a giant Sandinista demonstration takes place, with historical denunciations of U.S. policy. They were truths that could be nothing other than tremendously significant.
The worst of the matter is that the United States was running into resistance for its sweetening manoeuvre from the coup government. It would still need to be pinpointed at what moment the Department of State sends their strong message to Micheletti, and whether the military chiefs were warned about the positions of the U.S. government.
What is real is that for whoever would be closely following the events, Micheletti was against peace on Monday. His representative in San José, Carlos López Contreras, had declared that the Arias proposal could not be discussed because the first point, the one dealing with Zelaya's reinstatement, was not negotiable. The civilian government of the coup had taken its role seriously and did not even realize that Zelaya, divested of his authority, would not represent any risk to the oligarchy and would suffer a politically hard blow if he accepted the proposal made by the president of Costa Rica.
That very same Sunday the 19th, when Arias is asking for another 72 hours to explain his position, Mrs. Clinton is speaking on the phone with Micheletti and sustains what the spokesperson Philip Crowley describes as a "tough phone call". Some day we shall know what she said to him, but it would be enough just to see Micheletti's face when he spoke at a meeting of his government on Monday July 20th: he really looked like a kid in kindergarten who had been scolded by his teacher. I was able to see the images and hear the speeches at the meeting on Telesur. Other images broadcast were those of the OAS representatives making their speeches in the heart of that institution, committing themselves to await the last word of the Nobel Laureate on Wednesday. Did they or didn't they know what Mrs. Clinton had said to Micheletti? Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. Perhaps some of them, not all of them, knew. Men, institutions and concepts had turned into instruments of the high-handed and arrogant policy of Washington. Never had a speech in the heart of the OAS shone with such dignity as the brief but brave words at that meeting spoken by Roy Chaderton, the Venezuelan ambassador.
Tomorrow the stony image of Oscar Arias will appear, explaining that they have drawn up such and such a solution to avoid violence. I think that even Arias himself has fallen into the great trap set up by the Department of State. Let's see what he does tomorrow.
Nevertheless, the people of Honduras are the ones who will have the last word. Representatives of the social organizations and the new forces are not the instruments of anyone, inside or outside the country. They know the needs and suffering of the people, their awareness and their mettle have multiplied; many citizens who were indolent have joined the cause; the very members of the traditional parties who are honest and who believe in freedom, justice and human dignity will judge their leaders on the position they will adopt at this historical moment.
We still do not know what the attitude of the military will be when faced with the Yankee ultimata, and what messages will get to the officers; there is only one patriotic and honourable point of reference: loyalty to the people who have heroically stood up to the tear gas bombs, the blows and the shooting.
Without anybody being able to be sure about what the final whim of the empire will be, whether Zelaya returns legally or illegally as a result of the final decisions adopted, without a doubt Hondurans will give him a grand welcome because it will be a measure of the victory that they have already won with their struggles. Let nobody doubt that only the Honduran people will be able to build their own history!
Fidel Castro Ruz
July 21, 2009
8:55 p.m.
A Nobel Prize for Mrs. Clinton
The interminable document read out yesterday by Nobel laureate Oscar Arias is far worse than the seven points of the act of rendition that he proposed on July 18. He did not communicate with international opinion via a Morse code. He spoke before TV cameras that were broadcasting his image and all the details of the human face, which generally has as many variables as a person's fingerprints. Any intention of lying can be easily discovered. I was observing him closely.
Among television viewers, the vast majority knew that a coup d'état had taken place in Honduras. Via that medium they were informed of the speeches made in the OAS, the UN, the SICA, the Non-Aligned [Movement] Summit and other forums; they had seen the outrages, and the abuse and repression of the people in activities that have brought together hundreds of thousands of people to protest against the coup d'état.
The strangest thing is that, when Arias was expounding on his new peace proposal, he wasn't delirious; he believed in what he was saying.
Although very few people in Honduras were able to see the footage, many people in the rest of the world did see it and likewise, had seen when he proposed the famous seven points of July 18. They knew that the first of them stated textually: "The legitimate restitution of José Manuel Zelaya Rosales in the Presidency of the Republic until the end of the constitutional period for which he was elected." Everybody wanted to know what the mediator would say yesterday afternoon. The recognition of the rights of the constitutional president of Honduras, with his powers reduced almost to zero in the first proposal, was relegated to sixth place in Arias' second project, in which not even the phrase "legitimize the restitution" is employed.
Many upstanding people were shocked, and they possibly attribute what he said yesterday to his own shady maneuvers. Maybe I am one of the few people in the world to understand that there was an auto-suggestion more than a deliberate intention in the words of the Nobel Peace laureate. I particularly noticed that when Arias, with a special emphasis, his words choked with emotion, spoke of the multitude of messages that presidents and world leaders, moved by his initiative, had sent him. That is what passes through one's mind; he doesn't even realize that other honest and modest Nobel Peace laureates like Rigoberto Menchú and Adolfo Pérez Esquivel are indignant at what has taken place in Honduras.
Without any doubt whatsoever, a large number of Latin American governments, those which knew that Zelaya had approved of Arias' initial project and that he trusted in the good sense of the coup leaders and their yanki allies, breathed a sigh of relief, which only lasted 72 hours.
Seen from another angle and returning to things prevailing in the real world, where the dominant empire exists and close to 200 sovereign states are having to battle with all kinds of conflicts and political, economic, environmental, religious and other interests, it only remains to give a prize to the brilliant yanki idea of thinking of Oscar Arias in order to gain time, consolidate the coup and demoralize the international agencies that supported Zelaya.
At the event commemorating the 30th anniversary of the triumph of the Sandinista Revolution, Daniel Ortega, recalling with bitterness the role of Arias in the first Esquipulas Agreement, stated before a huge crowd of Nicaraguan patriots: "The yankis know him very well, that's why they chose him as a mediator in Honduras." An that same event, Rigoberto Menchú, of indigenous descent, condemned the coup.
If the measures approved in the foreign ministers' meeting in Washington had simply been implemented, the coup d'état could not have survived the peaceful resistance of the Honduran people.
Now the coup leaders are already moving within Latin America's oligarchic circles, some of which, in their high state positions, no longer blush when speaking of their sympathies toward the coup, and imperialism is fishing in the troubled waters of Latin America. Exactly what the United States wanted with the peace initiative, while it accelerated negotiations to surround the homeland of Bolívar with military bases.
One must be fair, and while we are waiting for the last word of the people of Honduras, we should demand a Nobel Prize for Mrs. Clinton.
Fidel Castro Ruz
July 23, 2009
2:30 p.m.
The Hired Gun of Roberto Micheletti:
History of the Torturer Joya Améndola
The blood of those who lived through the dirty wars of the '80s in Central America will freeze on hearing the news that the special adviser to the de facto Honduran president is named Billy Joya Améndola.
In order to understand the political culture of the coup junta over which Roberto Michalatti resides it is necessary to review the CV of Joya Améndola.
In the '80s Billy Joya Améndola was one of the principal leaders of the Intelligence Battalion 316, in charge of the kidnapping and disappearance of political opponents and founder of the "Lince" and "Cobra" death squads. In this capacity he became one of the principal perpetrators of kidnappings, tortures and assassinations in Honduras, and he has been accused with certainty of at least eleven extrajudicial executions under the pseudonym "Doctor Arranzola."
Furthermore, he is accused of the kidnapping and torture of six students, four of which continue to be disappeared. The students were kidnapped the 27th of April of 1982 from the house of the assistant of the Attorney General of the country, Rafael Rivera, violating the immunity of the second most powerful judge in the country, using methods from the Argentinian dictatorship.
Even if there isn't definitive proof that Joya Améndola received instruction in the United States, there is proof that he worked in Argentina under the orders of one of the principal repressors, Guillermo Suárez Mason, known among other things for being the principal organizer of child-kidnappings during the last dictatorship. Furthermore he obtained a scholarship from the Honduran army to study in Augusto Pinochet's Chile.
Afterwards, from 1984 to 1991 he served as a go-between for the Honduran army, the Argentinian repressors and the United Statesians during the dirty war.
The Spanish government has sought the extradition of Joya Améndola various times since 1985 through Interpol, but nonetheless the Honduran judicial system (the same one that has filed 18 legal complaints against Mel Zelaya) never once responded. Despite this, when a judge in Tegucigalpa accused him of kidnapping and torture in 1994 and issued an arrest order for him in 1995, it was in Spain where he took refuge and remained as an asylum applicant until he was expelled in 1998. During those years he worked as a catechizer in a school in Seville.
Today he is the right arm of Roberto Micheletti.
(Giornalismo Partecipativo, July 14, 2009. Translated from the original Spanish by Adrienne Pine)
Honduras Coup: the U.S. Connection
The topic most widely debated in Latin America at the moment is what Obama's administration has got to do with the recent coup in Honduras.
The answer is straightforward -- everything. The coup is aligned with U.S. strategic objectives and is going to be used by Washington to regain positions in the region which it lost during George Bush's presidency.
No problems between Honduras and the U.S. loomed on the horizon over the first months of Manuel Zelaya's presidency. The relations fit entirely within the traditional colonial pattern: Tegucigalpa fully recognized its inferior status and never did anything that could provoke Washington's discontent.
In Honduras -- one of Latin America's poorest countries where the economy is controlled by U.S. companies and foreign politics is guided by the U.S. State Department -- the de facto loss of sovereignty has long ago translated into a political inferiority complex.
The Honduran political and military elites competed over U.S. favors while never forgetting to extract material benefits from the humiliating status quo. Honduras always served the U.S. as a foothold for offensives against liberation movements in the region and was even dubbed the "Honduras aircraft carrier" as a result.
While Latin America was generally drifting left and the so-called populist regimes pursuing social justice and opposing predatory capitalism were emerging, until recently Honduras remained a bastion of the U.S. neocons and the forces of Latin American reaction.
John Negroponte who was the U.S. ambassador to the country in the 1980s, an epoch marked by the proliferation of leftist insurgencies in the region, wrote a particularly dark page into Honduran history.
Convinced that any means were acceptable, he did everything possible to bleed the enemy. The political scene in Honduras was cleaned totally as potential opposition leaders invariably got killed when ambushed by the secret police, disappeared without trace, or "committed suicide."
The ruthless killings of those who espoused left-of-center views have never been forgotten, and, extrapolating from past experience, Hondurans still regard a new round of repression as the only potential scenario for the future after the overthrow of Manuel Zelaya. He was dragged from his bed early on June 28 and put on a plane to Costa Rica by army conspirators. The coup was backed by an intense propaganda campaign with an outpouring of allegations that Zelaya was a murderer, an aide of the tyrant Chavez and Castro brothers, and a psychotic individual attempting to use a Constitutional Assembly referendum to lift constitutional limits on his presidential term.
Roberto Micheletti, former leader of the Honduran parliament which was in opposition to Zelaya, became the de facto president of the country.
As usual during such coups, media outlets which sided with the toppled president were closed, censorship was instated, and journalists from "unfriendly" (populist) countries were deported.
A smear campaign against Zelaya swept across the Honduran media. The charges brought up against the forcibly removed president seemed to be borrowed from the Cold War era: claims were made that he sold himself for petrodollars and discount oil supply prices, that he was corrupt and betrayed the country's national interests. One idea that was upheld permanently was that the removal of Zelaya -- the alleged madman -- was an entirely domestic affair and the result of Honduran patriots' resolute action that was in no way inspired from outside the country.
Was this actually the case? The U.S. involvement became fully manifest over the less than three weeks since the coup, preparations for which were blessed already by George Bush's administration.
The U.S. neocons were convinced that the populists were not as strong as they appeared, and that one powerful strike would trigger a domino effect. The key figures behind the conspiracy were U.S. Vice President Richard Cheney and John Negroponte. It was a matter of pride for them to arrest the drift of Honduras -- the country they saw as the main instrument of curbing the influence of Hugo Chavez -- in the direction of the populist camp.
Discussions in George Bush's team revolved around the timing of the coup. One option under consideration was to synchronize it with Georgia's aggression against South Ossetia in order to demonstrate U.S. assertiveness over all azimuths, but the idea was found too extreme even by the staunchest hawks given the upcoming elections in the U.S.
Instead, it was decided to spin off the plan and leave the whole risky venture to the Democrats to put into practice.
Zelaya is a wealthy individual who was successful in the agro-industrial business. During his presidential campaign, he sold his candidacy as a neoliberal politician who nevertheless appreciated the importance of improving the living standards of his less affluent countrymen.
At the very early stage of his presidency, Zelaya realized that the neoliberal model did not work, the budget was depleted, the hopes that investments and free market would ensure economic growth were not coming true, and the only thing that was actually growing in the country was widespread poverty. Honduras was kept afloat mainly by remittances from Honduran immigrants to the U.S. who encountered difficulties dealing with U.S. authorities -- were fined or deported in numbers -- whenever Zelaya showed signs of what Washington saw as undue independence.
The oil crisis that erupted in Honduras finally convinced Zelaya to change course. U.S. companies, which monopolized the business of importing oil to the country, manipulated prices and created an artificial shortage in the fuel supply. Protests and strikes which left Honduras on the verge of a full-blown crisis made Zelaya temporarily expropriate oil storages owned by U.S. companies.
As the next step, he forged closer ties with ALBA leaders and signed several deals with Venezuela to buy oil at discount prices, broaden trade between the two countries, and jointly modernize transit infrastructures. One of Zelaya's priority projects was to construct with the assistance of the ALBA countries a modern airport on the site occupied by the U.S. Soto Cano Air Base. The airport that is currently operating is located practically in downtown Tegucigalpa and is technically unsafe. The threat of losing another strategic airbase in Latin America made Washington hurry up with the coup.
Negroponte is known to have visited Honduras already after the inauguration of Barack Obama. He met a number of opposition politicians and secured Micheletti's pledge "to go all the way." Similar guarantees were given to him by representatives of the Honduran business community, the Roman Catholic Church, the owners of TV channels, and the military elite. At the time former adviser to Condoleezza Rice in the U.S. State Department Negroponte had jumped to Hillary Clinton's team -- the new administration obviously deemed his specific expertise in international affairs still useful.
Throughout 2008 Negroponte was building in Central America an intelligence and diplomacy network charged with the mission of regaining the positions lost by the U.S. as well as of neutralizing left regimes and ALBA integration initiative.
At present the U.S. ambassadors to Latin American countries -- Hugo Llorens to Honduras, Robert I. Blau to El Salvador, Stephen G. McFarland to Guatemala, and Robert J. Callahan to Nicaragua -- are Negroponte's people. All of them have practical experience of destabilizing and subverting political regimes unfriendly to the U.S., launching propaganda campaigns, and creating fifth columns in the form of various NGOs. An organization of the kind -- the Civil Democratic Union -- was established in Honduras. It brought together the entire spectrum of Zelaya foes -- from the Roman Catholic Church hierarchs to the Council of Private Business and from the Confederation of Honduran Workers to the Generacion X Cambio rightist student group.
A conflict with the military and the failed attempt to fire army chief Romeo Vasquez were indications of the intensity of the crisis in Honduras.
Vasquez and most of the army's senior officers were trained in the U.S.-patronized School of the Americas and maintain close ties with the U.S. military mission, regularly getting subventions via its network.
Not surprisingly, the Honduran army's elite sided with the U.S. and is going to oppose Zelaya's reinstatement. If the overthrown president does return, he will have to keep it in mind that the military elite presents a permanent threat to his life. In Honduras, the army has an extensive experience of murders justified by "the country's supreme interests."
Hypothetically, Zelaya can expect to find some support among the mid- and low-ranking officers. They are the target audience of his radio-addresses from abroad in which he continues to say that the authority in the country has been usurped and that they have the right to resist.
Officially, Washington is actively advocating reconciliation in Honduras, but in reality it is helping Micheletti by impeding Zelaya's return. The U.S. would rather see Micheletti gain ground and Zelaya lose irreversibly. Theoretically, there exists a possibility of a compromise between the two, but in this case Washington will be pushing for a radical limitation of Zelaya's authority.
Elections in Honduras are scheduled for November. If they take place as planned, those who organized the coup -- and the U.S. more than others -- will be trying to ensure Zelaya's defeat.
(Strategic Culture Foundation (Russia), July 25, 2009)
From Arbenz to Zelaya:
Chiquita in Latin America
 Chiquita, Honduras' National Coat of Arms (Rebelión) |
When the Honduran military overthrew the democratically elected government of Manuel Zelaya two weeks ago there might have been a sigh of relief in the corporate board rooms of Chiquita banana. Earlier this year the Cincinnati-based fruit company joined Dole in criticizing the government in Tegucigalpa which had raised the minimum wage by 60%. Chiquita complained that the new regulations would cut into company profits, requiring the firm to spend more on costs than in Costa Rica: 20 cents more to produce a crate of pineapple and ten cents more to produce a crate of bananas to be exact. In all, Chiquita fretted that it would lose millions under Zelaya's labor reforms since the company produced around 8 million crates of pineapple and 22 million crates of bananas per year.
When the minimum wage decree came down Chiquita sought help and appealed to the Honduran National Business Council, known by its Spanish acronym COHEP. Like Chiquita, COHEP was unhappy about Zelaya's minimum wage measure. Amílcar Bulnes, the group's president, argued that if the government went forward with the minimum wage increase employers would be forced to let workers go, thus increasing unemployment in the country. The most important business organization in Honduras, COHEP groups 60 trade associations and chambers of commerce representing every sector of the Honduran economy. According to its own Web site, COHEP is the political and technical arm of the Honduran private sector, supports trade agreements and provides "critical support for the democratic system."
The international community should not impose economic sanctions against the coup regime in Tegucigalpa, COHEP argues, because this would worsen Honduras' social problems. In its new role as the mouthpiece for Honduras' poor, COHEP declares that Honduras has already suffered from earthquakes, torrential rains and the global financial crisis. Before punishing the coup regime with punitive measures, COHEP argues, the United Nations and the Organization of American States should send observer teams to Honduras to investigate how sanctions might affect 70% of Hondurans who live in poverty. Bulnes meanwhile has voiced his support for the coup regime of Roberto Micheletti and argues that the political conditions in Honduras are not propitious for Zelaya's return from exile.
Chiquita: From Arbenz to Bananagate
 Jacobo Arbenz, President of Guatemala, 1951-54. |
It's not surprising that Chiquita would seek out and ally itself to socially and politically backward forces in Honduras. Colsiba, the coordinating body of banana plantation workers in Latin America, says the fruit company has failed to supply its workers with necessary protective gear and has dragged its feet when it comes to signing collective labor agreements in Nicaragua, Guatemala and Honduras.
Colsiba compares the infernal labor conditions on Chiquita plantations to concentration camps. It's an inflammatory comparison yet may contain a degree of truth. Women working on Chiquita's plantations in Central America work from 6:30 a.m. until 7 at night, their hands burning up inside rubber gloves. Some workers are as young as 14. Central American banana workers have sought damages against Chiquita for exposing them in the field to DBCP, a dangerous pesticide which causes sterility, cancer and birth defects in children.
Chiquita, formerly known as United Fruit Company and
United Brands, has had a long and sordid political history in Central
America. Led by Sam "The Banana Man" Zemurray, United Fruit got into
the banana business at the turn of the twentieth century. Zemurray once
remarked famously, "In Honduras,
a mule costs more than a member of parliament." By the 1920s United
Fruit controlled 650,000 acres of the best land in Honduras, almost one
quarter of all the arable land in the country. What's more, the company
controlled important roads and railways.
In Honduras the fruit companies spread their influence
into every area of life including politics and the military. For such
tactics they acquired the name los pulpos (the octopuses,
from the way they spread their tentacles). Those who did not play ball
with the corporations were frequently
found face down on the plantations. In 1904 humorist O. Henry coined
the term "Banana Republic" to refer to the notorious United Fruit
Company and its actions in Honduras.
In Guatemala, United Fruit supported the CIA-backed 1954 military coup against President Jacobo Arbenz, a reformer who had carried out a land reform package. Arbenz' overthrow led to more than
 Guatemalan counter-revolutionaries training in Honduras. |
In 1972, United Fruit (now renamed United Brands) propelled Honduran General Oswaldo López Arellano to power. The dictator was forced to step down later however after the infamous "Bananagate" scandal which involved United Brands bribes to Arellano. A federal grand jury accused United Brands of bribing Arellano with $1.25 million, with the carrot of another $1.25 million later if the military man agreed to reduce fruit export taxes. During Bananagate, United Brands' President fell from a New York City skyscraper in an apparent suicide.
Go-Go Clinton Years and Colombia
In Colombia United Fruit also set up shop and during its operations in the South American country developed a no less checkered profile. In 1928, 3,000 workers went on strike against the company to demand better pay and working conditions. At first the company refused to negotiate but later gave in on some minor points, declaring the other demands "illegal" or "impossible." When the strikers refused to disperse the military fired on the banana workers, killing scores.
You might think that Chiquita would have reconsidered its labor policies after that but in the late 1990s the company began to ally itself with insidious forces, specifically right wing paramilitaries. Chiquita paid off the men to the tune of more than a million dollars. In its own defense, the company declared that it was merely paying protection money to the paramilitaries.
In 2007, Chiquita paid $25 million to settle a Justice Department investigation into the payments. Chiquita was the first company in U.S. history to be convicted of financial dealings with a designated terrorist organization.
In a lawsuit launched against Chiquita victims of the paramilitary violence claimed the firm abetted atrocities including terrorism, war crimes and crimes against humanity. A lawyer for the plaintiffs said that Chiquita's relationship with the paramilitaries "was about acquiring every aspect of banana distribution and sale through a reign of terror."
Back in Washington, D.C. Charles Lindner, Chiquita's CEO, was busy courting the White House. Lindner had been a big donor to the GOP but switched sides and began to lavish cash on the Democrats and Bill Clinton. Clinton repaid Linder by becoming a key military backer of the government of Andrés Pastrana which presided over the proliferation of right wing death squads. At the time the U.S. was pursuing its corporate-friendly free trade agenda in Latin America, a strategy carried out by Clinton's old boyhood friend Thomas "Mack" McLarty. At the White House, McLarty served as Chief of Staff and Special Envoy to Latin America. He's an intriguing figure who I'll come back to in a moment.
The Holder-Chiquita Connection
Given Chiquita's underhanded record in Central America and Colombia it's not a surprise that the company later sought to ally itself with COHEP in Honduras. In addition to lobbying business associations in Honduras however Chiquita also cultivated relationships with high powered law firms in Washington. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Chiquita has paid out $70,000 in lobbying fees to Covington and Burling over the past three years.
Covington is a powerful law firm which advises multinational corporations. Eric Holder, the current Attorney General, a co-chair of the Obama campaign and former Deputy Attorney General under Bill Clinton was up until recently a partner at the firm. At Covington, Holder defended Chiquita as lead counsel in its case with the Justice Department. From his perch at the elegant new Covington headquarters located near the New York Times building in Manhattan, Holder prepped Fernando Aguirre, Chiquita's CEO, for an interview with 60 Minutes dealing with Colombian death squads.
Holder had the fruit company plead guilty to one count of "engaging in transactions with a specially designated global terrorist organization." But the lawyer, who was taking in a hefty salary at Covington to the tune of more than $2 million, brokered a sweetheart deal in which Chiquita only paid a $25 million fine over five years. Outrageously however, not one of the six company officials who approved the payments received any jail time.
The Curious Case of Covington
Look a little deeper and you'll find that not only does Covington represent Chiquita but also serves as a kind of nexus for the political right intent on pushing a hawkish foreign policy in Latin America. Covington has pursued an important strategic alliance with Kissinger (of Chile, 1973 fame) and McLarty Associates (yes, the same Mack McLarty from Clinton-time), a well known international consulting and strategic advisory firm.
From 1974 to 1981 John Bolton served as an associate at Covington. As U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations under George Bush, Bolton was a fierce critic of leftists in Latin America such as Venezuela's Hugo Chávez. Furthermore, just recently John Negroponte became Covington's Vice Chairman. Negroponte is a former Deputy Secretary of State, Director of National Intelligence and U.S. Representative to the United Nations.
As U.S. Ambassador to Honduras from 1981-1985, Negroponte played a significant role in assisting the U.S.-backed Contra rebels intent on overthrowing the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. Human rights groups have criticized Negroponte for ignoring human rights abuses committed by Honduran death squads which were funded and partially trained by the Central Intelligence Agency. Indeed, when Negroponte served as ambassador his building in Tegucigalpa became one of the largest nerve centers of the CIA in Latin America with a tenfold increase in personnel.
While there's no evidence linking Chiquita to the recent coup in Honduras, there's enough of a confluence of suspicious characters and political heavyweights here to warrant further investigation. From COHEP to Covington to Holder to Negroponte to McLarty, Chiquita has sought out friends in high places, friends who had no love for the progressive labor policies of the Zelaya regime in Tegucigalpa.
* Nikolas Kozloff is the author of Revolution! South America and the Rise of the New Left (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2008) Follow his blog at senorchichero.blogspot.com. This item was published in Counterpunch, July 17, 2009.
Update
Another Anti-Coup National Strike in Honduras
Another national strike in the state sector, marches, and the taking of highways and public institutions characterize Honduras on the 34th day of popular resistance to the military coup.
The 48-hour strike, called last Sunday by the three main labour union groups at the end of an assembly of the National Front against the Coup, adopted strategies for the restitution of constitutional order. The six national education colleges which are part of the July 30 and July 31 demonstrations, adopted a strategy aimed at recovering days lost in the school year. Thus, teachers are returning to the classroom for the first three days of the week while closing down the educational institutions on Thursday and Friday. Teachers and professors maintained a strike for three weeks after the coup on June 28.
In the last three days, members of the Front have closed access to the city's principal luxury shopping malls and stores in reaction to business sector support for the coup leaders. On July 29, the protest affected Metro Mall, part-owned by the former president of Panamanian origin, Ricardo Maduro.
The army and riot police closed in on the demonstrators and caused moments of tension, news agencies report. However, another armed attack was averted by march leaders who insisted on the peaceful nature of the demonstration.
Despite this, on Thursday Honduran army soldiers and riot police attacked a peaceful march along the Pan-American Highway which links the capital with the country's northern area. Witnesses told Radio Globo, a station in the capital, the aggression started at about 10:20, local time, near El Durazno community 5 kilometres from the city, on one of the mountains that surround Tegucigalpa.
A woman said that the soldiers and riot police agents beat demonstrators and even journalists who were reporting on the incidents, declaring that they would not allow any more filming of these repressive actions. The woman demanded that the de facto government's president, businessman Roberto Micheletti, stop repressing people who are demonstrating peacefully. "Micheletti, Out!" she shouted over the reporter's microphone, before walking away from the area.
Dozens of protesters were injured by the coup forces, several left unconscious by the repression and some remain hospitalized in critical condition, Eva Golinger informs.
Meanwhile, the de facto government has re-extended the state of siege in the eastern department of El Paraíso, which has been subjected to this order for six days, thus provoking a humanitarian crisis in the area. Army troops and police are still mounting roadblocks on the Pan-American Highway to Las Manos, on the border with Nicaragua, in order to prevent the crossing of thousands of people who are hoping to join up with President Manuel Zelaya, who is preparing his return to the country.
Zelaya's mother, Hortensia Rosales; his wife, Xiomara Castro; and their daughter Xiomara, have been detained at these military posts since last Friday in their effort to reunite the family.
Popular vigils at the Venezuelan embassy and the Radio Globo radio station continued last night for the sixth consecutive day in an effort to protect them from police action. The radio station has been broadcasting constant coverage of the popular resistance against the coup leaders.
In related news, Eva Gollinger informs: "U.S. Ambassador to Honduras, Cuban-American Hugo Llorens, travelled to Nicaragua [July 30] to meet with President Zelaya in Managua, in order to 'negotiate' a solution to the crisis. Llorens reiterated Washington's 'recognition' of President Zelaya as the legitimate president of Honduras, yet refused to take further steps to isolate and pressure the coup regime. Washington remains the only country in the regime that has not recognized a coup having taken place in Honduras and that has not suspended diplomatic relations. The United States is also the principal source of economic support to Honduras -- both through commerce as well as aid -- and none of that has been suspended. Furthermore, Washington continues to maintain its immense military presence in Honduras on the Soto Cano base, engaging in military operations and missions together with the Honduran armed forces, today under control of the coup regime."
In another dispatch, Gollinger writes: "The Spanish government has fully condemned the coup regime and called for the European Union to prohibit all coup regime representatives from travel to Europe.
"Meanwhile, the visas 'revoked' by the U.S. State Department that belonged to 4 Hondurans were just diplomatic visas. This is standard procedure considering the individuals no longer work for the Zelaya government, which technically is the only Honduran government accredited with the State Department. Tourist visas for these individuals, however, have not been revoked, which means they are still free to travel to the U.S. No ban has been placed on members of the coup regime to prohibit entry to the U.S. That is the key. The mere revocation of diplomatic visas is by no means a sign of U.S. pressure on the coup regime. It was minimal effort to comply with the law."
(Granma International, Prensa Latina, Postcards from the Revolution)
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