US Support For Lobo
Undermines Latin American Democracy
John Green [Senior Research Fellow, Council
on Hemispheric Affairs]: "When Honduran
President Porfirio Lobo predictably chose
several days ago to pardon the military
leaders involved in the June 28, 2009 coup
against his predecessor, President Manuel
Zelaya, he was staying true to traditional
Central American form.
Lobo, who supported the coup, was "elected"
under conditions that seem to take the
region back to the heady Cold War days of
the 1980s, Ronald Reagan, Contras, and
Honduras' very own death squad, the
Battalion 3-16.
The majority of Hondurans boycotted the
elections, as did reputable international
observers.
Many candidates for other offices withdrew,
and despite State Department insistence that
the process was perfectly transparent, the
UN declared that conditions for a fair
election were not present. And just to
further dramatize the scene, there were
various political assassinations before and
after the contest.
It is also likely that the Lobo
administration, along with its backers, is
intent on reversing the direction of the
Zelaya years.
No more talk of social justice, or new terms
for debt, or pesky ideas about how to
protect the public sector from more IMF
sanctioned privatization, or serious
proposals to reform a horrific Judiciary.
Despite the hundreds of thousands of
protesters in a number of marches, the
country seems back on track to the past.
There are even growing paramilitary protest
squads back in place to deal with the
dissenters. Meet the new Honduras, the
quintessential "Banana Republic."
While the Obama administration originally
stood with the rest of the international
community in condemning the coup and called
for a restoration of democracy, it has
seemingly begun to challenge the spirits of
its forerunners.
It has been pushing other presidents in the
hemisphere to recognize the Lobo government,
while Secretary of State Clinton cited
questionable figures from the
illegally-appointed Honduran Supreme
Electoral Tribunal to justify the election.
By breaking ranks with the bulk of Latin
America's democratically-elected governments
on confronting the Honduran crisis with
democratic substance and not just form,
Barrack Obama's administration had
squandered whatever hope was left for a
progressive turn in US-Latin American
relations.
The White House seems to be telling the
world that nothing new on this score will be
coming out of Washington D.C."
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