U.S. calls Honduran coup a coup, cuts aid, might not recognize November election results

[Sam_Stone]

That actually sounds like it might be a reasonable compromise. Once the election is done and he can’t interfere with it, let him come back and run out the rest of his term.

[GIGObuster]

@Sam_Stone

That actually sounds like it might be a reasonable compromise. Once the election is done and he can’t interfere with it, let him come back and run out the rest of his term.

It still looks like a demonstration of cowardice at the high levels.

Again, with no army, police and justices Zelaya could not get away with anything.

Together with the fact that that was the compromise the negotiator came with (the only difference is that Zelaya should be president before the elections), I still have to conclude that the current rulers in Honduras are idiots. They do not even want to give what it will be **just a symbolic victory **to the people that oppose the coup.

[BrainGlutton]

@Sam_Stone

That actually sounds like it might be a reasonable compromise. Once the election is done and he can’t interfere with it, let him come back and run out the rest of his term.

:dubious: I repeat: You know perfectly well that free and fair elections are impossible while the current de facto government is in power. And if somehow you don’t know, you can be sure the Honduran people do know, as does the de facto government, and all the rest of the world.

[BrainGlutton]

From In These Times, 10/14/09 – “No Such Thing as a Free Putsch”:

Banana Republicans

“The real reasons behind the coup were, of course, economic ones,” says Dr. Juan Almendares, a Honduran physician and internationally renowned human rights activist who’s been a leading figure in the resistance despite having received several death threats.

“Zelaya had dared to help the poor by raising the minimum wage, offering social security, even subsidizing electricity,” he says. According to Almendares, none of that sat well with the country’s elite. “He also refused to privatize Hondatel [the national phone company] and he challenged Texaco and Standard Oil by using state power to negotiate lower oil prices.” Further, Zelaya had restricted the exploitation of Honduran natural resources by transnational mining and logging companies (Home Depot is a major buyer of timber) “which is why those same companies backed the coup” says Almendares.

“It’s impossible to think certain conservative elements in Washington didn’t have prior knowledge of the takeover,” he says. “Honduras is, basically, a U.S.-occupied colony,” referring to the U.S. airbase at Sato Cano that Zelaya had wanted closed. “Could there be, for example, a successful coup in Iraq without U.S. approval? It simply isn’t possible.”

Meanwhile, the U.S. response seems self-contradictory. While the State Department has loudly trumpeted punitive cuts in funding to the de facto regime totaling about $33 million, the Millenium Challenge Corps (a tax-payer funded organization under the State Department) is still slated to dole out about 100 million to Honduras through 2010. When similar coups occurred in Malaysia and Madagascar in recent years, the State Department severed all aid immediately.

According to Almendares, the most important thing for people in the United States to realize is that “the resistance is not really about Zelaya. What the people truly want is a new constitution,” he says. “They dream of a government that allows democratic participation. That is why they have taken to the streets.”

[BrainGlutton]

Poll: Majority of Hondurans oppose coup, want Zelaya back.

[Raygun99]

And there’s a deal.

[BrainGlutton]

@Raygun99

And there’s a deal.

However:

Hardliners in the coup government, however, see a loophole in the accords, which gives the Honduran National Congress the power to approve or reject Zelaya’s return. And no sooner was the ink dry on the accord when a top Micheletti advisor, Marcia Facusse de Villeda, told Bloomberg News that “Zelaya won’t be restored.” In a barefaced admission that the coup government was trying to buy time, Facusse said that “just by signing this agreement we already have the recognition of the international community for the elections.” Another Micheletti aide, Arturo Corrales, said that since the congress is not in session, no vote on the agreement could be scheduled until “after the elections.”

But such a calculated reading of the agreement will not play well with most countries, including the United Nations, the Organization of American States, and the European Union, which have repeatedly called for restoration of Zelaya. Brazil–whose Tegucigalpa embassy has given Zelaya shelter since his dramatic surprise return to Honduras over a month ago–applauded Shannon’s deal, yet made it clear Zelaya had to be reinstated. And in Honduras, the National Party, whose candidate is expected to win next month’s vote, wants this crisis to be over. Its members in Congress may join with Liberal Party deputies loyal to Zelaya to approve the deal.