Undo the Coup
Four Reponses to the Military Coup in Honduras
1) From Danny Glover: Support Restoration Of Honduran
President Zelaya
2) Amy Goodman: Undo the Coup
3) Committees of Correspondence: End US Military Aid &
Close SOA
4) Roberto Lovato : Obama Must Strongly and
Unequivocally Condemn the Coup
(1)
Urgent Request To Support Restoration Of Honduran
President Zelaya
By Danny Glover, International Human Rights
Activist/Actor, Chairman of TransAfrica Forum,
BlackCommentator.com Guest Commentator BlackCommentator
July 2, 20009
http://www.blackcommentator.com/331/331_cover_1_hondorus_support_zelaya_glover_guest.html
Please join me in solidarity with the people of
Honduras to determine their own future.
I urge all to support the citizens of Honduras in their
demand that President Manuel Zelaya be restored
immediately to his constitutionally elected post and
authority as President of Honduras. It is imperative
that citizens across the United States write and call
upon President Barack Obama and Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton to quickly execute every available
influence to ensure that President Zelaya is safely
returned to his post.
Your voices are urgently needed to encourage our
government to exercise its influence to ensure that the
Ambassadors of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua who have
been violently kidnapped are not harmed and are
immediately safely returned.
The flowering of Participatory Democracy in Latin
America has been ruthlessly assaulted by anti-
democratic sectors of the Honduran elite in collusion
with sectors of the armed forces. Their shameless
violation of constitutional laws can not be allowed to
take hold. The coup d'état against President Zelaya is
a threat to the growing desire and organization of
citizens across our hemisphere to more actively seek
forms and agendas of governance to achieve their basic
social, economic, cultural, and political well being.
Sincerely
Danny Glover
___
BlackCommentator.com Guest Commentator, Danny Glover is
an International Human Rights Activist/Actor and
Chairman of TransAfrica Forum
(2)
Undo the Coup
By Amy Goodman truthdig June 30, 2009
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090630_undo_the_coup/
The first coup d'etat in Central America in more than a
quarter-century occurred last Sunday in Honduras.
Honduran soldiers roused democratically elected
President Manuel Zelaya from his bed and flew him into
exile in Costa Rica. The coup, led by the Honduran Gen.
Romeo Vasquez, has been condemned by the United States,
the European Union, the United Nations, the
Organization of American States and all of Honduras'
immediate national neighbors. Mass protests have
erupted on the streets of Honduras, with reports that
elements in the military loyal to Zelaya are rebelling
against the coup.
The United States has a long history of domination in
the hemisphere. President Barack Obama and Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton can chart a new course, away from
the dark days of military dictatorship, repression and
murder. Obama indicated such a direction when he spoke
in April at the Summit of the Americas: "[A]t times we
sought to dictate our terms. But I pledge to you that
we seek an equal partnership. There is no senior
partner and junior partner in our relations."
Two who know well the history of dictated U.S. terms
are Dr. Juan Almendares, a medical doctor and award-
winning human rights activist in Honduras, and the
American clergyman Father Roy Bourgeois, a priest who
for years has fought to close the U.S. Army's School of
the Americas (SOA) at Fort Benning, Ga. Both men link
the coup in Honduras to the SOA.
The SOA, renamed in 2000 the Western Hemisphere
Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), is the
U.S. military facility that trains Latin American
soldiers. The SOA has trained more than 60,000
soldiers, many of whom have returned home and committed
human rights abuses, torture, extrajudicial execution
and massacres.
Almendares, targeted by Honduran death squads and the
military, has been the victim of that training. He
talked to me from Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital:
"Most of this military have been trained by the School
of America. ... They have been guardians of the
multinational business from the United States or from
other countries. ... The army in Honduras has links
with very powerful people, very rich, wealthy people
who keep the poverty in the country. We are occupied by
your country."
Born in Louisiana, Bourgeois became a Catholic priest
in 1972. He worked in Bolivia and was forced out by the
(SOA-trained) dictator Gen. Hugo Banzer. The
assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero and the
murders of four Catholic churchwomen in El Salvador in
1980 led him to protest where some of the killers were
trained: Fort Benning's SOA. After six Jesuit priests,
their housekeeper and her daughter were murdered in El
Salvador in 1989, Bourgeois founded SOA Watch and has
built an international movement to close the SOA.
Honduran coup leader Vasquez attended the SOA in 1976
and 1984. Air Force Gen. Luis Javier Prince Suazo, who
also participated in the coup, was trained at the SOA
in 1996.
Bourgeois' SOA Watch office is just yards from the Fort
Benning gates. He has been frustrated in recent years
by increased secrecy at SOA/WHINSEC. He told me: "They
are trying to present the school as one of democracy
and transparency, but we are not able to get the names
of those trained here-for over five years. However,
there was a little sign of hope when the U.S. House
approved an amendment to the defense authorization bill
last week that would force the school to release names
and ranks of people who train here." The amendment
still has to make it through the House-Senate
conference committee.
Bourgeois speaks with the same urgency that he has for
decades. His voice is well known at Fort Benning, where
he was first arrested more than 25 years ago when he
climbed a tree at night near the barracks of Salvadoran
soldiers who were training there at the time.
Bourgeois blasted a recording of the voice of Romero in
his last address before he was assassinated. The
archbishop was speaking directly to Salvadoran soldiers
in his country: "In the name of God, in the name of
this suffering people whose cry rises to heaven more
loudly each day, I implore you, I beg you, I order you:
Stop the repression."
Almost 30 years later, in a country bordering Romero's
El Salvador, the U.S. has a chance to change course and
support the democratic institutions of Honduras. Undo
the coup.
Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.
Amy Goodman is the host of "Democracy Now!," a daily
international TV/radio news hour airing on more than
750 stations in North America. She is the co-author of
"Standing Up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in
Extraordinary Times," recently released in paperback.
c 2009 Amy Goodman
(3)
Denounce the Coup, End US Military Aid and Close the
SOA
July 1, 2009
The Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and
Socialism (CCDS) joins with the international community
in denunciation of the military coup in Honduras.
We join with all who call for an immediate end to the
violence and repression against the people of Honduras
who are resisting. We express our solidarity with the
Honduran trade unions and all democratic forces waging
a heroic defense of democracy against the military
coup.
We call on the U.S. government - the White House, State
Department and Members of Congress - to denounce
unambiguously the coup and call for the immediate
return of the democratically elected President of
Honduras, withhold recognition of the coup leaders, and
cut all military aid until democracy is restored. We
urge all to contact their Member of Congress, the U.S.
State Department and White House to convey this
message.
We also join with others in calling on the U.S.
Congress and the White House to close the School of the
Americas (renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for
Security Cooperation) in Ft. Benning Georgia, the
training ground for the Honduran coup leaders.
National Coordinating Committee
Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and
Socialism
www.cc-ds.org
(4)
Obama Must Strongly and Unequivocally Condemn the Coup
in Honduras
By Roberto Lovato AlterNet Junbe 29, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/world/140966/obama_must_strongly_and_unequivocally_condemn_the_coup_in_honduras/
Viewed from a distance, the streets of Honduras look,
smell and sound like those of Iran: Expressions of
popular anger- burning vehicles, large marches and
calls for justice in a non-English language- aimed at a
constitutional violation of the people's will (the coup
took place on the eve of a poll of voters asking if the
President's term should be extended); protests
repressed by a small, but powerful elite backed by
military force; those holding power trying to cut off
communications in and out of the country.
These and other similarities between the political
situation in Iran and the situation in Honduras, where
military and economic and political elites ousted
democratically-elected President Manuel Zelaya in a
military coup condemned around the world, are obvious.
But when viewed from the closer physical (Miami is just
800 miles from Honduras) and historical proximity of
the United States, the differences between Iran and
Honduras are marked and clear in important ways: the
M-16's pointing at this very moment at the thousands of
peaceful protesters are paid for with U.S. tax dollars
and still carry a "Made in America" label; the military
airplane in which they kidnapped and exiled President
Zelaya was purchased with the hundreds of millions of
dollars in U.S. military aid the Honduran government
has been the benefactor of since the Cold War military
build-up that began in 1980's; the leader of the coup,
General Romeo Vasquez, and many other military leaders
repressing the populace received "counterinsurgency"
training at the Western Hemisphere Institute for
Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), formerly known as the
infamous "School of the Americas," responsible for
training those who perpetrated the greatest atrocities
in the Americas.
The big difference between Iran and Honduras? President
Obama and the U.S. can actually do something about a
military crackdown that our tax dollars are helping pay
for. That Vasquez and other coup leaders were trained
at the WHINSEC, which also trained Agusto Pinochet and
other military dictators responsible for the deaths,
disappearances, tortures of hundreds of thousands in
Latin America, sends profound chills throughout a
region still trying to overcome decades U.S.-backed
militarism.
Hemispheric concerns about the coup were expressed in
the rapid, historic and almost universal condemnation
of the plot by almost all Latin American governments.
Such concerns in the region represent an opportunity
for the United States. But, while the Honduran coup
represents a major opportunity for Obama to make real
his recent and repeated calls for a "new" relationship
to the Americas, failure to take actions that send a
rapid and unequivocal denunciation of the coup will be
devastating to the Honduran people - and to the still-
fragile U.S. image in the region.
Recent declarations by the Administration - expressions
of "concern" by the President and statements by
Secretary of State Clinton recognizing Zelaya as the
only legitimate, elected leader of Honduras - appear to
indicate preliminary disapproval of the putsch. Yet,
the even more unequivocal statements of condemnation
from U.N. President Miguel D'Escoto, the Organization
of American States, the European Union, and the
Presidents of Argentina, Costa Rica and many other
governments raise greatly the bar of expectation before
the Obama Administration.
As a leader of the global chorus condemning the Iranian
government and as one of the primary backers of the
Honduran military, the Obama Administration will feel
increasing pressure to do much more.
Beyond immediate calls to continue demanding that
Zelaya and democratic order be reinstated, protesters
in Honduras, Latin America and across the United States
will also pressure the Obama Administration to take a
number of tougher measures including: cutting off of
U.S. military aid, demanding that Hondurans and others
kidnapped, jailed and detained be released and
accounted for immediately, bringing Vasquez and coup
leaders to justice, investigating what U.S. Ambassador
to Honduras, Hugo Llorens, did or didn't know about the
coup.
With the bad taste left by the widely alleged U.S.
involvement in recent coup attempts in Venezuela (2002)
and Bolivia (2008), countries led by Zelaya allies Hugo
Chavez and Evo Morales, the Obama Administration faces
a skeptical Latin American audience.
Latin American skepticism of U.S. intentions is not
unfounded. Throughout his administration, Zelaya has
increasingly moved left, critiquing certain U.S.
actions and building stronger ties to countries like
Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia, according to the
Council on Hemispheric Affairs. COHA, a non-profit
research organization, wrote in 2005:
While Honduras signed onto the U.S.-led Central
American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) in 2004, and the
U.S. currently is Honduras' primary trading partner and
the source of approximately two-thirds of the country's
foreign direct investment (FDI), Zelaya has, within the
past year, joined Petrocaribe, Chavez's oil-subsidy
initiative, as well as the Bolivarian Alternative for
the Americas (ALBA), the Venezuelan-led trade bloc.
Honduras' Congress ratified its membership in
Petrocaribe on March 13, by 69 votes, and Zelaya signed
ALBA membership documents on August 22.
The Honduran president has said that apathy on the part
of the U.S. as well as by the international lending
institutions toward rising food prices and deepening
poverty in his country - one of the poorest in the
Western Hemisphere, with per capita income around
$1,600 - compelled him to turn to Caracas."
Obama's meeting with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe
Monday, whose government has been condemned by Human
Rights Watch, Amnesty International and other
international organizations as one of the worst human
rights violators in the hemisphere, both complicates
and will be complicated by Sunday's' resurgence of
militarism in Honduras.
Zelaya, who continues denouncing the coup from Costa
Rica, outlined the long term threat to Honduran and
U.S. interests in the region, "I think this is a
vicious plot planned by elites. Elite who only want to
keep the country isolated and in extreme poverty," he
said adding that, "A usurper government cannot be
recognized by absolutely anybody."
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