Since June 28^th in Honduras there has been a historic leap backwards, reverting the country to the unfortunate epoch of the military boots as an axis of governance and elimination of human rights.

The coup d’etat is rooted in the politics of the neoconservateives of the epoch of the Bush regime, who started an offensive years ago to stop the Latin American social movement and the achievements obtained in the continent.

Despite the supposed political change that happened in the United States, the strategy in the management of its relations with overseas colonies has not been altered; and what has been established as its inclination for “preventative wars,” in this case was reduced to a preventative coup d’etat, with the aroma of intervention in the internal affairs of Honduras by the State Department and the Pentagon.

After the initial reactions of repudiation of the coup by Barack Obama and the hesitant declarations of Hillary Clinton, who didn’t dare to declare what had happened a coup d’etat, the ambiguity of the government of the United States was up in the air, and the doubts about its participation in the coup d’etat increased.

Honduras has a dramatic history strung through a series of coup d’etats and interventions by the United States. In the heart of the country is the Soto Cano military base, which has over 600 U.S. soldiers and the longest runway of the Central American isthmus. On top of this, Honduras lent itself to being a launch point for the empire with the purpose of attacking Nicaragua during the decade of the 80’s, with the Soto Cano base being a legacy of that fratricidal war.

President Manuel Zelaya accepted in good faith the mediation of President Oscar Arias, at the request of Mrs. Clinton, opening an interregnum of negotiations, which turned into a time buying scheme to sanction the coup government and dilute the social movement that has supported a return to constitutional order in a persistent and heroic manner.

However, the so-called negotiations have been riddled with contradictions and interventions on the part of Mrs. Clinton and her agents. In the first round of negotiations in San Jose, Mr. Bennet Ratcliff was consulted step-by-step by the delegation representing the coup (1), while Lanny Davis was contracted by Honduran businessmen to lobby in Washington in favor of the de facto government. It is an enormous coincidence that both Ratcliff and Davis are lawyers close to Hillary Clinton; Davis stands out as a specialist in attacking Barack Obama in the 2008 campaign (2).

The coup has been categorized by the coup government as a constitutional succession, opening the doors for a new coup modality. In the 19^th century the emergence of Latin American republics led to caudillismo, which has been depicted to society by our imaginative literature, and lasted up until the despotic figure Augusto Pinochet. By the end of the 20^th century a second generation of coups emerged, such as that led by Alberto Fujimori in 1992, when he closed Congress in Peru, a model followed a year later by Elias Serrano in Guatemala.

The case of Honduras may be the start of a new tendency, the 3^rd generation coup d’etat or preventative coups, fabricated by the judiciary in conspiracy with the legislature and of course with the permission of the military. This strategy would be determinant to stop the social achievements that are being harvested in the continent and would destroy the economic block that started with ALBA, specifically those countries with great energy potential.

The systematic violation of human tights, accompanied by the state-of-siege that has lasted for nearly a month, and the denegation of the right to movement that is occurring on Honduras’ border with Nicaragua, besides the manhunt for protesters supporting the ousted president, is the direct responsibility of the U.S. government, especially Mrs. Hillary Clinton. She seems to be seeking reprisal for the attitude of Mel Zelaya and the State of Honduras at the last meeting of the OAS in San Pedro Sula, a month before the coup, in which the organization finally corrected its disastrous policy towards Cuba.

The days continue to pass and the Honduran people continue to show their repudiation of the coup government, the oligarchy and hence the imperialist politics of the U.S. government. It is time for the Clinton-Obama administration to assume responsibility for their actions and clarify their position once and for all. Coups do not generate confidence among the people and obliterate any potential relationship of trust with Latin America. The days of hegemony have expired and the empire can now start to receive within it a series of torturers and plunderers that have been imposed on us over the last century.

(1) http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/7/14/04917/9270

(2) www.nytimes.com/2009/07/13/world/americas/13honduras.html

La Ceiba, Honduras, July 27, 2009

OFRANEH
Organización Fraternal Negra Hondureña, OFRANEH
Teléfono (504) 4420618, (504) 4500058
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email:garifuna ofraneh.org, ofraneh yahoo.com