http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/25/1438997/-It-Takes-Fortitude-and-Hillary-Clinton-Has-It-The-Honduras-Edition
Did you know that Hillary Clinton used her power and influence to back the overthrow of a democratically elected government in Honduras, of all places, during her first five months as US Secretary of State? Allegedly.
It wasn't her only accomplishment at the time, either. Clinton dropped everything to intervene on behalf of Swiss bankers when they were in trouble with the Department of Justice. All on her own, because that's how things are done in the federal government, Clinton negotiated and implemented an unprecedented agreement that let her banker pals off the hook. A few months ago, I wrote about debunked that nonsense right here at Daily Kos.
It's hard to believe that one would have to debunk the Honduran coup allegation. Where would Clinton find the time for such a nefarious misdeed with the travel schedule she had?
February 16-18, 2009 Tokyo, Japan
February 18-19, 2009 Jakarta, Indonesia
February 19-20, 2009 Seoul, South Korea
February 20-21, 2009 Beijing, China
March 2-3, 2009 Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt
March 3-5, 2009 Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Israel
March 5-6, 2009 Brussels, Belgium
March 6-7, 2009 Geneva, Switzerland
March 7, 2009 Ankara, Turkey
March 25-26, 2009 Mexico City, Monterrey, Mexico
March 31-April 1, 2009 The Hague, Netherlands
April 1-3, 2009 London, United Kingdom
April 3-4, 2009 Strasbourg, France
April 3-4, 2009 Baden-Baden, Germany
April 4-5, 2009 Prague, Czech Republic
April 16, 2009 Port-au-Prince, Haiti
April 16-17, 2009 Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
April 17-19, 2009 Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago
April 24-25, 2009 Kuwait City, Kuwait
April 25, 2009 Baghdad, Iraq
April 26, 2009 Beirut, Lebanon
Maybe NASA gave Clinton permission to use one of the old space shuttles to get around the globe quicker given the importance of the missions she had to accomplish.
Did you know that she sold fracking . . . TO THE WORLD ! . . . via a series of complex financial transactions funneled through the Clinton Foundation, leaving her the sole owner of the entire planet?
Honduras must have been a speed bump to her. I wonder if Gowdy has it on his list of things to "investigate." If he has a copy of her book, 'Hard Choices,' he already has proof of the allegation. It's in the chapter on Latin America. I bet he'd have hundreds of questions about Blumenthal Lanny Davis, too.
Who?
Blumenthal Lanny Davis?
Latin America is furious about that coup, by the way. There's probably no chance of ever restoring diplomatic relations with Cuba because of it. Indeed, Latin America was angry enough to invite Clinton to speak before the Organization of American States in Lima, Peru on June 7, 2010. A year after the coup in Honduras.
What did she say?
The US condemned the coup in Honduras along with the rest of the OAS. That's what Clinton said.
The coup in Honduras matters now because history is being rewritten to drive a wedge between Hillary Clinton and her Latino supporters for political reasons.
According to the current propaganda, the deposed President of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, was a good Leftist. Since this is propaganda written to tug at progressive heart strings, it doesn't mention that Zelaya was "a wealthy cattle rancher" and "in fact a member of the established elite," as Spiegel pointed out when it reported on the coup in 2009. Either way, man of the people or privileged elite, the coup wasn't advisable. Honduras was governed by ruthless oligarchs for as long as anyone can remember and Zelaya wasn't better or worse than the others. In 2006, Reporters Without Borders ranked Honduras #62 in the world for press freedom. By 2009, they dropped Honduras to #128. Zelaya raised the minimum wage but it didn't help much if you were a journalist.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-caudillos-v-the-elites-honduras-coup-reveals-deep-divisions-in-latin-america-a-635471.html
http://en.rsf.org/spip.php?page=classement&id_rubrique=1001
The President of Honduras serves a 4-year term and is constitutionally prohibited from re-election. When Zelaya reached the last year of his term, he decided to tinker with the Honduran Constitution. There was reason to believe he intended to remain in office indefinitely.
The US Government Accountability Office compiled a timeline of events that led to the coup:
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d129r.pdf#page=4
-In October2008, Zelaya proposed postponing the presidential primary elections scheduled for November 16, 2008. (The general election was scheduled to be held a year later in November 2009.)
-In January 2009, Zelaya tried to change the composition of the Honduran Supreme Court. Both proposals were strongly opposed by the Honduran National Congress.
-In March 2009, Zelaya proposed a referendum asking Hondurans whether to call a constituent assembly for a new Constitution.
-In May 2009, after the Honduran courts ruled against the referendum, Zelaya ordered the military to provide the necessary logistics and support to carry it out anyway.
-In June 2009, the Honduran Supreme Court ordered the military to desist from supporting the referendum as it would have been unconstitutional. The top military leaders also refused to carry out the logistical support Zelaya ordered and they resigned with the Defense Minister.
Zelaya defied the National Congress, the military, and the Supreme Court and decided to go ahead with the referendum. In the early morning hours of June 28, he was roused from his bed and flown to Costa Rica while he was still in his PJs. The Constitution doesn't have provisions for impeachment. The National Congress simply elected its Speaker, a member of Zelaya's party, to lead the de facto government until the election in November.
June 28, 2009
Statement from President on the situation in Honduras
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/statement-president-situation-honduras
"I am deeply concerned by reports coming out of Honduras regarding the detention and expulsion of President Mel Zelaya. As the Organization of American States did on Friday, I call on all political and social actors in Honduras to respect democratic norms, the rule of law and the tenets of the Inter-American Democratic Charter. Any existing tensions and disputes must be resolved peacefully through dialogue free from any outside interference."
June 28, 2009
Organization of American States
http://www.oas.org/consejo/resolutions/res953.asp
The United States and the rest of the Permanent Council of the OAS unanimously adopted a resolution condemning the coup, demanding President Zelaya's reinstatement, and stating that no government arising from the coup would be recognized.
June 29, 2009
UN General Assembly
http://www.oas.org/consejo/resolutions/res953.asp
http://www.un.org/press/en/2009/ga10842.doc.htm
The United States and the UN General Assembly voted unanimously to condemn the coup d'état in Honduras, and demand Zelaya's immediate, and unconditional restoration as president.
July 1, 2009
Organization of American States
https://www.oas.org/consejo/sp/AG/Documentos/AG04665E04.doc
The United States and the OAS General Assembly adopted a resolution -
-condemning the coup,
-reaffirming that President Zelaya was the constitutional President of Honduras,
-demanding his immediate, safe, and unconditional return to his constitutional functions,
-reaffirming that no government arising from the coup would be recognized,
-directing the OAS Secretary General to pursue diplomatic initiatives to secure President Zelaya's reinstatement and the restoration of democracy and the rule of law,
-and stating that Honduras had 72 hours to accept or be suspended from the OAS.
July 4, 2009
Organization of American States
https://www.oas.org/consejo/sp/AG/Documentos/ag04682e07.doc
The United States and the OAS General Assembly voted to suspend Honduras.
July 7, 2009
US State Department
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d129r.pdf#page=5
Zelaya met with Secretary of State Clinton in Washington, DC. Following the meeting, Clinton announced that Zelaya and Micheletti, head of the coup government had agreed to engage in negotiations mediated by Oscar Arias, the former President of Costa Rica.
In her book, 'Hard Choices,' Clinton summarized the situation in the days following the coup. She concluded that the election, scheduled for November 2009, was essential for the restoration of democracy. The US would also join with the OAS in a diplomatic effort to restore Zelaya as President of Honduras.
"In the subsequent days, I spoke with my counterparts around the hemisphere, including Secretary Espinosa in Mexico. We strategized on a plan to restore order in Honduras and ensure that free and fair elections could be held quickly and legitimately, which would render the question of Zelaya moot."
Some of Clinton's critics think they can get mileage from those two sentences. Out of context, they say that's Clinton's confession about her role in preventing Zelaya from returning to power. Read the paragraphs leading up to the quote where Clinton works through the logic, looking for the answer to the question, How do you solve a problem like Zelaya? If the diplomatic effort failed, the crisis would be resolved democratically by the people of Honduras in the November election. What would the alternative to that be?
July 22, 2009
Costa Rica
Arias proposed the San José Accord with provisions for:
-Zelaya's reinstatement,
-the creation of a national unity government,
-a general amnesty for all political crimes committed before and after Zelaya's removal,
-an agreement not to pursue constitutional reform,
-and the creation of a verification commission to guarantee compliance with the accord.
Zelaya accepted the San José Accord but the coup government refused to let him enter the country and opposed his reinstatement, which was a deal breaker for him.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/latin_america-july-dec09-zelaya_09-03/
September 3, 2009
State Department
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d129r.pdf#page=5
Clinton met with Zelaya again. After the meeting she announced a renewal of the diplomatic effort with additional pressure applied on the coup government by terminating non-humanitarian aid to Honduras.
After the meeting, Zelaya gave an interview to Tom Hayden which was published by The Nation. He was dissatisfied with diplomacy. He had doubts. Republican members of the US House had gone to Honduras to meet with the coup government and undermine President Obama's initiative.
When the crisis began, President Obama was asked by a reporter at a press conference to comment on the coup. Looking back at his reply, it seems he may have misjudged the Republicans, or perhaps, his words were an oblique warning to them.
President Obama
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-obama-and-president-uribe-colombia-joint-press-availability
June 29, 2009
The United States has not always stood as it should with some of these fledgling democracies, but over the last several years, I think both Republicans and Democrats in the United States have recognized that we always want to stand with democracy, even if the results don't always mean that the leaders of those countries are favorable towards the United States. And that is a tradition that we want to continue.
The right wingers in Congress were hostile to Zelaya because he had formed an alliance with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.
On July 8, 2009, Connie Mack (R-FL) sponsored and introduced H.Res. 619 which condemned Zelaya "for his unconstitutional and illegal attempts to alter the Constitution of Honduras."
https://www.congress.gov/bill/111th-congress/house-resolution/619
Mack went much further than that, too. A few weeks later he led a Congressional Delegation (CODEL) to Honduras with Brian Bilbray. The US Ambassador in Tegucigalpa reported to the State Department that their activities weren't helpful to the Obama Administration's goals. (The string of messages was included by the State Department in its recent release of Clinton's email.)
https://foia.state.gov/Search/Results.aspx?collection=Clinton_Email
Sent: Sunday, July 26, 2009 2:21 PM
From: Llorens, Hugo
Subject: CODEL Mack
The CODEL left for the airport about an hour ago. This CODEL was friendly and professional, but they certainly were not helpful to Administration policy goals in Honduras. The CODEL sent a strong message of support for the Micheletti regime. The meeting of the CODEL with Micheletti received prominent press coverage by the establishment media, which are mostly in the anti-Zelaya camp.
Hugo Llorens
Ambassador
US. Embassy Tegucigalpa, Honduras
Two more Congressional delegations (Republicans only) travelled to Honduras and loudly proclaimed their support for the coup and their disdain for President Obama.
-Jim DeMint (R- SC)
-Aaron Schock (R-IL)
-Peter Roskam (R-IL)
-Doug Lamborn (R-CO)
-Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL)
-Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-FL)
-Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL)
On September 21, the diplomatic initiative was further derailed by Zelaya who decided to risk arrest by returning to Honduras where he sought refuge with 20 advisors at the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa.
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d129r.pdf#page=5
Breakthrough in Honduras
http://www.state.gov/secretary/20092013clinton/rm/2009a/10/131078.htm
October 30, 2009
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton delivered the following remarks in Islamabad, Pakistan:
I'm very pleased to announce that we've had a breakthrough in negotiations in Honduras.
I want to congratulate the people of Honduras as well as President Zelaya and Mr. Micheletti for reaching an historic agreement. I also congratulate Costa Rican President Oscar Arias for the important role he has played in fashioning the San Jose process and the OAS for its role in facilitating the successful round of talks.
As you know, I sent Assistant Secretary Tom Shannon and his deputy Craig Kelly and the White House NSC representative for the Western Hemisphere Dan Restrepo to Honduras yesterday after speaking with both President Zelaya and Mr. Micheletti last Friday to urge them finally, once and for all to reach an agreement.
We're looking forward to the elections that will be held on November 29, and working with the people and government of Honduras to realize the full return of democracy and a better future for the Honduran people.
Zelaya and Michiletti signed the deal and a few days later, the deal fell through as both squabbled over the details and the insults they perceived in each others' behavior.
November 6, 2009
Ian Kelly
State Department Spokesman
Washington, DC
http://photos.state.gov/libraries/113464/accord/accord.pdf
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2009/nov/131562.htm
A week ago, Honduran negotiators, with the support of the OAS and friends in the region, achieved an historic victory for democracy in their country by signing the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord. That agreement spells out a step-by-step process for Honduras to re-establish democratic and constitutional order and move toward national elections with the support of the international community.
For that reason, we were particularly disappointed by the unilateral statements made by both sides last night, which do not serve the spirit of the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord. As the Verification Commissioners have noted, both sides need to work together to implement the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord.
The working together, step by step part of the agreement was unacceptable to Zelaya unless the first step was to put him back in power. The National Congress waited to vote on restoring his executive power until a few days after the election.
On December 2, 2009, 111 of the 128 deputies in the Honduran National Congress voted against restoring Zelaya to the Honduran presidency.
https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R41064.pdf#page=22
On January 20, 2010 the President-elect approved Zelaya's safe passage from the Brazilian Embassy to the Dominican Republic.
https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R41064.pdf#page=22
He returned to Honduras in 2011 and his wife ran for President in 2013 but she lost.
http://www.english.rfi.fr/americas/20110528-zelaya-returns-honduras-oas-brokered-deal
http://www.newyorker.com/project/portfolio/honduras-election
Can anyone be satisfied with the result of the diplomatic initiative?
In this video clip from December 12, 2009, Clinton looks back at the State Department's efforts during her first year in office. She talks about Honduras. The United States can't solve all of the hemisphere's problems alone but the problems can't be solved unless the United States is involved.
If the result is unsatisfactory, I don't blame Clinton. The Republicans in Congress who did all they could to undermine the President were still holding hearings about Zelaya in 2011. It's an all-star list of losers including Thaddeus McCotter, Jean Schmidt, Aaron Schock and others. They were so outraged about Zelaya's alliance with Chavez and Chavez's alliance with Cuba. I like to think that Obama had the last laugh on that score.
I can't think of anyone more suited or more prepared for everything that will be thrown at the next President than Hillary Clinton. That doesn't mean she's perfect or that I agree with everything she says and does. It means she can do the job.
__________________________________________________________
From Hillary's Hard Choices:
The end of the summit in San Pedro Sula was not the end of the drama that June. Just a few weeks later the ghosts of Latin America's troubled past resurfaced in Honduras. On Sunday, June 28, 2009, the Supreme Court of Honduras ordered the arrest of President Zelaya amid allegations of corruption and fears that he was preparing to circumvent the Constitution and extend his term in office. Zelaya was seized and, still in his pajamas, hustled onto a plane to Costa Rica. A temporary government headed by National Congress President Roberto Micheletti assumed power.
I was at home in Chappaqua enjoying a quiet Sunday morning when I received word of the crisis from Tom Shannon. He told me what we knew, which still wasn't much, and we discussed how to respond. One immediate issue was Zelaya's wife and daughters, who were asking to take refuge in the residence of our Ambassador to Honduras. I told Tom to make sure they were protected and well cared for until the crisis could be resolved. I also spoke with General Jones and Tom Donilon at the White House and called the Spanish Foreign Minister for a quick consultation.
The forced exile of Zelaya presented the United States with another dilemma. Micheletti and the Supreme Court claimed to be protecting Honduran democracy against Zelaya's unlawful power grab and warned that he wanted to become another Chavez or Castro. Certainly the region did not need another dictator, and many knew Zelaya well enough to believe the charges against him. But Zelaya had been elected by the Honduran people, and exiling him under cover of darkness sent a chill through the region. No one wanted to see a return to the bad old days of frequent coups and unstable governments. I didn't see any choice but to condemn Zelaya's ouster. In a public statement I called on all parties in Honduras to respect the constitutional order and the rule of law and to commit themselves to resolve political disputes peacefully and through dialogue. As required by our laws, our government began moving to suspend aid to Honduras until democracy was restored. Our view was shared by other countries in the region, including Brazil, Colombia, and Costa Rica. Soon it became the official position of the OAS as well.
In the subsequent days I spoke with my counterparts around the hemisphere, including Secretary Espinosa in Mexico. We strategized on a plan to restore order in Honduras and ensure that free and fair elections could be held quickly and legitimately, which would render the question of Zelaya moot and give the Honduran people a chance to choose their own future.
I began looking for a respected elder statesman who could act as a mediator. Óscar Arias, the President of Costa Rica, which has one of the highest per capita incomes and greenest economies in Central America, was a natural choice. He was a seasoned leader, having earned the respect of the entire world and the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize for his work to end conflicts across Central America. After sixteen years out of office, he successfully ran for President again in 2006 and became an important voice for responsible governance and sustainable development. In early July, I called him. We discussed the need to ensure that elections occurred as scheduled in November. He was game to try to broker an agreement, but he was concerned that Zelaya would not accept him as a mediator and asked me to push the deposed President to take a leap of faith.
That afternoon I hosted Zelaya at the State Department. He arrived in better shape than when he first addressed the world from Costa Rica; the pajamas were gone and the cowboy hat was back. He even joked a bit about his forced flight. "What have Latin American presidents learned from Honduras?" he asked me. I smiled and shook my head. "To sleep with our clothes on and our bags packed," he replied.
Jokes aside, Zelaya was frustrated and impatient. Reports from Honduras of clashes between protesters and security forces only heightened the tension. I told him that we should all do everything we could to avoid bloodshed and urged him to participate in the mediation process to be led by Arias. By the end of the conversation, Zelaya was on board. I knew that Micheletti would not accept the mediation if he thought Zelaya had the upper hand, so I wanted to announce the new diplomatic effort alone, without Zelaya by my side. As soon as we finished talking, I asked Tom to take Zelaya into an empty office and have the Operations Center place a call to Arias so the two of them could speak. Meanwhile I hurried down to the State Department press briefing room to make an official announcement.
The first few days brought no breakthroughs. Arias reported that Zelaya was insisting on being fully restored as President, while Micheletti maintained that Zelaya had violated the Constitution and refused to stand aside until the next scheduled elections. In other words, neither side showed any inclination to compromise.
I stressed to Arias, "Our bottom line is free, fair, and democratic elections with a peaceful transfer of power." He agreed that firm talk was needed and expressed frustration at the intransigence he was encountering. "They are not willing to give concessions," he explained. Then he echoed a sentiment I think many of us felt: "I'm doing this and am in favor of Zelaya to be restored because of principles, Mrs. Clinton, not because I like these people. . . . If we allow the de facto government to stay, the domino effect goes all around Latin America." That was an interesting reformulation of the domino theory, the famous Cold War fear that if one small nation went Communist, its neighbors would soon follow.
Zelaya returned to the State Department in early September for additional negotiations. Then, on September 21, he secretly returned to Honduras and resurfaced at the Brazilian Embassy, a potentially explosive development.
The negotiations dragged on. By late October it was clear that Arias was making minimal progress in bringing the two sides to an agreement. I decided to send Tom to Honduras to make it clear that America's patience had run out. On October 23, just after 9 P.M., I received a call from Micheletti. "There is a growing sense of frustration in Washington and elsewhere," I warned him. Micheletti tried to rationalize that they were "doing everything in [their] power to reach an agreement with Mr. Zelaya."
About an hour later I reached Zelaya, still holed up in the Brazilian Embassy. I informed him that Tom would be arriving soon to help resolve the matter. I promised that I would stay closely involved personally and that we were going to try to settle the crisis as soon as possible. We knew we had to develop a process that allowed the Hondurans themselves to resolve this problem in a way that both sides could accept—a tall order, but not, as it turned out, impossible. Finally, on October 29, Zelaya and Micheletti signed an agreement to set up a national unity government to run Honduras until the upcoming elections and establish a "truth and reconciliation" commission to investigate the events leading to Zelaya's removal from office. They agreed to leave to the Honduran Congress the question of Zelaya's return to office as part of the national unity government.
[b]Almost immediately there were arguments about the structure and purpose of the unity government, and both sides threatened to pull out of the agreement. Then the Honduran Congress voted overwhelmingly not to restore Zelaya to office, dealing him a painful and unexpected setback. He had greatly overestimated the depth of support in the country for his cause. After the vote he flew to the Dominican Republic and spent the next year in exile. The elections, however, went ahead. In late November voters chose Porfirio Lobo, who had been runner-up to Zelaya in 2005, as the new President of Honduras. Many South American countries did not accept this outcome, and it took a year of additional diplomacy before Honduras was accepted back into the OAS.
This was the first time in Central American history that a country that suffered a coup and was on the verge of major civil conflict was able to restore its constitutional and democratic processes through negotiation, without imposition from the outside.
If ever there were a region where we need to look beyond the headlines to focus on the trendlines, it's Latin America. Yes, there are still big problems that have to be solved. But on the whole, the trends are toward democracy, innovation, more broadly shared opportunities, and positive partnerships among the countries themselves and with the United States. That's the future we want.
No comments:
Post a Comment