In first decade of the 21st century we have witnessed the West’s embrace of the full spectrum of extremism in both domestic and foreign policy. Extremism is a common practice by self-styled conservatives, liberals and social-democrats. In the past, conservative implied preserving the status quo and, at most, tinkering with change at the margins. Today’s ‘conservatives’ demand the wholesale dismantling of entire social welfare systems and the elimination of traditional legal protection of workers and the environment. Liberals and social democrats, who in the past, occasionally, questioned colonial systems, are now in the forefront of prolonged multi-front colonial wars, which have killed and displaced millions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria.

Extremism, in terms of its methods, means and goals, has obliterated the distinctions between center left, center, and rightwing politicians. Moderates opposed to the current policies of subsidizing the major banks while impoverishing tens of millions of workers, are now labeled the ‘hard left,’ ‘extremists,’ or ‘radicals.’

In the wake of the government’s extremist policies, the respectable, prestigious print media have engaged in their own versions of extremism.¹ Colonial wars, devastating civil society and stable cultures while impoverishing millions in the colonized country, are justified, embellished and presented as lawful and humane advances in secular democratic values. Domestic wars on behalf of oligarchies and against wage and salaried workers, which concentrate wealth and deepen despair of the dispossessed, are described as rational, virtuous and necessary. The distinctions between the prudent, balanced, prestigious and serious media and the sensationalist, yellow press have disappeared. The fabrication of facts, blatant omissions and distortions of context are found in one just as well as the other.

To illustrate the reign of extremism in officialdom and among the prestigious press, we will examine two case studies. These involve US policies toward Colombia and Honduras and the Financial Times and New York Times coverage of the two nations.

Colombia: The “Oldest Democracy in Latin America” versus “The Death Squad Capital of the World”

Following the giddy eulogies of Colombia’s emergence as Latin America’s poster boy for democracy in an April issue of Time magazine, as well as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Washington Post, the Financial Times ran a series of articles including a special insert on Colombia’s political and economic ‘miracle’ entitled, “Investing in Colombia.”² According to the FT’s leading Latin American journalist, John Paul Rathbone, Colombia is the ‘oldest democracy in the hemisphere.’³ Rathbone’s rapturous praise for Colombia’s President Santos extends from his role as an ‘emerging power broker’ for the South American continent, to making Colombia safe for foreign investors and ‘exciting the envy’ of other less successful regimes in the region. Rathbone gives prominence to one Colombia business leader who claims that Colombia’s second biggest city, Medellín, ‘is living through its best of times.’³ In line with the opinion of the foreign and business elite, the respectable print media describe Colombia as prosperous, peaceful, business friendly, charging the lowest mining royalty payments in the hemisphere, and a model of a stable democracy to be emulated by all forward-looking leaders.

Under President Santos, Colombia has signed a free trade agreement with President Obama, his closest ally in the hemisphere.⁴ During the term of Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, trade unions, human rights and church groups, as well as the majority of Congressional Democrats, were successful in blocking any similar agreement because of Colombia’s sustained human rights violations. Any such opposition from the AFL-CIO and Democratic legislators evaporated, when President Obama embraced free trade, claiming a vast improvement in human rights and President Santos commitment to ending the murder of trade union leaders and activists.⁴

Colombia’s peace, security, and prosperity, praised by the oil, mining, banking, and agro-business elite, are based on the worst human rights record in Latin America. With regard to the murder of trade unionists, Colombia exceeds the entire world. From 1986-2011 over 60% of the all killings of trade unionists in the world took place in Colombia by combined military-police-paramilitary death squads, largely at the behest of foreign and domestic corporate leaders.⁵ The ‘peace’, so enthusiastically praised by Rathbone and his colleagues at the Financial Times, comes with a heavy price tag: Over 12,000 arrests, attacks, assassinations and disappearances of trade unionists occurred between January 1, 1986 and October 1, 2010.⁵ In that time span nearly 3,000 trade union leaders and activists were murdered, hundreds more disappeared and are assumed dead. The current Colombian President Santos was the Defense Minister under the previous President Alvaro Uribe (2002-2010). In those years, over 762 trade union officials and activists were murdered by state or allied paramilitary forces.⁵

Under both Presidents Uribe and Santos (2002-2012), over 4 million peasants and rural dwellers were driven into internal exile and their homes and lands were taken over by big landlords, speculators and narco-traffickers.⁶ The Colombian government’s counter-insurgency strategy serves a dual function of repressing dissent and accumulating wealth for its supporters. The Financial Times journalists gloss over this aspect of Colombia’s ‘resurgent growth’ as they applaud the results of death-squad ‘security’, including the over $6 billion dollars of large-scale foreign investment which flowed into mining and oil regions in 2012 – in areas ‘formerly troubled by unrest.’⁷

Some leading drug lords, clearly linked to the Uribe-Santos regime, were jailed and extradited to the US. They have testified how they financed and elected one-third of the Congress members affiliated with Uribe-Santos party – in what the Financial Times describes as Latin America’s ‘oldest democracy.’ Salvatore Mancuso, ex-chief of the 30,000-member United Self-Defense of Colombia (AUC), described how he met with then-President Uribe in different regions of the country to give him money and logistical support for his re-election campaign of 2006. Mancuso, who led the largest paramilitary death squad army in Colombia (now fragmented but still active), also affirmed that national and multi-national corporations (MNC) financed the growth and expansion of the death squads.

What Rathbone and his fellow journalists at the FT celebrate as Colombia’s emergence as an investor’s paradise is writ large with the blood and torture of thousands of Colombian peasants, trade unionists and human rights activists. The brutal history of the Uribe/Santos reign of terror has been completely erased from the current account of Colombia’s ‘success story.’ Detailed records of the brutality of the killings and torture by Uribe/Santos sponsored death squads, describing the use of chain saws to mutilate peasants suspected of leftist sympathies are available to any journalist willing to consult Colombia’s leading human rights organizations.⁸

The death squads and military act in concert. The Colombian military is trained by over one thousand US Special Forces advisers. They wage counter-insurgency style war on the Colombian countryside, arriving in villages in waves of US-supplied helicopters, cordoning off targeted areas from the guerillas and then sending in the AUC and other death squads to destroy the villages, torturing and murdering peasant men, women and children suspected of being guerilla sympathizers and committing widespread rape. This state-sponsored terror campaign has driven millions of peasants out of the countryside allowing the generals and drug lords to seize their land.

Human rights advocates (HRA) are frequently targeted by the military and death squads. Presidents Uribe and Santos usually first accuse human rights workers of being active collaborators of the guerillas because of their work in exposing the regime’s crimes against humanity. Once labeled, the HRA became ‘legitimate targets’ for death squads and the military operating with complete impunity. From 2002-2011 there were 1,470 attacks against HRA, with a record number of 239 in 2011, including 49 killings under President Santos.⁹ Over half of the murdered human rights workers are Indian and Afro-Colombians.

State terrorism was and continues to be the main instrument of rule under Presidents Uribe and Santos. The Colombian ‘killing fields’, according to the Fiscalia General, include tens of thousands of homicides, 1,597 massacres and thousands of forced disappearances from 2005-2010.¹⁰

Courageous members of the Colombian press revealed a practice, known as ‘false positives’, numerous instances in which the military secretly kidnapped young peasants and poor urban males forcing them to dress as guerrillas, murdered them in cold blood and then displayed their bodies to the respectable Colombian and international press as ‘proof’ of Santos/Uribe’s combat successes against the guerrillas. There are 2,472 documented cases of military ‘false positive’ murders.¹¹

Honduras: New York Times and State Terrorism

The New York Times featured an article on Honduras, emphasizing the regime’s ‘co-operation’ with the US war on drugs.¹² The Times writer, Thom Shanker, describes a ‘partnership’ based on the expansion of three new US military bases and the stationing of US Special Forces in the country.¹²

Shanker reported on the successful operation of the Honduras Special Operations forces under the direction of US Special Forces trainers. In Shanker’s coverage, a US Congressional delegation praised the Honduran Special Operations forces ‘respect for human rights,’ quoting the US ambassador description of the Honduran regime as ‘eager and capable partners in this joint effort.’¹²

There are blatant parallels between the NY Times white-wash of the criminal extremist regime in Honduras and the Financial Times’ crude promotion of Colombia’s death squad democracy.

The current extremist Honduran regime, headed by ‘President’ Lobos, which invited the Pentagon to expand its military control over huge swathes of Honduran territory, is a product of the US-backed military coup that overthrew a democratically-elected liberal President on June 28, 2009, a recent historical point Shanker avoids in his coverage. Lobos, the predator president, retains control by killing, jailing and torturing his critics, including journalists, human rights advocates and lawyers, as well as now-landless peasants demanding a return of their properties after they were violently seized by Lobos’ big-landlord allies.

Following the military coup, thousands of Honduran pro-democracy demonstrators were killed, beaten and arrested. According to conservative estimates by Human Rights Watch, 20 pro-democracy dissidents were openly murdered by the military and police.¹³ From January 2010 to November 2011 at least 12 journalists, critical of the Lobos regime, were assassinated.

In the countryside, where NY Times reporter Shanker describes a love fest between the US Special Forces and their Honduran counterparts, 30 farm workers in northern Honduras Bajo Aguan valley were killed by death squads hired by Lobos powerful allies.¹⁴ Not one military, police or death squad assassin has been brought to justice. The original coup leader, Roberto Micheletti and his successor, President Lobos, repeatedly attacked pro-democracy demonstrations, particularly those led by school teachers, students and trade unionists. Hundreds of jailed political dissidents have been tortured. During the period of NY Times most euphoric articles on the cozy relations between the US and Honduras, the death toll among pro-democracy advocates rose precipitously: Eight journalists and a TV commentator were killed during the first 4 months of 2012.¹⁴ In late March and early April of 2012 nine farm workers and employees were murdered by pro-Lobos landlords.¹⁴ With impunity reigning in the Central American land of US military bases, no one has been arrest for these murders. The NY Times coverage of Honduras follows the Mafia rule of omega — silence and complicity.

Syria: How the Financial Times Absolves Al Qaeda Terrorists

As Western-backed Islamist terrorists savage the secular regime in Syria, the Western press, especially the Financial Times, continue to absolve the terrorists use of huge car bombs, which have killed and mutilated hundreds of Syrian citizens. With crude cynicism Western reporters shrug their shoulders and parrot the claims of the London-based anti-regime propagandists, that the Assad regime was destroying its own cities and killing its own citizens and security forces.¹⁵

Conclusion

As the Obama regime and its European allies publically embrace extremism, including state terror, targeted assassinations and the car bombings in crowded urban neighborhoods, the respectable press has joined in. Extremism takes many forms — from the refusal to report honestly about the use of mercenary force and violence to overthrow another anti-colonial regime to the blatant cover-up of the slaughter of tens of thousands of civilians and the dispossession of millions of peasants and farmers. The ‘educated classes’, the respectable affluent reading public are being continuously indoctrinated by the respectable Western media to believe that the smiling and pragmatic President Santos in Colombia and elected President Lobos in Honduras have succeeded in establishing peace, market-based prosperity, mutually beneficial free trade agreements, and military base concessions with the US — even as these two regimes currently lead the world in the murder of trade unionists and journalists. On May 15, 2012 the US Hispanic Congressional caucus awarded Lobos a leadership in democracy award – the same day the Honduran press reported the murder of the news director of radio station, HMT, Alfredo Villatoro, the 25th critical journalist killed between January 27, 2010 and May 15, 2012.¹⁶

The respectable press’ embrace of extremism and its use of demonological and vitriolic language to describe critical regimes opposed to imperialism are matched by its euphoric and effusive praise of state and pro-western mercenary brutality. The systematic cover-up of crimes by extremist journalism goes far beyond the cases of Colombia and Honduras. Financial Times reporter Michael Peel ‘covered’ the assault on the Libyan government of Gaddaffi without mentioning the NATO-led bombing campaign that destroyed Africa’s most advanced welfare state. Peel presented the rise of armed gangs of fanatical tribal and Islamic terrorists as a victory for democracy over a “brutal dictatorship.”¹⁷ Peel’s mendacity and cant is evident in his outrageous claims that the destruction of the Libyan economy and the mass torture and racially motivated murders, which followed NATO’s war, was a victory for the Libyan people.

The totalitarian twist in the respectable press is a direct consequence of its long-term toadying to the extremist policies pursued by the western regimes. Since extremist measures, like the use of force, violence, assassination and torture, have become routine by the incumbent presidents and prime ministers, the reporters have no choice but to fabricate lies to render ‘respectable’ such crimes, to spit out a constant flow of highly charged adjectives in order to convert victims into executioners and executioners into victims. Extremism in defense of pro-US regimes has led to the most grotesque accounts imaginable: Colombia and Mexico’s Presidents are the leaders of the most thoroughly narcotized economies in the hemisphere yet they are praised for their war on drugs, while Venezuela, the most marginal producer of any drug, is stigmatized as a major narco- pipeline.¹⁸

Articles with no factual basis, which are worthless as sources of objective information, direct us to seek an underlying rationale: Colombia has signed a free trade agreement, which will benefit US exports over Colombian by over a two to one ratio.¹⁹ Mexico’s free trade policy has benefited US agro-business and giant retailers by a similar ratio.

All forms of extremism permeate Western regimes and find justification and rationalization through the respectable media whose job is to indoctrinate civil society and turn citizens into uncritical accomplices to extremism. By endlessly prefacing ‘reports’ on Russia’s President Putin as an authoritarian Soviet-era tyrant, the respectable media avoid any discussion of the doubling of the Russian standard of living and Putin’s over 60% electoral triumph. By magnifying an authoritarian past, the murdered Libyan President Gaddafi’s vast public works, social welfare programs and generous immigration and foreign aid programs to sub-Sahara Africa can be relegated to the oblivion. The respectable press’s praise of death squad Presidents Santos and Lobos is part of a large-scale, long-term systematic shift from the hypocritical pretence of pursuing the virtues of a democratic republic to the open embrace of a virulent, murderous empire. The new journalists’ code reads ‘extremism in defense of empire is no vice.’

1. There’s a general consensus that the respectable print media include the Financial Times, the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal.
2. Financial Times (FT) 5/8/12; See also FT (5/4/12) “Colombia looks to consolidate gainsin country of complexities.”
3. FT 5/8/12 (p. 1).
4. BBC News, May 5, 2012.
5. Renan Vega Cantor, Sindicalicidio! (Un cuento poco imaginativo) de Terrorismo Laboral Bogotá, Feb. 25, 2012.
6. Inforrme CODHES Novembre 2010.
7. FT, 5/8/12 p. 4.
8. See the Annual Reports of CODHES, Reiniciar and Human Rights Watch.
9. Claroscuro Informe Aual 2011; Programa Somos Defensores Bogota 2012; Corporacion Colectivo de Abogados. Jan-March 2012.
10. Fiscalia General, Informe 2012.
11. Falsos Positivos Blogspot.
12. Thom Shanker, “Lessons of Iraq Help US Fight a Drug War in Honduras,” New York Times, May 6, 2012.
13. Human Rights Watch, World Report 2012.
14. Honduran Human Rights, May 12m, 2012.
15. The notorious cover-up of the car bombing is the handiwork of the FT’s star middle east journalists. See Michael Peel and Abigail Fielding-Smith, “At Least 55 Die in two Damascus Explosions: Responsibility for Blasts Disputed,” FT, 5/11/12.
16. Honduras Human Rights, April 24, 2012.
17. Michael Peel, “The Colonels Last Stand,” FT, 5/12-13/12.
18. One of Colombia’s most notorious paramilitary narco traffickers described the close financial and political ties between the Colombian United Self Defense terrorists and the Uribe-Santos regime. See La Jornada, 5/12/12.
19. BBC News, 5/15/12. According to the US International Trade Commission estimates the value of US exports to Colombia could rise by $1.1 billion while Colombia’s exports could grow by $487 million.

The US has applied massive pressure on Egypt to drop the case, sending high-level officials to Cairo for intense discussions and threatening to cut off up to $1.3bn in military aid and $250m in economic assistance if the US citizens were tried. A travel ban was imposed on seven of them by Egypt’s Attorney General, including Sam LaHood, son of Obama’s Transportation Secretary. By the first day of the case all but the seven with travel restrictions had left the country and those who remained did not even attend court. A day after the ban was lifted a military plane removed the remaining seven US citizens from Egypt after the US government provided nearly $5m in bail.

The Egyptian authorities stated that the matter was firmly in the hands of the judiciary and out of control of government and accused the US of unacceptable meddling. The international community has expressed outrage at the affair and accused the Egyptian military of inciting paranoia of foreign interference so as to deflect attention from the slow pace of political and democratic reform a year after the revolution. Amid the high-profile diplomatic strife there has been an almost total global journalistic silence on the nature and funding of these “NGOs”.

State Sponsored Organisations, Not NGOs

The people standing trial are repeatedly referred to by governments and the media as “NGO workers”. The 43 defendants worked for five specific organisations; Freedom House; the National Democratic Institute (NDI); the International Republican Institute (IRI); the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) and the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung. Only one of these organisations, the ICFJ, can be considered as non-governmental in that it does not receive the majority of its funding either directly or indirectly from a government.

The NDI, chaired by Madeline Albright, and the IRI, chaired by Senator John McCain, represent the US Democratic and Republican political parties. The NDI and IRI, together with the Center for International Private Enterprise, which represents the US Chamber of Commerce, and the Solidarity Centre, which represents the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), make up the four “core institutions” of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). NED is a non-profit, grant-making institution that receives more than 90% of its annual budget from the US government. While Freedom House claims to be independent it regularly receives the majority of its funding from the NED. The Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, sometimes referred to as the German NED, is a non-profit foundation associated with the Christian Democratic Union. It receives over 90% of its funding from the German government. This means that the IRI, the NDI, Freedom House and the Konrad Adenauer Stifung – four of the five accused organisation – are state sponsored institutions and can not be defined as NGOs.

Freedom House has long been criticised for its right wing bias, favouring free markets and US foreign policy interests when assessing civil liberty and political freedom “scores” in countries around the world. Freedom House statistics for 2011 claim that Venezuelans had the same level of political rights as Iraqis. Bolivia’s overall score was reduced from “Free” to “Partially Free” after mass protests removed American-educated millionaire Gonzalo Sanchez de Losada from power after he initiated a sweeping privatization program. Now, under the first government in her history to really recognise the rights of the indigenous majority, Bolivia is still rated by Freedom House as only partially free and received a lower overall score than Botswana where one party (the BDP) has been in power since the first elections were held there in 1965. Freedom House has also been accused of running programmes of regime destabilisation in US “enemy states” and a 1996 Financial Times article revealed that Freedom House was one of several organisations selected by the State Department to receive funding for “clandestine activities” inside Iran including training and funding groups seeking regime change, an act that received criticism from Iranian grass roots pro-democracy groups.¹

The most nefarious of these organisations by far, however, are the IRI and the NDI. They receive NED grants “for work abroad to foster the growth of political parties, electoral processes and institutions, free trade unions, and free markets and business organizations.” ²  On March 6th, a protest march was organised by American civil society organisations at the offices of the NED in Washington, demanding; “NO ATTACKS ON DEMOCRACY ANYWHERE! CLOSE THE NED”. Union members and labor activists have protested and campaigned for years demanding that the AFL-CIO’s Solidarity Center break all ties to the NED.

Board of Directors

Chaired by Richard Gephardt – former Democratic Representative, now CEO of his own corporate consultancy and lobbying firm – the NED’s board of directors consists of a collection of corporate lobbyists, advisors and consultants, former U.S congressmen, senators, ambassadors and military and senior fellows of think tanks. For example, John A. Bohn, a former high level international banker and former President and Chief Executive Officer of Moody’s Investors Service, is now Commissioner of the California Public Utilities Commission, a principal in a global corporate advisory and consulting firm and Executive Chairman of an internet based trading exchange for petrochemicals. Kenneth Duberstein, former White House Deputy Chief of Staff under Reagan, is now Chairman and CEO of his own corporate lobbying firm. He also sits on the Board of Governors of the American Stock Exchange and NASD and serves on the Boards of Directors of numerous conglomerates including The Boeing Company, ConocoPhilips and Fannie Mae. Martin Frost is a former congressman who was involved in writing the 1999 “Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act” also known as the “Citigroup Relief Act”, and William Galston, former student of Leo Strauss, is a US Marine Corp veteran.

The Board also contains four of the founding members of ultra-conservative think tank Project for a New American Century; Francis Fukyama (author of ‘The End of History’), Will Marshall (founder of the ‘New Democrats’, an organisation that aimed to move Democratic Party policies to the right) former congressman Vin Weber (who retired from Congress in 1992 as a result of the House Banking Scandal and is now managing partner of a corporate lobbying firm) and Zalmay Khalilzad. Under George Bush Jr., Khalilzad served as US Ambassador to Iraq, Afghanistan and the UN.  He is now President and CEO of his own international corporate advisory firm which advises clients – mainly in the energy, construction, education, and infrastructure sectors – wishing to do business in the Middle East, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan. He also briefly consulted for Cambridge Energy Research Associates while they were conducting a risk analysis for the proposed Trans-Afghanistan gas pipeline.

History

The NED was founded in 1983 when Washington was embroiled in numerous controversies relating to covert military operations and the training and funding of paramilitaries and death squads in Central and South America. The NED was formed to create an open and legal avenue for the US Government to channel funds to opposition groups against unfavourable regimes around the world, thus removing the political stigma associated with covert CIA funding. In a 1991 Washington Post article, “Innocence Abroad: The New World of Spyless Coups”, Allen Weinstein (who helped draft the legislation that established the NED) declared; “A lot of what we [the NED] do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA”. ³

In 1996 the Heritage Foundation published an article in defence of continued NED congressional funding which accurately summed up the NED as a US foreign policy tool; “The NED is a valuable weapon in the international war of ideas. It advances American national interests by promoting the development of stable democracies friendly to the U.S. in strategically important parts of the world. The U.S. cannot afford to discard such an effective instrument of foreign policy…Although the Cold War has ended, the global war of ideas continues to rage”. ⁴

As well as ongoing campaigns of regime destabilisation in undemocratic US enemy states such as Cuba and China, and its well known funding of “colour” revolutionaries in the former soviet space, the NED has been repeatedly involved in influencing elections and overthrowing governments in left-leaning and anti-US democratic regimes around the world. This is achieved by providing funding and/or training and strategic advice to opposition groups, political parties, journalists and media outlets. As Barbara Conry of the Cato Institute wrote: “Through the Endowment, the American taxpayer has paid for special-interest groups to harass the duly elected governments of friendly countries, interfere in foreign elections, and foster the corruption of democratic movements.”⁵

From 1986 to 1988 the NED funded the right-wing political opposition to Nobel Peace Price winner, President Oscar Arias, in democratic Costa Rica because he was outspokenly critical of Reagan’s violent policies in Central America. During the 1980s the NED was even active in “defending democracy” in France due to the dangerous rise in communist influence perceived as occurring under the elected socialist government of Francois Mitterrand. Money was channelled into opposition groups including extreme right-wing organisations such as the National Inter-University Union. In 1990 the NED provided funding and support to right wing groups in Nicaragua, and Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas were removed from power in an election described by Professor William I. Robinson as an event in which “massive foreign interference completely distorted an endogenous political process and undermined the ability of the elections to be a free choice”.⁶

In the late 1990s the NED provided funding and support to the US backed right-wing opposition against the election campaign of progressive former president, and first democratically elected leader of Haiti, Jean-Betrand Aristide. When a coup removed Aristide from power for the second time in 2004 it was revealed that the NED had provided funding and strategic advice to the principal organizations involved in his ousting. The involvement of the NED in the 2002 attempted coup against President Hugo Chavez in Venezuela has been well researched and documented. Immediately after the coup, however, the then president of the IRI, George Folsom, revealed the institute’s role in the endeavour when he sent out a press release celebrating Chavez’s ousting: “The Institute has served as a bridge between the nation’s political parties and all civil society groups to help Venezuelans forge a new democratic future…”.

The IRI was also implicated in the 2009 Honduran coup amid claims that the organisation had supported the ousting of democratically elected leader Manuel Zelaya because of his support of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (an anti-free trade pact including Honduras, Venezuela, Bolivia and Cuba) and his refusal to privatise telecommunications. According to the Council on Hemispheric Affairs AT&T – an American telecommunications giant – has provided significant funding to both the IRI and Senator John McCain (its chairman) in order to target Latin American states that refuse to privatize their telecommunications industry.⁷

Influence in Egypt and the Arab Spring

The NED works in democratic Turkey but does not provide “democratisation grants” to civil society organisations in Western allied absolute monarchies such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia or Oman. A number of NED backed activists have taken centre stage in the Arab Spring struggles and U.S. supported candidates have risen to occupy leading positions in newly established transitional governments. The most glaring example of this is Libya’s transitional Prime Minister, Dr. Abdurrahim El-Keib, who holds dual U.S./Libyan citizenship and is former Chairman of the Petroleum Institute sponsored by British Petroleum, Shell, Total and the Japan Oil Development Company. He handed the job of running Libya’s oil and gas supply to a technocrat and, according to the Guardian, has passed over Islamists expected to make the cabinet in order “to please Western backers”.⁸ Tawakkul Karman too, of Yemen, who became the youngest ever recipient of a Nobel Peace Price in 2011, was leader of a NED grantee organisation, “Women Journalists without Chains”.

In 2009 sixteen young Egyptian activists completed a two-month Freedom House ‘New Generation Fellowship’ in Washington. The activists received training in advocacy and met with U.S. government officials, members of Congress, media outlets and think tanks. As far back as 2008, members of the April 6th Movement attended the inaugural summit of the Association of Youth Movements (AYM) in New York, where they networked with other movements, attended workshops on the use of new and social media and learned about technical upgrades, such as consistently alternating computer simcards, which help to evade state internet surveillance. AYM is sponsored by Pepsi, YouTube and MTV and amongst the luminaries who participated in the 2008 Summit, which focused on training activists in the use of Facebook and Twitter, were James Glassman of the State Department, Sherif Mansour of Freedom House, National Security Advisor Shaarik Zafar and Larry Diamond of the NED.

This is rather ironic considering that in September 2009 the US authorities arrested Elliot Madison (a US citizen and full-time social worker) for using Twitter to disseminate information about police movements to G20 Summit street protesters in Pittsburgh. Madison, apparently in violation of a loosely defined federal anti-rioting law, was accused of “criminal use of a communication facility,” “possessing instruments of crime,” and “hindering apprehension”. Given that heavily armed police officers were using tear gas, sonic weapons and rubber bullets on protesters Madison’s actions were hardly unjustified. Further demonstrating the hypocrisy of Madison’s arrest is the fact that in June 2009 the State Department had requested Twitter delay a planned upgrade so that Iranian protesters’ tweets would not be interrupted. Twitter Inc subsequently stated in a blog post that it had delayed the upgrade because of its role as an “important communication tool in Iran.”⁹

A leaked 2008 cable from the Cairo US Embassy, entitled “April 6 activist on his US visit and regime change in Egypt”, showed that the US was in dialogue with an April 6th youth activist about his attendance at the AYM Summit.¹⁰  The cable revealed that the activist tried to convince his Washington interlocutors that the US Government and the International Community should pressure the Egyptian government into implementing reforms by freezing the off-shore bank accounts of Egyptian Government officials. He also detailed the youth movement’s plans to remove Mubarak from power and hold representative elections before the September 2011 presidential election.

While the cable revealed that the US deemed this plan “highly unrealistic”, the dialogue proves that the funding of any youth organisation associated with the April 6th movement by a US organisation since December 2008 had been done with Washington and the US embassy in Cairo being fully aware that the movement’s aim was regime change in Egypt. Yet in April 2011 the New York Times published an article entitled ‘U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings’ in which it openly stated that; “A number of the groups and individuals directly involved in the revolts and reforms sweeping the region, including the April 6th Youth Movement in Egypt, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and grass-roots activists like Entsar Qadhi, a youth leader in Yemen, received training and financing from groups like the IRI, the NDI and Freedom House”.

According to the NED’s 2009 Annual Report, $1,419,426 worth of grants was doled out to civil society organisations in Egypt that year. In 2010, the year preceding the January – February 2011 revolution, this funding massively increased to $2,497,457.¹¹ Nearly half of this sum, $1,146,903, was allocated to the Center for International Private Enterprise for activates such as conducting workshops at governate level “to promote corporate citizenship” and engaging civil society organizations “to participate in the democratic process by strengthening their capacity to advo­cate for free market legislative reform on behalf of their members”. Freedom House also received $89,000 to “strengthen cooperation among a network of local activists and bloggers”.

According to the same 2010 report, various youth organisations and youth orientated projects received a total of $370,954 for activities such as expanding the use of new media and social advertising campaigns among young activists, training and providing ongoing support in “the production and targeted dissemination of social advertisement campaigns”, building the leadership skills of political party youth, strengthening and supporting “a cadre of young civic and political activists . . . well positioned to mobilize and engage their communities”, and providing youth  training workshops in “professional media skills as well as online and social networking media tools”.

But this is just the funding that is transparently made known to us on the NED’s official website. After the revolution, the NDI and IRI massively expanded their operations in Egypt, opening five new offices between them and hiring large numbers of new staff. The Egyptian authorities claim that they have found these organisations’ finances very difficult to trace. According to Dawlat Eissa – a 27-year-old Egyptian-American and former IRI employee – the IRI used employees’ private bank accounts to channel money covertly from Washington, and an IRI accountant stated that directors used their personal credit cards for expenses. Eissa and a number of her colleagues resigned from their posts with the IRI in October, and Eissa filed a complaint with the government after director Sam LaHood reportedly told employees to collect all of the organisation’s work related paperwork for scanning and shipping to the US.¹²

It is clear that NDI, IRI and Freedom House were training and funding the youth movement in Egypt while the US Government and its Cairo Embassy were fully aware that the youth movement aimed to remove Mubarak from power. Critics claim that the defendants are being charged with a law that is a “relic of the Mubarak era”. But, it may be replied, in what country does the law allow foreign governments to fund and train opposition groups with a stated goal of regime change? It is common sense to assume that if China or Cuba were funding similar oppositionist groups in the US, those involved would be facing far harsher sentences than the 43 now standing trial in Egypt. Yet they continue to hide behind the tattered guise of being “NGO” employees, claiming independence because their US government funding is channelled through the National Endowment for Democracy.

The term “NGO” is used deliberately to create an illusion of innocent philanthropic activity. In this case the Egyptian government is investigating the operations of organisations in receipt of US state funding which have a proven history of covertly funding political parties, influencing elections and aiding coups against both autocratic and democratic non-compliant and left-leaning governments around the world. Yet one mention of the Egyptian government’s raid on the offices of so-called “pro-democracy NGOs” in Cairo was enough to spark an international outcry. The result has been an almost complete failure by the Western press to investigate at all the history of the organisations involved or the validity of the charges being brought against them.

•  This article was first published in Irish Foreign Affairs (Vol 5, No. 1, March 2012)

1. Guy Dinmore, “Bush enters Iran ‘freedom’ debate’”, Financial Times, March 31, 2006
2. National Endowment for Democracy official website
3. Innocence Abroad: The New World of Spyless Coups by David Ignatius. Washington Post, September 22, 1991
4. The National Endowment for Democracy: A Prudent Investment in the Future by James Phillips (Senior Research Fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs) and Kim R. Holmes (Vice President of Foreign and Defence Policy Studies), Heritage Foundation, 1996
5. Conry, B. (1993) Cato Foreign Policy Briefing No. 27, November 8
6. Robinson, William I. (1992), A Faustian Bargain: U.S. Intervention in the Nicaraguan Elections and American Foreign Policy in the Post-Cold War Era,  Boulder: Westview Press, p. 150
7. D’Ambrosio, Michaela,  ‘The Honduran Coup: Was it a matter of behind the scenes finagling by state department stonewallers?” Council on Hemispheric Affairs, September 16, 2009
8. “Libyan PM snubs Islamists with cabinet to please western backers”, The Guardian, Tuesday  November 22, 2011
9. Pleming, Sue. “US State Department speaks to Twitter over Iran”,  Reuters, Jun 16, 2009
10. “Egypt protests: secret US document discloses support for protesters”,  The Telegraph, January 28, 2011
11. All figures taken from 2009 and 2010 NED annual report’s for Egypt available on NED’s official website
12. Hill, Evan,  “Egypt dossier outlines NGO prosecution”, Al Jazeera English, February 26, 2012

— Associated Press, February 3, 2012

It’s unfortunate and disturbing that Bradley Manning’s attorneys have chosen to consistently base his legal defense upon the premise that personal problems and shortcomings are what motivated the young man to turn over hundreds of thousands of classified government files to Wikileaks. They should not be presenting him that way any more than Bradley should be tried as a criminal or traitor. He should be hailed as a national hero. Yes, even when the lawyers are talking to the military mind. May as well try to penetrate that mind and find the freest and best person living there. Bradley also wears a military uniform.

Here are Manning’s own words from an online chat: “If you had free reign over classified networks … and you saw incredible things, awful things … things that belonged in the public domain, and not on some server stored in a dark room in Washington DC … what would you do? … God knows what happens now. Hopefully worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms. … I want people to see the truth … because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public.”

Is the world to believe that these are the words of a disturbed and irrational person? Do not the Nuremberg Tribunal and the Geneva Conventions speak of a higher duty than blind loyalty to one’s government, a duty to report the war crimes of that government?

Below is a listing of some of the things revealed in the State Department cables and Defense Department files and videos. For exposing such embarrassing and less-than-honorable behavior, Bradley Manning of the United States Army and Julian Assange of Wikileaks may spend most of their remaining days in a modern dungeon, much of it while undergoing that particular form of torture known as “solitary confinement”. Indeed, it has been suggested that the mistreatment of Manning has been for the purpose of making him testify against and implicating Assange. Dozens of members of the American media and public officials have called for Julian Assange’s execution or assassination. Under the new National Defense Authorization Act, Assange could well be kidnapped or assassinated. What century are we living in? What world?

It was after seeing American war crimes such as those depicted in the video “Collateral Murder” and documented in the “Iraq War Logs,” made public by Manning and Wikileaks, that the Iraqis refused to exempt US forces from prosecution for future crimes. The video depicts an American helicopter indiscriminately murdering several non-combatants in addition to two Reuters journalists, and the wounding of two little children, while the helicopter pilots cheer the attacks in a Baghdad suburb like it was the Army-Navy game in Philadelphia.

The insistence of the Iraqi government on legal jurisdiction over American soldiers for violations of Iraqi law — something the United States rarely, if ever, accepts in any of the many countries where its military is stationed — forced the Obama administration to pull the remaining American troops from the country.

If Manning had committed war crimes in Iraq instead of exposing them, he would be a free man today, as are the many hundreds/thousands of American soldiers guilty of truly loathsome crimes in cities like Haditha, Fallujah, and other places whose names will live in infamy in the land of ancient Mesopotamia.

Besides playing a role in writing finis to the awful Iraq war, the Wikileaks disclosures helped to spark the Arab Spring, beginning in Tunisia.

When people in Tunisia read or heard of US Embassy cables revealing the extensive corruption and decadence of the extended ruling family there — one long and detailed cable being titled: “CORRUPTION IN TUNISIA: WHAT’S YOURS IS MINE” — how Washington’s support of Tunisian President Ben Ali was not really strong, and that the US would not support the regime in the event of a popular uprising, they took to the streets.

Here is a sample of some of the other Wikileaks revelations that make the people of the world wiser:

• In 2009 Japanese diplomat Yukiya Amano became the new head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which plays the leading role in the investigation of whether Iran is developing nuclear weapons or is working only on peaceful civilian nuclear energy projects. A US embassy cable of October 2009 said Amano “took pains to emphasize his support for U.S. strategic objectives for the Agency. Amano reminded the [American] ambassador on several occasions that … he was solidly in the U.S. court on every key strategic decision, from high-level personnel appointments to the handling of Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program.”
• Russia refuted US claims that Iran has missiles that could target Europe.
• The British government’s official inquiry into how it got involved in the Iraq War was deeply compromised by the government’s pledge to protect the Bush administration in the course of the inquiry.
• A discussion between Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh and American Gen. David H. Petraeus in which Saleh indicated he would cover up the US role in missile strikes against al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen. “We’ll continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours,” Saleh told Petraeus.
• The US embassy in Madrid has had serious points of friction with the Spanish government and civil society: a) trying to get the criminal case dropped against three US soldiers accused of killing a Spanish television cameraman in Baghdad during a 2003 unprovoked US tank shelling of the hotel where he and other journalists were staying; b )torture cases brought by a Spanish NGO against six senior Bush administration officials, including former attorney general Alberto Gonzales; c) a Spanish government investigation into the torture of Spanish subjects held at Guantánamo; d) a probe by a Spanish court into the use of Spanish bases and airfields for American extraordinary rendition (= torture) flights; e )continual criticism of the Iraq war by Spanish Prime Minister Zapatero, who eventually withdrew Spanish troops.
• State Department officials at the United Nations, as well as US diplomats in various embassies, were assigned to gather as much of the following information as possible about UN officials, including Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, permanent security council representatives, senior UN staff, and foreign diplomats: e-mail and website addresses, internet user names and passwords, personal encryption keys, credit card numbers, frequent flyer account numbers, work schedules, and biometric data. US diplomats at the embassy in Asunción, Paraguay were asked to obtain dates, times and telephone numbers of calls received and placed by foreign diplomats from China, Iran and the Latin American leftist states of Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia. US diplomats in Romania, Hungary and Slovenia were instructed to provide biometric information on “current and emerging leaders and advisers” as well as information about “corruption” and information about leaders’ health and “vulnerability”. The UN directive also specifically asked for “biometric information on ranking North Korean diplomats”. A similar cable to embassies in the Great Lakes region of Africa said biometric data included DNA, as well as iris scans and fingerprints.
• A special “Iran observer” in the Azerbaijan capital of Baku reported on a dispute that played out during a meeting of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. An enraged Revolutionary Guard Chief of Staff, Mohammed Ali Jafari, allegedly got into a heated argument with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and slapped him in the face because the generally conservative president had, surprisingly, advocated freedom of the press.
• The State Department, virtually alone in the Western Hemisphere, did not unequivocally condemn a June 28, 2009 military coup in Honduras, even though an embassy cable declared: “there is no doubt that the military, Supreme Court and National Congress conspired on June 28 in what constituted an illegal and unconstitutional coup against the Executive Branch”. US support of the coup government has been unwavering ever since.
• The leadership of the Swedish Social Democratic Party — neutral, pacifist, and liberal Sweden, so the long-standing myth goes — visited the US embassy in Stockholm and asked for advice on how best to sell the war in Afghanistan to a skeptical Swedish public, asking if the US could arrange for a member of the Afghan government to come visit Sweden and talk up NATO’s humanitarian efforts on behalf of Afghan children, and so forth. [For some years now Sweden has been, in all but name, a member of NATO and the persecutor of Julian Assange, the latter to please a certain Western power.]
• The US pushed to influence Swedish wiretapping laws so communication passing through the Scandinavian country could be intercepted. The American interest was clear: Eighty per cent of all the internet traffic from Russia travels through Sweden.
• President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy told US embassy officials in Brussels in January 2010 that no one in Europe believed in Afghanistan anymore. He said Europe was going along in deference to the United States and that there must be results in 2010, or “Afghanistan is over for Europe.”
• Iraqi officials saw Saudi Arabia, not Iran, as the biggest threat to the integrity and cohesion of their fledgling democratic state. The Iraqi leaders were keen to assure their American patrons that they could easily “manage” the Iranians, who wanted stability; but that the Saudis wanted a “weak and fractured” Iraq, and were even “fomenting terrorism that would destabilize the government”. The Saudi King, moreover, wanted a US military strike on Iran.
• Saudi Arabia in 2007 threatened to pull out of a Texas oil refinery investment unless the US government intervened to stop Saudi Aramco from being sued in US courts for alleged oil price fixing. The deputy Saudi oil minister said that he wanted the US to grant Saudi Arabia sovereign immunity from lawsuits
• Saudi donors were the chief financiers of Sunni militant groups like Al Qaeda, the Afghan Taliban, and Lashkar-e-Taiba, which carried out the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
• Pfizer, the world’s largest pharmaceutical company, hired investigators to unearth evidence of corruption against the Nigerian attorney general in order to persuade him to drop legal action over a controversial 1996 drug trial involving children with meningitis.
• Oil giant Shell claimed to have “inserted staff” and fully infiltrated Nigeria’s government.
• The Obama administration renewed military ties with Indonesia in spite of serious concerns expressed by American diplomats about the Indonesian military’s activities in the province of West Papua, expressing fears that the Indonesian government’s neglect, rampant corruption and human rights abuses were stoking unrest in the region.
• US officials collaborated with Lebanon’s defense minister to spy on, and allow Israel to potentially attack, Hezbollah in the weeks that preceded a violent May 2008 military confrontation in Beirut.
• Gabon president Omar Bongo allegedly pocketed millions in embezzled funds from central African states, channeling some of it to French political parties in support of Nicolas Sarkozy.
• Cables from the US embassy in Caracas in 2006 asked the US Secretary of State to warn President Hugo Chávez against a Venezuelan military intervention to defend the Cuban revolution in the eventuality of an American invasion after Castro’s death.
• The United States was concerned that the leftist Latin American television network, Telesur, headquartered in Venezuela, would collaborate with al Jazeera of Qatar, whose coverage of the Iraq War had gotten under the skin of the Bush administration.
• The Vatican told the United States it wanted to undermine the influence of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez in Latin America because of concerns about the deterioration of Catholic power there. It feared that Chávez was seriously damaging relations between the Catholic church and the state by identifying the church hierarchy in Venezuela as part of the privileged class.
• The Holy See welcomed President Obama’s new outreach to Cuba and hoped for further steps soon, perhaps to include prison visits for the wives of the Cuban Five. Better US-Cuba ties would deprive Hugo Chávez of one of his favorite screeds and could help restrain him in the region.
• The wonderful world of diplomats: In 2010, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown raised with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton the question of visas for two wives of members of the “Cuban Five”. “Brown requested that the wives (who have previously been refused visas to visit the U.S.) be granted visas so that they could visit their husbands in prison. … Our subsequent queries to Number 10 indicate that Brown made this request as a result of a commitment that he had made to UK trade unionists, who form part of the Labour Party’s core constituency. Now that the request has been made, Brown does not intend to pursue this matter further. There is no USG action required.”
• UK Officials concealed from Parliament how the US was allowed to bring cluster bombs onto British soil in defiance of a treaty banning the housing of such weapons.
• A cable was sent by an official at the US Interests Section in Havana in July 2006, during the run-up to the Non-Aligned Movement conference. He noted that he was actively looking for “human interest stories and other news that shatters the myth of Cuban medical prowess”. [Presumably to be used to weaken support for Cuba amongst the member nations at the conference.]
• Most of the men sent to Guantánamo prison were innocent people or low-level operatives; many of the innocent individuals were sold to the US for bounty.
• DynCorp, a powerful American defense contracting firm that claims almost $2 billion per year in revenue from US tax dollars, threw a “boy-play” party for Afghan police recruits. (Yes, it’s what you think.)
• Even though the Bush and Obama Administrations repeatedly maintained publicly that there was no official count of civilian casualties, the Iraq and Afghanistan War Logs showed that this claim was untrue.
• Known Egyptian torturers received training at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia.
• The United States put great pressure on the Haitian government to not go ahead with various projects, with no regard for the welfare of the Haitian people. A 2005 cable stressed continued US insistence that all efforts must be made to keep former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, whom the United States had overthrown the previous year, from returning to Haiti or influencing the political process. In 2006, Washington’s target was President René Préval for his agreeing to a deal with Venezuela to join Caracas’s Caribbean oil alliance, PetroCaribe, under which Haiti would buy oil from Venezuela, paying only 60 percent up front with the remainder payable over twenty-five years at 1 percent interest. And in 2009, the State Department backed American corporate opposition to an increase in the minimum wage for Haitian workers, the poorest paid in the Western Hemisphere.
• The United States used threats, spying, and more to try to get its way at the crucial 2009 climate conference in Copenhagen.
• Mahmoud Abbas, president of The Palestinian National Authority, and head of the Fatah movement, turned to Israel for help in attacking Hamas in Gaza in 2007.
• The British government trained a Bangladeshi paramilitary force condemned by human rights organisations as a “government death squad”.
• A US military order directed American forces not to investigate cases of torture of detainees by Iraqis.
• The US was involved in the Australian government’s 2006 campaign to oust Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare.
• A 2009 US cable said that police brutality in Egypt against common criminals was routine and pervasive, the police using force to extract confessions from criminals on a daily basis.
• US diplomats pressured the German government to stifle the prosecution of CIA operatives who abducted and tortured Khalid El-Masri, a German citizen. [El-Masri was kidnaped by the CIA while on vacation in Macedonia on December 31, 2003. He was flown to a torture center in Afghanistan, where he was beaten, starved, and sodomized. The US government released him on a hilltop in Albania five months later without money or the means to go home.]
• 2005 cable re “widespread severe torture” by India, the widely-renowned “world’s largest democracy”: The International Committee of the Red Cross reported: “The continued ill-treatment of detainees, despite longstanding ICRC-GOI [Government of India] dialogue, have led the ICRC to conclude that New Delhi condones torture.” Washington was briefed on this matter by the ICRC years ago. What did the United States, one of the world’s leading practitioners and teachers of torture in the past century, do about it? American leaders, including the present ones, continued to speak warmly of “the world’s largest democracy”; as if torture and one of the worst rates of poverty and child malnutrition in the world do not contradict the very idea of democracy.
• The United States overturned a ban on training the Indonesian Kopassus army special forces — despite the Kopassus’s long history of arbitrary detention, torture and murder — after the Indonesian President threatened to derail President Obama’s trip to the country in November 2010.
• Since at least 2006 the United States has been funding political opposition groups in Syria, including a satellite TV channel that beams anti-government programming into the country.

The School for Murder

The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), formerly called the School of the Americas (SOA), is a combat training institute for Latin American soldiers located in Fort Benning, Ga. The school came to media attention in 1996 after the Pentagon unveiled a curriculum that advocated execution, extortion, and torture.

SOA’s name change to WHINSEC in 2001 was made after numerous protests in the U.S. and Latin America exposed its violent character. Yet there is no evidence that WHINSEC practices are different from the violent past of the SOA.

For instance, although the U.S. officially “deplored” the 2009 overthrow of the democratically elected president of Honduras, it was WHINSEC graduates who spearheaded the ousting. Honduran pro-democracy resistance groups say that today SOA/WHINSEC graduates prop up an administration that increasingly represses human rights activists, journalists, and social movements.

SOA boasted on its Web site that it had “defeated” many critics of the school who identified with Marxist Liberation Theology. Graduates certainly murdered prominent advocates of that philosophy. Some instructors’ duties include repression of socialist parties; Lt. Col. German Barriga in Chile was implicated in the 1976 disappearance of the Chilean Communist Party leader Jorge Muñoz, who was never found.

Since the 1970s, atrocities by SOA students have rapidly multiplied. Violent political repression is common from attendees. Ample information has been gathered by SOA Watch, available at www.soaw.org.

But there has been no serious attempt by Congress to close down the school despite its bloody record.

SOA-style Political Repression in the USA

Instead of closing the school, the U.S. is increasingly copying SOA/WHINSEC strategies to quell domestic political dissent. Consider the Patriot Act of 2001. Antiwar activists, Muslims, and other dissidents were among the most targeted victims of the ensuing FBI raids, spying, and civil liberties violations. The act has been renewed every time it is slated to expire.

Then there is the military’s Total Information Awareness program to amass huge databases of information on all U.S. residents. Even though it was shut down, a congressional report concluded that the program has continued under other names.

Documents recently uncovered through the Freedom of Information Act reveal that the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force investigated activists who revealed abuse of animals on factory farms. The animal rights protesters entered properties, and videotaped and publicized the awful conditions. The report states that although the acts were a form of nonviolent civil disobedience, they were a violation of the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, and agents recommended prosecutions for terrorism. So causing a corporation economic losses due to protest is now to be treated as an act of terrorism!

Democrats and Republicans are accomplices in squelching political opposition. For example, both parties have restricted protests at their national conventions to distant “free speech zones.” With the help of the FBI and Obama’s Attorney General, Eric Holder, the 2008 Republican National Convention has resulted in grand jury witch-hunts and the prosecution of antiwar activists who organized rallies.

The 2010 arrest of Bradley Manning shows the looming threat of a police state for whistle blowers. Pfc. Manning was charged for allegedly sharing documentation of war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan with the information-sharing Web site Wikileaks. Manning was held in solitary confinement for months, prompting worldwide outrage.

The War on Dissent Ramps Up

On December 31, Obama signed into law a bill that allows preventive detention of “terrorist suspects” on U.S. soil. Under the National Defense Authorization Act, the military has the power to hold indefinitely any person considered a “threat to national security.” Suspects, including U.S. citizens, can be detained in secret without trial, knowledge of the charges against them, or legal counsel. The law gives the military new authority to act against civilians inside the country.

December 2011 also marked the first time Predator drones were used in the U.S. against civilians (except at the border). Drones are unmanned, remotely controlled military aircraft. They were originally introduced in combat in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, to conduct spying and fire missiles.

Drones were originally approved for the Customs and Border Protection Agency in 2005 with little publicity. A neglected provision in the Customs and Border budget request to Congress stipulated that drones could be used for “interior law enforcement support,” which made them available to police without new laws or regulations, discussion or debate.

AeroVironment, Inc., the leading producer of small drones, stated in their 2011 Annual Report that future profits are likely to come from domestic use.

Federal agents continue to spy on, and raid the homes of, antiwar activists and those in the Muslim community. There has been a nationally coordinated effort to evict, often-violently, demonstrators across the country staying in Occupy movement encampments.

Fighting State Terror Tactics

Bills have been introduced in Congress to end SOA/WHINSEC, as well as to make the instructors and curriculum transparent. Protests take place every year at Fort Benning to expose the school’s destructive role in Latin America and call for shutting it down.

Public pressure in Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay, and Venezuela resulted in pledges by these governments to stop sending students to the school and a strong movement is underway in Chile to demand the same.

It is past time for similar protests of School of the Americas-type tactics in the U.S. SOA/WHINSEC, the FBI, Republicans, Democrats, and corporations are linked together in their ambition to extinguish political dissent. A coalition of labor, Occupy, antiwar, environmental and animal rights activists engaged in a united fight can destroy the police/military policies and profit driven system that dictate our lives.

• This article was first published at Freedom Socialist newspaper, Vol. 33, No. 1, February-March 2012

“To be internationalist is to pay our debt to humanity” says Fidel Castro and this can be read on many billboards in Cuba.

What is internationalism?—cooperation among people and nations, states my dictionary. The book of definitions maintains that internationalism is a principle of communism and socialism. It is the belief of ideological leaders such as Lenin, Fidel and Che.

Che wrote in his essay, “Socialism and Man”, that proletarian internationalism isn’t just a duty but a necessity. If revolutionary leaders forget this, Che wrote, the revolution will lose its inspiration and imperialism will benefit.

Che was also known for having severely criticized Soviet Union leadership for having lost its internationalism with the world’s proletariat and the Third World. Following up on Che’s critique, I find it important to criticize communist and socialist parties, and governments led by these parties, which let down people who are oppressed by, or invaded by, national or foreign powers.

Internationalism in action

1. Internationalists must support resistance fighters against invasions. Therefore, one must chastise political parties and groups that give political or moral support to those who call themselves the Iraq Communist Party as it is part of the Quisling government the USA terrorist state set in. ICP leaders live side by side the invaders in the Green Zone. That there are organizations in the United States, UK, Denmark and elsewhere, which call themselves communist or socialist parties and that cooperate with the world’s greatest terrorist state is incomprehensible, shameful, immoral and anti-internationalist.

2. The same applies to people who still support the Zionist state of Israel, which commits genocide against the Palestinian people. Millions of decent people have gotten together to support Palestinians in many ways, including Ships to Gaza. In Denmark, four groups of people have challenged the state’s terrorist laws by donating solidarity aid to the secular leftist PFLP which is part of the Palestinian resistance. Rebellion (Denmark), Fighters and Lovers, Horserød-Stuthoff Association (veterans of WWII resistance fighters imprisoned in Horserød and Stuthoff prisons), and TIB’s club (local carpenters near Copenhagen) have aided both PFLP and FARC, Colombian armed liberation movement.

3. Internationalist can not cooperate with US-NATO aggressive wars, which always have the goal of controlling that country’s economy and politics for capitalist profits. It is shameful that many experienced socialists and communists, as well as naïve progressive people, have backed up West’s big capitalist plans to take over Libya, and thus have bombed Libya back to the stone age. Denmark was one of only six countries that dropped tens of thousands of bombs on Libya, destroying much of it infrastructure, schools, hospitals…In fact, Denmark dropped more bombs on Libya than it has on any other country in its history, Afghanistan included. And the pilots were cowards as there was no resistance by Libya’s air force, already decimated.

This conflict has little to do with the Arab Spring movement. It is a conflict between internal war lords, with ordinary people involved who wished to increase democracy but who were misled by US-NATO whose forces seek to control Libya’s oil and avoid a gold-based currency that Gaddafi was promoting amongst all African countries. Now, US-NATO has placed a lackey government in Tripoli just as they did in Afghanistan and Iraq.

4. Internationalists must also criticize comrade governments, such as Cuba and ALBA governments in Latin America, when they make big mistakes regarding internationalism. We can’t be true comrades-solidarity activists by keeping our mouths shut when this occurs. Such is the case with their support of the brutal government of Sri Lanka, which practices genocide against the minority Tamil population. Ever since independence from Great Britain, in 1947, the majority Sinhalese governments and chauvinist Buddhist monk system has discriminated against Tamils. They have constantly been treated as second class citizens, their language and religions relegated to secondary status without national recognition. Even pogroms have been employed with the brutal murder of many thousands on various occasions. And since May 2009, following the end of a 26-year civil war, ethnic cleansing in the traditional Tamil homeland in the north and eastern areas is the rule of the day.

Cuba and ALBA have spoken only positively of their historic ties with the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), to which Sri Lanka is a member, but so are 130 other nations. One cannot, in the name of protecting each nation’s sovereignty, avoid critique when one or more of these nations oppresses or conducts pogroms and genocide against part of the population. Nor can we accept as an excuse the immoral geo-political game that nearly all governments of whatever color play.

We shall also criticize Bolivia, Uruguay, Brazil and other Latin American progressive governments for helping the US and France in their ouster of the only decent and only democratically elected people’s president in Haiti’s history, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. These Latin American governments actually assist the US’s 2004 coup d´état against Aristide by placing occupying troops in the small country, seeking to dampen the people’s anger. These progressive governments should, instead, back up the people’s desire to bring their president back to state power, just as they sought to do for President Zelaya in Honduras where national capitalists and generals kicked him out of office, with background support once again by the United States government.

5. On the personal and organizational plain, internationalism operates when workers of a major firm ask people to boycott a product because of the mistreatment of the workers by the firm. This is the case with Coca-Cola whose workers in Colombia asked us to stop buying the “drink of the death squad” (David Rovics song), because it hires mercenaries to murder workers who seek to organize a union and struggle for collective bargaining. Workers in other countries, such as Guatemala, and farmers in India have asked the same.

It is with joy that I can state that here where we gather (carpenters’ hall in Valby, Denmark), this union is one of the few local unions and political or grass roots groups in Denmark that has boycotted Coca-Cola. This is something any and all individuals can do. It is just a soda drink. So drink something else. Boycotting Coca-Cola is just like boycotting all products from Israel and Sri Lanka. It is a simple act of solidarity, of internationalism.

Charlotte and I have just returned from a six week trip in India where two of my books (“Tamil Nation in Sri Lanka” and “Sounds of Venezuela”) were published by New Century Book House, Tamil Nadu. The Tamil book concerns the history and contemporary life of the Tamil people in that island-nation, and the need to act in solidarity with them. The Venezuela short book concerns this people’s efforts to create a better world for themselves and solidarity with all peoples. When people asked us where we are from we often replied that we are “internationalists”. Interestingly, many Indians understood our meaning and were pleased to think in terms of being brothers and sisters in the world.

This concept, and feeling, of brotherly love, of internationalism has taken off in a bigger way, in 2011, than in many decades. It started in Tunisia, and has expanded to the indignados in Spain, to the anti-capitalists in Wall Street and in hundreds of cities throughout the US and the West.

We have much to criticize and yet much to be glad for as 2012 opens. We must remember and appreciate those who set us off on this new anti-capitalist/anti-imperialist, non-violent and democratic revolution—from the martyr in Tunisia (street vendor Mohammed Bouazizi) and his Iraqi spiritual brother a bit earlier, shoe-thrower Muntazar al-Zaidi, to Occupy Wall Street protestors to Bradley Manning and Julian Assange and co-workers at Wikileaks, who helped spark it all by blowing the whistle on the war criminals. These modern-day Paris Commune resisters without arms—OWS and Occupy the World—are growing and they are presenting a vision and with it a program-in-discussion that must be studied and supported.

Internationalism is an endless struggle, an endless challenge. It does not end even when one or more of our political parties take over the governing reigns. We activists from the streets must always keep our wary eyes pinned on the leaders, regardless of their names, just as our clear eyes cast light upon humanity’s future.

In contrast the same opinion makers, plus their academic counterparts, project images of the United States and the European Union as stable societies, with steady economic growth, incremental expansion of social welfare programs, resolving issues via consensual compromises and practicing sound fiscal policies.

In recent times, the better part of the current decade, these images have taken on the character of ideological dogmas – they no longer correspond to reality. In fact, a good argument can be made that the roles have been reversed: the US and EU are in perpetual crises and Latin America, at least most of the major countries, have experienced stability and growth which is the envy (or should be) of Washington pundits and financial commentators.

This ‘role reversal’ has been recognized by many US, EU and Asian investors and multinationals, even as respectable journalistic hacks for the Financial Times, NY Times and Wall Street Journal still write about vulnerabilities, imbalances and other weaknesses while grudgingly acknowledging the dynamic growth of the region.

Progressive opinion is equally at fault, focusing on the ‘advances’ of the left regimes but overlooking the underlying dynamics affecting most of the region and thus losing sight of the new points of conflict and contention.

We will proceed to outline the contrasting realities between the crises ridden “North” (US/EU) and the sustained growth of the “South” (South America). The analysis will raise questions of whether the South American experience is transferable to the North and what ‘structural adjustments’ would be necessary to pull the US and EU out of the downward spiral of stagnation and violent conflicts which have characterized these regions for the better part of the past decade.

The Lost Decade, US and EU Style

The Latin American countries during the 1980’s experienced a deep and persistent crises, manifested in negative growth, increased poverty levels and heavy indebtedness, which allowed creditors (like the IMF) to impose harsh and regressive austerity measures and “structural adjustment” policies which came to be known as neo-liberalization. These included the privatization of most strategic, lucrative public enterprises, and the ending of any semblance of state-directed industrial strategies.

For the peasants and the working and middle class the short-lived neo-liberal “boom” of the 1990s was a continuation of the ‘lost decade’ of the 1980s. The neo-liberal policies of the 1990s were based on fundamentally flawed structural foundations and polarizing income and public expenditures involving huge transfers of income to capital and downward pressures on wages and welfare. The neo-liberal regimes went into a deep crisis early in 2000 provoking major popular upheavals. The outcome resulted in a new set of political configurations and social power equations, which evolved into new post-neo-liberal regimes, at least in most of the major countries in Latin America.

In contrast and, in part thanks to the profitable opportunities opened by the debt crises and neo-liberalization of Latin America in the 1990s (and in the ex-Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and the Baltic/Balkan states) the US and EU prospered. In Latin America over 5,000 lucrative extractive resource-based industries, banks, tele-communications and other industries passed into the hands of foreign private MNC and local capital. High returns on bonds and loans and rents from technology transfers enriched the Northern capitalists even as poverty multiplied in the South. The 1990s was the “golden age” of Western capital as profits rose and leftist parties and the traditional urban trade unions appeared unable to withstand the ‘wave’ of predatory capitalism capturing the commanding heights of the economy.

The very successes of the US and EU countries, the enormous easy gains from pillage, speculation, and exploitation led to the dominance of financial capital and the belief in an irrevocable “new world order”. The dominance of the US and EU was built on their military superiority backed by pliant, collaborative, neo-liberal client regimes. The ‘new order’ lasted less than a decade: the economic crises of 1999/2000 smashed the illusions of a century of imperial grandeur. As markets collapsed so too did the Latin American oligarchic electoral regimes (dubbed “democracies”) which along with the financial elite and the military formed the triple alliance that defined Western supremacy. The final blow was the economic crises of 2001-2002 in the US and EU which steeply eroded their capacity to intervene and prop up their collapsing Latin clients ousted by rebellious masses.

The first decade of the new millennia has been the “lost decade”  of the North.   Over the course of the past eleven years the North has witnessed stagnation and recessions which have not given way to recoveries. The capitalist states temporarily saved the bankers but were powerless to set in motion economic growth.

The credit rating of the US economy was downgraded by the risk agencies. Unemployment and underemployment hovers close to one-fifth of the labor force, figures comparable to stagnant Third World countries. Social programs  are severely slashed in the US and throughout the European Union, reversing decades of incremental gains. Trade and budget deficits in the US have become chronic, while private and public lenders are becoming increasingly reticent to lend in the face of deep-seated recessionary tendencies.

The financial sector in the US and EU is rife with large scale fraud, swindles, mismanagement and falsified balance sheets, conditions previously prevalent among Latin economies. Wars proliferate. Military spending far exceeds productive investments, draining the US economy in a fashion reminiscent of the weapons spending during the reign of the warlords of Africa and the military dictators of Latin America.

In the EU, faced with brutal cuts in wages, pensions and jobs millions of workers and unemployed youth in Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy have taken to the streets. General strikes threaten the stability of increasingly isolated regimes, reminiscent of the popular rebellions which resulted in regime changes in Latin America in the late 1990s and early 2000s. In the US, public protests reflect deepening private discontent: over 75% of the population expresses negative views of the Congress and 60% of the White House. Deepening political alienation of the US electorate is comparable to the loss of popular faith in Latin governments during the “lost decades”, 1980-2000.

Both the US and the EU have been radically transformed for the worse during the lost decade of the current century. Economically, politically and socially the ‘North’ has been “Latin Americanized”: social instability, economic stagnation, political alienation, growing class inequalities and poverty is presided over by corrupt political elites.

Signs of the Better Times: Latin America

Recently the finance minister of Brazil raised the possibility that the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China) might take a hand in a “rescue plan” to prop up the crises-ridden economies of Europe. While the statement had greater symbolic rather substantive consequences, it does reflect a certain reality: while the North plunges into deeper, unending crises, the Latin economies are doing reasonably well.

Except for the Latin countries still under US dominance, especially Mexico and most of Central America, the rest of Latin America has not only avoided the crises afflicting the North but have been growing at a healthy rate, three times that of the US over the decade. The new millennium, especially between 2003-2011 (except for a brief interlude in 2009) has been a period of high growth, general prosperity, booming exports, rising imports, greater inter-regional co-operation, and large scale poverty reduction.

Brazil alone has reduced the number of poor by 30 million. Regular elections, relatively honest and competitive, result in stable legitimate transfers of political power. Except for US-backed coups in Honduras and intervention in Haiti and Venezuela, violent seizures of power have disappeared over the past decade. Regional institution–building has prospered with the advent of UNASUR and a Latin American regional bank.  Because of fiscal controls and banking regulations, both results of the lessons learned from the crisis of the lost decades (1980-2000), Latin America was only slightly affected by the US-EU financial crash of 2008-2011.

Latin American trade has doubled, especially with Asia, aided by China’s double digit growth. Demand for agro-mineral commodities has tripled. The key to this new export-powered growth is Latin America’s growing economic independence. This has led to the diversification of its markets, taking advantage of new opportunities and reducing their dependence on the US. Latin America’s emphasis on economic growth, new markets and investments has led it to avoid entanglements in the proliferating and costly colonial wars which engage the US and EU.

While the US and EU print more money and increase indebtedness to cover trade deficits, Latin America has quadrupled its foreign reserves. These cushion any downturns and avoid any dependence on the IMF, architect of the lost decades of the 1980s and 1990s.

Within Latin America, the issue of poverty reduction has been tackled with varying degrees of effectiveness. With Venezuela under President Chavez leading the way the general direction has been toward increasing social payments, by increments in most cases, but with greater efforts in others. Except for Mexico, nothing resembling the social cuts of the US-EU has taken place in Latin America. The most striking structural advances have occurred in Venezuela and to a lesser degree in Argentina. They have significantly increased the minimum wage and pensions and increased welfare payments to the most vulnerable (single mothers, the disabled, those in extreme poverty).

With the exception of Colombia (the US’s principle military ally in the region) which is still the murder capital of the world for human rights advocates, trade unionists and peasant activists, human rights violations have declined. While the US-EU have vastly increased their human rights violations geometrically via multiple colonial wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and clandestine death squad ‘operations’, Latin America’s overseas human rights violations are largely limited to its occupation forces in Haiti – at the behest of the US and EU. Nevertheless repression of popular movements, especially indigenous peoples and peasant movements and students has increased in Bolivia, Chile, Brazil and elsewhere as the high growth policies on community rights and social expenditures.

Because of Latin America’s current political stability and dynamic growth, institutional and corporate investment is pouring into the region. In contrast the US and EU are suffering from disinvestment and declining rates of private investment. In other words, the development of Latin America is the other side of the coin of the US-EU under-development.

Latin America: New Contradictions

The class struggle is still the motor force in the social progress of Latin America. But unlike EU-US, Latin America’s class struggle is directed at increasing social and monitory wages, even if incrementally, as part of an offensive strategy to capture a greater share of rising income. In the US and EU the class struggle is ‘defensive’: an effort to stop declining income shares, limit job losses and cuts in pensions.

While militant class action including land occupations, street demonstrations and strikes are still part of the repertory of working class social weapons, they take place within the political parameters of democratic institutions. In Europe the elites have increasingly ignored mass street protests and strikes, largely pursuing austerity policies dictated by non-elected domestic and foreign bankers and creditors.

The limitations and ‘contradictions’ affecting all Latin American countries are located in the internal class inequalities. As national income has increased and exports boom, the inequalities between the ruling investor class and the mass of wage earners has increased. While initially the problem of class inequality was papered over by the general rise in living standards and employment, over time the employed and productive classes are no longer satisfied with incremental gains which barely surpass inflation rates. The rising standards of living have raised expectations. The percentage of poor may have declined but subsisting just above $4 dollars a day is increasingly unacceptable. Growth brings forth its own set of contradictions and a new set of demands. Formerly excluded classes included in the system, but exploited, have only their class organizations as their weapons to advance their socio-economic interests.

This is clearly the case in contemporary Chile where long term growth is accompanied by deeply entrenched inequalities comparable to the worse in the OECD. Beginning in July 2011 massive student protests over the high cost of public and private education and low levels of social expenditures have detonated mass activity from trade unions covering the gamut of economic sectors from teachers to copper miners.

The new and explosive issue confronting rulers and ruled in most of high growth Latin America is raising incomes for whom? The class issues are front and foremost in the current period and immediate future.

Growth, stability and democratic class struggles characterize most of the major countries, but not all. In several countries, the authoritarian and violent legacy of the dictatorial regimes continues robust. Colombia’s practice of murdering trade unionists, peasant leaders, journalists and human rights activists continues unabated: over 30 trade unionists were murdered during the first eight  months of 2011.

Honduras’ ruling regime, product of a US-backed coup and its allies among the paramilitary private armies of landowners, have killed scores of peasants and dozens of pro-democracy political and social activists.

Mexico’s killing fields are notorious: over 40,000 people have been killed by the police, military and drug gangs in a ‘war on drugs’ promoted by Obama and implemented by President Calderon.

What these three retro-regimes have in common is that they continue to follow the dictates of Washington, remain highly militarized states, with a strong US military and police presence in the form of bases, overseas advisers, and an intrusive role in setting policy. All three have failed to diversify markets and continue with a high degree of dependence on the stagnant US market. All have secured, or are in the process of signing, bi-lateral free trade agreements at the expense of exploring greater links with the dynamic Asian markets.

The three retro-regimes have never experienced the kind of popular rebellions and resultant center-left regimes which have emerged in most of Latin America. In Mexico pro-democracy candidates were twice defrauded of electoral victories, first in 1988 and later in 2006. In Honduras, a progressive liberal democratic President seeking to diversify markets was ousted by a military coup backed by the Obama regime in 2010. In Colombia, the murder of 5,000 activists and leaders of the pro-democracy Patriotic Union between 1984-86, the subsequent assassination of several thousand social activists, blocked a democratic opening. The abrupt termination of peace negotiations in 2002 and the total militarization of the country (2002-2011) funded by $6 billion in US military aid precluded the emergence of the political and social changes, which have dynamized the rest of Latin America’s sustained growth and opened the door for ‘democratic class struggle’.

While most of Latin America has forged ahead, thus far largely avoiding the instability and economic crises of the US and EU, past legacies and present inequities present a new set of structural impediments to the consolidation of long-term growth and political and social stability. The biggest structural contradiction is found in the high growth/increasing inequalities, socio-economic model based on the “3 ½ alliance”: foreign capital-national capital-the developmental state and the co-opted trade union/peasant leaders.

The profits and investments of this power configuration has been driven by the growth of agro-mineral exports, rising commodity prices, easy consumer credit and state regulation of financial markets. The economic returns on growth have been disproportionately appropriated by the “big three” with incremental payoffs to a minority of better paid organized workers. The ‘residuals’ are used to “lift the poor” from abject poverty to subsistence.

These growing inequalities have been “papered over” by the general rise of income, easy credit and improved public services. But rising incomes have set in motion a new set of class conflicts which will be exacerbated when the prices of commodities decline and the governments can no longer fund incremental improvements. Even today, severe conflicts have emerged between predator mining and timber, multi nationals and Indian/peasants in Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia and Chile. These sometimes violent struggles between the state/MNC and peasants in the “periphery of the countryside” can detonate a larger conflict in the central cities, if export revenues decline.

The second contradiction is between the “marginalized working poor” and a new class of local middle and business class investors who have invested their “savings” in shares of the foreign and locally-owned mining companies. Conservative and closely aligned with the rapacious multi-nationals, these new middle class investors have enriched themselves on the bases of unregulated plunder of natural resources and contamination of the adjoining rural communities. If, and when, commodity prices nose dive, the regimes will face a bankrupt hysterical middle class looking for a political savior where none exist, at least among the existing civilian parties.

The rightward drift of the center-left regimes and their opportune links to big business especially in Brazil, Uruguay, Bolivia, Ecuador and Paraguay has led to corruption in high places. Liberalization and exorbitant executive salaries has been accompanied by “unofficial payoffs” to public officials. Corruptions has eroded the social ethic of center-left politicians and replaced it with the ethos of “bringing in new and bigger investments”, whatever shortcuts and payoffs it requires. Corruption at the top spreads downwards greasing the wheels for foreign investors, but certainly lowering the trust and loyalties of employees and formal and informal workers not in the ‘magic circle’, a bribe takers and givers. “Patronage” and poverty reduction payouts can limit the fallout from corruption in high places among poverty-funded recipients. However, in time of economic downturn, it can turn social protests toward political regime change.

The third contradiction is found between the high level of dependency on commodity exports (which heretofore have been the dynamic element of growth) and the relative and absolute decline of manufacturing exports and production. The growth of income from commodities has led to the appreciation of the currency which has lessened the competitiveness of nationally produced manufactured products, leading to a sharp decline in profits and even bankruptcy.

Asian manufacturer-exporters – especially in China and to a lesser extent India and Korea – are increasingly penetrating Latin markets with lower cost finished products “de-industrializing” the Latin economies. In some cases, Latin American capitalists are looking to investing in Asia to lower costs and exporting back to their “home markets”. Brazilian industry, which has been hardest hit, has initiated “protectionist” measures including tariffs, 65% local content rules and state subsidies to counter the de-diversification of the economy.

The fourth contradiction is found precisely in the successful economic growth and high returns, which has attracted both speculative and “takeover” capital as well as productive investments. Speculative capital will flee and destabilize the financial system at the first sign of slowdown. Foreign ownership will lessen the government’s ability to leverage investment decisions in time of crises. Productive investments respond to expanding markets. They do not create them.

In summary, Latin America’s decade long dynamic growth has certainly out-performed the US and EU on a whole series of important economic, social and political dimensions. Yet, out of this growth have emerged a new set of contradictions and the need to correct increasingly grave “imbalances”: popular demands for a shift in income distribution, industrialist pressure for a rebalancing of the economy from dependence on finance and commodities to manufacturing and the urban poor demand improved social services especially in public health care and crowded classrooms.

These changes require a structural adjustment in the power structure. The economic imbalances reflect the growing concentration of political power among the extractive capitalists, bankers and local middle class investors of the major cities. Public employees, labor, the urban poor, the peasants and environmentally concerned Indians and ecologists, are marginalized from the key economic posts. They need to once again take to the streets with new independent movements which raise two basic questions: What kind of growth and growth for whom?

Lessons of Latin America: Listen Yankees and Eurocrats

Can the positive lessons of the dynamic Latin American experience provide a ‘model’ for the US and Europe? Is the “model”, in whole or part, transferable to the North or are the two regions so different that the lessons are not applicable?

Granted there are vast historical, cultural, economic and political differences between the regions yet some lessons from the Latin America’s decade of dynamic growth provides new ideas to counter the negative, self-defeating economic formulas put forth and practiced by US and EU experts, economists and policymakers.

Let us start from the beginning. The rise of Latin America was precipitated by a deep economic crisis, the breakdown of the economy, large scale unemployment and the impoverishment of the middle class. The crises led to the total discrediting of what has been called alternately the “free market”, “neo-liberal” and “de-regulated” capitalist model. So far so good: the US and EU likewise are experiencing a prolonged and deepening economic crises which has bankrupted Southern Europe, plunged the US into a double dip recession and led to a 20% un and underemployment rate. The entire “political class” in the US and Europe is largely discredited. From there forward the regions diverge.

In Latin America, the crises led to mass protests, popular uprisings and regime changes. Post neo-liberal center-left regimes, under mass pressure, subsequently launched employment generating investments and aid poverty reducing public works programs. Argentina, facing a financial crisis similar to Greece, Portugal and Spain today, defaulted on its foreign debt – channeling public revenues into reviving the economy. Because financial speculation linked to Wall Street and the City of London precipitated the crises, the Latin regimes instituted financial controls and regulations which limited financial volatility. The new regimes, influenced by the commodity boom, diversified their trading partners, entering dynamic Asian markets, reaping high returns and stimulating local consumption and public investments. What lessons can the crises-ridden US and EU learn from the Latin America’s successful recovery and expansion?

First, the beginning of a successful response depends on a political transformation. Regime change, a complete break with the ‘neo-liberal’ free market, and the political leaders and parties who are totally embedded in failed institutions and policies. Regime change presupposes the eruption of dynamic mass organizations, new, old, improvised and organized, capable of moving from protest and resistance to political power.

The object is to rebalance the US and EU economies from “financialization” and “militarism” to large scale, long term investments in manufacturing, applied technology, civilian infrastructure and social services. Direct public investments and loans applied to concrete employment-generating projects; total rejection of trickle down, monetary policies which never move from private banks to public works.

The entire militarist- Zionist-permanent war mentality is entirely vulnerable to change: doing so, will create jobs, the top priority for over two-thirds of the US public. The “war on terrorism”, the banner of the warlords in office, is considered a priority by only 3% of Americans. Once again the shift from militarism to the civilian economy in Latin America was a result of popular civilian upheavals via the street and the ballot box.

Of course, the Latin American republics had an easier time in rebalancing their economic priorities from failed military rulers and discredited neo-liberal policies. Citizen movements in the US and EU imperial states will have a harder time in closing down hundreds of military bases, ousting militarist politicians backed by powerful domestic and foreign lobbies and converting the empires to productive republics. Yet, Latin American exporters have prospered by avoiding entanglement in overseas imperial wars. They continue to pursue new markets in the Middle East and elsewhere instead of destroying adversaries of Israel as the EU and US have done through colonial wars in Iraq and Libya and sanctions against Iran, Syria and Venezuela.

The contrasting performance between Latin American republics and Euro-American empire builders is striking. The US and EU should shed their self-centered images of “successful” developed countries and outdated stereotype of Latin America as a collection of “volatile”, coup prone underdeveloped countries. The US is in deep trouble and it is heading into a deeper, less manageable economic crisis with few resources to counter it. Internationally it is increasingly isolated and in conflict with potential economic partners. Washington sides with Israel, alienating over 1.5 billion rich and poor Islamic peoples, from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan and all points east, west and south. It antagonizes Brazil via financial pump priming, overpricing the real (Brazilian currency) without helping US recovery.
Domestic and international failures multiply as the crisis deepens and nothing proposed by the blighted incumbents and besotted opposition offers any programmatic solution.

As in Latin America during the first years of this decade we need a popular rebellion: we need a profound regime change; we need to think of productive public investments not monumental loss of capital via Wall Street speculation and the waste of public resources via expenditures in weapons of destruction.

Produced by Jesse Freeston.

On April 26, 2011, Venezuelan immigration officials, relying exclusively on information from the Colombian secret police (DAS), arrested a naturalized Swedish citizen and journalist (Joaquin Perez Becerra) of Colombian descent, who had just arrived in the country. Based on Colombian secret police allegations that the Swedish citizen was a ‘FARC leader’, Perez was extradited to Colombia within 48 hours. Despite the fact that it was in violation of international diplomatic protocols and the Venezuelan constitution, this action had the personal backing of President Chavez. A month later, the Venezuelan armed forces joined their Colombian counterparts and captured a leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Guillermo Torres (with the nom de Guerra Julian Conrado) who is awaiting extradition to Colombia in a Venezuelan prison without access to an attorney. On March 17, Venezuelan Military Intelligence (DIM) detained two alleged guerrillas from the National Liberation Army (ELN), Carlos Tirado and Carlos Perez, and turned them over to the Colombian secret police.

The new public face of Chavez as a partner of the repressive Colombian regime is not so new after all. On December 13, 2004, Rodrigo Granda, an international spokesperson for the FARC, and a naturalized Venezuelan citizen, whose family resided in Caracas, was snatched by plain-clothes Venezuelan intelligence agents in downtown Caracas where he had been participating in an international conference and secretly taken to Colombia with the ‘approval’ of the Venezuelan Ambassador in Bogota. Following several weeks of international protest, including from many conference participants, President Chavez issued a statement describing the ‘kidnapping’ as a violation of Venezuelan sovereignty and threatened to break relations with Colombia. In more recent times, Venezuela has stepped up the extradition of revolutionary political opponents of Colombia’s narco-regime: In the first five months of 2009, Venezuela extradited 15 alleged members of the ELN and in November 2010, a FARC militant and two suspected members of the ELN were handed over to the Colombian police. In January 2011 Nilson Teran Ferreira, a suspected ELN leader, was delivered to the Colombian military. The collaboration between Latin America’s most notorious authoritarian right wing regime and the supposedly most radical ‘socialist’ government raises important issues about the meaning of political identities and how they relate to domestic and international politics and more specifically what principles and interests guide state policies.

Revolutionary Solidarity and State Interests

The recent ‘turn’ in Venezuela politics, from expressing sympathy and even support for revolutionary struggles and movements in Latin America to its present collaboration with pro-imperial right wing regimes, has numerous historical precedents. It may help to examine the contexts and circumstances of these collaborations:

The Bolshevik revolutionary government in Russia initially gave whole-hearted support to revolutionary uprisings in Germany, Hungary, Finland and elsewhere. With the defeats of these revolts and the consolidation of the capitalist regimes, Russian state and economic interests took prime of place among the Bolshevik leaders. Trade and investment agreements, peace treaties and diplomatic recognition between Communist Russia and the Western capitalist states defined the new politics of “co-existence”. With the rise of fascism, the Soviet Union under Stalin further subordinated communist policy in order to secure state-to-state alliances, first with the Western Allies and, failing that, with Nazi Germany. The Hitler-Stalin pact was conceived by the Soviets as a way to prevent a German invasion and to secure its borders from a sworn right wing enemy. As part of Stalin’s expression of good faith, he handed over to Hitler a number of leading exiled German communist leaders, who had sought asylum in Russia. Not surprisingly they were tortured and executed. This practice stopped only after Hitler invaded Russia and Stalin encouraged the now decimated ranks of German communists to re-join the ‘anti-Nazi’ underground resistance.

In the early 1970s, as Mao’s China reconciled with Nixon’s United States and broke with the Soviet Union, Chinese foreign policy shifted toward supporting US-backed counter-revolutionaries, including Holden Roberts in Angola and Pinochet in Chile. China denounced any leftist government and movement, which, however faintly, had ties with the USSR, and embraced their enemies, no matter how subservient they were to Euro-American imperial interests.

In Stalin’s USSR and Mao’s China, short-term ‘state interests’ trumped revolutionary solidarity. What were these ‘state interests’?

In the case of the USSR, Stalin gambled that a ‘peace pact’ with Hitler’s Germany would protect them from an imperialist Nazi invasion and partially end the encirclement of Russia. Stalin no longer trusted in the strength of international working class solidarity to prevent war, especially in light of a series of revolutionary defeats and the generalized retreat of the Left over the previous decades (Germany, Span, Hungary and Finland) .The advance of fascism and the extreme right, unremitting Western hostility toward the USSR and the Western European policy of appeasing Hitler, convinced Stalin to seek his own peace pact with Germany. In order to demonstrate their ‘sincerity’ toward its new ‘peace partner’, the USSR downplayed their criticism of the Nazis, urging Communist parties around the world to focus on attacking the West rather than Hitler’s Germany, and gave in to Hitler’s demand to extradite German Communist “terrorists” who had found asylum in the Soviet Union.

Stalin’s pursuit of short term ‘state interests’ via pacts with the “far right” ended in a strategic catastrophe: Nazi Germany was free to first conquer Western Europe and then turned its guns on Russia, invading an unprepared USSR and occupying half the country. In the meantime the international anti-fascist solidarity movements had been weakened and temporarily disoriented by the zigzags of Stalin’s policies.

In the mid-1970s, the Peoples Republic of China’s ‘reconciliation’ with the US, led to a turn in international policy: ‘US imperialism’ became an ally against the greater evil ‘Soviet social imperialism’. As a result China, under Chairman Mao Tse Tung, urged its international supporters to denounce progressive regimes receiving Soviet aid (Cuba, Vietnam, Angola, etc.) and it withdrew its support for revolutionary armed resistance against pro-US client states in Southeast Asia. China’s ‘pact’ with Washington was to secure immediate ‘state interests’: Diplomatic recognition and the end of the trade embargo. Mao’s short-term commercial and diplomatic gains were secured by sacrificing the more fundamental strategic goals of furthering socialist values at home and revolution abroad.

As a result, China lost its credibility among Third World revolutionaries and anti-imperialists, in exchange for gaining the good graces of the White House and greater access to the capitalist world market. Short-term “pragmatism’ led to long-term transformation: The Peoples Republic of China became a dynamic emerging capitalist power, with some of the greatest social inequalities in Asia and perhaps the world.

Venezuela: State Interests versus International Solidarity

The rise of radical politics in Venezuela, which is the cause and consequence of the election of President Chavez(1999), coincided with the rise of revolutionary social movements throughout Latin America from the late 1990s to the middle of the first decade of the 21st century (1995-2005). Neo-liberal regimes were toppled in Ecuador, Bolivia and Argentina; mass social movements challenging neo-liberal orthodoxy took hold everywhere; the Colombian guerrilla movements were advancing toward the major cities; and center-left politicians were elected to power in Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Ecuador and Uruguay. The US economic crises undermined the credibility of Washington’s ‘free trade’ agenda. The increasing Asian demand for raw materials stimulated an economy boom in Latin America, which funded social programs and nationalizations.

In the case of Venezuela, a failed US-backed military coup and ‘bosses’ boycott’ in 2002-2003, forced the Chavez government to rely on the masses and turn to the Left. Chavez proceeded to “re-nationalize” petroleum and related industries and articulate a “Bolivarian Socialist” ideology.

Chavez’s radicalization found a favorable climate in Latin America and the bountiful revenues from the rising price of oil financed his social programs. Chavez maintained a plural position of embracing governing center-left governments, backing radical social movements and supporting the Colombian guerrillas’ proposals for a negotiated settlement. Chavez called for the recognition of Colombia’s guerrillas as legitimate ‘belligerents” not “terrorists’.

Venezuela’s foreign policy was geared toward isolating its main threat emanating from Washington by promoting exclusively Latin American/Caribbean organizations, strengthening regional trade and investment links and securing regional allies in opposition to US intervention, military pacts, bases and US-backed military coups.

In response to US financing of Venezuelan opposition groups (electoral and extra parliamentary), Chavez has provided moral and political support to anti-imperialist groups throughout Latin America. After Israel and American Zionists began attacking Venezuela, Chavez extended his support to the Palestinians and broadened ties with Iran and other Arab anti-imperialist movements and regimes. Above all, Chavez strengthened his political and economic ties with Cuba, consulting with the Cuban leadership, to form a radical axis of opposition to imperialism. Washington’s effort to strangle the Cuban revolution by an economic embargo was effectively undermined by Chavez’ large-scale, long-term economic agreements with Havana.

Up until the later part of this decade, Venezuela’s foreign policy – its ‘state interests’ – coincided with the interests of the left regimes and social movements throughout Latin America. Chavez clashed diplomatically with Washington’s client states in the hemisphere, especially Colombia, headed by narco-death squad President Alvaro Uribe (2002-2010). However, recent years have witnessed several external and internal changes and a gradual shift toward the center.

The revolutionary upsurge in Latin America began to ebb. The mass upheavals led to the rise of center-left regimes, which, in turn, demobilized the radical movements and adopted strategies relying on agro-mineral export strategies, all the while pursuing autonomous foreign policies independent of US control. The Colombian guerrilla movements were in retreat and on the defensive – their capacity to buffer Venezuela from a hostile Colombian client regime waned. Chavez adapted to these ‘new realities’, becoming an uncritical supporter of the ‘social liberal’ regimes of Lula in Brazil, Morales in Bolivia, Correa in Ecuador, Vazquez in Uruguay and Bachelet in Chile. Chavez increasingly chose immediate diplomatic support from the existing regimes over any long-term support, which might have resulted from a revival of the mass movements. Trade ties with Brazil and Argentina and diplomatic support from its fellow Latin American states against an increasingly aggressive US became central to Venezuela’s foreign policy. The basis of Venezuelan policy was no longer the internal politics of the center-left and centrist regimes but their degree of support for an independent foreign policy.

Repeated US interventions failed to generate a successful coup or to secure any electoral victories against Chavez. As a result, Washington increasingly turned to using external threats against Chavez via its Colombian client state, the recipient of $5 billion in military aid. Colombia’s military build-up, its border crossings and infiltration of death squads into Venezuela, forced Chavez into a large-scale purchase of Russian arms and toward the formation of a regional alliance (ALBA).

The US-backed military coup in Honduras precipitated a major rethink in Venezuela’s policy. The coup had ousted a democratically elected centrist liberal, President Zelaya in Honduras, a member of ALBA, and set up a repressive regime subservient to the White House. However, the coup had the effect of isolating the US throughout Latin America – not a single government supported the new regime in Tegucigalpa. Even the neo-liberal regimes of Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Panama voted to expel Honduras from the Organization of American States. On the one hand, Venezuela viewed this ‘unity’ of the right and center-left as an opportunity toward mending fences with the conservative regimes; and on the other, it understood that the Obama Administration was ready to use the ‘military option’ to regain its dominance.

The fear of a US military intervention was greatly heightened by the Obama-Uribe agreement establishing seven US strategic military bases near its border with Venezuela. Chavez wavered in his response to this immediate threat. At one point he almost broke trade and diplomatic relations with Colombia, only to immediately reconcile with Uribe, although the latter had demonstrated no desire to sign on to a pact of co-existence.

Meanwhile, the 2010 Congressional elections In Venezuela led to a major increase in electoral support for the US-backed right (approximately 50%) and their greater representation in Congress (40%). While the Right increased their support inside Venezuela, the Left in Colombia, both the guerrillas and the electoral opposition lost ground. Chavez could not count on any immediate counter-weight to a military provocation.

Chavez faced several options. The first was to return to the earlier policy of international solidarity with radical movements; the second was to continue working with the center-left regimes while maintaining strong criticism and firm opposition to the US backed neo-liberal regimes; and the third option was to turn toward the Right, more specifically to seek rapprochement with the newly elected President of Colombia, Santos, and sign a broad political, military and economic agreement where Venezuela agreed to collaborate in eliminating Colombia’s leftist adversaries in exchange for promises of ‘non-aggression’ (Colombia limiting its cross-border narco and military incursions).

Venezuela and Chavez decided that the FARC was a liability and that support from the radical Colombian mass social movements was not as important as closer diplomatic relations with President Santos. Chavez has calculated that complying with Santos political demands would provide greater security to the Venezuelan state than relying on the support of the international solidarity movements and his own radical domestic allies among the trade unions and intellectuals.

In line with this Right turn, the Chavez regime fulfilled Santos’ requests – arresting FARC/ELN guerrillas, as well as a prominent leftist journalist, and extraditing them to a state which has had the worst human rights record in the Americas for over two decades in terms of torture and extra-judicial assassinations. This Right turn acquires an even more ominous character when one considers that Colombia holds over 7600 political prisoners, over 7000 of whom are trade unionists, peasants, Indians, students;  in other words, non-combatants. In acquiescing to Santos requests, Venezuela did not even follow the established protocols of most democratic governments: It did not demand any guaranties against torture and respect for due process. Moreover, when critics have pointed out that these summary extraditions violated Venezuela’s own constitutional procedures, Chavez launched a vicious campaign slandering his critics as agents of imperialism engaged in a plot to destabilize his regime.

Chavez’s new found ally on the Right, President Santos, has not reciprocated: Colombia still maintains close military ties with Venezuela’s prime enemy in Washington. Indeed, Santos vigorously sticks to the White House agenda: He successfully pressured Chavez to recognize the illegitimate regime of Lobos in Honduras- the product of a US-backed coup in exchange for the return of ousted ex-President Zelaya. Chavez did what no other center-left Latin American President has dared to do: He promised to support the reinstatement of the illegitimate Honduran regime into the OAS. On the basis of the Chavez-Santos agreement, Latin American opposition to Lobos collapsed and Washington’s strategic goal was realized. A puppet regime was legitimized.

Chavez’s agreement with Santos to recognize the murderous Lobos regime betrayed the heroic struggle of the Honduran mass movement. Not one of the Honduran officials responsible for over a hundred murders and disappearances of peasant leaders, journalists, human rights and pro-democracy activists are subject to any judicial investigation. Chavez has given his blessings to impunity and the continuation of an entire repressive apparatus, backed by the Honduran oligarchy and the US Pentagon.

In other words, to demonstrate his willingness to uphold his ‘friendship and peace pact’ with Santos, Chavez was willing to sacrifice the struggle of one of the most promising and courageous pro-democracy movements in the Americas.

And what does Chavez seek in his accommodation with the Right?

Security? Chavez has received only verbal ‘promises’, and some expressions of gratitude from Santos. But the enormous pro-US military command and US mission remain in place. In other words, there will be no dismantling of the Colombian para-military-military forces massed along the Venezuelan border and the US military base agreements, which threaten Venezuelan national security, will not change.

According to Venezuelan diplomats, Chavez’s tactic is to ‘win over’ Santos from US tutelage. By befriending Santos, Chavez hopes that Bogota will not join in any joint military operation with the US or cooperate in future propaganda-destabilization campaigns. In the brief time since the Santos-Chavez pact was made, an emboldened Washington announced an embargo on the Venezuelan state oil company with the support of the Venezuelan congressional opposition. Santos, for his part, has not complied with the embargo, but then not a single country in the world has followed Washington’s lead. Clearly, President Santos is not likely to endanger the annual $10 billion dollar trade between Colombia and Venezuela in order to humor the US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton’s diplomatic caprices.

Conclusion

In contrast to Chavez’s policy of handing over leftist and guerrilla exiles to a rightist authoritarian regime, President Allende of Chile (1970-73) joined a delegation that welcomed armed fighters fleeing persecution in Bolivia and Argentina and offered them asylum. For many years, especially in the 1980s, Mexico, under center-right regimes, openly recognized the rights of asylum for guerrilla and leftist refugees from Central America – El Salvador and Guatemala. Revolutionary Cuba, for decades, offered asylum and medical treatment to leftist and guerrilla refugees from Latin American dictatorships and rejected demands for their extradition. Even as late as 2006, when the Cuban government was pursuing friendly relations with Colombia and when its then Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque expressed his deep reservations regarding the FARC in conversations with the author, Cuba refused to extradite guerrillas to their home countries where they would be tortured and abused. One day before he left office in 2011, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva denied Italy’s request to extradite Cesare Battisti, a former Italian guerrilla. As one Brazilian judge said – and Chavez should have listened: ”At stake here is national sovereignty. It is as simple as that”.

No one would criticize Chavez’s efforts to lessen border tensions by developing better diplomatic relations with Colombia and to expand trade and investment flows between the two countries. What is unacceptable is to describe the murderous Colombian regime as a “friend” of the Venezuela people and a partner in peace and democracy, while thousands of pro-democracy political prisoners rot in TB-infested Colombian prisons for years on trumped-up charges. Under Santos, civilian activists continue to be murdered almost every day. The most recent killing was yesterday (June 9,2011), Ana Fabricia Cordoba, a leader of community-based displaced peasants, was murdered by the Colombian armed forces. Chavez’s embrace of the Santos narco-presidency goes beyond the requirements for maintaining proper diplomatic and trade relations. His collaboration with the Colombian intelligence, military and secret police agencies in hunting down and deporting Leftists (without due process!) smacks of complicity in dictatorial repression and serves to alienate the most consequential supporters of the Bolivarian transformation in Venezuela.

Chavez’s role in legitimizing of the Honduran coup-regime, without any consideration for the popular movements’ demands for justice, is a clear capitulation to the Santos – Obama agenda. This line of action places Venezuela’s ‘state’ interests over the rights of the popular mass movements in Honduras. Chavez’s collaboration with Santos on policing leftists and undermining popular struggles in Honduras raises serious questions about Venezuela’s claims of revolutionary solidarity. It certainly sows deep distrust about Chavez’s future relations with popular movements who might be engaged in struggle with one of Chavez’s center-right diplomatic and economic partners.

What is particularly troubling is that most democratic and even center-left regimes do not sacrifice the mass social movements on the altar of “security” when they normalize relations with an adversary. Certainly the Right, especially the US, protects its former clients, allies, exiled right-wing oligarch and even admitted terrorists from extradition requests issued by Venezuela, Cuba and Argentina. Mass murders and bombers of civilian airplanes manage to live comfortably in Florida. Why Venezuela submits to the Right-wing demands of the Colombians, while complaining about the US protecting terrorists guilty of crimes in Venezuela, can only be explained by Chavez’s321 ideological shift to the Right, making Venezuela more vulnerable to pressure for greater concessions in the future.

Chavez is no longer interested in the support from the radical left: His definition of state policy revolves around securing the ‘stability’ of Bolivarian socialism in one country, even if it means sacrificing Colombian militants to a police state and pro-democracy movements in Honduras to an illegitimate US-imposed regime.

History provides mixed lessons. Stalin’s deals with Hitler were a strategic disaster for the Soviet people. Once the Fascists got what they wanted they turned around and invaded Russia. Chavez has so far not received any ‘reciprocal’ confidence-building concession from Santos’ military machine. Even in terms of narrowly defined ‘state interests’, he has sacrificed loyal allies for empty promises. The US imperial state is Santos primary ally and military provider. China sacrificed international solidarity for a pact with the US, a policy that led to unregulated capitalist exploitation and deep social injustices.

When, and if, the next confrontation between the US and Venezuela occurs, will Chavez, at least, be able to count on the “neutrality” of Colombia? If past and present relations are any indication, Colombia will side with its client-master, mega-benefactor and ideological mentor. When a new rupture occurs, can Chavez count on the support of the militants, who have been jailed, the mass popular movements he pushed aside and the international movements and intellectuals he has slandered? As the US moves toward new confrontations with Venezuela and intensifies its economic sanctions, domestic and international solidarity will be vital for Venezuela’s defense. Who will stand up for the Bolivarian revolution:  the Santos and Lobos of this “realist world” or the solidarity movements in the streets of Caracas and the Americas?

“What More Would You Like the U.S. to Do?”

The newsreader stopped the activist short to ask her if she knew that U.S. President Barack Obama had issued a declaration criticizing the infusion of Saudi forces and calling on the Bahrain regime to avoid undue violence and to seek a peaceful political solution. Yes, the activist responded, she was aware of the White House’s proclamation, but she was not impressed. She wanted “The World’s” listeners to know that Bahrain ’s democracy movement required “more than statements” from Washington. The Obama administration’s words were one thing, the activist felt, but what really mattered were its deeds. She mentioned the United States ’ massive financial and military support for highly repressive regimes across the region, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Yemen, the Arab Emirates, and, of course, Bahrain, the Middle East ’s leading financial hub and home to the U.S. Navy’s critical Fifth Fleet.

As the activist knew, the Saudi and UAE troops entered Bahrain just one day after U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates dined with the Bahraini ruling family in a show of support. Gates refused to meet with pro-democracy protesters who had been marching by the thousands for a month. The royal family “probably bugged [Gates] that they need to use force to suppress this,” Husain Abdulla, director of Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain, told Democracy Now!  “And next day, immediately after he left, the Saudi troops came to Bahrain. This is no coincidence. This is all planned.” Certainly the Obama administration is deeply complicit in the Saudi invasion of supposedly sovereign Bahrain – an incursion that was requested by the Al Khalifa family.

That’s a pretty remarkable thing for “the world’s leading democracy” to green-light. As Amitabb Pal observed on the web site of The Progressive last week:

Imagine if East Germany ’s Erich Honecker had successfully requested a Soviet invasion in 1989. Or, to take a more contemporary example, imagine if Muammar Gadaffi got one of his very few friends to invade in order to defeat the armed rebellion … imagine the global outrage.

The “public” newsreader seemed taken aback by the activist’s critique of Washington . “What more,” she asked the activist, “would you like the United States to do?” The newsreader’s tone communicated exasperation with the impudent notion that the United States was not doing everything it could be reasonably expected to do to defend democracy in Bahrain .

I did not get to hear the activist’s response because the N“P”R station became inaudible as my Honda crossed into the Delaware Water Gap in western New Jersey, but let me imagine a reasonable response based on my elementary grasp of the U.S. role in the region. It might have gone like this: “Well, we’d like the White House to stop sponsoring murder and authoritarianism. We’d like the administration to pick up a telephone and inform its friend, the absolute ruler of Bahrain, that he and his regime will no longer receive military and financial support from the U.S. and its regional allies. We’d like Obama and Hillary Clinton to order their client states, Saudi Arabia and UAE, to remove their troops immediately. We’d like the U.S. to cease and desist from funding and equipping arch-repressive and authoritarian governments across the region. We’d like the U.S. to insist on an end to state violence and the beginning of a transition to popular, democratic governance in Bahrain. We’d like the U.S. to freeze the foreign assets of the king of Bahrain and to tell him that the Fifth Fleet and other military forces intend to protect basic democratic rights in Bahrain.”

All impossible, of course: the last thing the U.S. foreign policy establishment wants to see break out in majority Shia Bahrain and, by demonstration effect, in Saudi Arabia, where Shia Muslims constitute a significant minority population in oil-rich territories. As far as the American imperial elite is concerned, that would potentially threaten U.S. control of, and access to, the Middle East’s hyper-strategic oil reserves, whose greatest material prize falls under the nominal sovereignty of the U.S.-sponsored Saudi monarchy.

Obama’s Own Colonial War

But, of course, there are many places in the world where a simple withdrawal of expensive U.S. support for oppressive regimes would help open the door for democratic liberation. In Honduras, to take one example, the White House and Pentagon under Obama have significantly funded and militarily equipped a thuggish right wing regime that overthrew a democratically elected, left-leaning president (Manuel Zelaya) in the spring of 2009. The administration initially responded to the Honduran putsch with what sounded like words of condemnation but it promptly angered much of the world and most of Latin America by continuing the standard U.S. practice of bankrolling, equipping, training, and running cover for Central and South American reaction, giving the new authoritarian regime the okay to kill, torture, and imprison democracy activists.

The crucifixion of Palestine by Israel continues to receive critical financial and military backing and diplomatic cover from Uncle Sam, who has never sought to enforce a no-fly zone to prevent Israel from bombing children and hospitals in the open air apartheid prison called the Gaza Strip.

Washington continues to fund, train, and equip state repression in the deceptive name of  “the war on Drugs” across Central America — repression that supports Washington-imposed neoliberal trade and investment policies that deepen the extreme poverty that drives so many Latin Americans to seek access to lower ends of the U.S. labor market. This feeds right wing anti-immigrant sentiments on the part of North Americans conditioned to think that Washington has nothing to do with endemic misery south of the Rio Grande. Obama naturally made no effort to undo these core imperial policy continuities during his recent trip to Latin America, which coincided with the launching of his first wholly owned imperial adventure – code-named “Operation Odyssey Dawn” (hereafter “OOD” – which advertising firms come up with these military campaign brandings, anyway?) – in Libya . “What more” could the U.S, do to support democracy? Stop murdering it abroad and at home.

The notion that Uncle Sam is hopelessly hamstrung in terms of what it might do beyond offer nice words in support of freedom and democracy abroad is contradicted by the curious case that has recently grabbed the headlines from Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions, Wisconsin protestors, and the Japanese earthquake and nuclear crisis — Libya.

Here a recently U.S.-tolerated dictator, Muammar Gaddafi, has been re-declared a grave public enemy to western ideals and his nation has been target-bombed by a U.S.-led “coalition” of “the international community” (selected national elites from the wealthy West) in the enforcement of a no-fly zone. The White House claims that OOD seeks only to protect Libyan citizens, not just Gaddafi, but Hillary Clinton’s recent comment to the effect that the dictator should leave the country certainly suggests that the Bush Doctrine’s notion of imposing regime change (in the name of democracy) on a poor nation that poses no serious risk or imminent danger to the United States1 lives on – along with so much else from the dark days of Dubya – in the “new” age of Obama, the Empire’s New Clothes, who is attacking Libya without the pretense of congressional authorization¹ that George Bush obtained before assaulting Iraq.

The official reasons given for OOD are out of Bill Clinton’s Serbia and George W. Bush’s Iraq playbooks. They are that the United States is driven by humanitarian and democratic concern for the suffering Libyan people. But what about the millions of other world citizens living under the oppressive rule of sadistic autocrats across Africa and in, for example, the key U.S. ally, Saudi Arabia, home to perhaps the world’s single most reactionary government? The United States is not moving towards targeted bombings and no-fly zones to protect victims of oppression or to discipline oppressors in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Palestine, Israel, or Yemen, where the U.S.-supported president Ali Abdullah Seleh has recently butchered and maimed hundreds of protestors.

The American military and financial aid keeps flowing to unjust rulers in these and numerous other U.S.-backed states. Those rulers and their cronies are not subjected to travel bans and asset freezes and Western-led prosecution for crimes against humanity. They continue to receive official designation as U.S. allies in the “war on terror.”

What supposedly privileges Libyans over and above other victims of tyranny when it comes to the United States supposed goals of freedom protection? And what about the large number of Libyan civilian casualties that can be expected to result from an aerial assault on Tripoli, home to 1.1 million? Couldn’t an U.S. aerial attack actually increase regime violence on the ground? What about the likelihood that imperial assault will result in greater popularity within Libya for the dictator that Washington claims to oppose (on the model of how murderous U.S.-imposed “economic sanctions” and no fly zones deepened Saddam Hussein’s popularity and weakened his opposition inside Iraq )?

What about the unsavory nature of many atop Gaddafi’s hastily formed opposition, who are leading a civil war, not a peaceful people’s uprising on the model of Tunisia, Egypt, Wisconsin, and Bahrain? And what about the distinct possibility that Western military intervention could prolong a bloody civil war in Libya by undermining the opposition’s ability to pursue negotiations and through the instability that large-scale civilian casualties can produce?

These and other problems raise serious questions about the honesty of Washington’s justifications, suggesting that something other than humanitarian and democratic ideals – petroleum-related strategic and political concerns emerging from America’s imperial role in the Middle East – are at play in the design and execution of OOD, Barack Obama’s first full-fledged, non-inherited colonial war. Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose: the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Just the Opposite…

The left U.S. foreign policy critic Phyllis Bennis has recently noted a dark irony behind many Americans’ support of the Libyan action. That support was premised on the notion that Gaddafi’s successful crushing of his opposition “would send a devastating message to other Arab dictators: Use enough military force and you will keep your job.” Things are working out quite differently, with the American intervention seeming to feed top-down repression, not bottom up rebellion in the Middle East.  As Bennis observes:

Instead, it turns out that just the opposite may be the result: It was after the UN passed its no-fly zone and use-of-force resolution, and just as US, British, French and other warplanes and warships launched their attacks against Libya, that other Arab regimes escalated their crack-down on their own democratic movements….In Yemen, 52 unarmed protesters were killed and more than 200 wounded on Friday by forces of the US-backed and US-armed government of Ali Abdullah Saleh. It was the bloodiest day of the month-long Yemeni uprising…Similarly in US-allied Bahrain, home of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, at least 13 civilians have been killed by government forces. Since the March 15 arrival of 1,500 foreign troops from Saudi Arabia and the UAE, brought in to protect the absolute power of the king of Bahrain , 63 people have been reported missing.

Wag the Dog

The American and western left is currently at some risk of tearing itself up yet more than it is already torn up over the question of how to understand and respond to OOD. My instincts are pretty much always anti-White House and anti-Pentagon when it comes to foreign policy, and I personally can’t get behind even limited support for a no-fly zone in Libya. Still, my desire to get into a finger-pointing and shouting match with “progressives” who offer qualified support to Obama’s new war is inhibited to some degree by my sense that the current imperial extravaganza is taking on a disastrous “wag the dog” aspect in the hands of America ’s dominant Orwellian mass war and entertainment media.

It is diverting public attention from at least three critical and ongoing policy and political issues: the epic state-level state-capitalist assault on public sector workers, organized labor, and working people more generally and the remarkable popular rebellion against that assault within and beyond Madison, Wisconsin; the equally epic nuclear disaster in Japan and the deadly implications of aging and revamped nuclear power operations (horrifying epitomes of the underlying and very possibly exterminst irrationality of the state-capitalist profits system) within and beyond the United States, where a deadly, old, and accident-prone nuclear plant (Indian Point, home to 2 of the nation’s 105 currently operating nuclear power reactors) is located just 30 miles north of the world’s financial capital, New York City; the counter-assault on democratic protests in U.S, sponsored regimes like (to name just three) Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain.

Even as they steal vast, desperately needed public resources away from the real and potential meeting of social needs and help distribute wealth upwards (to “defense” contractors like Boeing, Raytheon, and other elite, high-tech corporate interests) at home ² moreover, imperial adventures and the bloodlust they reflect and promote are great authoritarian populace-diverters and domestic democracy-destroyers – all too consistent with the warnings of American Founding Father James Madison, who observed that:

The fetters imposed on liberty at home have ever been forged out of the weapons for defense against real, pretended, or imaginary dangers abroad.

1. In 2007, candidate Obama was asked the following question when it was feared that the United States was going to attack Iran: Under what circumstances would the president have the constitutional authority to bomb Iran without first seeking authorization from Congress? His answer: “The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation. As Commander-in-Chief, the President does have a duty to protect and defend the United States. In instances of self-defense, the President would be within his constitutional authority to act before advising Congress or seeking its consent. History has shown us time and again, however, that military action is most successful when it is authorized and supported by the Legislative branch.” Essentially, Obama said that the president had the authority to act first and seek approval later if there were an imminent threat to the security of the United States and that the president could not order a military attack without the approval of the Congress if a threat to the United States was not imminent. Both statements were accurate but neither applies to the current situation in Libya. They have pretty much disappeared down the Orwellian memory hole as far as many of Obama’s liberal and centrist supporters are concerned. Many of those supporters would likely be complaining about constitutional violations if the Libya venture was being conducted by a President McCain. Likewise, many Republicans would be muzzling the constitutional concerns they are currently voicing if one of their party currently held the title of Commander in Chief. Such is the moral and intellectual level and situational politics of partisan identity and behavior within, and beyond, Washington .
   
2. A recent Huffington Post item reports that “In the opening days of the assault on Libya, the United States and the United Kingdom launched a barrage of at least 161 Tomahawk cruise missiles to flatten Muammar Gadhafi’s air defenses and pave the way for coalition aircraft….In fiscal terms, at a time when Congress is fighting over every dollar, the cruise missile show of military might was an expenditure of nearly a quarter of a billion dollars. Each missile cost $1.41 million, close to three times the cost listed on the Navy’s website…Raytheon Corp. is the manufacturer of the Tomahawk Block IV, a low-flying missile that travels at 550 miles per hour. During a decade of war in Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Libya, the Pentagon has increasingly relied on the Tomahawk. A year ago, Raytheon boasted of its 2,000th Block IV delivery to the Navy.” See Sharon Weinberger, “Cruise Missiles: The One Million Dollar Weapon,” Huffpost Business (March 25, 2011) at 161 X $1.4 million = $225 million Tomahawk Cruise Missile expenditure in just the early stage of Obama’s Libya adventure, including a nice cost-plus profit for leading “defense” (Empire) contractor, Raytheon. Someone other than I can calculate the social opportunity cost of $225 million as more and more Americans run out of ammunition in the war on economic destitution.

Former Clinton White House special counsel “left Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe to join McDermott Will & Emery’s regulatory and government strategies practice.” At Orrick, he “led a rather unusual practice that included litigation….related media strategies, (and) advis(ing) clients on crisis management.”

In fact, he then and now lobbies for despots and predatory corporate clients.

“More recently, (he lobbied) on behalf of Honduran business leaders to convince members of Congress to support the removal of” democratically elected former President Manuel Zelaya.

In June 2009, a Washington orchestrated coup replaced him with the current fascist regime, responsible for reigning terror against human rights activists, pro-democracy groups, campesinos, independent journalists, and others challenging state/oligarch/drug lord power.

Post-coup, The Hill.com reported that the far-right Business Council of Latin America (CEAL) hired Davis to lobby Congress and conduct supportive PR for the interim Micheletti government. It involved a media blitz, arranged meetings for coup plotters with congressional members, and drafting an Accord to form a National Unity and Reconciliation Government as cover to solidify fascist rule. Davis, of course, was well paid to assure it. His credentials don’t include honor, morality, ethics and support for the rule of law.

On December 19, 2008, Legal Times writers, Jeffrey and Mike Scarcella, headlined “New Strategy for Whole Foods in FTC Fight,” saying:

In the high-profile antitrust case, “Whole Foods retained politically savvy lawyer Lanny Davis….to convince power brokers that Whole Foods is not getting a fair shake at the FTC” in its attempt to acquire rival organic grocer Wild Oats. His campaign involved “squeez(ing) the FTC on Capitol Hill through the House and Senate judiciary committees,” Davis saying “you do what you have to do” to subvert antitrust laws or back despots replacing democrats. His credo, in fact, is anything for a buck as long as there’s lots of them.

FTC lawyers tried blocking the merger, but lost attempts at the district and appeals court levels. Nonetheless, they pressed their case after both companies consummated the deal. Davis’ team created a three-pronged, full-court press strategy, involving lawsuits, media blitzes, and hard-nosed Capitol Hill lobbying that ended successfully.

On August 18, 2009, Salon.com contributor, Glenn Greenwald, headlined, “The Lanny Davis disease and America’s health care debate,” saying:

“Davis frequently injects himself into political disputes, masquerading as a ‘political analyst’ and Democratic media pundit, yet is unmoored from any discernible political beliefs other than: ‘I agree with whoever pays me,’ ” the credo of all lobbyists, especially the most disreputable, Davis very much qualifying.

His entire Capitol Hill history is as “consistent as it is sleazy,” the more sleaze, in fact, the more compensation. The hard-right Israel Project hired him to defend Israel’s Cast Lead onslaught against Gaza, calling it Israel’s “right to self-defense against terrorism,” when clearly it was preemptive illegal aggression.

If Davis was just another run-of-the-mill lobbyist “piggishly feeding off our political system,” it would be too commonplace “to bother noting. But (he) parades around as – and is treated by media organizations as being – some sort of political pundit,” when, in fact, he’s a hired gun, backing anyone who’ll pay him.

Calling himself a liberal centrist, he supports big money and repressive governments, defending them by vilifying critics. He “reflects the grime and sleaze” that permeates our political culture in a profession that gives whoring a bad name.

On August 10, 2009, Greg Grandin added more to Davis’ resume, including:

– calling himself a “pro-labor liberal” while lobbying against the Employee Free Choice Act to facilitate union organizing; it never passed;

– in the late 1990s, serving as chief lobbyist for Pakistan’s military dictatorship; under civilian leaders, Pakistan’s government is cover for a military-run country; and

– as Hillary Clinton’s major fundraiser during the 2008 presidential primary, attacking Obama’s association with Rev. Jeremiah Wright for being outspoken against war, other violence, racial hatred, and other social justice issues.

“In retrospect,” said Grandin, “Davis was running through so many lies – they were too focused and polished to be simple mistakes or errors of interpretation – it was hard to catch up.”

His entire career, in fact, amounts to crafting, pressuring, and disseminating lies, spin, and other misinformation supporting systemic evil against good.

In 2002 at Patton Boggs, he was retained to do crisis management, legal, and media advisory work for HealthSouth Corp. and its CEO Richard Scrushy. At the time, he was under investigation for alleged fraudulent accounting and suspect Medicare billing practices. Though acquitted of securities fraud in 2005, he was convicted of bribery in 2006 and sentenced to almost seven years in prison. Davis advised him and HealthSouth for four months, raising questions about some of his tactics.

Specifically, his October 2002 press release said that in Fulbright & Jaworski’s company audit, Scrushy was cleared of allegations that he improperly dumped stock based on inside information. Afterward, F & J partner, Hal Hirsch, said his team didn’t pre-approve the word “cleared.” As a result, Davis had to issue a new press release retracting the first one he thought he could get away with even though untrue.

In spring 2010, Davis left McDermott Will & Emery to form his own firm, Lanny J. Davis & Associates, specializing in “legal crisis communication, media strategy, public advocacy, and political/legislative strategies” for some of the world’s most disreputable despots and corporate predators.

In summer 2010, he signed a $1 million annual contract to represent Equatorial Guinea dictator, Teodoro Obiang Nguerma Mbasogo, one of the world’s most corrupt ones, accused of countless human rights abuses throughout his tenure. Reports said he stashed his country’s oil wealth offshore and rigged elections to assure 95% majorities. Davis joked about it, saying he urged the tyrant to “win by 51% (not) 98%.”

He also lobbies for Martek Biosciences, a company making suspect additives for federally-subsidized infant formula. They include fatty acids known as DHA and ARA, even though advocates for poor women question their use. In response, Davis blitzed Congress with emails accusing opponents of being “lactivists” who want to force women to breast-feed. No level is too low for him to stoop.

His latest controversy involves lobbying for Ivory Coast dictator Laurent Gbagbo. Elected president in 2000, he kept power after his term ended in 2005, and still holds it after his November 2010 election defeat. His intransigence, use of military force, and rumored death squads against opponents pushed Cote d’ivoire toward civil war, its second after 2002 – 04 fighting ended, the government controlling the south and rebels the north.

In March 2007, a peace agreement ended conflict followed by November 2010 elections defeating Gbagbo. Opposition leader Alassane Ouattara’s victory was recognized by the UN, US, EU, African Union, and former colonial power France – everyone, in fact, except Gbagbo.

Reports say terror killings and kidnappings were unleashed against opposition supporters. About 200 or more deaths resulted. After a decade in power, Gbagbo won’t relinquish it, his intransigency risking civil war.

After days defending his work, Davis reversed field and resigned, dropping an account worth a $100,000 a month. His explanation was Gbagbo’s failure to take Obama’s call, not his human rights abuses and massive corruption. In his December 29 letter, he said:

His “mission was not to say who won or who lost the election or who was right or who was wrong, but rather to help resolve this crisis peacefully through dialogue, mediation and with leadership and participation of the international community.”

It was typical Davis boilerplate, suppressing his real role as a hired gun for anyone who’ll pay him, no matter how sleazy. As an establishment figure, he supports wealth and power against popular interests.

On December 30, New York Times writers, Ginger Thompson and Eric Lipton’s, article headlined, “Lobbyist’s Client List Puts Him on the Defensive,” saying:

Davis “built a client list that now includes coup supporters in Honduras, a dictator in Equatorial Guinea, for-profit colleges accused of exploiting students (by aggressive tactics, entrapping them in debt for degrees of dubious value), (and his) agree(ing) to represent” Gbagbo. His frequent role “stoked growing criticism that (he’s) become a kind of front man for the dark side, willing to take on some of the world’s least noble companies and causes.”

In a business noted for disreputable practices, “Mr. Davis’ firm st(ands) out.” California WIC (women, infants & children) Association representative Meredith McGehee said:

“You look at who he represents, and the list is just almost unseemly, tawdry.” Representing agencies that serve poor women with infant children, California WIC lost its battle with Davis, McGehee adding: “It is an illustration of what most of the American people think of as wrong with Washington,” and Davis as one of its most sleazy exponents.

Yet he battles critics by lining up support from State Department officials, congressional members and business contacts to testify how he helped them. He also uses his customary media blitz approach, including making himself available for print and on-air interviews, a technique earning him a reputation as “spinmeister par excellence,” a noted practictioner of distortion, misinformation, and bald-faced lies.

Repeatedly exposed as disreputable, his defense is that:

My credibility is the only thing I have. If I defend people in indefensible, corrupt acts, then I lose everything I have, and I’m just another gun for hire. But when I see that I can help get out the facts, and improve people’s lives, and peacefully resolve conflicts, then I feel an obligation to do so….I am a liberal Democrat. I’ve been (one) all my life. I haven’t changed my values.

Phew! The last refugee of a scoundrel is wrapping disrepute in claimed honor, ethics and principle, never mind being bankrolled by some of the world’s sleaziest  dictators and corporations to do it. Also claiming everyone deserves a voice is baseless, not when claimants murder, steal, and ravage the environment for profit. Even Obama officials say he’s on the wrong side of some fights.

Recently, he’s “come under unusually vociferous attacks (from) a diverse array of (critics) representing everyone from college students and mothers of poor children, to diplomats and international human rights advocates.”

Do I often find myself in a position of disputing facts that are not consistent with easy label,” he asked? “That’s what I do for a living. Controversy is what I do for a living.

In fact, relying on friends in high places, and disseminating client-friendly disinformation makes him one of K Street’s most highly paid lobbyists. In fact, a Twitter profile called him: “Clinton confidant, weathered PR-man and counsel to dictators.” Add to that the epitome of sleaze.

On September 15, 2010, a non-violent march and musical concert in Honduras was attacked by police and security forces.  Incredibly the police involved in the attack made it a point to destroy the instruments of the musicians.

The musicians who were attacked called for today to be renamed Artists in Resistance Day. To mark the occasion the collective Artists in Resistance and the National Front of Youth in Resistance (FNJR) organized concerts tonight in San Pedro Sula and in Tegucigalpa.

These groups reflect just a small sliver of the National Front of Popular Resistance in Honduras (FNRP for its initials in Spanish), one of the most mobilized social movements currently taking shape in our hemisphere.  The FNRP represents social movements, organizations and individuals from nearly every sector of Honduran society.  They are organizing to stand up to one of Latin America’s foremost human rights crises:  the 2009 coup in Honduras and the intimidation, assaults, silencing, and killing of those who have resisted the subsequent regimes that took power.  The hope is that today’s concerts will underscore the resistance to the crisis in Honduras and mobilize more international solidarity with the FNRP.

Ongoing Crisis in Honduras

Since the coup in June 2009, two regimes – the de facto coup government under Robert Micheletti and the administration of the sitting president Porfiro Lobo – have done little to protect human rights while police and security forces have subjected members or those identified with the FNRP to mass arrests, beatings, tear gas raids, rape and other forms of torture, and kidnappings.  Judges critical of the coup and post-coup authorities have been divested of their positions, transferred arbitrarily, and faced disciplinary proceedings.

At least ten journalists have been killed in 2010 alone, under circumstances overwhelmingly indicative that these were assassinations.  Journalists not killed have faced state censorship.  Violence and repression of political speech, public assembly, and critical democracy have become a part of daily life.

Rather than investigate these crimes and hold the perpetrators accountable for their actions, Honduran officials have looked the other way.  The official line mouthed by Honduran officials and getting much play in Honduran newspapers (which make no effort to hide their support for the coup and post-coup regimes) is that this violence is a by-product of drug and gang wars.  Sadly, this narrative has gained some traction in the blogosphere and diplomatic circles even though these speculations are not based on any independent investigation or arrests.

The surge in violence against union leaders, community organizers, journalists and activists has, in fact, come only after the coup and the targets are undeniably leaders and members of the resistance.

According to the Committee of Relatives of the Disappeared in Honduras (COFADEH) there have been 83 murders of members of the FNRP, countless injuries from assaults, and a steady stream of exiled individuals who have left the country after being raped or otherwise tortured and/or have had their lives threatened as a result of being part of, or being perceived as part of, the resistance.

Time to “Move on”?

Despite the overthrow of democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya last year, the repressive actions of the interim Micheletti coup regime, the illegitimate “election” of Lobo (one that groups like the Carter Center and even the United Nations refused to observe because of its clear illegality), the lack of justice for any of the victims of the coup and the subsequent and continuing political violence, the post-coup authorities are repeatedly saying that it is time for the Honduran people to move on.

The latest incarnation of effort to “move on” is a bogus invitation by Pepe Lobo to the FNRP to dialogue about the Constituent Assembly process.  The FNRP considered the invitation carefully.  They met in two separate assemblies — one for the Directorate and one of the General Assembly — and decided to reject the invitation to dialogue because of the ongoing violence and repression directed at the resistance.  The reasons for rejecting included the fact that President Zelaya is still being forced into exile with false charges against him, that there are many political prisoners, and that there has no accountability for all the human rights violations against the movement.  FNRP leadership stated that this was just another attempt by Lobo to legitimize his authority before a national and international audience.

Resistance Progress

The FNRP is committed to changing the Honduras constitution but in a way that reflects democracy and human rights.  Many in Honduras view the constitution as having been written for the elite of the country and giving far too few rights to the poor and historically marginalized.  Some say the constitution is one of the main reasons why  Honduras has one of the highest poverty rates and gaps between rich and poor in the Americas.

The Constituent Assembly, or constituyente in Spanish, has been the principal focus of the FNRP for much of the past year.  They recently presented 1.3 million signatures that they had gathered in support of the process.

At first glance, it might seem counter-intuitive; if this is the movement’s primary focus and the current President wants to dialogue about it, wouldn’t the resistance at least try to engage?  The resistance views Lobo as an illegitimate official and actively involved in the repression against the FNRP.  Dialogue with Lobo had the potential to compromise the careful, deeply democratic process that the FNRP has been engaging every sector of Honduran society— unions, youth, peasant farmers, LGBTQ groups, and beyond—with for months.

The FNRP has now resolved to move forward with the Constituent Assembly  as an autonomous, deeply democratic process.  This is incredibly exciting, even historic, for our hemisphere and an example of participatory democracy that we all could learn from.

Meanwhile, in the United States, 29 members of Congress took a bold step, especially given the lead-up to mid-term elections, in issuing a strongly worded condemnation of the “deplorable human rights record” in Honduras listing several recent cases of political violence.

The members of Congress registered their “serious concern that the rule of law is directly threatened by members of the Honduran police and armed forces” and called on the Obama Administration to end all direct assistance to Honduran authorities, especially the police and military.  They also called on the US to cease its lobbying for the re-admittance of Honduras into the Organization of American States (OAS).

While most member countries of the OAS have stood firm in their rejection of Honduras as a member of the OAS, U.S. Secretary of State Clinton has made Honduras’s reinstatement a US priority in the region, raising it in her meetings with Latin American heads of state and lobbying for it at various regional meetings.  For reasons that the Center for Constitutional Rights laid out in our Open Letter to Secretary of State Clinton, the Obama Administration must stop and the OAS should remain firm in rejecting Honduras as a member.

Those committed to working in solidarity with ordinary people organizing for democracy, equality and social justice in the Americas are outraged that the Obama Administration has become the Lobo regime’s most important ally. Without US support, the Lobo regime would not have been able to hold its illegitimate elections or hold on to power for as long as it has.

But history shows that anti-democratic regimes in Latin America and elsewhere can be overcome, even when they have the backing of the US, by campaigns for democracy and human rights.  The FNRP is working to show the way in Honduras.  Those of us in solidarity from afar watch in admiration as they work to transform their country and salute their efforts to celebrate while doing so!

Tonight’s concert in San Pedro Sula with be streamed live via the FNRP’s website.

Over the past four year Harper’s government has been offside with the world community on a whole host of issues. Canada was among a small number of countries that refused to recognize the human right to water or sign the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. On two occasions, Ottawa blocked consensus at the Rotterdam Convention to place chrysotile asbestos, a known toxin, on its list of dangerous products, and in November Finance Minister Jim Flaherty refused to even consider British PM Gordon Brown’s idea of a global tax on international financial transactions.

Close to the companies making huge profits on the Tar Sands, the Conservatives repeatedly sabotaged international climate negotiations. They angered many in the Commonwealth by blocking a resolution calling for a “binding commitment” on rich countries to reduce emissions and at a UN climate conference in Bangkok last year, many delegates from poorer countries left a negotiating session in protest after a Canadian suggestion to scrap the Kyoto Protocol as the basis of negotiations.

The Conservatives extreme “Israel no matter what” position definitely hurt its chance on Tuesday. “It’s hard to find a country friendlier to Israel than Canada these days,” explained Israeli Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, who emigrated from Moldova when he was 20 but still feels fit to call for the expulsion of Palestinian citizens of Israel.

The Conservatives publicly endorsed Israel’s 2006 attack on Lebanon, voted against a host of UN resolutions supporting Palestinian rights and in February Ottawa delighted Israeli hawks by canceling $15 million in funding for the UN agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). The money was transferred to Palestinian security reform.

For the past three years, Canada has been heavily invested in training a Palestinian security force designed to oversee Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and “to ensure that the PA [Palestinian Authority] maintains control of the West Bank against Hamas,” as Canadian ambassador to Israel Jon Allen was quoted as saying by the Canadian Jewish News. According to deputy Foreign Affairs minister Peter Kent, Operation PROTEUS, Canada’s military training mission in the West Bank, is the country’s “second largest deployment after Afghanistan” and it receives “most of the money” from a five-year $300 million Canadian aid program to the Palestinians.

At the same time as Canadian “aid” strengthens the most compliant Palestinian political factions, the Conservatives have refused any criticism of Israel’s onslaught against the 1.5 million people living in Gaza. Canada was the only country at the UN Human Rights Council to vote against a January 2008 resolution that called for “urgent international action to put an immediate end to Israel’s siege of Gaza.”

Later in 2008 Israel unleashed a 22-day military assault on Gaza that left 1,400 Palestinians dead. In response, many governments condemned the bombing and Venezuela broke off all diplomatic relations. Israel didn’t need to worry since Ottawa was prepared to help out. The Canadian embassy now represents Israel’s diplomatic interests in Caracas.

While Brazil and Turkey tried to dissipate hostility towards Iran, Harper used his pulpit as host of the G8 to pave the way for a possible U.S.-Israeli attack. A February 17 Toronto Star article was headlined: “Military action against Iran still on the table, Kent says.” The junior foreign minister explained that “it’s a matter of timing and it’s a matter of how long we can wait without taking more serious preemptive action.”

“Preemptive action” is a euphemism for a bombing campaign. Canadian naval vessels are already running provocative maneuvers off Iran’s coast and by stating that “an attack on Israel would be considered an attack on Canada,” Kent is trying to create the impression that Iran may attack Israel. But it is Israel that possesses nuclear weapons and threatens to bomb Iran, not the other way around.

While Ottawa considers Iran’s nuclear energy program a major threat, Israel’s atomic bombs have not provoked similar condemnation. The Harper government abstained on a number of near unanimous votes asking Israel to place its nuclear weapons program under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) controls and in September Bloomberg cited Canada as one of three countries that opposed an IAEA probe of Israel’s nuclear facilities as part of an Arab led effort to create a nuclear-weapons-free Middle East.

Not content with taking on Iran, the military-minded Conservatives turned on Russia. Harper referred to Russia as “aggressive” and in a throwback to the Cold War, Defence Minister Peter MacKay added that Ottawa would respond to Russian flights in the Arctic by flying Canadian fighter jets near Russian airspace. Making sure that Moscow got the message, during a July 2007 visit to the Ukraine, MacKay said Canada would help provide a “counterbalance” to Russia.

Ottawa even prioritized the military over aid in the face of the incredible suffering caused by Haiti’s earthquake. Two thousand Canadian troops were deployed while several Heavy Urban Search Rescue Teams were readied but never sent. Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon explained that the teams were not needed because “the government had opted to send Canadian Armed Forces instead.”

Overthrown in February 2004 by a joint U.S./France/Canada destabilization campaign, Haiti’s most popular political party, Fanmi Lavalas, has been barred from participating in elections. The Conservatives supported Fanmi Lavalas’ exclusion, congratulating Haiti’s puppet government for bringing “a period of stabilization” good for “investment and trade.” Ottawa backed up its words with deeds, adding tens of millions of dollars to a Haitian prison and police system that has been massively expanded and militarized since the 2004 coup.

Ottawa gave its tacit support to the Honduran military’s removal of elected president Manuel Zelaya in June 2009. Mexico’s Notimex reported that Canada was the only country in the hemisphere that did not explicitly call for Zelaya’s return to power and Canadian officials repeatedly criticized Zelaya at the Organization of American States (OAS). The ousted government complained that Ottawa failed to suspend aid to Honduras, which is the largest recipient of Canadian assistance in Central America. Nor did Ottawa exclude the Honduran military from its Military Training Assistance Program.

The Harper government opposed Zelaya’s move to join the Hugo Chavez led Alba, the Bolivarian Alliance for the People of Our Americas, which is a response to North American capitalist domination of the region. Canada has actively supported the U.S.-led campaign against the government of Venezuela. In mid-2007 Harper toured South America “to show [the region] that Canada functions and that it can be a better model than Venezuela,” in the words of a high-level foreign affairs official. During the trip, Harper and his entourage made a number of comments critical of the Venezuelan government.

After meeting only members of the opposition during a trip to Venezuela in January, Peter Kent told the media that “democratic space within Venezuela has been shrinking and in this election year, Canada is very concerned about the rights of all Venezuelans to participate in the democratic process.”

Venezuela’s ambassador to the 34-country OAS, Roy Chaderton Matos, responded: “I am talking of a Canada governed by an ultra right that closed its Parliament for various months to (evade) an investigation over the violation of human rights — I am talking about torture and assassinations — by its soldiers in Afghanistan.”

Despite the move to the left among the majority of the region’s governments Harper moved closer to Latin America’s most right-wing state. Colombia’s terrible human rights record did not stop Harper from signing a free-trade agreement that even Washington couldn’t stomach.

The trade agreement as well as the Harper government’s shift of aid from Africa to Latin America was designed to support Canadian corporate interests and the region’s right-wing governments and movements. Barely discussed in the media, the main goal of the shift in aid was to stunt Latin America’s recent rejection of neoliberalism and U.S. dependence.

One issue mentioned in a number of media reports about Canada’s loss last week had to do with the Congo. At the G8 in June the Conservatives pushed for an entire declaration to the final communiqué criticizing the Congo for attempting to gain a greater share of its vast mineral wealth. Months earlier Ottawa began to obstruct international efforts to reschedule the country’s foreign debt, which was mostly accrued during more than three decades of Joseph Mobuto’s dictatorship and the subsequent war.

Canadian officials “have a problem with what’s happened with a Canadian company,” Congolese Information Minister Lambert Mende said referring to the government’s move to revoke a mining concession that Vancouver-based First Quantum acquired under dubious circumstances during the 1998-2003 war. “The Canadian government wants to use the Paris Club [of debtor nations] in order to resolve a particular problem,” explained Mende. “This is unacceptable.”

The mining industry increasingly represents Canada abroad. Canadian miners operate more than 3,000 projects outside this country and many of these mines have displaced communities, destroyed ecosystems and resulted in violence. This doesn’t bother the Harper government, which is close to the most retrograde sectors of the mining industry. Last year they rejected a proposal – agreed to by the Mining Association of Canada under pressure from civil society groups — to make diplomatic and financial support for resource companies operating overseas contingent upon socially responsible conduct. Despite countless horror stories suggesting the contrary, the Conservatives claim that voluntary standards are the best way to improve Canadian mining companies’ social responsibility.

Finally, the Conservatives have knowingly supported torture in Afghanistan and embraced an increasingly violent counterinsurgency war. Apparently, Canadian Joint Task Force 2 commandos regularly take part in nighttime assassination raids, which are highly unpopular with the Afghan population.

Losing the Security Council seat will hopefully cost the Conservatives some votes and temper their more extreme international positions. But, for those of us working to radically transform Canadian foreign policy the consequences of the loss may be much greater. There has probably never been a bigger blow to the carefully crafted image of Canada as a popular international do-gooder, a mythology that blinds so many Canadians to our country’s real role in the world.

For Hondurans, the event marked a new beginning, not an end to their dark history. Widespread killings and human rights abuses followed and a sham November election, installing Porfirio (Pepe) Lobo Sosa president, a US-friendly stooge heading a fascist regime. The nation’s military is firmly in control against popular resistance, street violence and death squad terror its repressive tools. The Obama administrative stands firmly supportive. It blessed the coup, the new government and provides aid, all for hardline rule, none for popular needs.

Activists and journalists are especially threatened. Honduras is one of the most dangerous countries anywhere for those speaking openly about government corruption, human rights abuses, and despotism, the latest casualty — Radio Internacional reporter, Zelaya Diaz, shot dead on August 24 along a rural San Pedro Sula road. According to press reports, he died from two bullet wounds to the head, another in his chest. Like similar past incidents, an investigation, if it occurs, will be whitewashed. No one will be held accountable.

Though not openly threatened, an earlier suspicious fire damaged Diaz’s home, a message perhaps demanding he stop reporting on politics and crime. Since March alone, eight journalists have been killed, a disturbing pattern against others stepping too close to honest reporting about what Hondurans most need to know – the truth about their corrupted, brutal regime.

Despite the UN General Assembly’s June 30, 2009 condemnation of the coup “by acclimation,” 90 nations have now restored diplomatic ties, normalizing relations after the October 30 Tegucigalpa-Jose Accord (the unfulfilled agreement to form a National Unity/ Reconciliation Government) and Lobo’s election — business as usual triumphing over the rule of law and democratic freedoms, Washington always in the lead, pressuring others to go along.

Resistance, however, continues. On August 27, Honduras Resists reported that protests and police repression filled Tegucigalpa streets, the nation’s capital, for the third straight day. Security forces surrounded the National Pedagogic University where teachers, students, unionists, campesinos, and other activists gathered inside demanding social justice.

They were attacked, police using tear gas, then beating some overcome and forced outside. Others were arrested. The previous day, thousands of teachers were assaulted near the Presidential Palace (Casa Presidential), the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in Honduras (CODEH) saying a number were wounded, yet Escuela Hospital refused to treat four injured professors. Protests erupted after negotiations with the Lobo government failed.  Security forces responded repressively.

Honduran human and worker rights are consistently denied. As a result, on August 31, the National Front for Popular Resistance (FNRP) called for a September 7 nationwide strike for a living wage and other demands, including keeping the nation’s natural resources public, not privatized.

According to Juan Barahona, President of the United Federation of Workers of Honduras (FUTH), it’s also to “express our rejection of this regime,” its repressive policies and neoliberal model. 

In addition, FNRP wants a National Constituent  Assembly to review and rewrite the Constitution, supported by most Hondurans. It also plans a September 15 national mobilization commemoration on the 187th anniversary of independence from Spain. 

It needs another from Washington, Honduras’ ruling oligarchy, fascist government, and repressive military and police, cracking down brutally against activists, campesinos, and supportive journalists for social justice.

Report from Rights Action (RA)

RA focuses on community development, emergency relief, environmental and human rights issues in Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and El Salvador. It aims to “build north-south alliances and carries out education, political and legal work for global equity and justice,” following a “just development model.”

On August 31, it reported that Honduran repression continues, elaborating on three-days of Tegucigalpa crackdowns. It followed weeks of public school teacher demands for the return of $200 million taken from the National Institute of IMPREMA, an institution managing their pension funds.

The umbrella organization FOMH represents six teachers unions and their 63,000 members nationwide. After the June 2009 coup, they said the new regime took the money they want back.

Students have demands as well, wanting 180 fired workers reinstated and National Autonomous University (UNAH) director, Julieta Castrellano’s resignation. Allied with teachers, they also oppose Lobo’s plan to privatize public education. As a result, it’s been in crisis for months without resolution. Students occupied the university. Police assaulted it repressively.

Peaceful protests continued. Hardline crackdowns followed. Police used water cannons, tear gas, rubber bullets, brutal beatings, and arrests, in the presence of women and children around the National Pedagogical University. From a black Toyota, a gunman fired a 9-millimeter weapon at protesters, the car belonging to the National Congress.

Besides arrests, “Over 100 people were captured and ‘guarded’ by police against a fence outside the University.” After human rights representatives intervened, they were released. Yet many teachers and students were trapped in classrooms suffering tear gas exposure. Seven or more others were injured, including a Globo TV/Radio journalist.

Earlier in August, security forces brutally beat three union leaders and one teacher, fingered by regime infiltrators in their marches. The corporate-owned media call protesters “instruments of violence,” accusing them of disrupting children’s education. In fact, they’re Hondurans for social justice.

On August 31, the Honduras Solidarity Network (HSN), a coalition of US organizations, denounced state repression, saying:

“the recent brutal attacks by government forces against non-violent protests show that there has been no reconciliation after last year’s coup d’etat, and the US government’s policy of support for the current government must be changed. We call for an immediate end to the repression and human rights violations against the opposition movement,” its teachers, students, unionists and other supporters.

HSN spokeswoman Vicki Cervantes said “The United States government continues its support for the oligarchy and Lobo in the form of aid and pressure on other governments in the hemisphere to accept” its legitimacy when, in fact, it has none.

Meanwhile, popular opposition is growing. For the first time since 1954, Honduran trade union federations called a general strike. In addition, nearly one million eligible voters signed letters demanding a National Constituent Assembly to rewrite the Constitution. So far, hardline repression continues, Washington providing  weapons and ammunition.

Campesinos Struggling for Their Rights

They’re ongoing throughout Honduras, including in the northern Valle de Aguan, once the country’s agrarian reform capital, campesinos now contesting their land rights agreed to in a MUCA arranged deal — the Movimiento Unificado Campesino del Agua. 

Signed in December, they agreed to abandon occupied areas in return for 11,000 acres of cultivated and uncultivated land. However, powerful landowners objected, using security forces to intimidate, threaten, and persecute farmers, killing eight or more and arresting others on grounds of “theft and trespassing.”

The Aguan land struggle continues, the Committee in Defense of Human Rights (CODEH), saying “the facts show that the justice system like the Public Ministry and the Police are allied with the landowners of the zone to persecute those who try to challenge their privilege.”

Decades of the country’s dark history under a ruling oligarchy left up to two-thirds of Hondurans impoverished, unable to meet basic needs. Most are landless or have too little, over half unemployed or underemployed, while wealthy landowners control most valued areas and want more, never satisfied with enough.

Despite the 1962 agrarian reform, the 1992 Law for Agrarian Modernization rolled back earlier gains. Thereafter, indigenous movements only marginally restored losses, no match against wealthy oligarchs backed by repressive state forces, enforcing death squad terror. 

Honduras’ class struggle persists in the hemisphere’s second poorest country after Haiti, committed to end decades of repression, injustice and poverty, a growing problem throughout most of the world, dark interests wanting more wealth and power at the expense of easily exploitable people.

Final Comments

In America, the major media suppress the Honduran story — the coup, deep repression, and popular struggle for change. Committed grassroots pressure continues, what’s mostly absent in the United States on a fast track toward despotism, the kind Central America has long experienced, Haitians and Hondurans most affected, yet  persist for their rights against long odds they’re determined one day to overcome.

Founded in 1981, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is “an independent, nonprofit organization… promot(ing) press freedom worldwide by defending the rights of journalists to report the news without fear of reprisal.”

On July 27, it published a special report titled, “Journalist murders spotlight Honduran government failures,” saying seven were killed from March-mid-June, six during a seven week period, the “government fostering a climate of lawlessness (letting) criminals… kill journalists with impunity… assassinations carried out by hit men.” 

Calling them routine street crimes, Security Minister, Oscar Alvarez, said “there is nothing to indicate that it is because of their journalistic work,” dismissing them out of hand with no investigations or prosecutions, suggesting government forces behind them silencing critics. Post-coup, state terror is official policy, especially against independent journalists, pro-democracy groups, human rights workers, campesinos and others challenging state/oligarch/drug lord power.

For their part, journalists fear the murders were “conducted with the tacit approval, or even outright complicity (on orders) of police, armed forces, or other authorities,” ongoing death squad terror since mid-2009. 

“You get the impression that the government wants you in terror so you don’t know what to report. Is this story about drugs too dangerous? What about this one about political corruption? At the end, you don’t report anything that will make powerful people uncomfortable,” Geovany Dominguez explained, Tiempo newspaper’s senior editor in Tegucigalpa, Honduras’ capital.

CPJ found evidence that at least several killings were work-related, most likely all of them, given the politically charged lawless and violent environment. An alarming pattern of impunity also was clear, evidenced by official indifference to investigate and arrest perpetrators, ones they and/or powerful interests likely enlisted. In one case, protection for a threatened journalist was denied, a TV anchor later shot and killed.

Victor Jimenez, Radio Excelsior manager in Juticalpa, expressed alarm saying:

“Narcotics gangs now are stronger than the government. The powerful families that have been running parts of this country for generations, some of the politicians who have personal power, local military leaders — all of them work outside the government’s power. The government is on the margin, it has the least power,” working collaboratively with gangs and oligarchs. That’s why “the police and the courts don’t mean a thing. The people won’t talk to them; the people are afraid of the real power.”

 In March 2010, even the US State Department said:

Following the June coup, there were reports that the de facto regime or its agents committed arbitrary or unlawful killings…. A small number of powerful business magnates with intersecting commercial, political, and family ties own most of the country’s news media. 

Yet Washington opposed Zelaya, backed his exile, and supported both coup regimes, under Micheletti and Lobo, despite popular opposition by the People’s National Resistance Front, Unified Movement of the Peasants of the Aguan, and other groups, some saying their leaders have been abducted or murdered by death squads or hired killers, the same ones targeting journalists.

An anonymous diplomat said a small elite class benefits from lawlessness, their interests advanced without scrutiny. Yet concern about its international image, not justice, got the government to request FBI help, more symbolic than real, one agent only assigned in June, working on his own with no forensic evidence, lost or never gotten.

Reports of Journalists Killed, Impunity the Common Thread

Nahum Palacios Arteaga, Channel 5, Tocoa

The station’s main anchor, “he was the face of journalism,” the region’s best, and “the voice of his people, the country folk and the destitute.” His father said he was killed for being honest, not corrupt. People loved him, the local boy who made good. According to reporter, Mario Ramirez, he did something about area abuses, more than anyone else. “He saved people’s homes. He got their children cured. He protected whole villages.” He supported campesinos wanting land reform, demanding vast land tracts rightfully theirs. 

He opposed the coup openly on-air, got death threats, needed but was denied protection, many supporters blaming authorities for the murder. On March 14, gunmen killed him when he got home. At the time, no autopsy was performed. Months later, authorities said they had no leads, little wonder given its indifference to justice and perhaps involvement in the crime.

David Meza Montesinos, Radio El Patio, Radio America, Channels 7, 36 and 45

For two decades, he was La Ceiba’s most prominent journalist, “the one people felt closest to” for helping those mistreated by government and business. As a result, he was known as “the poor person’s representative.”

La Tribuna correspondent, Julio Cesar Rodriguez, called La Ceiba “a city of abuses. The government abuses the poor. The rich, the businesses, abuse the poor. Even the middle class take what they want from the people at the bottom.” Meza tried to stop them for years.

As a result, on March 11, gunmen murdered him in cold blood. Some suspect Los Grillos, a drug-connected gang. Others say the police because Meza criticized their abuses and corruption on air. Asked about the killing, La Ceiba Police Chief, Jose Ayala, refused comment. According to area journalists, the police and Grillos gang “are very close,” raising suspicions they hired members “to do the job.”

Joseph Hernandez Ochoa, Channel 51

On March 1, days before his planned move to government-run Channel 8, he was shot to death, journalist, Karol Cabrera, with him seriously wounded, later saying she was targeted because of her investigative journalism and on-air government critiques. “It is the truth that makes them angry,” she explained.

She’s been under police protection for months, her pregnant daughter murdered last December, on the same road where she was shot. Yet, “In the operation to kill me, there were two senior police officials on motorcycles directing everything. There are witness statements to prove that, but the police have hidden them.” A police spokesman called the accusation “absurd.”

On June 10, media reports said she and her children moved to Canada for their safety.

Luis Arturo Mondragon, Channel 19 Owner

On June 14, gunmen killed him outside the studio, local reporters attributing it to his criticism of corruption, drug gangs and “the illegal lumbering business that is stripping the forests nearby.” Tiempo correspondent, Osmin Garcia, called them “dangerous topics…. He talked about them on the newscast without giving names, but that wasn’t enough protection.”

Mondragon’s son, Carlos, said his father had been threatened for years, but recently it got serious. “But my father had the attitude that he was going to go ahead anyway. He said he had to continue – that ‘If they are going to kill me they won’t threaten first, they’ll just do it.”

The police refused comment.

Jorge Alberto Orellana, Channel 10

On July 2, Chief Prosecuting Attorney, Rafael Fletes, charged Joseph Cockborn Delgado with the April 20 killing, claiming solid evidence, including witnesses, information he won’t disclose about what he’s sure was a paid assassination.

Orellana was a well-known, respected San Pedro Sula broadcaster, shot in the head and killed after his nightly  program, a motive yet to be determined, though likely an assassination because his left leanings put him at odds with authorities and business elites. Yet on air he was moderate and balanced, not strident like others. However, post-coup, “balance has been out of fashion and people see conspiracies at work on the other side of wherever they stand politically.”

Jose Mayardo Mairena and Manuel Juarez, Channel 4, Radio Excelsior, and Radio Patria

A veteran newsman in a remote part of the country, Mairena bought airtime on a local TV and radio station to air his own shows, the way most Honduran broadcasting is done, even newscasts. Juarez was his assistant and on-air “sidekick.”

Although they tried avoiding controversy, “it can’t be discounted that… they slipped up,” angering powerful interests that killed them. At election time, they talked politics, radio station manager, Victor Jimenez, saying “We practice journalism of the stomach, which means journalism that gives us food (from paid advertising). It makes for difficult questions of ethics.” 

Yet local journalists didn’t think political advocacy was the motive, believing it’s “more basic than that,” discussing on air “the feud between two powerful large families in Juticalpa, one where perhaps dozens have been killed this year and last…”

The killings have a common thread — impunity, ensuring gunmen feel safe knowing authorities won’t investigate or prosecute.

The Honduran government has failed to exert necessary oversight over the national police, who are responsible for investigating these crimes,” the parliament and executive allocating no resources for it, and “Diplomats and journalists say police have also been infiltrated by criminal gangs.”

As a result, crime elements operate freely in a government-created “climate of lawlessness,” protecting oligarchs, drug lords, and other privileged Hondurans against the people, especially anyone publicly critical.

Post-coup 2009, the Organization of American States (OAS) expelled Honduras. A year later, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demanded re-admittance at its scheduled July 30 meeting, saying last year’s “free and fair elections… should qualify the country. 

Institutionalized persecution and violence against human rights workers, campesinos, pro-democracy groups, independent journalists, and other outspoken critics proves otherwise.

A final note. OAS cancelled its meeting because of  disagreements between the ousted Zelaya government and coup regime. As a result, support to reinstate Honduras weakened. A two-thirds majority is needed, yet the organization traditionally operates by consensus. 

Nonetheless, Honduran media reports claim a ruling, when made, will be by majority. If so, it will violate longstanding policy under Obama administration pressure. However, Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza assured Manuel Zelaya representatives that a decision would be by consensus. The situation bears watching.

This article follows an earlier one titled Death Squad Terror in Honduras.

“No Honduran may be expatriated nor delivered by the authorities to a foreign state,” nor may a democratically elected leader be deposed, evidence showing Washington’s involvement and support, coordination handled by US Ambassador Hugo Llorens and Thomas Shannon, Jr., current US Ambassador to Brazil, then Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs.

In advance and thereafter, Washington choreographed the entire process, blamed Zelaya for his illegal removal, opposed his return, backed the coup d’etat regime and sham November 2009 election under martial law, elevating fascist Porfirio (Pepe) Lobo Sosa to the presidency on January 27, 2010, now the Obama administration’s man in Honduras, succeeding interim leader, Roberto Micheletti.

Under him and Sosa, Hondurans have endured death squad terror at the hands of the military whose officers from captain on up have been trained for decades at the infamous School of the Americas (SOA), renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISEC), where they’re taught the latest ways to kill, main, torture, oppress, exterminate poor and indigenous people, overthrow democratically elected governments, assassinate targeted leaders, suppress popular resistance, and work cooperatively with Washington to solidify fascist rule, intolerant of democratic freedoms or leaders not backing ruling class interests, using deep repression to enforce them.

Amnesty International (AI) Report on Honduras

Little has changed since AI published its August 2009 report titled, “Honduras: Human Rights Crisis Threatens as Repression Increases,” explaining a systematic reign of terror post-coup against street protestors, human rights activists, journalists, unionists, campesinos, teachers, and anyone potentially threatening state authority.

Brutally repressive tactics have been used, including arbitrary arrests, kidnappings, suspension of civil liberties, martial law, indefinite detentions, beatings, torture, sodomizing men, gang-raping women, suppression of dissent, and death squad murders, at least 14 documented since Lobo took office, including nine journalists, placing all independent reporters at risk, international human rights groups calling Honduras the most dangerous country in the world for them, authorities prosecuting no one for the crimes.

According to Rights Action co-director Grahame Russell:

… the Honduran regime speaks so derisively and cynically about grave human rights violations — including assassinations, illegal detentions, torture…. (It) demonstrates the degree of impunity with which this regime operates.

The rule of law doesn’t exist, Washington a party to the worst human rights abuses and injustice, including repression, detentions, torture, land theft, and killings to keep ruling oligarchs in power, and popular resistance suppressed, but it persists.

Established after the coup, the National Front of Popular Resistance (FNRP) is a broad grassroots coalition of campesinos, human rights supporters, unionists, women, students, teachers, and others supporting democratic freedoms in Honduras, saying on its web site:

One who remains silent in the face of injustice becomes its accomplice…. A year old now, the Resistance has grown into a widespread political body (transitioning from short-term action to a) strategy to take power and change the country.

Last summer at “Station number 4,” dozens of Hondurans were detained, including 10 or more students, one of them telling AI:

About 200 of them were marching peacefully.

The police were throwing stones, they rounded us up, they threw us face down on the ground and they beat us – there are people with fractures, with head wounds, they beat us on the buttocks. They stole our cameras, they beat us if we raised our heads, they beat us when they were getting us into police cars.

Others reported similar stories, evidence showing they were badly bruised, swollen, and cut. Two days after an El Duranzno demonstration, Roger Abraham Vallejo, a 38-year old teacher, died from a bullet wound to his head. A witness told AI:

“A patrol car was advancing toward the crowd, and as it turned round at speed… police… started to shoot….” Women were treated harshly like men, some sexually abused, police systematically using disproportionate force, in violation of international law standards to which Honduras is party, including the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), affirming the “right to peaceful assembly,” and prohibiting torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

In addition, Article 2 of the UN Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials states: “In the performance of their duty, law enforcement officials shall respect and protect human dignity and maintain and uphold the human rights of all persons.”

Article 3 says “Law enforcement officials may use force only when strictly necessary and to the extent required for the performance of their duty,” meaning only under extreme circumstances, never against peaceful protestors or persons posing no threat. Arbitrary arrests, detentions, beatings, torture, and other abuses are strictly prohibited.

Free expression, assembly and association are enshrined in human rights law. Yet Robert Barra, a Chilean independent photo-journalist, told AI that police beat him and confiscated his camera while he was covering a peaceful protest. He was severely bruised and cut. Others were treated the same way, and media outlets like Radio Globo, Canal 36, Maya TV and Radio Progreso were taken off the air and shut down. Anyone suspected of threatening state authority faces recriminations, even death.

Rights Action Honduras Update

Published June 22, Grahame Russell calls Honduran repression “very bad,” explaining that:

“The (Lobo) regime (has) implemented a policy of state repression (terror) — including the activation of paramilitary death squad groups, to threaten, intimidate, terrorize and kill members of the pro-democracy, anti-coup movement,” and potentially anyone challenging state authority, Oscar Geovanny Ramirez, a 16-year old campesino, one of many.

During a violent June 20 joint police/military operation against the Aurora Cooperative of the Movimiento Unificado Campesino del Agua (MUCA), he was murdered. Five others were arrested.

Witnesses said police and the military arrived in two patrol cars, (one identified as the National Preventive Police), and opened fire at close range. Those arrested were charged with illegal weapons possession and conspiracy.

In December 2009, MUCA signed an agreement with Lobo to recover 11 thousand hectares of land. Objecting, powerful landowners used state security forces to intimidate, threaten, and persecute campesinos, killing eight.

The human rights organization advocating for the right to food, FIAN International, condemned the violence saying:

We face the never ending story. The murders, persecution and various physical and psychological aggressions continue. When (MUCA) signed (its) agreement with (Lobo), understood was that the aggression by the police and armed individuals would end, but the actual facts disprove the belief.

Human rights expert, Dr. Juan Almendares, said:

“We are living in a state of terror. There is no security in the country…. We are in a terrible economic, moral and political crisis….We don’t have a democratic process. We have a military process…. We have a very powerful oligarchy that is ruling the country with the army” and police — the poor, disadvantaged, and anyone challenging them subject to arbitrary arrest, detention or death.

It’s reminiscent of Battalion 316, the CIA-created death squads that disappeared, tortured, and exterminated regime opponents in the 1980s. Reportedly, Billy Joya, a retired police captain, founder of Cobra (an elite Preventive Police hit squad), and one of 316′s notorious members under the pseudonym “Mrs. Arrazola,” returned from Spain to train soldiers how to terrorize and kill civilian freedom fighters — anyone for social justice and democracy, notions Honduras and Washington won’t tolerate.

Since the June 2009 coup, the Committee for the Families of the Detained and Disappeared of Honduras (COFADEH) documented 47 assassinations, 14 since Lobo’s January 28 inauguration. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and Center for Justice and International Law voiced great alarm about ongoing state terror and lawlessness, authorities, of course, doing nothing to address or even recognize a problem.

On May 4, Lobo announced a “Truth Commission,” what Rights Action called a “mockery of human rights & rule of law,” COFADEH Director Berth Oliva wanting an independent one in her same day article titled, “A Real Truth Commission for Honduras,” saying her “beloved and troubled country… desperately needs” it.

Lobo’s Commission is a sham, human rights groups like Rights Action and COFADEH calling it a scheme to suppress truths and whitewash murder, mass detentions, torture, and other abuses. Under Lobo’s repressive regime, it has no legitimacy, authorities not even acknowledging post-coup terror, ongoing and unabated.

In addition, the Commission was secretly formed with no public input, its members hand-picked to absolve state crimes so security forces can freely terrorize popular resistance with impunity.

The Platform of Human Rights Organizations of Honduras has an alternative proposal – an independent commission addressing ongoing human rights violations, using testimonies of victims — a Honduran Goldstone Commission, fully empowered to report the truth and recommend those responsible be held accountable for their crimes. However, given a repressive Washington/Honduran cabal against truth, human rights, and judicial fairness, sustained activism, and struggle is essential to achieve it.

A Final Comment

Hondurans have endured decades of repression, injustice, and poverty, the latter affecting almost 60% of the population. For over 36%, it’s extreme. In addition, the Honduran Institute of Statistics reports unemployment in Honduras at 51%, mainly affecting young workers.

Yet last February, Lobo imposed regressive tax hikes, and 20% across-the-board spending cuts, what IMF and World Bank loans require, both agencies last March formally recognizing his government and unfreezing $194 million in funding, nearly 85% from the IMF.

Washington also restored over $30 million in aid, and at Secretary of State Clinton’s urging, the Organization of American States may readmit Honduras, no matter its illegitimate government and draconian austerity against its poor and disadvantaged, measures the IMF and World Bank demand, ones European officials announced at the June G20 session, what economist Michael Hudson calls the “road to financial serfdom,” the same one Obama’s chosen to transform America into Honduras, complete with police state harshness.

I personally would question even the first assertion about a fetus or an embryo being a human being, but that’s not the point I wish to make here. I’d like to suggest that before a young American man or woman can enlist in the armed forces s/he must be told the following by the staff of the military recruitment office:

“The United States is at war [this statement is always factually correct]. You will likely be sent to a battlefield where you will be expected to do your best to terminate the lives of whole, separate, unique, living human beings you know nothing about and who have never done you or your country any harm. You may in the process lose an arm or a leg. Or your life. If you come home alive and with all your body parts intact there’s a good chance you will be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Do not expect the government to provide you particularly good care for that, or any care at all. In any case, you may wind up physically abusing your spouse and children and/or others, killing various individuals, abusing drugs and/or alcohol, and having an increased risk of suicide ideation and suicide. No matter how bad a condition you may be in, the Pentagon may send you back to the battlefield for another tour of duty. They call this ‘stop-loss’. Your only alternative may be to go AWOL. Do you have any friends in Canada? And don’t ever ask any of your officers what we’re fighting for. Even the generals don’t know. In fact, the generals especially don’t know. They would never have reached their high position if they had been able to go beyond the propaganda we’re all fed, the same propaganda that has influenced you to come to this office.”

Since for so many young people in recent years one of the determining factors in their enlistment has been the economy, this additional thought should be pointed out to them — “You are enlisting to fight, and perhaps die, for a country that can’t even provide you with a decent job, or any job at all.”

I fear for us all, but I especially fear for those already poor. How much lower can they go without being cannon fodder or electric chair fodder or street litter or prison stuffing or just plain lonely suicide?
– Carolyn Chute, novelist, Maine USA

Where seldom is heard a discouraging word … like “bribery”

I really did not know that I could still be so surprised, even shocked, by corruption in the Congress of the United States. I thought my coating of cynicism was already more than thick enough to be impervious to any new revelations. I was wrong. Consider the following.

Seven members of the House of Representatives steered hundreds of millions of dollars in largely no-bid contracts to clients of a lobbying firm, PMA Group. In fiscal year 2008 alone, the seven lawmakers sponsored $112 million worth of “earmarks” (construction and other projects paid for by the government) for PMA clients while accepting more than $350,000 in contributions from the firm’s clients and lobbyists.

Such behavior should be investigated by the House ethics committee, should it not? And it was. The Committee on Standards of Official Conduct issued a report stating unanimously that the Congressmembers had not violated any rules or laws. “Simply because a member sponsors an earmark for an entity that also happens to be a campaign contributor does not, on these two facts alone, support a claim that a member’s actions are being influenced by campaign contributions.”

Ethics watchdogs issued sharp denunciations, citing portions of the report that showed that the private companies themselves thought that their donations helped them win earmarks.

One of the seven Congressmembers investigated was Peter J. Visclosky (D-Ind.) The Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE), a government agency not composed of members of Congress, which conducts preliminary reviews, found probable cause that Visclosky sought contributions in exchange for steering federal contracts to contributors. The OCE was in possession of e-mails suggesting that Visclosky’s fundraisers were specifically targeted toward PMA’s clients who were seeking earmarks. Even though the OCE recommended that the more powerful House ethics committee subpoena Visclosky and his staff to answer questions under oath about his earmarking practice, the members of the House committee chose not to subpoena Visclosky or any of the pertinent records.

Wait, it gets better — The FBI actually raided the PMA offices as part of an investigation into whether the company had directed illegal campaign contributions to lawmakers who helped clients obtain earmarks, and in 2009 a federal grand jury issued subpoenas to Visclosky, one of his former aides, and his political committees.² But nothing — apparently nothing — could move the members of the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct of the United States House of Representatives to condemn their comrades.

This is the kind of Congressional corruption that drives so many Americans — on the right and on the left — to think of forming a new party. At times, the thought hits me as well. But two factors interfere. One, the overwhelming role played by money in American electoral campaigns can trump the best of intentions. Wealthy elites have no need for any other party. The Democrats and Republicans serve their needs just fine, thank you.

And two, ideology. Gathering together a lot of people who are turned off by Congressional venality and amorality sounds good until the ideological shit hits the fan. There will undoubtedly be a wide range of ideological leanings in any such group because people who are serious about third parties like to be “non-sectarian” or “non-exclusionary”, but this typically leads to serious friction, disputes and splits. Even if you specify something like “the United States should get out of Afghanistan as soon as possible”, that can still take various conflicting forms; people’s politics are complicated, not to mention confused. To those who like to tell themselves and others that they don’t have any particular ideology I say this: If you have thoughts about why the world is the way it is, why society is the way it is, why people are the way they are, what a better way would look like, and if your thoughts are at all organized, that’s your ideology, even if it’s not wholly conscious as such. Better to organize those thoughts as best you can, become very conscious of them, and consciously avoid getting involved with a political party that is incompatible. It’s like a bad marriage.

Things are indeed polarizing in America. There’s The Tea Party on the right and The Coffee Party on the left. On the face of it, The Tea Party scarcely makes any sense. A seemingly burgeoning new movement semi-hysterically marching and screaming that their beloved free enterprise is threatened by the “socialist” Barack Obama. (What next, that he’s a committed “Marxist” or “communist”? They’ve probably already said that; if you’re going to be dumb you may as well go all the way and be retarded.)

A group of more mainstream conservatives gathered February 17 at a Virginia estate once owned by George Washington and called for a return to the principles of Washington’s time to fight the political battles that lie ahead. They produced a declaration, “The Mount Vernon Statement: Constitutional Conservatism: A Statement for the 21st Century”. It is a short statement, a mere 546 words, yet the idea of “limited government” or “self-government” is referred to seven times. These people, no less than the Teapartyers, are obsessed with the idea that government intrusion into society of virtually any kind is harmful, or at least much inferior to what could be derived from “free enterprise, the individual entrepreneur, and economic reforms grounded in market solutions”, as they put it. This is standard and familiar conservative doctrine to be sure, but now feeding and powering a whole new generation of right-wing activists.

To counter the arguments of these activists, progressives need to present their own doctrine about the role and value of government in people’s lives, a concise summary of which I just happen to have prepared in my essay: “The US invades, bombs and kills for it … but do Americans really believe in free enterprise?” It was written several years ago, as the examples I use make clear, but this matters not for the ideological principles have not changed. The essay concludes: “Activists have to remind the American people of what they’ve already learned but seem to have forgotten: that they don’t want more government, or less government; they don’t want big government, or small government; they want government on their side.”

Paraguay, Honduras, and Barack Obama

During his campaign for the presidency of Paraguay, former bishop Fernando Lugo promised to bring health care to the millions unable to afford it. A month after Lugo took office in August 2008, the Ministry of Public Health and Social Welfare (MSPBS) gradually began to make some public health services free, waiving fees for office, outpatient and emergency room visits. Later, hospital admission fees were eliminated, along with charges for intensive care, post-op incision care, treatment in an infant incubator, oxygen therapy, surgery and other services. In 2009, fees were removed for diagnostic tests in all specialties, and for dental and ophthalmological services. Almost all public health services in Paraguay are now free of charge. “What we are doing is making health care a right, regardless of a person’s ability to pay,” said the director general of the MSPBS.

After 61 years of rule by the right-wing Colorado Party, the Paraguayan left needs to institute various reforms to make sure that free health care is sustainable in the long term.³

So what would it take for free health care to reach the shores of the world’s only superpower? Well, a president who believed in it and who had some backbone. But every passing day brings us fresh evidence that the man has no backbone. The Republicans, or certain Democrats, or a powerful lobby, or Israel applies a little pressure and the man buckles. Like a shack in Haiti during a quake.

As to his beliefs … In May of last year I wrote in this report: “The problem, I’m increasingly afraid, is that the man doesn’t really believe strongly in anything, certainly not in controversial areas. He learned a long time ago how to take positions that avoid controversy, how to express opinions without clearly and firmly taking sides, how to talk eloquently without actually saying anything, how to leave his listeners’ heads filled with stirring clichés, platitudes, and slogans. And it worked. Oh how it worked! What could happen now, as President of the United States, to induce him to change his style?”

How long before Fernando Lugo lets slip some critical remarks about the behemoth to the north that tosses Paraguay into the ODE (Officially Designated Enemy) dumpster along with Venezuela, Cuba, Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua, et al.? Undoubtedly, there are any number of old-time right-wing military officers in Paraguay who are just itching to duplicate what happened in Honduras. I can hear them now — “We don’t need no stinkin’ socialist government with its stinkin’ communist free health care” — and just waiting for someone at the Pentagon to casually nod his head. And if that happens, the Obama administration will embrace the Paraguayan caudillos just as they’ve done with the Honduran golpistas, the latest show of support being the announcement by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of the resumption of aid and her urging Latin American countries to recognize the new Honduran government, despite its serious and daily violations of human rights.⁴

Help wanted for an animated political cartoon

I have written a script for a short video — estimated 5 to 10 minutes long, to be shown on YouTube and elsewhere on the Internet, tentatively entitled “Be nice to America. Or we’ll bring democracy to your country.” We need a cartoonist to draw the images and a technical person to create the movement using Adobe flash or other software, and to add the narration. Could be one person for both functions. The persons should be in basic agreement with the political ideas expressed in the script, which is available for a confidential reading upon request. Halfway decent pay. Write to: moc.loanull@6mulbb.

1. Washington Post, February 26, 2010.
2. Washington Post, February 27, 2010.
3. Inter Press Service, January 6, 2010.
4. Associated Press, March 5, 2010.

“There is wide agreement that last week’s presidential election in Honduras…” begins an editorial in Saturday’s New York Times, “…was clean and fair.” The editorial gives no hint as to whom all these people are that are in agreement, except for the ‘official’ data from the same regime that overthrew the elected president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, at gunpoint. The Times joins governments, commentators and editorial pages around the world that have fallen victim to the ‘official’ coup data. But, as this video shows, the proof of the fraud was sitting out in the open the whole time.

Produced by Jesse Freeston, on location in Honduras.

Zelaya is a wealthy businessman, a member of the right-wing Liberal Party (PL), a former National Congress Deputy from 1985-1998, a former PL Minster for Investment, and president from January 27, 2006 to when he was deposed on June 28.

His 2005 presidential campaign was largely on a law-and-order platform with pledges that, if elected, he’d address Honduras’ crime problem with more police programs against and reeducation ones for violent international and local street gang members.

Zelaya also joined Venezuela’s Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas (ALBA) based on fair, not one-sided “free” trade; complementarity, not competition; solidarity, not domination; cooperation, not exploitation; and respect for each nation’s sovereign freedom from corporate control.

According to supporters like Alejandra Fernandez, a Honduran student, he also: “raised the minimum wage, gave out free school lunches, provided milk for the babies and pensions for the elderly, distributed energy-saving light bulbs, decreased the price of public transportation, (and) made more scholarships available for students.” In addition, he built roads and schools in rural areas. “That’s why the elite classes can’t stand him and why we want him back. This is really a class struggle.” One the Resistance is detemined to win and hardliners aim to crush.

The Coup d’ Etat

On June 28, dozens of Honduran soldiers stormed Zelaya’s residence at night, arrested him in his pajamas at gunpoint, and exiled him to Costa Rica in violation of the 1982 Constitution that states:

“No Honduran may be expatriated nor delivered by the authorities to a foreign state,” nor may a democratically elected leader be deposed.

On July 3, the Honduran army’s top lawyer, Col. Herberth Bayardo Inestroza, admitted as much in a Miami Herald interview saying: “We know there was a crime there. In the moment that we took him out of the country, in the way that he was taken out, there is a crime. Because of the circumstances of the moment this crime occurred, there is going to be a justification and cause for acquittal that will protect us.”

He meant protection from the Constitution’s Article 239 (crafted by a military government to subordinate civilians to repressive rule) that states: “No citizen that has already served as head of the Executive Branch can be President or Vice-President. Whoever violates this law or proposes its reform, as well as those that support such violation directly or indirectly, will immediately cease in their functions and will be unable to hold any public office for a period of 10 years.”

Also, Article 374 stating:

It is not possible to reform, in any case, the preceding article, the present article, the constitutional articles referring to the form of government, to the national territory, to the presidential period, the prohibition to serve again as President of the Republic, the citizen who has performed under any title in consequence of which she/he cannot be President of the Republic in the subsequent period.

Zelaya didn’t suggest it or break the law in calling for a simple non-binding June 28 “yes” or “no” referendum on one question:

Do you think that the November 2009 general elections should include a fourth ballot box (the other three being for candidates) in order to make a decision about the creation of a National Constituent Assembly that would approve a new Constitution?

The Honduran Congress and military opposed it. The CSJ illegally ruled it unconstitutional, ordered no distribution of ballot boxes, and threatened those doing it with 8-12 years in prison for “abuse of authority.” The High Court and Congress are stacked with right-wing ideologues. In addition, the Council on Hemispheric Affairs calls the CSJ “one of the most corrupt institutions in Latin America.”

So is the military whose officers from captain on up have been trained for decades at the infamous School of the Americas (SOA), renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISEC), where they’re taught the latest ways to kill, maim, torture, oppress, exterminate poor and indigenous people, overthrow democratically elected governments, assassinate targeted leaders, suppress popular resistance when it erupts, and work cooperatively with Washington to solidify hard-right rule, intolerant of progressive change — familiar tactics since June 28.

The day before, the military set off a chain of events. Reports said Zelaya fired Joint Chiefs Head General Romeo Vasquez Velasquez for refusing to distribute ballot boxes. He denied it. Velasquez may have resigned on his own. So did Defense Minister Edmundo Orellana and several military commanders. Nonetheless, the CSJ and Congress called Velasquez’s dismissal illegal. Military forces deployed around Tegucigalpa, surrounded the Presidential Palace, and took over the airport and borders in advance of the planned coup, made in Washington, of course, like numerous others for decades.

Zelaya, nonetheless, ordered ballot boxes distributed. Congress recommended removing him. The Federal Prosecutor’s Office announced that anyone setting up polling stations or promoting the referendum would be prosecuted. Anti-Zelaya forces urged a boycott.

Right-wing media hype called the vote illegal, a ploy to re-elect Zelaya, a way to shift his conservative Liberal Party far-left, a scheme to solidify his Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) membership and let Chavez make Honduras socialist. In a pro forma June 29 pronouncement, the CSJ reinstated Velasquez. The Catholic Church backed the coup government. Months of terror followed, including:

• imposing military rule, martial law, and a state of siege;
• deploying combat troops on city streets;
• suspending civil liberties, including habeas, the right of assembly, free movement and free expression;
• committing thousands of human rights violations;
• thousands more illegal arrests;
• dozens of killings, beatings, kidnappings, and nationwide intimidation;
• according to the human rights NGO Comite de Familiares de Detenidos Desaparecidos en Honduras (Committee of Relatives of the Disappeared – COFADEH), torturing and sodomizing men and gang-raping women;
• reactivating the infamous Battalion 316, the CIA-created death squads that disappeared, tortured, and exterminated regime opponents in the 1980s;
• silencing the independent media; and
• harassing and arresting Honduran and foreign journalists; at least one was murdered, Gabriel Fino Noreiga on July 3.

Barack Obama ignored the worst of state terror in support of coup d’etat rule — no surprise from a president calling the fraudulent Afghan election “a step forward…to advance democracy, peace and justice… in “the interests of the Afghan people (and) a reflection of a commitment to the rule of law.”

Post-coup on Veneuela’s TV Telesur, Zelaya called his ouster a:

kidnapping. An extortion of the Honduran democratic system. And I will ask the presidents of the Americas, including the US president — I want to hear the US Ambassador Hugo Llorens in Tegucigalpa if they are behind this, and if not, clear it up, because if the US is not behind this coup, they won’t be able to stay there forty-eight hours.

For over 100 years, Washington repeatedly intervened in Central and Latin American affairs — by invasions, bombings, occupations, assassinations, countless episodes of destabilization and election rigging, and numerous coup d’etats against leaders it wished to depose.

Zelaya was the latest, confirmed by the Obama administration’s refusal to cut diplomatic ties, halt military aid, impose sanctions as US law requires, or call the ouster a coup.

Announced Deal

On October 30, New York Times writers Ginger Thompson and Elisabeth Malkin headlined, “Deal Set to Restore Ousted Honduran President.” To what given the agreed on terms. On October 29, AP reported that:

“opposing political factions resumed talks (today in hopes of reaching a deal) to end the power crisis that has paralyzed the country” since June 28. “The two sides returned to the negotiating table a day after visiting US diplomats urged both factions to be more flexible and find a solution (ahead of) scheduled” November 29 presidential, parliamentary, and municipal elections.

Terms of the So-Called Agreement/Accord

Signed on October 30, it’s for Congress and the CSJ to approve it. Titled “Accord for National Reconciliation and the Strengthening of Democracy in Democracy,” it’s as Orwellian as “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”

Post-coup, The Hill.com reported that the far-right Business Council of Latin America (CEAL) hired former Bill Clinton special counsel, Lanny Davis’ firm, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, to lobby Congress and conduct a supportive PR campaign for its leaders. Lobbyist Bennett Ratcliff was enlisted to work with Davis, and according to an unnamed source in the New York Times, the Micheletti government hasn’t made a move without first consulting him.

These men, their associates, and legal staff prepared the Accord, the way business sectors craft all Washington legislation affecting them.

It begins saying:

We, Honduran citizens, men and women, convinced of the need to strengthen the rule of law, protect our Constitution and the laws of our Republic, deepen democracy and ensure a climate of peace and tranquility for our people, have carried out an intense and frank process of political dialogue to seek a peaceful and negotiated solution to the crisis in which our country has been submerged in recent months.

Terms include:

1. Forming a “National Unity and Reconciliation Government.”

Fact Check

Only hardliners need apply, and if reinstated, Zelaya will finish his term as an impotent puppet head of state.

2. Renouncing “a Call for a National Constituent Assembly and Amending the Unamendable Articles of the Constitution.”

Fact Check

According to Article 5 of the 2006 Honduran “Civil Participation Act,” government officials may hold non-binding inquiries (referenda) to determine popular support for proposed measures. Gauging sentiment for a National Constituent Assembly for a new Constitution is legal. Illegally, Washington and Honduran hardliners stopped it.

3. The coup regime calls on Hondurans to “peacefully participate in the coming general election and to avoid any type of demonstrations that oppose the elections of their results, or promote insurrection, unlawful conduct, civil disobedience or other acts that could result in violent confrontations or transgressions of the law.”

Fact Check

Honduran coup opponents called for an election boycott. On September 15, so did Zelaya saying: “One cannot talk about the elections where there are no guarantees that the will of the people is going to be respected.”

On October 24, 300 members of the two dominant parties, the National Party (PL) and Liberal Party (PL), announced they’ll refuse to participate. Will they now after the Accord was signed?

If some reports are accurate, Zelaya capitulated to coup d’etat terms by calling the Accord a democratic “triumph” – even though trade unionist independent candidate and National Resistance Front member Carlos Reyes and legislative deputy Cesar Ham of the small leftist Democratic Unification (UD) party dropped out of the presidential race on September 9. Most of the remaining PN and PL candidates are conservative hardliners who’ll assure no possibility of democratic change.

The elections will fill 2,896 positions, including the presidency, all 128 National Congress deputies, 20 others to represent Honduras in the Central American Parliament (PARLACEN), 298 mayors and another 2,000 municipal officials.

4. The Honduran military and police will be “placed at the disposition of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal from one month before the general elections for the purpose of guaranteeing the free exercise of suffrage, the custody, transport and surveillance of electoral materials and other security aspects of the process.”

Fact Check

Hardline security forces will subvert democratic change. Hondurans will be disenfranchised if they back the charade. In betraying his supporters, Zelaya capitulated, meaning he’ll support coup d’etat authority.

5. The CSJ and Congress will “resolve the issue regarding ‘restoring possession of the Executive Power to its status prior to June 28 until conclusion (of) the current governmental period on January 27, 2010.”

Fact Check

Two hard-right bodies will decide IF Zelaya is reinstated and on what terms. He’ll be impotent by agreeing to the charade.

6. A “Verification Commission” will be created “to verify commitments made under this Accord and those deriving from it… composed of two (coup lackey) members of the international community and two members of the national community, the last two to be chosen, one each, by” Micheletti and Zelaya.

Fact Check

Staunch Washington ally, Ricardo Lagos, former Chilean president, and Obama’s Labor Secretary, Hilda Solis, will represent the international community along with Jorge Eduardo Idiaquez, Zelaya’s UN ambassador, and coup lackey, Arturo Corrales Alvarez. A three to one edge assures no chance for democratic change.

7. The coup regime calls for “Normalization of Relations between the Republic of Honduras and the International Community” to restore the status quo.

Fact Check

The regime wants international recognition for its illegitimacy, continued hardline policies, and apparently will get it.

8. The Verification Commission will handle “differences regarding interpretation or application of this Accord…”

Fact Check

Hardliners want rubber stamp approval. Commission members chosen will assure it.

9. The Accord is effective on signing. The “following calender for compliance” was agreed on:

(1) On October 30, signing the Accord into effect, delivering it to Congress, and having it rule on Point 5, “Regarding the Executive Power.”

(2) On November 2 or no later than November 5, forming the Verification Commission and establishing the “National Unity and Reconciliation Government.”

(3) On January 27, “celebrating the transfer of government.”

The Accord was agreed to by Micheletti and Zelaya representatives, Thomas Shannon, the former US Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs and Obama’s yet-to-be confirmed ambassador to Brazil. Ostensibly, it will return Zelaya to office in exchange for international support for subverting democracy and continuity under far-right officials taking over in January.

It also assures his impotence. Hardliners will be empowered. Constitutional change will be prohibited. Democracy will be subverted. Zelaya must distance himself from Hugo Chavez. Perhaps other regional center-leftists as well. Coup plotters will get amnesty, and Zelaya may still be tried for treason for ordering a legitimate referendum.

What’s Next?

With elections in a few weeks, hardliners may stall, obstruct, and from what Micheletti advisor, Marcia Facusse de Villeda, told Bloomberg News maintain the status quo until new officials take office in January.

“Zelaya won’t be restored,” she said. Further, “just by signing this agreement we already have the recognition of the international community for the elections.” From Washington for sure according to Thomas Shannon. On November 4, Al Jazeera reported that he: “told CNN en Espanol (on November 3) that the US will recognise the November 29 elections even if the Honduran congress votes against Zelaya’s return to power before the vote.”

No surprise, and according to Micheletti aide, Arturo Corrales, Congress isn’t in session so approving the Accord will come “after the elections.” Yet, according to hondurasthisweek.com, the congressional Executive Committee (Junta Directiva) met on November 3 to evaluate the Accord, but what’s next is anyone’s guess as Congress president, Jose Alfredo Saavedra, hasn’t convened an extraordinary legislative session to decide on reinstatement. Nor has the CSJ ruled, yet the November 5 midnight deadline came and passed.

Zelaya Reacts

Still holed up at the Brazilian embassy under threat of arrest, Zelaya told Radio Globo: “There’s no sense in deceiving Hondurans.” His negotiator, Jorge Reina, said the Accord is dead because Congress failed to vote by the agreed on date and added:

“The de facto regime has failed to live up to the promise that, by this date (November 5), the national (unity) government would be installed. And by law, it should be presided by the president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya.” Reina accused Micheletti of arranging “a great electoral fraud this November. We completely do not recognize this electoral process. Elections under a dictatorship are a fraud for the people.”

According to AP: “Shortly before midnight, Micheletti announced that a unity government had been created even though Zelaya had not submitted his own list of members. Micheletti said the new government was composed of candidates proposed by political parties and civic groups.”

In other words, mostly hardliners to solidify coup d’etat rule even though earlier hondurasthisweek.com cited a November 1 Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia report saying Tegucigalpa diplomatic sources told the paper that Thomas Shannon forced Zelaya’s compliance or risk his son, Hector’s, prosecution on drugs trafficking. He lives in America. Zelaya complied, but as of November 6 no longer. Nonetheless, events are fast moving with likely new developments in the hours and days ahead.

At issue is how the international community will react if a fake national unity government is established and elections precede a vote on Zelaya’s reinstatement.

The Organization of American States’ (OAS) Secretary-General, Jose Miguel Insulza, said he’s creating a “mission” to assure compliance, meaning Zelaya must be reinstated once Congress and the CSJ agree. However, no deadlines are set, so hardliners may run out the clock and declare victory. They’ve already won even though The New York Times reported that:

“As news of the agreement spread, residents poured from their homes and workplaces across Tegucigalpa, the capital, to celebrate. Jubilation broke out in streets,” with more likely if Zelaya’s reinstated. It’s not assured. Neither is what’s next if it comes. What if delay and obstruction follow, and what if Venezuelan lawyer, author, and close Chavez confidant, Eva Golinger, is right about more Washington-instigated “coups in Paraguay, Nicaragua, Ecuador and Venezuela, where subversion, counterinsurgency and destabilization increase daily.”

Latin America is being more militarized, the result of Colombian president Alvaro Uribe giving the Pentagon access to seven new military bases with US forces currently on nine others, supplemented by the April 2008′s Fourth Fleet’s reactivation after a 60 year hiatus. Now the Honduran coup suggests other regimes outside the US orbit or not enough in it may be targeted. Add Bolivia to Golinger’s list and still more if center-left regimes take over.

The Honduran Resistance Reacts

In an October 1 interview, National Resistance Front leader, Juan Barahona, said:

“We will not stop. We will continue to be against the coup until the last day they are in power. After the June coup, the level of consciousness has greatly risen. There has been a parting of waters. This is a struggle between classes: on one side the exploited people, and on the other the capitalists, the large capitalists that dominate this country. (It’s a) struggle of the poor against the rich….” Overwhelming public sentiment wants a referendum calling for a National Constituent Assembly to draft a new Constitution.

Will popular resistance demand it? On November 5, two of its leaders appeared in Washington at an event to restore democracy and human rights in Honduras: Bertha Oliva, COFADEH founder, and Jessica Sanchez of the National Alliance of Honduran Feminists in Resistance.

On November 4, a London protest was held at the US Embassy for the same purpose. It also stressed “end(ing) all US economic, political and military support to” the Honduran dictatorship. Speakers included trade unionist leader Tony Burke, other activists, and Jeremy Corbyn MP.

The UK Trades Union Congress (TUC), “the voice of Britain at work (with) 58 affiliated unions representing nearly seven million working people,” called on MP David Miliband, Secretary of State Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, “to increase pressure” on hardliners “to restore democracy and to strongly condemn the series of human rights violations” post-coup.

The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), representing 170 million workers in 158 countries, unanimously passed a resolution at its recent Berlin General Council meeting calling for:

– suspending Honduran trade preferences and financial aid and cooperation until democracy is fully restored; and

– not cooperating with the bogus November elections by sending observers.

On October 31, the National Resistance Front told Hondurans:

• “We celebrate the upcoming restoration of President Manuel Zelaya Rosales as a popular victory over the narrow interests of the coup oligarchy;”
• the Accord mandates “returning the holder of executive power to its pre-June 28 state (and assuring) a democratic framework in which the people can exercise their right to transform society;”
• the Accord must “be processed in an expedited fashion by the National Congress; we alert all our comrades….to pressure for the immediate compliance;”
• “We reiterate that a National Constituent Assembly is an unrenounceable aspiration of the Honduran people and a non-negotiable right for which we will continue struggling in the streets, until we achieve the re-founding of our society to convert it into one that is just, egalitarian and truly democratic….(After over four months) of struggle, nobody here surrenders!”

One of its leaders, Rafeal Alegria, told Prensa Latina: “The people will not approve the electoral farce the putschists are preparing. The only solution to the conflict is the restitution of democratic legality and the president elected by the people.”

Key now is follow-through, persistence, and staying mobilized for the long haul. Popular victories come only at great cost after years of struggle the way noted journalist IF Stone explained: “The only kinds of fights worth fighting are those you are going to lose, because somebody has to fight them and lose and lose and lose until someday, somebody who believes as you do wins…”

It’s for Hondurans and oppressed people everywhere to understand, persevere, and endure, no matter what.

In a situation of negotiations between on the one hand the putschists and on the other hand the legitimate government and its allies in the Front, all this in the context of the presidential elections, what is the Micheletti de facto government attempting to do? Amongst other things, it is trying to divide the resistance forces and weaken the mass movement in the streets in order to gain time and legitimize itself through elections. However, all three forces, firstly the Front and its affiliate social and trade union organizations and followers in the street, secondly the two potential candidates for the presidential elections who are directly linked to the Front and thirdly the Zelaya government, have all further developed their unity with each other. Their combined tactics in this complicated situation constitute one of many examples exhibiting the rapidly growing political maturity and consciousness of all the components forming the resistance. All of these forces, far from succumbing to the usual imperialist tactics of divide and rule, are further unifying themselves. The resistance in the streets, the new political forces and the constitutional Zelaya government all complement each other.

From an exclusive October 5 telephone interview with Zelaya by some international media and reported by on-the-spot journalist Giorgio Trucchi, the following are excerpts:

Question: You have agreed to sign the San Jose Arias Plan or Agreement which does not envisage the main demand of the National Front Against the Coup, that is to begin a process to install a Constituent Assembly. Does this imply a concession by you? [The question is related to President Zelaya refraining from promoting the Constituent Assembly during the remainder of his mandate.]

Zelaya: The person who is going to sign the Plan is me as the elected representative of the Honduran people. The Plan has two components: my restitution in order to say No to coups d’etats; the Latin American presidents are interested in this so as to feel confident that the sovereignty of the people is going to be respected and that no military, economic and political elite can replace the will of the people.

The second component comprises the social processes and reforms and is related to timing….The Constituent [Assembly] is not a power of the President, neither of the de facto regime, nor any other group. It is a faculty of the Honduran people who, through a people’s consultation, can determine when they are going to do it. That is why the signing of the Arias Plan is consistent with my position in relation to the reforms that have to continue…. The decision to organize a Constituent [Assembly] belongs to the people who are sovereign…¹

In an October 14 interview with Front leader Juan Barahona and as reported by Telesur, in response to the question:

Another point where it will be difficult to reach an agreement is number 3, where it is proposed that President Zelaya concedes the promotion of a Constituent Assembly?

Barahona: President Zelaya has already said that he is ready to sign the Agreement of San Jose and renounce the Constituent Assembly during the period that will remain to end his mandate. We are going to respect this position of the President; however, we as the Resistance are never going to renounce the need to push for the Constituent [Assembly]…. There will be no elections if President Zelaya is not restored ….

I am very pessimistic [about the negotiations] and I do not have many expectations that it can reach a comprehensive agreement. The putschists are trying [since the beginning of the negotiations] to divide our delegation saying that there exists strong contradictions between the resistance and President Zelaya. We [the resistance] meet daily to refine strategy and seek common positions, but this disinformation campaign indicates that they want to make the dialogue fail and then place the responsibility on our shoulders. They have gone so far as to launch a campaign against myself personally saying that I am very tough [a hardliner] and therefore I am not fit for negotiations. In this sense, it is true that I am tough, because I will never be willing to renounce the rights of the people…²

In communiqué No. 28 of the National Front, dated October 13, it is stated:

…We withdrew our comrade Juan Barahoma from the so-called Guaymuras dialogue. Our comrade Barahona was acting as the representative of the National Front against the Coup in the delegation of President Zelaya in the said dialogue.

The delegation of the coup regime, in a typical act of intransigence to hinder the advance of the negotiation, tried to paralyze the dialogue by refusing to accept that our representative would sign accord No. 3 referring to the installation of the National Constitutional Assembly with reservations, since we wished in that reservation to have it recorded that our Front does not renounce nor will it renounce the struggle for this demand, which is the demand of the Honduran people. Conscious of the fact that this was a manoeuvre to cause a failure of the dialogue using any pretext, since signing with reservations was suggested by them in an earlier session, we decided not to lend ourselves to this and therefore we took this decision, leaving President Zelaya at liberty to substitute another representative that enjoys his trust. In that sense, the lawyer Rodil Rivera Rodil was delegated as part of the commission of President Zelaya in substitution for our representative.

The preceding signifies that the [National Front] left the Guaymuras dialogue and that we will keep fighting in the street for the demands that we have raised since the 28th of June; the return of constitutional order, the restitution of President Zelaya to his office, and the convening of a Constitutional Assembly.

We declare that we respect the decision of our president if he decides to sign the San Jose Accord, even with all its conditions, and we declare that we are in full harmony with him in regard to the demand that the coup perpetrators sign an accord by which they will abandon power, and the office of President of the Republic will be returned to him [Zelaya.]³

It was reported on October 19:

In a telephone message to a meeting of the National Front…[on October 18, Zelaya] called on it to keep up the peaceful struggle to restore democratic legality, broken by the June 28 military coup. ‘We will resist until the people obtain victory’… [and] stressed that the struggle will continue until we obtain a country with justice and equity, in a truly participatory democracy. The national directorate of the Front agreed [on October 18] and vowed to continue the peaceful resistance until the return to power of Zelaya and then go on to a national Constituent Assembly…⁴

There are two candidates for the presidential elections who are fully involved in the National Front:

César Ham of the Unificación Democrática (UD) party and trade union leader and independent candidate Carlos Reyes. Zelaya called on them both to take a stand against participating in the elections under the existing conditions which would lend legitimacy to the putschist electoral process.⁵

In an interview carried out by Giorgio Trucchi in Honduras with popular trade union leader and independent presidential candidate Carlos Reyes, the latter stated, as published on September 30:

“…If we the people´s and democratic candidates do not withdraw from this electoral process, we would be endorsing all that scaffolding [built-up by Micheletti] and weaken the resistance…”⁶

This position was confirmed on October 15 by one of the Front leaders Rafael Alegría who emphasised that Reyes will not be candidate under the current conditions in order to “…refrain from legitimizing coups d’etats or constitutional breakdowns…”⁷

On October 19, the UD party, the third most important of five political force amongst all tendencies in Honduras, announced that it is withdrawing from the elections taking into account that they are “unconstitutional without the restoration of the legitimate president, Manuel Zelaya…”⁸

This tendency developed even further on October 22. Even a section of the Liberal Party, a party to which the coup perpetrators are linked and one of the biggest political parties in Honduras, joined the protest against the elections. According to an interview accorded to Prensa Latina on October 22: “The Coordination of the Liberal Party against the Coup in Honduras confirmed that it will abstain from participating in the November 29 elections if there is no re-establishment of democracy in the country…. In order for the elections to be recognized by the people and the international community, the indispensable requirement is the return to constitutional order and of the legitimate President, Manuel Zelaya. The Coordination was created in the middle of August during a meeting with the participation of more than 5,000 Liberal Party delegates who rejected the break-down of legal democracy carried out by the military on June 28…”⁹

Despite all the pressures, on October 25, the National Front, through the voice of its Coordinator Juan Barahona declared that the Front met on October 24 and confirmed their position that “one of the agreements reached was to ratify that if President Zelaya is not returned to his position, there will be no elections on November 29 in the face of the rejection by the vast majority of the people…Barahona pointed out that the candidates running as independents, those from the UD, from the sections of the Liberal Party, as well as Innovación and Unidad Social Democrática parties opposed to the coup, have all anticipated their withdrawal from the elections if Zelaya is not restored…”¹⁰

According to a Prensa Latina report, in order to make sure that this orientation regarding the elections makes its point, on October 25 the Front met at the local neighbourhood base and then following the mandate received from this level, decided on October 25 that the 121st consecutive day of resistance will take place on October 26…” Of great political significance, in my view, is that the Front decided in favour of “the resistance carrying out a variety of initiatives in order to stop the military dictatorship from succeeding in its attempt to seek an appearance of legality through the elections.”¹¹

This constitutes one of the most important steps in the struggle since the coup; right from the beginning the Honduran oligarchy and those supporting them either directly or indirectly have been attempting to gain time, to stall until the elections take place and in this way “legitimize” the coup.

Since June 28, the Honduran people and all progressive forces including the Zelaya legitimate government have been developing their unity, political consciousness, organization and peaceful tactics with the immediate objective being the restitution of Zelaya followed by Constituent Assembly, the latter whether Zelaya is ever returned to power or not. The putschists have provoked a mass movement in the country to renew Honduras through a new constitution as the foundation. In fact the new foundation has already been built on a solid basis constituted of the people’s political consciousness and the innovative alternative organization.

For example, in an October 23 interview, Barahona declared that “Honduras completely changed, and we are going to inherit a very positive result of all this; an organization and an important experience. During these days of struggle the level of consciousness has risen far more than by means of a hundred courses on class struggle…”¹²

Honduras 2009 already has carved out its place in the most recent history of this small Central American country. It is bound to win, nothing can stop it.

Each country in the region has its historic moments which have proven to be watersheds in its respective history:

* Cuba, as the pioneer, is so rich in ground-breaking historical steps. Taking the most recent history, one can indicate the attack on Moncada in 1953 as the continuation of José Marti’s nineteenth century tradition, and its future development following the Granma landing in 1956, the Sierra Maestra war in 1957-1958, with decisive events such as Che’s historic 1958 action in Santa Clara which broke the back of the pro US-military dictatorship.

* Venezuela 1998 is now synonymous with the first electoral victory of Hugo Chávez, coming out of a long struggle by the leader and his movement, a year which changed the coursed not only of Venezuela, but affected all of South America. However, a coup d’etat organized by Washington and their allies in Caracas in 2002 turned into a disaster for the US and Venezuelan oligarchy when the political and organizational strength of the people of Venezuela exploded into a massive action. The secret to success, amongst other factors such as the support for the President from a section of the military, had as its basis mass participation as was explained to the author in a recent interview accorded by a Venezuelan participant who is now a Legislator.¹³ The columns of people coming from all over completely overwhelmed the coup perpetrators in Caracas. The political consciousness including the need for further organization took a leap forward in a just a couple of days.

* Bolivia 2005: Evo Morales as an indigenous trade union leader and his movement were hoisted to the head of the government in the wake of a massive and successfully organized involvement of a marginalized people; they discussed and acted upon election procedures and soon after a new Constituent Assembly as the basis of a new constitution.

* Nicaragua 2006, nourished from the tradition of the 1970s and 1980s but with a renewed political organization and tactics, Daniel Ortega broke through to victory in 2006.

* Ecuador 2006, the election of Rafael Correa as President proved to be the first step in a rapid succession of political events running into 2008 including a referendum on the need for a Constituent Assembly, the actual election of a Constituent Assembly and the successful referendum on a new modern constitution emerging out of the Constituent Assembly.

Honduras 2009 marks the watershed between the old and the new in this country which Zelaya attempted to remove from its position of being one of the poorest nations in South America, an economic and military colony of the USA. Honduras 2009 may continue into 2010, but the Honduran people will win, just as did the Cubans, Venezuelans, Bolivians, Nicaraguans, Ecuadorians and others.

1. Entrevista en exclusiva con el presidente Manuel Zelaya, en Tegucigalpa, Giorgio Trucchi, Rel-UITA, 5 October 2009
2. Telesur, 14 October 2009
3. voselsoberano.com,13 October 2009.
4. Raimundo López, enviado especial Prensa Latina, 19 October 2009.
5. Telesur, 17 October 2009
6. Giorgio Trucchi, Carlos Amorín, Rel-UITA, 30 September 2009.
7. Telsur, 15 October 2009.
8. Venezolano de televisión, 19 October 2009.
9. Raimundo López, enviado especial Prensa Latina, 22 October 2009.
10. Prensa Latina, 25 October 2009.
11. Raimundo López, enviado especial Prensa Latina, 26 October 2009.
12. tercerainformacion.com, 23 October 2009.
13. Lor Mogollón, Henrys, Deputy ,Yaracuy Province, in a private interview with the author, October 14, 2009, Montreal.

Widespread human and labor rights violations were revealed, including child labor; illegal below-poverty wages; few or no benefits; forced or unpaid overtime; hazardous working conditions; verbal, physical, and sexual abuses; forced pregnancy testing to be hired and while employed; excessive long working hours causing physical ailments, stress, and harm; denial of free expression, association, and collective bargaining rights; and elaborate schemes to commit fraud and deceive corporate auditors.

In April 2009, Subsidizing Sweatshops II followed to provide more evidence of a global problem. It tracked developments in four factories from the first report and four new ones in five countries on three continents producing uniforms for nine major firms in China, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and America.

Two cases relied on investigations by independent factory monitors. Three others used personal worker interviews conducted by “credible local unions and non-governmental organizations with expertise in labor rights.” Three more are based on SFC-conducted interviews.

In all cases, the global economic crisis materially increased worker hardships leaving them more vulnerable, in jeopardy, and unable to secure their rights. Most often, the following violations were found:

• children as young as 14 forced to work the same long hours as adults and under the same onerous conditions;
• wages so low, they only cover one-fourth to one-half of essential needs;
• workers in at least two factories not paid overtime;
• because of excessive production quotas, workers forced to skip breaks, not go to the bathroom, and work sick through grueling 12-hour or longer days;
• unhealthy work environments in stifling heat and thick fabric dust detrimental to health;
• numerous sewing machine accidents causing wounds and loss of fingers; and
• instances of severe repression against union supporters and organizers, including harassment, intimidation, firing, and blacklisting from further employment elsewhere.

The report’s findings “are corroborated by scores of academic research and industry investigations.” Human and labor rights violations are the norm, not the exception. Monitoring alone won’t change them, but perhaps public disclosure can help.

The Honduran Alamode Factory

Employing about 500 workers, it makes public employee uniforms and other apparel for Lion Apparel, Cintas Corporation, and Fechheimer Brothers Company. In 2008, the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) reported some of the worst working conditions in the region, but months later corrective measures had been taken, thanks to exposing the situation to public scrutiny.

Alamode agreed to pay minimum wages, provide back pay, enroll all workers in the Honduran social security system to give them access to health care, paid injury leave and other benefits, and establish an injury log as required.

However, other issues remained unresolved, including:

• further improvement of health and safety issues;
• ending verbal harassment; and
• making overtime work voluntary, not mandatory.

Despite improvements, Alamode workers still earn sub-poverty wages, and full compliance with labor rights falls far short.

The Mexican Vaqueros Navarra Factory

The factory produces jeans and uniforms, including the Dickies brand. In May 2007, its workers tried to form a union but faced extreme harassment and intimidation, as reported by a labor rights monitor on the scene. It’s investigation:

found that workers had been psychologically and verbally harassed, dismissed without warning, and forced to sign resignation letters for attempting to form an independent union at the factory and that at least some workers dismissed for union activities have been blacklisted….the official reason given for workers dismissed… was ‘lack of work.’

Two months after voting to affiliate with the Garment Workers Union, employees were told the plant shut down for lack of work. Yet three buyers, Gap, Warnaco, and American Eagle, placed orders with the factory in support of their right to organize.

In July 2008, the Tehuacan Valley Human and Labor Rights Commission filed a complaint with WRC alleging that another Navarra Group factory, Confecciones Mazara, discriminated in its hiring practices. WRC investigated and found “overwhelming evidence that Confecciones Mazara engaged in unlawful discrimination against union supporters in hiring decisions, otherwise known as ‘blacklisting.’ ”

Twenty former Vaqueros Navarra workers applying for jobs were rejected. Another initially hired was fired on her first day after her former union organizing activities were discovered. In response to WRC complaints, the company refused to comply and continues its blacklisting practices.

The Dominican Republic’s Suprema Manufacturing, Wholly Owned by Propper International (PI)

It operates three plants and employs about 1,000 workers making uniforms and other apparel items. PI is one of the largest makers of US military clothing. In 2008, Suprema Manufacturing’s employees described low wages, high production quotas, unhealthy work conditions, and extreme hardships, all unaddressed by the company.

At the same time, PI distributed a threatening notice to its Puerto Rico workforce accusing the union and workforce of defamation. The same notice said that SweatFree Communities’ publications expressed “a defamatory tone toward Propper (alleging) that the Department of Defense is subsidizing companies with terrible work conditions, and safety and human rights violations.” The notice concluded saying:

“SAY NO TO THE UNION. DON’T SIGN ANOTHER CARD.”

In March 2009, Federation of Workers of Free Trade Zones (FEDOTRAZONAS) workers and volunteers and their counterparts at the National Federation of Free Trade Zone Workers (FENOTRAZONAS) conducted over two dozen interviews on behalf of SweatFree Communities (SFC). They revealed extreme poverty, exhaustion, intense pressure to meet production quotas, an unhealthy work environment, and intimidation-instilled fear against openly supporting union organizing. Even though Suprema has a certified union, only a handful of workers belong. As a result, it’s weak, unable to represent workers effectively or organize to recruit more.

Workers said to get by, they need other jobs and loans (at 10% weekly interest) to pay unexpected medical and other expenses. Their work load is so exhausting, it makes “my whole body hurt,” according to one employee. “When I leave work, I am tired and exhausted…. All I want to do is lie down, but I have my obligations.” Another machine operator said:

“The work is hard and the production quota is killing us (and earning minimum pay) isn’t enough for anything, for what’s needed at home.”

Other workers complained of health-related issues related to poor air quality, extreme heat, and fabric dust. According to workers interviewed, they can’t act individually or collectively to address issues as important as these or any others. According to one:

“In the event that we complain, normally they don’t listen to us but you have to suffer the consequences. One time I complained about the high temperatures in the factory and said it is not good for our health. And the manager said to me, ‘If you are not comfortable you can leave.”

Another worker said “we discuss problems at work amongst the other workers, but not with management because we are afraid…. If you complain too much, they fire you. So we don’t complain because we need employment….”

They also fear recrimination over union organizing or joining one. In 2000, 300 union members were fired. After reviewing the case, the Dominican Labor Department ordered 30 leaders reinstated with back pay. When they returned, management ordered workers not to speak to them or be fired. Workers today live in fear, endure harsh conditions, and put up with whatever they’re ordered to do.

New Bedford, Massachusetts-based Eagle Industries

Eagle supplies tactical gear to the Pentagon and state governments. In November 2007, it acquired a New Bedford, Massachusetts facility that made headlines in March 2007 when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents raided the factory, discovered sweatshop conditions, and arrested hundreds of alleged undocumented workers.

In its 2008 report, SweatFree Communities (SFC) highlighted Eagle’s failure to address abusive sweatshop conditions as well as its hostility to an ongoing union organizing campaign at the time.

In February 2009, SFC conducted in-depth interviews with eight union supporters and learned the following:

• Eagle raised its minimum wage by 50 cents an hour to an average of about $9 an hour;
• it included a week’s vacation in worker benefits bringing the total to two, including an annual July shutdown;
• a new sick day policy requires a doctor’s note, and time off remains unpaid; and
• workers expressed concerns over low pay, poor benefits, dangerous working conditions, and everyday harassment of union supporters by company managers.

Examples cited:

• machines need lots of oil; in operation, it “shoots into your eyes,” according to workers;
• excessive heat, lack of circulation, smoke and oppressive smell causes dizziness, head and stomachaches, and for some vomiting;
• forklifts go everywhere and sometimes hit people, causing injuries;
• fabrics used are so heavy and stiff, they inflict abrasions, leave fingers bent and stiff, and cause chronic pain;
• no health insurance is provided;
• without a doctor’s note, no sick days are offered and if taken are unpaid;
• workers are constantly watched and checked, even when they go to the bathroom;
• action is taken against anyone suspected of supporting a union; new hires must sign a declaration agreeing not to join one;
• pressure and harassment are constant “to produce a lot;” and
• departments are shut down and workers reassigned to divide and separate them from each other.

As a result, workers feel a union is their only hope because it “offers a contract and a negotiating table with the owner of the factory where he will have to realize the suffering we have endured working for him for so long, making money for him so he will have a good future while our future is bleak,” according to one worker.

Tijuana, Mexico’s Safariland

A division of Armor Holdings, a wholly-owned subsidiary of BAE Systems, Inc., Safariland’s 700 employees produce bulletproof vests and accessories, belts and personal accessories, and grenade and pistol holsters.

Workers told researchers that management told them in response to questioning to say everything is fine and not complain. Reality, however, concealed lives of extreme poverty, living at home with:

“No water, no electricity, and no terrace. One room made of garage doors and cardboard. The electricity we have is stolen. We buy water because there is no running water. There is no floor. The roof is made of laminate and cardboard.” Workers expressed little hope for future change, even less now in economic crisis hitting Tijuana like most everywhere.

In recent months, thousands lost jobs, and when openings exist, long lines queue up to apply. Women must take pregnancy tests, a violation of Article 3 of Mexico’s labor law requiring equal treatment of both genders. Article 26 requires worker contracts with wage guarantees, their amount, how they’re paid, working hours, breaks, vacations, and other benefits. Yet Safariland offers only temporary ones, then chooses whether or not to renew them, a violation of Article 37.

Pressure and harassment are constant to meet quotas, arrive on time, and respect supervisors. Failure is punished by suspensions without pay for one to three days.

However, Mexican Labor Law is clear, yet Safariland disobeys it. The Constitution’s Article 123 establishes an eight hour work day, including breaks. So does the Labor Law’s Article 61 and under its Article 67, double pay is required for overtime. In addition, Article 110 prohibits pay deductions for any reason, but Safariland gets around it by suspending workers.

Articles 177 and 178 let 14-16 year old minors work for up to six hours daily, including a one-hour rest after three hours, if they pass a medical examination. Workers said children worked the same hours as adults.

They also reported dangerous and unhealthy conditions, including accidents with sewing and riveting machines and material cutters, resulting in wounds and lost fingers. In addition, hazardous substances are used, including thinners, solvents, and Resistol 5,000 glue, the notorious narcotic used by Latin American street children.

Other complaints included supervisors’ indifference to worker concerns, and according to one account: “They do not listen to us, and if we complain they treat us like troublemakers.” Anyone caught supporting a union “would be fire(d) or at least consider(ed) troublemakers,” said another. “They would put us on the blacklist,” a believed widespread practice in Tijuana.

The Dickies de Honduras Factory

Located in Choloma, its 1,000 workers produce apparel under oppressive conditions. Wages are sub-poverty, and at best cover half a family of four’s basic necessities. Work days are long, 11-12 hour days, four days a week, and constant pressure to produce. According to one worker, illness is no excuse for missing work.

Union organizing is forbidden, and those caught or suspected are fired. One union leader explained how organizers are treated. In 1998, Dickies fired 80 supporters. In 2003, alleged leaders were fired, then in 2005, 280 workers got legal recognition to form a union. A month later, a Mexican Ministry of Labor representative and three union officials attempted to deliver official documents to the company. They were denied entry. The officials and others were fired, and Dickies stonewalled government summonses to answer for the action. Other firings followed, and the company refused to recognize a union, bargain collectively with it, or address employee grievances.

Workers nonetheless persisted until the current economic crisis became challenging. Claiming lack of orders and a need to cut costs, worker dismissals began in December 2008. By March 2009, 58 were gone, in all cases for supporting a union, in violation of Honduran Labor Law’s Article 96 that prohibits employers from “firing or persecuting their workers in any way because of their union affiliation.”

China’s Genford Shoes

Located in Guangdong Province, its 10,000 employees produce work, exercise, casual, and dress shoes, 80% for Ohio-based Rocky Brands. According to the company, Genford is independently audited for social compliance, but SFC research found evidence of widespread labor law violations.

Workers are constantly pressured to produce for low pay under poor conditions:

• new employees get no income for their first three days; they also must pay $4 for a physical examination, $10 for housing, and another $10 for ten days’ meals in the company cafeteria – in total, around a week’s wages;
• wages are sub-poverty;
• no rest days are allowed for an entire month during peak production periods, in violation of Article 38 of China’s Labor Law requiring at least one per week;
• children as young as 14 work the same hours as adults and are hidden when customers visit the factory; Article 28 of China’s Labor Law prohibits employing children under age 16; it also protects 16 – 18 year olds from “over-strenuous, poisonous or harmful labor or any dangerous operation” and requires employers to follow state laws regarding types of jobs, hours worked, and labor intensity for adolescents;
• excessive over time is mandatory at below the legal double hourly pay rate for daytime work on weekends;
• by law, workers can cancel their labor contracts by giving 30 days notice, but are penalized by loss of wages when they do;
• they live 12 to a room in crowded dorms of around 200 square feet with ten cold showers for 264 workers;
• pollution levels are oppressive; workers describe discharged black, foul smelling effluent into the adjacent river; and
• at the end of every work day, body searches are conducted, similar to but not full strip searches.

Genford employs a complex system of bonuses and fines to achieve output. Workers get bonuses for meeting quotas that must be maintained hourly, but no one understood how they’re calculated. They also complained that they’re hard to reach, and they’re constantly pressured to work faster for maximum production. In addition, fines are levied for arriving a few minutes late, leaving early, skipping work, or causing trouble.

It’s also not easy to quit even though Article 37 of China’s Labor Law lets workers do it by giving 30 days advance written notice or three days during their probationary periods. Employers must then fully compensate workers, but they don’t.

Frackville, Pennsylvania’s City Shirt Company

Its owner, Elbeco Inc., a producer of public employee uniforms, “was the first major uniform company to endorse SweatFree Communities’ campaign for worker rights,” and it shows in how it treats its employees.

According to one, “I am pretty much able to cover my needs. Anybody can always use more money, but I do pretty well, I can say.”

The average worker makes about $11 an hour, but some get up to $19 because the company is unionized and was able to bargain collectively for decent wages and benefits. In addition, workers have “a seat at the table with the company… affording them a sense of ownership and respect.”

City Shirt’s employees are also much older than at other factories studied, a sign of greater stability and a contented workforce staying in place, happy to be there, and for many, hoping to stay for the rest of their working lives.

Yet they worry that their jobs may not last because of factors beyond the plant’s control forcing layoffs to cut costs and stay viable. Apparel manufacturing in America is dying. In addition, the current environment is taking its toll closing factories across America, and City Shirt has had to cut one-third of its workforce in the past 18 months.

The alternative is the global sweatshop as oppressive or worse than the ones described above. The company’s employees hope to reach retirement age before their operation gets outsourced, but making it won’t be easy.

In today’s global economy, in good times and bad, worker rights are subordinated to greed and private profit, and future prospects look grim. Job losses are continuing. Wages are stagnating at best. Benefits are eroding, and job security is a thing of the past at a time governments, in alliance with business, are indifferent to protecting them. The result, more and more, is that workers are on their own to endure against very long odds. It’s all the more important for harder struggle because it’s the only way they have a chance.

Anti-Sweatshop Legislation in Congress

On January 23, 2007, S. 367: The Decent Working Conditions and Fair Competition Act was introduced in the Senate “to amend the Tariff Act of 1930 to prohibit the import, export, and sale of goods made with sweatshop labor, and for other purposes.” It was referred to committee but never passed.

On April 23, 2007, HR 1992: The Decent Working Conditions and Fair Competition Act was introduced in the House for the same purpose. It, too, was referred to committee but never passed.

Both bills were introduced in a previous congressional session and failed. They may be re-introduced later in 2009.

Sweatshop labor takes different forms, some far worse than others. On February 14, 2007, Charles Kernaghan, Executive Director of the National Labor Committee in Support of Human and Worker Right, testified about the worst kind at a Senate committee hearing on Overseas Sweatshop Abuses, Their Impact on US Workers, and the Need for Anti-Sweatshop Legislation.

Citing the December 2001 US-Jordan Free Trade Agreement, he gave examples of human trafficking and involuntary servitude abuses that followed:

• Jordan’s 114 garment factories employ over 36,000 foreign guest workers from Bangladesh, China, Sri Lanka and India;
• Bangladeshi guest workers had to borrow at exorbitant interest rates $1,000-$3,000 to pay unscrupulous manpower agencies for two-to-three year contracts to obtain work;
• they were trapped in involuntary servitude at one factory and couldn’t leave;
• they were promised benefits, then reneged on, including free food, housing, medical care, vacations, sick days, and at least one day a week off;
• on arrival in Jordan, their passports were seized;
• they were forced to work shifts of “15, 38, 48, and even 72 hours straight, often going two or three days without sleep;”
• they worked seven days a week for as little as 2 cents an hour, 98 hours a week;
• those complaining were beaten and abused;
• 28 workers shared one small 12 x 12-foot dorm with access to running water only every third day;
• legally owed back wages were never paid nor were factory owners prosecuted for human trafficking, involuntary servitude, or treating their employees abusively;
• they sewed clothing for Wal-Mart; and
• other Jordanian, Chinese and other factory workers are treated the same way; some worked under conditions so hazardous that “scores of young people (are) seriously injured, and some maimed for life.”

Kernaghan’s National Labor Committee (NLC) web site highlights the problem by saying that corporate predators “roam the world to find the cheapest and most vulnerable workers… mostly young women in Central America, Mexico, Bangladesh, China, and other poor nations, many working 12 to 14-hour days for pennies an hour.”

Corporate unaccountability is responsible for this moral crisis of our time — a dehumanized, expendable workforce ruthlessly exploited for profit. NLC believes worker rights are as inalienable as human rights and civil liberties and says “now is the time to secure them for (everyone) on the planet.”