Coup and Me Against the World

I keep hoping that Clinton will come go as part of the delegation accompanying Zelaya, perhaps under US diplomatic credentials...and stay as long as it takes to straighten things out. That would raise the stakes to levels that the coupistas might hesitate to call. Plus it would restore some credibility to Clinton for his mission in Haiti. 

The coupistas are in a kind of prisoner's dilemma. If a faction of the oligarchy decides to split off and arrest Micheletti, then they could win big: become national heroes, gain international credibility, and above all, preserve their wealth and power. Zelaya is out of office after November anyway, the oligarchy can probably control a constitutional convention, and the left doesn't seem to have any charismatic leaders... certainly none have shown up in news reports of the resistance. 

On the other hand, I see almost no gain for Zelaya (or the Honduran people) on returning. As stated, he's out of office in a few months. The chances the coupistas will kill him are not insignificant. And the chances they'll arrest him are very high. He's not really an opponent of the oligarchy; they seem to have wildly overreacted to a moderate proposal on his part, and once one gets into games of who is more macho, no one can back down. 

The only hope that this comes out really well is for leaders to emerge on the left who can unite people on a broadly popular program of establishing civilian control of the military (so that this can't happen again) and genuinely competitive elections (so that the oligarchs at least have to find competent puppets). But I guess that's the general rule for how you get democracy: you live it.

Re: the oligarchic mind.

This reminds me of an emblematic story comparing the Brazilian oligarchy with an attitude that perhaps a northamerican would have upon being verbally abused by a police officer (insert your similar story).

The northamerican would say, "who do you think you are?"

The Brazilian oligarchist would say, "who do you think you're talking to."

While it was clear, after the third paragraph, where this inane commentary was going, I couldn't suffer through any more after referring to Al Gore is a legitimate president. What nitwittery...

If you listen to political rhetoric closely within the USA, you hear the same.  Especially from Republicans and the right.  When they say "Americans", it is clear that they do not mean all Americans.

This is why they make the ridiculous claim that Obama and the Democrats are 'socialists'.  It doesn't really matter what name they call them.  The key is that they call them something else, thus making it clear that they are not 'Americans'.  The same is true when they talk of 'immigrants' or 'gays' or any other 'other' they wish to exclude.  The key to their rhetoric is that they exclude from their concept of 'Americans' any who aren't part of their clique. 

This of course is fatal to any concept of a united nation working together.  It is also of course mandatory for any rhetoric and policy that intends to steal from one group to subsidize another.  When you recognize someone else as a fellow human being, with largely the same hopes and desires, its much harder to steal from them or to physically attack them.  Therefore, such verbal manipulations, to convince themselves and their allies and workers that thier targets are somehow 'different' or 'others' to them is always the first step towards oppression and violence.

Al-

A good and thoughtful article.

However, I must disagree with your characterization of those who would prefer a more robust response to the crisis by the USA than what has occurred.

You originally ratified the response of the US to this crisis by asserting that the US should not be a "cowboy".  

I agree.  But leadership in this crisis is not necessarily the same as being a "cowboy".

Now you describe those who disagree with your support of the current US policy as identical who insist that other countries should always follow the "dictates" of the US.

This is not necessarily so.  A leader does not necessarily "dictate" to others.  A different type of leadership is leadership by example.  This is what I support.

Here is my point.  If Mr. Moussavi of Iran had chosen to visit the US during the Iranian election crisis, we can be sure he would be feted and welcomed broadly in Washington, with earnest meetings with Hillary Clinton, President Obama and Congressional leaders.

Yet when President Zelaya was in the USA last week, both Hillary Clinton and President Obama did not meet him. Clinton said her broken elbow prevented the meeting, as if her ability to speak is somehow adversely affected by this injury.  What was Obama's rationale for refusing to meet Zelaya?  

Why the willingness of high level US officials to meet Moussavi but the backhanded snub in refusing to have any person of serious rank meet Zelaya?  We should be allowed to ask this question.

The US should take a leadership role in opposing this coup. They should NOT act like a cowboy.  They should NOT merely "dictate" to the Honduran government what should happen.

But they SHOULD have the courage to meet with Zelaya on a high diplomatic level.  The US should have the courage to officially describe this putsch as a "coup".  And they should have the courage to renounce the genocidal Monroe Doctrine.

Narcosphere Member and financial contributor in long-standing,

Matt Dubuque

"There is something about elites – and its especially visible in this hemisphere – that demonstrates a kind of superiority complex wrapped around an inferiority complex,..."

I think it's because they lack a sense of inner power and identity.  Their sense of well being and identity is dependent on what they have and where they stand in an hierarchical pecking order.  I've often thought that so much of right wing whining about the left and "those people" is envy.  The comments from the "oligarch diaspora" remind me of the comments heard at the Palin rallies, Tea Bagging parties and Fox news in general.

Al's analysis of the self-perception and self-protection of political elites in the Americas could be applied to most of the rest of the world as well.  When a certain class has been ensconced comfortably in power for at least a few generations -- even when that class experiences an occasional democratic exchange of power between a conservative wing and a moderate-left wing (as happened in the U.S. in 1992 and 2008) -- it can become annoyed by and then move against the self-assertion by other, usually marginalized segments of society (representing a majority) that might vie successfully to displace its hold on power. 

This syndrome has less to do with policies or even ideology than with expectations of power and influence.  Ideology can often be utilized to justify power rather than to fulfill the purported nobility of its aims.  Witness the "revolutionary" extremism of the Iranian clerical-military elite, which deploys a crackpot ideology to justify its self-enrichment and dogmatic control of Iranian society. It's only when an elite class self-divides (which is actually what is happening now in Iran, in reaction to the economic incompetence of the office-holding religious zealots within that class, like Ahmadinejad), or when a popular majority learns how to organize and assert itself, that power can shift historically. 

(So, for example, at the exhausted end of forty years of a conservative ruling ideology in the U.S., the irrational-populist nonsense of the Palin-Limbaugh wing of the Republican Party has managed to alienate the rational segment of the suburban-corporate "main street" core of the party, and there is fear and doubt among party insiders about whether a "safe" figure like Romney can, in 2012, hold off the reactionary pitchfork-wielding crowd.  The rhetorical dominance of the latter on cable television and among House Republicans shouldn't distract us from this reality:  the Republican Party is self-dividing.  If what I'll call the Palin wing wins, the party could actually dissolve.  Thus could the freakish political descendants of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan give way to the re-emergence of a conservative party more like the one which produced Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower.)

A similiar division within the ruling, propertied class in Latin America may be emerging.  It requires two things.  First, a sufficient number of center-left political leaders -- who actually want to foster successful social democracies in the region (and one thinks of Michele Bachelet in Chile as well as Lula in Brazil) -- continue to chip away at the dominance of traditional elites and also manage to prevent neo-authoritarians from hijacking the discourse of change. Second, it requires that ordinary citizens begin to assert themselves through campaigns and movements to demand and force accountability by those who wield power (such as those chronicled by Narco News) -- and this is actually the most important of the two requirements.

That is why the effort to reverse the coup in Honduras is so important:  If the arbitrary seizure of power by any unelected figures using force can be reversed by a coalition of the people themselves plus that part of the political class that genuinely believes in democracy, it will show that customary elites are dividing and popular, civic forces can be decisive.

Matt - I disagree with your perception that "had Mousavi gone to Washington" that either the President or the Secretary of State would have met with him. For the same reasons the President was painstakingly clear about not wanting to play into the Iranian regime's accusations of US meddling - and the same history of US meddling in Persia as there is in Central America, right down to having supported coups in both regions - it would not have been the smart move.

Until Zelaya himself complains that he didn't get what he wanted in Washington, I also think it is incorrect to presume that a public meeting with the President or Secretary, although it would bring symbolic salve to him, wouldn't have necessarily hurt his chances to obtain anew his legitimate presidency.

There's a huge difference between taking positions on whether a coup government is in power and that of whether one creates the perception of alliance with politicians from other countries. Politicians, even the good ones, always muddy the waters. I think it's fairly clear that President Chavez's less circumspect boosting of Zelaya has served to fan flames of opposition to him in Honduras. If Obama were to do the same, those flames would go even higher.

In the end, Zelaya met with the two senior administration officials that have been quarterbacking the response for Washington: Thomas Shannon and Dan Restrepo. They're the ones that are micro-managing the US response. And they're the ones that need to know, with precision, what Zelaya needs and how to thread the needle to get him back in power.

Other than that information I've just offered, I could repeat a lot of factors and observations I've repeated already about why even the kind of "leadership role" you recommend would not be helpful toward overturning coup (which is the goal front and center in my mind as I approach every angle of it). One need only browse the comments section here since Sunday to see why I feel I've answered your question many times already. If you still disagree, fine, but it takes away from the work of reporting to have to answer it again and again and again.

I think people have made a lot of presumptions (such as "surely they would have met with Mousavi") that my own measurements don't find accurate.

I also note that some (I'm not saying you're among them) keep moving the goal posts: First it was "Obama supported the coup." When that became demonstrably ridiculous some of the same people changed it to, "well he's not cutting off aid." When he cut off aid, they moved the chains again to "well, he could have stopped it beforehand." So on and so forth.

I think it's evident that those folks (again, not necessarily you) are beating a separate drum that doesn't have any outcome determinative thing to do with defeating the coup in Honduras, and, in fact, distracts from the necessary focus on that goal.

All of these claims and counterclaims will get sorted out by one overriding result: whether the coup goes down or not. Once that is clear, I look forward to revisiting the conversation, because I do think important lessons will be drawn from it that shift the way we look at the hemisphere.

Al, it is in a sense ironic that the "hallucinatory" aspects of the Honduran "nationalism" we are seeing among the coup plotters is fueled by anti-American sentiments.  

ANY Latin American politician "defying" the US is a stance that clearly has broad support in Honduras and throughout Latin America.  In this case the "defiance" of the US happens to be taken by coup leader Michelletti, who seems to relish that illusory "populist" mantle.

What can the US do undermine this widespread enmity to us in Latin America?

We can immediately, without preconditions, RENOUNCE and ABOLISH the Monroe Doctrine, with a strong statement apologizing for the countless coups, invasions, murders, rapes, tortures and genocides it has "justified" over the last 200 years.

Immediate renunciation by Obama of the Monroe Doctrine would surely take some of the wind out of Michelletti's hallucinatory delusions of Honduran populism.

We need to renounce the Monroe Doctrine immediately. This should be a non-negotiable item for people in the Narcosphere.  

It is a non-trivial and indeed essential point.

Al, your previous story speaks volumes about the depth of the fantasies and arrogance of the coup plotters.  For me it nailed it in terms so simple that only other delusional people would miss it.

My mind keeps going to two thoughts:

One is a mental picture of a younger Obama at a church meeting room, sitting in the back.  He listens as the community members he has helped to enable sort out their priorities and plans.  He intercedes occasionally  - with firmness but also with respect.

My other thought speculates that the only certain way to grow democracy in various parts of the world is to enable existing institutions in those regions to take active roles in the work needed to build the foundations of democracy.

Americans and especially leftists need to understand there is a new kind of leadership in the White House and they truly want serious change in this country they need to entertain the possibility that a new type of leadership is required to do that.

In reading your opinion I see one big fault and one big truth. Basing most of your commentary on a single post in the Kos is kind of unfair as you are caractherizing all people against Zelaya based on these comments. Somethings you got right, some you didn't. But I don't to mellow in that.

What's most important to me is the one big truth you say in that the return of Zelaya almost surely will trigger violence and bloodshed regardless of the way he comes back, as president or prisioner.

Therefore is unfathomable to me that OAS and UN are not looking for a solution that prevents this bloodshed. In my opinion both organizations main reason for being is to allow people to live free, in peace and security.

The most sensible solution is to negotiate a way to govern Honduras in peace until a certified free election, with neither the return to power of Zelaya nor his incarceration.

Any standpoint that includes the return of Zelaya (in whatever capacity) to Honduras is wrong.

* clear majority of votes nationwide

* clear majority of intended votes in Florida (either de-listed Blacks and butterfly ballot Jews for Buchannan blowing away official margin of victory by thousands of votes)

* STILL would have won if all countable votes had been counted in a consistent manner

@ Joe Armendariz - what part of "legitimate president" don't you understand, in the context of democracy, beyond what you personally would have liked?

May the people of Honduras be stronger than we...

Al, I appreciate you taking the time to respond, very much so.

Your rebuttal that an Obama meeting with Zelaya may have been counterproductive is a legitimate and competent one.

I think one point driving my eagerness for prompt non-threatening leadership on the part of the US in this crisis (by taking acts such as an immediate unilateral renunciation of the Monroe Doctrine to help take the wind out of the sails of pseudo-populists such as Michelletti and others) is my best judgement is that coups are much easier to overturn during the first 48 hours after they have occurred.  I don't have empirical studies I can point to supporting this point, but it seems a competent view.

In my view, after 48 hours have lapsed, reversing a coup becomes more difficult as consolidation of the illegitimate regime begins to take effect.  

Along those lines, it is worth noting that the coup against Chavez was foiled within such a 48 hour time frame.

In solidarity,

Matt Dubuque

The main thing for US coup opponents to resist right now (in my view), is the idea that it's ALL ABOUT US.  The Obama admin's approach of working quietly within the existing international institutions as a full partner, rather than a 300 pond gorrilla, is doing far more to strengthen those institutions, and to undermine the foundations of the Monroe Doctrine, than any Grand Renunciations possibly could.

a freudian slip inadvertently exposing my secret desire for lots and lots of ponds.

Jeff, clearly is is helpful to work within multilateral frameworks.

However, I can see zero downside to immediate renunciation of the Monroe Doctrine.  It is a racist and genocidal policy that justifies intervention of any kind, in any manner, at any time by the US with complete and absolute impunity. 

It's implementation has caused the direct deaths of millions in Latin America over the last 200 years.

It's a non-negotiable item.  Renounce the Monroe Doctrine now.  It's a fascist, racist and imperial policy that only breeds resentment and hatred and is a stain on our honor and our history.

Fernando -

1. In no way did I say (or imply) nor do I believe, that there will be great violence should Zelaya be returned to his elected post as president. Zelaya himself has already said that he would pardon the coup conspirators, and that "while the Honduran people won't forgive them, as a Christian and I will." He is not of the fascistic tendencies of Micheletti, who in few short days has demonstrated by shutting down critical media organizations and broadcasters, putting more than 300 political opponents in prison (according to leading human rights organizations), suspending the most basic liberties in the Constitution, that he is, at heart, a violent and ugly man.

The violence will come, to the contrary, if the rightful president is not reinstalled. And the violence is already there, through an illegitimate and repressive coup regime.

Also, the Daily Kos comment was, in fact, more reasonably stated than those of most throughout the Oligarch Diaspora. One need only browse the Twitter feed of #Honduras to see those bad qualities amplified with far more bellicose and delusional words than offered by the example I used. The overall pro-coup community is worse even than that one example.

You are doing a great job of covering this crisis. I am so grateful that you and Narco News are on top this issue. You are doing an excellent job of refuting the initial claim that this action was done to remove an “evil” dictator. Many in the MSM and surprisingly in the progressive blogosphere swallowed this lie and reported it as fact.

Day after day, you have pointed out that these “freedom fighters” have taken measures that have been less than democratic. I cannot believe that no one in the media or the blogosphere has picked up on the replacement of the San Pedro Sula mayor with Micheletti’s own nephew. How banana republic can you get? This provides further evidence that this was, in fact, a coup by the elites. This is even after they started limiting the press and its citizens so promptly after this “liberation.”

The trolls are swamping the blogosphere to testify to anyone that will listen that this coup was a liberation of a tyrant. It is apparent they are on top of your postings on this site and various other sites.  As progressives, we are used to it because reactionaries, Honduran and American, specialize in misinforming and manufacturing consent. It is critical to their rule. The minute some troll starts their statement with “You don’t represent us” is a dead give away that they are trying to turn the issue into a personal attack to discredit you so you back off. You are refuting their claims of “liberation“ with evidence.  This, at the end of the day, is not “Operation Honduran Freedom” but your standard oligarch’s coup.

You should be applauded and encouraged. I do not, for one minute, believe the hype for one minute.

Excellent analysis, Al. I just wanted to add to Benjamin's comment about Gore in 2000. What happened in 2000 was a coup by the courts, but no less a coup. Thank you, Al, for putting the US in the larger hemispheric context. We in the US are not nearly as special as we think we are. Our coups may look different on the teevee but they are no less coups and usurpations of democratic elections.

Sorry to double post, but this is just too perfect not to comment on...

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/7/3/735048/-Gee,-wouldnt-a-coup-overt...

Rush Limbaugh says maybe the Hondurans could visit us and we could have a coup against Obama.

These folks really are the same everywhere.

I've been against the coup from the beginning, but one article of the constitution would seem to be in favor of Zelaya's removal from office, even if the method used was wrong:

ARTICULO 239.- El ciudadano que haya desempeñado la titularidad del Poder Ejecutivo no podrá ser Presidente o Designado.

El que quebrante esta disposición o proponga su reforma, así como aquellos que lo apoyen directa o indirectamente, cesarán de inmediato en el desempeño de sus respectivos cargos, y quedarán inhabilitados por diez años para el ejercicio de toda función pública.

Zelaya has insisted that he does not want to remain in office after January 2010 and he repeated that in an interview with El Pais just before the coup. However, during that interview he said:

"Sí, yo voy a terminar mi gobierno el 27 de enero del 2010. Eso es lo que voy a hacer. Pero sí voy a dejar un proceso para abrir la democracia, abrir la economía abrir la posibilidad de que un presidente pueda ser reelegido en el futuro. Aunque no sé si para entonces voy a estar disponible."

How do we square Article 239, which states that anyone who proposes changing the prohibition on reelection with Zelaya's statement that he intended to open up that very possibility?

Cat - I've studied that same Article 239 and the President's words - that he will leave his office but "leave a process to open democracy, open the economy, open the possibility that the president can be reelected in the future" - doesn't trigger 239.

First, he's not speaking of himself but in generalized terms for future presidents.

Second, "leaving a path" is a reference to a Constitutional Convention ("Constituent Assembly") for the people to rewrite the constitution through elected representatives. He's speaking that he wants to give them the right to do that, and at no point involves himself in the action. Do you see my point?

Since the Honduran Constitution already provides for the Constituent Assembly to rewrite it, it is their right to do so. What the Constitution prevents is amendments to the current one that would allow reelection of a president. (Alberto Valiente Thorensen made that precise point in the link above).

Under an interpretation of the law that you conclude, every single Honduran citizen that participated in such a Constitutional Convention, or in electing delegates to it, would be "guilty" of the same supposed "crime," and subject to the same penalties, but that flies in the face of the clear intent of the Constitution to allow them to do just that.

It's a very specious interpretation of the law to take somebody saying "I want to leave a process" for others to do something as being the act of doing it himself. Thus, it doesn't trigger 239.

Top Honduran military lawyer acknowledges that military high command ordered the forcible expulsion of Zelaya and that it was a crime.  So much for the pretense of "democratic transition"!

http://www.miamiherald.com/1506/story/1125872.html

A very revealing look at the military's sense of political entitlement and attitude toward their own actions in the 1980s (and since).

this thought began as humor but I think isn't beyond the realm of possibility, though a lot of things would still have to go wrong first.

the Honduran oligarchy and complicit military begin reaping their bad karma from hosting Reagan's Contras, when democratic volunteers begin assembling just across the border in Nicaragua in order to help restore Honduras to democratic rule, with the U.S. supplying the "Neo-Contras" with arms and supplies, while the U.S. Navy enforces an air and sea blockade of Honduras, with its neighbors enforcing a land blockade.

well, let's hope not anyway, but karma's very democratic, you know!

it'd be interesting to see Elliot Abrams' position on that.