[A-List] FAIR: Honduras Down the Memory Hole

[james daly]

Honduras Down the Memory Hole
U.S. media ignore the aftermath of dubious elections they praised

By Alyssa Figueroa


A year after a military coup removed democratically elected President Manuel 
Zelaya from office, Hondurans are still living under a repressive 
government-but the U.S. is pushing Latin American countries to join it in 
normalizing relations with the regionally ostracized nation.

Reporting from a meeting of the Organization of American States (OAS), the 
New York Times (6/8/10) dutifully relayed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's 
assertion that "we saw the free and fair election of President [Porfirio] 
Lobo,'' noting on the other hand that "several foreign ministers inveighed 
against Mr. Lobo's government, which they said had violated human rights." 
The Times left it up to readers to guess who might have been right. The 
Washington Post (6/8/10) reported that this debate is simply an indication 
of "how difficult it is to bridge regional divisions."

Such coverage is no surprise, given the media's enthusiastic response to 
Lobo's election in January. After the June 28, 2009, coup, the U.S. and many 
Latin American countries said they would refuse to recognize the elections 
in November if Zelaya wasn't restored to office to finish out his term 
(Washington Post, 9/4/09). Given that the elections would be held under the 
auspices of a coup regime, the UN, the OAS, the EU and the Carter Center 
didn't send observers (Real News Network, 4/08/10).

Before the election was held, however, the U.S. backed off this position-a 
reversal cheered in the U.S. press. Washington Post columnist Edward 
Schumacher-Matos (11/27/09) declared that Obama was "alone, and right, on 
Honduras," because the election "will come off favorably enough." A Post 
editorial (11/28/09) agreed, arguing that Hondurans were eager for the 
election because they "have little taste for Mr. Zelaya, who embraced the 
leftist populism of Hugo Chavez." (See FAIR Action Alert, 9/24/09.) Yet an 
August 2009 poll by the Honduran polling company COIMER & OP found that 52 
percent supported Zelaya's return to presidency, while 33 percent opposed 
it. In the same poll, those who expressed an opinion came out 3-to-1 against 
the coup (Narcosphere, 10/7/09).


The election went on, with many publications (e.g., Washington Post, L.A. 
Times, both 11/30/09) deeming it "peaceful," while at the same time 
reporting that 500 protesters were targeted with tear gas. There was little 
coverage of the beatings and arrests leading up to the election, or of the 
nearly 5,000 soldiers dispersed throughout the country to enforce a state of 
emergency (Guardian, 11/28/09).

The New York Times, which a few weeks before the election (11/7/09) held 
that "an election run by the coup plotters won't be credible to 
Hondurans-and it shouldn't be to anyone else," afterwards wrote (12/5/09), 
"there is wide agreement that last week's presidential election in 
Honduras .was clean and fair."

Most outlets declared that voter turnout was near 60 percent, taking the 
word of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal. The Miami Herald (12/1/09) argued 
that this supposed turnout meant that "the interim government, which has the 
support of virtually all the major factions of Honduran society.can now 
claim that it presided over a fair and credible election." The Wall Street 
Journal (11/29/10) called the elections "a win for all people who yearn for 
liberty."

The Tribunal's announcement, however, contradicted its own turnout 
data-which at the time hovered at 49.2 percent-as well as those of the only 
independent Honduran organization to do exit polling, which put the figure 
at 47.6 percent (Real News Network, 12/8/09), 7 percentage points lower than 
the last presidential election (Washington Post, 12/1/10). There were also 
"an unusually high number of null and blank ballots-about 6 percent" 
WashingtonPost.com, 11/30/09).


After helping legitimize Lobo's presidency, U.S. media ignored the 
aftermath. Amnesty International (6/28/10) recently "accused the Honduran 
authorities of failing to address serious human rights violations that 
followed the coup." The Committee of the Families of the Detained and 
Disappeared of Honduras (2/28/10) reported 310 human rights violations just 
30 days into Lobo's presidency. At least nine journalists have been killed 
(AP, 6/15/10), making Honduras the world's most dangerous country for 
journalists in the first quarter of 2010 (Reporters Without Borders, 
6/16/10). Nobody has been arrested for these murders.

According to the New York Times (6/6/10), the dismissal of four lower-court 
judges in May who were critical of the coup was only an illustration of the 
"country's political divide"-one that the Times and its media brethren seem 
happy to put behind them.