[R-G] Honduras Coup: the new Narco State

[Sid Shniad]

Honduras Coup Chooses Path of Rogue Narco-State 

Posted by Al Giordano - July 4, 2009 at 9:57 am 

By Al Giordano 

This photo of Honduran coup “president” Roberto Micheletti rallying 
his supporters, above, from yesterday’s New York Times includes a 
creative act of protest against it. In the lower left hand corner of 
the photo, there are two placards in the crowd that are not in 
Spanish, but in German: "Ein Reich, Ein Volk, Ein Stimme" and"Arbeit 
Macht Uns Frei". 

Field Hand DK points out in the comments section: “The first was a 
prominent Nazi slogan (one Reich, one people, one voice); the second 
(work makes us free) was inscribed at the entrance to the Auschwitz 
concentration camp.” 

(Note: Not being a German-speaker, I can't confirm the commenter's 
translation, but another Field Hand, Lucidamente, now offers an 
alternative translation in the comments section that is similar but 
not an exact match with this one.) 

Which only goes to prove that employers can force their workers to 
attend a pro-coup rally but they can’t control what signs they hold. 

Now, on to today’s significant news out of Honduras: 

Last night, around 10 p.m. Tegucigalpa time, CNN Español interrupted 
its sports news programming for a live press conference announcement 
("no questions, please") by coup “president” Micheletti. 

There, he announced that his coup “government” of Honduras is 
withdrawing from the Democratic Charter of the Organization of 
American States (OAS). The Friday night press conference was meant to 
preempt this morning’s OAS meeting in Washington (at which various 
heads of state, including Presidents Cristina Kirchner of Argentina 
and Rafael Correa of Ecuador deemed important enough to attend) where 
the OAS will surely expel the Honduras coup regime for its flagrant 
violations of said Democratic Charter. Thus, the late Friday night 
press conference to say “You can’t fire us! We quit!” 

The Honduras coup’s behavior virtually assures that come Monday, the 
US government will define it as a “military coup,” triggering a cut 
off of US aid, joining the World Bank, the Inter-American Development 
Bank, PetroCaribe, the UN and the rest of the world in withdrawing 
economic support for the coup regime. (The US had already put all 
funds on "pause" this week, so the boycott has already begun and 
merely awaits formal moves to become permanent.) 

This is very significant because of Honduras’ annual $3.5 billion 
budget, $2.3 billion – 65 percent - comes from those foreign sources. 

This seemingly suicidal maneuver by the coup government can be 
partially explained by what I described yesterday as the “shared 
hallucination” of those in the Honduras oligarchy’s ten owning 
families and those elites in their orbit. 

But something else is at work: Greedy people don’t just cast away 65 
percent of their national budget unless they believe they can get it 
from other sources. 

One of the big backers of the coup d’etat has been an international 
terrorist network of ex-Cubans, who have financed the dirty work of 
jet plane bomber Luis Posada Carriles over the years and have set up 
business interests in Honduras. These forces are desperate now that 
Washington is making the moves to ease and end the embargo of Cuba. 
Investigative journalist Guy Jean-Allard reports, via TeleSur, that 
Ralph Nodarse – ex-Cuban owner of Channel 6 in San Pedro Sula, 
Honduras – and arms-and-drug trafficker Rafael Hernández Nodarse are 
knee deep behind he coup-plotters in Honduras. The latter aided and 
abetted Posada Carriles to hide out in Panama in 2004. 

There was likewise a strong nexus between the Honduras government and 
military and the 1980s Iran-Contra 
drugs-for-arms-for-Nicaraguan-paramilitaries scandal, where much of 
the illegal covert US cocaine smuggling operation was headquartered 
during the Reagan and Bush Senior presidencies. 

The government of Venezuela has accused that former State Department 
official and anti-Castro ex-Cuban Otto Reich is involved with the 
current coup regime in Honduras. Reich, at State during the 2002 coup 
in Venezuela, was the US official that called ambassadors from 
throughout Latin America into his office when the coup was taking 
place to instruct them that the US supported the coup and expected the 
same from them (that move backfired when Latin American nations 
delivered the first-ever rebuke to the US via the OAS). He was also at 
State in the mid-1980s heading up Latin American operations and has 
been strongly linked to the cocaine-smuggling activities then. 

Those who think that when the US cuts off funds, as it will surely do 
in the coming days, that the sanctions will starve the Honduran coup 
regime into surrender, are forgetting that in this asymmetrical world 
there are non-government entities – which is to say, organized crime, 
terrorist, and narco-trafficking organizations – that seek a safe 
haven in Central America, so important in the route between the South 
American coca plant and the noses of North America. 

The historic overlap between the ex-Cuban terrorist networks and 
cocaine trafficking is well documented. 

Last night, “president” Micheletti made it clear that his regime seeks 
to run a rogue state, unbeholden to the Democratic Charter of the OAS 
or international law. He is thus setting up an oasis that will prove 
irresistible to large narco-trafficking organizations as a protected 
base of operations, from whom he will extract the funding to make up 
the significant $2.3 billion shortfall caused by economic sanctions 
against his coup regime, plus additional “tips” to line the pockets of 
all who share in his power structure. 

This opens up a new chapter not only in Latin American governmental 
history, but also in the drug war. It was clear that when Plan Mexico 
began its assault along the US-Mexico border that certain trafficking 
organizations would simply move to other geographic spaces through 
which to operate (and thus all the carnage and depravation of human 
rights cause by Plan Mexico would end up having zero impact stemming 
the flow of cocaine). The only question - to where? - has now been 
answered. 

Now enters the Honduras coup "government" in its bid to become the 
cocaine trafficking capital of the hemisphere, the new gangster 
regime. 

Update: This AP report sheds some light on the honesty or dishonesty 
of coup "president" Micheletti: 

Micheletti's government is so eager to find a friend that it announced 
it had been recognized by Israel and Italy — surprising the 
governments of those countries. Italy withdrew its ambassador to 
protest the coup, and Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor 
said: "All rumors about Israeli recognition of the new president are 
wholly unfounded." 

And contrary to Micheletti's assertion, Interpol on Friday released a 
statement saying it had not received any request to issue an arrest 
warrant for Zelaya. 

In other words, he's just making it up as he goes along, apparently 
unaware that in a world of globalized communications such false claims 
can be shot down rather quickly. Maybe he was too hasty in blocking 
Internet access in his own land? 

Update II: President Manuel Zelaya just broadcast an audio message to 
the people of Honduras, aired on Telesur, confirming that he returns 
tomorrow, Sunday, to his country, and urging the people to go to the 
international airport in Tegucigalpa to join him in his return (you 
can watch Telesur's livestream at this link, which has been showing 
frequent images of the massive marches from distinct points heading 
toward the airport already). Zelaya also stressed his appeal that the 
people arrive unarmed and subscribe to "nonviolence," even if coup 
forces turn violent against them. 

Update III: Telesur reports at 12:40 (hour Tegucigalpa) that the mass 
peaceful march against the coup is now just one kilometer from the 
airport, its destination. 

Update IV: Brazil Press Agency (Agência Brasil) estimates the crowd 
size of the anti-coup march to be"close to 50,000," and it's still a 
day before its culmination tomorrow. The television images certainly 
suggest a crowd of at least that size, too. 

The coup regime already has a new problem: whether try to enforce its 
"curfew" (suspension of constitutional rights) tonight as such a large 
group of citizens remains surrounding the airport in anticipation of 
the return of their president. (The Coup "Congress" just extended the 
state of siege a second time, now through Tuesday morning.)