Paraguay's Coup, the US's Weak Response

There's a feeling of deja vu about this. Another coup in the Americas, another golpe de estado displaces a left leaning president, another opportunity for the US to shy away from swift condemnation. This time the coup is in Paraguay. This time the US is assessing how other nations react to the coup.

The LA Times reports:

The governments of South America have united to punish Paraguay for removing President Fernando Lugo on Friday, suspending the country’s membership in regional organizations for what some leaders are calling a coup.

When news spread that the Paraguayan Senate had voted to oust the left-leaning former Catholic bishop, widespread condemnation came quickly from leaders in a region with bad memories of dictatorships and democratic instability. Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner said her government would not recognize the new government formed by Federico Franco, who served as Lugo’s vice president before turning against him.

“Argentina will not validate the coup d’etat in Paraguay,” Kirchner said. “This is about more than Lugo.... This is a definitive attack on institutions and a replay of situations we had thought were totally forgotten.”

For all of Latin America’s varied ideological stripes, the negative response was surprisingly unanimous. Left-wing governments in Venezuela and Ecuador announced they’d cut off shipments of oil. Chile’s conservative government pulled its ambassador from the country. Colombia’s president, Miguel Santos, issued a statement saying there may have been an “abuse” of the proceedings. And regional powerhouse Brazil has put forward the possibility of further sanctions against Asuncion.

Many details about the legalisms underlying the "parliamentary coup" are here (great video). Long story short:

Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo has been ousted in what he has described as a parliamentary coup. On Friday, the Paraguayan Senate voted 39-to-4 to impeach Lugo, saying he had failed in his duty to maintain social order following a recent land dispute which resulted in the deaths of six police officers and 11 peasant farmers. A former priest, Lugo was once called the "Bishop of the Poor" and was known for defending peasant rights. Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Chile and Uruguay have all condemned Lugo’s ouster, but the question remains whether the Obama administration will recognize the new government.

Mexico, as well, has condemned the coup: “[E]ven if the political judgment took place according to the procedures established in the Paraguayan Constitution, Mexico considers that the proceedings did not give ex-President Lugo the time and space needed for the defense he had a right to.”

And the US? What says the US about yet another coup in the Americas? Will the US take a strong position for democracy in this hemisphere? Will the US condemn the golpe de estado and refuse to recognize the golpistas' government? Will the US cut off military aid? Will the US act to express its view that democracy should be supported?

Well, maybe, maybe, quisas, quisas, quisas.

U.S. State Department representative Victoria Nuland said on Monday that Washington is “quite concerned about the speed of the process used for this impeachment in Paraguay."

And she also made one thing abundantly clear: the US is not going to step into the lead on this. Or condemn the coup. Or take swift action. No. The US is going slowly and cautiously to assess the situation. The US is going to watch what others do. AFP reports:

Nuland said that the United States had also taken note that Paraguay's new leadership has committed to going ahead with upcoming elections.

The State Department also revealed that one day before his impeachment, Lugo met with the US ambassador to Paraguay, James Thessin. It said that the meeting was at Lugo's request and did not offer further details.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke over the weekend to regional power Brazil's foreign minister, Antonio Patriota, as the United States determines its reaction, Nuland said.

Nuland declined to say whether the United States would back possible moves to oust Paraguay from the Organization of American States when the Washington-based body holds a special meeting.

"I think we look forward to seeing how much unity there is there in the OAS on next steps," Nuland said.

The OAS is meeting today. And the US will "see[] how much unity there is" before taking further steps. If the news reports are any reflection of other nations' reactions, there's quite a lot of "unity." There's really not a lot to assess here.

Meanwhile, there are these additional details about the US's caution:

The US has not determined the ouster of Paraguay's President Fernando Lugo by impeachment as a coup in the South American nation but is closely following the events there, the US State Department has said.

Responding to a question about whether Washington has determined the impeachment constitutes a coup, spokesperson Victoria Nuland said: "We have not."

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez described the ouster a "coup", as Lugo was forced out and his deputy Federico Franco was sworn in as new president following the Paraguayan Senate's vote Friday in favour of impeaching Lugo on charges of "poorly discharging his duties", Xinhua reported.

Nuland also said that Washington has not made a decision about whether to recall its ambassador to Paraguay for consultations, as most Latin American governments have done....

She said Washington was consulting with "a broad cross-section" of its partners in the Organisation of American States and "taking stock of what our reaction will be."

One thing is sure. Paraguay is the poorest nation in South America. It has the most unequal distribution of wealth. It is still suffering from the legacy of Stroessnerismo. Lugo was committed to land reform, though he was unable to produce on that promise because of the fragility of his governing coalition and the power of the opposition. And now, those who opposed all land reform, those who opposed measures to fight poverty, those who most benefited from inequalities in wealth and income, those who benefit the most from Paraguay's hacienda system and its massive exports of soy and beef, have again assumed the reins. The coup is a clear step away from reform. And democracy. And the US should condemn it.

Honduras: Remember That Coup?

You know. The one where agents of Roberto Micheletti seized duly elected President Manual Zelaya at gun point, put him on a plane in his pajamas, and flew him out of the country in June, 2009? Remember that? Remember how most countries, except the US, refused to accept the November, 2009 Honduran presidential election because the coup remained in power and Zelaya hadn't been restored to his office on election day? Remember how after the election the US Government told us that was no big deal, that it would recognize the new Porfirio Lobo government anyway, and we should all move on, there was nothing to see? Have we forgotten all of that? Have we forgotten that Manual Zelaya found refuge in the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa in September, 2009, and that he's still there, still confined in the embassy?

Porfirio Lobo is supposed to be sworn in as President of Honduras on Wednesday, January 27. And today's news, which you probably wouldn't otherwise have heard about, is about the failure of democracy in Honduras:

Ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya has accepted a deal to go to the Dominican Republic this week when his four-year term ends and his predecessor is sworn in, his top political adviser said.

Zelaya said that he will return "when there is a process of reconciliation".

The ousted president said he can leave as an ordinary citizen on the 27th, leaving the Brazilian embassy where he has been in refuge since last September when he returned to Honduras....snip

Except for the United States, most of the other nations refuse to recognize the November elections as legitimate because the balloting took place under the regime of the puchistas, coup d'etat government.

Costa Rican president, Oscar Arias, ...said he would not attend the Lobo swearing in ceremony on the 27th.

source.

So it's over. The golpe goes unavenged. Democracy in this hemisphere is at its most perilous because a coup might not be fought. And, of course, the right wing in the US continues to scream that despite the US's complete betrayal of Manual Zelaya, the US is being too cozy with Hugo Chavez and events in Honduras somehow prove it.

If there was a "teachable moment" before or after the Honduras golpe de estado, about democracy in this hemisphere and the U.S.'s relationship to it, we've apparently forgotten what it might have been. 2010 in Honduras is looking a lot like 1910.

Turn The World Upside Down

To no one's particular surprise, the Honduran Congress voted today not to restore duly elected and deposed President Manual Zelaya to power. The vote wasn't even close. And of course, the United States immediately expressed its half-hearted disappointment at the vote. Once again, the golpistas win, democracy loses, the US goes back to its early 20th century stance in the hemisphere, and life lurches on in Honduras. Democracy is a big loser. As is the stability of elected governments in this hemisphere.

Reuters reports:

The United States is "disappointed" that the Honduran Congress voted not to allow the reinstatement of ousted President Manuel Zelaya, a U.S. State Department official said on Thursday.

Honduran lawmakers resisted international pressure and voted 111 to 14 on Wednesday not to allow Zelaya's return to power after he was toppled in a June coup....

The Honduran lawmakers were deciding Zelaya's fate as part of a U.S.-brokered deal between the deposed leftist and the country's de facto leaders who took power after the coup....

"We're disappointed by this decision since the United States had hoped that Congress would have approved his return," Valenzuela told reporters.

Of course, the Honduran Congress voted against Zelaya. The Congress was golpista dominated and had supported the arrest of Zelaya at gun point at the end of June, his being transported in his pajamas to an airplane, and his being unceremoniously driven from the country that elected him. Anybody who thought the vote could go another way was in dreamland. And that includes the US who brokered a deal that let this golpista dominated Congress, a co-participant in the golpe de estado, have any say in the matter.

And then we have this past Sunday's election which was administered by the golpistas:

Opposition candidate Porfirio Lobo won Sunday's presidential election, which had been scheduled before the coup.

The United States quickly recognized Lobo's victory but said it was only one step toward restoring democracy. U.S. officials praised Lobo for vowing to form a government that will help reconcile issues in Honduras.

The United States has alienated itself from Latin American powerhouses like Argentina and Brazil, which refuse to recognize the election because it was organized by a de facto government.

Presumably the other steps to restoring democracy included the restoration of Manual Zelaya to his presidency. A move blocked by congress, and previously blocked by the Supreme Court. Referral to the Supreme Court was also part of the brilliant deal brokered by the US. That would be the Supreme Court that issued the arrest warrant for Manual Zelaya and presumably approved his deportation.

I've commented before about the US's willingness to accept this past week's election as a solution to the problem in Honduras. I think that this decision actually imperils elected, democratic governments throughout the hemisphere. It means that there are exceptions to the US's support of those who are democratically elected, the main exception being when the US disagrees with the policies and alliances of the elected Government. If the elected Government agrees on any issues with Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales, Michele Bachelet, any of the other left of center governments in the hemisphere, it had better be careful. Very careful. In that case, the US will not insist that the democratically elected government be restored in the event of a military coup.

Democracy, it seems, is for places the US agrees with. Afghanistan had a fraudulent election, but the US will support its government as if it were democratically elected with 30,000 more troops. Ditto Iraq. Honduras had a fair election when it elected Manual Zelaya. Venezuela had a fair election when it elected Hugo Chavez. The democratic selection of those government's, however, just isn't important.

This turns the world upside down. And when you look at it from the southern hemisphere, there are substantial reasons for concern.

Join me in the western hemisphere as seen from the south.

Honduras: Same As It Ever Was

Today there are presidential elections in Honduras. The US says that it doesn't matter that the golpista government of Roberto Micheletti is still in control despite international condemnation, that Manual Zelaya, the democratically elected president, is still stuck in asylum in the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa, and that Brazil and Venezuela have announced that they will not recognize today's election results. Nor does it matter that the US originally denounced the coup, cut off non-military aid, and demanded the immediate reinstatement of Zelaya. All of that, amigos, is stuff you're supposed to forget about. Just forget it. Yeah, after today, democracy will be magically restored in Honduras via an election. And we're back to the same old same old. The power of El Norte continues, the maquiladoras make Fruit of the Loom for export, the bananas are back on the shelves, and the military puts its boot on the throat of anyone in Honduras who complains about the lack of democracy. It's 1910 all over again.

The AP reports:

A new Honduran president chosen Sunday faces the challenge of defending his legitimacy to the world and to his own people, who are bitterly divided by Central America's first coup in more than 20 years.

Porfirio Lobo and Elvin Santos, two prosperous businessmen from the political old guard [both of whom support the golpistas], are the front-runners. But their campaigns have been overshadowed by the debate over whether Hondurans should cast ballots at all in a vote largely shunned by international monitors.

Manuel Zelaya, the left-leaning president ousted in a June 28 coup, is urging a boycott, hoping overwhelming abstention will discredit the election. As polls opened Sunday, he vowed the United States would regret its decision to support the vote.

"Abstention will defeat the dictatorship," Zelaya told Radio Globo from the Brazilian Embassy, where he took refuge after sneaking back into the country from his forced exile Sept. 21. "The elections will be a failure. the United States will have to rectify its ambiguous position about the coup."

The US's "ambiguous position about the coup" isn't all that ambiguous. Especially in historical context. The US has said explicitly it will support the government elected in this election. Period. It just doesn't matter to the US government that is imposing democracy in Iraq, Afghanistan, and who knows where else, that there be actual democracy in its own hemisphere. That would require the restoration of Manual Zelaya and an election supervised internationally. Instead, we have an election supervised by the golpistas and their military. One can only wonder why US warships have not arrived off shore to preserve order and democracy.

The word from the streets isn't ambiguous at all:

"The best thing for this country is not to vote, to show the world, the United States, which stabbed us in the back and betrayed us," said Edwin Espinal, whose 24-year-old wife, Wendy, died of from asthma complications a day after soldiers hurled tear gas to disperse protesters demanding Zelaya's return.

There is, of course, the expected golpistas' repression. Narconews reports:

The free speech necessary to guarantee free elections is not the message being transmitted to the resistance front. Intimidation, torture, illegal detentions and in extreme cases assassinations are being carried out to prevent mass mobilizations on Election Day. The National Front Against the Coup D’état has encouraged all week a ‘popular curfew’ on Election Day to prevent clashes with the opposition. The Center for the Investigation and Promotion of Human Rights in Honduras (CIPRODEH), has documented aggression directly from the police and the military towards nearly all human rights groups working in Honduras.

And now, hypnotically, the promise that the US under Obama would have a new relationship with Latin America, one in which democracy would be fostered and coups would be discouraged, one in which the oligarchies would not be permitted to exploit and repress poor people, one in which popular leaders could be elected even if they disagreed with El Norte and not be the immediate objects of golpes de estado, those promises will be forgotten. They will be erased from your memories. And life as we knew it in 1910 will resume.

Honduras: A Sign That The Coup Has Won

I know, I know. I'm hypersensitive, I've lost my sense of humor, I'm out of touch with common reality. I'm making mountains out of mole hills. And I sound angry.

All of that about me might be so, but today's Washington Post article about Honduras seems to me to be a sign that the coup has won, as far as the Trad Media are concerned, and that deserves at least brief mention here. Put another way, I don't think you're going to read more about Honduras in the Trad Media until the end of November when the presidential election is held there.

The point of the article in the Washington Post, if I may distill it for you, is that in Banana Republics, roughly defined as all countries in Central America, including Honduras, El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua, where Spanish is spoken, people would rather talk about futbol than politics. And that's how it is, the article tells us. So even if politics at the moment means living with the jackbooted foot of the oligarchy and its US armed military standing truculently on your neck, you still smile and you talk instead about futbol. As bad as things might be in Honduras, as undemocratic and repressive as things might be, as poor as the people are, as oppressive as the golpe de estado is, well, things just can't be all that bad. And why so? Because just like in normal circumstances, Hondurans can still be happy about futbol. Let's let them continue to be happy.

Bring on the stereotypes. Bring on old clips of the Frito Bandito. Bring on anecdotes of laziness. Bring on the claim that the people of Honduras are happy and that they don't really care that their democratic government has been overthrown by a coup d'etat. After all, isn't their national team going to the World Cup?

This is offensive. Especially because the coup continues in full force. And shows no signs of ending. And because nobody, that's right, nobody has a clue about how to end the coup.

On October 14, Honduras made the World Cup finals in South Africa, when its team beat El Salvador and the US beat Costa Rica. This is Honduras's first World Cup finals since 1982, so it's a big deal if you care about futbol. And, of course, the golpistas, who are in charge of the country and its military, have tried to use this event to their advantage, to capitalize on it. They even declared a national holiday.

A bus carrying the triumphant team to visit Honduras' patron saint at Tegucigalpa's cathedral after the win made an abrupt detour to the presidential palace where [interim president and chief golpista Roberto] Micheletti has set up his government. They were paraded on a state-controlled television channel and Micheletti declared a national holiday.

"We had no idea the bus was going to the presidential palace, we thought it was headed to the church," [midfielder Elvis] Turcios said.

The head of the national team selection committee, Jose Ferrari, said he did not make the decision to take the players to Micheletti but that it was practical not political because crowds overwhelmed the church waiting for their arrival.

But Ferrari is the owner of the largest media outlets in Honduras and a Micheletti-backer, and some suspect it was a deliberate political play.

"Some suspect?" Yeah, that would be me. I suspect it. I consider the non-denial from Ferrari utterly laughable, especially because the TV cameras were at the palace waiting for the event and the videos were then run on whose TV station?

Meanwhile, the mother of the team's captain made an opposing gesture of support for the rightfully elected, deposed president Manual Zelaya, who remains in asylum in the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa:

"All of the team's directors are part of the coup, they wanted to use it for their own benefit," said Flor Guevara, a devout Zelaya supporter and the mother of team captain Amado.

Guevara asked her son to autograph a team shirt for Zelaya, which made it past soldiers into the embassy where the toppled leader held it up for photos. And Zelaya's team is keen to portray players as political as well as sporting heroes.

"I know there are players resisting the coup ... many couldn't speak out," his daughter told local newspapers.

Guevara said her gift to Zelaya was personal and not meant to reflect the political views of her son.

All of this was dutifully reported by the Washington Post.

What conclusion do I draw from this reportage? I think the Trad Media in the US are now finished with that Banana Republic Honduras and its 21st century coup. I think that they now realize that the problem of restoring democracy is intractable, that the golpistas are utterly intransigent, and that Manual Zelaya, the rightfully elected president, has no discernible route to being reinstated in his presidency. More important, none of the governments and international organizations who made Zelaya's reinstatement the first priority in restoring democracy to Honduras has a clue of how to accomplish this first step. So, faced with a standoff, the Trad Media are done. Finished. There's nothing else for them to say. Except that things aren't so bad in Honduras because there's futbol. And the World Cup.

The story is now going to die, and in November we'll be told that the election has been held, that there's a new, democratically elected president, who was not put in place by the coup, and that the election was fair enough even though it was conducted by the golpistas during their coup. And eventually, after that election, the controversy will fade in our memory, and the US, and everybody else, will recognize the elected president of Honduras. And we'll all go on. After all, it's just a Banana Republic, and it doesn't really matter to us.