The current ambassador to Honduras, Hugo Llorens, was working (together with former Iran-Contra principal and then-Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Elliot Abrams) as an advisor to Bush II on Venezuela when the 2002 coup against Chavez occurred; at that time, Iran-Contra principal (and "unindicted co-conspirator"), Otto Reich. The Iran-Contra gang had been involved in overthrowing the freely-elected government of Nicaragua during the Reagan era, and Otto Reich's fingerprints are all over the 2002 coup attempt in Venezuela. The Honduran coup follows in important respects the ouster of Aristide from Haiti: the elected President is forcibly deported, and immediately afterwards a phony resignation letter is publicized. Following the Honduran coup, the golpistas ejected the Venezuelan delegation
This all sounds familiar: it is the usual illegal international destabilizations by the usual gang, who had had their way without much consequence in the Reagan years (recall, for example, that Bush I pardoned Abrams and himself oversaw an earlier ouster of Aristide) and again had their way without much consequence in the Bush II years, perhaps being additionally emboldened by the 2000 coup that installed Bush II as US President
When Obama won in November 2008, he got the job of riding a poly-headed Hydra, and the Bush dead-enders in government have been snapping their teeth at their rider ever since
Venezuela coup linked to Bush team
Specialists in the 'dirty wars' of the Eighties encouraged the plotters who tried to topple President Chavez
Observer Worldview
* The Observer, Sunday 21 April 2002 14.30 BST
... Now officials at the Organisation of American States and other diplomatic sources, talking to The Observer, assert that the US administration was not only aware the coup was about to take place, but had sanctioned it, presuming it to be destined for success. The visits by Venezuelans plotting a coup, including Carmona himself, began, say sources, 'several months ago', and continued until weeks before the putsch last weekend. The visitors were received at the White House by the man President George Bush tasked to be his key policy-maker for Latin America, Otto Reich ... Reich is said by OAS sources to have had 'a number of meetings with Carmona and other leaders of the coup' over several months. The coup was discussed in some detail, right down to its timing and chances of success, which were deemed to be excellent. On the day Carmona claimed power, Reich summoned ambassadors from Latin America and the Caribbean to his office. He said the removal of Chavez was not a rupture of democra tic rule, as he had resigned and was 'responsible for his fate'. He said the US would support the Carmona government ...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/apr/21/usa.venezuela El pedigrí del embajador USA en Honduras
JEAN-GUY ALLARD
... La Casa Blanca de George W. Bush captará al astuto Llorens en el 2002 nada menos que como director de Asuntos Andinos del Consejo Nacional de Seguridad en Washington, D.C., lo que lo convierte en principal asesor del presidente sobre Venezuela. Ocurre que el golpe de Estado del 2002 contra Chávez se produce mientras Llorens se encuentra bajo la autoridad del subsecretario de Estado para Asuntos Hemisféricos Otto Reich y del muy controvertido Elliot Abrams ...
http://www.granma.cubaweb.cu/2009/08/01/interna/artic01.htmlOtto Reich’s Fingerprints on Honduras Coup?
Written by Mike Niman War and Peace, World News Aug 19, 2009
U.S. Right Mobilizes to Support Putsch
by Bill Weinberg, World War 4 Report
... Similar claims were made at the emergency session of the Organization of American States (OAS) in Washington DC as the coup went into action. Venezuelan representative Roy Chaderton said: “We have information that worries us. These is a person who has been important in the diplomacy of the US who has reconnected with old colleagues and encouraged the coup: Otto Reich, ex sub-secretary of State under Bush. We know him as an interventionist person…” He cited Reich’s purported involvement in the attempted coup d’etat against Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez in April 2002 ... In 2001, President Bush used a recess appointment to make Reich assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere, bypassing strong Congressional opposition. In 1987, Reich had been investigated by Congress for illegal activities in support on Nicaragua’s right-wing Contra guerrillas. In April 2002, the New York Times confirmed that on the morning the Venezuelan putsch went into action, Reich spoke by telephone with Pedro Carmona, the conservative businessman who would be installed as de facto president for the two days before the coup collapsed. The account claimed Reich coached Carmona on how to handle the coup, urging him not to dissolve the National Assembly. (Carmona did, cited as a key factor in the coup’s failure.) In January 2003 the White House quietly moved Reich over to the presidential staff as special envoy to Latin America rather than face Congressional opposition to his re-appointment as assistant secretary of state ...
http://dailycensored.com/2009/08/19/otto-reichs-fingerprints-on-honduras-coup/Hugo Llorens and the Honduran lab
Wednesday, 15 July 2009 23:59
By Elíades Acosta Matos
... Cuban-born Hugo Llorens, who has admitted ‘having participated in meetings where coup plans were discussed before the kidnapping of President Zelaya,” a close collaborator to Otto Reich, Roger Noriega and Elliot Abrams, is an ambassador appointed by Bush. He is one of the many neoconservative moles who remained imbedded in the bowels of the “government of change” that was installed in the United States on Jan. 20 precisely so that nothing might change ...
http://progreso-weekly.com/2/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1087:hugo-llorens-and-the-honduran-lab&catid=40:lastest-news&Itemid=59Honduras orders Venezuelan diplomats expelled
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-07-22 11:31
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2009-07/22/content_8458611.htmUS Ambassador Hugo Llorens Discloses Secrets of the Honduran Coup
Washington’s Man in Tegucigalpa Met Friday Morning with Human Rights Observers in What He Termed an Intimate Conversation
Narco News
August 15, 2009
By Belén Fernánde
... The Global Exchange delegation pursued the theme of education or lack thereof by interrogating Llorens as to the continued training of Honduran troops at the School of the Americas (SOA) while military and police repression occurred in the streets of Honduras. Llorens triumphantly announced that the SOA no longer existed; when delegation member Allan Fisher provided the updated acronym of the school, WHINSEC—standing for Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation—Llorens refined his answer and said that he didn't think counterinsurgency was much of a curricular focus in such institutions. The possibility that Llorens' confusion was due to a traditional conflation of democracy and counterinsurgency in certain geographic zones was supported by his announcement that he and Henshaw had for the past several decades dedicated their careers to supporting democracy in Latin America. WHINSEC was again brought up when Llorens was asked what would happen if the San José Accord mediated by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias did not succeed in resolving the Honduran political impasse. Llorens replied: "Well, the US has a lot of options," to which Andrés Conteris suggested that one of them be the suspension of Honduran troops from US military schools. Llorens in turn informed us that the troops in question were not subject to suspension based on the fact that they were already in the pipeline; the issue of whether Zelaya had not already been in the pipeline as well was not addressed ...
http://globalexchange.org/countries/americas/honduras/6260.htmlWednesday, August 26, 2009
Is he or isn't he? maybe Hugo Llorens knows
... This morning, Honduras' El Heraldo published that "it has leaked out that the US ambassador, Hugo Llorens, will not return to the country by order of the State Department." The same language was then echoed by Radío América. But Mexico's El Financiero begs to differ: their article cites an unnamed "spokesperson" for the US State Department saying
The US has not recalled its ambassador in Honduras. We continue to believe that the presence of our ambassador in Honduras in these moments can contribute more to the final result that we are all seeking ...
http://hondurascoup2009.blogspot.com/2009/08/is-he-or-isnt-he-maybe-hugo-llorens.html