WASHINGTON ON MAJOR OFFENSIVE IN LATIN AMERICA

[Joanne98]

Will post later today on this subject - I'm putting together some major figures ($$$) that evidence a heightened focus of US-funding - defense and diplomacy/democracy promotion - in Latin America for 2010.....

stay tuned.


PS: President Zelaya still remains at the Nicaraguan border while the coup regime banks on the passage of time allowing for their complete consolidation - at least enough to make it to the November elections. Zelaya's wife and family still remain detained by the regime's police and army forces, who had previously attempted to deceive them into crossing the border and then face expatriation - in other words, the coup regime was trying to get them out of the country and not allow them back in. Luckily, Zelaya's family realized the plan before it was fully executed, and so they remain on the other side of the border in Honduras.

The Spanish government has fully condemned the coup regime and called for the European Union to prohibit all coup regime representatives from travel to Europe.

Meanwhile, the visas "revoked" by the US State Department that belonged to 4 Hondurans were just diplomatic visas. This is standard procedure considering the individuals no longer work for the Zelaya government, which technically is the only Honduran government accredited with the State Department. Tourist visas for these individuals, however, have not been revoked, which means they are still free to travel to the US. No ban has been placed on members of the coup regime to prohibit entry to the US. That is the key. The mere revocation of diplomatic visas is by no means a sign of US pressure on the coup regime. It was minimal effort to comply with the law.
Posted by Eva Golinger at 8:50 AM

http://www.chavezcode.com/2009/07/washington-on-major-offensive-in-latin.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. Glad Eva has explained the lifting of coup leaders' diplomatic visas is worthless

since they are still free to come here on tourists' visas, anyway.

Uh, "fool us once, shame on — shame on you. Fool us — you can't get fooled again...."

Thanks for the real story on these damned visas, and the pathetic lack of honorable response to the illegal violent kidnapping of an elected President, and government grab in Honduras.

[Wilms]

2. See "Lanny Davis"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6183627

[Joanne98]

3. More......The Honduran Miltary Coup

Here's a translation of Carlos Fazio's hard hitting analysis of the Honduran Coup. The original, in Spanish of course, is at http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2009/07/27/index.php?section=opinion&article=019a1pol. It was in the July 27, 2009 issue of La Jornada, p.19. The translation is by William S. Stone [e-mail], former director of the Oaxaca program of the School for International Training. William wrote, for those of us fixated on Oaxaca,

Although I realize article ... is not directly related to Oaxaca, I still feel that it is of critical importance. The same issues that the people of Honduras are facing with the present coup, were those which Oaxacans faced in the 2006 conflagration. The power struggle that is going on there is all too similar to the power struggle that Oaxaca faced in 2006 and continues to face to this day. In both cases, the people's wishes were shunted aside by the neo liberals in control. In both cases, raw military/police power was used to squelch the will of the people. Finally, in both cases, against considerable odds, the people continue to fight. So, I definitely think that the Honduran situation is relevant to the Oaxacan reality.
Sincerely,
William Stone

Obama and the Cunning Micheletti


The oligarchical-military coup in Honduras represents an Obama-Clinton Administration strategy which is designed to push back the advances of democratically elected governments so that its imperial power can be maintained and consolidated in some “hot zones” of the planet. Such a strategy operates from a several prong political base, combining direct military intervention (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Irak) with clandestine and destabilizing operations (Venezuela, Iran, Honduras, Bolivia, Ecuador) and a two way diplomacy, that seeks to utilize the instruments and initiatives inherited by Barack Obama from the Bush Administration.

The classist attack on the weakest Latin American link was undertaken to turn back the democratic government of Manuel Zelaya so that a new de facto client regime could be imposed in the empire´s back yard. The coup hopes to reinforce the conservative militarized pole of the Plan Puebla Panama/Merida Initiative, led by Mexico and Colombia. The progressive advances in Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador complicated Washington´s geopolitical plans, that sought to bring an interventionist platform in South America into line focusing upon hydrocarbons in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador and the immense Amazon and the Guarani water resources. In that sense, it was also a blow against ALBA, the Bolivian Alternative for the Americas (la Alternativa Boliviana para las Americas).

To carry out the conspiracy, the State Department and Pentagon used the Honduran military high command that has been structurally penetrated by US security and intelligence organisms. The coup´s general, Romero Vázquez, its cunning adviser Roberto Micheletti and the founder of the 1980´s squadrons of death Billy Joya Améndola, were “exemplary students” in the US School of the Americas (la Escuela de las Américas). The military coup participants acted like an occupying army in their own country. But Honduras is also occupied by the United States which controls the Soto Cano (or Palmerola) military base where the force of the Tarea Conjunta Bravo can be found, consisting of half a thousand military personnel with advance espionage and interventionist equipment including air combat equipment such as the HU-60, the Black Hawk and the CH-47 Chinook.

That base is part of a network of Advanced Operating Posts (FOL) of the Pentagon, integrated by Comalapa in El Salvador, Guantánamo in Cuba, Arruba, Curazo and Manta, in the Ecuadorian Pacific. Similar to Ecuador´s president´s decision about the Manta base, Zelaya had told the White House of his intention to convert Soto Cano into an international commercial airport which would be financed by Alba and Petro-Caribe. In substitution for Manta, the Pentagon succeeded in convincing Álvaro Uribe to put (Colombian) military bases at its disposal in Palanquera (Cundinamarca) Apiay (Meta) and Malambo (Atlántico) which will convert Colombia into the Israel of Latin America.

The hawks in the Department of State and the Pentagon also fell back upon their old connections with the primitive Honduran oligarchy which controls Congress and the Supreme Court and they (also) counted upon the legitimization of Cardenal Oscar Rodríguez Madariaga, Archbishop of Tegucigalpa. What we witnessed, then, was a civic-military coup of US design, with the consensus of the fascist powers..
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/george-salzman/2009/07/honduran-miltary-coup