Posted by Al Giordano - November 2, 2009 at 7:18 pm
Al Giordano
With the agreed-upon November 5 deadline for restitution of Honduras President Manuel Zelaya approaching, the White House has just sent in a big gun. US Labor Secretary Hilda Solis - arguably the most progressive member of the Obama cabinet - was appointed today to be one of four members of the "Verification Commission" that is charged with making sure all sides comply with last Friday's agreement signed in Tegucigalpa to end the coup d'etat.
The agreement's timeline is clear as day:
October 30, 2009
1. Signing and entrance of the Accord into effect.
2. Formal delivery of the Accord to Congress for the effects of Point 5, Regarding the Executive Power.
November 2, 2009
1. Formation of the Verification Commission.
After the signing of this Accord and no later than November 5
1. Formation and installation of the National Unity and Reconciliation Government.
Other members of the verification committee are former Chilean President Ricardo Lagos, President Zelaya's UN Ambassador Jorge Eduardo Reina Idiaquez and coup regime lackey Arturo Corrales Alvarez, who will no doubt be outnumbered by the other three if he tries to join the anti-democracy extremists of the coup regime in stalling implementation of the agreement.
Lagos is a particularly interesting addition to the Verification Commission. In 1972, Chilean President Salvador Allende nominated him as ambassador to the Soviet Union and Congress refused to vote on his nomination. After the 1973 coup d'etat in Chile he was forced into exile to Argentina and then the United States. He returned to Chile to lead the resistance against the coup regime of General Augusto Pinochet, including the successful "vote no" referendum of 1988 that brought down the then fifteen-year-old coup regime.
That the White House chose Secretary Solis - obviously not from the State Department, but a cabinet member on equal footing with Secretary Hillary Clinton - sends a clear message that it means business (and perhaps that the hemming and hawing that characterized State's mixed-message behavior toward the Honduras crisis all summer long has come to its overdue conclusion). Solis is strongly allied with labor union organizations in the US, which have their own alliances with many of the unions that make the backbone of the Honduran Civil Resistance.
In addition to speaking Spanish, both Solis and Lagos know plenty about how civil resistance works and how to combat the stalling tactics of those in power. Solis already bested the stalling tactics of Republicans in the US Congress earlier this year that attempted to block her nomination. Lagos has already dismantled one coup regime. He now gets the chance to dismantle another.
COMMENTS
Nice
Submitted November 2, 2009 - 8:17 pm by Roy Martin
This appears to be very good news. Couldn't help but notice Clinton walking back her position on settlements to something more closely approximating Obama's stated position. Now she's manuevered out of the way on Honduras. Wonder how much longer she'll remain at State. And where does she go from here?
Now if Obama can push Lieberman out of the way, maybe we'll get the meaningful health care reform that Clinton couldn't manage.
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from the Brazilian Embassy in Honduras
Submitted November 2, 2009 - 9:19 pm by andres thomas conteris (not verified)
There is great rejoicing in the selection of Hilda Solis and as part of the Verification Commission of the Accord. Both she and Lagos bring strong commitments to authentic democracy. Their skills will very much be needed to confront the ongoing stalling and deceptive tactics of the coup regime in Honduras. This is a step forward for President Obama to earn something already granted: the Nobel Peace Prize. Now if we would stop letting the military-industrial complex keep fueling the wars in Afghanistan/Pakistan and Iraq, then he will get definitely deserve it.
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VERY interesting
Submitted November 2, 2009 - 9:33 pm by John Slade
I agree with your analysis, Al. Solis not State. I don't envy Obama his job; but this is brilliant, putting her in there. Good delegation and correction of the sloppy corporate Clinton mess.
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For those who might not know
Submitted November 2, 2009 - 9:46 pm by Al Giordano
Andres Tomas Conteris - who posted that comment above - has been inside the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa night and day since September 21.
(That's longer than Noah was in the ark!)
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Could This Just Be The US Making Itself Look Good?
Submitted November 2, 2009 - 10:33 pm by Alci (not verified)
Let's be frank, Zelaya will be reinstated but without any real power, and another puppet will be installed November 29. It will be good to see Micheletti leave with his barbaric attitudes, but it still looks like the Empire was too much for rebels and they need to praise this deal to save some face.
I think Roy is exhibiting too much wishful thinking over Clinton. Her stances ARE the Obama administration's policies. She didn't really backtrack to anything on Israeli settlements, the US has dropped demanding a full freeze, she made a few, more centrist comments because the Arab world ignited in rage over Sunday's more honest backing of Israeli policies. As for "meaningful healthcare reform," it will only cover 2% of the population, here's the link for the doubters: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33564275/ns/po...th_care_reform/
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@ Alci
Submitted November 2, 2009 - 11:28 pm by Al Giordano
Alci - I have long rejected the tendency that everything that happens in the world is "about the US." That's what we call gazing above, when we consider our job to look below and report back what we see and hear.
You just read a comment by someone inside the Brazilian Embassy (with President Zelaya). That comment was far more interesting to me than whatever these turns of events mean about whether the US "looks good" or not.
There are those who view everything through a US-centric lens. On one side, their only concern is that the US "looks good." On another side, their only concern is that the US "looks bad." Both - to me - are equally imperialist, because they take a situation that affects the daily lives, in this case, of 7.5 million Hondurans and make it a soccer ball to be kicked between those two US-centric world views. Although one is pro and another is con, they're still playing the same old game, and by the same old rules. And I frankly feel that an authentic anti-imperialist analysis has to reject both.
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what will happen to the coup plotters?
Submitted November 3, 2009 - 12:06 am by bub (not verified)
Will they ever end up in jail, or exile?
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@ Alci as well
Submitted November 3, 2009 - 12:59 am by John Slade
That post was like a parody, or a template, of silent concen trolling.
Lets be frank - toss aside all possible positive motivation about anything - Alci says. We don't need hope... Al is totally right about the All About US thing. And then there's a spate of US bad, Clinton teh evil, empire empire devoid of any real analysis, and then - SLAM THE OBAMA HEALTHCARE!
It's like you can check off the counter-prop checklist.
Encourage cynicism, check!
Promote simplistic dualist world view, check!
Somehow manage a slam at Obama Healthcare, with link of the day - CHECK!
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Hopeful
Submitted November 3, 2009 - 1:07 am by Arby (not verified)
I hope that Hilda Solis is more progressive than Barack Obama. Labor unions? The people need to get the corporations and special interests out of politics... and their unions.
The fight for Honduras continues. Had Zelaya been disappeared the way Jean-Bertrand Aristide was disappeared, the fight would be over and lost by the good guys, namely the people. The fight isn't over. It just continues and I truly hope that the 'good and decent' people of Honduras find the strength to finish and win it. There are certainly good indications in that regard. I wish more of 'the people' in America and Canada had the gumption that 'the people' in Latin America so often show when faced with bloody corporatocracy shenanigans.
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Al And John
Submitted November 3, 2009 - 2:12 am by Alci (not verified)
I respect your views and you've made some valid points. I just tend to try to stick to a phrase Noam Chomsky uses, "pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will." I am just vouching for staying down to Earth here, not painting the US as simply "evil" or Clinton as such either, but sticking to the reality of geopolitics and history. I know Al has had disagreements with Eva Golinger over certain analysis of the coup, but I think her latest piece is an accurate take on what is happening here, the US is exercising "soft power," here's a link to the piece, I don't want to annoy anyone, but I just feel safe backing my statements with facts or analysis by someone with better credentials than myself: http://www.chavezcode.com/2009/11/honduras...mart-power.html
Latin America is going through an important process of political shifts and change, Venezuela is a major target as was Cuba in the 1960s and so one cannot dismiss the implications of US involvement in what is happening in Honduras. Although every single little problem can't be blamed on the US, and slamming people like Clinton as "evil" would be a childish simplification, the US is still most powerful state in the world and like other powerful states like Russia and China, it is deeply involved in its neighborhood as shown in a great, recent NarcoNews piece on declassified documents dealing with Oaxaca. These people are politicians, the Pentagon is a major force as well, I doubt these people wake up in the morning thinking "gee, I should help the Honduran people because they are suffering." I also don't see much "hope" in Obama's deal with Colombia for seven military installations.
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Thank you Al & John
Submitted November 3, 2009 - 8:04 am by Nancy Chester
I've been coming to the Field long enough that I am getting better at not allowing myself to spin into downers when I read something discouraging. Still it was nice that the two of you righted the ship so quickly.
Nancy
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@ arby
Submitted November 3, 2009 - 8:52 am by Sophie Amrain (not verified)
You are not by any chance another incarnation of alci? You sure sound alike. Get the corporations out of politics? How? As long as corporations exist, they will be political players, that should be obvious. And 'special interests' is a propaganda term of the right to denounce normal people. So why are you using it, together with otherwise very 'revolutionary' vocabulary? Also, do you really think that Hilda Solis will follow her own policy, contrary to Obama? And why would the fight for the people have been over with Zelaya disappearing?
The shakiness of your assumptions is matched by the absolute certainty of your proclamations. No insights possible this way.
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Wait and see
Submitted November 3, 2009 - 9:24 am by Samson (not verified)
Uh, traditionally, the US deciding to send the Secretary of Labor overseas on a diplomatic posting would not be considered 'sending in the big gun.' Instead, it could be taken as a sign of just how little the US supports this agreement. We'll have to wait and see whether she a) truly acts like a progressive in this post (always a good question to ask of Obama and the Democrats), and
how much support the Obama administration really gives her.This could easily be the US setting up this process to fail, and doing so in a way that keeps its foreign policy names and faces out of the way. We'll just have to wait and see.
And .... considering that the US is suffering from the worst unemployment rates since the Great Depression, doesn't the Secretary of Labor have some other things that she aught to be doing these days?
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@John and Al
Submitted November 3, 2009 - 9:30 am by Phoenix Woman (not verified)
The comment in question sounds like it came from a hardcore single-payer advocate. Many of the hardcore single-payer folk have been trying to undermine the public option efforts from the beginning, as they either want SP or nothing.
When they're asked "well okay, so how do we get SP through Congress -- especially when the Congresscritters claiming to back SP start backing away from it once a bill actually comes up for a vote?", they have no answer other than to keep bashing the PO. Ironically enough, a lot of these people are Hillary fans who bash folks like Jane Hamsher for being mean to Hillary; they keep insisting, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, that we'd have SP now if only she were in the White House!
Another irony: One argument the SPers have used is that the PO won't hurt the insurance companies (and with the mandate is in fact a big giveaway to them). Of course, if that were the case, the companies wouldn't be fighting the PO tooth and nail; there is also evidence to show that, thanks to the large role played by the intangible asset "goodwill" on so many insurance companies' balance sheets, their financial position may not be as strong as believed, so the public option may well indeed hurt the insurance companies big-time.
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All about U.S.
Submitted November 3, 2009 - 9:34 am by Ann Cantelow
I agree totally on the ugly all-about-U.S. attitude everywhere where I am, in the U.S., but I sigh and think, it's deeper. There's also the hidden racism inside the country, and beyond or beside that, madness of all the various ways of wanting to deny aid of any kind to people who are unlucky.
I think it's an attitude of, "I've got mine, and I must keep it away safe from everybody- because they're all trying to take it away from me!"
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@ Alci
Submitted November 3, 2009 - 10:27 am by Al Giordano
Alci - While I suppose it is an improvement that Golinger is writing about Honduras rather than, say, picking a fight with a comedian (Michael Moore), having read her latest communiquι I view it as a rewrite of half a dozen other stories she penned in July. The analysis can be summed up as "the Obama administration knew about the coup in advance therefore it was behind the coup."
Truth is, everybody knew about the coup in advance (Narco News published Kristin Bricker's story, "Coup Fears in Honduras," three days before the coup happened!)
It should also be noted that Golinger was on such an obsessive one-track mission last summer to try to prove that Honduras 2009 = Venezuela 2002 (in the latter the US truly was the architect) that she didn't lift her pen once all summer and fall long to report or aid the resistance movement in Honduras. Meanwhile, we published more than 100 hard news stories documenting and giving voice to that resistance.
By fixating so much on the game up above, she became irrelevant to the real struggle going on down below. And there is not a single new "fact" (not even a "factoid"!) in her latest essay that she hasn't published already. It's refried beans.
I'd also say that just as you waded into the health care debate at the end of your first comment, you waded into the US use of Colombian military bases at the end of your second comment. That kind of argument is what I call "the golf ball under the rug." One can stomp on the golf ball but it just pops up somewhere else. The real case you seem to be making is "Obama administration = evil" without any regard whatsoever to what the Honduran people think or feel or the very real consequences for them had there been no agreement signed at all.
Just as the far right has used the Hondurans all summer long as a prop in a geopolitical game laden with Cold War nostalgia, some on the left have done the same. Both have abandoned the Honduran people. Something that can't be said about this newspaper and its journalists, thankfully, as many Hondurans will attest.
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@Al
Submitted November 3, 2009 - 1:39 pm by Alci (not verified)
I fully agree that NarcoNews has done an excellent job in covering the resistance, it has done a great service and that is why I am a daily reader. I'm just raising my arm about certain questions about this deal in Honduras. Golinger makes a good point about Lagos, for example, and his membership in a major right-wing think tank. As Tariq Ali documents in his book "Pirates Of The Caribbean," many of the former freedom fighters of Lagos' generation went totally neoliberal after the fall of the Wall in '89. I'm sure the Honduran people are happy some sort of resolution is now apparent, the average citizen I imagine, is happy with just knowing he/she won't have to sleep in fear of fascist shock troops in the streets, which is more than understandable. All I am saying is that let's not romanticize Obama's role here too much, the US, like any other state, has key geopolitical interests that come first. This isn't about calling someone "evil," but about political reality.
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unions
Submitted November 3, 2009 - 1:50 pm by Michael Lubin (not verified)
@Arby:
If you think labor unions need to get out of politics, you are certainly not a progressive yourself. You sound more like a libertarian.
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@ Alci
Submitted November 3, 2009 - 1:59 pm by Al Giordano
Alci - Fact is, nobody is "pure" enough for some people and when writers start playing games of guilt by association (i.e. Lagos is affiliated with such and such think tank and therefore he can't possibly be against the Honduras coup) you're the same to me as the red-baiting McCarthyists on the right.
The game of conspiracy-theory-connect-the-dots - especially in this era where there are less than six degrees of separation between everyone - is infantile and provides a fantasy view that is very very far from the "reality" you say you're invoking.
Of course, not even Michael Moore would be acceptable to some purity trolls if he had been named to the verification commission!
My story above offered no "romantic notions" or even mentioned President Obama as an individual, other than refer to his administration and White House and the factually true decision to send Solis to Honduras. You don't get to retroactively claim that you were only responding to something that wasn't there in the first place.
Yes, we get it: To some people it is far more important to grind axes than help the Honduran civil resistance, who are apparently seen as only pieces on a chess board to some on the right and the left alike. Oh, if they only would learn some chess strategy to go with such imperial thinking!
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Alci
Submitted November 3, 2009 - 2:51 pm by friggo (not verified)
Alci. Yes, it is true, the good people of Honduras are no longer afraid of the possibility of facing ¨fascist shock troops in the streets¨. For the last 128 days they have had to face an even more frightening reality their very own military and police forces terrorizing them in their own country. Let me ask you this one very simple question, how is one better then the other? Can you answer that? Or will you post another link to a web site filled with PhotoShopped images of ¨ peaceful arrests¨. It seems to me that it is in fact you that has been spewing romantic notions. Put down the post war romance novels & propaganda filled newspapers and wake up!
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Worries vs. Evidence
Submitted November 3, 2009 - 4:30 pm by El Cid (not verified)
While there are indeed occasions on which I worry that the U.S. aims to pursue a grand strategy of rolling back liberal-left governments throughout the hemisphere, partly based on the grossest and dangerous use of the Colombian state-linked narco-paramilitaries and their contacts in groups in many other nations leading separatist and pro-golpist movements (i.e., the Paraguayan one against which the Presidency is rallying supporters to pre-emptively protest), it's harder to come by evidence of certain strategies, so while it may very well be true that there's more to the story than the U.S. siding with the Colombian pro-narco-military side to the exclusion of common sense or ending the civil war, I've little more evidence than that.
These are the kinds of subjects on which it's a good idea to have your antennae out and ready to detect certain types of predictable U.S. and other ideologically oriented, anti-leftist states' involvement, but it's not good to presume or assume before evidence leads you with regard to a specific location and policy.
That said, there are a lot of pro-golpist right wing and oligarchic forces throughout the continent who would be even more active had the U.S. not chosen to oppose the Honduran coup, however tepidly it did so.
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Praxis, not philosophy
Submitted November 3, 2009 - 5:13 pm by Ryan Vaquero (not verified)
Personally, I think that the comments about "what this means" have veered away from what's really relevant in an urgent situation like this ... which is praxical analysis about what NarcoNews readers can be doing right now. Whether or not this is a PR move by the United States seems secondary to the most important thing right now: what are the practical needs of the Honduran resistance, how can internationals provide support to the resistance, what pressure needs to be applied and where?
In cases like this, it is too easy for political actors to assume that the issue isn't important to people and it is too easy for journalists or commentators to think that people don't know what is going on and will accept anything they put out.
So, I think that the resistance movement needs to know that internationals haven't forgotten about them, that they and their struggle for constitutional changes hasn't gone away just because the media is focused on convincing everyone that the crisis is over, people who can financially support the Front should do so (BALASC at balasc.org can help route that money, if people don't know how to do it) and politicans and journalists should get constant reminders that we're out here, we care about what happens next and we're watching them to make sure justice is done here.
The US politicians who have gone out of their way to support the coup regime should feel like there are consequences in this day & age for supporting repressive, illegitimate regimes in Latin America. That's easy enough to convey to them through phone calls and e-mails to them, asking them how they can publicly position themselves along side torturers like Billy Joya or how they can stand with a coup that has been accused of using gang rape as a torture technique, via the testimony of 19 women in a human rights report. Damn it, Jim DeMint's name should be synonymous with death squads and gang rape!
One annoying battle in the information war is on the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal. "Mary Anastasia O'Grady" has declared victory for the coup regime and has come out with a couple editorial pieces on Honduras in the last few days that will make your stomach churn. She is completely care-free when it comes to facts, refers to Hugo Chavez as the "Venezuelan dictator," etc.
I've said lately that I think that the greatest gift that the coup regime has given to the region is focusing international attention on the social movements in Honduras, especially given the history of Honduras as the kind of place where people don't expect a strong social movement with a specific goal. The coup has had the effect of bringing international focus on communities and political/social organizations that previously didn't have that attention.
In San Francisco, for example, the formation of a Latin American solidarity organization received a new sense of urgency because of the coup in Honduras and we used that energy to accelerate the process and make Honduras our first focus as a coalition. We've held a number of fundraisers, protests and gotten media coverage to focus on the Honduran resistance.
Recently, we brought Dr Luther Castillo here, who had spent 4 years building the first hospital in the Garifuna region of Honduras only to have it all be destroyed by the coup regime, who raided the facility and cut off all government funding for it. These specific victims of the coup don't always get a lot of attention but these are the individual stories that form the overall tragedy of Zelaya's ouster. Dr Castillo was able to make a number of media appearances, he visited with sympathetic politicians and once other groups in other areas found out he was coming, they offered to fly him and host him in New York and Los Angeles. He was also able to do fund-raising for his hospital.
The groups that are in the coalition have other offices in other parts of the country -- Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Houston, etc -- and forming a regional solidarity coalition is something that can happen in a lot of places in the US.
As we head into a period of elections in Latin America that will last through 2011 and have a significant impact on the region, mobilizing resources in the US/Europe on behalf of our allies in Latin America is extremely important right now. Right now, everyone recognizes the "21st-century socialist movement" and success of the Foro de Sγo Paulo organizations but a lot of that is up for grabs during the next few years. It'd be very easy to wake up sometime next year and realize that Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Central America, etc have all taken a turn towards the right. I can already feel the ruling elite's spin of a "popular right-wing electoral revolution" in Latin America creeping up my spine.
Unfortunately, the practical reality is that the large protests and organizing that happened against the IMF/WB/US empire's wars were largely financed and supported by anti-Bush forces who have backed off because a Democrat is in office.
I realize this isn't news and that movement has been mostly dead in the water for several years now ... but I do find that this shift is exemplified by Charles Gibson's recent comment on why Cindy Sheehan's anti-war protests weren't receiving as much media coverage now that Obama is in office: "Enough already" was the extent of his analysis.
My point is: if we want to salvage the grass-roots gains of those years, I think one of the best ways to do that is to make sure the social movements in Latin America aren't stifled by upcoming electoral challenges, not to mention brute force attacks like the Honduran coup.
The most useful thing we can take out of quality reporting like we find here at NarcoNews is intel that can inform our own actions to make a difference in the real-world.
Ok, end of rant.
In a related matter, the Latin American right-wing is mobilizing around a recent decision by the Nicaraguan Supreme Court which loosens term limits. Already, the right-wing is comparing the move to the "Venezuelan dictator" and "Zelaya" and we should be on alert to see what they plan to do there. The conservative minority of the Supreme Court has released a statement accusing the Sandinista majority of an "illegal conspiracy" to circumvent the Nicaraguan Constitution. Of course, the situation in Nicaragua is much different and the Sandinistas won't be so easily unseated. A serious protest was held at the US Embassy and the US Ambassador was protested at an event and had to be whisked away to safety, surrounded by guys in full body armor.
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Huh?!
Submitted November 3, 2009 - 8:42 pm by Arby (not verified)
To the strange people who don't know me but are snipping at me: I'm who I claim to be. Arby is not my real name. But if you clicked on my link, instead of firing off easy accusations, you'd know I'm not Alci. And you'd learn my real name. I have no real problem with using it, but I also like to exercise a minimum, not a maximum, of caution when online, just to keep yahoo trouble makers away. I know I can't stop serious, tech savvy, trouble makers from causing me trouble.
One tiny post and some people not only know what I'm all about, but they get it completely wrong. 'If' I was rightwing - which you cannot logically derive from my posts - then you'd be right to suppose that my reference to 'special interests' had a rightwing meaning. Did it ever occur to you that just because the Right screws up language, that doesn't mean that it isn't still useful and that it can't be used as it should be? Sheesh! How about the lobbiests for insurance industries and medical companies right now making health care reform that would actually benefit (all of) the American people? If I called them special interests would you snippers interpret that as indicating that I'm rightwing?
There's not much online that I can point to that will persuade people about my non rightwing credentials, other than my blog and posts (using a shark avatar) you'll find on a half dozen websites (Toronto Star, Globe And Mail, CBC, In These Times, Canadian Dimension Magazine, Briarpatch Magazine, Rabble.ca, TVO's The Agenda), but I'll toss this out as well, since it's rather meaty: Dominico Pacittii, an Italian linguist and activist, like Chomsky, has interviewed Chomsky a number of times. After reading one such interview, I sent Dominico an email that he quite liked. He invited me to allow him to publish it to his website, which I didn't know about. Here's the link to my letter on Just Response: http://bit.ly/xQNd
You know, I didn't come here for this. I care about what's happening in Honduras.