On Con: Obama dug a deep hole in Honduras by trying to save a Chavez wannabe

Posted on November 21 at 12:16 p.m. ( Suggest removal )

The US has dug a diplomatic crater thanks to its mixed messages and duplicitous actions. After producing the 8-point accord, we then said we would recognize the elections no matter what - giving the green light to backsliding of the Supreme Court and Congress on Zelaya`s reinstatement, and to Micheletti who cynically designated himself head of a one-sided "government of national unity".
The legal justification for Zelaya's removal is not credible. US Congress requested a correction of dangerous flaws in the law library report. So, what was Zelaya guilty of? As president, he gave out free school lunches, milk for babies, pensions for the elderly, energy-saving light bulbs, cheaper public transportation, scholarships for students, and built roads and schools in rural areas. He joined ALBA largely to avoid widespread starvation (under US encouraged free trade, production of rice fell 86% while the price of imported rice rose 20 times). Zelaya is no radical communist. He is a wealthy capitalist businessman and populist politician merely trying to better the lot of his desperately poor people. As a last straw, he tried to hold a non-binding opinion poll on rewriting the constitution (the current one has been revised nearly every year between 1982-2005). What could be more democratic and legal than that? If approved, the long process of drafting a new constitution would go on long after he left office - belying the oft repeated misinformation about extending term limits. If indeed the current constitution outlaws opinion polls, perhaps it isn´t worth saving. Even if Zelaya did commit treason by trying to ask public opinion, he was never tried and was flown out of the country without getting his day in court.
As for the "democratic institutions", since the coup they have inflicted months of terror including: military rule, martial law, a state of siege, serious human rights violations, countless illegal arrests, killings, beatings, kidnappings, nationwide intimidation; live gunfire shot at nonviolent protests, torturing and sodomizing men and gang-raping women, reactivation of death squads, silencing of independent media, suspended civil liberties, habeas corpus, right of assembly, free movement & expression. Human rights organizations report that all of the abuses listed above are still happening each and every day.
As long as this regime holds on to power, no one will recognize the upcoming elections as legitimate. The US risks standing alone in supporting a most undemocratic election process under exceedingly repressive conditions. The argument that you "don´t blame the next guy" is ludicrous if he wins through sham elections held in an atmosphere of violence and repression. President Zelaya must be reinstated in plenty of time in order to establish conditions necessary for clean and fair elections. Otherwise our hemispheric relations and national reputation as a champion of democracy throughout the world will be severely damaged.