Tuesday, September 01, 2009

Terra nostra


The Honduran Coup And US Involvement
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U.S. Involvement

The U.S. State Department freely admitted it had consulted with the perpetrators prior to the coup (Wall Street Journal, 6/29/09). With the U.S. as Honduras' largest trading partner, its army heavily subsidized by the U.S., and some of the coup leaders including the head of the military trained in the U.S. School of the Americas, at least some tacit involvement in the coup by U.S. is evident. The popular saying among Latin Americans is "The Honduran army breathes through the noses of its U.S. advisers."

But the world is a different place than it was in 1954 with the CIA-backed coup in Guatemala or even the Nixon-Kissinger coup in Chile in 1973, which brought the reign of terror under Pinochet to Chile. Attempted coups with U.S. backing against democratically elected and popular leaders failed in Venezuela in 2002 and in Bolivia in 2008 (but succeeded in Haiti in 2004).

Internationally the coup in Honduras has received universal approbation. The United Nations and the Organization of American States have both unanimously condemned the illegal coup and called for the immediate restoration of the constitutional government.
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