Reply #53: And here is Exhibit A.

[EFerrari]

This is a press release from COHA, the Council on Hemispheric Affairs. It's a pretty good rundown of what the US did lately in Honduras -- help the oligarchy get rid of a progressive, reforming, democratically elected president because he took small steps to protect working people. Caution: it is critical of Obama.

________________

Washington’s Invented Honduran Democracy
Friday, 23 April 2010, 12:47 pm
Press Release: Council on Hemispheric Affairs

Washington’s Invented Honduran Democracy

by COHA Staff


• With the wave of killings now besieging the country, the White House will be hard put to provide credible evidence that it has helped found a democracy in Honduras

• It should come as no surprise that the Obama administration’s disappointing Honduran policy has done little to discourage the seventh murder of a Honduran journalist in recent days, making the tiny Central American country the world’s murder capital when it comes to gunning down media professionals with impunity.

Since the constitutionally-elected government of President Manuel Zelaya was overthrown by a military coup on June 28, 2009, Washington has dragged its feet and repeatedly has acted as an apologist in first defending the Honduran de facto government of Roberto Micheletti and its successor, the government of Porfirio Lobo Sosa. Although the (U.S. based) National Democratic Institute’s characterized Lobo’s election as democratic, it was boycotted by dozens of anti-coup candidates, carried out under conditions of state-sanctioned violence, and the UN, EU, OAS and Carter Center refused to send monitors to Honduras to evaluate the quality of the elections. Despite the U.S. position of glossing over the non-democratic aspects associated with U.S. policy towards Honduras, most of the world has established a cordon sanitaire around the tainted heir of the coup government and has blocked military, financial, and diplomatic ties to it.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO1004/S00454.htm

____________

I submit that the next wave of "illegals" will be from Honduras. If we want that to stop, we have to stop blowing up Latin American democracies and their efforts at reform. There is no way we can stop illegal immigration AND continue to protect corporate interests from workers' rights in Latin America.

Thanks to Judi Lynn for posting this article in the LatAm forum.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=405x35074