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I wasn't familiar with "Swissinfo" but this phrase tells me volumes about the corpo/fascist alignment of their 'news' reports. First of all, the most notorious effort to extend presidential terms (lift term limits) was conducted (is being conducted) by the far rightwing president of Colombia, Alvaro Uribe, who bribed congress members to extend his term of office in behind-the-scenes proceedings. No leftist president has done any such thing. The most well-known effort by the left to lift term limits occurred in Venezuela, where President Hugo Chavez has enjoyed an average 60% approval rating throughout his tenure in office, and where the voters frequently vote on Constitutional issues in highly transparent, aboveboard elections--repeatedly certified by every elections monitoring group on earth. "Swissinfo"--as with the Associated Pukes and all other corpo/fascist 'news' outlets--omits these highly relevant facts, in reporting on recent events in Honduras. The 'meme' is that "leftists" are "dictators" (despite their popularity and obviously--on the facts--honest elections), when in truth it is fascists who have to maneuver illegally (and, in Colombia, with the use of death squads and other extreme intimidation) to stay in power.
In Venezuela, it was the clear choice of the voters to lift term limits on Chavez and other officials (including several rightwing governors). Also, it should be noted that there are several differences between Latin America and the U.S. which we need to understand, in order to evaluate events in Latin America. One is that Constitutions are more fluid and are frequently changed, by popular plebescite. Bolivia and Ecuador in particular have voted for momentous changes in the country through a popular process of re-writing and voting on the Constitution, including the long, long, long-needed acknowledgment of the equal rights of the indigenous (the majority) in Bolivia, and equal rights for women and gays, as well as recognition of the rights of "Mother Nature" ("Pachamama"), in Ecuador. Another--at least in Venezuela, but I believe generally--is that the military is regarded more like our National Guard and our police, than like a standing army (ours) used for foreign wars. Thus, it is not unusual for the military to be mobilized to insure free and fair elections. And a third is "rule by decree"--which is used throughout South America, by which the president is given temporary decree powers by the legislature on specific issues to solve certain problems more quickly than the legislature could do. There are recent instances of both leftist and rightist presidents ruling by decree, with permission of the legislature.
Zelaya apparently does not have the consensus that Chavez's government had, and other leftist governments have had, on term limits--although Honduras is so important as a strategic location (and historical location) for corpo/fascist war planning in Latin America, that I don't trust what the Associated Pukes, et al, are saying about his approval ratings. They could be lying. They have lied before. They could be using skewed polls. He apparently has the support of the labor unions and the peasant farmers. That is the great majority of people in Honduras. So how can he have only a 20% or so approval rating? I don't know. Zelaya is also a late-comer to the vast leftist revolution that has swept South and Central America. Honduras is now surrounded by countries with leftist governments (Guatemala to the north, El Salvador to the west, Nicaragua to the south), and of course exists in a context of the overwhelming leftist trend in South America. I don't know a lot about him, except that he is a former timber baron and rich man, seemed to play along with the Bushwhacks while they were in power, and seemed to switch allegiances, last year, when he joined ALBA--the Venezuela-organized barter trade group. I suspect that what is happening is an overly-abrupt effort at change in a country where the left is not as well organized as it is in Venezuela, Bolivia and other countries, and where the military has a history of active collusion with U.S. fascists (notably Reaganites like John Negroponte). Zelaya may think that he can ride the overwhelming leftist trend surrounding Honduras, in the immediate vicinity and in the region, without the long hard decades of work that leftists and civic groups have done in other countries to produce dramatic change for the better at the end of that process.
To appearances, anyway, Zelaya may be attempting to do what Chavez and others are falsely accused of doing--and have NOT done--that is, "run the revolution" in a leader-first manner. Be a "caudillo" (cowboy "savior" of the people). Be a leftist "strongman." Chavez would be exactly nowhere without the active and well-organized support of his constituency--the vast majority of the people of Venezuela. Indeed, it is they who saved his presidency in the 2002 U.S./Bushwhack-supported, fascist coup attempt. (See "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.") And the same is true of Evo Morales in Bolivia, Rafael Correa in Ecuador and others. They are more the products of revolution than the creators of it. In short, a vote on the Constitution may be premature in Honduras. As happened in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, Zelaya is trying to organize a Constitutional assembly. Terms limits are just one aspect of it. He wants an advisory vote of the people, to initiate a Constitutional process. But--to my knowledge--there has not been a preliminary process of grass roots organization and education in Honduras, or not a significant enough one to lay the groundwork for Constitutional change.
As I mentioned above, Honduras is a vital strategic location for U.S. corpo/fascist domination of the Caribbean--most especially for spying on, and war planning, to regain global corporate predator control of Venezuela's coastal oil reserves. In the 1980s, Honduras was where Reagan's death squads assembled for murderous assaults on Nicaragua and Guatemala. The U.S. has become 'persona non grata' in much of Latin America, and is about to be evicted from its military base in Ecuador, for instance. The World Bank/IMF is on the outs. Its portfolio of ruinous, country-destroying loans is nearly empty. Oil, gas and other natural resources are now in the control of--and are being used for the benefit of--the people who live there, who are also rejecting the corrupt, failed, murderous U.S. "war on drugs." We should never be naive about the intentions of entities like Exxon Mobil and Monsanto, and our own "war on drugs" profiteers--no matter what Obama may say about cooperation and partnership. These events in Honduras could be highly manipulated, by the CIA and other corpo/fascist forces, and the 'news' about them most certainly is manipulated. It is very difficult to know what is really going on. But I think we can be sure that, if a leftist revolution is occurring, we will receive only an extremely distorted account of the views and actions of the vast majority of the people of the country. Our corpo/fascist press has portrayed Hugo Chavez as a "dictator" and a "caudillo," when nothing could be further from the truth. He is a brilliant man, to be sure, and a master politician--not unlike our own FDR. (The fascist forces here also called FDR a "dictator.") But his career is a genuine expression of the people of Venezuela who risked their lives, by the tens of thousands, to keep their legitimate president in power and to restore their Constitution. We have been given an entirely false picture of events in Venezuela. We can expect an entirely false picture regarding any situation in which the vast poor majority is challenging the rich, fascist elite. If that is what is happening in Honduras--with Zelaya's activities merely being an expression of it--we must "read between the lines" to figure out the real situation. They will never tell us that Zelaya is a genuine representative of the poor majority, if he is.
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