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against the relentless resistance of the "10 families" (corrupt, rich, entrenched, oligarchic power). But in the three and a half years of his one permitted term--and against their screams and hatred--he raised the minimum wage, instituted school lunches, lowered transportation costs for poor workers, improved health care and pensions for the poor, and began allying with the unions who are trying to represent Chiquita International's and others' "free trade" slave labor force. He also initiated a movement for fundamental reform--the Constitutional referendum--an advisory referendum putting the following question to a vote of the people: Do you or don't you want to form a Constituent Assembly to discuss, re-write and vote on a new Constitution?
The current Constitution was written by the Oligarchy during Reagan's "reign of terror" to favor entrenched fascist powers. Zelaya's proposed referendum was their stated reason for shooting up his home, dragging him from his bed at gunpoint, and flying him in a plane with blackened windows to a foreign country, declaring martial law and suspending all Constitutional civil rights, arresting more than 1,000 political prisoners, shutting down the media and open firing on a peaceful crowd of Zelaya supporters at the airport the other week. They are truly terrified at the prospect of serious reform in Honduras. They consider policies like raising the minimum wage and school lunches to be "communism." (--their word, not mine).
Honduras' 70% poverty rate was not created overnight, and it was not created by Zelaya. He tried to do something about it--and you see what the reaction of the Oligarchy was. They are like Venezuela's rich elite--spoiled, selfish, useless people who think they are "born to rule" and who shift their riches to offshore banks to avoid taxes. They don't want to share. They take no responsibility for their country and its people--as to education, health care, infrastructure development, housing, land reform or anything else that could make a good country, where people have a decent life and hope for the future. Anyway, they have had their day. The overwhelming trend in Latin America is toward leftist democracy, throwing these rich, lazy, US-bought-and-paid-for elites out of power, and building sovereign countries in which everyone has a say.
Honduras has no sovereignty now. They are run by the Pentagon, and are considered a "lily pad" country for war in the Caribbean. Honduras doesn't have oil, but it does have strategic location--which is why John Negroponte & pals used it to launch death squads into Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala in the 1980s, and are no doubt trying to secure it now for their plans to regain global corporate predator control of Venezuela's oil.
The Honduran military is basically supported by our tax dollars. And the Oligarchy is supported by $40+ million in US taxpayer dollars funneled through John McCain's "International Republican Institute" and other USAID projects. They are parasites, and tools of our own rightwing. And they hate Zelaya because he showed some independence. He was himself a member of the Oligarchy, and decided to try to bring Honduras into the 21st century--first of all with anti-poverty measures; also with alliances, not just with Venezuela (with whom he negotiated cheap oil for Honduras), but with his immediate neighbors--Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala, all now with leftist democracy governments. The same countries where the Reaganites tried to slaughter a generation of leftist leaders, using Honduras as home base for the death squads.
No government of Honduras can solve poverty on its own. Poverty is a regional problem--which leaders like those in Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala are trying to solve by creating regional trade groups, like ALBA and UNASUR. And the US under the Bush Junta has done everything in its power to make poverty worse--to crush leftists movements, unions and the poor, steal their countries' resources, and enslave them in sweatshops--and, as in Colombia and Honduras, lavishly fund the military to oppress and nazify the country, while also funding its rightwing political groups. And, quite frankly, Clinton policy on this matter is little better--and it remains to be seen whether Hillary is better than Bill. (One bad sign: John Negroponte is advising her!)
As a client state of the US, Honduran poverty is basically our creation. We favor fascist governments. We favor Chiquita, and Monsanto, and Dyncorp. We--that is, our government--favor exploiters who are intent on destroying the "sovereignty of the people" everywhere, including here. The rightwing in Honduras has $40+ million of our tax dollars to control Honduran political life, and lobby our Congress, while the Zelaya supporters in Honduras have barely enough money to live, let alone to mount political campaigns or fly to Washington. That is the situation. And Zelaya is trying to change it--internally and with alliances.
But, as we know, our corporations don't want a level playing field. They don't want to have to bargain with ALBA or UNASUR--who represent the combined muscle of many third world countries. And the Pentagon and our war profiteers know that, when democracy succeeds, their military bases--an affront to the sovereignty of the people in these countries--get thrown out, as just occurred in Ecuador. They don't want democracy to succeed in Honduras. That is likely why they permitted the Honduran military to block Zelaya's plane from landing when he tried to return. The USAF could have escorted his plane. They did not.
Zelaya proposed that the US base in Honduras be converted to a commercial airport. The Pentagon is now building five US military bases in Colombia, because that is virtually the only country that will have them. They are only welcome in extremely corrupt, fascist-controlled countries. Why? Where US bases go, there go poverty, exploitation and suppression of democracy. Things have flipped over since WW II, when the US was the "beacon of democracy." The opposite is true now. Sad to say. Obama seemed to offer hope that the US government would create a respectful, cooperative policy in Latin America, independent of our war profiteers and multinational corporate monsters. That hope is hanging by a thread, at the moment, with the elected president of Honduras, a US-controlled country, in exile, having been violently tossed out of power--for mildly advocating for the poor, making alliances in Honduras' interest, and seeking to establish Honduran sovereignty.
Whose side are we on--the side of the Oligarchies and the fascists, or the side of the vast poor majority who merely want equality and the chance at a decent life? Do we support democracy, or is that just bullshit (as many suspect--with good reason)? That's what Obama must decide, if he has the power to do so. But, whatever he decides--whether the US government decides to be honorable or not (if he has the power to put us on an honorable course--I am not sure that he does)--Latin America IS going leftist, democratic and independent, whether we like it or not. Our corpo/fascists can cause them a lot of pain, suffering, horror and chaos--from their five bases in Colombia. They cannot stop this democracy movement. It is a movement whose time has come.
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