Honduras’ Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo: Another Disaster for Central American Democracy Waiting in the Wing

[Judi Lynn]

Honduras’ Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo: Another Disaster for Central American Democracy Waiting in the Wing
Written by Adrienne Pine
Tuesday, 26 January 2010 13:17

Source: Council on Hemispheric Affairs

Tomorrow, January 27th, as the world’s eyes continue to be riveted on the unfolding disaster in Haiti, Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo will be installed as Honduras’ president, succeeding de facto president Roberto Micheletti. Lobo, a supporter of the June 28th military coup that ousted President Manuel Zelaya, was chosen in a November election held under conditions of qualified state terror. As the majority of Hondurans boycotted the elections, and dozens of candidates for lower offices withdrew, the vast majority of countries around the world classified the ballot as illegitimate.

In the hours and days following the election, the illegally-appointed Supreme Electoral Tribunal committed fraud by announcing a voter turnout that was indisputably more than 12 percentage points higher than its own officially-published numbers. The doctored higher figure was cited repeatedly by Lobo, Secretary of State Clinton, and other friendly faces to legitimize the disputed ballot. Many Honduran and foreign observers argue that later international support for the Lobo Administration will eventually ensure the invalidation of Zelaya’s most important reforms. This support will guarantee long-term repression and a growing degree of tight-fisted control in the country, as well as endangering democratic institutions and social justice reforms throughout the hemisphere as the result of an echo effect.

Though State Department officials insist that the Honduras election process was transparent, in fact, no international observers were present to confirm the tally because—as announced by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon on September 23rd—the conditions for a free and fair election were not present. A scathing 147-page report released Wednesday, January 20th, by the Inter-American Human Rights Commission corroborates this, citing a litany of well-documented human rights abuses, including numerous political assassinations committed prior to, and following the election. The report describes a militarized environment in which dissonant or critical opinions have been officially prohibited in “an egregious, arbitrary, unnecessary and disproportionate restriction, in violation of international law, of the right of every Honduran to express himself or herself freely, and to receive information from a plurality and diversity of sources.”

While no official international observers were on the ground election day, the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the International Republican Institute (IRI) sent “monitors” to oversee the Honduran election that the OAS and Carter Center had refused to legitimize with their presence. Both the NDI and IRI are funded by the U.S. Congress through a highly conservative Reagan-era umbrella organization, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). The archly conservative IRI has supported efforts implicated in the ousting of democratically-elected presidents in Haiti and Venezuela in recent years. The day of the election, the NDI had its monitors caught on tape refusing to discuss police violence, which they had witnessed outside the polls in Honduras’ industrial city of San Pedro Sula.

More:
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/honduras-archives-46/2337--honduras-porfirio-pepe-lobo-another-disaster-for-central-american-democracy-waiting-in-the-wing

[Peace Patriot]

1. "endangering democratic institutions and social justice reforms throughout the hemisphere"

As the Honduran coup general said: By their coup, they were "preventing communism from Venezuela reaching the United States."

The U.S. goal was/is not just to undo all the progressive advances in Latin America, but also to prevent any such advances here.

[protocol rv]

2. Chavism in the USA? Impossible

I don't think Chavism has another 3 years left. The way things are going here, it's going to collapse, either the man goes, or he'll turn into another dictator like Castro. But I can guarantee you, nobody in their right mind will use his ideas, after they see how bad things will turn out in Venezuela. This means there's no way "advances" Chavez advocates, such as the nationalization of industry and business as his capricious honor decides, will ever happen in any other country. I wish Chavez had turned out more like Lula or Bachelet, but we voted for the rotten tomato, and now we are going to pay the price.