What's Next for the Honduran Resistance?

Read Jeffrey Webber and Todd Gordon's excellent analysis of the current political situation in Honduras here. Also, consider taking a look at this collection of articles at Links that deals with a new political formation called Frente Amplio de Resistencia Popular (FARP) as well as the Cartegena Accord.

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Obama, Washington and the Coup in Honduras

The Official US line on the coup is now one of condemnation. It became clear that all of the OAS countries, including the more conservative and neoliberal leaders such as Mexico's Right-Wing Felipe Calderon, unequivocally oppose the recent violent overthrow of a popular government elected by the people. The worldwide response, it must be said, is condemnatory.

But like everything that governments and their political spokespeople say in public, we should not take the US State dept's statement at face value. Moreover, the only real test of what the orientation of the US government is, will be to see what it actually does and not what it says at press conferences. This is particularly true for the Obama Adminsitration, who has made a rigorous science of making soaring rhetorical flourishes only to renege and opt for tepid alternatives to real reform.

The NYTimes published an article yesterday revealing that the Obama administration had been in contact with the coup plotters for several days before the coup. From the NYTimes:

"The United States has a history of backing rival political factions and instigating coups in the region, and administration officials have found themselves on the defensive in recent days, dismissing repeated allegations by President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela that the C.I.A. may have had a hand in the president’s removal.

Obama administration officials said that they were surprised by the coup on Sunday. But they also said that they had been working for several weeks to try to head off a political crisis in Honduras as the confrontation between Mr. Zelaya and the military over his efforts to lift presidential term limits escalated."

Also, we read that:

The United States has long had strong ties to the Honduras military and helps train Honduran military forces. Those close ties have put the Obama administration in a difficult position, opening it up to accusations that it may have turned a blind eye to the pending coup.

While many NYTimes readers may be surprised to read of the US involvement in violent repression, military dictatorships, coups and so forth throughout Latin American history, there is nothing abstract about this for people who came of age in the 20th century in Latin America. It is therefore totally legitimate for Hugo Chavez, of all people, to make public statements pressing the suspicion that the US may have had a hand in the latest right-wing reaction against a popular government in Latin America. Suspicion, of course, is not tantamount to proof. But it is hardly outlandish to say that the burden of proof is absolutely on the party who has traditionally funded, participated, incited, supported and praised just about every single violent Right-wing military coup in Latin America throughout the 20th century, from Vargas to Allende to the most recent attempt to violently suppress the Bolivarian Revolution and attempts to whack Evo Morales.

But the issue is too unclear to say for sure what the precise role of the US was in the run-up to the coup. Speculation, therefore, is not helpful. What we do have, is a series of facts ripe for critical reflection and analysis.

We know that the US opposed Zelaya and his bid to change the Constitution to enable a president to run for re-election more than once. We know that the US has traditionally (as late as the 1980s) had very close ties to the Honduran military, who have now taken the lead in undertaking this coup. We also know that the US hedged at first and refused to take a clear stand against the coup and in favor of Zelaya. That they have done so now, in light of widespread condemnation globally, is not to say that their position hasn't shifted.

We also know that the US loathes Chavez, Morales, Correa and Ortega. We know that Washington would love to see these pan-Latin American socialists just go away. We know that big multinationals, some of whom have been given the boot from the above countries, feel the same way.

So the US is not heading into this crisis with the best of intentions. And for me, that's all that's important here to understanding this situation. Washington may or may not have been directly involved, they may have protested, they may have been lukewarm in telling the coup-plotters not to go ahead. I must say, however, that it doesn't appear that the US government was ever ademant or united in any kind of support for the coup. Nonetheless, whatever the situation actually is, it doesn't change all sorts of uncontroversial and trivial political facts we know about Honduras, the region, and the relationship of the former with Washington.

Of course, you wont find any critical reflection in tripe written by an ultra-conservative hack like Vargas Llosa for the NYTimes. If you ask him, the coup is a good thing, and moreover it has widespread 'popular support'. We should expect nothing less from Vargas Llosa, though, who has proven so consistently over the years that he has no intention of stating what actually is the case.

The truth is that there is currently there is widespread popular unrest trying to stop the coup-backers. There have been huge mobilizations as well as a general strike demanding that Zelaya be allowed to return. All of this has occured in spite of threats of violent military repression. Over 7.3 million in Honduras live below the poverty line; some 70% of the population.

When Zelaya talked about taking on the sweatshop industry and substantially increasing the minimum wage in his country, its not difficult to see why the majority of Hondurans got behind these reforms. Of course, when he also said he would "force the business oligarchy to start paying what is fair" in terms of taxes, he wasn't making any friends with the forces who are trying to crush democracy in Honduras at present.

Of course, Zelaya is no saint. And, after all, he comes from the Liberal Party in Honduras, which is anything but unanimous in their support social justice or for Zelaya himself (on the contrary, there is a deep split, with many party elites opposing Zelaya's modest left turn). Only recently has he shifted toward more ALBA-centric policies and social reformism. While his populism is a welcomed alternative to the status quo in Honduran politics, it is clear that Zelaya is no Morales or Chavez. Nonetheless, for many in the country (particularly those in student organizations, trade unions and other social movements) the openings created by Zelaya's turn to the Left are likely worth fighting for, particularly when the oligarchs threaten to crush what modest headway Zelaya has attempted to make. I cannot say enough times: those empowered by he current configuration of politics in Honduras are frightened of losing their power. Their subsequent acts must be understood in light of this fact.

After all if, as cynical Right-wing hacks like Llosa would tell us, it is true that the coup has popular support and is backed up by a majority; why were the anti-referendum Oligarchs so deathly afraid of holding a vote designed to take a non-binding national poll over whether it would be a good idea to vote on reforming the Constitution? Why were they so afraid of letting people make their voices heard? Why were they blocking democracy through every institution and avenue available to them through the law (e.g. The Supreme Court, Congress, the Police and Military, etc. all of which the Right controlled in Honduras)? Why were those in power so scared that they eventually resorted to violence to forestall a democratic procedure from occuring?

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THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED

Really amazing documentary. The footage is unbelievable.

Just re-watched it here.

It makes me pretty sick to see what went on in Venezuela in 2002. But it's far worse to stomach the omission of these concrete facts about the coup-attempt in so many mainstream accounts of Venezuelan politics. Particularly all of the crap about RCTV and the 'suppression of free speech' that one so frequently hears about... nothing is said about this disgusting attempt to overthrow a popular government by force. Nothing is said about the fact that the coup plotters revealed on private television the day after the coup, how they had carried out their plan and how grateful they were to private media, RCTV in particular, for their crucial help in accomplishing the task. RCTV, it's also worth mentioning, blacked-out all of the events that led to the failure of the coup and suppressed the reemergence of Chavez's ministers in order to deceive the public into believing the lie that Chavez had resigned (he had not) and that the Opposition had total control of the Presidential Palace.

Watching this and thinking about the PBS documentary's treatment of the 2002 coup the whole time was eye-opening. Try watching "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" and reading the NY Times's infamous pro-Coup editorial afterwords.

Purchase the DVD here.

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Voters Who Love Too Much

As I walked down Michigan Avenue after Obama's election to the presidency, I passed thousands of people who were shouting and celebrating. Young people mounted the concrete traffic dividers, banging on drums and chanting "Yes we can!" or "O-ba-ma! O-ba-ma!" They chanted his name over and over again, dancing in the street, their faces lit up with indescribable excitement. And I have to confess: it made me uncomfortable.

It's not that I don't celebrate Obama's election. There are a thousand reasons why his opponent needed to be defeated, and why his victory must be lauded. It’s historic, and it carries deep meaning for the entire planet. One of the first reasons I ever had for supporting Obama was the sheer wonder it would be to have his face, name, and voice represent the United States on the world stage.

Yet as the heavy burden of the Bush years is lifted, I feel more trepidation than relief. I’m a million miles away from that fist-pumping, dancing joy I witnessed.

As progressive young people shout the name of our President-elect, I must ask again: what precisely are they celebrating? Do I even want to know? After all, Obama won an election that revolved all too often around personality. Do these drum-beating enthusiasts really care about his positions on the war, on gay marriage, on the bailout, on health care? Or is Barack Obama merely a figure they adore, a man whose rhetorical power moves them and makes them believe in a world more beautiful than ours?

I believe it’s a crucial civic question. After all, when you’ve purchased T-shirts and buttons and maracas bearing Obama’s image; when you’ve made Hussein your middle name on Facebook; when you’ve called his acceptance speech a piece of great literature; how can your relationship with Obama possibly evolve into a healthy one between constituent and elected official? Will these jubilant masses be capable of anger if Obama’s plans for U.S. troops amounts to a mere shifting of personnel from one Middle East danger zone to another? Will they be capable of resistance when they discover that Obama’s health care plan may be one of the first things to go? Will they identify Obama’s capitulations to corporate interests before it is too late, or will they still be drunk on the thrill of watching their team win the biggest of game there is?

In my opinion, this is a frightening time for Obama supporters. The man whose inspiring words still ring in your ears has retreated into a room with his advisors. He no longer requires your vote. The names of people from a centrist Clinton administration are surfacing in our newspapers. Obama’s expected to name the Secretary of the Treasury soon – a position of increased importance, given the economic crisis – and he’s choosing from a list that includes a Goldman Sachs executive, a former chief economist for the World Bank (“women-just-aren’t-good-at-science” guy), and the man who helped negotiate JPMorgan Chase’s first giant acquisition. Some people say Obama’s first staff pick Rahm Emanuel will help keep Democrats from “overreaching” after their significant gains. The same old voices are emerging from the woodwork, encouraging Obama to move to the middle, to be honest with the American people about what is and isn’t “possible”.

Obama himself may or may not be a change agent. But he is certainly now surrounded by people who have a vested interest in keeping some things very much the way they are. People who think his moderate health care plan would be too much, too soon.

Honestly, fuck that. If we’re smart, we’ll wake up from this dream-state and stop singing the praises of the man who now charts the course of our country. Your President-elect is not your boyfriend, your homeboy, your savior or your plaything. He’s responsible to the American people. But if we keep banging on drums and chanting his name, we won’t look like a very difficult crowd to please.

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Update on violence in Bolivia

What was being called an 'ambush' this weekend, we now know was a massacre called for by the Right-wing 'autonomist' governor of Pando, Leopoldo Fernandez. He has recently been detained by the government. Apparently, he and his thugs were frustrated by the recall (which he helped instigate in an attempt to bring down the Morales government) referendum in which Pando voted 52% in favor of Morales.

Wielding automatic machine-guns, violent opposition paramilitaries opened fire on a 1000-strong unarmed protest march organized by peasants. The death toll has already reached 30, and is likely to increase as more than several hundred are reported missing.

Other opposition leaders have pledged to make "Bolivia ungovernable", unless the Morales government grants huge concessions to the reactionary opposition and ends plans to distribute resource revenues equitably.

In many areas of the country's "Media luna" region (the resource-rich, wealthy, white areas where the opposition is the strongest), the opposition appears stronger than it actually is. As Forrest Hylton has recently pointed out, this is due to the fact that the opposition (composed of the wealthy business elites and oligarchs) has virtually all control of the media outlets in their regions, owns most of the major economic institutions and has put its tremendous wealth in the service of arming, training and organizing groups prepared to mount a violent attack on the government should it try to assert its democratically-backed power to govern the country. While sizable, these groups of militant reactionaries do not find themselves in environments of unanimous support, as the results of the recent referendum in their prefects clearly demonstrate.

Here we see bolivia running up against a fundamental limitation of liberal capitalist democracy: despite having strong democratic mandates for change, the government is faced with a serious array of 'extra-political' (i.e. according to liberal-democratic orthodoxy, in which the public/private distinction occludes the economy from the realm of "politics" proper) obstructions that aren't all necessary constitued by violent acts. The wealthy elites under capitalism still control the central economic institutions that ensure that society can function (production and distribution of information, food, electricity, etc.), thus they can pull out a lot of stops should they face 'political' opposition in the form of democratic government. They can virtually shut down, lock-out, sabotage and strangle the economy if they like, which gives them tremendous power to push the government into considering their demands. (By the way, they've done it before in latin america: see what ITT and Big Business did to Allende before they resorted to a coup). This is all to say: they have leverage against the political government (not complete control over, but enough power to force compromises), even though they are not accountable to the public and are not subject to democratic authority.

This is a dangerous time for Bolivia and we can only hope that the Armed forces can regain order in the country, allow the December constitutional referendum to continue on schedule and crush the violent opposition thugs who are trying to exact compromises from the democratically-backed government through terrorism.

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Violent clashes in Bolivia

Michele Bachelet, moderate socialist president of Chile, has called a summit tomorrow in Santiago to address the mounting violence in Bolivian provinces where the opposition instigated violent and destructive actions to protest the redistributive policies of the Morales government. The eastern province of Pando was declared under martial law by the government after 16 were massacred by opposition paramilitaries in what Morales has called "an ambush." It remains unclear whether or not Morales will attend the summit, since he is holding talks today with an opposition governor. Chavez has already committed to attending the summit.

Opposition leaders have been demanding that Morales cancel a December referendum on a new constitution, which isn't surprising, considering the opposition does not have the votes to block the reform from passing democratically. The draft of the constitution to be ratified if the referendum goes as planned, has a host of provisions that include the transfer of land to landless peasants. The opposition's leaders, the rich, white oligarchs and descendants of colonial settlers, are casting their opposition to the central government in terms of 'decentralization', 'regional autonomy' and recognition of 'cultural differences'... however the fact of the matter is they do not want to be ruled by an indigenous socialist. (For those on facebook... check out the huge number of racist, virulently anti-Morales groups started by opposition youth).

Funny that these 'autonomists' seemed to have little problem with being part of the Bolivian nation-state when conservative forces still had a strangle-hold over the office of the President and legislating bodies. Whatever the opposition propaganda of the day has to say about the reasons for their need for 'independence' (Morales is a dictator, he's authoritarian, etc), this struggle is about the entrenched, landed elite of Bolivia resisting redistributive polices regarding energy resources and fighting tooth and nail against a movement, backed strongly by a majority of the population, committed to land reform.

Despite recently winning over 67% of the vote in a recent recall referendum (convoked by the Right-wing opposition leaders in an attempt to weaken the government), the Morales government is struggling to maintain order and to curtail violence instigated by opponents who are keen on destroying gas pipelines, preventing airplanes from landing, destroying government buildings, and slaughtering campesino supporters of Morales. Despite all of this and pressure to show a "firm hand", Morales has banned the army and police from using firearms against the population. After making serious inroads in provinces where the opposition is strong (taking over 40% in conservative Santa Cruz and over 49.6% supported Morales in Chuqisaca), it seems at least partly unsurprising that ever-desperate opposition hard-liners would resort to trying to destabilize the country through violent clashes.

I'm not sure where the military's allegiances lie, but any anti-government sentiment within the ranks or among officers could certainly be exploited by the opposition. Its also interesting that Morales's government, following a massive show of support in the recall elections, has not taken a more hard-line approach to those groups instigating the violence. It certainly seems to be the case that, in provinces where the local governments are controlled largely by the opposition, the de facto authority and power of the central government is hampered, to say the least.

Amidst this instability, the US ambassador was seen meeting with opposition leadership in east (which he denied, until TV news stations showed otherwise with video footage). Accordingly, Morales expelled him from the country (as did Venezuela, in solidarity with Bolivia). Morales accused the ambassador of inciting violent demonstrations, which the US promptly denied and followed suit by expelling the Bolivian envoy from Washington.

It will be interesting to see what comes of the summit. At least, contrary to African analogues of this situation, the all-South American summit wont be dominated by the US and Britain calling for "power-sharing" arrangements. Nonetheless, as Al-Jazeera has recently pointed out, many South American countries depend on Bolivian natural gas and have a stake in seeing that production is not affected by this instability (i.e. outright destruction of the gaslines by opposition protesters). I hope this doesn't tilt the discussion towards an agreement more inclined to pacify the violent elements of the opposition through concessions... rather than seeing the situation is brought to a just conclusion. Despite at least two very staunch allies in Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa and Hugo Chavez, there are still plenty of center-left regimes that may not be committed to fighting against a plotting, obstructionist oligarchy. Correa said today that Latin America "will not permit another Pinochet, nor will we permit the balkanization" of Bolivia, criticizing the "minority separatist oligarchy" instigating the unrest. In a show of solidarity with Morales, Correa said, "Evo... we know well how these elites are... you have the embrace of solidarity of all your brothers in the region."

Chavez, in a speech today, made clear (referring to an attempted coup d'etat) that "if anything happens to Evo, I won't stand passively with arms crossed [and not do anything]...like I am prepared to die for Venezuela, I am ready to die for Bolivia." This comment was, partially, a swipe at the General of the Bolivian Armed Forces for his inaction regarding the violent outbursts by the opposition within the country. Chavez chastised the general for failing to prevent, by way of inaction and passivity, the opposition's "fascist paramilitaries" from "massacring the Bolivian people". "If I'm wrong, please demonstrate how. Support the legitimate President of Bolivia and not the paramilitaries or the yankees who want to derail the President!"

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