Honduran political protestors to be labeled as "terrorists"

There were a couple of alarming news stories from Honduras in recent days. A past blog post of mine, “The Hillary Clinton/WikiLeaks Email Scandal That Was Neglected by the Media: The Honduras Coup,” provides a lot of background about the political situation in that country and our nation’s role in its chaos. 

Long story short, Honduras has become a “narcocracy” after a military coup in 2009, which was supported by the U.S. State Department under Hillary Clinton. Honduras is now run by a brutal right-wing regime that has unofficial police death squads. Some would suggest that such drastic measures are necessary in a country such as Honduras, which has one of the highest rates of gang violence in the world. However, corruption is rampant and these death squads are often acting as enforcers for rival drug trafficking organizations. Furthermore, numerous high-level Honduran government officials have clear links with drug trafficking.

That leads us to a recent story by the Associated Press. A Honduran drug lord, Devis Rivera Maradiaga, testified on Monday that the former President of Honduras, Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo, accepted bribe money in exchange for protection and government contracts for money laundering. Devis Rivera Maradiaga was a leader of one of Honduras’ most powerful drug trafficking organizations, the Cachiros, which has acted as transshipment service for various Mexican cartels, including the Sinaloa cartel. 

Devis Rivera Maradiaga made these accusations during his testimony in a pre-sentencing hearing for Fabio Lobo (the son of Pepe Lobo), who pled guilty to arranging a multi-ton shipment of cocaine to U.S. last year. Naturally, the former President, Pepe Lobo denied this claim. However, it is undeniable that there are numerous links between the Cachiros and the Honduran economic and social elite, including the former and current President. This report by InSight Crime goes into extensive detail. Remarkably, this group was a listed by the U.S. government as a known crime organization at a time when they didn’t face any charges in their home country. 

Bear in mind, the Obama administration was a strong supporter of the Lobo even though our government was fully aware of his administration’s corruption and human rights abuses. In fact, our government went to great lengths to avoid using the word “coup” to keep sending foreign aid to their country. 

Why would our government fund such atrocities? The answer is simple. Honduras is a military ally. (You can read about this in more detail, “The Hillary Clinton/WikiLeaks Email Scandal That Was Neglected by the Media: The Honduras Coup.”) In short, the U.S. government provides military aid for “counternarcotics” to various Latin American countries. In many cases, this aid is counterproductive with its anti-drug mission, but the real purpose is to expand our military forces abroad without declaring war. In other words, the drug war serves as a pretense for various geopolitical/military purposes. (You can read about this type of scenario in Mexico and Colombia.)

It’s important to know the origin of the 2009 Honduran coup. The official justification was that the former Honduran President, Manuel Zelaya, was trying to amend the constitution to allow himself to run for re-election. The economic elite feared that Zelaya would then abuse his power to stay in office indefinitely. However, that same group of oligarchs helped the current President of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez, amend the constitution to allow him to run for re-election.

Hernandez is certain to face waves of protests when the next election occurs. Then again, the Honduran government passed a controversial law last week that will suppress their free speech rights. This law was posed as a way of combating the country’s gang activity by barring any “illegal association” in public. By law, any form of vandalism that takes place during a political protest can lead to the demonstrators and organizers being charged with “terrorism” and facing 30 years in prison. 

(Protest of 2009 Honduran military coup-Photo-Wikimedia Commons)

It turns out that the Honduran government has used the pretense of the drug war for subversive purposes in a similar way to the U.S. government.

The Hillary Clinton/Wikileaks Email Scandal That Was Neglected by the Media: The Honduras Coup

On July 24, 2009, Hillary Clinton received an email from the U.S. embassy in Honduras stating in no uncertain terms that “the military, Supreme Court and National Congress conspired on June 28 in what constituted an illegal and unconstitutional coup against the (former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya.)” Here’s some background information if you’re not familiar with the Honduras coup of 2009. President Zelaya was forcibly removed from the country by the military and deported  on the private jet owned by one of the orchestrators of the coup, Honduran businessman Miguel Facusse. Thousands of Hondurans rejected the legitimacy of their new de facto leader Roberto Micheletti. However, the interim government formally militarized the police and masses of protesters were physically battered. 

(2009 Honduras Coup Photo Indybay.org)

As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton tiptoed around using the exact words “military coup” when questioned by the media. In such a case, our country has laws that force our government to cut off all foreign aid. Nevertheless, a highly-questionable election took place months later that officially installed the candidate of the interim government, Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo. Amnesty International and the Center for Economic and Policy Research didn’t recognize the authenticity of the election and reported about instances of police violence and voter intimidation. However, that election provided the faux credibility needed for the Obama administration to officially re-establish relations with the government of Honduras. After Lobo had only been in office for two months, Hillary Clinton notified Congress that foreign aid would be restored to Honduras. “We believe that President Lobo and his administration have taken the steps necessary to restore democracy,” she said. She also urged the Latin American nations that didn’t recognize the authenticity of the Lobo regime to resume relations with Honduras. She said, “I don’t know what they’re waiting for, but that’s their right to wait.

Well… to name a few reasons there were the matters of numerous human rights violations, vast corruption, extrajudicial police violence, and private security death squads. The Lobo administration further militarized the police and anyone who publicly opposed the government put their lives at risk. Record numbers of journalists were killed and several leftist political activists have been murdered. Most notably, the internationally-recognized environmental activist Berta Cáceres was murdered in her home this year. She had traveled to Washington D.C. months earlier and met with Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA). Johnson read the reports of the numerous atrocities that were connected with the government of Honduras. Hence, he wrote a proposal, H.R.5474 - Berta Caceres Human Rights in Honduras Act, to stop sending money to the Honduran military and police.

Why should we stop sending money to Honduran government? You tend to picture bottled water and bags of rice when the term foreign aid is mentioned. However, most of our foreign aid is in the form of military aid, in particular, counternarcotics training. You may be thinking, “That sounds fine because the Honduran government is battling against violent gangs such as MS13 and Barrio 18.” Unfortunately, the drug war has completely corrupted the Honduran government. A recent report by Insight Crime found that 81 police officers, including high-ranking officials, were linked with MS13. The brazen nature of this corruption is out in the open. The former Honduran drug czar, Alfredo Landaverde Hernández, explained to the Miami Herald in 2012 that this issue is pervasive with every level of law enforcement in his country. For speaking out, a gang leader ordered his murder, which took place two weeks later and it was committed by a notorious police death squad.

These issues of extrajudicial killings, corruption, and human rights violations didn’t improve when Pepe Lobo’s extreme-right-wing successor, Juan Orlando Hernandez, took office in 2013. After all, the Lobo administration was accused of embezzling as much as $300 million from the country’s social security fund to directly finance his campaign. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) has been one of the few members of Congress to publicly challenge the Obama administration to stop supporting this regime. Leahy has repeatedly pointed to the connection between the top drug traffickers of Honduras and their government. Then again, those links aren’t difficult to find. Fabio Lobo, son of Pepe Lobo, pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges earlier this year after attempting to transport thousands of kilos of cocaine. Furthermore, reports surfaced on October 25^th that Juan Antonio Hernandez, the brother of President Hernandez, had traveled to Miami to be questioned by authorities for an alleged role in drug trafficking. Numerous Honduran government officials are also allegedly involved.

To wrap up, why would our government support such a “narcocracy?” The answer is simple. The U.S. government is solely concerned with expanding the global reach of its military. The Soto Cano Air Base in Honduras is a key base for U.S. troops and the Honduras government has begun building more bases since the coup. The most dishonest aspect of this charade is that our military aid for Honduras is in the name of the drug war. Our government has been fully aware of the ramifications of our “counternarcotics” funds.

Hillary Clinton’s emails show that she tried to use a lobbyist connected with the Clinton family, Lanny Davis, to communicate with Roberto Micheletti, the de facto leader of Honduras coup. WikiLeaks documents also show that the State Department knew that one of main orchestrators of coup, businessman Miguel Facusse, was a major drug trafficker. As you may remember, the Honduran military illegally deported former President Zelaya on Facusse’s private jet. The airfield on Facusse’s property has been responsible for massive shipments of cocaine. In addition, his private security force, which has received training from the U.S. military, had been associated with several mass killings that were connected with acquiring land for his biofuel business. Nevertheless, our U.S. embassy officials privately met with Facusse while the de facto government was in place. 

 

Businessman Miguel Facuuse passed away in 2015. (photo Gustavo Bueso/Flickr)

   

The U.S. government surely can’t eliminate the atrocities that are occurring in Honduras. However, ending the drug war would obviously be a great start. At a minimum, we could start by cutting off all military aid to Honduras. Unfortunately, as of now, the Berta Caceres Human Rights in Honduras Act (H.R. 5474) hasn’t made much progress, but it’s worthy of all the support it can get.

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