High government officials are tried by a procedure distinct from common citizens. We talked about this in the context of the legal case brought by the Public Prosecutor, Luis Rubi, against then president Manuel Zelaya. At the time, we showed that this was the proper, legal proceeding for prosecution of a case against a high government official, such as the President.
Well, the Asociación de Jueces y Magistrados de Honduras, a group of judges that supported the coup, wants the existing fraud case against Zelaya back in the Supreme Court. Their argument is that Zelaya is still a high government official because he is the representative to PARLACEN, and therefore the case must be heard in the Supreme Court.
Good thing the courts are on vacation. Judge Claudio Aguilar has a motion in front of him to nullify the cases against Zelaya brought by the alleged defenders he appointed for Zelaya, and a suggestion that he has no jurisdiction over the case brought by a group of his fellow judges and magistrates. Normally he would have to decide such a motion within three days, but because of the holidays, he has three days from when the courts resume a normal schedule, that is, until January 8, to render a decision.
Not that he can't rule sooner. At the very last minute he was put on the holiday rotation which means he can hear and resolve issues during the break. Speculation is that this was done to prevent another judge from being assigned to the case.
If Aguilar decides he does not have jurisdiction over the case because Zelaya is a member of PARLACEN, the prosecution of Zelaya will have come full circle, back to the Supreme Court; the same Supreme Court that the International Commission of Jurists report noted was "permeated with extreme partisan polarization."
Monday, December 27, 2010
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Unreported News made by the International Commission of Jurists
What is news?
Seems like a simple question. News is something that happens that is important enough to be picked up by the media and commented on and discussed.
As anyone following the Honduran coup d'etat and its aftermath knows, however, what is news depends on the judgment of the media, and that judgment is very selective. Horse-race show elections are news, but the protests against them are not. The installation of a meaningless "Truth Commission" which has no credibility with conservative or progressive ends of the political spectrum is news, but the formation of a commission with independence and credibility is not. And tragically, too little of the violence perpetrated against union organizers, peasant cooperatives, women, sexual minorities, and even journalists is unworthy of serious news coverage, at least in mainstream English media.
But despite knowing all this, we find it extraordinary that the US media completely ignore even high profile international organizations that continue to call attention to the serious failures of Honduras to redress any of the circumstances that the coup d'etat of June 2009 set in motion. Human Rights Watch's statement on from December 20, for example, has barely has been noticed.
Now, perhaps there hasn't been enough time to get news coverage of the HRW report out. Yet the same is true of the stinging report by the International Commission of Jurists, which has now been available for weeks.
What's the news here? Well, this is a rebuke not only to Honduras, but to the government claiming most loudly that Honduras has put the coup behind it, which is the US. It repudiates the main claims in the US argument for "progress" in returning to civil order, which are the election of Porfirio Lobo Sosa and the appointment of a "Truth Commission". Instead, it urges Honduras to follow the proposals of Latin American nations, including UNASUR, about the necessary steps to take to regain political credibility following a coup.
Here are a few points from the CJI statement that reporters might have followed up as news:
Seems like a simple question. News is something that happens that is important enough to be picked up by the media and commented on and discussed.
As anyone following the Honduran coup d'etat and its aftermath knows, however, what is news depends on the judgment of the media, and that judgment is very selective. Horse-race show elections are news, but the protests against them are not. The installation of a meaningless "Truth Commission" which has no credibility with conservative or progressive ends of the political spectrum is news, but the formation of a commission with independence and credibility is not. And tragically, too little of the violence perpetrated against union organizers, peasant cooperatives, women, sexual minorities, and even journalists is unworthy of serious news coverage, at least in mainstream English media.
But despite knowing all this, we find it extraordinary that the US media completely ignore even high profile international organizations that continue to call attention to the serious failures of Honduras to redress any of the circumstances that the coup d'etat of June 2009 set in motion. Human Rights Watch's statement on from December 20, for example, has barely has been noticed.
Now, perhaps there hasn't been enough time to get news coverage of the HRW report out. Yet the same is true of the stinging report by the International Commission of Jurists, which has now been available for weeks.
What's the news here? Well, this is a rebuke not only to Honduras, but to the government claiming most loudly that Honduras has put the coup behind it, which is the US. It repudiates the main claims in the US argument for "progress" in returning to civil order, which are the election of Porfirio Lobo Sosa and the appointment of a "Truth Commission". Instead, it urges Honduras to follow the proposals of Latin American nations, including UNASUR, about the necessary steps to take to regain political credibility following a coup.
Here are a few points from the CJI statement that reporters might have followed up as news:
- The CIJ endorsed giving the alternative truth commission the same level of resources, international support, and access to government sources of data as the official "Truth Commission", arguing that the latter has no credibility with the victims of the coup. Why is this news? because the US claims the "Truth Commission" is meaningful and an effective step to restoring democracy.
- The CIJ called for the installation of an International Commission against Impunity and an office of the High Commission of the UN for Human Rights. Noting (without naming him) that Ramón Custodio supported the coup, it argued that the Honduran Human Rights commission had lost credibility. News, again, because Custodio remains in office under the Lobo Sosa government.
- The CIJ called explicitly for the restitution of the judges dismissed for their opposition to the coup d'etat. The CIJ provided grounds in international law in support of the right, and actually duty, of judges to oppose disruptions of constitutional order. These dismissals happened during the term of office of Porfirio Lobo Sosa and can hardly be ignored as evidence that the present government of Honduras is still carrying on the violence against democratic order of the coup d'etat.
- The CIJ also called for effective investigations of the many extrajudicial killings that have occurred since the coup d'etat. It specifically called for police and military to be tried in civil courts, not special military tribunals. The US refuses to even respond meaningfully to press questioning about the continued killings of activists.
- Finally, going beyond the coup itself, the CIJ also expressed concerns about a newly proposed "Law on Financing of Terrorism". This kind of legislation has all sorts of potential for abuse. We will not be holding our breath for coverage of this issue, anymore than we will for coverage of any of the other points made by the CIJ.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Justice Delayed for Honduras
In light of statements that the Procuraduria General of Honduras is happily poised to appoint a "defender" for José Manuel Zelaya Rosales, so his trial can proceed without waiting for him to actually participate, it is especially timely that today also brought news of a visit to Honduras by a non-partisan international body monitoring the Honduran judiciary.
The news is not good.
La Tribuna reports that the Comisión Internacional de Juristas (CIJ)-- International Commission of Jurists, in English-- visited Honduras between December 6 and 10 of this year. The CIJ concluded that its opinion registered in 2003, that
As we noted during the heat of last summer, changes undertaken in the Honduran legal system in the last decade were intended to shift the Honduran legal system from an inquisitorial to an adversarial system, in which the rights of the accused include, among other things, the presumption of innocence.
These reforms require Honduran judges to change their role from zealously pursuing evidence themselves, to assessing arguments by prosecutors and defenders. Inquisitorial systems do not generally include a presumption of innocence, and in our view, it is this change that has not fundamentally been absorbed in Honduran legal proceedings, which still appear to operate on the until-recently familiar inquisitorial model.
For those of you who don't quite get the distinction-- which, based on reading Mary Anastasia O'Grady's recent wad of words about Honduras, includes columnists for some of our major newspapers-- under an adversarial system there is a presumption of innocence, meaning the accusers or prosecutors have to demonstrate their case.
"Where there's smoke, there's fire" may be a good traditional folk saying-- but it ain't the law of the land, not in the US, and not (anymore) in Honduras.
(O'Grady's problem is confusing the presumption of innocence, which is uniform in US legal practice, with the existence of different standards of proof in criminal and civil cases. Criminal cases use a standard of proof "beyond a reasonable doubt". Civil cases-- which are differentiated from criminal cases because the state is not one of the parties, and the outcome is awarding damages, not jail sentences-- usually use a standard of "preponderance of evidence". As a result, while civil cases also incorporate the common law "presumption of innocence", meaning the accusers have to make a case, once they have done so convincingly, it may be up to the accused to refute the arguments made. The reason why OJ Simpson could be found liable in a civil action is that there was a different, easier to reach, standard of proof-- not that he started out presumed guilty. At least not legally. While expecting anything sane from O'Grady is probably too much to ask, her belief that the trumped-up charges against Manuel Zelaya were not subject to the criminal legal code of Honduras simply shows how little she knows of Honduran jurisprudence. But it beggars belief that she doesn't understand the US legal system.)
Which reminds me, back to the primary topic here: in 2003, the CIJ singled out as an example of extreme partisanship the procedures for the appointment of Honduran Supreme Court justices:
The actual report is worth reading in full. In item 6 it goes to lengths to argue that "the restoral of constitutional order doesn't come about simply by convening and carrying out general elections":
As we noted last summer, the CIJ has been quite critical of judicial progress in Honduras since it began monitoring the attempts to modernize and professionalize the legal system.
Since nothing has improved, it is hardly surprising that the CIJ concludes that things are bad. But it is heartening to see clear endorsement of the need to address impunity and the targeted killings of women, lawyers, and journalists advanced by an international body that is not afraid to say that a coup cannot be put behind simply by recognizing an election.
It is a message the US would do well to heed.
The news is not good.
La Tribuna reports that the Comisión Internacional de Juristas (CIJ)-- International Commission of Jurists, in English-- visited Honduras between December 6 and 10 of this year. The CIJ concluded that its opinion registered in 2003, that
the Judicial system of Honduras “is permeated with extreme partisan polarization",still is valid; and that in 2010,
"despite the efforts realized by NGOs and the international community, the advances are few and the majority of recommendations have not been followed."
As we noted during the heat of last summer, changes undertaken in the Honduran legal system in the last decade were intended to shift the Honduran legal system from an inquisitorial to an adversarial system, in which the rights of the accused include, among other things, the presumption of innocence.
These reforms require Honduran judges to change their role from zealously pursuing evidence themselves, to assessing arguments by prosecutors and defenders. Inquisitorial systems do not generally include a presumption of innocence, and in our view, it is this change that has not fundamentally been absorbed in Honduran legal proceedings, which still appear to operate on the until-recently familiar inquisitorial model.
For those of you who don't quite get the distinction-- which, based on reading Mary Anastasia O'Grady's recent wad of words about Honduras, includes columnists for some of our major newspapers-- under an adversarial system there is a presumption of innocence, meaning the accusers or prosecutors have to demonstrate their case.
"Where there's smoke, there's fire" may be a good traditional folk saying-- but it ain't the law of the land, not in the US, and not (anymore) in Honduras.
(O'Grady's problem is confusing the presumption of innocence, which is uniform in US legal practice, with the existence of different standards of proof in criminal and civil cases. Criminal cases use a standard of proof "beyond a reasonable doubt". Civil cases-- which are differentiated from criminal cases because the state is not one of the parties, and the outcome is awarding damages, not jail sentences-- usually use a standard of "preponderance of evidence". As a result, while civil cases also incorporate the common law "presumption of innocence", meaning the accusers have to make a case, once they have done so convincingly, it may be up to the accused to refute the arguments made. The reason why OJ Simpson could be found liable in a civil action is that there was a different, easier to reach, standard of proof-- not that he started out presumed guilty. At least not legally. While expecting anything sane from O'Grady is probably too much to ask, her belief that the trumped-up charges against Manuel Zelaya were not subject to the criminal legal code of Honduras simply shows how little she knows of Honduran jurisprudence. But it beggars belief that she doesn't understand the US legal system.)
Which reminds me, back to the primary topic here: in 2003, the CIJ singled out as an example of extreme partisanship the procedures for the appointment of Honduran Supreme Court justices:
“A clear example of this partisanship can be observed in the election of magistrates for the Supreme Court. While the procedures for selection anticipated the participation of diverse sectors of civil society and the political task, the election of those magistrates had as a result a Court divided along lines of political affiliation, with a majority clearly identified with officialdom and a minority in opposition."A press release summarizing the current findings of the CIJ can be downloaded (Spanish only) from their website. The CIJ noted that the coup exacerbated previously identified weakness of the judicial system, pointing to an increase in impunity in violations of civil rights and a lessening of judicial independence.
The actual report is worth reading in full. In item 6 it goes to lengths to argue that "the restoral of constitutional order doesn't come about simply by convening and carrying out general elections":
The return to democratic legality demands identifying the responsibility of the authors [of the disturbance of constitutional order], without prejudice to other means necessary for reconcilation as an element of co-existence; in addition, according to international legal doctrine it is impossible to legitimate a coup d'etat by means of de facto measures or the development of apparently constitutional arguments about the de facto doctrine that contradict the same principles of democracy and the International Law of Human Rights.
As we noted last summer, the CIJ has been quite critical of judicial progress in Honduras since it began monitoring the attempts to modernize and professionalize the legal system.
Since nothing has improved, it is hardly surprising that the CIJ concludes that things are bad. But it is heartening to see clear endorsement of the need to address impunity and the targeted killings of women, lawyers, and journalists advanced by an international body that is not afraid to say that a coup cannot be put behind simply by recognizing an election.
It is a message the US would do well to heed.
Monday, December 20, 2010
Indefensible Defenders
( on an extended London adventure due to Mother Nature )
On December 16, the Attorney General of Honduras (Procuraduria General) asked a Tegucigalpa court to appoint a public defender for Manuel Zelaya Rosales
Deras said that rather than smoothing the path for Zelaya, as Canahuati's papers (El Heraldo and La Prensa) have accused, she wants to "move the case forward":
But wait, it gets better:
Arturo Corrales, a Micheletti supporter and Lobo Sosa's Minister of Planning, says that Lobo Sosa asked the Attorney General to act.
This "procedure" goes completely against the Código Procesal Penal of Honduras, the very law Deras cites as supporting her actions.
Here's the problem she's trying to get around. Manuel Zelaya Rosales refuses to participate in the charges against him, and as part of not recognizing the court, has not named a defense lawyer. This pretty much puts the case on hold under Honduran law, until Zelaya either returns and voluntarily presents himself, or is arrested and brought before the court, or names a defense lawyer to represent him.
Under the Code (Chapter 5, Articles 111-122), a defender can be appointed by the court only when the defendant cannot afford to hire one, or is mentally incompetent to designate one. The code assumes the defendant has already been arrested or named as the target of an investigation by the Public Prosecutor. A defendant can only have two defense lawyers, plus one substitute.
Article 14 of the Code says
Its violation nullifies the acts that occur without the participation of counsel for the accused.
While the UCD is not my idea of a legal authority, they outlined the same points made above in a letter to Supreme Court Chief Justice Aviles, pointing out that this would nullify any judicial actions taken as a result of appointing defenders.
The Honduran papers are unclear on whether the court actually appointed defenders or not, with published reports that they did, and that they are waiting to decide.
So much for a rule of law.
On December 16, the Attorney General of Honduras (Procuraduria General) asked a Tegucigalpa court to appoint a public defender for Manuel Zelaya Rosales
"so that they could facilitate proceedings against him,"said Ethel Deras, the Procuraduria General.
Deras said that rather than smoothing the path for Zelaya, as Canahuati's papers (El Heraldo and La Prensa) have accused, she wants to "move the case forward":
"ex-president Manuel Zelaya Rosales has stated publicly that he will not appear (before a justice) because he considers there aren't sufficient guarantees in the country for his appearance, and he has declined to appoint a defender. This office has request, based on this knowledge, that [the court] name a defense lawyer so the cases can continue.....In conformity with the Legal Proceedings Code and the Honduran Constitution, everyone processed in the courts has the right to a defender."Just not, apparently, the right to choose their defender.
But wait, it gets better:
"I believe it is in the national interest to finalize once and for all these proceedings and bring them to an end, and a criminal trial comes to an end only when we read the real truth of the facts; it is logical that we continue with the criminal process."Sigh.
Arturo Corrales, a Micheletti supporter and Lobo Sosa's Minister of Planning, says that Lobo Sosa asked the Attorney General to act.
"What the President (Lobo Sosa) asked of the judicial branch was they look for a legal way to leave the charges behind on these two remaining cases (of supposed corruption) to establish a propitious environment so that the ex president can come to the country."So it's a request from on high to make this a national priority to settle this case.
This "procedure" goes completely against the Código Procesal Penal of Honduras, the very law Deras cites as supporting her actions.
Here's the problem she's trying to get around. Manuel Zelaya Rosales refuses to participate in the charges against him, and as part of not recognizing the court, has not named a defense lawyer. This pretty much puts the case on hold under Honduran law, until Zelaya either returns and voluntarily presents himself, or is arrested and brought before the court, or names a defense lawyer to represent him.
Under the Code (Chapter 5, Articles 111-122), a defender can be appointed by the court only when the defendant cannot afford to hire one, or is mentally incompetent to designate one. The code assumes the defendant has already been arrested or named as the target of an investigation by the Public Prosecutor. A defendant can only have two defense lawyers, plus one substitute.
Article 14 of the Code says
the right to defense is inviolable....the accused and their defender have the right to be present in all procedural acts that incorporate elements of proof.Article 15 reads, in full
Everyone should have the technical assistance and advocacy of a legal practitioner, from the time they are held as allegedly involved in a crime, or when they voluntarily surrender and make a declaration, until the sentence has been fully executed. If the accused does not appoint a defender, the judicial authority shall immediately request the appointment of a public defender, or failing that will immediately appoint them self. This right is absolute. Its violation nullifies the acts that occur without the participation of counsel for the accused.Key points here, which seem to have escaped the top attorney in Honduras charged with following this code: the defendant has to "held" or "voluntarily surrender" to put in motion the appointment of a defender. And the right to appoint a defender is absolute.
Its violation nullifies the acts that occur without the participation of counsel for the accused.
While the UCD is not my idea of a legal authority, they outlined the same points made above in a letter to Supreme Court Chief Justice Aviles, pointing out that this would nullify any judicial actions taken as a result of appointing defenders.
The Honduran papers are unclear on whether the court actually appointed defenders or not, with published reports that they did, and that they are waiting to decide.
So much for a rule of law.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Oscar Alvarez's Lame Visions
Oscar Alvarez, Honduras's Security Minister, has visions. What else could account for his announcement Monday that the civilians, residents of Dulce Nombre, San Augustin, Dolores and Concepcion who took over the main road between Santa Rosa de Copan and Guatemala and El Salvador were colluding with narcotraffickers.
Alvarez told El Heraldo
According to Alvarez, its all part of a plot by organized crime to get the Police dispersed into the countryside, leaving the cities unprotected.
Despite Oscar Alvarez's fervent imagination, could it be there's a less sinister, more human explanation?
Yes.
Under President Zelaya Rosales, Honduras was to build an airport in Concepción using international financing. The purpose of the airport is to make it easier for tourists to get to to the Maya ruins of Copan. . In order to receive the international funding, Honduras first had to pave the road from the highway to Concepcion before the money for the airport would be released. Zelaya inaugurated the project in March, 2008, but after making a few half-hearted attempts to start, apparently the firm contracted for the work walked off the job alleging they were not being paid. So nothing has happened. I have vastly oversimplified a politically charged decision here, one that upset powerful people in Copan, but that's not this story.
Fast forward to the present. The citizens of the affected towns want the road paved as promised. They'd like the airport too, but for now the road is much more important to their future. On Friday the mayors of the towns Alvarez named called for a strike to call attention to the lack of progress in paving their road. They organized a group to go up to the highway and take it over, but when they got there, there were about 100 soldiers, police, and special forces, and they decided to go home without taking over the highway.
On Monday they returned at 6 am. The police were already there, and there was some violence, with two children beaten so bad they had to be taken to the hospital in La Entrada. Nonetheless, they blocked the road, and called the Bishop of Santa Rosa de Copan, Monseñor Luis Alfonso Santos, to defuse the situation. He called the Secretary of Transportation, Miguel Pastor and negotiated for Pastor to meet with the Mayors in Tegucigalapa on Wednesday and by late afternoon they quietly quit protesting and opened the roadway to traffic.
The story is told, in part first hand, in more detail on John Donaghy's blog in his "Waiting - but in the streets" post. As John says,
I couldn't have said it better. Mayors, land owners, business owners, the Catholic Church and campesinos, all uniting behind a simple attempt to get what they were promised by the government. Oscar Alvarez's lame attempt to criminalize the citizens of Dulce Nombre, Concepcion, Dulce Nombre, San Augustin, and Dolores should be thoroughly condemned by all.
Alvarez told El Heraldo
"Could it be that they are in collusion with organized crime? Is drug money behind these actions? I say that so that the people will judge them and so that society will turn its back; we will proceed according to the law along with the Prosecutor."
According to Alvarez, its all part of a plot by organized crime to get the Police dispersed into the countryside, leaving the cities unprotected.
Despite Oscar Alvarez's fervent imagination, could it be there's a less sinister, more human explanation?
Yes.
Under President Zelaya Rosales, Honduras was to build an airport in Concepción using international financing. The purpose of the airport is to make it easier for tourists to get to to the Maya ruins of Copan. . In order to receive the international funding, Honduras first had to pave the road from the highway to Concepcion before the money for the airport would be released. Zelaya inaugurated the project in March, 2008, but after making a few half-hearted attempts to start, apparently the firm contracted for the work walked off the job alleging they were not being paid. So nothing has happened. I have vastly oversimplified a politically charged decision here, one that upset powerful people in Copan, but that's not this story.
Fast forward to the present. The citizens of the affected towns want the road paved as promised. They'd like the airport too, but for now the road is much more important to their future. On Friday the mayors of the towns Alvarez named called for a strike to call attention to the lack of progress in paving their road. They organized a group to go up to the highway and take it over, but when they got there, there were about 100 soldiers, police, and special forces, and they decided to go home without taking over the highway.
On Monday they returned at 6 am. The police were already there, and there was some violence, with two children beaten so bad they had to be taken to the hospital in La Entrada. Nonetheless, they blocked the road, and called the Bishop of Santa Rosa de Copan, Monseñor Luis Alfonso Santos, to defuse the situation. He called the Secretary of Transportation, Miguel Pastor and negotiated for Pastor to meet with the Mayors in Tegucigalapa on Wednesday and by late afternoon they quietly quit protesting and opened the roadway to traffic.
The story is told, in part first hand, in more detail on John Donaghy's blog in his "Waiting - but in the streets" post. As John says,
"The people who planned the blockade in Dulce Nombre were not drug traffickers, as far as I know. There are mayors involved in drug-trafficking but I've never heard this charge against any of them. Others involved are land-owners and business-owners. The poor supported the cause because an improved road would make transportation easier and because church leaders support the cause."
I couldn't have said it better. Mayors, land owners, business owners, the Catholic Church and campesinos, all uniting behind a simple attempt to get what they were promised by the government. Oscar Alvarez's lame attempt to criminalize the citizens of Dulce Nombre, Concepcion, Dulce Nombre, San Augustin, and Dolores should be thoroughly condemned by all.
Monday, December 13, 2010
That Pesky Zelaya Problem
Porfirio Lobo Sosa wants Honduras back in the OAS. Mario Canahauti, his Foreign Minister wants Honduras back in the OAS. José Miguel Insulza, OAS Secretary General, wants Honduras back in the OAS. Arturo Valenzuela, the Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs (or WHA as abbreviated in the leaked cables) of the US State Department wants Honduras back in the OAS.
All of the above named individuals know that the solution is simple: allow Manuel Zelaya Rosales to return to Honduras without facing the charges filed against him during the coup by the Public Prosecutor, Luis Rubi. All of the above named individuals, except Canahuati, have made attempts to make that happen.
In his most recent visit to Honduras, concluded the 6 of December, Arturo Valenzuela recognized the efforts of Lobo Sosa to bring about reconciliation, but insisted that Zelaya be allowed to return.
This is a new recognition by the US State Department of the political reality in the OAS, since until now, the US has not raised Zelaya as an issue in talks with Honduras.
But the right wing in Honduras, which includes the group that planned and executed the coup, stands as a roadblock. As we saw in our recent post on Trash Talking, those standing in the way include Luis Rubi, the Public Prosecutor who brought the charges that need to be dismissed, Jorge Rivera Aviles, the Chief Justice who blessed the coup by exonerating the military for forcibly exiling Zelaya Rosales, and even members of Lobo Sosa's own National Party such as Rodolfo Irias Navas, currently a Congressman and former head of the National Party caucus in Congress.
José Miguel Insulza recently told the AP that he wants the vote to readmit Honduras to the OAS to not be divisive.
Right now, by his estimate, there are 11 or 12 votes against Honduras.
The cost in Honduras is a truncated foreign relations program. It has put a halt to negotiations about Honduras's maritime boundary with Cuba, Jamaica, Belize, and Guatemala in the Caribbean; It has halted funding for the continued placement of monuments along its border with El Salvador. It kept Honduras from being invited to the IberoAmerican meetings held in Argentina on December 4, at which the group adopted a new "democracy clause" specifying how it would react to future attempted coups in the hemisphere. The cost is in international investment, slowed by the coup. The cost is a 17% reduction in international tourism at Copan in June 2010 when compared with June 2009.
Can Honduras continue to bear the costs?
All of the above named individuals know that the solution is simple: allow Manuel Zelaya Rosales to return to Honduras without facing the charges filed against him during the coup by the Public Prosecutor, Luis Rubi. All of the above named individuals, except Canahuati, have made attempts to make that happen.
In his most recent visit to Honduras, concluded the 6 of December, Arturo Valenzuela recognized the efforts of Lobo Sosa to bring about reconciliation, but insisted that Zelaya be allowed to return.
"National reconciliation will have advanced when Honduras is capable of resolving the affair of the return of ex president Zelaya so that it can retake its place in the OAS....This is important for the full reinstatement of Honduras in the international community....The bottom line of what the international community asks in effect is that there be n actual process where the law is applied euqally to all sectors there be a real search for national reconciliation, and this (the return of Zelaya) is an important step that must be accomplished and done."
This is a new recognition by the US State Department of the political reality in the OAS, since until now, the US has not raised Zelaya as an issue in talks with Honduras.
But the right wing in Honduras, which includes the group that planned and executed the coup, stands as a roadblock. As we saw in our recent post on Trash Talking, those standing in the way include Luis Rubi, the Public Prosecutor who brought the charges that need to be dismissed, Jorge Rivera Aviles, the Chief Justice who blessed the coup by exonerating the military for forcibly exiling Zelaya Rosales, and even members of Lobo Sosa's own National Party such as Rodolfo Irias Navas, currently a Congressman and former head of the National Party caucus in Congress.
José Miguel Insulza recently told the AP that he wants the vote to readmit Honduras to the OAS to not be divisive.
"What I am looking for is that the voting not be divisive. It would be very divisive if 10 or 11 voted against it, even if we got a majority....The situation of Zelaya needs to be resolved"
Right now, by his estimate, there are 11 or 12 votes against Honduras.
The cost in Honduras is a truncated foreign relations program. It has put a halt to negotiations about Honduras's maritime boundary with Cuba, Jamaica, Belize, and Guatemala in the Caribbean; It has halted funding for the continued placement of monuments along its border with El Salvador. It kept Honduras from being invited to the IberoAmerican meetings held in Argentina on December 4, at which the group adopted a new "democracy clause" specifying how it would react to future attempted coups in the hemisphere. The cost is in international investment, slowed by the coup. The cost is a 17% reduction in international tourism at Copan in June 2010 when compared with June 2009.
Can Honduras continue to bear the costs?
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Jorge Reina a terrorist? Ideas are not bombs
As new Honduras cables continue to emerge through Wikileaks, those of us with interests in Honduras are finding the revelations for the most part unsurprising, if distasteful.
Latest case in point is a patronizing summary by ex-Ambassador to Honduras Charles A. Ford providing his "insights" into then-President Zelaya. On Daily Kos, Charles II of Mercury Rising has provided a good analysis of the disturbing tenor of this cable, which can be read in full on quotha for those who can take it, courtesy of the inimitable Adrienne Pine.
Both Charles and Adrienne point out some of the more wretched indictments of a kind of easy assumption of US privilege, including the contempt Ford showed for Zelaya's roots in Olancho and Zelaya's apparent failure to understand that Tegucigalpa was not the big city, a role played in Ford's universe of model Honduran behavior by New Orleans or Miami. You know, where the Honduran elites go to shop so they don't look so, well, Honduran.
Charles also points to one of the curious and almost unintelligible opinions Ford expresses as facts:
In September of 2006-- barely nine months into the Zelaya administration, long before the independent actions that led Ford to express frustration with him-- Proceso Digital published an article about Mel knowing "since December 2005" that his chosen Ambassador to the UN, Jorge Arturo Reina, did not have a visa to enter the US.
According to an earlier Proceso Digital article, this lack of a visa was due to Reina being blocked for what the US embassy described as unspecified "terrorist acts".
But Reina himself volunteered what he thought were the actions at issue. Again quoting Proceso Digital:
The reporters, primed by this information, asked the US consul, Ian Brownlea, whether these were the "terrorist acts" in question, getting this gnomic response:
Indeed. It would seem that the place where the acts occurred does actually matter, if the first half of this statement is, as it appears to be, a grudging agreement that the terrorist actions imputed to Reina involved bombs.
There is something confused in Reina's own account: Palmerola only became operational in 1981. I remember vividly reports of a bomb set off in a restaurant in Comayagua during the 1980s when I was living in the country, a restaurant my Honduran friends said was targeted because the US forces ate there. The New York Times story on this incident in 1987 says six US soldiers and six Hondurans were wounded.
Trying to find press accounts to date these events was a painful reminder that the US presence at Palmerola was not accepted peacefully, no matter what the US would like to tell its citizenry now.
The period from 1987 to 1989 saw a series of bombs or grenades exploded near places frequented by US forces, in La Ceiba, San Pedro Sula, and Comayagua, according to reports in the LA Times gathered in its archives. An LA Times article from 1989 reported two other incidents of attacks on US troops, one a bombing that definitely took place on the road from Comayagua to Palmerola. As late as 1994, the Orlando Sentinel reported on the explosion of a bomb in Comayagua that authorities said was intended for Palmerola.
Bombings drew a lot of press attention but there were other forms of protest as well. An Orlando Sentinel article from 1986 reported on a rally where Juan Almendares spoke out against the bad social effects of the base, promoting prostitution in Comayagua.
But Jorge Arturo Reina was not mentioned as a suspect in any English-language coverage of bombings on or near Palmerola. What he was, without doubt, was an outspoken critic of what he repeatedly called the US "occupation" of Honduras, which he said strengthened the right wing. He called for the withdrawal of US troops, and warned that death lists were circulating with names of many, including his own. (The news articles I consulted are pay for view, so I do not link to them here.)
Palmerola had already come to represent US occupation by 1983, when Reina was widely quoted criticizing increasing tensions with Sandinista Nicaragua as not in Honduras' interest. US newspapers, with remarkable uniformity, characterized Reina at the time as "leftist", at times taking care to note he was "not Marxist".
Reina criticized US basing at Palmerola for dragging Honduras into El Salvador's civil war as well. An article in 1983 in El Pais of Spain, describing him as secretary general of the "Liberal Alliance of the People" (Alianza Liberal del Pueblo, a movement within the Liberal Party), quoted him as saying
These are the kind of views that undoubtedly made Reina, like Zelaya, appear not to be a friend of the US. But they hardly qualify him as a terrorist.
After all, as the US consul himself said, "ideas are not evils". Nor are they bombs.
But apparently unsubstantiated rumors are fine fodder for a US Ambassador's briefings to his successor.
Latest case in point is a patronizing summary by ex-Ambassador to Honduras Charles A. Ford providing his "insights" into then-President Zelaya. On Daily Kos, Charles II of Mercury Rising has provided a good analysis of the disturbing tenor of this cable, which can be read in full on quotha for those who can take it, courtesy of the inimitable Adrienne Pine.
Both Charles and Adrienne point out some of the more wretched indictments of a kind of easy assumption of US privilege, including the contempt Ford showed for Zelaya's roots in Olancho and Zelaya's apparent failure to understand that Tegucigalpa was not the big city, a role played in Ford's universe of model Honduran behavior by New Orleans or Miami. You know, where the Honduran elites go to shop so they don't look so, well, Honduran.
Charles also points to one of the curious and almost unintelligible opinions Ford expresses as facts:
Ford is also loose with accusations. He accuses Jorge Antonio Reina Idiaquez of having terrorist connections. At the time, Reina was UN Ambassador and no charges had ever been brought against him, nor have been. I am unable to discover any substantiation for this allegation, and it may well come out of the Contra Wars.This had bothered me in reading the cable as well, but not because I had not heard such implications. Instead, for me it rang a bell. So I tried to trace back what I remembered, and I think the story is even less sensible than Charles thought.
In September of 2006-- barely nine months into the Zelaya administration, long before the independent actions that led Ford to express frustration with him-- Proceso Digital published an article about Mel knowing "since December 2005" that his chosen Ambassador to the UN, Jorge Arturo Reina, did not have a visa to enter the US.
According to an earlier Proceso Digital article, this lack of a visa was due to Reina being blocked for what the US embassy described as unspecified "terrorist acts".
But Reina himself volunteered what he thought were the actions at issue. Again quoting Proceso Digital:
Reina, brother of the ex-president Carlos Roberto Reina, now dead, remembered that in the 70s he had been accused of placing a bomb on the Palmerola air base, in the central Department of Comayagua, where the US military forces were based.Reina went on to say that he had been legally cleared of these charges:
he denied his participation in this act, and said that owing to the fact that this was not true the judicial authorities exonerated him of the action and they sent him home in a kind of dismissal of charges.
The reporters, primed by this information, asked the US consul, Ian Brownlea, whether these were the "terrorist acts" in question, getting this gnomic response:
"ideas are not evils, but rather bombs...the place where the acts occurred doesn't matter".
Indeed. It would seem that the place where the acts occurred does actually matter, if the first half of this statement is, as it appears to be, a grudging agreement that the terrorist actions imputed to Reina involved bombs.
There is something confused in Reina's own account: Palmerola only became operational in 1981. I remember vividly reports of a bomb set off in a restaurant in Comayagua during the 1980s when I was living in the country, a restaurant my Honduran friends said was targeted because the US forces ate there. The New York Times story on this incident in 1987 says six US soldiers and six Hondurans were wounded.
Trying to find press accounts to date these events was a painful reminder that the US presence at Palmerola was not accepted peacefully, no matter what the US would like to tell its citizenry now.
The period from 1987 to 1989 saw a series of bombs or grenades exploded near places frequented by US forces, in La Ceiba, San Pedro Sula, and Comayagua, according to reports in the LA Times gathered in its archives. An LA Times article from 1989 reported two other incidents of attacks on US troops, one a bombing that definitely took place on the road from Comayagua to Palmerola. As late as 1994, the Orlando Sentinel reported on the explosion of a bomb in Comayagua that authorities said was intended for Palmerola.
Bombings drew a lot of press attention but there were other forms of protest as well. An Orlando Sentinel article from 1986 reported on a rally where Juan Almendares spoke out against the bad social effects of the base, promoting prostitution in Comayagua.
But Jorge Arturo Reina was not mentioned as a suspect in any English-language coverage of bombings on or near Palmerola. What he was, without doubt, was an outspoken critic of what he repeatedly called the US "occupation" of Honduras, which he said strengthened the right wing. He called for the withdrawal of US troops, and warned that death lists were circulating with names of many, including his own. (The news articles I consulted are pay for view, so I do not link to them here.)
Palmerola had already come to represent US occupation by 1983, when Reina was widely quoted criticizing increasing tensions with Sandinista Nicaragua as not in Honduras' interest. US newspapers, with remarkable uniformity, characterized Reina at the time as "leftist", at times taking care to note he was "not Marxist".
Reina criticized US basing at Palmerola for dragging Honduras into El Salvador's civil war as well. An article in 1983 in El Pais of Spain, describing him as secretary general of the "Liberal Alliance of the People" (Alianza Liberal del Pueblo, a movement within the Liberal Party), quoted him as saying
"The US refused to negotiate in El Salvador because it has an exclusively military version of the facts and considers that the cause of the Salvadoran crisis was Cuba and its solution uniquely military", adding that "Washington discovered later that the cause was not Cuba and that the situation does not have a military solution, but before this change of view thousands of deaths were produced".
These are the kind of views that undoubtedly made Reina, like Zelaya, appear not to be a friend of the US. But they hardly qualify him as a terrorist.
After all, as the US consul himself said, "ideas are not evils". Nor are they bombs.
But apparently unsubstantiated rumors are fine fodder for a US Ambassador's briefings to his successor.
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