Jim DeMint, Secretary of State
From Americas Program, White reconstructs -
On October 20, Senator Jim DeMint stated that he had met with Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Shannon and that he was pleased that the Department of State finally understood "that it is essential that these elections [in Honduras] go forward and are recognized." As a result, DeMint said he was "anxious" to release the holds he had placed on the nominations of Arturo Valenzuela to be assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs and Thomas Shannon, the present assistant secretary, to be ambassador to Brazil.
As Shannon well knew, this impending change of policy would give away the principal leverage the United States could bring to bear to persuade the de facto government to permit the prompt return of President Zelaya.
On October 28, a diplomatic delegation headed by Thomas Shannon arrived in Tegucigalpa to jump start the negotiations between the de facto regime and President Mel Zelaya. At a press conference, Shannon stated that the return of Zelaya is "central" to the concerns of the United States and the international community. Yet, he refused to say that his return was an essential component to any deal.
It is legitimate to infer that at this point de facto president Roberto Micheletti knew that the State Department had made a commitment to Senator DeMint that the United States would recognize the November 29 elections as valid regardless of whether Zelaya had been returned to office.
Under these circumstances any journeyman diplomat would immediately recognize that the only chance to achieve a lasting agreement would be to inform President Zelaya of the change in U.S. policy. Armed with this information, Zelaya could have insisted on a date certain for his return. With the backing of the U.S. delegation, there would have been a fighting chance that Micheletti would have agreed because time was running out.
It was, of course, possible, even probable, that negotiations would have failed, but that result would have been infinitely preferable to the charade where Zelaya signed an agreement under the illusion the United States would ensure his prompt reinstatement to power.
The result of this cynical and amateurish diplomacy could hardly have been worse.
The secretary of state triumphantly announces a breakthrough in Honduras. Micheletti responds that he has not yet agreed to the restitution of the elected president, and a deceived Zelaya states the agreement is dead. The diplomatic fiasco is complete.
Late Saturday Manuel Zelaya read a five page letter sent to President Obama:
In a letter addressed to President Barack Obama, Zelaya also repeated his accusation that Washington reversed its stance on whether the Nov. 29 vote should be considered legitimate if he was not in office.
"As the elected president of the Honduran people, I reaffirm my position that starting today, no matter what, I will not accept any agreement on returning to the presidency of the republic to cover up this coup d'etat," Zelaya said, reading from the letter on Globo radio.
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"The future that you show us today by changing your position in the case of Honduras, and thus favoring the abusive intervention of the military castes ... is nothing more than the downfall of freedom and contempt for human dignity," Zelaya said in the letter to Obama. "It is a new war against the processes of social and democratic reforms so necessary in Honduras."
Perhaps more importantly, Zelaya called for an election boycott, joining the call for the same by the Resistance Front. Internationally, it looks today that the US will be the only nation that recognizes the legitimacy of the November 29 elections. This represents a major policy failure of the Obama Administration - and the problem, I think, is allowing Republicans to dictate foreign policy through the aegis of political blackmail.
Honduras shows Latin America's 'strongman' is Jim DeMint - so gloats Fox's James Rosen:
Sen. Jim DeMint, a South Carolina Republican known for his efforts to influence domestic immigration and health-care issues, has scored a foreign-policy coup by helping to compel the Obama administration to shift its stance on strife-ridden Honduras.
After demanding for months that deposed Honduran President Mel Zelaya be restored to power, senior State Department officials now say they'll accept the outcome of Nov. 29 elections in the Central American country even if Zelaya doesn't reclaim his post.
"We support the elections process there," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Thursday. "We have provided technical assistance. ... These elections will be important to restoring Democratic and constitutional order in Honduras."
That position is a marked change from the tough stance President Barack Obama took in the days following the June 28 removal of Zelaya, when Honduran soldiers launched a dawn raid and whisked him away in his pajamas.
"We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the democratically elected president there," Obama said the day after Zelaya's ouster.
And the kick in the ass is that negotiating with Republicans in congress is as fruitless as negotiating with Michelleti in Honduras: While Clinton did get the confirmation of Valenzuela, Shannon's confirmation was reblocked my another Republican the minute DeMint lifted his block. Now it looks like Florida's Cubans, who don't like Thomas Shannon because of his position on normalizing relations with Cuba, will have to vet Shannon for an unspecified period before the new block is lifted. It brings to mind a new phrase that's floating around: Maximum Feasible Obstruction (M(o)FO) - thank you, Matt Yglesias. Here's the score...Hillary want's to send Shannon to Brazil as Ambassador - a very important post. Currently Shannon's title is US Assistant Secretary for the Western Hemisphere. But Arturo Valenzuela was allowed by DeMint to be confirmed to replace Shannon as US Assistant Secretary for the Western Hemisphere. In other words, Valenzuela cannot assume his new appointment until Thomas Shannon is confirmed. In other other words, both positions remained de facto blocked even though Secretary Clinton caved into DeMint's demands re: Honduras.
This is serious stuff, folks. There are some very hot pending issues brewing in Latin America, and the Obama Administration has lost leadership and credibility among Latin American nations and people. On the home front, the Republicans have shown skill, manipulative diligence, and political ruthlessness against an administration that has only shown ineptness.
The result of this cynical and amateurish diplomacy could hardly have been worse. - Robert White.
Unbelievable! How does this happen, that Obama and Clinton become the gang that couldn't shoot straight while whacko Demint manages to walk all over them? Sweet Jeezus, this is embarrassing - and extremely dangerous, too!
November 15, 2009 2:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've been defending the Administration all through the Honduran coup - I kept thinking there's something that we don't know about behind all the waffling. Now I don't know. It's hard to loose the faith, but hell, give me something to feel good about, Hillary. The idea that a coup could be reversed by diplomacy was pretty exciting - does this mean it can't?
November 15, 2009 2:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Did anyone you know, neoboho, constantly predict that the US would recognize the November elections in Honduras and that Zelaya would not be re-instated as President?
This is just another example of how a blogger like Jacob Freeze earned his sobriquet as "the prophetic wonder-man of political blogging."
Harharharhar!!!
November 15, 2009 7:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why am I expecting a hail of briqs (and briquets) to rain down right about now?
November 15, 2009 8:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, roots called it right. But I already gave him a good gloat a while back. This one's just excessive.
YukYukYukYuk
November 15, 2009 9:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Meanwhile it isn't exactly a given that the election on November 29 works out beautifully for all concerned, and power is smoothly transferred back to an elected President.
This was always the bottom line after Zelaya and his mob appropriated a pile of ballots, and every other legal power in Honduras... the Supreme Court, Congress, and the Attorney General... impeached and deported that wannabe dictator.
What happens on November 29, and immediately thereafter?
None of the noise about Zelaya really matters, compared to that big question, and if the Secretary of State were a pro like Wesley Clark, for example, we would have concentrated on facilitating a legitimate election and orderly transfer of power from Micheletti to whoever gets the most votes, instead of wasting our influence on some fantastical scheme to bring back Zelaya.
This mess is one of many messes that the amateur diplomat Hillary Clinton will make at State, with ludicrous "assistance" from the semi-senile fool-for-God Jimmy Carter, who has interfered with international monitoring sufficiently so that the United States can't really guarantee the transparency of this crucial election.
Jim DeMint is a convenient scape-goat for liberal commenters, but if Hillary Clinton had concentrated on what we could do, monitor the election, instead of what we couldn't, restore Zelaya, then DeMint wouldn't even have a seat at the table.
November 15, 2009 11:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Amazing_Criswell
November 16, 2009 12:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
As go the Afghan elections, so goes Honduras...
November 15, 2009 2:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's sort of a frightful comparison, Miguelito, given that an Afghan level of violence hasn't happened in Honduras...yet. That's my fear, as each peaceful option crumbles. Recently some anti-coup military officers leaked that a false-flag operation was in the works for the elections. Paramilitary and plain-clothes army personal allegedly will attack members of the leftish Democratic Unification party, killing a thousand people, and use it to shut down the election and install a military dictatorship. A rumor, but...On the bright side the Resistance is still holding on to non-violence tactics.
November 15, 2009 3:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hear Israel/Palestine is going well though.
November 15, 2009 2:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
And health care. It's going gangbusters!
November 15, 2009 2:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hopefully the commie Zelaya is out and won't be allowed to weasel his way back into power, despite (or maybe because of!) the incompetence of the Obama administration. Micheletti should have shot him instead of sending him to Costa Rica, hopefully that mistake won't come back to haunt the people of Honduras.
November 15, 2009 3:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
This just in, rover. Zelaya was the equivalent of a moderate Republican by US standards. Oh, I forgot, you exacerbated fringoids consider your own moderates commies too.
November 15, 2009 5:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
You have a nasty mouth, there, bulldog. Wow.
November 15, 2009 6:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is clear that the republicans have every intention of undermining this administration in every way that they can. It is my opinion that they consider a woman as secretary of state a 'weak' point and will undermine her any way that they can. This president has come into his administration playing much too soft with the arrogant, dominant republican agenda. He must shift things and demonstrate to congress and the democratic party that we do not have to be a party of submissive wimps and witless dupes.
November 15, 2009 3:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree, synch, except that first it would require that we not have a party of submissive wimps and witless dupes. It should be so easy to marginalize the whacko Repubs as the nitwits they are. Why, then, are the DLC Dems still trying to accommodate them?
November 15, 2009 4:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am afraid the dominance/submission relationship between republicans and democrats is too ingrained. Not sure it will change so I don't really get how we will shift things. I don't see the leadership for a third party...
November 15, 2009 5:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well this just toasts my cookies. DeMint as Secretary of State was a great jibe. That trip by DeMint and his cronies meeting with business leaders made me curious from the get-go. Ohhh, what perfidy! Those C-Streeters know how to play hardball. And Hillary is supposed to be their BFF; what gives with that???
November 15, 2009 5:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's not just C-Street... it's the entire pseudo-christian mafia that has ties with leaders in all nations as one of its aims.
November 15, 2009 6:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
They are an address, the C-streeters, of which DeMint is one. The rest call themselves, endearingly, 'The Family.' Cozy, ennit?
Yes, synch, and their reach is global. I keep my eye on www.talk2action.com on accounta it.
November 15, 2009 7:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes but the C Streeters are part of 'the Family' they are just a select gang of congressmen that live together that belong to 'the Family'... just clarifying.
November 16, 2009 12:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
UPDATE: We have an English translation of Zelaya's letter to Obama, thanks to RAJ @ Honduras Coup 2009. http://hondurascoup2009.blogspot.com/2009/11/president-zelaya-to-president-obama.html
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Office of the President of the Republic
From the Desk of the President
Tegucigalpa, 14 November, 2009
His Excellency
Barack Obama
President of the United States
Washington D.C.
Dear President Obama:
When we met for the first time the 8th of July with the Secretary of State Cinton after the Coup d'Etat there was made clear to me and to the world the position of the Obama administration of condemning the Coup d'Etat, not recognizing its authorities and demanding the return to the state of law with the restitution to the office of President elected by the people. The official position of your government and its representatives that sponsored and signed the resolutions of the UN, OAS. In which the third point demanded my immediate and secure restitution.
Beginning the 28th of June of 2009 my kidnapping by the military and expatriation to Costa Rica. The Congress of the Republic issued an illegal decree where it ordered "To separate the citizen José Manuel Zelaya Rosales from the office of Constitutional President of the Republic" without constitutional abilities to do so, and without due process without any legal ruling being cited.
From the first meeting with Secretary Hillary Clinton mediation by the president of Costa Rica Oscar Arias was proposed to me, despite the fact that I consider that it is counterproductive to engage in dialogue with persons that have a gun in their hands, I accepted considering the auspices of the US and the international community.
In a communiqué dated the 4th of September of the present year, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed the following: "The positive conclusion of the process initiated by Arias will be the suitable basis to proceed with a legitimate election".
It is known by everyone that the de facto regime, without the visit to Honduras of the Subsecretary of State for the Western Hemisphere, Thomas Shannon, Daniel Restrepo and Craig Kelly, would not have signed the Accord. Everyone knows why they broke the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord. The same president Oscar Arias for the sake of the truth declared that "Micheletti never had the will to collaborate and that on the contrary he was mocking the international community and only sought to extend the time to never turn over the power that he has".
Ex-president Ricardo Lagos, prominent member of the international Verification Commission in his declarations confirms this, by stating "Sr. Micheletti broke it", "Micheletti did things that he should not have done such as to say I will form a government of unity without Zelaya" which made this negotiated accord fail.
The same day that the Verification Commission of the accord was installed in Tegucigalpa, they were caught unaware by declarations of functionaries of the State Department where they modified their position and interpreted the accord unilaterally with the following declarations: "the elections will be recognized by the US with or without restitution"; the de facto regime celebrated this change and used these declarations for their objectives, and immediately ended by default and violation of the Accord. For the before expounded we declare in the following manner:
That the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord remains worthless and without effect for the unilateral default of the de facto government. This was conceived to be implemented in an integrated and simultaneous form; since it cannot be treated as twelve separate accords, it was one single accord with twelve points which had one sole goal, to restore the democratic order and social peace, and with this the coup d'etat would be reverted, which implies the certain return of the President of the Republic elected legitimately by popular vote. And with that, to bring about a climate of national reconciliation and a constitutional electoral process to follow, fair, with guarantees of equal participation and free for all the citizens of Honduras. That the upcoming elections should be developed in a framework of legality and international backing, especially by the OAS and UN and there would be the political conditions and conditions of minimum civil rights to guarantee a result that holds to liberty and transparency.
In this, I want to note that the new position of the functionaries of the Government of the US skirts the initial objective of the San Jose dialogue, relegating an accord with the legitimately recognized Government to a second place, and trying to move this accord toward a new electoral process without concern for the conditions in which it would be carried out. Among others, with public resources that are being authorized by public functionaries not legally recognized and attributed to a Budget document that has not been authorized by the legitimately recognized President.
In these conditions, this process, and therefore its results, will be subject to challenge and non-recognition; which will put in grave risk the future stability of relations between Honduras and the rest of the nations that might recognize its results.
As the Secretary General of the OAS José Miguel Insulza has pointed out, there does not exist a political environment for elections, as has been observed and pointed out by the North American Congress member [Jan Schakowsky] in her visit to Honduras, observing a veritable environment of violation of human rights in Honduras.
This past November 6, we communicated our refusal to continue with a false dialogue, and therefore on the expiration of the due date the text constitutes a dead letter that loses its validity, because an accord is fulfilled in time and form, the violation of this by the de facto regime is for us the condition that determines that the accord stopped existing. Undoubtedly precious time was lost in this unsuccessful attempt.
The presidential election is now scheduled for the last week of November. In this case, as Constitutional President of Honduras, and as citizen who represents and was elected by the democratic vote of the people of Honduras, I see myself obligated to state that under these conditions we cannot back it and we will proceed to challenge it legally in the name of thousands of Hondurans and hundreds of candidates that feel that this contest is unequal and does not present the conditions of free participation.
In Honduras due to the repression that the Honduran people today is subjected to, where there is no respect even for the highest authority of the President of the Republic, where they have not considered that in three years I achieved the best economic indicators and the greatest reduction of poverty in the 28 years of democratic life, where I was removed by force of arms, never was submitted to a trial nor to due process and today have 24 accusations and orders for arrest for drug trafficking, corruption, and terrorism, among others, and where the major part of the Ministers of my cabinet are the object of political persecution and are to be found fleeing the regime in different parts of the Americas.
3500 people detained in 100 days, more than 600 people wounded and beaten in hospitals, more than 100 assassinations and an unknown number of people subjected to tortures committed against citizens that dared to oppose and demonstrate for their ideas, for liberty, and for justice, in peaceful demonstrations, all that converts the elections of November into an anti-democratic exercise by an illegitimate state, due to the uncertainty and military intimidation, for large sectors of the people.
To carry out elections, in which the President elected by the people of Honduras, who is recognized by your Government and the international community, is prisoner, surrounded by military in the diplomatic mission of Brazil, and a de facto president, who imposes the military, surrounded by the powerful in the palace of government, would be a historic shame for Honduras and an infamy for the democratic peoples of the Americas.
This electoral process is illegal because it covers up the military coup d'etat, and the de facto state that Honduras lives with does not furnish guarantees of equality and liberty of citizen participation, for all the Hondurans, it is an antidemocratic electoral maneuver repudiated by large sectors of the people to cloak the material and intellectual authors of the Coup d'Etat.
The elections are a process, not just a day when you go to vote, they are a debate, they are the exposition of ideas, they are equality of opportunities.
In my status as President elected by the Honduran people, I reaffirm my decision that from this date on, whatever will happen, I WILL NOT ACCEPT any accord of returning to the presidency, to cloak the coup d'etat, that we know has a direct impact through military repression on the human rights of the inhabitants of our country.
Mr. President, in the Summit of Countries of the American Continent celebrated in Trinidad and Tobago at the beginning of this year, where I was present, you said
"That we should stop accusing the US for what it did in the past in the continent and that we should look toward the future". The future that today shows us the alteration of your position in the case of Honduras and thus favors abusive intervention by military groups in the civic life of our State (historical cause of the backwardness and stagnation of our countries in the 20th century). It is nothing more than the sunset of liberty and a deprecation of human dignity, it is a new war against the process of social and democratic reform that are so necessary in Honduras.
President Obama, each time that a legitimate elected Government is overturned in the Americas violence and terrorism win a battle and Democracy suffers a defeat.
We still refuse to believe that this military coup d'etat executed in Honduras, is now the new state terrorism of the 21st century. And that it will be the future for Latin America that you spoke to us about in Trinidad and Tobago.
We are firmly resolved to battle for our democracy without hiding the truth and when a people decide to peacefully fight for its ideas, there is no weapon, no army nor maneuver that is capable of stopping it.
In the expectation of your prompt response, I repeat my highest regards.
JOSE MANUEL ZELAYA ROSALES
President of Honduras
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The Spanish original is here: http://quotha.net/node/553
November 15, 2009 6:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
First, I hate, absolutely hate and despise DeMint and I would like to know what 'constituency' that asshole is representing down there--what are the names of the corporations that stand to gain from all of this.
Second, I thank you for this letter/link and saving me the time of having to go to the link.
'In the Americas' see, like I have said many times, WE ARE ALL AMERICANS.
November 16, 2009 3:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't know what corporations benefit, DD. But off the top of my head, there is Chiquita and I think the revenue sharing agreements in the telecom industry pipeline a lot of bucks to US telecoms. I wish I knew more about this.
November 16, 2009 10:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wasn't Honduras the US clandestine Contra support and supply base of operations when Reagan was illegally supporting 'Contra Freedom Fighters' who were killing nuns and priests in Nicaragua?
Now the contras are gone, and the Commie bad guy the Contras were fighting is President of a democratic Nicaragua and our friends in Honduras have a crazy idea that guns trump voters? Where could they have gotten that idea?
November 16, 2009 10:46 AM | Reply | Permalink