Published: Friday, August 28, 2009 Bylined to: Alainet.org
President of Colombia "dedicated to collaboration with the Medellin cartel..."
Alainet.org: The UNASUR summit in Bariloche, Argentina will have to face two grave problems weighing heavily on Latin America: the military coup in Honduras and the militarization of the region as a result of the installation of not one but seven US military bases in Colombia.
Regarding the first problem, UNASUR ought to demand consistency from Barack Obama in his statements of support for a new era of inter-American relations. As has been pointed out on numerous occasions, the coup is a trial balloon intended to test the reactions of the peoples and governments of the region. And that it happened in Honduras is precisely because that is the country most intensely subjected to the ideological influence and political dominance of Washington.
With OAS negotiations having failed, Washington has proceeded to suspend the issuance of visas to Honduran citizens, a very lukewarm measure but an indicator of the fact that the US is taking note of the prevailing political atmosphere in the region. Nevertheless, Obama ought to do much more, and abandon the fallacious argument expressed several days ago when he referred to the contradiction of the critics of imperialism who demand that the US intervene in Honduras. It is “ironic," Obama said on that occasion, “that the people that were complaining about the US interfering in Latin America are now complaining that we are not interfering enough”.
It is clear that Obama is not well informed about the actions of his military and civilian subordinates, not to mention his intelligence services. But he ought to know, because it is so basic, that the US has been intervening in Honduras since 1903, the year in which for the first time US Marines landed in that country to protect North American interests in the midst of a political crisis. In 1907, on the occasion of war between Honduras and Nicaragua, US troops were stationed for three months in the cities of Trujillo, Ceiba, Puerto Cortes, San Pedro Sula, Laguna, and Choloma. In 1911 and 1912, they repeated the invasions, in the latter case to prevent the expropriation of a railroad in Puerto Cortes. In 1919, 1924, and 1925 imperialist expeditionary forces again invaded Honduras, always under the same pretext – protect the lives and property of North American citizens residing in the country.
But the largest invasion occurred in 1983 when, under the direction of a sinister figure, Ambassador John Negroponte, a huge base of operations was established from which the US launched its reactionary offensive against the Sandinista government and the Salvadoran Farabundo Marti guerrilla movement. Obama cannot ignore this nefarious history and must know that the coup against Zelaya was only possible due to the acquiescence of his government. What is now being asked is that the US stop its intervention, that it withdraw its support for the coup government, the only thing keeping it in power, and thereby facilitate the return of Zelaya to Tegucigalpa. The White House has at its disposal many economic and financial tools with which to discipline its ally. If it does not do so, it is because it does not want to, and the governments and peoples of Latin America will then reach their own conclusions.
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