Infidels Paradise

WaPo:

After ousting president, Honduran elite defied U.S. pressure
Coup’s supporters persisted out of fear of Zelaya’s policies

By Mary Beth Sheridan

TEGUCIGALPA, HONDURAS — Just weeks ago, wealthy businessman Adolfo Facussé was shocked to be turned away at Miami’s airport. His visa, he discovered, had been canceled under a U.S. crackdown on supporters of a coup-installed Honduran government

But today, Facussé and his allies seem to have won their standoff with the U.S. government. Despite American efforts to isolate Honduras — including canceling visas and aid — this tiny country has refused to back down on the military’s ouster of the president. And the U.S. government now appears to be on its way to normalizing relations.

The story of how the second-poorest country in the hemisphere defied a superpower involves smooth-talking U.S. lobbyists and a handful of congressional Republicans. Perhaps most of all, it features a Honduran elite terrified that their country was being hijacked by someone they considered an erratic leftist.

“The point for the United States was, if we pressure these [Honduran] people, they will do what we say,” Facussé said during an interview in Tegucigalpa on the patio of his walled mansion.

“We will suffer some damages,” he said. “But it’s more important to have our country.”

Many politicians and businessmen in this traditionally conservative country say President Manuel Zelaya was dangerous because of his growing alliance with Venezuela’s leftist president, Hugo Chávez. The reality seems more complicated. The Honduran Congress backed Zelaya’s decision to join Chávez’s anti-American alliance last year, apparently in hopes of getting aid.

But Zelaya increasingly clashed with business leaders and politicians. He did not submit a 2009 budget and fought to get a Supreme Court judge reappointed even though she wasn’t on a list of approved nominees.

The crisis came to a head when Zelaya proceeded with a poll on rewriting the constitution, even after it was ruled unconstitutional. Many Hondurans worried he wanted to abolish the one-term presidential limit.

U.S. diplomats, aware of growing pressure on the Honduran military to remove the president, urged a democratic solution. On June 28, however, soldiers rousted Zelaya from bed and forced him into exile. A phony resignation note was read in Congress.

President Obama called the move illegal, warning that it could set a “terrible precedent.”

Still, it was hardly an old-style Latin American coup. The soldiers were acting on a secret Supreme Court arrest warrant charging Zelaya with abuse of power. Legislators replaced him with a civilian. As promised, the de facto government proceeded with regularly scheduled presidential elections in November.

“Their game was a very limited one,” said Christopher Sabatini, policy director at the Council of the Americas, speaking of supporters of the coup. “It wasn’t to hold on to power but to basically remove a president they didn’t like.”

The Honduran elite appeared stunned when the United States, their longtime ally, joined the hemisphere in suspending the country from the Organization of American States. Some, like Facussé, acknowledged that the military had gone too far but argued that it acted to ward off a potentially bloody clash. Business and political leaders signed up U.S. lobbyists and sent delegations to Washington to plead their case.

They won support from a handful of Republicans, who held up diplomatic appointments, weakening the State Department’s Latin America team.

The Obama administration, eager to show its democratic bona fides, brokered an accord allowing Zelaya to return to office with limited power. But the de facto president, Roberto Micheletti, refused to sign.

Despite being shunned by the world, Micheletti and his allies were buoyed by domestic support. Although popular among the poor for increasing the minimum wage, Zelaya had unnerved Hondurans with his emotional speeches denouncing the wealthy and the political system, analysts said.

“There was no sector in the government with real power that was in favor of Zelaya” when he was removed, said Leo Valladares, a former Honduran human-rights commissioner.

Pro-Zelaya TV and radio stations have been periodically knocked off the air in recent months. U.S. Ambassador Hugo Llorens said there has been a “significant deterioration” in human rights.

“There’s a very strong psychological campaign against us by the police — that we’re going to be detained, pulled from our houses, disappeared,” said Rafael Alegria, a leader of the pro-Zelaya forces .

Meanwhile, the cutoff of some foreign aid — including about $30 million from the United States — had less impact than some expected. With imports plunging because of the global economic crisis, Honduras was not desperate for dollars to stabilize its finances, said Mauricio Díaz Burdett, a prominent Honduran economist. And Honduras continued to receive a more important financial flow — more than $2 billion a year in remittances from immigrants in the United States.

Authorities also banked on the fact that Honduras’s largest trading partners — including the United States — wouldn’t shut down commerce, because that would hurt the entire region.

As the crisis dragged on, U.S. diplomats got both sides to agree in October to allow the Honduran Congress to decide on Zelaya’s restoration. Until the end, Washington publicly supported his return. But after many delays, lawmakers finally voted Wednesday — no.

Jennifer Rubin @ Contentions writes:

[...]

Ironically, the Honduran interim government wound up isolating the Obami — not the other way around. They smartly made their case to Republicans in Congress (”They won support from a handful of Republicans, who held up diplomatic appointments, weakening the State Department’s Latin America team”) and pushed forward with the only feasible solution — free and fair elections. Eventually the Obami were forced to back down: “As the crisis dragged on, U.S. diplomats got both sides to agree in October to allow the Honduran Congress to decide on Zelaya’s restoration. Until the end, Washington publicly supported his return. But after many delays, lawmakers finally voted Wednesday — no.”

There is a lesson there for small democracies. If they abide by democratic principles, sustain a united front domestically, and refuse to accede to the arrogance of Foggy Bottom and the White House, they can control their own destiny. (Hmm, seems to also have worked out in Israel.) That it should require such a Herculean effort to resist the strong-arming tactics of the United States is sobering and distressing.