Just who does she think she’s fooling? – Dana Frank on Hillary Clinton’s role in the destruction of Honduran democracy and lives

“Look, you, maybe you've got everyone around here fooled with this saint act you have going, but do not ever speak to me again like we don't know what really happened, you got me?” – Tess McGill in Working Girl





By the way, I wrote at the time in 2009 (and linked to more) contesting the mendacity of Clinton pet and Honduran-oligarchy mouthpiece Lanny Davis.

Quote of the day – Right, Right

“As long as I am president, Honduras will stand behind Israel.”

- Juan Orlando Hernández

Chomsky Q&A at the New School

The transcript is here. Some highlights:

…The major center of radical Islam, extremist radical Islam, is Saudi Arabia, unquestionably. They are the source of the Wahhabization of the region, which Patrick Cockburn points out is one of the major developments of the modern era. Who’s the main supporter of Saudi Arabia? You are. You know, that’s where your tax dollars go. It’s been for a long time. Right now tens of billions of dollars of arms being sent under Obama, but it goes way back.

…The most extreme and interesting example [of the US government supporting a secular state in the Middle East] is Saddam Hussein, who was greatly loved by the Reagan administration and by the Bush I administration. I could give you the details, but they were so supportive of Saddam Hussein that he was even given a gift that otherwise only Israel has been granted, no other country. He was permitted to attack a U.S. naval vessel, killing a couple of dozen American sailors, and to get away with it with just a tap on the wrist. Israel had done the same thing in 1967. Saddam Hussein did it in 1987. And the friendship for Saddam Hussein was so enormous that he was granted that right. And that was a secular state. In fact, George Bush number one even invited Iraqi nuclear engineers to the United States for advanced training in nuclear weapons production. That’s a pretty supportive relationship. So there are cases where the United States has supported secular Islam, but typically it’s radical Islam that has been the beneficiary of U.S. support, like Britain before it.

…The only conceivable hope for some resolution of this horrendous crisis [in Syria], which is totally destroying the country, is the kind of negotiated settlement that was worked on by serious negotiators, like Lakhdar Brahimi, an international negotiator, very respectable, sensible. And the main idea, which—shared by any analyst with a grey cell functioning, is some kind of negotiated settlement which will involve the Assad government, like it or not, and involve the opposition elements, like it or not. There can’t be negotiations that don’t involve the parties that are fighting. That’s pretty obvious, just as South African negotiations had to involve the leadership of the apartheid state. There’s no other way. They can’t have other negotiations. It’s perfectly obvious that the Assad government is not going to enter into negotiations that are based on the condition that it commits suicide. If that’s the condition, they’re just going to keep destroying the country. That unfortunately is the—has been the U.S. position of the negotiations. U.S. and its allies have demanded that negotiations be based on the precondition that the Assad government will not survive. It’s a horrible government, and I’d like it not to survive, but that’s a prescription for destroying Syria, because it’s not going to enter into negotiations on those terms.

…I think what’s actually happened is that during the whole so-called neoliberal period, last generation, both political parties have drifted to the right. Today’s Democrats are what used to be called moderate Republicans. The Republicans have just drifted off the spectrum. They’re so committed to extreme wealth and power that they cannot get votes, can’t get votes by presenting those positions. So what has happened is that they’ve mobilized sectors of the population that have been around for a long time. It is a pretty exceptional country in many ways. One is it’s extremely religious. It’s one of the most extreme fundamentalist countries in the world. And by now, I suspect the majority of the base of the Republican Party is evangelical Christians, extremists, not—they’re a mixture, but these are the extremist ones, nativists who are afraid that, you know, ‘they are taking our white Anglo-Saxon country away from us’, people who have to have guns when they go into Starbucks because, who knows, they might get killed by an Islamic terrorist and so on. I mean, all of that is part of the country, and it goes back to colonial days. There are real roots to it. But these have not been an organized political force in the past. They are now. That’s the base of the Republican Party. And you see it in the primaries. So, yeah, Trump is maybe comic relief, but it’s just a—it’s not that different from the mainstream, which I think is more important.

…The United States did not—it was a—it may have been—it was probably the richest country in the world back in the early 19th century, but not the most powerful country. Britain was the most powerful. France was a powerful country. And that changed over the years, especially with the First World War and finally with the Second World War. So, exceptionalism has greatly expanded as power expanded. And I say again that this exceptionalism was also true of other great powers during their day of imperial power and domination.

…Israel is now - does play a major role - small country, but good high-tech industry, and it plays a major role in repression and aggression. It’s developed - the Israeli arms fairs, where they sell their arms, they advertise, correctly, that they have developed advanced means of repression and control, and that the arms that they’re displaying are battlefield-tested, namely against the Palestinians. So they’ve refined the techniques of control. And they contribute to that all over the place—in Central America, even in the United States. They’re providing advice on how to bar Honduran immigrants, say, from coming to the United States. They help train police and so on, many examples.

…One of the major doctrines of international affairs, which doesn’t appear in the literature, is the Mafia doctrine. International affairs are run like the—very much like the Mafia. The godfather does not tolerate disobedience. It’s much too dangerous. So, if some small storekeeper somewhere, say, doesn’t pay protection money, the don doesn’t accept it. You send their goons to beat him to a pulp, even if you don’t need the money, because others might get the idea, then things might start to erode. That is a dominant principle of international affairs. In fact, that was the reason for the 1953 coup [in Iran, orchestrated by the CIA], when you look back. And it’s also the reason why—for U.S. hostility to Iran, which is extreme. I mentioned the support for Saddam Hussein. That was an attack on Iran, and a serious one. But they defied orders. They overthrew a U.S.-imposed tyrant. They thumbed their nose at the United States. And you don’t get away with that.

…Arthur Schlesinger, Kennedy’s Latin American adviser, reported to him the report of his Latin American mission, said the problem is the Castro idea of taking matters into your own hands, which appeals to others in the hemisphere where people suffer similar repression, and you can’t let that idea spread.

His assertion that in Syria the US government “has taken a somewhat hands-off position, except that it’s supporting its allies” is an understatement. I hope to write more about this soon, but see, for example, this revealing document, here, and here.

In PR and censorship news…

The sleazy, repressive, illegitimate regime in Honduras has hired Ketchum (for more about which, see here, here, here, here, and here) to do its spin. It also helps to silence real journalists.

Quote of the day

“It’s a moment where the entire system of Guatemala is shaking. And in some senses, Guatemala is leading the world. They’ve achieved a level of civilization far higher than that of the U.S. It’s inconceivable that the U.S. could bring an American president to trial in an American court for mass murder of civilians. But Guatemala has done that. And now the people who are in the streets demonstrating are trying to take it farther by bringing down a sitting president.”

- Allan Nairn on Democracy Now!



Of course, we in the US hear little of these protests, or those in Honduras, or Beirut,…

Dean Spade, Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law

“Trans resistance is emerging in a context of neoliberal politics where the choice to struggle for nothing more than incorporation into the neoliberal order is the most obvious option. We are invited to seek recognition in law that will deliver no actual redistribution of life chances. We are being offered a limited form of visibility, only to the extent that that visibility can prop up existing norms about whose lives matter and whose do not. We are encouraged to fight for inclusion in the systems that the most important movements of our times are trying to dismantle. The paths to ‘equality’ and ‘success’ being modeled by lesbian and gay rights will not reduce the premature death that pervades trans communities, and, in fact, those paths lead to legitimization and expansion of the very systems that most endanger trans lives.”

“[T]he picture of economic marginalization, vulnerability to imprisonment, and other forms of state violence that trans communities are describing suggests that the ‘successes’ of the lesbian and gay rights organizations do not have enough to offer in terms of redistribution of life chances – and that their strategies will in fact further endanger the most marginalized trans populations. If formal legal equality at best opens doors to dominant institutions for those who are already closest to inclusion (i.e., they would be included if it wasn’t for this one characteristic), very few stand to benefit.

…

A critical trans politics imagines and demands an end to prisons, homelessness, landlords, bosses, immigration enforcement, poverty, and wealth. It imagines a world in which people have what they need and govern themselves in ways that value collectivity, interdependence, and difference.” - Normal Life

Dean Spade’s Normal Life, with its criticism of the elitist priorities and hierarchical structures of mainstream LGBT organizations and celebration of grassroots trans groups mobilizing to dismantle oppressive systems in coalition with other social and economic justice movements, is of course welcome reading for me. His radical, essentially anarchist, vision of trans politics is naturally one I can support, even if in some cases I think he pushes his critique too far. (On a personal note, it was refreshing to read something on the subject that wasn’t a treatise on identity or a personalized argument about bigotry.)

The LGBT movement hasn’t been immune from the effects of neoliberalism, the reactionary backlash against the radical politics of the 1960s and ‘70s, growing inequality, the expansion of the police/prison/security state, and the “professionalization” and NGOization of leftwing organizations. Spade does a fine job of showing how many of the largest LGBT organizations have succumbed to these pressures and enticements in their priorities, practices, and structures. More generally, drawing on the insights of Critical Legal Studies, he argues that the top-down law-centered battles prioritized by these organizations do little to improve the lives of the vast majority of LGBT people, marginalize and exclude those not seen as “deserving” of liberal equality, and often serve to perpetuate the same systems that do the most harm to these groups. His description of an effective and inclusive trans movement is equally thorough, especially in that he addresses several of the obstacles radical activists face in the present context (though he could have said more about the organized opposition of powerful countermovements).

One of the most interesting sections of the book argues for a shifting legal focus. Spade suggests that an exclusive focus on reformist efforts to include trans people in marriage, the military, antidiscrimination and hate-crime laws should give way to campaigns that challenge the administrative systems that categorize and shape people’s life chances – healthcare institutions, welfare programs, employment, shelters, addiction “treatment” programs, immigration bureaucracies, prisons, and so on – and their practices of categorization and surveillance. These systems control “access to food, transportation, public safety, public health, and the like.” As such, they’re “the legal systems that distribute security and vulnerability at the population level and sort the population into those whose lives are cultivated and those who are abandoned, imprisoned, or extinguished.”

I was especially intrigued by the discussion of the “War on Terror” and the expansion of the security state and its surveillance apparatus. The security state, as it always has, attempts to shore up traditional categories and to exclude and police anyone whose identity or behavior is seen to threaten them. The ID programs of recent years also, as Spade points out, push in the direction of fixed and stable identities. “The augmentation of US security culture,” including the sharing and cross-referencing of information across agencies, “has raised the level of stability demanded of our identities and has sharpened the tools that heighten the vulnerability of those who are not ‘fully authorized’ in any particular administrative context.”

For trans people, this creates an impossible dilemma, given the widely varying requirements for altering identity documents (when they can be altered at all). More generally, in this sense, the state itself, in its most seemingly prosaic administrative acts, institutionalizes and enforces the practice of bad faith. While “people who find the commonly evoked societal norms used in classification familiar and comfortable tend to take these classification systems as neutral givens in their lives,” “the ubiquity of gender data collection in almost every imaginable government and commercial identity verification system” is necessarily “an area of great concern” for trans people and many others. “The consequences of misclassification or the inability to be fit into the existing classification system,” Spade shows, “are extremely high.”

Also significant was his discussion of the administrative denial of health care needed by trans people. I’ve been arguing that this care is comparable to reproductive care and should be socially and materially supported. But Spade introduces another aspect which also relates to bad faith and the essentializing of identity:

Much of the care provided to nontrans people but routinely denied to trans people by Medicaid programs has the sole purpose of confirming the social gender of nontrans patients. Reconstruction of breasts or testicles lost to cancer, hormone treatment to eliminate hair that is considered gender-inappropriate, chest surgery for gynecomastia, and other treatments are provided solely because of the social consequences and mental health impact faced by people who have physical attributes that do not comport with their self-identity and social gender.

Once again, systems prop up “given” identities while denying some people the possibility of living their identities authentically in practice. The costs to trans people, as Spade describes, are enormous: profound emotional suffering, lack of access to other needed services, vulnerability to illness through unsafe procedures, and vulnerability to harassment and violence. But there are costs to all of us.

I do have some criticisms. For one, this is probably the most repetitive book I’ve ever read. One sentence – about mainstream LGBT organizations’ equality and antidiscrimination campaigns pinkwashing, perpetuating, and even expanding the systems that are destroying the lives of LGBT people – appears in some form or another literally dozens of times. But several sentences and ideas reappear frequently throughout the text. I’m OK with this to a point, but here it’s excessive and leaves less space for other worthwhile information.

For example, I would have loved to have seen more, in the last chapters and the afterword, about grassroots trans organizing for social and economic justice in other countries and about cross-national efforts and solidarities. Spade mentions the role of Palestinian activists in bringing attention to Israeli pinkwashing efforts, but provides no sense of what Palestinian or other Middle Eastern LGBT activists are doing on the ground. Similarly, despite the solid discussion of grassroots movements against immigration enforcement in the US, there’s no mention of, for example, Honduran activists and their struggles against the US-supported coup.

While the section on the history of neoliberalism and the deradicalization of the LGBT movement is strong, I do think it leaves out the role of the AIDS epidemic, which has killed hundreds of thousands of gay men in the US since the 1980s, including many leading activists. You could of course argue that this could have led the movement to become more radical had people made different choices – especially given the continuing crisis - but any such history has to recognize the psychological, emotional, and social toll of that plague, and the impact of a deadly sexually transmitted disease on efforts to organize around sexual liberation. (The women’s and gay health movements, the struggle for reproductive freedom and care, and the psych rights movement are also the precursors of the trans health activism Spade recognizes as so important today. In those cases, too, some organizations and campaigns have been co-opted and “mainstreamed,” but others have remained radical. This history could have been emphasized more, especially given the wide potential for solidarity and coalitions in this area.)

The book is also missing a full discussion of what movements are doing, in practical terms, in the area of administrative systems. Spade makes a solid argument that legal efforts should be focused on these systems, but he doesn’t say enough about what these efforts entail on the ground. In some cases – concerning prison and immigration enforcement, for example – he argues that the ultimate goal is abolition, and the movements he discusses in depth are fighting for the abolition of the system as they support those most trapped in and endangered by it. But in terms of the more immediate struggles – eliminating the various impediments to changing identity documents, fighting for the public provision of trans health care, and so on - he provides less information. There’s one interesting discussion of a grassroots New York campaign, but I wanted more detail.

I recommend this book for anyone concerned with the struggles of trans people, the landscape of LGBT politics in the US, and larger questions about movement priorities and practices and the role of legal struggles in advancing radical goals.

“These are governments of the transnationals”: Manuel Zelaya on Democracy Now!

“It is possible that plans are underway right now to establish fascist dictatorships such as those that we had in the 20th century, here now in the 21st century. There is a difference, though. It is true that there is a conservative restoration, but it is also true that the peoples have awoken. The people are no longer willing to just see it happen. The people are taking to the street, and they protest, and they call for their rights to be respected. That is the hope that we have in my country, that the 99 percent have taken to the streets.”

(Full transcript here.)

Good news!

No more Icelandic blasphemy law…,

and another huge march in Honduras.

Resistencia: The Fight for the Aguan Valley - watch free online beginning on Sunday

This Sunday will be the sixth anniversary of the Honduran coup. The makers of Resistencia: The Fight for the Aguan Valley will be screening the film online for free for two weeks beginning on that day.

Resistencia: The Fight for the Aguan Valley | OFFICIAL TRAILER from Makila, Coop on Vimeo.

(As the resistance continues, Miguel Facussé, shown in the trailer, is gone:

In Honduras, Miguel Facussé, dubbed “the palm plantation owner of death,” and one of Honduras’ wealthiest and most powerful figures, has died at the age of 90. Facussé and private security guards with his company, Dinant, were accused of taking part in violent land grabs and dozens of murders of campesino land activists in Honduras’ Aguán Valley as he sought to expand his palm oil fortune. Diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks showed the United States knew of Facussé’s role in cocaine trafficking but continued funding Honduras’ military and police, who reportedly worked closely with Facussé’s guards. Facussé backed the 2009 coup that ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya…)

[via David Swanson, “Resistance in Honduras is Alive and Jumping”]

Quote of the day

“No somos 5

No somos 100

Prensa Vendida

Cuéntanos bien!”

(It rhymes in Spanish. :))

Surprisingly, there’s an AP story about the march, and this from AFP:

Quote of the day

“Just how heinous should Honduras have to be before the U.S. stops supporting it?”

- Dana Frank

(I’m sure she knows this is rhetorical.)

#RenunciaJOH

Hondurans protest on Twitter, and spread word of tomorrow’s demonstration:

Quote of the day

“The country’s branding initiatives serve to develop Honduras as an attractive tourism offering, investment opportunity as well as a country with outstanding products and services for export. The efforts must seek to steer the nation’s development with a message that unites the entire country.”

- Aline Flores, president of the Honduran National Investment Council

Say it ain’t so!

Shocking hints of corruption in Honduras’ ruling party:

Officials said Thursday they are investigating allegations that millions of dollars embezzled from Honduras’ social security institute might have been used to finance the governing National Party.

The Public Ministry said in a statement that authorities were studying checks from supplier companies to the agency’s director and his friends. The companies are alleged to have overcharged for supplies and then kicked back some of the money.

The ministry didn't say which party was being investigated in relation to the case, but the director of the National Anti-Corruption Council, Gabriela Castellanos, said three protected witnesses have said it is the National Party of President Juan Orlando Hernandez.

The LIBRE party organized protests and has demanded the resignation of the “president.” Whatever comes (or doesn’t) of this specific investigation, the regime continues its attack on the remaining vestiges of democracy in Honduras – see this excellent piece by Dana Frank.

Misrepresentations continue in coverage of Honduras reelection decision

The AP article printed the other day in the Guardian, “Honduran judges throw out single-term limit on presidency,” features what will surely be the accepted mainstream-media tropes for the coverage of the decision (to the limited extent that the story is covered at all): it’s ironic and controversial because these were the same people who carried out a military coup against the democratically elected Zelaya for wanting to do away with presidential term limits to extend his own rule back in 2009. As the article portrays it, the

Ruling revives tensions that led to coup and ouster of Manuel Zelaya six years ago when he sought to change constitution so officeholders could stand again

…The supreme court in Honduras has voided a single-term limit for the country’s presidency — the issue at the heart of the political conflict that led to the ouster of socialist [!] incumbent Manuel Zelaya six years ago when he sought to hold a referendum on rewriting the constitution.

Forces that united to remove Zelaya from office, including some members of his own party, had contended he wanted to end the ban on second terms so he could remain in power.

Yes, they contended it then, and it was patently false then, as many – including Mark Weisbrot, who writes frequently for the Guardian - pointed out at the time* and since. The majority of commenters on the article itself have explained (yet again) that this was a fraudulent pretext for the coup, but there’s little chance that a correction or clarification will be forthcoming.

There’s no parallel here, and there’s no irony. The “tensions” are not the same. This is simply a continuation of the ambitions of the coupists. A good rule of thumb is to assume that any authoritarian plots of which rightwingers accuse their enemies are really projections of their own desires.

* As Weisbrot wrote then:

Zelaya's referendum, planned for the day the coup took place, was a nonbinding poll. It only asked voters if they wanted to have an actual referendum on reforming the country's Constitution on the November ballot. Even if Zelaya had gotten everything he was looking for, a new president would have been elected on the same November ballot. So Zelaya would be out of office in January, no matter what steps were taken toward constitutional reform.

Honduras is now the most dangerous country for environmental activists

Honduras Culture and Politics discusses a new Global Witness report about killings of environmental activists, which notes that Honduras is “the most dangerous country to be an environmental defender.”

They point to how the numbers killed in Honduras (111 people total between 2002 and 2014) increased abruptly after 2009, as shown in the Global Witness graphic:

From 2002 to 2009, Honduras had 0, 1, 2, or 3 deaths per year of environmentalists. Starting with 2010, those numbers skyrocketed: 21 deaths in 2010, 33 deaths in 2011, 25 deaths in 2012, 10 deaths in 2013, and 12 deaths in 2014. 90% of the Honduran environmentalist deaths occurred in the last 5 years!

Global Witness found that mining and other extractive industries caused the largest number of deaths in 2014, with a tie for the second spot between Water and Dams, and Agribusiness. These three accounted for 84% of the environmentalist deaths in 2014.

This violence has come down particularly hard on indigenous environmentalists. Three Tolupan leaders were shot and killed during an anti-mining protest in 2014.

Because readers of the blog are likely to be familiar with the country’s recent history, HCAP doesn’t explicitly point to the transformative event in 2009: the military coup against democratically elected president Manuel Zelaya. When Hillary Clinton worked to “render the question of Zelaya moot” and institutionalize the coup, this is what she helped set in motion. They also don’t mention – again because most readers will be all too aware – the impunity with which these crimes are committed. But I’m sure the Marines will help with that.

Quote of the day

Commenter Charles at the Honduras Culture and Politics post “Presidential Re-election?!”:

The only fitting end to this farce would be if Manuel Zelaya ran again and won.

“Making signs in large Letters that spelled out ‘Libertad’”

US Marines are headed to Honduras. I’m still unclear on the relationship of these Marines to the 250-Marine unit. Some articles seem to suggest that that force is still being reviewed, while several hours ago the Argentina Independent (which might be confused) reported that it’s been approved.

In any case, it’s clear that they’re going to Honduras on the pretext of providing humanitarian aid, the precise forms of which seem to change with every announcement – hurricane response, other unspecified disaster relief, building schools, providing medical care [!!!],… These claims are implausible in light of, well, many things, but especially the public statements to the effect that the Marines would also be dedicated to fighting drug trafficking and organized crime and the most recent impetus for the genesis of the unit, the Central American Regional Security Conference held in Honduras a few weeks ago:

Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez welcomed security and defense leaders from 14 nations as they gathered in Tegucigalpa March 25 for two days of talks on ways to strengthen their ongoing security cooperation and counter transnational organized crime in Central America.

The president spoke to more than 100 participants during the opening ceremony for the annual Central American Regional Security Conference (CENTSEC), co-hosted by the Honduran armed force's Joint Staff and U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM).

‘We've reached a conclusion that regional efforts and approaches are fundamental, because those we are up against also have a regional approach and have a very high level of sophistication, so the only way to confront them is by working together,’ he told them.

I wonder when hurricanes were discussed…

The increasing US military presence in Honduras comes amid calls from Latin American leaders to eliminate existing US bases in the region. UNASUR head Ernesto Samper called recently for their closing, arguing that they were a relic of the Cold War and a symbol and means of US political dominance.

The claims of humanitarian motives strike an especially bitter chord given the treatment of people seeking asylum from these countries in the US. Democracy Now! is reporting on a hunger strike of women with children held in a for-profit internment center in Texas.

After five months in detention with her two-year-old son, Kenia Galeano joined a hunger strike with about other 70 mothers to push for their release. Today she described how she and several others were held in isolation as punishment.

‘Inside this room it was really cold. It was dark. The toilet was right next to the bed. My son was in there with me this entire time’, Galeano said.

She also recalled threats that families would be separated if the strike continued.

‘A guard told us if we didn’t eat we would not be equipped to take care of our children, and risked having them taken away’, Galeano said.

The women ended their strike on April 3 but now ten more have vowed to begin again Wednesday to refuse to eat except for one meal each evening. Like last time, they want bond hearings so they can be free while seeking asylum, as well as improved food and conditions at the Karnes County Residential Center in Texas, which is run by the private prison company, The Geo Group.

Galeano, who is from Honduras, was released on a $7,500 bond after the hunger strike ended. Her family paid $3,000 and the rest was supplemented by the Family Detention Bond Fund. But she said she can’t stop thinking about the hundreds of women she left behind, like her cellmate who had an eleven-year-old son.

…

Two incident reports provided to Democracy Now! show a group of Karnes detainees tried to draw the attention of a helicopter that flew overhead on April 2 by making large letters on signs that spelled out ‘libertad’ which means liberty. Staff who documented the incident called it an ‘insurrection’.

On May 2 a nationwide protest is planned outside the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas, the other facility where hundreds of women and children have been detained since seeking asylum from violence in Central America. The event will kick-off a week of actions that end on Mother’s Day.

Here are the two original reports:

“Un mensaje directo a otros países latinoamericanos en procesos independentistas”

This feature in the Honduran paper La Tribuna offers a small selection of quotes from deputies arguing for and against a special US Marine unit operating out of Palmerola. Here are two of the arguments against the plan:

Doris Gutiérrez: “Ocupación nos parece violación a soberanía”
Doris Gutiérrez (pinuista, FM): “Estamos de acuerdo que existan convenios de cooperación entre Estados Unidos y Honduras, sobre todo en materia de asistencia humana y asesoría en educación y otros campos afines, pero la ocupación del país por marines, aunque sea por poco tiempo, nos parece una violación a la independencia y a la soberanía de nuestra patria. Tampoco apoyamos plataformas para amenazar otros países”.

Scherly Arriaga: “No queremos ser plataforma”
Scherly Arriaga (Libre, Cortés): “Honduras es un país de paz, no queremos ser plataforma militar de ningún país, es una violación a nuestra soberanía, Honduras no necesita ni militares ni armamentismo. Consideramos que la presencia de más tropas es un mensaje directo a otros países latinoamericanos en procesos independentistas y, en ese sentido, es inaceptable porque Honduras no puede ser escenario de guerra”.

Their concerns are especially relevant in light of the history of the base. This editorial notes that the permanent base began in the ‘80s as the site of an allegedly temporary operation to support the contras in Nicaragua. As the editorial argues, two aspects of that history are particularly important. First, smaller, “temporary” missions of any sort overwhelming tend to expand in scope and to become institutionalized. Second, the base has always provided a staging ground for US actions against other countries in the region. In the current context of social change in the Americas, including unified pushback against US and Canadian interference and aggression, the force would rightly be regarded as menacing.

…El tema es, para nuestro entendimiento, de alta dimensión porque la temporalidad en estos casos es muy susceptible de alargamiento, de prórrogas, de modificaciones. Palmerola es, en este sentido, ejemplar. Se estableció como “albergue temporal” para la intervención en Nicaragua de contrarrevolución, pero fue quedándose con nuevos objetivos, de acuerdo al inconfeso proyecto original.

Naturalmente, el estrechamiento de las relaciones del gobierno de Honduras con el Comando Sur es ahora demasiado sugestivo. De ahí las inquietudes en relación con la presencia militar estadounidense, independientemente de sus motivaciones reales o supuestas. Los tiempos han cambiado, y en este caso la externalidad ya es de ámbito continental. Quiérase o no, eso afecta las relaciones entre Estados, pueblos y gobiernos.

Is it narcotrafficking season again?

You’ll know it’s summer when you hear the soothing hum of approaching CH-53s…

I was amused by this Tico Times article, “US Marines plan force in Honduras for hurricane season”:

The United States wants to deploy a force of about 250 Marines to Honduras to provide humanitarian help during the region’s hurricane season, officials said Friday. The contingent also would assist Central American forces on efforts to counter narcotics trafficking.

Honduran officials are weighing the proposed task force, which would operate out of Palmerola air base from June to November.

“We have requested that the Marines be present in Honduras from June through November 2015, during hurricane season, to support Honduras and other countries in the region in the event of a hurricane or other major disaster,” the U.S. embassy in Tegucigalpa said in a statement.

…“It’s only on a temporary basis,” said Captain Armando Daviu, public affairs officer for U.S. Marine Forces South. “It’s set up to be a quick response emergency force.”

The special purpose Marine air-ground task force would be equipped with four CH-53 cargo helicopters and possibly a C-130 aircraft, he told AFP.

This doesn’t even make sense. They’re supposedly going to set up this force and then just send them back to the US for good with all of their equipment later in the year? Even aside from the problem of the militarization of humanitarian aid, they’re not even trying that hard to hide the true purpose:

The task force would also contribute troops to “security cooperation” teams already stationed in the area, which train and advise local forces battling organized crime and narcotics smuggling.

Why would they set up seasonal participation in “security cooperation” teams?

Pentagon officials insisted the proposal would not involve the permanent deployment of U.S. troops, a sensitive political issue in a region where U.S. forces historically sided with authoritarian regimes.

This claim would be misleading even if it could be believed - which it can’t - since Soto Cano currently has around 500 US troops:

The Palmerola air base, currently home to about 500 American troops, was once a major staging area in the 1980s for US military support to Contra rebels fighting the Nicaraguan government.

So it’s a planned (or is it proposed?) additional unit dedicated to humanitarian aid in response to hurricanes. And other natural disasters. And really any sort of “emergency.” In the whole region. Oh, and also fighting narcotrafficking. And organized crime. And promoting “security” generally. And all of the expertise and equipment required for these tasks is the same. And only needed during the hurricane season.* And yet Palmerola remains 100% Honduran territory.

I’ve been presenting this as almost entirely a matter of concern for Hondurans and others in the region: Honduras’ international airport is being constructed on what is partially a US military base (and we saw what happened when that was planned without US cooperation), military expansion is being packaged as humanitarian aid, a larger US military presence will enhance the power of foreign interests and of the Honduran Right and military, and the Honduran “government” evidently doesn’t deem the views of the public important enough to propose the arrangement openly or even to be forthright when the plan is discovered. But it’s also an important matter for us in the US, who should be concerned with whether our government’s policy in the Americas should continue to be one of military and corporate imperialism underwritten by public funds.

* I suppose after that they could be deployed to the US border, to keep out all of the children driven to emigrate by the impoverishment, disempowerment, and violence enabled by the US-backed post-coup regimes.