Honduran coup tests Obama in Latin America
Deposed Honduran president Manuel Zelaya got his strongest endorsement yet from President Barack Obama on Tuesday as the exiled leftist leader returned to Washington to meet Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The United States has joined Latin America in unanimously condemning the military coup in the banana-producing country that ran Zelaya out of town in his pajamas ten days ago. But Washington has been reluctant to slap sanctions on Honduras and cut off U.S. aid. Instead it is cautiously looking for a negotiated and peaceful resolution to a crisis that looks like a win-win situation for the United States’ main adversary in the hemisphere, Venezuela’s leftist leader Hugo Chavez. Zelaya, a wealthy rancher who turned left in office and signed on to Chavez’s growing anti-U.S. coalition, is hardly the best poster boy for democracy. His moves to follow Chavez’s example and extend presidential term limits in Honduras sparked the political crisis in which the Honduran Supreme Court, with the backing of Congress, ordered the army to oust the president. After years of U.S. neglect of Latin America during the Bush administration, Obama is trying to improve relations with the region and cannot afford to be on the wrong side of a crisis that many Latin Americans see as a flashback to a dark era of military dictatorships supported by the United States in the 1960s and 1970s.
The Pentagon suspended military cooperation with Honduras last week, even though it maintains a U.S. base in the Central American country that served as an “unsinkable aircraft carrier” in the 1980s when the United States was supplying the Contra war against Nicaragua’s Sandinistas. Experts on Latin America warn that the close relationship with the Honduran military could lead the United States to do what it had done for decades during the Cold War: side with the elites. “The battle between Zelaya and his opponents pits a reformist president supported by labor unions and social organizations against a mafia-like, drug-ridden, corrupt political elite who is accustomed to choosing not only the Supreme Court and the Congress, but also the president,” said Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington. Dan Erikson, of the Inter-American Dialogue, believes Chavez is well-positioned to benefit from any outcome. “If Zelaya is restored, then another Chavez ally remains in power. If the coup is not reversed, then Chavez has a new issue with which to rally anti-American sentiments in the region. The bottom line is that Chavez is engaged in trying to exploit the Honduran coup to maximum advantage,” Erikson said. The hemisphere has still not figured out how to contain a new breed of power-grabbing populist leaders like Chavez who have risen through the ballot box, Erikson said. But whatever their authoritarian tendencies might be, there is broad consensus today –unlike in decades past– that military coups against democratically elected governments are totally unacceptable.
Reuters photos by Luis Galdamez (Zelaya at San Salvador airport on July 5); Daniel LeClair (soldiers stop a woman), and Henry Romero ( Zelaya supporter protesting after soldiers fire tear gas at Tegucigalpa airport, where troops blocked the runway on July 5 to prevent the ousted president from landing).
The First Draft: Recess!
There’s a real school’s-out feeling around Washington today. Congress left town last week after the House voted for bill to curb climate change, and most lawmakers won’t be back until after the July 4 holiday weekend. The Supreme Court issues its last rulings of the term, with a full sheaf of decisions expected — but then the justices will be gone for the summer.
President Barack Obama’s hosting Colombian President Alvaro Uribe at the White House, with a joint appearance in the afternoon. In addition to a full plate of U.S.-Colombian issues, the two leaders could address last weekend’s military coup in Honduras. Obama has already called for peaceful resolution of “tensions and disputes” but he may have more to say.
Later in the day, Obama celebrates the accomplishments of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans at a White House reception. This community has criticized the president for what they see as foot-dragging on repealing the Defense of Marriage Act — which defines marriage as between one man and one woman and says states need not recognize gay marriages performed in another state — and the U.S. military’s Don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy.
On Capitol Hill, even though most members of Congress are back home, there’s one decision most will be interested in — a possible ruling by the Minnesota Supreme Court on just who has won a hotly contested Senate seat: Republican Norm Coleman or Democrat Al Franken. If Franken is declared the winner, it would give Democrats a 60-vote majority, which means Republicans can’t delay legislation with a jaw-fest called a filibuster.
Outside Washington, questions still swirl around the death of Michael Jackson, with lawyers, doctors, relatives and others opining on morning television about the circumstances of the pop star’s demise, and the fate of his three children.
There was plenty of attention focused on an expected day of reckoning set for a New York City courtroom, too: the sentencing of Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff. Legal experts suggest he’ll get a virtual life term.
Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Young. A cyclist rides past magnolias in bloom on Capitol Hill, March 3, 2009
Actually, while it is possible that the Minnesota Supreme Court can rule that Franken won, they CANNOT rule that Norm Coleman won. The best that Coleman can hope for is that the Supreme Court will send it back to have additional votes counted. Even then, he probably would only have a 50-50 chance of prevailing.
The First Draft: On The Road Again
Now that Congress is back from its week-long Memorial Day recess, it’s time for the U.S. top brass to hit the road. President Barack Obama heads to the Middle East today, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in Honduras, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is in China and U.S. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke promises a visit to Pakistan this week.
Closer to home, Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor starts making the rounds on Capitol Hill in advance of her confirmation hearings. Meantime, Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal faces questions at his confirmation hearing today before the Senate Armed Services Committee today. McChrystal’s nominated to be the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.
This might be an opportune time for travel. The Ipsos/Reuters poll indicates global consumer confidence is stabilizing, after dropping for 18 months.
Obama’s Mideast trip is in part a fulfillment of a campaign promise to deliver a speech to the Islamic world from a major Muslim capital early in his presidency. He’ll make the speech in Cairo on Thursday, where T-shirt vendors are ready with a version that reads “Obama: New Tutankhamon of the World.” His first stop in the region will be Saudi Arabia, where the discussion is expected to focus on oil prices.
Sometimes it’s not the distance traveled but what you say when you get there. That may be true for Dick Cheney, who last month emerged from his undisclosed location for a high-profile confrontation with Obama — they weren’t in the same room but Cheney started talking moments after Obama finished — over how to handle the threat of terrorism and its aftermath. The former vice president went to the National Press Club last night to offer support for gay marriage, regulated on a state-by-state basis. He has done this before, but doing it now puts him to the left of Obama, who favors civil unions for gay couples.
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Photo credit: REUTERS/Amr Dalsh (Souvenir shop shows the latest on June 1 in Cairo)
I don’t know why president Obama feels obliged to keep his
campaign promise to address the Muslim people from a Muslim
capitol, so soon. He certainly isn’t in a rush to keep all
his others to his fellow citizens.
The removal of Zelaya is a great example of Democracy making a correction to prevent a dictatorship like the one that currently exists in Venezuela from taking place. The institutions of government represented by their own congress, the supreme court and their own people supported his ouster and in the process preserved Democracy for the next generation.