Around Latin America

-Staying true to its word, Argentina is going to the UN to protest the plans for oil exploration off the Malvinas/Falklands Islands.

-Although Roberto Micheletti's repressive government has exited office, there are reports that anti-coup leaders in Honduras are continuing to suffer repression and violence, indicating the human rights violations of the intern government may be continuing. Certainly, maintaining the military chief behind last June's coup, as Lobo has chosen to do, is not a step in the right direction.

-Also in Honduras, in more bad news (non-political variety), its forests are falling victim to a growing illegal logging industry, a fact that could have terrible repercussions not only on the environment, but on the Honduran economy and communities as well.

-More trouble for Alvaro Uribe: having already had political allies tied to paramilitary groups in the past, three of Uribe's closest aides are now involved in a wiretap scandal in which they're charged with tapping the lines of politicians, judges, and others in Colombia.

-Concerns over death-squad killings in El Salvador have risen in the wake of a coordinated attack that left 12 youths dead last week.

Around Latin America

-Former Uruguayan president Juan Manuel Bordaberry was sentenced to 30 years in prison for his role as president during Uruguay's dictatorship.

-Honduras's Congress may finally be ready to get rid of the gag order that Roberto Micheletti placed on the media last year. Meanwhile, the National Autonomous University of Honduras is under fire for hiring two members of Manuel Zelaya's administration.

-Jose Roberto Arruda, a member of Brazil's right-wing Democratic Party and governor of Brasilia, was arrested this week on charges of corruption and accepting kickbacks on public works. Both that article and this one reasonably point out that the arrest could hurt the right-wing Democrats and PSDB in their efforts to paint the Lula administration as corrupt.

-Brazilian left-wing politician and educator Cristovam Buarque makes a compelling case of how economic slavery continues in Brazil.

-Finally, in Chile, a new commission is being launched to listen to the testimony of victims and families of victims of the Pinochet dictatorship. The commission will hold hearings in order to determine if those who still have not received reparations for their suffering should be rewarded or not. This new commission will be the third, following the Rettig commission of 1991 and the Valech Commission of 2004; the former certified over 3000 victims murdered during Pinochet's 17 years of rule, while the latter certified over 28,000 cases of torture and political imprisonment.

Meet Honduras' Newest Senator for Life: Roberto Micheletti

For those who might have thought Roberto Micheletti would quietly go away after the inauguration of Porfirio Lobo on January 27, think again:

In the last session of the legislature, the Congress of Tegucigalpa declared senator for life the de facto leader Roberto Micheletti.

I'd say something about the irony of the fact that a government that played a part in the overthrow of a democratically-elected leader and continued to crack down on freedom of the press and violently put down protesters in the name of "democracy" is now making sure its leader is a perpetual, un-elected member of the Senate, but that would make the hypocrisy too obvious.

An Update on the Honduran Elections

We haven't said much about the election of Porfirio Lobo (save for the possibility of a general amnesty for all actors in the Honduran crisis). Fortunately, the excellent Honduras Coup 2009 blog has been on top of it, with great analysis (including the fact that 100.7% of the votes have been counted, which, suffice to say, seems to indicate that the Tribunal Supremo Electoral is cooking the numbers). Other observations: the vote total was not high enough to give the de facto regime of Micheletti the overwhelming support it hoped to gain, but was not low enough to render the entire election illegitimate, either, leaving Honduras in an awkward position in which "the valid vote count falls in the middle ground between 1.7 and 2.3 million valid votes where Boz suggested both sides could claim victory, as indeed they have."

The possible fraud and the mediocre turnout are not surprising to me. What is particularly intriguing, though, is the possibility for grassroots mobilization in the future based on the events and elections of this year. The number of null and spoiled ballots is also fascinating (including this particular ballot, with the words "Golpistas hijos de puta" ["Coup-leaders sons of bitches/motherfuckers"]). RAJ points out that, after the two main candidates, spoiled/null votes outnumbered the vote total for any of the third-party candidates. What might this mean?

We would suggest that the relevant measure of whether this election met the expectations of the coup regime is somewhat different. Less than 50% of those listed as eligible voted in this election. Of that number, almost 7% turned in ballots that were blank or deliberately spoiled, meaning that the final presidential selection fell to about 43% of the electorate. The trend of alienation from governance that already existed in Honduras intensified with an election that was in no way free and fair.

The big difference this time: hundreds of thousands of people now count themselves as part of a resistance movement that will influence elections in the future. And that includes some large proportion of those who did not vote, or submitted spoiled or blank ballots, as well as those who stayed at home on election day. Porfirio Lobo has no mandate from the people, to add to his lack of influence in his own party and in Honduras' national government.

This could mean nothing. However, it's clear that there is some broad grassroots discontent here, and future parties (including progressive parties) could end up being able to take advantage of this discontent. The fact that half of eligible Hondurans didn't vote also seems that the field could be ripe for a real democratic and progressive alternative to the two parties that generally have ruled in Honduras up to this point. Of course, nothing is certain; Lobo could reign in this discontent through his own policies over the next four years; the global context could shift yet again and affect Honduran politics in ways that are beyond the control of political leaders; or the discontent could just fade away. Still, it's pretty clear that Lobo is in a far from enviable position right now, and it will be interesting to see what, if anything, happens with this voter discontent in Honduras (and how the government responds) across the following months and years.

Breakdowns in Negotiations Over Zelaya's Status in Honduras? Shocking!

Color me unsurprised:

A plan for the ousted Honduran president, Manuel Zelaya, to leave the country for Mexico ran aground late Wednesday when negotiations over his safe passage fell apart, the leader and the Mexican authorities said.

As the news about Mr. Zelaya’s possible departure spread, along with considerable confusion, his supporters gathered outside the police barricades erected in the streets surrounding the Brazilian Embassy, where he has been a virtual prisoner since September.

In an interview with the Mexican TV network Televisa, Mr. Zelaya said that the de facto government had placed a “denigrating” condition on his departure from Honduras, offering him safe passage out of the embassy only if he would seek political asylum. He added that he has not asked for political asylum.

Wow. Efforts between Micheletti and Zelaya to come to a negotiated conclusion over something ended in no results, miscommunication, and a dogmatic refusal to bend to any type of agreement on the part of Micheletti? This has never happened before!

More seriously, Greg is saying (and the Times article backs this up) that Zelaya isn't opposed to leaving; he just doesn't want it to be as a political asylee. The fact that the Micheletti government has decided to stonewall on a point that means very little to it (it's gone in a few weeks), but so much to Zelaya, is just symbolic of how incompetent and authoritarian the Micheletti regime has been. A refusal to give in to any negotiations that cause you no harm but are beneficial to your opponent while insisting all of your own demands be met is not negotiating. Micheletti pretty much alienated everybody who wasn't a political elite pal of his a long time ago, but his shtick got old months ago. Hopefully, history will remember what a reprehensible, unbending, undemocratic, authoritarian "leader" he was for the six months he served as the head of a government that overthrew a democratically elected president.

Honduran President-Elect Proposes a General Amnesty, and Why It's a Terrible Idea

This seems like a terrible idea:

Honduras' president-elect said Tuesday he wants amnesty for ousted President Manuel Zelaya and for all of those involved in the June 28th coup that deposed him.

"There should be (an amnesty) for all those involved," Porfirio Lobo said in Costa Rica, where he met with Costa Rican President Oscar Arias and Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli in an effort to build support for his presidency and break his nation's isolation.

I understand why Lobo may want to do this. He certainly is walking a tight line between acknowledging it was a coup and not irritating the military so that they do it again.

Still, in the larger picture, this is just a terrible, terrible, terrible idea. The fact that you forgive the military and Micheletti does not only offer the message that future coup-leaders who overthrow democratically-elected leaders can expect to be let off scot-free; it also forgives Micheletti and the military for the gross acts of human rights violations, ranging from censorship to curfews to blatant violence against Hondurans, in the wake of the June 28 coup. If you want to know how well these "general amnesties" work, just ask Brazil, whose military government offered a general amnesty in 1979 that allowed political exiles back in the country and set political prisoners free, but also prevented torturers and murderers in the military from ever being charged in their crimes. As a result, to this day, Brazil has not fully reconciled and confronted the legacy of its dictatorship, and particularly the repressive arm, in ways that Chile and Argentina have. Connected to this, practices of torture and executions by military police against the poor continue to this day in Brazil, with little interest in inquiring as to the institutional origins or continuation of these practices.

Again, Lobo's declaration isn't without its logic, particularly in the short-term. But if a general amnesty in Honduras goes through, letting Micheletti and the coup-leaders off the hook, then Lobo will have established a dangerous precedent for the future, and Honduras may never fully deal with the real causes, events, and legacies of the coup and Micheletti's repressive regime.

Honduras Deal Dead (Again?)

Color me unsurprised:

An accord that would have unblocked the political standoff in Honduras has failed, the deposed president said Friday, a week after it was mediated by the United States.

The deposed president, Manuel Zelaya, whose possible return to power was at the heart of the accord, is still a virtual prisoner in the Brazilian Embassy, where he took refuge six weeks ago after he secretly slipped back into Honduras. He is no closer to resuming his presidency, while the de facto president, Roberto Micheletti, and the people around him are still running the country.

But none of this has happened. Critics said the accord was difficult to enforce because its only source of pressure was an American threat not to recognize the planned election.

This doesn't come as a major shock to me. As my original parenthetical question-mark indicated, I was skeptical that the latest "agreement" would come to fruition, and there had been rumors in the blogosphere over the last two days that the deal was "threatened," "coming unraveled," or "at risk." Still, I wanted to reserve judgement, hoping these rumors would be proven wrong at the 11th hour. However, it would appear to be that that is not the case.

There's little more to say at this point. Micheletti's power-hunger has been clear for a long time. There probably would not have been enough time for Zelaya to be effective even if he'd return, but now it seems even that small window has closed. Even if he is able to finally return to office (and that seems possible, not because of the current situation, but because this has been so up-and-down, with more "agreements" and "breakdowns" than any diplomatic process in recent memory). This has just been a disgrace for Honduras, with plenty of blame to go around, but most of it falling on the military and Micheletti and his cronies. It's too bad that Honduras's leaders couldn't follow the will of the people and maintain the basic structures of democracy that the Constitution and the people called for.

UPDATE: Greg (as usual) perfectly sums up why the pact fell apart, and why the blame falls on Micheletti here: "Apparently now a "unity government" is synonymous with "pro-coup only government," as Roberto Micheletti is putting one together alone."

The Effect of the Micheletti Regime on Honduran Businesses Big and Small

I've commented before on the impact that the Honduran coup and Micheletti regime's actions may have had on business elites, and how those business elites in turn may have played an important role in the negotiation of the end of the crisis. However, as the Christian Science Monitor reminds us, the Micheletti regime's actions also directly negatively affected small- and mid-sized businesses:

Doris Midence, a snack bar employee at La Tigra National Park outside the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa, has the empty gaze of someone with too much time on her hands.

"Customers are down by half," she says, reorganizing gum and candy bars. "Between curfews and protests, people are not leaving their homes."

[...] But even if the curfews are being lifted, the economic ramifications of Latin America's worst crisis for decades could endure much longer.

Tourists who typically visit the northern Bay Islands, for example, are opting for other places in the Caribbean to scuba dive. Foreign investment has dropped. Cuts in aid have stalled construction of roads. And the nation's consumers, some facing their own unemployment or simply saving in the face of political instability, are no longer buying shoes or furniture or other non-essentials.

"Since June 28 demand has declined dramatically," says Jose Enrique Nuñez, the president of the country's national association of small and medium-sized businesses. "It has created chaos, and that chaos is causing us to collapse."

I think it's safe to say that one of the biggest long-term damages that the coup and Micheletti regime caused was economic. To be clear, I'm not some neo-Marxist who sees material struggle and economics as the source of all historical struggle or anything. However, the negotiation has theoretically returned Zelaya to office (though Honduras' Congress is moving particularly slowly in finalizing the act), and so (for now) world opposition to Honduras had faded away; what is more, with the elections (presumably) being held under Zelaya's watch, for now it appears that there won't be any long-term political blackballing of Congress in the international community.

However, the economic consequences of the military coup and Micheletti's actions both domestically and in the broader global economy are definitely going to continue to manifest themselves for years to come. Honduars was already struggling with the global economic crisis, losing hundreds of millions of dollars in trade and forecasting a shrinking GDP this year, according to the article. While wealth does not "trickle down," economic crisis often does, and this certainly is the case in Honduras. As foreign businesses and tourists have pulled out and looked for alternatives, the small- and mid-sized businesses have been adversely effected, too; financial loss has not just been the domain of major business leaders in the country.

And thanks to curfews and repression, small businesses have suffered doubly, as Hondurans were prevented or intimidated from going to the streets to buy basic goods from these businesses. The final part of the article really hammers this point home:

"The country is paralyzed," Mario Canahuati, a businessman and strategist for presidential contender Porfirio Lobo, said last month. He says that the poorest Hondurans suffer most. "The big companies will survive," he says.

The smaller ones might not. Mr. Nuñez says his business association generates about 30,000 jobs but since June 28, according to a survey of its members nationwide, 35 percent of those jobs have been lost. He says that intermittent curfews that force people into their homes, unemployment, and general anxiety are keeping people away from stores, which is having a ripple impact all the way down the chain. "No one is paying more for the crisis than small companies," he says.

While that seems dire, it also seems like a tragically accurate assessment, and really hits home just how reprehensible the Micheletti regime was. It wasn't just that it clamped down on basic civil rights, tried to perpetuate itself under the most illogical and falsest of "legal" excuses, and demonstrated a clear power-hungry tendency. It also managed wage open warfare on everyday Honduran citizens who protested the clear violation of democratic process in their country, and even as the regime (hopefully) comes to an end, those same everyday Hondurans who own or work for small- or mid-sized businesses will continue to feel the economic ramifications of Micheletti's actions for years to come. Micheletti may be out of office soon, but his ruinous legacy isn't going away anytime soon.

Agreement Reached in Honduras (?)

There have been so many reports over the months that an agreement between Micheletti and Zelaya was close, only to be wrong, that this almost seems hard to believe. Still, the New York Times and other news agencies are reporting it as if it were a done deal:

A lingering political crisis in Honduras seemed to be nearing an end on Friday after the de facto government agreed to a deal that would allow Manuel Zelaya, the deposed president, to return to office.

The government of Roberto Micheletti, which had refused to let Mr. Zelaya return, signed an agreement with Mr. Zelaya’s negotiators late Thursday that would pave the way for the Honduran Congress to restore the ousted president and allow him to serve out the remaining three months of his term.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton confirmed on Friday that Mr. Zelaya and Mr. Micheletti had approved what she called “an historic agreement.”

The "final details" have to be hammered out still (allegedly today), so I'm still not quite willing to believe this is a done deal. Still, there are not-illegitimate reasons to think this may take place. Micheletti has managed to stall to the point that Zelaya's final 3 months (if he is in fact to return) could be some of the lamest of lame-duck terms. If he wanted to prevent Hondurans from having more say in their government (something towards which Zelaya was moving), then Micheletti's tactics were most likely successful - if Zelaya's government is going to be a "reconciliation and unity" government, as one of the details proposes, I just don't think the previous quasi-populist bluster of Zelaya will be as strong as it was prior to the coup. That's not to say it won't happen at all, but I would be somewhat surprised.

Another particularly interesting point is the fact that this settlement is finally reached after Obama dispatched an envoy to Honduras to try to negotiate an end to this mess. I'm very curious as to why this agreement happened now - are the negotiators just that good? Were there some "suggestions" made that neither Micheletti nor Zelaya (and especially the former) could not refuse? What exactly made these two men come closer to an agreement than they had, and what role did the U.S. negotiators have? (And I suppose it's possible they didn't play a catalyzing role, but I find that highly unlikely).

Of course, if Obama's dispatching of the negotiators was the catalyst for this change, I can already imagine that many (especially on the left) will condemn Obama for not acting sooner. The reasoning will probably go as follows: well, the U.S. refused to get involved, and when it finally did, it was able to restore the democratically elected leadership, so it should have made this move back in July or August or anytime before the end of October.

This criticism will fall short for a few reasons. No doubt, many will ask why, if it just took some negotiators from the U.S. to resolve things, why didn't this happen sooner? But this way of thinking gives too much credit to the U.S. and not enough to other political contingencies and actors. For example, as I alluded to above, just because Micheletti has (apparently) agreed with these negotiators at the end of October does not mean he would have agreed with them in mid-July or late-August. Certainly, the global response against his regime has played a part in all of this; after all, many governments (including the U.S.) were saying they could not recognized elections that were held under a coup-installed government. For a man whose hope was that elections would allow Honduras to return to "normalcy," those were more than empty threats. Additionally, to blame the U.S., and the Obama administration specifically, forgets particularly important aspects of this whole timeline, such as the fact that Zelaya wasn't even in Honduras (and thus didn't have the negotiating power he currently has) until the end of September, when Zelaya surprised the world. At that point, the negotiation process entered a whole new phase, and I don't think it's unfair to say that Honduras had to try to work this out itself (with Zelaya's new, more powerful negotiating position) before actors like the U.S. could get involved. Thirdly, we cannot forget the importance non-political actors may have had in this alleged agreement. Certainly, the Zelaya supporters in the embassy and the demonstrators who had taken to the streets periodically over the last several months had made their voices heard, but they were not the only ones. I can't help but wonder if the country's business leaders may have also had a role in this. After all, they were the first ones to feel the economic pinch of the global condemnation of the Micheletti regime, and they have made efforts before to bring this to an end before. And to be clear, I'm not saying that they had more sway or importance than the thousands who took to the streets, often risking their lives, to protest the coup and make their voices heard. What I am saying is that I suspect that these negotiations were most likely much more complex and part of a much longer process than we could possibly know for certain now. Unless Micheletti or Zelaya (or both) come out and say, "well, we weren't going to do this at all, but then the negotiators convinced us," I don't believe Obama's action was the only one that had any role in this agreement being reached. And even if Micheletti and Zelaya openly say this, I won't necessarily believe them - to do so would be to refuse the power of the Honduran people themselves in this matter.

I still write all of this with a bit of hesitancy; too many times, reports in this vein have emerged, only to break down at the last minute, and there's still a window of opportunity for another breakdown here. Still, this is being reported with more certainty and detail than any other previous "agreement," so this could happen. If it does, it will finally bring an end to what should have been resolved long ago (indeed, what probably never should have happened), and I suspect that it will be through the actions not just of the U.S. negotiators, but of the Honduran people, business leaders, Oscar Arias, the OAS, the European Union, Brazil, global economics, and numerous other factors and agents that make the whole process, from before the coup to the present and beyond, a very complicated series of events.

Honduras's Business Elites Propose New Solution to Presidential Crisis

Well, this is interesting:

Stung by the loss of their American visas and concerned about Honduras’s increasing international isolation, the country’s leading businessmen have put forward their own plan to resolve the political crisis here.

In the plan, which was made public earlier this week, supporters of the coup that ousted President Manuel Zelaya three months ago have for the first time suggested his return as president. But at the same time the plan calls for him to face trial on charges that he stole money while in office.

In my first reaction, I can't say I'm terribly sympathetic to their concerns. "What? You overthrew a democratically-elected leader who had annoyed you, but who technically hadn't done anything illegal? And then, when you supported his overthrow and the world condemned it, you lost your business and travel privileges? Oh, that's so sad!"

If anything, I think this response is the first time the U.S. (and much of the rest of the world) has gotten things right when it comes to political turmoil in Latin America. For too many years, decades, generations, business leaders have supported the overthrow of democratically-elected governments, be it Guatemala in 1954, Brazil in 1964, Chile in 1973, Argentina in 1976, or any other number of Latin American dictators. While military governments committed human rights abuses and genocide, the countries' respective business elites got richer, often times even while the income gap between rich and poor grew (as in the case of Brazil, certainly, and elsewhere). For the first time, the U.S. has not condoned such actions; if business leaders want to help undermine democratic processes in their own countries, they will feel the effects of their actions in the way that hurts them the most - by hitting their pocketbooks and their privileges. In some ways, it's almost like the international-economic equivalent of Sherman's march through Georgia - "you want to go ahead and do this? Fine. But we're going to make you feel the effects of what you've done. You aren't exempt from the consequences of your actions any longer."

In terms of the actual plan for a restoration of Zelaya's presidency, I don't think it will actually work. Zelaya's lawyer may be blustering, but he's probably part-right that the presumption of guilt will already be there in any trial against Zelaya. At the same time, it's become increasingly clear that A) Micheletti is in no way going to try to resolve this thing, and B) his continued presidency is a disgrace for civil and human rights in Honduras. Micheletti has certainly eclipsed any "crimes" Zelaya may have committed. So in some ways, a "third path" that involves real change (beyond Micheletti stalling and Zelaya calling for negotiations without any real political platform from which to work) is at least an encouraging sign that somebody will find a solution that both Micheletti and Zelaya can agree to.

And if you want any more evidence that Micheletti's a power-hungry degenerate of the first order, you really don't have to look much further than this:

Mr. Facussé said that Mr. Micheletti agreed to consider his plan after he suggested that Mr. Micheletti step down as leader of the de facto government and be named congressman for life.

Ah, yes - the "congressman/senator-for-life" position, held by such dignitaries as Augusto Pinochet himself. Yet, if Facussé's account is correct, then a lifelong position of power is enough to convince Micheletti to give up the presidency? It's really not too hard to see what's going on here.

Finally, for those who read Portuguese, a Brazilian journalist in the embassy in Tegucigalpa has put up a few blog posts about his experiences from inside the embassy. And even if you can't read Portuguese, the first image he took says plenty about what's going on in Honduras.

Micheletti Blames Brazil for Excessive Honduran Police Violence

Give me a break.

Honduras is accusing Brazil's government of instigating an insurrection within its borders, and gave the Brazilian Embassy 10 days to decide the status of ousted Honduran President Jose Manuel Zelaya, who has taken refuge there.

"Since the clandestine arrival to Honduras by ex-president Zelaya, the Brazil embassy has been used to instigate violence and insurrection against the Honduran people and the constitutional government," the secretary of foreign affairs for Honduras' de facto government said in a statement late Saturday night.

Really? Brazil instigated the violence and insurrection? It should be clear how ridiculous this is. Brazil did not order Honduran troops to illegally remove Zelaya in the first place. Brazil did not order Honduran police to attack Zelaya's supporters. Brazil did not order Honduran police to punch handcuffed women in the face. Brazil did not order police to shoot and kill 18-year-olds who called the police what they in fact are ("golpistas"). Indeed, reports indicate that Brazil only knew about Zelaya an hour before he showed up at the embassy, and Lula's advisors believe Hugo Chavez "schemed" to help get Zelaya to Honduras and to the Brazilian embassy.

The plain and simple fact, as it has become increasingly clear, is that Micheletti is demonstrating the worst characteristics of an authoritarian leader who refuses to let go of his power. He's curtailed freedom of the press; he's established curfews; he continues to simultaneously insist that he's open to "negotiations" while declaring that he will have Zelaya arrested immediately. He has repeatedly sent the military to attack and repress protesters through brutal violence. To lay the blame for this at Brazil's doorstep is more than disingenuous; it's offensive, ridiculous, and absurd. It's yet another painful reminder that Micheletti and his administration are unable to either accept any responsibility for their actions or behave even remotely like adults.

Depressing Human Rights News from Colombia and Honduras

Yesterday, Colombian prosecutors made a grisly discovery:

The chief prosecutor's office said Friday it has unearthed the remains of 17 peasants tortured and killed at a ranch that belonged to the since-slain, far-right militia leader Carlos Castano in Colombia's northwest. [...]

The peasants were believed slain 10 to 12 years ago by men under the command of Jesus Ignacio Roldan, alias "Monoleche," a Castano lieutenant who later participated in the 2004 murder of the right-wing militia leader, the prosecutor's office said in a statement.

Castano was apparently killed because he was upset that other militia warlords had turned his anti-guerrilla movement into regional drug-trafficking criminal mafias and they were afraid he would betray them to U.S. drug agents.

All the bodies found at the "La 35" ranch in the Uraba banana-growing region "were dismembered and showed signs of torture," the statement said.

Of course, since Castano is dead, prosecutions are out of the question. Still, one can't help but suspect that this was and perhaps still is a common tactic among paramilitary groups and leaders, who can act safely, knowing that Uribe won't do anything about it.

Meanwhile (and h/t Randy), on Wednesday, Honduran police shot and killed an 18-year-old. His crime? He shouted out "golpistas!" (coup supporters) at the military. So, for shouting one word at the military that accurately described what they did (an illegal coup), the police killed the young man exercising freedom of speech in a non-violent way. And I expect that prosecutions against the police who committed this act are about as likely as prosecutions against the dead Castano, which is to say, not likely at all.